MACHINE GUN MCCAIN Bluray

John Cassavetes has an interesting history behind him. Today he’s revered as a Hollywood great, and considering his directorial body of work, from Faces to A Woman Under the Influence, it’s easy to see why. To most, though, he is remembered as an actor, notably from Rosemary’s Baby and The Dirty Dozen, the film that gave him his first nomination and the one that finally led to leading roles. In truth, though, he was never much of an actor. Smarmy, one note and stilted, whether he was leering at his daughter in The Incubus or getting his head blown off in De Palma’s The Fury, he’d always play the same smug part. As a villain he could get under your skin, but it was more because of his indifference to the role than the quality of his performance. It’s a shame, because early on in his career he demonstrated a lot of promise beside James Whitmore in the Rebel without a Cause clone, Crime in the Streets (recently released in Warner’s Film Noir Collection Vol. 5). In that role there was a fire behind those brooding eyes, and a surprising emotive range – going from tough hood to crying child at the turn of a dime. The roles never really came fast and furious after that initial screen introduction, and instead three years later he’d find himself behind the director’s chair for the first time.

Unable to get the parts he wanted, Cassavetes instead turned to directing, and the films thereafter seemed to be just the bottom line. He needed financing for his movies, and since Hollywood never gave him plum parts as an actor, he seemed to bullishly turn his back on them with his dry, detached performances. One such performance is as the titular robber in Machine Gun McCain, released at the height of his popularity a year after Rosemary’s Baby. It was directed by the political Italian filmmaker Giuliano Montaldo, who had seen some Stateside success with another heist picture two years prior, the Edward G. Robinson vehicle, Grand Slam. Montaldo mentions in the extras how it was tough to work with Cassavetes, as he was always passive aggressive in trying to call the shots from in front of the camera. It’s a wonder why he was so confident, since his character is undeveloped, inconsistent and uninterested. He mouths off any suggestion from his son who just picked him up from prison. He’s unaffectionate and power hungry with his newly-eloped wife (The Wicker Man’s Britt Ekland). Cassavetes never seems to know how to play the character, painfully evident in a scene later in the film where he goes from determined and on the hunt, to crying, to laughing and finally to smug – all in the span of about 30 seconds. Perhaps he was going for some type of Method internal allocation, bringing forward whatever was in his head at the moment, but whatever the pretense, it’s a really muddled and closed off performance.

The film isn’t really one to watch for its story, either. It too seems rather closed off, exploring a family mafia in Las Vegas, but one we the viewer are not really made a part. We understand Charlie Adamo’s (future Cassavetes regular and Columbo star Peter Falk) frustration at being a targeted outsider in the gambling ring because we too can’t seem to get a break into the inside. The film follows Cassavetes’ McCain as he plans and executes his first big heist out of the slammer, but as presented in the film there really isn’t much to it. There are no major obstacles in the second act, no hitches during the heist and little more than your stock film noir finale for the ending. The story is forgettable, and Cassavetes’ performance is memorable for the wrong reasons.

What makes a viewing justifiable are the parties on the periphery – Gena Rowlands is quite strong in a limited part as McCain’s steadfast love interest (and Cassavetes’ in real life) and nearly equally as beautiful. While Fulci favorite Florinda Bolkan (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Don’t Torture a Duckling) doesn’t offer up the same kind of performance, she’s even more beautiful here. Shapely bone structure, thick, voluminous hair and a tight, olive physique, she was quite the looker, and she looks especially good in the costumes outfitted to her here. Falk is of course always a good watch, and aside from the acting, Ennio Morricone’s titular theme done in the repetitive, character name-spewing fashion of Django, is also good. It’s a shame Morricone’s score consists of little else other than a few instrumental riffs on the title track and some light backing. This is definitely a far cry from the work he was doing with Leone at the time, but considering he clocked 25…yes, 25, films in 1969 alone, you can understand why his contributions here are so meager.

In the end, meager is really the word that describes Machine Gun McCain in full. It’s got familiar story elements with familiar sound and familiar faces, but none of it really rises above the bar. Cassavetes doesn’t give us a character to care about, and Montaldo does sub-par job establishing even a viable adversary for Cassavetes’ McCain. When the stock finale comes to a close, you get the sense everyone involved cares about as much as we do for the outcome. Not much. Cassavetes made the film to fund his directorial efforts, Rowlands did it for her husband, Morricone did it in between 24 others that year,and Montaldo directed it just to get a piece of the Hollywood money machine. Machine Gun McCain is the epitome of a paycheck movie – one done with competency but without passion. This gun shoots blanks.

presentation...

Blue Underground fires out Machine Gun McCain in hard hitting 1080P HD. While on past titles like The Stendhal Syndrome and The New York Ripper I’ve expressed my reservations of their grainy post-sharpening techniques, on the whole Blue Underground has consistently delivered some of the best HD presentations available on the format. Machine Gun McCain is another looker, incredibly vivid with all those grand late-sixties colors, from the bright lights of Las Vegas to Florinda Bolkan’s lush green dress. The transfer has a nice, natural film grain present, and detail is solid without seeming artificially sharp. Print damage is virtually non-existent and aside from a few color matching issues shot to shot, there was little to really nitpick here. The disc is only single layer, but there’s only about thirty minutes of HD extras, and coupled with the film that’s just over 2 hours of HD content on a single layer. Not the best compression, but certainly more than enough for a satisfying, and in this case very satisfying, final product.

Sound-wise, we hear the gunfire in DTS-HD Master Audio, but all that frill is for a mono mix. It’s not a particularly rousing track, and Morricone’s soundtrack often rings quiet aside from the eponymous “no one does it better than McCain!” theme song. Dialogue is mostly clear, although there were a few times, like in the noisy casino, where it was tough to make out all the speech. Still, a perfectly serviceable sound mix for a film that deserves just about that.

extras...

A relatively sparse slate here other than an articulate and enthused interview with director Giuliano Montaldo. He explains at length how he got his start in acting and how he was eventually given an opportunity to direct by the company behind the Dollars movies. He then goes on to talk specifically about McCain from working with all those actors, including the at times tough task of directing Cassavetes, to staging scenes and mastering the camera. He also talks more broadly about his career and why he declined an offer from Paramount to make more American movies. It’s an engaging 20-odd minutes, although he doesn’t mention the figures that cult fans would care about the most like Bolkan or Morricone. It’s recorded in Italian and subtitled in English. There are separate English and Italian trailers also included to round off the disc.

wrapping it up...

Blue Underground has kept a relatively low profile on the cult video scene for the last two years, relying almost entirely on repurposing their catalog for Blu-ray. It was a nice surprise, then, when they finally announced a new title in McCain for both DVD and Blu-ray. The end result, though, isn’t quite what it could have been. Cassavetes gives a disinterested and disjointed performance, the story is cliché pulp all the way, and there isn’t much in the way of style. To its benefit, it has a fine cast of cult favorites and a charming theme song from Mr. Morricone. On the whole, though, it’s a paycheck for all involved. Blue Underground has earned their pay in the presentation, though, with an excellent film transfer and a satisfying mono DTS mix. The interview with the director adds a nice personal touch, even if the film itself is lacking one. If you like star gazing, it’s worth a ratatatat shot, but all others should go out and support the Underground by buying one of their other, better discs like The Prowler or City of the Living Dead.

overall... Content: C Video: A- Audio: C+ Extras: B- Final Grade: C

DJANGO Blu-ray

Let’s make no mistake, Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy probably left the biggest impact on the western genre at any time and from any place. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is consistently heralded as the greatest western ever made, garnering the #4 spot on the IMDb top 250 and a consistent citation from filmmakers as one of the most influential films ever. If you want to look at influence by sheer imitation, though, Sergio Corbucci’s Django might just sneak in to the top. Coming before The Ugly in 1965, it left quite a mark with its stoic anti-hero with a coffin he drags behind him as penance. Franco Nero made a huge mark on the genre as the lead, and he alone would star in fifteen different westerns, including the belated sequel (where Django becomes a monk, no less!) Django Strikes Again, and the similar, and fantastic, one-man-against-the-world Keoma by Enzo G. Castellari. It seemed for a time, though, that every western to follow in Django’s wake would erroneously be retitled to something in the Django name, despite the fact that few of the films even had a character named Django. Still, every Italian production for the last twenty decades, and Blue Underground clocks 50 “unofficial” sequels, all did their part in trying to replicate the style of Corbucci’s trendsetter.

It’s been thirty-five years now, though, since the gatling gun toting gunslinger first rolled into town. Is he still a good shot, or has the shine of his pistol tarnished a bit in light of all the imitations to follow in its wake. At the time of its release, it was known as one of the most violent films ever made, most famously for featuring an ear-severing scene that Tarantino would later homage in Reservoir Dogs. Still, will this be respected today as one that cultivated the genre, or does it still pack enough punch to entertain today? Saddle up, friends, let’s find some bounty.

The film begins with Luis Bacalov’s theme that memorably bellows “Djangooooooo, have you always been alone? “ as the drifter walks through a muddied desert dragging behind him a coffin that’s too heavy to be empty. As he reaches the crest of a hill, he witnesses a woman being tied to and beaten on a bridge by Mexican bandits. Rather than rush to her rescue like any other white hatted western hero would in films prior to Django, he instead watches in silence. The guy’s got a lot more baggage than just that coffin. Looking instead to come to her rescue are a few white horsemen. Instead, they kill the Mexicans and look to punish whom Django later learns to be runaway prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak). In the beat of a second, though, Django unleashes a flurry of fire, shooting down the handful of bandits. He takes Maria and heads back to the brothel she ran from.

When he enters the brothel he can’t even be taken seriously enough to get a drink. The town has been dominated by bandits demanding profits for their protection, led by Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo). Jackson and his boys have this little game where they unchain Mexican captives and gun them down as they try to escape. They’re badass. Django quickly commands respect, though, when he shoots down another smattering of the Major’s men in front of all the whores and their pudgy manager. He gets a drink and his pick of any woman in the joint, but Django can’t be bothered with such excess. When asked by the owner what’s inside the coffin, he responds with perfect deprecating glory, “Django.”

The Major’s men come back for Django, this time nearly fifty-strong, but in one fell swoop sends them all into the dirt with the gatling gun he’d been concealing in his coffin. He wasn’t lying when he said he himself was in the coffin, either, since he’s been punishing himself ever since he allowed his lover to be killed by the Major while he was away. Django’s back, though, and he’ll get his man, as well as maybe a little bit of gold from that paunchy Mexican general, Hugo Rodriguez (Jose Bodalo).

Leone’s films found their appeal by lingering stylishly on empty, quiet moments in cinemascope, using close-ups, sound effects and Morricone’s rollicking music to inflate what was initially just another riff on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. His great non-performance aside, Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name was essentially a cipher, an empty vessel for Leone’s skills at visual storytelling. Django as a character, though, is front and center what makes Sergio Corbucci’s film still just as compelling today. The narrative plays deliriously with our expectations, constantly flipping from presenting Django as a respectable hero and a callous outlaw. At the start we see him watch a woman beaten only to, much later, save her. He brings her to a brothel to get some sleep – a nice gesture, right? Well, apparently he was doing it at the request of the Mexican general. Okay, well she’s safe, right? Instead of leaving with dignity, he instead strikes a deal to steal a sack full of gold. Not only that, but he steals the gold a second time from his partner as he tries to make a getaway. Near the end of the film Maria finally offers herself to Django, and he looks to want to reciprocate but doesn’t. You think to yourself, “Oh, it’s the pain of losing his lover that’s holding him back”, right? Well, the next scene he declares that he doesn’t want her and instead wants the native prostitute. Dirty move, isn’t it? Well, just wait. He doesn’t pick the native for sex, but instead as a decoy so he can make off with the gold without anyone knowing. Even during the film’s memorable finale, Django is thrown once again in conflict with his valour and his villainy, forced to choose between his gold and his girl, and even then Corbucci doesn’t succumb to cliché.

The film is constantly pulling Django’s morals from side to side, never quite allowing the audience a chance to see who he really is behind that concealing black-rimmed hat. Even that iconic coffin is one filled with duality. First we recognize it as a sort of cross he drags for penance for allowing his lover to die, but then we find out instead that it’s used to conceal his punishing weapon. With the script written by Sergio Corbucci and his brother Bruno, though, it’s never black and white. It’s always a bit of both, and the way they play with our expectations of what a western hero should be and what a western hero really was in the duplicitous Old West makes Django always compelling at every turn. There’d be a ton of films that would emulate the stoic lead pioneered by Eastwood and Nero, but few would explore the infinitely more interesting blur between hero and villain, a trait that still gives Django an edge over its imitators all these years later.

Although Django doesn’t seem all that violent today, even when he’s gunning down forty men in the span of seconds, it still possess scenes of maliciousness that give its guns pop. The ear-cutting scene has been done several times since, and with greater graphic violence, but Corbucci’s film still resonates not for the violence, but for the way it’s willing to revel in the lowly behavior of its baddies. They don’t just cut off his ear, they FEED IT back to the victim. That’s how depraved this movie is. Or again, the start, where Django just quietly watches Maria tied and whipped. There are other scenes with this kind of unflinching honesty at the dissoluteness of these characters, like when the camera lingers on Django getting pummeled in the face by the butt of a rifle or when, after being bludgeoned, Django has his hands trotted over by all of the Major’s horses. It’s not so much that it’s graphic, it’s just the wanton principle behind it all.

The sudden outbursts of malicious violence, and Corbucci’s refusal to define Django as any kind of hero proper, allow his film to constantly buck expectation and to still stand out today as one of the premier films of the genre. While personal favorites like Keoma or Mannaja may offer a grander, more poetic brutality and style, they can’t match the sheer audacity of Corbucci’s sotic little piece. Like his protagonist, Django rolls forward with little expectation but shoots through the roof with every scene following. It’s a shame that Nero and Corbucci never worked together on creating a series proper for our beloved Django. Yes, they made a couple westerns together, The Mercenary and Companeros, which are quite good, but never would they revisit the character that come to define both their careers. Leone and Eastwood got a trilogy with their Man With No Name, but for the man whose name we’ll never forget, only one. It’s a shame, but maybe it’s fitting, for there’ll never be another like Django. And as fans, we’ll continue to bellow his name as he drags the weight of all inferior westerns through the mud in his coffin. “Oh Django! After the showers, the sun…you will be shining!”

presentation...

One thing is clear – Blue Underground’s Blu-rays always look tack sharp. The problem with a lot of them, though, is that they reach that point through some creative digital sharpening and a whole lot of noise. Django is such a disc, with amazing sharpness and detail in objects, from the individual hairs on Nero’s beard to the fine little pieces of glimmering gold in the bandits’ bag. Yet, behind all that detail is a consistent flurry of fine black dots, proving that Blue Underground really is pushing these negatives the furthest they can go in the pursuit of detail. While this is par for the course with many Blue titles, Django may suffer most given the depreciating condition of the original film elements. There are many scenes where the white flickering dissolve from the print would be glaringly obvious if it weren’t for all the black noise. Still, they’ve polished a turd of a print as nicely as they can, and Blue Underground needs to be commended for digitally removing a number of major glaring print defects on this new release. This is a major step ahead of the older DVD, which while noisy is impeccably clean and never aflutter in the gate. Colors are trademark Blue Underground vivacious and anyone remembering the film as a battered home video staple are about to see it in a whole new light.

Sound-wise, we get two tracks in DTS-HD Master Audio, but both are unfortunately mono only. Usually Blue Underground pulls out all the stops in their surround sound remixes, especially in their recent Blu-ray for Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, but here the best we get is one fairly deep channel. Bigger than a remix, though, is the inclusion of the Italian track to go along with the Enlgish, for it features Franco Nero’s original voice. The English dubbing certainly isn’t the best, always out of sync with mouths and, especially in Django’s case, robotically stilted. Hearing Nero in his original tongue is definitely how this should be heard, and like with the video, Blue Underground has done a nice job cleaning this up so any playback damage, like hiss, pops or dropouts, are almost entirely removed.

extras...

While not the full out special edition a movie of this caliber and influence deserves, Blue Underground has ported over extras from their original 2-disc release from 2008 along with a vintage documentary that was previously released on Blue Underground’s Run, Man, Run DVD. “Western, Italian Style” is a 38-minute documentary from 1968, and it amusingly plays out in that kitschy, instructional video kind of fashion. It certainly doesn’t cover the genre with breadth, but it does feature a few of the classics, namely Once Upon a Time in the West, Corbucci’s The Great Silence and Run, Man, Run. It also features interviews and on-set footage with directors Enzo Castellari, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima and Mario Caiano. Castellari’s earlier bit is the best, where he deals with a some on-screen fight choreography in amusing fashion. Forget the genre it is chronicling, though, the documentary itself is a vintage artifact more than worth preserving, and it’s great that Blue Underground included it here. It would be great to see more of this sort of thing on future releases rather than spending the money on newer, narrowly-focused interviews and commentary.

First from the previous DVDs is an interview with Franco Nero and under-appreciated neo-realist Ruggero Deodato (who directed Cannibal Holocaust but served as the assistant director on Django). The two have plenty of very worthwhile anecdotes to share, from how Franco Nero got his screen name to why Deodato decided to give all his extras wear red masks during the film. It’s a wonderful, if all too brief, chat with two legends, and it ends fittingly with Nero talking about the possibility of getting back in the saddle as our favorite gunslinger.

Next is a ten-minute short film featuring Franco Nero, The Last Pistolero. While initially a little deliberately arthouse, it finds its form near the end and offers a fine little deconstruction of the western hero. With Nero in the lead and totally silent throughout, it’s as if his Django, and every other western staple, is coming face to face with karma, knowing that successfully dodging thousands of bullets a movie and somehow surviving eventually catches up with you. Presented in black and white, it’s a good looking little piece, but the non-anamorphic letterbox encode leaves much to be desired.

Rounding off the disc are English and Italian trailers and a short introduction from Mr. Nero himself.

wrapping it up...

Django is one of the grand characters of the cinema, a man woven with complexity, and one who behind that large brimmed hat still conceals so much of that from the audience. Eastwood may get too much credit as the penultimate anti-hero, but for my money Franco Nero’s guns that title down. Stylishly simple but scripturally complex, Django is a film both viscerally violent and emotionally complex. It’s one of the spaghetti greats. Blue Underground has pulled off an amazingly sharp and restored transfer, even if their signature noise dirties up the frame. The audio offers DTS options for both the English and the preferred Italian track with Nero’s original voice. The extras, while not the flurry of bullets the film deserves, complement the feature and provide a nice bit of retrospective. Blue Underground has a stable of great Italian westerns…hopefully they’ll open the coffin and set the rest of this fine era of filmmaking free like they have here with Django. Djangooooooooooo!

overall... Content: A Video: B+ Audio: C+ Extras: B Final Grade: B

MY BLOODY VALENTINE on Blu-ray

“Oh the legend, they say, on a Valentine’s Day,
Is a curse that’ll live on and on;
And no one will know as the years come and go,
Of the horror from long time ago.”

For twenty eight years it did seem as if My Bloody Valentine was doomed to a curse by censorship. Forgotten, though, it wasn’t. Everyone knew of the horrors the MPAA inflicted upon this little Canadian cash in on Paramount’s past success with Friday the 13th. So revered were the death scenes that were all but excluded from the finished film that I’m sure, if you were to tally the threads, Valentine received more uncut requests than even the Friday films that spawned it. All the petitions, posts and emails, though, couldn’t escape the fact that the film remained a property of Paramount, and not only was the film too small a fish to fry, but they don’t even go unrated for their biggest properties. All that changed earlier this year when, gasp, Lionsgate of all companies got a hold of the DVD rights. It seemed like some fanboy had hacked into the Lionsgate email, but reports were coming out first that the deleted footage had been found, and then later that it would actually be seamlessly branched into the feature film. Seemed too good to be true, and now it’s gotten even better – it’s on blu-ray. Let’s cut to the heart of this slasher favorite.

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

CHILDREN OF THE CORN Blu-ray

Walking the VHS rows as a kid, I’d always fascinate myself with all the chapters and sequels of all those venerable horror franchises. I’d daydream and hyperbolize just how good the first film in each franchise must be to spawn so many sequels. Everyone knew about the quality of the originals when it came to Psycho or Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street, but for every series spawned on a classic, there were a dozen or so that weren’t. The Amityville Horror, Ghoulies, Witchcraft, Pumpkinhead, and even Saw today, each have spawned never ending franchises on by most accounts terrible first films. Unlike drama or action, it’s not the strength of the cast or crew that makes these franchises last, but instead the mere strength of the concept. A possessed house, people forced to kill themselves, a punishing farm demon, goblins that come out of the toilet. Well, okay, not even the concept works in Ghoulies’ favor, but part of what makes horror so intriguing is the way franchises just never seem to die.

Not only does it happen with quite regularity that horror franchises reach the five film landmark, but it’s often the case that many of those sequels are completely different than the others. It’s always the roll of the dice with franchise horror. Sometimes you get sequels that have nothing to do with their originals – Troll 2, Halloween 3, Zombi 2, and sometimes you get sequels that by all accounts eclipse the originals – Ghoulies II, It Lives Again, Dawn of the Dead. Becoming a horror aficionado means taking the pledge to sift through the endless sequels in search of those diamond in the rough follow ups. It’s a hell of a sift for those brave enough to visit the Children of the Corn – seven films later and it’s still thriving on the direct-to-video market. What about the one that started it all? Anchor Bay’s released it twice before on DVD and now it hits the disc a third time on Blu-ray. The 20th Anniversary DiviMax has been upgraded with new features on Blu-ray for the 25th but is this franchise father closer to Amityville than it is Halloween? Time to start the harvest and find out!

Click here to read the full review at HORRORDIGITAL.COM

FRENCH CONNECTION II Blu-ray

With Billy Friedkin knee deep in Israel laboring over a masterpiece nobody would even see, and with financial and critical success necessitating a sequel, someone new would have to come in and direct French Connection II. Only, the director they chose was far from the new blood they had previously sought when they chose Friedkin. The producers went with John Frankenheimer, one of the underrated “action verite”, as I like to dub him, directors of the sixties. Ticking up classics like The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds, he was the proven talent that eccentric Friedkin wasn’t. Would that mean, then, that French Connection II would deliver on an old, reliable, predestined formula? Absolutely not!


The high concept for the sequel is this time bringing New York cop to French drug ring. Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is still chasing Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), only this time the location is different. Popeye quickly learns that the France police force is just as corrupt and mismanaged as his own, although en francais he can’t just beat down his man. There are politics. Brutal, constricting politics. Before he even gets a taste of that, though, he’s getting a taste of a more dangerous dead end.


Alain is well aware of Doyle’s presence on his turf, and sensing Doyle’s threat to his drug cartel, Alain decides to fight fire with fire. He kidnaps Doyle, and instead of killing him, gets him hooked on drugs. Seriously. Once Doyle become reliant on the needle, they start pulling away long enough to make the withdrawals really count. After all the merde Doyle stirred up in New York, they are going to make sure he never toys with their operation again.


Eventually Doyle escapes, thanks to the hands of the France police force, and we know what that means. Chase sequence after chase sequence, right? Doyle shouting bigotry while the camera zigzags in and out of choreographed cat and mouse games. The stuff taught action is made of. No. Instead, Frankenheimer goes internal on Doyle. Determined to make drug addiction more than just a prime mover in terms of plot, Frankenheimer puts it front and center to show the devastation it can bring on even the most resistant of users.


We get scene after scene of Doyle going in and out of sanity, drooling, pleading and absolutely miserable for the bulk of the film. As far as sequels go, it’s one of the biggest U-turns in cinematic history, but considering the first film played by an entirely new rule book to begin with, why can’t Frankenheimer’s?


Well, even when Friedkin’s was getting overly ambitious, it always at least defaulted to entertainment. Frankenheimer’s film, although certainly noble and daring, gets overly comfortable in languishing with its lead. The addiction commentary gets stale after awhile, especially considering the bulk of the second act is spent in a dank room. The first film was all about the energy of the city, all those chases on foot and the thrill of the chase. Here Doyle is chasing drugs with alcohol, and while it’s certainly a striking change of pace, it starts to burn out long before Doyle ever does.


The film may not flourish when it comes to action, but accolades must be given to Hackman and his dedication to character. This ain’t a pretty role, especially considering it was the original film that won him the Oscar, but Hackman descends face first into all the shadows of his character. His performance during the withdrawal scenes are rife with emotional energy, as if he’s pulling right from the dark pits of his memory to blurt out the stuff he’s saying. It’s a bare performance, and considering Frankenheimer lingers there rather than on the action, a much richer performance than even Hackman’s work in the original. Hackman rightfully got a Golden Globe nomination for this, just like he did with the surprisingly Oscar-snubbed The Conversation a year prior. As a film French Connection II may not come together quite as a satisfactory whole, but as a performance, Hackman’s has never been better.

presentation...


Like the previous film this Blu-ray disc is presented 1.85:1 1080p widescreen. Friedkin went to great lengths to color time his Oscar-winner to perfection, and considering Frankenheimer left us in 2002, this film gets far less lavish treatment. The overall image is a great deal softer than the original film – not nearly as flattering as it should be. It’s grainy, and even the colors just don’t seem to show like they did in the first film. Drab is more the word to describe this pretty pithy transfer.


There’s a DTS-HD 5.1 audio track, but it ain’t reference quality, that’s for sure. Pure and simple, it’s a glorified mono track, just like the first film. The mono track is included here for comparison, and really, there isn’t much difference. Dialogue is at least all audible, and Don Ellis’ score again sounds just as shrill as ever.


extras...

French Connection II was previously released on DVD as part of a two-pack with the first film. Now that it’s flying solo on Blu-ray, Fox has thankfully added a number of interesting extras. The best of which is a newly produced documentary on the career of John Frankenheimer, the 27-minute “Frankenheimer in Focus”. It features a fine recollections by such filmmakers as William Friedkin, Actor Bruce Dern and Editor Tom Rolf, in addition to his family.


Frankenheimer himself is very articulate, and he very much narrates the piece from clips from older interviews. The resulting piece really helps show the kind of groundbreaking directness that Frankenheimer brought to the action film and to cinema as a whole. Specific films are highlighted, including how the ending to Black Sunday was totally compromised, and it’s overall a treat for this late director. Frankenheimer had previously recorded a commentary for the 2002 DVD, and it’s here in its entirety as well. Again, well spoken, and he really provides a lot of information about his approach to the film and the way they all pulled it off. For prospective filmmakers, this is a must listen.


Surprisingly, the next commentary with Producer Robert Rosen and Gene Hackman is also a very revealing window into the filmmaking process. Hackman sort of mumbles his way through most of the parts (still in character?), but it’s Rosen who really remembers the production in fine detail, and his anecdotes, like how they used hidden cameras for most of the busy street exteriors, are fascinating.


The previous conversation with Gene Hackman from the original film extras is continued here, and while shorter, is still a great watch and a nice primer to the essence of the film. It’s Hackman against a black screen, but he’s vocal about his initial hesitation on making a sequel, and his interest in acting out the scenes of withdrawal. Good stuff.


The disc is rounded off with some trailers, galleries and another isolated score. This track is even more sparse than that of the original, and not as experimentally interesting, either. Still, a nice addition, proving once again that Fox is determined to use Blu-ray for more than just pumping out new transfers.

wrapping it up...


You won’t necessarily be feeling withdrawals from the first film watching this sequel, and that’s thanks to Frankenheimer’s dedication to character in letting Hackman take his Popeye Doyle into a deep, dark abyss. The only problem, though, is that the story goes down there with him and hardly recovers, resulting in a slow, morose travelogue that just doesn’t have the same impact of the original. It’s certainly different, though. The image is a good upgrade from the DVD, but not near the beaut that the remastering of The French Connection was. The extras, while not as decked out as the original, offer a few fine hours of film history and serve as a nice epilogue to Frankenheimer’s career. If Requiem for a Dream made you want to run through fields of daisies, then French Connection II is for you.

overall... Content: B- Video: B- Audio: C- Extras: B+ Final Grade: C