MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: DON'T CHANGE HANDS (1975) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review/Screenshots)

Friday, November 29, 2024

DON'T CHANGE HANDS (1975) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review/Screenshots)

DON'T CHANGE HANDS (1975)

aka CHANGES PAS DE MAIN

Label: Severin Films

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 90 Minutes 15 Seconds

Audio: French DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)

Director: Paul Vecchiali

Cast: Myriam Mézières, Hélène Surgère, Howard Vernon, Michel Delahaye, Jean-Christophe Bouvet

Don;t Change Hand (1975) aka Changes Pas De Main comes to us from French director Paul Vecchiali (The Strangler), a wickedly perverse subversion of the neo-noir with a gender-switch and an infusion of hardcore XXX sex. In it Françoise Bourgeois (Hélène Surgère, Salo) receives a black and white 8mm pornographic film of her son Alain (Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Marie Antionette) having sex just before an election. She hires hard-boiled private eye Melinda (Myriam Mézières, A Woman Kills) to find her son and figure out what this is all about. Melinda strikes quite a figure with her tightly curled red hair, sporting a Bogart style trench coat and a signature fedora. As she digs into he case, starting at a sexy cabaret cafe, she finds herself knee-deep in a seedy world of an illicit blackmail, orgies and an pornography operation. It's a wildly erotic and surreal journey, and one fraught with danger, with more than a handful of peoples shot dead, including the detectives lovers.

I was immediately struck by how gorgeous a looking film this was, the cabaret scenes have Mario Bava-esque lighting and the lensing is gorgeous, calling to mind the films of Peter Greenaway, particularly Drowning By Numbers which I'd just watched. There's quite a bit of grainy by design porn footage throughout, both black and white and in color, it's purposely degraded to give it that appropriately seedy look, and it's not there for the mere sake of shock and titillation, it figures quite prominently into the noir storyline. The film is a bit dense but well-crafted and also a bit shocking with, a murder by strangulation, and later there's an necrophilia during an orgiastic sex party featuring our P.I. protagonist evading an attacker by crawling through the writhing mass of naked bodies, while naked herself, of course. It's an intoxicating and enthralling watch, I while I admit I did lose my way a bit with all the moving parts I was quite smitten with this visually dazzling mix of noir and hardcore pornography.

Audio/Video: Don't Change Hands (1975) makes it's North American home video debut on region-free Blu-ray from Severin Films in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen scanned in 2K from the original camera negative. The image looks fucking lush with velvety film grain and wonderfully suffused colors throughout, the moody Mario Bava-esque lighting of the cabaret shows looks marvelous, and the blacks are deep and inky. Audio comes by way of uncompressed French DTS-HD MA 20 dual-mono with optional English subtitles, the track is clean and well balanced, exporting the score quite nicely, the French dialogue sounding clean and precise, no issues with hiss or distortion whatsoever.

Extras include the 19-min Le Cinéphile: An Appreciation By KNIFE + HEART Director Yann Gonzalez; the 28-min Elsewhere Man: Author Matthieu Orléan On The Life And Impact Of Paul Vecchiali; the 24-min Noir D'Amour: Screenwriter Noël Simsolo On CHANGE PAS DE MAIN; the 19-min A Remedy For Chaos: A Conversation With Actress Myriam Mézières; the 12-min The Prodigal Son: A Conversation With Actor Jean-Christophe Bouvet; and a 2-min Re-Release Trailer By Nathan Boone.

The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided wrap. There's also a Webstore Exclusive Slipcover available for a limited time when you order direct from www.Severin-Films.com