MESSALINA (AKA MESSALINA VENERE IMPERATRICE / 1960)
Both opulent and humanly scaled, director Vittorio Cottafavi’s Messalina (1960, aka Messalina Venere imperatrice) is a rare Italian-made historical spectacle headlined by a solo-above-title female star, the ideally cast English-born Belinda Lee, in one of the final roles of her tragically shortened life. Playing the young beauty plucked from country life as the Vestal Valeria to enter an arranged marriage with the newly crowned Roman emperor Claudius, she ably portrays the sexual manipulativeness and raw hunger for power of the murderous empress of legend. Seducing several high-born lovers to gain political influence, Messalina learns that balancing her grasp on the aristocracy and the common folk is too much to handle, even as she longs for the affections of her true love, the ultimately incorruptible tribune Lucius Maximus (Spiros Focas).
LANGUAGES: English and Italian
VIDEO: 1080p High Definition / 2.35:1
AUDIO: English LPCM 2.0 Dual Mono / Italian LPCM 2.0 Dual Mono
SUBTITLES: English
1960 / Color
94 MINUTES
NOT RATED
SEVEN DEATHS IN A CAT'S EYE (AKA CORRINGA or LA MORTE NEGLI OCCHI DEL GATTO / 1973)
When a fractious aristocratic family gathers at an ancestral Scottish castle, a straight razor-wielding murderer is also an unwelcome guest in Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes (1973, aka Corringa or La morte negli occhi del gatto), a blood-laced thriller – complete with giallo flourishes, tantalizing sexuality, a pet gorilla and an omnipresent ginger tabby – from genre filmmaker Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony M. Dawson). Singer/actress Jane Birkin plays the willowy heroine whose arrival foreshadows several unnatural deaths, Hiram Keller is the possibly unhinged lord of the manor with a cursed history, and the ensemble includes schemers with homicidal tendencies, all underscored by the shudder-inducing music of the great Riz Ortolani.
LANGUAGES: English and Italian
VIDEO: 1080p High Definition / 2.35:1
AUDIO: English LPCM 2.0 Stereo / Italian LPCM 2.0 Stereo
SUBTITLES: English
1973 / Color
95 MINUTES
NOT RATED
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Audio Commentary with Film Historian Troy Howarth
- Original English and Italian Theatrical Trailers
