PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981) (Warner Archive Blu-ray Review)

PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981)

Label: Warner Archive

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: R

Duration: 167 Minutes

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

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Richard Foronjy, Don Billett, Kenny Marino

The sprawling Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon) directed cop-drama Prince of the City stars Treat Williams (Hair, Deep Rising) as Danny Ciello, a detective on the NYPD's Special Investigations Unit, a criminal unit with a high success rate and history of big busts, including The French Connection, but it's also lousy with rampant crime and corruption within the ranks. Danny joined the force to make a difference but through the years he has leaned into the corruption, taking cash from drug busts, indulging in bribes, and suppling his junkie informants with heroin straight from the department's seized drugs cache. 

He lives a flamboyant lifestyle with a too-nice-for-a-cop house, expensive wrist watches and fancy duds, which draws the attention of both his junkie brother and his unimpressed father, both of whom take note of lifestyle and disapprove. This family shame combined with the remorse he feels after he beats the snot out of one informant junkie to steal drugs for another junkie informant causes him to have a change of heart, he now feels that he needs to come clean. The opportunity to just that occurs when he is courted by the assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Cappalino (Norman Parker, Death By Invitation), who is out to bust corruption among the ranks of the SIU. With his own guilt chipping away at his conscious Danny agrees to work undercover for the Feds, but steadfastly refuses to turn on his partners; Gus (Jerry Orbach, The Sentinel), Dom (Kenny Marino, Death Wish 3), Joe (Richard Foronjy, Repo Man), and Bill (Don Billett, Ordinary People),

This is a cop flick gets into the cracked-psyche of a cop and his oath and loyalty to his brothers in blue; how they are almost lovers in how close they are to each other, and the idea of betraying your partners is an idea way beyond the pale. Danny works undercover for the feds wearing a wire over the course of several years, exposing the dozens of instances of illegal police activity and corruption among cops outside the SUI, politicians and businessmen, and he seems to get a thrill from it initially. However, when the higher-ups with the feds keep pushing him to turn on his partners he begins to crumble and is increasingly tormented by his choices, and things quickly begin to spiral out of control. I do like Treat Williams in this, from a cocksure crooked cop to a fidgety informant, at times I thought he was a bit too over-the-top, but it still works for me. 

Despite his initial demand that he not turn on his partners  his undercover actions eventually cause injury to those around him. His mob-connected cousin who saves his ass at one point, eventually gets thrown out with the trash, and more than one cop associate chooses to eat a bullet instead of turning into an informant and turning on his friends or facing an federal indictment for corruption. It's a film that was way ahead of it's time, things like this are still being explored on TV and on the big screen today, so I think this has probably aged quite well in that respect. 

I thought that I'd never seen Prince of the City before, but as I watched it certain scenes early on were familiar to me, so I am thinking that I caught this on TV when I was a younger and just never finished it, in the 80's I was not watching three-hours movies, it was more quantity over quality back then, haha. Which is not too surprising, at nearly three-hours long this is a true commitment to sit down and watch, but I am glad I finally did give it a watch, it's probably one of my favorite cop drama now. Treat Williams is terrific as the cop-turned-informant, the various stages of his moral collapse while he free falls down a rabbit hole of his own creation is absolutely fascinating, and well-acted. Again, the length of this cop-drama epic might be a bit of a put-off, so I won't blame you for splitting this up into two separate viewings, but definitely check it. If you're into cop dramas like TV's The Shield or films like Serpico and Donnie Brasco, I think you're gonna love this flick. 

Audio/Video: Prince of the City (1981) arrives on Region-free Blu-ray from warner Archive in 1080p HD and framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The images of NYC are shot by cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak (Death Trap) are grim, claustrophobic and depressing, the Blu-ray offers gritty visuals with a nice layer of film grain throughout. Colors are on the muted side but are well saturated and skin tones look natural, the urban landscapes look scummy and decayed, particularly a scene of Danny chasing a junkie through a crumbling neighborhood in the rain at night. Black levels are solid throughout as well, and the source is in great shape without dirt and debris. Also quite pleasing is the amount of fine detail in the close-ups of vintage period clothing and fabrics, the various well-groomed 70's era moustaches.

Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is crisp and clean and the two-channel sound design has some atmospheric moments like the sound of heavy downpour and a few of the more violent scenes. The score from Paul Chihara (Death Race 2000) has nice placement in the mix as well. 

No new extras on this release but WAC carry-over the 29-minute archival featurette Prince of the City: The Real Story with contributions from director Sidney Lumet, screenwriter Jay Presson Allen, author Robert Daley, production designer Tony Walton, actors Treat Williams, Bob Balaban, and Lance Henriksen, plus we get the 2-minute Theatrical Trailer for the film.  The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster artwork, which is also excerpted on the Blu-ray disc. .  

Special Features:

- Prince of the City: The Real Story (29 min) 

- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City (1981) is a terrific cop drama, a fascinating character study of a crooked cop turned informant who is broken down by the process and anguishes over his betrayal of his beloved partners. At nearly three hours long it's an epic-length watch, but it's an epic story that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves a good cop drama. 

Screenshots from the Warner Archive Blu-ray: 

THE SENTINEL (1977)

THE SENTINEL (1977) 

Label: Scream Factory

Release Date: September 22nd 2015 

Rating: R

Region Code: A

Duration: 92 Minutes 

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Michael Winner

Cast: Deborah Raffin, Beverly D'Angelo, Christopher Walken, Cristina Raines, Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, José Ferrer, Jerry Orbach, Eli Wallach. John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Martin Balsam, Arthur Kennedy, William Hickey, Tom Berenger

Young fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines, Nashville) is the mistress of a shady lawyer named Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon, Fright Night) whose wife just jumped from the fifty-ninth story of her apartment building under mysterious circumstances. He seems ready to settle in with Alison but she's looking for her own apartment, you get the feeling that maybe she might be having doubts about her taste in men, but he seems supportive of the idea. Realtor Miss Logan (legend Eva Gardner) shows her a gloomy Manhattan brownstone with a magnificent view of the ocean, the only other tenant seems to be a reclusive blind priest who lives on the third floor, the blind Father Holleran played by b-movie legend John Carradine (Seven Doors of Death). 

The ridiculously low rent-controlled price seems a bit too good to be true, but you have to strike while the iron is hot, so Alsion  moves in right away where she quickly encounters an eccentric old man named Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith, Burn Offerings) and his pet companions, a cat named Jezebel and a yellow canary named Mortimer. Later he introduces her to a few of the other eccentric neighbors, notably a pair of sinister lesbians played by Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy) and Beverly D'Angelo (the National Lampoon Vacation movies). In a very strange scene D'Angelo's character who furiously double-clicks her mouse, eyes rolling back in her head with delight, while Alison looks on in quiet horror, before dismissing herself. Now I cannot watch any of the Vacation movies with the thought of D'Angelo I think of her rubbing one out, she's also seen nude in several more disturbing sequences. 

Shortly after arriving at the brownstone Alison's father passes away, which causes her a great amount of psychic pain, including memories of walking in on her father in the act of a perverse threesome with a pair of whores when she was a teenager, the surreal scene ends with the young Alison opening up her wrists in the bathroom at the horror of the sinful sight. She now finds herself haunted by the apparition of her father who shows up inside her apartment one night, she attacks him with a kitchen knife slicing off his nose and stabbing his eye, with some gruesome special effects gore from legend Dick Smith (The Exorcist). This encounter ends with her  fleeing the apartment in only a night slip, screaming in the street, which lands her at the hospital under a suicide watch.  

Alison speaks with Miss Logan (Gardner) about her inability to sleep at nigh because of the noisy neighbors, particularly one who paces back and forth in the apartment above her own, causing the light fixtures to eerily swing back and forth. Miss Logan, to her surprise, kindly informs her that no one else lives in the apartment except for the priest, she even goes so far as to come back to the brownstone with Alison and show her the vacant apartments. Confused and shaken by the strange events Alison begins to deteriorate mentally, on a shoot for  new commercial she's off her game and faints, crashing through a pane of glass nearly ruining the shoot. 

In the background we have a few other stories happening, Alison's boyfriend Michael is being investigated by Det. Gatz (Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ) and Det. Rizzo (Christopher Walken, The Prophecy)  whom suspect his wife's suicide may have been staged, they hassle Michael and also draw parallels to the mental state of his current girlfriend Alison. To his credit Michael is not all bad, he seems to be the only one who believes that something is happening to Alison aside from a nervous breakdown, and he is the one who uncovers the conspiracy of the Catholic Church, though his fate does reveal a darker side to his nature, he is a lawyer after all. 

There's also a priest who seems to guide Alison back to the Church, her faith having lapsed years earlier, played by actor Arthur Kennedy, in a restrained but pivotal role. Something notable about the movie is what a fantastic cast of actors are present, so many familiar faces, aside from those mentioned previously we have appearances from Jeff Goldblum as a fashion photographer (The Fly), Jerry Orbach (Law and Order) as a commercial director, Martin Balsam (Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho), Deborah Raffin (God Told Me To) as Alison's best friend, Jose Ferrer (The Swarm), William Hickey (Christmas Vacation) as a cat burglar,  and if you're quick you might spot Tom Berenger (Major League) who shows up right at the end. 

Now The Sentinel is not a movie I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for, I didn't catch it until my early thirties, which is actually a lot longer back than I'd care to admit, but the point being that this '70s slice of supernatural cinema holds up without the benefit of having seen it in my youth, which is great. There's that strange seventies atmosphere and weirdness throughout it right up to that fantastic finale with her neighbor (a seething Burgess Meredith) leading the deformed minion of Hell against her, the demons are portrayed by actual circus freaks afflicted with deformity, it's unnerving stuff and brings to ind the Tod Browning classic Freaks.

The Sentinel is obviously Universal's exploitative stab at some of that fat Exorcist and Omen cash that was flowing freely through the cinemas at the time, the Italians weren't the only ones cashing in, but this does comes off more along the way of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond by way of Polanski's The Apartment, or maybe the Dan Curtis possession movie Burn Offerings, and none of that is bad, I loved it. Sure, the movies a little kitchsy and clunky, and the score is a bit of let down, but what a great cast to carry it through, it moves slower than a modern audience might appreciate but as someone who grew up in the '70s I have an appreciation for a supernatural slow-build with some truly frightening highlights, which this delivers time and time again. 

Audio/Video: Creepy classic The Sentinel 91977) arrives on Blu-ray for the first time from Scream Factory with a brand-new HD transfer from he interpositive and it looks surprisingly good with a fair bit of grain in the darker scenes and some minor print imperfection such as white speckling and scratches do show up from time to time,but all things considered this is a nice upgrade from the previous standard-def version. Colors are nice and skin tones are natural in appearance, not a lot of depth to the image but a fairly crisp presentation without any notable digital manipulation. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH subtitles, clean and crisp but that Gil Melle score is pretty bland stuff.

Onto he extras on the disc we should begin by noting that while this is not one of the Scream Factory Collector's Editions, so we don't get a ton of new stuff but they do manage to squeeze quite a lot onto the disc beginning with  a new video interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (director of Graveyard Shift (1990)) who speaks of breaking into the movie business working as a PA on the Captain America TV Pilot before becoming an assistant director for Michael Winner on the revenger Death Wish (1974)with Charles Bronson (White Buffalo) before joining him on the crew of this movie, he's very respectful of Winner whom he credits for helping launch his career. 

Unfortunately there aren't any other interviews but the disc is well-stuffed with audio commentaries, beginning with a somewhat candid one from actress Cristina Raines moderated by Sean Chains of the Hill Place Blog, here she reveals to having not ever watched the movie before, owing it to the awful experience she had onset with director Michael Winner, she goes out of her way not to be overly negative but it becomes clear she was not happy on-set and has a very low opinion of the man, at the end implying if she had to do it over again, she would not. 

The second commentary comes from writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz who wrote the novel the movie is based on and whom co-wrote the screenplay with director Michael Winner. The commentary is moderated by Nathaniel Thomspon of Mondo Digital, and Konvitz also comes across as not being a fan of the director and many of the casting and directorial choices he made. He speaks about writing the novel and the follow-up novels, which thus far have not been made into movies, but he holds out hope that since the remake rights for the movie have been optioned something will happen shortly, including writing a new entry in the series. 

Director Michael Winner offers a solo commentary and it's a bit on the dry side with a lot of talk about his career and more of an observational commentary, it was the driest of the three options and the one that put me to sleep. I would have appreciated more of an informed fan commentary to be honest, someone from the outside with a more horror-nerd perspective that from he inside, this must not have been an easy set to work on, at least that's what I gathered from the commentaries.

Extras are finished-up with a a scratchy full frame theatrical trailers, an assortment of TV spots and three still galleries featuring movie stills, lobby cards and posters, plus black and white press photos. Unfortunately no new video interviews with stars Christina Raines, Chris Sarandon or Beverly D'Angelo, the latter of whom I would have loved to hear discuss her infamous masturbation scene!

Special Features:

- NEW 2015 High Definition transfer of the film from interpositive!
- NEW Audio Commentary by actress Cristina Raines
- NEW Audio Commentary with writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz
- NEW Interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (24 Mins) HD
- Audio Commentary with director Michael Winner
- Theatrical Trailer (3 Mins) 

- TV Spots (3 Mins)
- Movie Stills Galleries (3 Mins) 

- Black and White Press Photo Gallery (3 Mins) 

- Lobby Cards and Posters Still Gallery (3 Mins)

The Sentinel is truly one of my favorite supernatural slices of cinema, for those of you who haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check out this cult-classic now. This is a movie I've been wanting on Blu-ray since the format emerged and Scream Factory have done a nice job with the HD presentation, highly recommend for fans of supernatural '70s cinema. 3.5/5