The Criterion Collection Announces Its March Of 2019 Film Restoration Release Schedule

Filmed in the desert area around Lancaster, California on a micro budget with World War II in the Pacific still raging by a filmmaker who worked his entire career, by his own admission, on the fringe of Hollywood.   His summer of 1945 film shoot, a “Poverty Row” programmer that was released by PRC in November of that year, is now regarded as one of the best examples of film noir ever made. 

The Criterion Collection, working with the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation — along with Cinémathèque Française (with funding by the George Lucas Family Foundation) — has a new 4K restoration of director Edgar G. Ulmer’s film noir masterpiece, Detour, as the lead titled of its March of 2019 release schedule.   The street date will be Mar. 19.

Tom Neal and Ann Savage, dangerous, sexual, violent and deadly … it all plays out in just 69 minutes.   Detour … a film noir for the ages!

Bonus features include documentary filmmaker Michael Palm 2004 feature-length film titled Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen, a newly-prepared video session with author Noah Isenberg — “Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins” — and a featurette detailing the restoration of Detour.

Another gem on the March of 2019 release calendar from The Criterion Collection is filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and his life-or-death (for his film career) 1978 homage to The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, as seen through the eyes (and wacky adventures) of six New Jersey teenagers.

This new 4K restoration was approved by Zemeckis and his co-writer, Bob Gale, and features newly-minted video sessions with Zemeckis and Gale, who are joined by Steven Spielberg and a separate session featuring actors Nancy Allen (as Pam Mitchell) and Marc McClure (Larry Dubois … whose limo was in the right place and right time!!!).  

There is also a vintage (2004) commentary with Zemeckis and Gale and a pair of short films by Robert Zemeckis — The Lift (1972) and A Field of Honor (1973.

Rounding out the March of 2019 film restoration calendar from The Criterion Collection are: Kid Brother (silent-1927) (Mar. 12), The Magic Flute (also Mar. 12), Wanda (Mar. 19) and Japón (Spanish) (Mar. 26).