FRANCO FEBRUARY DAY 29! 99 WOMEN (1969) (Blue Underground Blu-ray Review)

99 WOMEN (1969)

3-Disc Unrated Director's Cut 

Label: Blue Underground
Region Code: Region FREE
Duration: 90 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA MA 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Maria Schell, Mercedes McCambridge, Maria Rohm, Rosalba Neri, Herbert Lom

Strap yourself in for a raucous mix of eurocult sexploitation and filthy WIP action with the yet another Jess Franco/Harry Alan Towers team-up! This time around we are watching 99 Women (1969), wherein a new female inmate Marie (Maria Rohm, Eugenie ...the Story of Her Journey into Perversion) arrives at the infamous "Castle of Death" island women for prison, a grim place ruled with an iron fist by the wicked prison warden Thelma Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge, The Exorcist), a cruel woman who strips the women of their names and gives them a number, poor blond Maria (Rohm) becoming number "98". 

We find out that Maria was convicted and sent to the island prison for killing one of her rapists, how dare she, right? She arrives at the island via boat alongside a prostitute named Helga (Elisa Montes, The Girl From Rio) and a drug addict in withdrawal named Natalie (Luciana Paluzzi, The Green Slime), though poor Natalie is not around for too very long, dying within minutes of the start of the movie. When nice girl Maria calls on the guards for help to assist the dying woman she is punished for her troubles by the Warden who locks her away in a secluded cell with rapey-lesbian named Zoie (a very sexy Rosalba Neri, Lady Frankenstein) who forces herself on Maria. Afterward she is pimped out to the corrupt official, Governor Santos (Herbert Lom, And Now the Screaming Starts). It turns out that the Warden has been treating Santos to a steady supply of the more attractive female inmates for his own sexual delights. It just wouldn't be a WIP movie without the rape, torture and cruelty of the women behind bars, and Franco is only too happy to oblige in all department with his usual array of kinky perversity and zoom-in auteurism. However, this arrangement in threatened when do-gooder prison administrator Leonie (Maria Schell, The Hanging Tree) arrives to investigate the recent string of inmate deaths, the most recent being the drug-addict Natalie. She is appalled by the conditions at the prison after witnessing the humiliation and abuses suffered by the women, including that of Maria whom she takes a liking too. Of course, the wicked warden and naughty governor are none happy with her idea of reformation, but it seems that the reforms have come too late, and a daring escape through the jungle is hatched by Maria and the other women who are fed up with the abuse.

Maria Rohm gives a good dramatic performance in a movie with no shortage of attractive women, all of whom are used and abused by the corrupt warden. The usual WIP tropes apply here with plenty of nude women, a bit of woman on woman love/rape, a couple of cat fights, and the tropical air is thick with jailer-corruption, but it's all in good fun. To be honest the movie is not all that brutal when compared to what would follow in the coming years, but it is a seedy slice of Franco-directed WIP that is hard to forget, particularly for the troubling sexual politics/crimes perpetrated on poor Maria, who is forcibly raped by an fellow woman inmate, only to succumb to her own lust as she begins to enjoy the rape! Peckinpah (Straw Dogs) would be proud, haha.  As a slice of WIP you sort of have to expect these sort of troubling and improbable male fantasies, right? The movie is visually pleasing on all fronts with some great set decoration and tropical locations with some nice Franco lensing, including a nightmare of the rape Maria endured, the one which sent her to prison for murder, and it has a nice arthouse voyeuristic quality to it, well done Mr. Franco.

While this must have been some of the worst filth to find its way into the cinema in 1969 I will say that 99 Women doesn't have a whole lot of shock value these days, it seems quite tame compared to some of the '80s WIP flicks, but the draw for me is the allure of Jess Franco's brand of delirious exploitation, and this was notably his first foray behind bars, but it would certainly not be his last, or even his best. Also pushing this movie along are the performances of Lom and McCambridge as the corrupt prison officials, Lom is sort of quietly corrupt with a stately demeanor, but McCambridge really gets to camp it up here as the authoritarian jailer, she gives a wonderfully wicked performance that made the movie for me and keeps me coming back time and time again.

Audio/Video: 99 Women (1969) arrives on Blu-ray with a fresh 4K scan from the original negative and colors are lush and nicely saturated, skin tones look natural and the black levels are decent. Unfortunately the image looks like it has been treated to a massive dose of digital noise reduction, wiping away trace amounts of grain and smearing away fine detail, leaving behind a waxy and plasticine image that takes away from the viewing experience, which for some will be a deal-breaker. Audio on the disc comes by way of a DTS-HD MA Mono 1.0 track which sounds damn good, dialogue is crisp and clean, no issues with hiss or distortion. Notably, the cool Bruno Nicolai score comes through strong with some decent depth, even that annoying pop/theme song, optional English subtitles are provided.

Onto packaging and extras we have three discs housed within a clear Criterion-style keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork plus a 20-page collector's booklet with cast and crew info, CD track listing and chapter selection plus writing on the film from noted author Stephen Thrower adapted from his book  Murderous Passions: The - Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco, which is a great read, no one writes about Franco with such intelligent passion as Thrower. 

Onto the discs, we have a DVD and Blu-ray with the same feature and extras, plus a third disc, a CD with the Bruno Nicolai score, licensed from Beat Records. Special features begin with a 2005 interview with Jess Franco who speaks about the production, cast and his collaboration with producer Harry Alan Tower, this is a carry over from the previous BU DVD release. New is a 16-minute interview with author Stephen Thrower who speaks about the film within the context of Franco's body of work, commenting the director's collaboration with the notorious producer who would apparently wine and dine the big name stars of the movies at the expense of the shooting budget! There's also a selection of three deleted scenes, including an extended rape scene and two other scenes sources from inferior VHS sources which don't add up to much. Finishing up the extras there's a poster and still gallery, the salacious original trailer, the collector's booklet and CD soundtrack.  

Special Features: 
- Jess' Women - 2005 Interview with Director Jess Franco (17 Min) HD
- Jess, Harry and 99 WOMEN - Interview with Stephen Thrower, author of "Murderous Passions: The - Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco" (16 Mins) HD
- Deleted & Alternate Scenes (23 Min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Min) HD
- Poster & Still Gallery (70 Images) HD
- Collectable Booklet includes writing by author Stephen Thrower
- 99 WOMEN Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD by Bruno Nicolai (27 Tracks)

A prime slice of Jess Franco WIP on Blu-ray from Blue Underground, this one slightly marred slightly by the unfortunate digital clean-up, but if you're a Franco-phile and enjoy his collaborations with the notorious producer Harry Alan Towers you're probably still gonna want to own this one. If you're a next-level perv Blue Underground have also released a 3-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray containing the same extras and the director's cut, plus the notorious 98-minute French Version with hardcore sex inserts not shot by Jess Franco, which doesn't interest me. 3.5/5 

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) (Blue Underground 4K UHD Review)

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980)

3-Disc Limited Edition 4K UHD + Blu-ray + CD

Label: Blue Underground
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG
Duration: 102 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0, French DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English SDH, Français, Español Subtitles
Video: 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (2.40:1) Dolby Vision HDR10, 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Don Taylor
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O’Neal, Charles Durning

In the intriguing sci-fi flick The Final Countdown (1980) the modern nuclear-powered-aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Nimitz is performing maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii, under the direction of Commanding Officer Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas, The Fury) and his crew which includes Air Wing Commander Richard T. "Dick" Owens (James Farentino, Dead and Buried) and Executive Officer  Dan Thurman (Ron O'Neil, Super Fly). Also on board during the maneuvers is civilian contractor Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen, The Believers), a systems analyst for Tideman Industries, who are contracted by the U.S. Defense Department.  

Not long into their maneuvers and with little warning the Nimitz encounters a freak electrical storm that forms a swirling blue vortex that engulfs the ship, emitting a high-pitched ringing sound that incapacitates all on board. A few minutes later they emerge from the vortex unscathed, but things are far from normal. Communications are unable to raise Pearl Harbor on the radio, all they get are what sounds like vintage radio broadcasts, and not knowing what they just encountered, and fearing a nuclear attack on the island of Hawaii, Yelland orders a high-altitude reconnaissance plane to document the island. It return with images that cannot possibly exist, that of the USS Arizona anchored at Pearl Harbor, a ship that was destroyed during the bombing of Pearl Harbor back in 1941. This proves to be quite a head-scratcher, what is happening here? The Captain initially believes that this could be some sort of secretive Defense Department test and that Lasky is on it. 

As impossible at is seems the Nimitz and it's crew of six-thousand has been hurtled back in time to December 6th, 1941, only a few hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor! Sending out F-14 Tomcats to patrol the area they spy an American pleasure yacht about to come under fire from a pair of Japanese zero fighters. The jets engage the zeros and down them, but not before they strafe the yacht killing three people aboard. In the aftermath four survivors are rescued by the crew of the Nimitz; we have Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning, Dark Night of the Scarecrow), a prominent U.S. Senator in the Roosevelt administration, his aide and speechwriter Laurel Scott (Katherine Ross, The Legacy), and her dog Charlie. Also pulled from the Pacific is one of the two downed Zero pilots (Soon-Tek Oh, Missing in Action 2). 

The survivors are brought back to the Nimitz, and of course the Senator has some questions, like who are they and what's with all this advanced weaponry, the likes of which he has never seen? Meanwhile, a reconnaissance place spots the enemy Japanese fleet speeding towards Hawaii, with the Captain and his crew tasked with the unthinkable. Do they allow the Japanese to complete their murderous invasion, or launch a massive counterstrike with modern weaponry that would forever alter the course of human history?

When I saw this as a kid I thought it was a spellbinding slice of military sci-fi, but I thought it lacked the usual sci-fi spectacle that I expected with my sci-fi films. It's not a super flashy movie, and it did something I thought was totally wrong - it did not let the Nimitz go after the Japanese fleet with all guns blazing! I was definitely in the camp that if you could you absolutely should go back in time and kill Adolph Hitler, especially when I was ten years-old, and you sure as shit have to stop the bombing of Pearl Harbor! 

The use of special effects are fairly limited here, we get the cool-looking vortex and a pretty great shot of the Senator's yacht being strafed and blown-up, but a later sequence involving a helicopter blowing up is pretty laughable, nearly as sub-par as the exploding bear scene from Grizzly (1976). Thankfully it's not a film that relies heavily on flashy sci-fi special effects, what it does lean into is the use of the U.S.S. Nimitz with the full participation of the U.S. Navy and the ship’s crew, which adds a lot of production value to the flick, handsomely lensed by cinematographer Victor J. Kemper (Eyes of Laura Mars), and directed by Don Taylor (Damien: The Omen II). As and kid, and still today, my favorite stuff here is the sight of vintage Japanese Zero fighters dog-fighting modern F-14 Tomcats, seeing these share screen time together was, is and will forever be fucking cool! 

The command choices being made here and the way it pans out might not have made me cheer or pump my fist into the sky when I was a kid watching it on TV, but as I've grown older, but not matured according to the wife, I definitely love the way this time-travelling "what if?" is handled, though I still wish they'd created a bit more spectacle for the sci-fi elements and dug deeper into the meaty concept, but it's still a fantastic watch.  

Audio/Video: The Final Countdown (1980) arrives on 4K Ultra HD in 2160p Ultra HD framed in 2.40.1 widescreen, sourced from a new 4K 16-bit scan of the original 35mm camera negative, and its another stunner from Blue Underground! The velvety layer of film grain looks fantastic, exporting fine detail and textures delightfully, and its in immaculate shape with nary a blemish to detract from your viewing. The Dolby Vision and HDR10 color-grading definitely enhances the color saturation and depth, with primaries like yellows and reds getting a nice HDR plump-up, but not overdone in any way.  Skintones look much more natural as well, plus we get truer whites and inkier blacks. The improved contrast is fantastic, giving the image more depth and clarity throughout, this is just a massive upgrade on every level. The only downside might be that the dated optical shots do draw attention to themselves with the increased resolution, but that's baked-into the film and no fault of the transfer. Also, no amount of improved resolution or HDR is ever gonna fix that shitty helicopter explosion! Be sure to checkout the over sixty screenshot from the accompanying Blu-ray at the bottom of the review, I still cannot screenshot from the UHD, sorry folks. 

Screenshot Comparison:

Top: Blue Underground 2008 Blu-ray 

Bottom: Blue Underground 2021 Blu-ray

Audio on both discs comes by way of English Dolby Atmos, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0; French DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English SDH, Français, and Español subtitles. The Dolby Atmos is full of depth and bombast with solid low-end, the sounds of thrusting jet propulsion, alarms sounding, and aerial combat and strafing gunfire are potent, and it handles dialogue, sound effects and the glorious John Scott (Symptoms) score with a deft balance.

Sadly, no new video extras were produced for this release, but they do carry-over the same set of supplements from the previous Blu-ray, which includes the Audio Commentary with Director of Photography Victor J. Kemper, the 14-minute Lloyd Kaufman Goes Hollywood - Interview with Associate Producer Lloyd Kaufman , the 32-minute Starring The Jolly Rogers - Interviews with The Jolly Rogers F-14 Fighter Squadron, 9-minutes of Theatrical Trailers, 3-minutes of TV Spots, and a shit-ton of expansive Poster & Still Galleries.

The 3-disc Limited Edition set arrives in a three-hub clear Scanavo keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork, and a lenticular slipcover that shows the Nimitz emerging from the vortex. Inside there's a 20-page illustrated booklet that reproduces the Zero Pilot Journal, and includes chapter selection, cast and crew info, and the CD soundtrack track information. We also get the 23-track score by composer John Scott (A Study in Terror) on CD, looking to have been licensed from Screen Archives. While the lack of new video extras is a bit disappointing the inclusion of the score on disc, booklet, premium packaging and fantastic UHD presentation is much appreciated.

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Director of Photography Victor J. Kemper
- Lloyd Kaufman Goes Hollywood - Interview with Associate Producer Lloyd Kaufman (14 min)
- Starring The Jolly Rogers - Interviews with The Jolly Rogers F-14 Fighter Squadron (32 min)
- Theatrical Trailers (9 min) UHD
- TV Spots (3 min) UHD
- Poster & Still Galleries: Poster Gallery (15 min), Advertising Materials Gallery (5 min), Japanese Souvenir Program Gallery (16 mins), Lobby Cards Gallery (30 mins), Stills Gallery (8 mins), Behind-the-Scenes Gallery (39 mins), Video Gallery (20 min), Miscellaneous Gallery (10 mins) HD
- The Final Countdown Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD by John Scott (23 tracks, 54 mins)
- Collectible Booklet featuring The Zero Pilot Journal

The Final Countdown (1980) is a terrific slice of sci-fi action that like the best episodes of the Twilight Zone offers more intriguing questions than satisfying answers, but it's all wrapped-up in a thought-provoking, time-travelling "what if?" scenario that keeps me coming back for more, time and time again. Blue Underground's immaculate 4K restoration knocked my socks off, completely blowing away their own 2008 Blu-ray, and making up for the lack of new extras with the inclusion of the CD soundtrack and high-quality packaging.  

Screenshots from the Blue Underground 2021 Blu-ray:

 Extras: