The Criterion Collection
announced its April selection of new film restorations being made available on
both DVD and Blu-ray during month. As
always, it is a subjective view as to which film (or films) lead the parade …
so let’s get to it.
A great place to start
would be the story about Lonesome Rhodes … an Oscar snub for Andy Griffith’s
performance and is just one of many slights heaped upon director Elia Kazan and
screenwriter Budd “What Makes Sammy Run” Schulberg’s summer of 1957 savaging of
Madison Avenue and politics, A Face in the Crowd.
The Criterion Collection
has a new 4K restoration and both DVD and Blu-ray release lined-up for Apr.
23.
This was Andy Griffith’s
screen debut (previously a stand-up comedian and stage actor … starring in the
1955 Broadway play, No Time For Sergeants, a role he would reprise for the screen
in 1958). Also appearing for the first
time on screen were two other future stars, Lois Nettleton (uncredited with a
small role as a nurse … she garnered six Emmy nomination in her career,
including two Daytime Emmy Awards wins) and Lee Remick (as “Betty Lou”… an
Oscar nomination in 1962 for Best Actress for Days of Wine and Roses).
Marcia Jeffries (Patricia
Neal) spots a hillbilly in the drunk tank in an Arkansas jail (she has a sort
of man-in-street radio program titled “A Face in the Crowd”) and makes him an
advertising star. “Lonesome” is what
she dubs him, and with a last name of Rhodes it was a natural homophone that
stuck … little did she know, but the simpleton in the drunk tank would mutate
into an abusive and manipulative megalomaniac!
Bonus features include a
newly-prepared video sessions with author Ron Briley (“The Ambivalent Legacy of
Elia Kazan”) and Andy Griffith biographer, Evan Dalton Smith (“Looking for Andy
Griffith) and the 2005 documentary, Facing the Past.
Getting a new 2K
restoration (approved by the filmmaker) is director Gillian Armstrong 1979 Down
Under gem, My Brilliant Career, starring Judy Davis (the film launched her
film career … two future Oscar acting nominations for her performances in A
Passage to India and Husbands and Wives) as a
Victorian-era Australian “outback” young woman who yearns for something bigger
and ultimately sets her mind on having it.
Sam Neill co-stars as her frustrated suitor.
Bonus features include a
vintage commentary track with filmmaker Gillian Armstrong (circa 2009), a
newly-prepared video sessions with Armstrong and production designer Lucianna
Arrighi and a vintage video session with Judy Dave (circa 1980).
Also on the April release
calendar are two separate DVD and Blu-ray product offerings featuring the films
of director Jim Jarmusch (both street on Apr. 9) — Night on Earth and the
double feature of Stranger Than Paradise and Permanent Vacation — the Apr. 30 double
bill starring Jackie Chan (Police Story and Police
Story 2 … both presented in Cantonese) and Apr. 16 release of Czechoslovak
New Wave filmmaker Arnošt Lustig’s Diamonds
of the Night.
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