DVD-Paradies/DVD/Importe/Criterion CollectionProdukte

Three Silent Classics by Josef Von Sternberg: The Criterion Collection (Underworld / Last Command / Docks of New York) (3 DVDs) [US Import] 59,90 �

Vienna-born, New York–raised Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express, Morocco) directed some of the most influential, extraordinarily stylish dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Though best known for his star-making collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, Sternberg began his movie career during the final years of the silent era, dazzling audiences and critics with his films’ dark visions and innovative cinematography. The titles in this collection, made on the cusp of the sound age, are three of Sternberg’s greatest works, gritty evocations of gangster life (Underworld), the Russian Revolution (The Last Command), and working-class desperation (The Docks of New York) made into shadowy movie spectacle. Criterion is proud to present these long unavailable classics of American cinema, each with two musical scores. UNDERWORLD Sternberg’s riveting breakthrough is widely considered the film that launched the American gangster genre; it earned legendary scribe Ben Hecht a best original story Oscar the first year the awards were given. 1927 • 81 minutes • Black & White • Silent with stereo scores • 1.33:1 aspect ratio THE LAST COMMAND Emil Jannings won the first best actor Academy Award for his performance as an exiled Russian military officer turned Hollywood actor, whose latest part—a czarist general—brings about his emotional downfall. 1928 • 88 minutes • Black & White • Silent with stereo scores • 1.33:1 aspect ratio THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK A roughneck stoker falls hard for a wise and weary dance hall girl in this expressionistic portrait of lower-class waterfront folk, one of the most exquisitely crafted films of its era. 1928 • 75 minutes • Black & White • Silent with stereo scores • 1.33:1 aspect ratio

Harakiri (2 DVDs) (Criterion Collection) (1962) [US Import] 29,90 �

Dramatically compelling and emotionally intense, Harakiri is a certified classic of Japanese film, and a riveting study of samurai codes of honor. Unlike Kurosawa's rousing samurai epics, this is an uncompromisingly tragic tale, exposing the hypocrisy of 17th-century Japanese society with its story of a family destroyed by the cruelty of feudalism toward warriors in peacetime. The film is truly Shakespearean in its emotional scope, embodied by the unforgettable performance of Tatsuya Nakadai (star of Kurosawa's Ran) as an elder warrior seeking revenge for the unnecessary seppuku (ritual suicide) of his beloved son-in-law. Director Masaki Kobayashi begins at story's end, then recounts the narrative (adapted from a novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi) as told by Nakadai's character. The effect is almost unbearably suspenseful, leading to an explosive climax of supreme defiance and samurai swordplay, erupting from a battle of wills, called bluffs, and hotly defended honor. For connoisseurs of samurai action, Harakiri is not to be missed.

Coup de torchon (Criterion Collection) (1981) [US Import] 29,90 �

Wir befinden uns im Jahr 1938. In einer franz�sischen Kolonie in Afrika ist Lucien Cordier (Phillipe Noiret) der Polizist in einem Dorf, das haupts�chlich mit Schwarzen und wenigen, meist rassistischen und dummen, Weissen bev�lkert ist. Von jedem im Dorf wird er st�ndig nur gedem�tigt. Niemals sperrt er jemanden ein und sieht immer weg, wenn etwas passiert. Aber eines Tages �ndert sich das...

Shock Corridor (Criteron Collection) (1963) [US Import] 24,90 �

In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller (The Naked Kiss, The Big Red One) masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Constance Towers (The Naked Kiss) costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on race in sixties America and daring photography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter), Shock Corridor is now recognized for its far-reaching influence.

The Naked Kiss (Criterion Collection) (1964) [US Import] 24,90 �

The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor, The Big Red One), perverse secrets inevitably simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter), and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.

The First Films of Samuel Fuller (The Baron of Arizona / I Shot Jesse James / The Steel Helmet) (Criterion Collection) [US Import] 39,90 �

His films have been called raw, outrageous, sensational, and daring. In four decades of directing, Samuel Fuller created a legendarily idiosyncratic oeuvre, examining U.S. history and mythmaking in westerns, film noirs, and war epics. And characteristically, it all began with a bang: after printing the legend with the elegant B-pictures I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona, he got himself into hot water with the FBI on The Steel Helmet, the first American movie to portray the Korean War. These three independent films showed off Fuller’s genre diversity, gutter wit, and subversive force, and pointed the way to a controversial career in studio moviemaking.

I Shot Jesse James

Fuller's directorial debut is a psychological western, excavating, with pathos and humor, the tale of Robert Ford, the member of Jesse James's gang who shot the famed outlaw in the back.

The Baron of Arizona

A devilishly witty Vincent Price plays a nineteenth-century con man who sets out to commit the most epic swindle in U.S. history: to claim himself as the rightful inheritor of Arizona.
The Steel Helmet

With its low budget and high ambitions, Fuller's snarling Korean War film, an examination of race relations as well as a visceral plunge into battle, remains one of the director's most discussed and admired works.

L'Eclisse (2 DVDs) (Criterion Collection) (1962) [US Import] 34,90 �

The conclusion of Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal trilogy on modern malaise, which began with L’avventura, L’eclisse (The Eclipse) tells the story of a young woman (Monica Vitti) who leaves one lover (Francisco Rabal) only to drift into a relationship with another (Alain Delon).

White Dog (Criterion Collection) (1982) [US Import] 24,90 �

Samuel Fuller's throat-grabbing expos� on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties; today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German Shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of animals: the human being.

Night Train to Munich (Criterion Collection) (1940) [US Import] 29,90 �

A twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH is a gripping, occasionally comic confection from writers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat (Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes) and director Carol Reed (The Fallen Idol, The Third Man). Paced like an out-of-control locomotive, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH takes viewers on a World War IIera journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret Lockwood, of The Lady Vanishes), who are being aided by a debonair British undercover agent, played by Rex Harrison (Major Barbara, My Fair Lady). This captivating, long-overlooked adventure--which also features Casablanca's Paul Henreid --mixes comedy, romance, and thrills with enough skill and cleverness to give the master of suspense himself pause.

Man Bites Dog (Criterion Collection) (1992) [US Import] 25,90 �

Documentary filmmakers Andre and Remy have found an ideal subject in Ben. He is witty, sophisticated, intelligent, well liked—and a serial killer. As Andr� and R�my document Ben’s routines, they become increasingly entwined in his vicious program, sacrificing their objectivity and their morality. Controversial winner of the International Critics’ Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, Man Bites Dog stunned audiences worldwide with its unflinching imagery and biting satire of media violence.

Le Samourai (Criterion Collection) (1967) [US Import] 24,90 �

In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology—maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le Samoura� defines cool.

Disc Features:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
New video interviews with Rui Nogueira, author of Melville on Melville, and Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris
Archival interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, Fran�ois P�rier, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: a 29-page booklet featuring film scholar David Thomson, filmmaker John Woo, and selections from Melville on Melville

The Battle of Algiers (Criterion Collection, 3 DVDs) (1965) [US Import] 29,90 �

One of the most influential political films in history, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (La bataille d’Alger) vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in caf�s, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. The Criterion Collection is proud to present Gillo Pontecorvo’s tour de force—a film with astonishing relevance today.

SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET:

New high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
Production gallery
Theatrical and re-release trailers
New and improved English subtitle translation
Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth (1992): a 37-minute documentary, narrated by literary critic Edward Said
Exclusive 51-minute documentary on the making of The Battle of Algiers, featuring new interviews with the director, cinematographer, composer, editor, actors, and film historians
Five Directors (17 mins., 2004): Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone on the film’s influence, style, and importance Remembering History (69 mins., 2004): an exclusive documentary that reconstructs the Algerian experience of the battle for independence, featuring interviews with historians and revolutionaries, including military leader Saadi Yacef
“�tats d’armes” (2002): a 28-minute documentary excerpt featuring senior French military officers recalling the use of torture and execution to combat the rebellion The Battle of Algiers: A Case Study (25 mins., 2004): Richard A. Clarke, former national counterterrorism coordinator and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, discusses the film’s relevance with Michael A. Sheehan, former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, in a conversation moderated by Christopher E. Isham, chief of investigative projects for ABC News
Gillo Pontecorvo’s Return to Algiers (58 mins., 1992): the filmmaker revisits the Algerian people after three decades of independence
PLUS: a 56-page book featuring excerpts from Saadi Yacef’s original account of his arrest, a reprinted excerpt from the film’s screenplay, a reprinted interview with co-writer Franco Solinas, a new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews, and biographical sketches on key figures in the French-Algerian War

Mishima - A Life In Four Chapters (2 DVDs) (Criterion Collection) (1985) [US Import] 24,90 �

Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.

Disc Features:
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director’s cut, supervised and approved by director Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey
Optional English and Japanese voice-over narrations, the former by Roy Scheider, the latter by Ken Ogata
New audio commentary featuring Schrader and producer Alan Poul
New video interviews with Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mata Yamamoto, composer Philip Glass, and production designer Eiko Ishioka
New video interviews with Mishima biographer John Nathan and friend Donald Richie
New audio interview with coscreenwriter Chieko Schrader
Video interview excerpt featuring Mishima talking about writing
The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a 55-minute BBC documentary about the author
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Kevin Jackson, a piece on the film’s censorship in Japan, and photographs of Ishioka’s sets

H�xan - Witchcraft Through the Ages (Criterion Collection) (1922) [US Import] 29,90 �

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious—instead it’s a witches’ brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous. The Criterion Collection is proud to present two versions of this genre-defying “documentary,” for the first time ever on DVD.

Pickup on South Street (Criterion Collection) (1953) [US Import] 24,90 �

Petty crook Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) has his eyes fixed on the big score. When the cocky three-time convict picks the pocketbook of unsuspecting Candy (Jean Peters), he finds a haul bigger than he could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. secrets. Tailed by manipulative Feds and the unwitting courier’s Communist puppeteers, Skip and Candy find themselves in a precarious gambit that pits greed against redemption, Right versus Red, and passion against self-preservation. With its dazzling cast and director Samuel Fuller’s signature raw energy and hardboiled repartee, Pickup on South Street is a true film noir classic by one of America’s most passionate cinematic craftsmen.

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Criterion Collection) (1954) [US Import] 34,90 �

s/w Japan im 16. Jahrhundert. Einmal im Jahr f�llt eine R�uberbande in ein Dorf ein und klaut den Bewohnern alle Vorr�te und Wertsachen. Doch dieses Jahr wollen die Bauern sich dagegen wehren. Sie werben sieben Samurai an, die ihnen beim Kampf gegen die Banditen helfen sollen. Die Samurai willigen ein und gemeinsam machen sie aus dem kleinen Ort eine Festung und aus den Landwirten Soldaten. Ein blutiger Kampf steht ihnen bevor...

Bob Le Flambeur (Criterion Collection) (1955) [US Import] 29,90 �

Der gealterte Ganove und passionierte Spieler Bob ist mal wieder pleite. Da erf�hrt er zuf�llig von 800 Millionen Francs, die in der Grand-Prix-Nacht in einem Tresor des Casinos von Dauville erwartet werden. Der Coup ist schnell geplant; aber w�hrend die Vorbereitungen auf Hochtouren laufen, bekommt die Polizei Wind davon...

Late Ozu (5 DVDs Box) (Criterion Collection) [US Import] 59,90 �

Master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu directed fifty-three feature films over the course of his long career. Yet it was in the final decade of his life, his “old master” phase, that he entered his artistic prime. Centered more than ever on the modern sensibilities of the younger generation, these delicate family dramas are marked by an exquisite formal elegance and emotional sensitivity about birth and death, love and marriage, and all the accompanying joys and loneliness. Along with such better-known films as Floating Weeds and An Autumn Afternoon, these five works illustrate the worldly wisdom of one of cinema’s great artists at the height of his powers.

Early Spring
Yasujiro Ozu, 1956
In his first film after the commercial and critical success of Tokyo Story, Ozu examines life in postwar Japan through the eyes of a young salaryman, dissatisfied with career and marriage, who begins an affair with a flirtatious co-worker.

Tokyo Twilight
Yasujiro Ozu, 1957
One of Ozu’s most piercing portraits of family strife, Tokyo Twilight follows the parallel paths of two sisters contending with an absent mother, unwanted pregnancy, and marital discord.

Equinox Flower
Yasujiro Ozu, 1958
Later in his career, Ozu started becoming increasingly sympathetic with the younger generation, a shift that was cemented in Equinox Flower, his gorgeously detailed first color film, about an old-fashioned father and his newfangled daughter.

Late Autumn
Yasujiro Ozu, 1960
The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict—a reworking of Ozu’s 1949 masterpiece Late Spring.

The End of Summer
Yasujiro Ozu, 1961
The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu’s most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy.

Le Notti Bianche (Criterion) (1957) [US Import] 29,90 �

Marcello Mastroianni, as a lonely city transplant, and Maria Schell, as a sheltered girl haunted by a lover’s promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion. Luchino Visconti’s Le notti bianche, an exquisite adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights,” translates this romantic, shattering tale of two restless souls into a ravishing black-and-white dream.

Disc Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno
A collection of interviews, from 2003, with screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico, film critics Laura Delli Colli and Lino Miccich�, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and costume designer Piero Tosi
New audio recording of Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights,” also downloadable as an MP3
Rare screen-test footage of Mastroianni and Schell
Original theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
Plus: a new essay by film scholar Geoffrey Nowell-Smith