Blue Underground, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has done a terrific job of updating its eclectic and genre-themed film catalog on a regular basis … and since May of 2020 Blue Underground has been building its own 4K Ultra HD library as well.
The latest upgrade, which will also be its newest 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition, is none other than director Jens Jørgen Thorsen's 1970 film release of Quiet Days in Clichy.
The original fine-grain 35mm negative was recently unearthed, which is the new source for this 4K film restoration … and, as a bonus, the 35mm negative is uncut, with an additional six-minutes of unseen footage.
Grove Press, which was no stranger to controversary and running battles with censorship (certainly, they must have had attorneys on call well-versed in the First Amendment), made their mark in 1959 with the publishing of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was quickly banned and seized by the government. That was a mistake. The First Amendment is there for exactly this reason and the courts agreed.
The flood gates were opened and Grove Press led the way. By the late 1960s the arthouse trend in films had emerged and so the company bought up Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16 and jumped in feet first with experimental, arthouse and foreign-language imports. Well, guess what … Grove Press was back in court with Swedish filmmaker Vilgot Sjöman’s I Am Curious (Yellow), which was banned.
They won, again, in court, the First Amendment trumps this nonsense. They then picked up the domestic distribution rights to Thorsen’s film in 1970 and when it was exhibited in May of that year it was promptly seized by the U.S. Government for being obscene. Do we need to say it? Grove Press won again in court.
Based on Henry Miller’s early two-part novel from his life in Paris before the war (first published as sort of a work-in-progress in 1940 and later expanded by Miller in 1956 … and, yes, published by Grove Press), Quiet Days in Clichy follows the sexual adventures of Joey (Paul Valjean) and Carl (Wayne Rodda), who live hand-to-mouth in their “vintage” apartment in the Clichy-sous-Bois area on the east side of Paris.
Blue Underground first put out a DVD in the early days of the format (through Image Entertainment in 2002 and then re-released in 2004 by Blue Underground itself) and then upgraded to a Blu-ray edition in 2011 … now the definitive 4K Ultra HD version will be available on Oct. 25.
Bonus goodies include, as mentioned, the completely uncut and uncensored presentation of the film, which also features five-songs by Country Joe McDonald. The six-minutes of additional footage (which was likely cut for running time considerations) is included as a separate featurette, plus the court documents are presented here as well as three vintage featurettes — “Midnight Blue,” “Songs of Clichy” and “Dirty Books, Dirty Movies: Barney Rosset on Henry Miller.”
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