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Two-Lane Blacktop



With the melancholy open-road epic Two-Lane Blacktop, American auteur Monte Hellman (The Shooting, Cockfighter, and the recent Road to Nowhere) poeticised the beautiful, terrible rootlessness of his nation in the era of Vietnam. Funded by Universal in a bid to recreate the success of Easy Rider – by giving a number of filmmakers $1m and final cut – Hellman’s effort is now regarded as one of the key films of the New Hollywood renaissance of the early 1970s.

While driving eastward on Route 66, two rival car owners – The Driver (singer-songwriter James Taylor) and The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys) in a souped-up, drag-racing ‘55 Chevy, and a middle-aged braggart (Warren Oates) in a gleaming GTO – begin to race for each other’s “pink slips” and the affections of the listless female hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) who joins them on the road.

Scripted by esteemed novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, and featuring the only screen performances of Taylor and Wilson, Two-Lane Blacktop remains a timeless, existential portrait of lives in transit and of a country questioning its identity. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Hellman’s iconic film in a director-approved Blu-ray special edition.

SPECIAL DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY

• New restored high-definition master, supervised and approved by Monte Hellman
• Original mono soundtrack and optional newly remastered 5.1 mix
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired
• Audio commentary by Monte Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtz
• On The Road Again: Two-Lane Blacktop Revisited, a 43-minute video piece in which Monte Hellman revisits the film's locations – directed by Monte Hellman, Gabriel Cowan, Brett Mann, and John Suits
• Somewhere Near Salinas, a 28-minute interview by Monte Hellman with singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson – directed by Monte Hellman
• Sure Did Talk to You, a 24-minute video piece featuring interviews with producer Michael Laughlin, production manager Walter Coblenz, and the director's son Jared Hellman – directed by Monte Hellman
• Rare archival screen-test footage of James Taylor and Laurie Bird
• Original theatrical trailer
• Optional music and effects track
• 36-PAGE FULL-COLOUR BOOKLET featuring a new essay by critic Brad Stevens, and a vintage piece of reporting from the set of Two-Lane Blacktop by Shelley Benoit.

This is what will get me to finally buy a region-free Blu-ray player. Awesome release.

There are worse people to see in hi-def than Laurie Bird

The colors on those cashmere sweaters are gonna pop in 1080p!

I lost count of the times I thought about buying the Criterion, so pleased all the more that MoC are now stepping in. Keeping my fingers crossed that they'll get their mittens on The Shooting one day..

Will these latest Universal Blu-rays be Region B as well? I've got a Region free player, but I know there are many others interested in these discs who do not have the capability to play Region B discs.

I'd say it's virtually certain that all of MoC's Universal titles will be region-locked - I can't see why Universal would be inclined to make exceptions.

The general rule is that if a major is inclined to request region-locking at all, it's almost always going to be a blanket policy. That certainly seems to be the case with major studios in both Hollywood and Japan (Shochiku, Nikkatsu, Toho).

MichaelB wrote:I'd say it's virtually certain that all of MoC's Universal titles will be region-locked - I can't see why Universal would be inclined to make exceptions.

The general rule is that if a major is inclined to request region-locking at all, it's almost always going to be a blanket policy. That certainly seems to be the case with major studios in both Hollywood and Japan (Shochiku, Nikkatsu, Toho).

Yes, I figured as much, but there are some folks on various discussion boards insistent that these might be region-free. My thought is they were thinking of recent anomalies like Arrow's OBSESSION or THE FUNHOUSE, studio films that were released without region coding. I can only guess that the latter films have more complex ownership and some of the territorial rights are controlled by parties other than Sony (OBSESSION) or Universal (FUNHOUSE) because the titles released by Arrow seem to be on the same tier, in terms of overall recognition and marketability, as the MoC titles. In other words, I don't think Universal is more likely to put out a Blu-ray of SILENT RUNNING or TWO-LANE BLACKTOP in the U.S. than THE FUNHOUSE, which would seem to be the main reason for requiring the region codes in the first place.

Lovely, glad I can order these through MoC's own sale then

Wonder why Universal is implementing region locking on MoC. They let Arrow's licensed "Funhouse" as free... as an example.

Yes, I mentioned this several posts back. It's definitely puzzling. PARANOIAC, released on Blu by Eureka, is also controlled by Universal and was released region-free.

manicsounds wrote:Wonder why Universal is implementing region locking on MoC. They let Arrow's licensed "Funhouse" as free... as an example.

Might be depending on whether Universal has rights for the film only in UK/Europe, or worldwide. For example, they have rights for Citizen Kane in UK, but Warner has rights for North America.

Thought about that. THE FUNHOUSE, though, seems to be a Uni title through and through. You'll notice all the references to classic Universal monsters in the film...this was because it was a Universal picture and the rights to those character images were of course owned by the same studio.

An interesting side note. In a groundbreaking piece of pre-publicity TWO-LANE BLACKTOP secured the cover of Esquire's April 1971 issue, the mag not only heralding the film in advance as "movie of the year", but also publishing the complete screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer (and Will Corry)...

Yup, the reprint of the magazine's screenplay was in the Criterion DVD

First time pre-ordering from MOC and I'm very impressed - the blu arrived in the post this morning. Fantastic stuff.

Any truth to the DNR claim mentioned in the Beaver review? Seems like an odd thing for MoC to have done.

Not that I can tell. This is one of the better Blu-rays I've ever seen. For me the PQ beats the Criterion, but I like the film so much that I have both versions for the supplements.

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It doesn't seem to me that it is DNR, but it clearly points towards a heavily filtered look, which reminds me of Le samourai.

I've looked closely at those caps and I do see a difference in some zoom-ins, but it really seems to my eye exceedingly minor compared to most other DVNR flaps, include complaints about the Le Samourai blu. The most noticeable difference between the two transfers is that the MOC is consistently brighter.

There are indeed much bigger mishaps on the market currently, but I would tend to say that Criterion is better than MoC here, and that I've seen much better BD than this MoC.