HAMMER FILMS DOUBLE FEATURE : MANIAC (1963) & DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! (1965)

HAMMER FILMS DOUBLE FEATURE

MANIAC (1963) / DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! (1965) 

Label: Mill Creek Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 87 Minutes / 97 Minutes
Audio: English Uncompressed LPCM Stereo 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Michael Carreras / Silvio Narizzano
Cast: Liliana Brusse, Nadia Gray, Kerwin Mathews / Tallulah Bankhead, Stephanie Powers, Yootha Joyce, Peter Vaughn, Donald Sutherland

MANIAC (1963) 
Hammer's black and white thriller Maniac (1963) is set in the South of France, opening with a young woman named Annette (Liliane Brousse) accepting a ride home from school from a creepy landscaper who proceeds to drive her to a secluded area where he rapes her. When the girl's father discovers this he kidnaps the man, torturing and then murdering the rapist with an acetylene torch. In the aftermath the father is sent away to the asylum for the criminally insane, but is regarded as something of a local hero for his act of vengeance against his daughter's rapist.

Months later an American painter named Geoffrey Farrell (Kerwin Mathews, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf) arrives in the area and stays at a small hotel run by the young girl's step mother Eve Beynat (Nadia Gray, La Dolce Vita). Geoffrey initially is charmed by her teen daughter Annette, but the flirtation is frowned upon by Eve, who intercedes and before you know it Geoffrey and Eve are involved in a passionate and very physical relationship, which was weird, moving on from the teen daughter to mother happened real quick. Eve involves her new love in a plot to free her homicidal husband from the asylum, and what transpires from there is a twisty, sexed-up thriller that I could not have predicted the outcome of, this thing has several hairpin turns that will absolutely disorient you with it's labyrinthine of deceit!

DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! (1965)
Hammer's first color film was this matriarchal nightmare, Die! Die! My Darling! (aka Fanatic in the UK) starring Tallulah Bankhead (Lifeboat) as religious zealot Mrs. Trefoile, a decrepit old woman who is visited upon one day by Patricia Carroll (Stephanie Powers, Experiment in Terror) - the one time fiance of her now dead son, he having apparently perished in a fatal car accident. Bankhead really seems to be channeling Bettie Davis in a hag-horror role that chews-up the scenery with maniacal lunacy, blaming Patricia for taking her son away from her, chastising her for wearing the devil's color (red), and wearing lipstick (gasp!). When she finds out that Patricia plans to marry another man she locks her away in a room, hoping to make her repent her sinful ways, to purify her and mend her wicked ways. Mrs. Trefoile is assisted in her religious zealotry by a husband/wife servant duo, the lecherous Harry (Peter Vaughn, Straw Dogs) and dutiful Anna (Yootha Joyce, Fragment of Fear), plus a dim-witted gardener played by a very young, and under utilized, Donald Sutherland (Invasion of the Body Snatchers). 

This was such a fun movie, very campy in a later-era Bettie Davis/Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? sort of way, with the wicked old woman starving poor Patricia, along the way her servant Anna regularly lays hands upon her, even stabbing her at one point with a pair of scissors, providing some of that precious, patented red-paint Hammer blood. If you love campy hag-horror this one has it in spades as the puritanical lunatic attempts to brainwash/purify the 60's-era liberated young woman. 

Audio/Video: Mill Creek Entertainment bring both Maniac (1963) and Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) to single-disc Blu-ray as a double feature.Maniac is framed in the scope widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio, the wide lensed black and white cinematography looks great, capturing the coastal French location nicely with a good looking grain structure, fine detail is plentiful and the contrast and shadow detail is very pleasing. Audio comes by way of a clean and crisp English LPCM Mono 2.0 track, dialogue and the jazzy score from Stanley Black (The Flesh and the Fiends) sound terrific, optional English subtitles.  Die! Die! My Darling! (1963) is presented in 1080p HD widescreen (1.85:1). The image is crisp and clean, the source looks fantastic, colors are rich and textured, there's some nice use of Mario Bava-esque lighting in some attic scenes that absolutely glow/pop-off the screen. Grain is nicely managed and fine detail is abundant, with only some minor white speckling to note as far as blemishes. Audio comes by way of an English LPCM 2.0 Mono track, it's well-balanced, the dialogue and Gothic score from Wilfred Josephs (The Deadly Bees) comes through naturally without any distortion, optional English subtitles are provided. I would think these are sourced from the same Sony masters used by Indicator for their Hammer: Fear Warning Vol. 1, they look great with only some very minor age related wear. 

This double-feature is highly recommended to fans of Hammer's non-horror thrillers - both of these are great watches, but if you want all the bells and whistles I cannot recommend Powerhouse Films release of Hammer Vol.1: Fear Warning! enough, it has both of these films along with The Gorgon (1964) and The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964) with loads of extras and deluxe packaging, but if you're more of a casual fan just looking for the films with good A/V this release from Mill Creek should do the trick! 

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) (Blu-ray Review)

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) 

Label: Scream Factory 
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 115 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, Art Hindle, Brooke Adams

Synopsis: One by one, the residents of San Francisco are becoming drone-like shadows of their former selves. As the phenomenon spreads, two Department of Health workers, Matthew (Sutherland) and Elizabeth (Adams), uncover the horrifying truth: Mysterious pods are cloning humans — and destroying the originals! The unworldly invasion grows stronger with each passing minute, hurling Matthew and Elizabeth into a desperate race to save not only their own lives, but the future of the entire human race.

I first watched the sci-fi horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) on late night cable TV in the early eighties during a sleepover at a friend's house. As was typical of these nights he had fallen asleep on the couch and I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning watching scary stuff till I couldn't keep my eyes ope. This is how I first watched  Phillip Kaufman's phenomenal and eerie remake, which was the second movie adaptation of a novel by author Jack Finney, the first adaptation came out in 1958 and starred Kevin McCarthy, who makes a great cameo in this film.  

Kaufman's movie opens on a barren planet somewhere in the cosmos, a planet soley inhabited by gelatinous creatures which leave the surface of the planet and make their way through space to our lovely planet Earth, where they rain down upon the city San Francisco. There they take root in the local flora and sprout pretty pink flower blossoms which are attractive to the indigenous people. San Francisco Health Department employee Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) picks one of these blossoms and takes it home where she places it in a glass of water on her nightstand hoping it will take root, which it does but not in the way she intended. Overnight the flower sprouts a pod while she sleeps, which clones and replaces her husband Geoffrey (Art Hindle, Black Christmas) with an emotionless clone. Unaware of the sinister happening she awakens in the morning and is startled by the transformation of her formerly loving partner, who suddenly treats her coldly and acts rather strangely. 

She confides her worry in her friend and co-worker Matthew (Donald Sutherland, Don't Look Now) who advises her to seek the advice of his celebrity psychiatrist friend Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek). Kibner is a psychiatrist of the "tell me how you REALLY feel" variety, and while at the party Elizabeth overhears a hysterical woman who tells Kibner that her husband is not really her husband, which perfectly captures how she feels about Geoffrey. Kibner calms the woman and advises Elizabeth that her feelings of detachment are merely her inner yearning to leave Geoffrey. 

The movie does a phenomenal job of creating a sort of big city paranoia from the very beginning, everyone seems to be staring and observing, it creates a palpable sense of dread and deep-rooted paranoia. Our first good look at a pod cloning a human takes place at a bath house run by Matthew's friend, a struggling writer named Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum, The Fly) and his wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright, Alien). While Jack takes a nap a pod begins to clone him, however, he wakes up before it can finish and his wife discovers the not completely formed body, horrified and at a loss to explain what they've discovered they call Mathew who arrives to investigate. He brings with him Kibner and the group surmise that San Francisco is amidst an alien-invasion of some sort. 

The dread and paranoia of this one is dripping right off the screen, it gets under your skin and stays there right on through to the shocker of an ending, which as a kid watching it for the first time was a serious gut-punch, this was maybe my first downer of an ending and it made me feel small and helpless and haunted me for days. 

Kaufman crafted an intensely dread-filled movie with the help of screenwriter W.D. Richter who did great work re positioning the story from rural California to the metropolis of San Francisco, plus the cinematography from Michael Chapman (Hardcore) is awesome, capturing the sprawling city and bathing the paranoia in swathes of shadow and light, this is a gorgeous movie, one enhanced by some fantastic special effects, some of which are quite horrific, a scene of pods attempting to clone Mathew in his backyard is grotesque stuff. 

The cast is uniformly excellent beginning with Brooke Adams and Donald Sutherland who are the heart of the movie, while romance is not a high priority the two convey an affection for each other that drives their characters. Additionally Goldblum and Cartwight are fantastic in their limited roles, Cartwright is always fun in these small tasty roles, her wide-eyed wonder and terror are conveyed nicely, and Goldblum does good work at the struggling writer with a serious distaste for Nimoy's psychiatrist character. Nimoy's character is about as cold-blooded as his Star Trek character Spock, espousing 70's era psycho-babble with a cold detachment that is tone-perfect. Art Hindle plays an alien clone with a cold detachment that somehow manages to come across as more sinister than flat, which isn't easy. Everyone does good work, conveying the sense of unease, helplessness and paranoia that drives the movie.  

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a brand new 2K scan of the interpositive, color reproduction and shadow detail are rich and deep, skin tones look warm and natural and there is some nice depth and clarity to the image along with some impressive fine detail. The new 2K scan looks awesome, the new color timing is impressive and does appear a bit different from the MGM Blu-ray from a few years back, looking a bit warmer in tone to my eyes.. Audio options on the disc come by way of English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 or DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1, both are rich and nicely balanced, and the eerie and unusual score from Denny Zeitlin comes through with some real vibrancy. 

Extras on the disc include all the bonus material from the MGM Blu-ray which were pretty substantial to begin with, highlighted by the Re-Visitors from Outer Space: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pod documentary which features interviews with Director Philip Kaufman, Screenwriter W.D. Richter, Director Of Photography Michael Chapman And Actors Donald Sutherland And Veronica Cartwright. This also includes a great audio commentary from director Phillip Kaufman, plus featurettes about the sound design, special effects and cinematography of the movie. 

Onto the new stuff exclusive to Scream Factory's Collector's Edition we have a new audio commentary track from Author/Film Historian Steve Haberman, who has done some commentaries for Scream Factory before, notably on Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) and The Dunwich Horror (1970). The track is loaded with facts and trivia about the original '58 film and the production and behind-the-scenes of this version of the story, it can sound a bit too scripted at times but there's no denying that this one is loaded with some great info. 

Scream Factory also have new interviews with stars Art Hindle and Brooke Adams, screenwriter W.D. Richter and composer Denny Zeitlin, which are all fantastic watches. The nine-minute interview with Adams covers the audition, her non-familiarity with the original, working with the cast and crew, and she even demonstrates her wobbly-eyes from the movie. Art Hindle gets a 25 minute interview covering a lot of his career, this was more in-depth than I would have anticipated, also covering is work with Bob Clark and David Cronenberg. Composer Denny Zeitlin speaks about how he scored the movie, his approach combining the organic and electronic elements and confirming the participation of Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead on one notable scene. Screenwriter W.D. Richter speaks about adapting the story, moving it from a rural area to San Francisco.  Scream Factory have not only upgraded the image of the movie with a new 2K scan but they've also upgraded the extras, this is a fantastic release from Scream Factory, which comes with a sleeve of reversible artwork and a slipcover. 

Special Features: 
- NEW 2K Scan Of The Interpositive
- NEW Star-Crossed In The Invasion – An Interview With Actress Brooke Adams (9 Mins) HD 
- NEW Leading The Invasion – An Interview With Actor Art Hindle (25 Mins) HD 
- NEW Re-Creating The Invasion – An Interview With Writer W.D. Richter (16 Mins) HD 
- NEW Scoring The Invasion – An Interview With Composer Denny Zeitlin (16 Mins) HD 
- NEW Audio Commentary With Author/Film Historian Steve Haberman
- Audio Commentary By Director Philip Kaufman
- Re-Visitors From Outer Space, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Pod – Including - Interviews With Director Philip Kaufman, Screenwriter W.D. Richter, Director Of Photography Michael Chapman And Actors Donald Sutherland And Veronica Cartwright (16 Mins) HD 
- Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod (5 Mins) HD 
- The Man Behind The Scream: The Sound Effects Pod – An Interview With Ben Burtt And Sound Editor Bonnie Koehler (13 Mins) HD 
- The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod (5 Mins) HD 
- An episode of SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE, "Time Is Just A Place," Based On Jack Finney's Short Story, Directed By Jack Arnold (26 Mins) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) HD 
- TV Spots (1 Min) 
- Radio Spots (5 Mins) HD 
- Photo Gallery (76 Images) HD 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is superb slice of science fiction with some seriously horrific moments, the new Scream Factory release is top notch, loaded with bonus content, and worth the upgrade, highly recommended. 

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) (Blu-ray Review)

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) 

Label: Scream Factory 
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 115 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, Art Hindle, Brooke Adams

Synopsis: One by one, the residents of San Francisco are becoming drone-like shadows of their former selves. As the phenomenon spreads, two Department of Health workers, Matthew (Sutherland) and Elizabeth (Adams), uncover the horrifying truth: Mysterious pods are cloning humans — and destroying the originals! The unworldly invasion grows stronger with each passing minute, hurling Matthew and Elizabeth into a desperate race to save not only their own lives, but the future of the entire human race.

I first watched the sci-fi horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) on late night cable TV in the early eighties during a sleepover at a friend's house. As was typical of these nights he had fallen asleep on the couch and I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning watching scary stuff till I couldn't keep my eyes ope. This is how I first watched  Phillip Kaufman's phenomenal and eerie remake, which was the second movie adaptation of a novel by author Jack Finney, the first adaptation came out in 1958 and starred Kevin McCarthy, who makes a great cameo in this film.  

Kaufman's movie opens on a barren planet somewhere in the cosmos, a planet soley inhabited by gelatinous creatures which leave the surface of the planet and make their way through space to our lovely planet Earth, where they rain down upon the city San Francisco. There they take root in the local flora and sprout pretty pink flower blossoms which are attractive to the indigenous people. San Francisco Health Department employee Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) picks one of these blossoms and takes it home where she places it in a glass of water on her nightstand hoping it will take root, which it does but not in the way she intended. Overnight the flower sprouts a pod while she sleeps, which clones and replaces her husband Geoffrey (Art Hindle, Black Christmas) with an emotionless clone. Unaware of the sinister happening she awakens in the morning and is startled by the transformation of her formerly loving partner, who suddenly treats her coldly and acts rather strangely. 

She confides her worry in her friend and co-worker Matthew (Donald Sutherland, Don't Look Now) who advises her to seek the advice of his celebrity psychiatrist friend Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek). Kibner is a psychiatrist of the "tell me how you REALLY feel" variety, and while at the party Elizabeth overhears a hysterical woman who tells Kibner that her husband is not really her husband, which perfectly captures how she feels about Geoffrey. Kibner calms the woman and advises Elizabeth that her feelings of detachment are merely her inner yearning to leave Geoffrey. 

The movie does a phenomenal job of creating a sort of big city paranoia from the very beginning, everyone seems to be staring and observing, it creates a palpable sense of dread and deep-rooted paranoia. Our first good look at a pod cloning a human takes place at a bath house run by Matthew's friend, a struggling writer named Jack Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum, The Fly) and his wife Nancy (Veronica Cartwright, Alien). While Jack takes a nap a pod begins to clone him, however, he wakes up before it can finish and his wife discovers the not completely formed body, horrified and at a loss to explain what they've discovered they call Mathew who arrives to investigate. He brings with him Kibner and the group surmise that San Francisco is amidst an alien-invasion of some sort. 

The dread and paranoia of this one is dripping right off the screen, it gets under your skin and stays there right on through to the shocker of an ending, which as a kid watching it for the first time was a serious gut-punch, this was maybe my first downer of an ending and it made me feel small and helpless and haunted me for days. 

Kaufman crafted an intensely dread-filled movie with the help of screenwriter W.D. Richter who did great work re positioning the story from rural California to the metropolis of San Francisco, plus the cinematography from Michael Chapman (Hardcore) is awesome, capturing the sprawling city and bathing the paranoia in swathes of shadow and light, this is a gorgeous movie, one enhanced by some fantastic special effects, some of which are quite horrific, a scene of pods attempting to clone Mathew in his backyard is grotesque stuff. 

The cast is uniformly excellent beginning with Brooke Adams and Donald Sutherland who are the heart of the movie, while romance is not a high priority the two convey an affection for each other that drives their characters. Additionally Goldblum and Cartwight are fantastic in their limited roles, Cartwright is always fun in these small tasty roles, her wide-eyed wonder and terror are conveyed nicely, and Goldblum does good work at the struggling writer with a serious distaste for Nimoy's psychiatrist character. Nimoy's character is about as cold-blooded as his Star Trek character Spock, espousing 70's era psycho-babble with a cold detachment that is tone-perfect. Art Hindle plays an alien clone with a cold detachment that somehow manages to come across as more sinister than flat, which isn't easy. Everyone does good work, conveying the sense of unease, helplessness and paranoia that drives the movie.  

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a brand new 2K scan of the interpositive, color reproduction and shadow detail are rich and deep, skin tones look warm and natural and there is some nice depth and clarity to the image along with some impressive fine detail. The new 2K scan looks awesome, the new color timing is impressive and does appear a bit different from the MGM Blu-ray from a few years back, looking a bit warmer in tone to my eyes.. Audio options on the disc come by way of English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 or DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1, both are rich and nicely balanced, and the eerie and unusual score from Denny Zeitlin comes through with some real vibrancy. 

Extras on the disc include all the bonus material from the MGM Blu-ray which were pretty substantial to begin with, highlighted by the Re-Visitors from Outer Space: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pod documentary which features interviews with Director Philip Kaufman, Screenwriter W.D. Richter, Director Of Photography Michael Chapman And Actors Donald Sutherland And Veronica Cartwright. This also includes a great audio commentary from director Phillip Kaufman, plus featurettes about the sound design, special effects and cinematography of the movie. 

Onto the new stuff exclusive to Scream Factory's Collector's Edition we have a new audio commentary track from Author/Film Historian Steve Haberman, who has done some commentaries for Scream Factory before, notably on Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) and The Dunwich Horror (1970). The track is loaded with facts and trivia about the original '58 film and the production and behind-the-scenes of this version of the story, it can sound a bit too scripted at times but there's no denying that this one is loaded with some great info. 

Scream Factory also have new interviews with stars Art Hindle and Brooke Adams, screenwriter W.D. Richter and composer Denny Zeitlin, which are all fantastic watches. The nine-minute interview with Adams covers the audition, her non-familiarity with the original, working with the cast and crew, and she even demonstrates her wobbly-eyes from the movie. Art Hindle gets a 25 minute interview covering a lot of his career, this was more in-depth than I would have anticipated, also covering is work with Bob Clark and David Cronenberg. Composer Denny Zeitlin speaks about how he scored the movie, his approach combining the organic and electronic elements and confirming the participation of Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead on one notable scene. Screenwriter W.D. Richter speaks about adapting the story, moving it from a rural area to San Francisco.  Scream Factory have not only upgraded the image of the movie with a new 2K scan but they've also upgraded the extras, this is a fantastic release from Scream Factory, which comes with a sleeve of reversible artwork and a slipcover. 

Special Features: 
- NEW 2K Scan Of The Interpositive
- NEW Star-Crossed In The Invasion – An Interview With Actress Brooke Adams (9 Mins) HD 
- NEW Leading The Invasion – An Interview With Actor Art Hindle (25 Mins) HD 
- NEW Re-Creating The Invasion – An Interview With Writer W.D. Richter (16 Mins) HD 
- NEW Scoring The Invasion – An Interview With Composer Denny Zeitlin (16 Mins) HD 
- NEW Audio Commentary With Author/Film Historian Steve Haberman
- Audio Commentary By Director Philip Kaufman
- Re-Visitors From Outer Space, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Pod – Including - Interviews With Director Philip Kaufman, Screenwriter W.D. Richter, Director Of Photography Michael Chapman And Actors Donald Sutherland And Veronica Cartwright (16 Mins) HD 
- Practical Magic: The Special Effects Pod (5 Mins) HD 
- The Man Behind The Scream: The Sound Effects Pod – An Interview With Ben Burtt And Sound Editor Bonnie Koehler (13 Mins) HD 
- The Invasion Will Be Televised: The Cinematography Pod (5 Mins) HD 
- An episode of SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE, "Time Is Just A Place," Based On Jack Finney's Short Story, Directed By Jack Arnold (26 Mins) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) HD 
- TV Spots (1 Min) 
- Radio Spots (5 Mins) HD 
- Photo Gallery (76 Images) HD 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is superb slice of science fiction with some seriously horrific moments, the new Scream Factory release is top notch and worth the upgrade. Definitely a movie that holds up to repeat viewings and worth owning on Blu-ray, highly recommended. 

FELLINI'S CASANOVA (1976)

FELLINI'S CASANOVA (1976)

Label: Mr. Bongo

Rating: 18 Certificate 
Region Code: Region-FREE

Duration: 154 Minutes

Audio: English LPCM 1.0, Italian with LPCM 1.0 with optional English subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Frederico Fellini

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne, Carmen Scarpitta, Daniel Emilfork

Synopsis: Federico Fellini’s darkest film cracks through the myth of Giacomo Casanova. As played by Donald Sutherland (M.A.S.H, Don’t Look Now), the notorious womanizer is presented as a pitiable and terrifying figure. Casanova craves respect as a scholar and yearns to pursue his interest in alchemy. A sex scandal lands him in prison, but an escape to Paris provides him a new lease of life. Yet every Court in Europe and its attendant patrons and hostesses will only entertain him if he lives up to his reputation in the ritual displays of sex and courtship which form part of the daily life of 18th Century Europe. Fellini had dealt with the theme of the frustration of human desires in La Dolce Vita and 8 ½. In Casanova, the nobleman’s search for happiness achieves tragedy, a painful reflection of the human condition.

Before this viewing my only exposure to the films of Frederico Fellini was the "Toby Dammit" segment of the Spirits of the Dead anthology horror movie, I have the Criterion Blu-ray of 81/2 sitting on my shelf but have not yet watched it, so I am by no means familiar with the majority of his work, but this adaptation of the 18th century adventurer and world famous lover starring American actor Donald Sutherland seemed like as good a place as any to jump in. 

The movie opens at a festival of some sort in Venice, quite a sight, fireworks exploding in the night sky, elaborately costumed party goers, some sort of enormous bust or statue rising from the waters of the canal. we catch up with Giacomo Casanova (Sutherland) standing at the edge of the water reading from a letter by candle light, the letter comes from an admirer, supposedly a naughty nun, who wants to meet with the famed lover of women. The scene is slightly surreal, a staged ocean of black waves made u what appear to be garbage bags, having been shot completely on a sound stage the whole of the movie has a stagey feel about it, which I liked. The  naughty nun takes him back to a home owned by a wealthy French aristocrat enjoys voyeurism, and quietly peeps the couple in the throws of passion. Sutherland's Casanova is played for laughs it seems, his love making prowess is clownish, exaggerated love-making thrusts and goofy fornication-faces, this is being played for laughs. At the end of the session Casanova addresses he aristocratic voyeur through the peephole in a painting, begging for him to please use his influence to spread the word of Casanova's  knowledge as an inventory, schemer and master of alchemy and the black arts, but the words seem to fall on deaf ears, leaving the famed lover to row back to the mainland, en route he is apprehended and arrested for his debaucherous lifestyle, imprisoned in a squalid cell, from which he eventually escapes, to carry on his adventuresome and libidinous lifestyle. 

The movie further follows the exploits of Casanova throughout the 18th century as he regularly charms and beds many women throughout Europe in Paris, France and beyond, sometimes in search of love and at other times seeking recognition for his self-said genius by never truly finding either. Fellini seems to be aggressively pointing out the superficial and unflattering truth about the famed lover of women as a vain, shallow and empty morally corrupted vessel, at one point arousing the aged Madame d'Urfé , who seeks some sort of remedy through his sexual prowess and alchemy, but he cannot do it without the aid of a young woman whom he must rely on to arouse him, otherwise he would not be able to rise to the occasion. 

We meet quite a cast of freaks and royal weirdos during his many sexual adventures, a humpbacked homosexual played by Daniel Emilfork (City of the Lost Children), a giantess and her dwarfs, the supposed love of his life Henrietta (Tina Aumont, Torso) and a bizarre orgy at a hostel. From there we have a bizarre encounter with his own mother whom he encounters by chance and a sexual entanglement with a mechanical marionette doll named Rosalba, this was such a strange and surreal watch from the beginning tot he end, and while it might have been a head-scratcher it was never dull in any way, scene after scene of elaborately staged and ornately decorated scenes of bawdy humor and empty sexual conquest, it paints a rather sad and empty portrait of the lover as a man who's vices have deterred him from ever being taken seriously, right up until the end of his life. 

Sutherand's performance is very strange, for beginner Fellini had him shave his head t recende his hairline in an odd way, furthermore he looks to wearing a prosthetic nose and a chin, but Sutherland's charm does come through, but he doesn't seem to have a good read on the character, again his Casanova comes off as clownish and empty, but you can tell he is deeply yearning for recognition of his knowledge and skills, for he seems to only be noted for his sexual prowess. 

The strange electronic-keyboard score from Nino Rota is appropriate and oftentimes quite silly during the bawdy sex scenes, additionally these scenes are made even stranger by the regular appearance of a mechanical birds which brought to mind Bubo from Clash of the Titans in a perverse sort of way. There's definitely an episodic feel to the movie as it jumps from one strange sexual encounter to the next which was slightly off putting but I loved the surreal and imaginative set designs, and Sutherland's odd but captivating perform ace as the famed lover craving recognition. 

Audio/Video: Fellini's Casanova arrives in 1080p HD in the form of a Region-FREE Blu-ray disc from Mr. Bongo with gorgeous colors and some modest depth and fine detail, this is a very nice image which I can only assume far surpasses an previous DVD release that may be out there. The disc includes both English and Italian Uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo audio with optional English subtitles. Audio sounds crisp and clean, with no issues whatsoever. Unfortunately there are absolutely no special features on the disc, which as a Fellini novice I would have appreciated.

This was not what I was expecting but I enjoyed it, the presentation from Mr. Bongo looks fantastic and this definitely has me excited to check out more from Fellini, and cinematic adventure that is long overdue, this is a Donald Sutherland performance you will not soon forget. This probably won't appeal to your standard horror-fan but if you enjoy some arty foreign cinema this might be a fun watch, just strap yourself in for the bawdy 154-minute ride. 3/5