Jeff Heinrich

A masterful exploration of age-old themes: family, patriotism, childhood, community, motherhood, survival, love. As the Criterion blurb puts it: "Secrets swirl beneath the surface of a remote Italian community in Maura Delpero’s exquisite wartime drama, winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. In a majestic Alpine village touched only faintly by the upheavals of modern life, a strict schoolteacher’s family undergoes a profound shift when a relative returns home with a mysterious Sicilian soldier, both fleeing the front lines of World War II. As the seasons change across a single year, three very different daughters of the sprawling Graziadei clan will find their lives transformed. Blending historically grounded realism with painterly grace, Delpero draws from her own ancestral history for Vermiglio, an at once intimate and momentous vision of a world suspended between the patriarchal past and the stirrings of a new future." Yes, "painterly grace" – that quite describes it, and kudos to Russian cinematographer Mikhail Krichman (Leviathan) for that. As the closing credits rolled to a mother's hushed lullaby to her baby, I started thinking of all the other movies Vermiglio reminded me of: Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli, of course, and Ermanno Olmi's The Tree of Wooden Clogs (both depicting Italian peasant life), but also Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (secrets in a small town), Edgar Reitz's Heimat series prequel Home from Home (ditto), René Féret's Nannerl: la soeur de Mozart (classic sibling rivalry), Renoir's La grande illusion (the closing scene in the snowy mountains), and yes, maybe even parts of Robert Wise's The Sound of Music. Beautifully composed, understated, deliberately paced and wonderfully acted (by a mix of professional and amateur players), this one is pure cinema. Extras on the "Criterion Premieres" Blu-ray are minimal – a 12-minute interview with the young director, illustrated with paintings that inspired the look of the film, and a trailer – but the movie is the thing, and it's splendid to watch and to hear, not least for the soundtrack of Chopin and Vivaldi emanating from the pater familias' gramophone. English subtitles for the Trentino-South Tyrolean dialect are optional. The enclosed leaflet (single sheet, double-sided, folded and illustrated) has an essay by New York critic Michael Joshua Rowin.

Two titans of the English stage and screen, Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, star in this backstage drama of a Shakespeare touring company working through the Blitz of the Second World War. Based on the real-life experiences of screenwriter Ronald Harwood, directed by Peter Yates and with a superb supporting cast led by Edward Fox, The Dresser comes re-mastered to region-B Blu-ray with a good supply of extras: a new interview with Courtenay (8 minutes), a 2017 interview with actress Cathryn Harrison (4 mins.), 14 minutes of various crew interviews from 2022, a trailer and an image gallery. The 32-page booklet included in the package has a new essay by film critic Thirza Wakefield, a selection of interviews with Yates and Finney and Courtenay, an overview of critical responses, and full film credits.

A neglected gem of British cinema of the 1970s, The Hireling is a kind of Driving Miss Daisy for the English class-struggle set. Sarah Miles and Robert Shaw star as a widowed noblewoman and her ex-military chauffeur forging a kind of friendship in the aftermath of the Great War. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the movie was adapted from the L.P. Hartley novel and was beautifully shot by cinematographer Michael Reed. Remastered in high-def, on Indicator's region-B disc it comes with a number of informative extras: two 12-minute sets of cast-and-crew interviews from 2020, 105 minutes of audio from 2000 of costume designer Phyllis Dalton, a trailer with commentary, and an image gallery. The accompanying booklet runs 32 pages and features a new essay by Peter Cowie, one of Britain best-known film historians.

A German Western? Yes indeed, but with a twist: in the East German variety, "Indians" were the good guys and the whites wore black hats. That's because through the lens of the communist east, the American "Wild West" was only wild because the whites were colonialists, exploiters and murderers, and the native peoples were simply resisting. Well, the Reds kind of had a point, didn't they, as The Sons of Great Bear dramatically points out. Directed by Josef Mach and shot in the DDR and Romania, this mid-'60s 'Indianerfilme' from the DEFA state film studio stars Serbian actor Gojko Mitić, heading up an all-white cast. His character, Tokei-Ihto, leads his Dakota tribe in a drive to defend itself against the gold-seeking cuthroat Jim Fred Clark, alias “Red Fox” (played by Czech actor Jiří Vršťala). Released now in a 2K restoration as part of British distributor Eureka!'s Masters of Cinema series, the film arrives on region-B Blu-ray with new English subtitles and a wealth of extras: a new audio commentary by Western scholar Jenny Barrett, a new appreciation by film scholar Austin Fisher, a new video essay by Lee Broughton, author of 'The Euro-Western,' an archival German newsreel featuring a short report on the making of the movie, and two trailers. The accompanying booklet features new writing by DEFA film librarian Mariana Ivanova.

Another Western with a Communist twist, this time from early 1950s Hollywood: a parable of private courage in the face of public cowardice, High Noon was written by Carl Foreman, a Chicago-born Jew blacklisted by the Red-baiting House Un-American Activities Committee. Directed by the Austrian-Jewish exile Fred Zinnemann, the movie stars Gary Cooper as ageing small-town marshall Will Kane, newly married to beautiful young Amy (Grace Kelly) and itching to retire. But when news comes that an outlaw he once sent to jail, Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), is planning to return with his gang, Kane struggles against the fatalism of his pacifist bride and fear-stricken townsfolk and prepares for battle. The clock ticks down to the Miller gang's arrival, the marshall waits: will he have to go it alone? Controversial on release, High Noon wears its star proudly again now in Trump's divided America, and shines in a new 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray release from Eureka!'s Masters of Cinema. Besides a new video essay by Western scholar J. E. Smyth on the movie's feminist themes, extras are duplicated from MoC's 2019 BD: two audio commentary tracks, an interview with film historian Neil Sinyard, a 1969 audio interview with Foreman, two making-ofs, and a trailer. The booklet features John W. Cunningham's 1947 short story 'The Tin Star,' on which High Noon was based.

Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel star alongside Ann-Margaret, Candice Bergen, Rita Moreno and Carol Kane in director Mike Nichols' battle-of-the-sexes drama about two 1940s-era college roommates whose adventures and misfires with women carry on into marriage and the 1970s. Frank, profane, and yes, at times erotic, the movie famously led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it was not, in fact, obscene. The new Blu-ray – an Indicator release from British distributor Powerhouse – is also available in a UHD edition sporting the same 4K restoration. Both come with a new audio commentary by Atlanta film scholar Justin Bozung and a new appreciation by English comedian and actor Richard Ayoade. Also, from 2011, is a postscreening discussion in New York City between Nichols and Canadian-American filmmaker Jason Reitman (Juno). A trailer, radio spot and image gallery round out the extras. The accompanying full-colour book runs to 80 pages.

A crime drama from a 1950s British film company (Ealing Studios) and its marquee director (Basil Dearden) known for their box-office popularity, The Ship That Died of Shame stars Richard Attenborough, George Baker and Bill Owen as crew members of His Majesty’s WWII gunboat 1087. After the war, they repurpose their ship to smuggle illicit goods – first wine, then guns and counterfeit money – back and forth over the English Channel, until things go wrong and the end comes in a hail of bullets. Based on a short story by Nicholas Monsarrat (The Cruel Sea), the film also stars Virginia McKenna and Bernard Lee. The Indicator Blu-ray offers two presentations of the film: in its original 1.37:1 shooting ratio or matted to 1.66:1. Extras include a new introduction by Dearden's son, James, himself a filmmaker and screenwriter; a 2002 interview with Attenborough by former British Film Commissioner Sydney Samuelson; a 2023 look at Ealing Studios by film historian Neil Sinyard; and Now You’re Talking, a 1940 Ealing short that Dearden co-wrote for the wartime ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ campaign. An image gallery and full-colour booklet (including, unusually, a comic-strip adaptation of The Ship That Died of Shame) round out the package.

Roman Polanski wrote the screenplay, his Polish countryman (and fellow Shoah survivor) Gene Gutowski produced, and their buddy Simon Hesara made his debut as director of this father-daughter (or niece? no-one says) drama about alcoholism (the dad's, played by Mark Burns), all set in a rainy Danish seaside town. Look for a cameo appearence by Peter Sellers. In its first time on Blu-ray, on Powerhouse's Indicator label, the film's original, 82-minute cut has been restored from a 4K scan of the original negative; the disc also has a slightly longer version presented from a standard-definition master. Both extras are feature-length documentaries: a 2015 portrait of Gutkowski by his son, Adam Bardach, and a 1993 look at cinematographer Gil Taylor featuring interviews with Taylor, Polanski and British filmmaker Anthony Minghella. The accompanying booklet has a new essay, trade journal reports, interviews and more.

It's Basil Dearden again, this time from three years earlier and in the wartime thriller genre: John Mills and Dirk Bogarde star as two Irish brothers who go undercover for the IRA to carry out bombings in London during the Blitz. One gets cold feet, the other urges him to go into hiding, two of their comrades are captured by the British police and are put on trial in Belfast, and now it's up to the brothers to try to free them. Will they succeed? Roger MacDougall (The Man in the White Suit) wrote the script and Michael Relph (Out of the Clouds) produced. Restored in 4K, the film comes to Blu-ray with a new introduction by Dearden's son, James; a 1983 audio interview with Bogarde at London's National Film Theatre; a 2022 look at the film's production and themes by broadcaster Matthew Sweet and film critic Phuong Le; and a 1940 Ealing short called All Hands that stars Mills and was, again, made for the ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ campaign. There's also a gallery of images. The accompanying booklet has a new essay by Robert Murphy, archival production reports on the making of the film, extracts from the film’s pressbook, an overview of contemporary critical responses, new writing on All Hands, and a fulllist of credits for the film.

Summer 2025 on Blu-ray

08.2025

07.2025

06.2025