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The Naked Kiss

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The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets inevitably simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez, and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.

DISC FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles Dennis
- Excerpts from a 1983 episode of the BBC’s The South Bank Show dedicated to director Samuel Fuller
- Interview with Fuller from a 1967 episode of the French television series Cinéastes de notre temps
- Interview with Fuller from a 1987 episode of the French television series Cinéma cinémas
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: Illustrations by cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Eightball, Ghost World) and a booklet featuring an essay by critic and poet Robert Polito and excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

Available on DVD and Blu-ray.

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Shock Corridor

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In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Constance Towers costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on race in sixties America and daring photography by Stanley Cortez, Shock Corridor is now recognized for its far-reaching influence.

DISC FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles Dennis
- The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera, Adam Simon’s 1996 documentary on director Samuel Fuller
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: Illustrations by cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Eightball, Ghost World) and a booklet featuring an essay by critic and poet Robert Polito and excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

Available on DVD and Blu-ray.

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No comments for THE NAKED KISS?

Hasn't anybody around here been pleasantly beaten to a pulp by at least THE NAKED KISS? The guy manages to do every single thing you're Not Supposed To Do in a film and turns it into a scalding masterpiece.

Like 90-some-odd minutes of letting some karate guy high on peyote kick you in the head repeatedly.. phantasmagoria of the rawest most manipulative concoction of complete surprises one after another falling like dominos where you must either bust out laughing or sit in complete shock. Or bust out laaughing in complete shock like I did the first time I saw THE NAKED KISS. Probably not the best edition of the film by CC-- surprising too. Despite the age they had to know that transfer sucked rhino ass.

The Naked Kiss has to have one of the most amazing opening scenes of a movie! So weird and jarring but so effective. It reminds me of what Fuller says in that great doc. on him, "If the first scene doesn't give you a hard on, forget about it!!"

Dude! I Cannot wait till Shock Corridor is reissued! This is very great news. It would be cool if this and a reissue of The Naked Kiss were packaged with the new Fuller films rumored to be on the way. Independent Fuller would be an awesome collection.

As much as I'd love to see these re-issued, I don't think the comment in the Criterion blog meant that a second edition of these was anything close to imminent. Besides, isn't Naked Kiss public domain?

Tribe

Can't say I'd be that keen on seeing re-issues of these, they're not exactly titles I would add to the collection. Both great B-movie fun, but lacked that certain something for me to elevate them to masterpiece status.

Pickup On South Street, though, is one of the greatest Noirs I've seen. Belongs right up there with Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, The Killing, etc as far as I'm concerned. And The Big Red One (the reconstruction) is equally brilliant, should sit in any serious commentator's list of great war films.

I'm not saying it will happen anytime soon. But in one moment reissues of the early Fuller releases jumped from being a private dream to a Rumor! Besides, considering the tone of the post, I would doubt Jonathan would carelessly dangle such tasty scraps (with links) in front of such a hungry audience.
But that is just my logic.

Derek

Any updates on the possibility of revamped re-issues of these two Sam Fuller classics?

I'm betting it won't be til next year (maybe dumped in December) til we get these, so as to not conflict with the Eclipse set

Not sure if Criterion has any plans to re-vamp them, but VCI is releasing a new edition of The Naked Kiss. It will include
- Special Video Interview with Samantha Fuller and Krista Fuller
- An Audio Interview with Michael Dante and Constance Towers

Also, looks like it will be wide screen unlike VCI's previous edition (here's my comparison).

the new VCI edition will also be available in this boxset.

1.85?

I just finished watching Naked Kiss(now I'm watching Blue Velvet). Not a "masterpiece", but it's defenitely very good. A lot of "fun". I think it has the best use of schmaltzy music overlayed with horror, possibly because her voice is incredible, the song is great, and the scene is fantastic. You feel sort of dirty for watching it. This would be great to see in a theater, preferably a run-down-and-ragged one.

Magic Hate Ball wrote:This would be great to see in a theater, preferably a run-down-and-ragged one.

Any good film should be seen in a cinema, but Fuller is one director whose films work in a completely different way for me on the big screen. His punchy cuts and close-ups are dialed up to eleven, and they can sweep you away like floodwaters, even in a ratty old print.

I wouldn't bother with the VCI... This might be general news by now but I wrote to Criterion over the summer inquiring about both of these films and was told that new releases were tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2008:

"Hi Oliver,

You must be a mind reader! We are, in fact, planning on rereleasing both
"The Naked Kiss" and "Shock Corridor" and hope to see those in the 2008
schedule. I hope this helps, and thanks for your email!"

So I picked up St Clair's new PD Noir set, and lo and behold, one of the 13 films included is the Naked Kiss in full-frame open-matte and honestly, not bad print quality (not quite as good as the Criterion print if memory serves but that's a given), especially considering you get it and 12 other films for under $5 in the sale.

So...any update on when (or if) these titles are on the schedule to be reissued? I'm assuming it will be at the same time as White Dog's release, whenever that will be.

Bete_Noire wrote:So...any update on when (or if) these titles are on the schedule to be reissued? I'm assuming it will be at the same time as White Dog's release, whenever that will be.

Go here.

What is the deal with open matte on The Naked Kiss? When I saw this theatrically it was 4:3.

OliverB wrote:I wouldn't bother with the VCI... This might be general news by now but I wrote to Criterion over the summer inquiring about both of these films and was told that new releases were tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2008:

"Hi Oliver,

You must be a mind reader! We are, in fact, planning on rereleasing both
"The Naked Kiss" and "Shock Corridor" and hope to see those in the 2008
schedule. I hope this helps, and thanks for your email!"

We would be very lucky if Criterion gets her act together and release these and all the older titles needed remastering in the next one or two years.

The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor DVDs upgraded (The Typewriter, The Rifle and the Movie Camera documentary on Shock!) and on Blu.

Thank God! I've been holding off on these for so long waiting for an upgrade and my patience has finally paid off. Cannot wait to finally dive into these (I still haven't watched The Naked Kiss).

Don't these packages seem a bit slight considering how so many people were waiting for those titles to be reissued in enhanced editions? The Criterion site does not yet mention a length for the interviews and excerpts from TV shows; IMDB indicates the Adam Simon documentary is 55 minutes long. Can anyone who has seen it comment on how substantial it is?

Perhaps it would have been too much to expect a commentary on both films, but at least one would have been nice. And no contribution from Fuller's last wife, who is still alive as far I know?

Coincidentally I am just at the point in Fuller's autobiography where he plans to embark on the Shock Corridor project. Interesting that this was a reworking of a script he initially wrote for Fritz Lang under the title Straitjacket. Perhaps the Criterion extras will go into some details as to the differences between the two scripts, especially if any are truly significant.

Florinaldo wrote: ...And no contribution from Fuller's last wife, who is still alive as far I know?

As of about six hours ago, Christa Fuller was posting on Facebook...so, yes, she's still with us.

3 years ago she was featured on VCI's DVD of The Naked Kiss.