Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a newly-minted Blu-ray edition of Michael Tuckner’s 1972 film adaptation of the Alistar MacLean thriller, Fear is the Key, lined up for delivery in the New Year … Feb. 13 to be exact.
Cross and double-cross are the elements of this high-octane thriller, but for genre fans it is the presence of Suzy Kendall that is an extra incentive to check out this Blu-ray release from Arrow on Valentine’s eve.
She arrived on the cinematic radar as Gillian in the 1967 film hit, To Sir, With Love, but one year earlier she appeared opposite Christopher Lee as Natasha in Psycho-Circus. That’s the film where the love affair with Suzy Kendall and genre fans first developed.
Kendall was Julia in Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, as Jane in Hayers’ Assault (aka: In the Devil’s Garden), followed by Torso and Tales that Witness Madness, both in 1973. The same year also saw her as “Mother Superior” in writer/director Domenico Paolella’s Story of a Cloistered Nun.
Horror and Nunsploitation, say no more … there were two more ‘70s arrivals, as Barbara in Spasmo and finally Freddie Francis’ Craze (featuring Kendall, Julie Ede and Diana Dors) and that was it.
Here, she is a “kidnap” victim (an elaborate ruse), snatched by John Talbot, played by the late Barry Newman — who had just clicked as Kowalski in director Richard Sarafian’s Vanishing Point — in the middle of his courtroom appearance for a bar fight.
One thing leads to another, which all spins around a submerged airplane, a fortune in diamonds, Kendall’s father, a ruthless “businessman” (Ray McAnally), Vyland, who is his “associate” (John Vernon), an “enforcer” (Ben Kingsley in his film debut) and the random “retired” cop by the name of Herman Jablonski (Dolph Sweet), who rescues Kendall, and turns her kidnapper over to her father.
Just getting started … Fear is the Key is a non-stop twisted action/mystery, which is just fine. However, it’s because of genre fan favorite Suzy Kendall that this Blu-ray edition from Arrow Video will get even more “action.”
Bonus goodies include a newly prepared commentary with film critic Howard S. Berger and four production featurettes — “A Different Kind of Spy Game,” “Fear is the Key of Budd,” “Bayou to Bray” and “Producing the Action.”
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