The Criterion Collection Announces Its March Of 2020 Film Restoration Calendar

The Criterion Collection announced its March of 2020 slate of new film restorations being released as both Blu-ray and DVD product offerings during the course of the month.

At the front of the pack is the Mar. 24 2K film restoration of director John M. Stahl’s 1946 film noir (ish) adaptation of the Ben Ames Williams’ 1944 novel, Leave Her to Heaven.   It is difficult to fully embrace the film noir aspects when the film is in Technicolor and there’s a happy ending (20^th Century-Fox was “warned” on several times by the Production Code Administration to be careful with the film adaptation of Williams’ novel).

This carping aside, Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney as the manipulative Ellen received her only Best Actress nomination … yes, her only Oscar nomination, which is shame when you consider her performances in such films as Laura, The Shanghai Gesture, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Whirlpool … seriously, only one nomination.   She almost didn’t get the role, as both Ida Lupino and Tallulah Bankhead were mentioned in the trades at the time as being considered.

The film is told in flashback as Richard (Cornel Wilde) is released from prison after spending the last two years of his life there.   During the course of the movie we will come to learn of his relationship with Ellen, with her sister, Ruth (Jeanne Crain) and just how twisted and manipulative Ellen becomes in controlling Richard … even to the point of murder and a frame-up so sinister that it is both breathtaking and appalling in equal measures.

There is only one bonus nugget here, a newly prepared video session with film critic Imogen Sara Smith (author of: “In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City”).

Also on the March 2020 release calendar from Criterion are: Salesman (Mar. 10); Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (a new 2K restoration on Mar. 17 … with commentary); The Cranes are Flying (in Russian, Mar. 24 … with vintage commentary from director Mikhail Kalatozov) and arriving on Mar. 31 are both The Prince of Tides (directed by and starring Barbra Streisand) and director James Whale’s 1936 film adaptation of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical, Show Boat.