As summer continues, Arrow Academy presents a fantastically varied slate of a classic Western cinema, a true European classic and one of Hollywood’s finest psychological dramas.
First up in July is “Terror In A Texas Town,” a brilliant and underrated Western from the writing and directing team behind the noir classic “Gun Crazy.” Director Joseph H. Lewis and scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo teamed up again for this magnificent 1958 revenge thriller starring Sterling Hayden (“The Killing”).
Moving into August, Arrow Academy releases the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon’s final film, 1953’s “The Love of a Woman,” starring Micheline Presle as a young doctor who encounters love – and hostility – on a remote island. The beautiful and elegiac romance is presented on Dual Format Blu-ray and DVD and includes a feature length documentary on Grémillon, as well as a collector’s booklet with the first pressing.
At the end of August, “Kiss Me Deadly” director, Robert Aldrich’s classic Hollywood takedown, “The Big Knife” (1955) is released on Blu-ray. This superb adaptation of Clifford Odets’s play features a mesmerizing performance from Jack Palance (“Shane”) as a film star on the edge, and brilliant turns from Shelley Winters (“Lolita”) as a starlet with a secret, and Rod Steiger (“In The Heat Of The Night”) as an intense studio boss. Featuring a brand-new 2K restoration, which shows off Ernest Laszlo’s crisp black and white cinematography to sensational effect, the package also has exclusive new commentaries and a collector’s booklet with the first pressing.
TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (Blu-ray) (July 11)
For his 41st and final feature film, Joseph H. Lewis was able to combine the two genres in which he had excelled. The man in the director’s chair for “My Name is Julia Ross,” “Gun Crazy,” and “The Big Combo,” Lewis was one of the all-time greats in film noir. But he was also a fine director of Westerns, having also made “A Lawless Street,” “7th Cavalry,” and “The Halliday Brand,” all of which – especially the last – remain underrated.
“Terror in a Texas Town” would bring his noir sensibilities to the American West, resulting in one of his finest works. McNeil (Sebastian Cabot, “The Time Machine”) is a greedy hotel owner who wants to take control of Prairie City, the Texas town of the title. Keen to drive the local farmers of their land, McNeil hires a gunman, Johnny Crale (Nedrick Young, who would pen the Oscar-winning screenplay for “The Defiant Ones” the same year), resulting in the death of a former whaler. The dead man’s son, George Hansen (Sterling Hayden, “The Killing”), arrives in town to inherit the farm and set the stage for revenge – armed with only his father’s old harpoon…
“Terror in a Texas Town” was written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten blacklisted by the film industry and forced to write under pseudonyms or to use ‘fronts.’ Two years before he helped break the blacklist with on-screen credits for Otto Preminger’s “Exodus” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus,” his work was credited to Ben Perry, but it demonstrates a psychological depth and political dimension that is undoubtedly that of Trumbo.
FEATURES:
- Brand-new 2K restoration from original film elements produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p)
- Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM Audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Introduction by Peter Stanfield, author of Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail and Horse Opera: The Strange History of the Singing Cowboy
- Scene-select commentaries by Stanfield
- Theatrical trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Vladimir Zimakov
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Glenn Kenny.
Pre-order at the MVD Shop or on Amazon.
THE LOVE OF A WOMAN (Blu-ray + DVD) (August 22)
“The Love of a Woman” (“L’amour d’une femme”) was the final feature of the great French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, concluding a string of classics that included such greats as “Remorques,” “Lumière d’été,” and “Pattes blanches.”
Marie, a young doctor, arrives on the island of Ushant to replace its retiring physician. She experiences prejudice from the mostly male population, but also love in the form of engineer André.
Starring Micheline Presle, whose impressive career has encompassed French, Italian and Hollywood cinema, and Massimo Girotti, best-known for his performance in Luchino Visconti’s “Ossessione,” “The Love of a Woman” is a sad, beautiful, romantic masterpiece.
FEATURES:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations of the feature, from materials supplied by Gaumont
- Original French mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles
- In Search of Jean Grémillon, a feature-length documentary on the filmmaker from 1969, containing interviews with director René Clair, archivist Henri Langlois, actors Micheline Presle and Pierre Brasseur, and others
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Ginette Vincendeau.
Pre-order at the MVD Shop or on Amazon.
THE BIG KNIFE (Blu-ray + DVD) (August 29)
Mere months after delivering one of the definitive examples of film noir with “Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich brought a noir flavor to Hollywood with his classic adaptation of Clifford Odets’ stage play, “The Big Knife.
Charles Castle, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, looks like he has it all. But his marriage is falling apart and his wife is threatening to leave him if he renews his contract. Studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff isn’t taking the news too well, and he’ll do anything he can to get his man to sign on the dotted line – even if means exposing dark secrets…
Winner of the Silver Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival, “The Big Knife also boasts a remarkable cast list including Jack Palance (“Shane) as Castle and Rod Steiger (“On the Waterfront) as Hoff, plus Shelley Winters (“The Night of the Hunter), Ida Lupino (“On Dangerous Ground), Jean Hagen (“Singin’ in the Rain) and Everett Sloane (“Citizen Kane).
FEATURES:
- Brand-new 2K restoration from original film elements produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition presentations
- Original English mono audio (uncompressed LPCM on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Commentary by film critics Glenn Kenny and Nick Pinkerton, recorded exclusively for this release
- Bass on Titles – Saul Bass, responsible for The Big Knife’s credit sequence, discusses some of his classic work in this self-directed documentary from 1972
- Theatrical trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Nathalie Morris.
Pre-order at the MVD Shop or on Amazon.
