criterionforum.org

When the terminally ill Count Hervé de Kerloquen (Pierre Brasseur, Goto, Isle of Love) vanishes without trace, his heirs are told that they have to wait five years before he can be declared legally dead, forcing them to devise ways of paying for the upkeep of the vast family château in the meantime. While they set about transforming the place into an elaborate son et lumière tourist attraction, they are beset by a series of tragic accidents – if that’s really what they are…

The little-known third feature by the great French maverick Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face, Judex) is a delightfully playful romp through Agatha Christie territory, whose script (written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac of Les Diaboliques and Vertigo fame) is mischievously aware of the hoariest old murder-mystery clichés and gleefully exploits as many of them as possible.

They’re equally aware of the detective story’s antecedents in the Gothic novel, a connection that Franju is only too happy to emphasise visually at every opportunity thanks to his magnificent main location. A young Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist, Amour) is amongst the Kerloquen heirs.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations of the feature, restored by Gaumont
• Uncompressed French Mono 1.0 PCM Audio
• Optional English subtitles
• Vintage production featurette from 1960, shot on location and including interviews with Georges Franju and actors Pascale Audret, Pierre Brasseur, Marianne Koch, Dany Saval and Jean-Louis Trintignant
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris Fujiwara

Hugely excited for this...never thought we'd get any more Franju on Blu-ray after Eyes Without a Face. Glad to be proven wrong!

Great announcement, always good to see more Franju released. I wish there was an 'And More' as there so often is, as many of Franju's shorts are still absent from disc - including some owned by Gaumont, as is Spotlight on a Murderer.

This is Franju's worst film-- what Arrow calls playful I'll call archetypal to the point of stupidity. This is every dumb mystery b-film Hollywood used to crank out in the thirties

Hah, bought the Gaumont a month or two ago. Knew it would come in the UK soon enough given no previous DVD release and now an excellent restoration. Great to see Arrow continuing to go beyond the canon.

Edit: canon not cannon

I second Domino, it's boring as hell.

It might be "boring as hell" but until last year it had never even had a DVD release, let alone a reasonable backchannel rip.

It's great that some labels are making efforts to release films that have never been fortunate enough to have steady, quality distribution.

It's not a Blu-ray world first, but it's the first English-friendly release of any kind of a work by a recognised auteur.

I'll give it a chance, but there are plenty of not boring films that have never been properly distributed either. If the choice is between another release of The 400 Blows and a previously unreleased film, I'd probably always choose the latter, but I don't think that "never previously released" is ipso facto indicative that a release is worthwhile.

I'll politely disagree in that case. Surely the biggest gift film publishing can give is to make works available for people to judge on their own merits, as opposed to slapping a wacky C on a case or giving us 2 hours and 30 minutes of talking heads as extra rather than the previously scant 2 hours and 20 minutes that was available.

It's been a good month it seems for Criterion and Arrow releasing no doubt stunning editions of previously lesser available works.

Those who have seen this (domino/tenia), was it through the Gaumont release or by some other means? Just curious, as I had never even heard the title before today.

I saw it via back channels. In theory I am with TMDaines in being glad an unavailable title is being released for those receptive to its pleasures, but Franju's masterpiece Thérèse Desqueyroux is also languishing without an English-subbed home release and would have been one of Arrow's worthiest rescues

Bring it on next!

TMDaines wrote:Bring it on next!

As a Franju/Riva double bill with Thomas the Imposter! I think both are owned by René Chateau?

I watched it for my review of the Gaumont BD for Retro HD.

What Franju DVD/BD are available EN-subbed in France?

On the other hand, it truly is a superb cover. One of the best I've seen Arrow produce, and that's saying something.

L.A. wrote:What Franju DVD/BD are available EN-subbed in France?

Nothing that isn't available in more English-friendly editions via the BFI, MoC or Criterion. Neither Thérèse Desqueyroux nor Thomas l'imposteur has English subtitles, and La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is only out in dubbed Italian (no subtitles).

FWIW when I went through all of the Franju that I could my hands on some years back, I thought this was tremendously fun and atmospheric, with a few majorly rewarding Franju-ian flourishes. Not top tier by any means, but that's quite the high bar; nonetheless I far preferred it to Theres Desqueyroux, which I recall as a dour, listless slog hovering around an astonishing performance.

Thank you for an alternative opinion! Eyes is fantastic but I thought Judex was even better, and that is all I have seen.

Head Against the Wall is fantastic in a totally different mode.

I've only seen Judex, but have others in my keyvip. Obviously need to make a beeline for Eyes before the end of the balloting period.

If they could mop up some of the shorts i'd certainly go for it despite having the Gaumont. Hell I'd even buy 2.
I do agree that it is very much the slightest of Franju's output but you can see the outlines of something that attracted him in the potential to invert the Agatha Christie red herrings and locked rooms of the country house using the form of interweaving themes of legend and hallucination, principally through the use of the 'Son et Lumiere device.
Allegedly he was held back from his more surreal inclinations by dogged producers so that far from outpacing Christie Franju got wrong-footed into a ill-conceived adaptation of 10 little 'Indians', Coming hot on the heels of 'Les Yeux' must have compounded the sense of failure but as noted above if there were some more juicy extras I'd happily pick it up.

Mondo Digital.

...and the Beev.

In summary, a bunch of live arseholes are played by a dead arsehole. It’s hard to get involved in the plot on a character level, and its resolution is quite arbitrary, but the film looks fantastic and Franju stages some excellent set pieces, like the inaugural sound and light show. More interesting than the human drama is the fact that this technologically-enhanced whodunit is based on technology that’s now more quaint and dated than the narrative form or the gothic castle in which it’s set.