Extras Disc One:

• Commentary with director Richard Fleischer and historian Rudy Behlmer
  
• Donald Duck cartoon "Grand Canyonscope" (6:51), non-anamorphic
  
• Register your DVD for disc replacement and e-mail offers
  
• Trailers for THE LION KING, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, FINDING NEMO, X-MEN: THE LEGEND OF WOLVERINE, and ATLANTIS: MILO'S RETURN
  

Extras Disc Two:

20000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA was a very important film in the history of the Disney studio. It was the first live action feature to come out of a studio heretofore associated with cartoons (though in collaboration with the Brits Disney had released ROB ROY, TREASURE ISLAND, and ROBIN HOOD). The film cost a lot of money for the time (four million, if you can believe that now-low figure causing ulcers in Hollywood). And Disney was doing a lot at that time: starting Disneyland, and commencing a weekly TV show.

So for his first foray into the land of the big boys, Disney selected as director for LEAGUES — Richard Fleischer, the son of his old animation rival, Max Fleischer, who did the much more sophisticated POPEYE and BETTY BOOP cartoons.

Fleischer had directed a movie with the difficult Bobby Driscoll, and that was enough for Disney to think he could handle a Disney film. With his father's imprimatur, he dove into making the costly, unwieldy epic based on Verne's novel.

The film proved to be a hit and laid the groundwork for the rest of the Disney empire, the studio chief also employing "synergy" to promote the movie on his TV show with exclusive material that then made the show a must see. Unfortunately, the film that resulted is a fairly tedious event, "studio" driven, and with varying and clashing levels of acting style, from Peter Lorre's glum observer to Kirk Douglas's mugging he-man.

The making of the film is more exciting than the result, and the CINEFANTASTIQUE ran a massive article about the film's production history in its May 1984 issue. Meanwhile, Richard Fleischer also wrote about LEAGUES and the difficulties of working for his dad's rival and with Douglas (and almost killing James Mason) in his charming autobiography JUST TELL ME WHEN TO CRY. Much of what he says in the book is repeated in the audio commentary track, at the prompting of interviewer Rudy Behlmer, but not the critical response to the film, which Fleischer notes compelled one British reviewer to say, "The most surprising thing about this Disney film is how unexciting it is." You can't win them all, notes Fleischer.

Barring the extensive research conduced by CINEFANTASTIQUE's writers Joel Frazier and Harry Hathorne, Buena Vista's two disc set gives you a fair account of the film's making and legacy (though I strongly recommend the article to interested readers, as it goes into a lot of detail that disc documentaries don't do well).

The most significant inclusion on the disc is material from a dropped version of the squid attack, set on a calm ocean before a vivid sunset. According to Fleischer, Disney came up to him and said the sequence was a joke, and suggested that he concentrate on the dramatic scenes for a few weeks while they rethought the elements. The addition of water and storm to the sequence added a great deal to the budget (there were fears that the studio would go under if the film flopped), but in any case, Fleischer keep the production going and the sequence works as well now as anything else in the film.

With its wealth of little docs, its parade of call sheets, budget spreadsheets and sketches, and even an obsessive LEAGUES collector or two, the disc is a triumph of distracting material. It makes you wonder what billions and billions of art artifacts are housed in the Disney archives, never having seen the light of day. Disney films were made for DVD, as this film shows, because unlike the other studios, Disney was wise enough to save all that stuff carefully. I would say that that's Disney's real legacy — an archivist's respect for the art form he was working it.

Saddleworld

DANCES WITH WOLVES

Original Movie:

• Theatrical premiere: 9 November, 1990
  
• 183 minutes
  
• PG-13
  
• Tig Films/Orion
  
• Directed by Kevin Costner
  
• Credited Writers: Michael Blake
  
• Cast: Kevin Costner (Lieutenant John G. Dunbar/Dances with Wolves), Mary McDonnell (Stands With a Fist/Christine), Graham Greene (Kicking Bird), Rodney A. Grant (Wind in His Hair), Floyd Red Crow Westerman (Ten Bears), Charles Rocket (Lieutenant Elgin) Maury Chaykin (Major Fambrough), Wes Studi (Toughest Pawnee Michael Horton (Captain Cargill)
  
• Cinematography: Dean Semler
  
• Editing: William Hoy, Chip Masamitsu, Stephen Potter, Neil Travis
  
• Significant music: John Barry
  
• Awards: Twelve Oscar noms with seven wins, including best picture; wins from 21 other festivals or award giving bodies
  
• Budget: $15 million
  
• World wide box office returns: $424.2 million

Plot in one sentence: A soldier ravaged by the Civil War finds a form of solace in the prairie, where he becomes integrated into the life of the Sioux.

Disc Stats:

Extras Disc One:

• Director and producer commentary
  
• Cinematographer and editor commentary
  
• Original making of featurette (20:56)
  
• Music video (3:51)
  

Extras Disc Two:

One of the things I like to rail against whenever I have a public platform is deleted scenes.

In almost every case I can think of, the deleted scenes found on a DVD actually contribute to the film, and help it make more sense. I'm not talking about those confused movies like SWIMFAN or JOYRIDE in which the deleted scenes comprise whole new endings. I mean good old well-conceived scenes that make sense. The reason such moments are usually taken out has to do with running times, and running times have to do with movie theaters, and movie theaters have to do with ticket sales per day and popcorn consumption. It's about turnover. Theater operators tend to dislike long movies. Movie makers comply with this commercial desire by trimming the "fat" off their movies when release time comes.

Fine. Great. I'm all for that. But now that we have DVD technology, why not go ahead and reintegrate the lost footage back into the film proper? Running times don't have the urgency at home that they do in the theaters, and hardly anyone watches a movie on television without constant interruptions. We watch films differently at home and the pace of the tube is much different. We can tolerate a lackadaisical running time (if that is the "problem" that led to the deletions). Just look at all those damn TV movies.

Yes, some purists will prefer the film on the disc to be the same one that appeared in the theater. All I can say to that is "Orson Welles." In any case, there is usually enough room on a disc for different versions, and if the viewer wants to see the R version, or the unrated version, or the full frame version, he can just flip it over. Give us all the options. The studios can do it. Further additions don't cost that much more, since you're making the disc anyway. Re-integrating the deleted scenes back into the film as a whole is an option that spares at least some viewers from the tedium watching them piecemeal.

Which brings us to DANCES WITH WOLVES. This is a good film made better by having all of its deleted scenes put back in. Costner had done this already, for the TV broadcast, and here he recreates that event with better sound. The deleted scenes in many cases changed the whole tenor of a moment. The most famous, which other reviewers have also mentioned, is Dunbar's moment of isolation during an Indian celebration. What we now see is that his sense of alienation is born of what he witnessed the Indians doing, not the big buffalo slaughter the original version of the film showed. A few characters are added into the mix as well, including Michael Horton as Captain Cargill.

I've rarely seen so big a star fall as low as Costner seems to have. I trace it back to the moment in TRUTH OR DARE when Madonna fake-barfs after meeting the "boring" Costner backstage. His career was over, though he didn't really have to star in A PERFECT WORLD, WYATT EARP, THE WAR, WATERWORLD, THE POSTMAN, MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME, 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND, or THIRTEEN DAYS.

It is to be hoped, I suppose, by Costner and his handlers, that the DVD release will raise his standing in the film fan world. It should, really. It’s a damn fine film. The supplementary material help to isolate why. Costner and producer / Jim Wilson talk at length on the commentary track how they managed to hew to their vision despite numerous impediments, including what is now considered a minuscule budget, $15 million. Oh, and by the way, here is another diatribe. Why does the iMDB include every single thing that a star does, from a one-sentence appearance in a documentary about a director to their one off walk-on on ALL-AMERICAN GIRL? Could they please start including commentary tracks in their list of stars and directors' credits? It would be interesting to know how many yack tracks some people have done (Frankenheimer) and how few if any others have committed (Spielberg). Is this Costner's first commentary track? He sounds like a pro. But to research that would require hours, and I would just end up asking someone anyway. It's always helpful to know when some celebrity is doing their very first commentary track. IMDB could either integrate the track commentary credit into the general list of their total credits, or create a new category in the left screen column of icon links. As you can see, I'm always for including everything.

Anyway, the rest of the material on this supplement rich disc is good, too, especially the track by DP Dean Semler and editor Neil Travis— it's highly informative if for no other reason than that the movie is so long they have to come up with a lot of stuff to say. For completion's sake, the first disc also includes the original making of featurette and the music video, which is more like a faux video.

The extras continue on disc two with a lengthy making of that goes into a surprisingly amount of detail, partially because the makers still want to honor the people the film is about. There is also a photo montage of the film's stills, introduced by the set photographer, a skimpy poster gallery (four images), two TV spots, and the theatrical trailer.

Corpuscleworld

THRONE OF BLOOD

Original Movie:

• Theatrical premiere: 15 January, 1957
  
• 105 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Toho Company, Ltd.
  
• Directed by Akira Kurosawa
  
• Credited Writers: Shinobu Hashimoto Ryuzo Kikushima Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni from MACBETH by William Shakespeare
  
• Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Taketori Washizu), Isuzu Yamada (Lady Asaji Washizu), Takashi Shimura (Noriyasu Odagura), Akira Kubo (Yoshiteru Miki)
  
• Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai
  
• Editing: Akira Kurosawa
  
• Significant music: Masaru Sato
  
• Awards: Golden Lion nomination
  
• Budget: NA
  
• Stated initial box office returns: NA

Plot in one sentence: A recasting of MACBETH in a samurai setting.

Disc Stats:

Extras:

• Commentary track with Michael Jeck
  
• Theatrical trailer
  
• Choice of two subtitle tracks, one by Donald Richie, the other by Linda Hoaglund
  
• Twenty-two page booklet with an essay by Stephen Prince, translation notes by Richie and Hoaglund, transfer info, DVD credits, cast and crew, and chapter titles
  

Every Kurosawa film has one key image. It's almost as if the great director were also an intuitive publicist, able to come up with one shot that defines, summarizes, and creates excitement for his films. In STRAY DOG it's the two guys in the mud, looking indistinguishable from each other. In SANJURO it's the big blast of blood spurting out of a guy. And in THRONE OF BLOOD it's the arrows tormenting the Macbeth figure as he tries to flee, his men finally turning on him.

THRONE OF BLOOD, as it's called here, is minor Kurosawa (he seems almost always to be "minor" when he is adapting works from great literature his tales of existential humanism), but minor Kurosawa is many times better than most directors' best. It's a fairly accurate account of the play, without the dialogue of course, and also stripping down the already lean play even more. It's interesting without being engaging, and you watch the film for the firm command of style rather than the content. Surely that was not Kurosawa's point.

The film was made during a time of transition for Kurosawa. He was reducing the role of some of his actors, he had a new composer, and there were other changes. As a craftsman, he was at the top of his form, but you see harbingers of the disastrous '70s and '80s in root form here, such as the assumption that you know the material and AK so well that he doesn't have to flesh out the story. His films got longer and thinner the more he worked. Still, he is a visual master, and you can see the subtlety of his editing here, as he frequently cuts on a movement or a look (go to 15:31 for an example), paradoxically hiding his visually flair, something you don't often assume about Kurosawa.

It's great to catch up with THRONE OF BLOOD anyway, if for no other reason than the fantastic audio track on the disc. Michael Jeck did the track for SEVEN SAMURAI, and this one is comparable. He does everything right. He points out important elements of the visuals, but also knows the production history. He knows the source play and the film. Most of all he comes prepared, unlike the yackers on a lot of tracks I've been hearing lately. His monologue is matched perfectly to what you are seeing.

Among the many things you learn about the film is some of its character's movements being rooted in Noh theater, and the differences between the source play and the film (Jeck points out how often Kurosawa improves on the play so that the time frame makes sense and Macbeth has better motivation). The most shocking thing is that Jeck mentions in passing that he has seen a snuff film. When the subject of seppuku, or hari-kiri comes up, Jeck casually mentions details about how it's done which he learned from seeing footage of the ritual enacted. The only confusion I had was at the one hour mark when Jeck points out some sightline and eyeline angles that are suppose to be all wrong, but which looked OK to me. Granted, I often mix up my left and my right, especially under pressure, but for the life of me, the character looks like he is looking to the right, as he is suppose to be, not left as Jeck says he is. But I'm just speculating on a hypothesis, I know I don't know nothing. Jeck is well spoken, if a little theatrical, throughout this excellent track, and he has a gift for the well-turned phrase, such as the "critic or two with a lust for symbolism" he mentions at 22:19.

The rest of the supplements are meager. There's the theatrical trailer, and a choice of two subtitle tracks, one by Donald Richie, which is more along the lines of Shakespearean language, and the other one straightforward, by Linda Hoaglund. There's also a 22-page booklet with an essay by Kurosawa expert Stephen Prince, translation notes by Richie and Hoaglund, transfer info, DVD credits, cast and crew, and chapter titles. What doesn’t receive explanation is why Criterion chose such bad color schemes for its menus here. The red letters on a black background are very difficult to read.

Babe Watch

FRASIER: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON

Original Movie:

• First broadcast: 16 September, 1993, through 19 May 1994
  
• NR
  
• Grub Street Productions Films/Paramount Television
  
• Directed by Andy Ackerman, James Burrows, among others
  
• Credited Writers: creator David Angell, among others
  
• Cast: Kelsey Grammer (Dr. Frasier Winslow Crane), Jane Leeves (Daphne Moon), David Hyde Pierce (Dr. Niles Crane), Peri Gilpin (Rozalinda 'Roz' Doyle), John Mahoney (Martin 'Marty' Crane), Dan Butler (Robert 'Bulldog' Briscoe), Bebe Neuwirth (Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane)
  
• Cinematography: Christian Charles, Mark Plumber, Gary Streiner
  
• Editing: Chris Franklin
  
• Significant music: Bruce Miller, plus the song "Scrambled Eggs," performed by Kelsey Grammer
  
• Awards: Several nominations, plus several Emmy wins
  
• Budget: NA
  
• Stated revenues: NA

Plot in one sentence: The foibles of a Seattle radio call-in shrink are examined.

Disc Stats:

Extras:

• Peter Casey and David Lee commentary on pilot episode
  
• "Behind the Couch: The Making of FRASIER" (20:54)
  
• "Frasier Crane's Apartment," 13 short segments with set designer Roy Christopher
  
• "Celebrity Voices" one anthology per disc of segments isolating the mystery callers
  

FRASIER, the multi-Emmy winning show now in its 10th season, is roundly hailed for its wit, its unusual characters, and its non-standard story structures. With the passing of SEINFELD, the series now holds the crown as the funniest show on network TV. Is Fox a network? If so, THE SIMPSONS is up there too, of course, while most other shows use the laugh track to remind you that you are watching what can only loosely be defined as a "comedy" (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, for example, should be re-titled EVERYBODY'S FUNNY BUT RAYMOND).

Fans claim to enjoy the aperçus, the badinage, the sophistication of Frasier and Niles's tastes, but we know what people really like about the show. It's the girls. Never has one nerd ever been surrounded by so many luscious females. Right from the get-go, from the doe-eyed, cartoon faced Jane Leeves (quite an advance from her cameo as a lesbian gal-toy in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) and the vivaciously predatory Peri Gilpin (in a role that almost went to Lisa Kudrow), the show announced that it was going to be a babe fest.

And the series has up held its promise. In the first season alone, the program sported cameos by Amanda Donohoe, Ken Russell's guardian of the lair of the white worm, as a distraught woman dropped by her boyfriend on the advice of Frasier (episode seven), whose leather clad presence and forthright manner cause the fussy Frasier to drop his dishes.

The first season also featured Claire Stansfield, the British-Canadian beauty who was the most striking thing about DROP ZONE. She played a fashion model who "buys" Frasier at a celebrity auction then turns out to be, in his misperceiving eyes, a bad mother (episode 14).

There are gorgeous dames scattered all through this show, from the blonde at the Shiva in episode 11 (Shawn Huff) who asks Frasier for a date, to the unnamed extra sitting in the foreground at the Café Nervosa as the camera pans right to follow Frasier and Niles as they walk from the bar to a table. Not since BAYWATCH has a show been so filled with fine female flesh. But in that FRASIER's women are all intimidatingly elegant and intelligent, they are even more impossible as love objects.

They also tend to be British, if the first season is anything to go by. Both Donohoe and Stansfield are UK raised women who ordinarily speak with accents. Someone on this show really digs British women. Either that, or there is a firm belief within the show's creators that only British women can match the sophistication and wit of Frasier.

In any case, that's what you do. You struggle and write and produce and get a foothold on power so that you can cast your show with every beautiful woman you've ever wanted to meet, seek out every rising actress who made a big impression on you in some obscure action film and stick 'em in your show because, as Paul Thomas Anderson will tell you, to be a success in Hollywood, you've got to know actors and actresses.

Surprisingly, FRASIER has other pleasures to offer. The series is unusual in that the scenes tend to go on longer than in the usual quick-paced sit-com, and often don't end with a laugh. Some scenes are implied rather than shown. And Frasier is, in a sense, the least important character in the show. He's the hub around which a flock of eccentrics float, and his function is to have his pretensions deflated. Season one finds the show in its "pure" state, before the marriages and soap opera elements that gradually took over, and if one sole person's testimony is of any weight I can say that I laughed out loud more often re-watching these 24 episodes than I have at a year's worth of movies.

This four-disc set has an undistracting amount of supplements. The pilot bears an audio commentary track by the two producer-writers Peter Casey and David Lee, in which they reveal some of the strategies of the show, such as using inter-titles to accelerate exposition, no exterior shots to establish locales, and no "goofy" music between scenes.

Also available, on the fourth disc, is "Behind the Couch: The Making of FRASIER," a 20-minute making-of featurette that covers some of the same group as the yack track but with comments by the cast. That's followed by "Frasier Crane's Apartment," which consists of 13 short segments about the stuff Frasier lives with (though the big art book Ljuba that always sits in the bookcase is not explained). This is a slightly annoying supplement because all the segments are short, but there is no play all feature so it takes longer to get to this information than if it was a stand-alone feature.

Finally, each disc has an anthology of "Celebrity Voices," excerpts from the show wherein Frasier's callers share their problems. These people aren't much of a mystery, as they are always listed in the credits.

The New Ugly

JUBILEE

Original Movie:

• Theatrical premiere: 1977
  
• 100 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Megalovision
  
• Directed by Derek Jarman
  
• Credited Writers: Derek Jarman, with lots of improv
  
• Cast: Jenny Runacre (Queen Elizabeth I and Bod), Little Nell (Crabs), Wayne County (Lounge Lizard), Adam Ant (Kid), Siouxsie Sioux
  
• Cinematography: Peter Middleton
  
• Editing: Nick Barnard
  
• Significant music: Adam Ant, Brian Eno, Suzi Pinns
  
• Awards: none
  
• Budget: NA
  
• Stated initial box office returns: NA

Plot in one sentence: Punks set out to disrupt British society.

Disc Stats:

Extras:

• "JUBILEE: A Time Less Golden" (37:36)
  
• Theatrical trailer (3:06)
  
• Gallery of ephemera: Jordan's dance (4:45), the script (124 screens), costume sketches (24), black and white continuity stills (142 screens), Jarman's scrapbook (153 screens)
  
• Eight page insert with an essay by Tony Peake, transfer info, DVD credits, cast and crew, and chapter titles
  

Any last vestiges of nostalgia for the punk era will be thoroughly eradicated by JUBILEE, the British celebration of the punk ethos released in 1977. It was the second feature film by painter turned designer turned filmmaker Derek Jarman, who died of AIDS in 1994. It's an ugly film. It may be the ugliest film ever made. But then, as Elaine said on SEINFELD, ugly is the new sexy.

It's ugliness isn’t just visual, although that’s a large part of it. The narrative is also ugly. Outside of the context of British youth "depressed" over the direction of the country, the film now remains a celebration of vandalism. That the fashions and manners of the cast of JUBILEE can still be seen occasionally on the streets of the city is testimony to a bankrupt culture that can't come up with an alternative, or naturally evolve into another "movement" that gives the disaffected a forum for vocalizing their new ideas.

JUBILEE is framed by barely comprehensible bookends in which Queen Elizabeth (the normally sexy Jenny Runacre) is shown the despair-inducing future of Britain. Runacre pops up again in this "modern" Britain as the leader of a gang of violent girls (I think). This is a world in which parts of the country have been declared a gay- and black-free zone, and where Buckingham Palace has been converted into a recording studio by a bald media impresario (I think). The film culminates in some riots and ends with Queen E turning away in disgust at what her country has become (I think).

JUBILEE is a cloistered tale that makes little in the way of gestures towards a wider audience. It's the premiere example of the coffee house movie, i.e., something made by a group of slackers just for themselves, with no interest in having the despised public in on their joke.

Jarman was the next in a line of late 20th century multi-media artists who liked to gather weirdos around him. Like Warhol, John Waters, and later Gus Van Sant, Jarman had a big old place where various elements of alternative culture gathered. Jarman started out making 8mm movies of his friends and lovers, then somehow managed to make a feature film about Saint Sebastian, all nude and all in Latin. It was probably pretty hard to not notice the punk movement, but Jarman was one of the first to exploit it cinematically (though to what ends the film is at pains not to disclose). But like other figures celebrated by youngsters as radical flouters of contemporary morality, artists such as David Lynch and Jack Kerouac, Jarman is surprisingly conservative in his views. It's hard to tell, of course, but Jarman's attitudes seem to be those of Queen E, a gross disappointment in the decline of the country into economic chaos and disrespect for royalty.

The supplementary elements on this disc go some way, though not all the way, toward making some of JUBILEE comprehensible. A 40-minute documentary, made for the disc, called "JUBILEE: A Time Less Golden," gives a good summary of what the filmmakers were up to, which included casting boys whom Jarman wanted to sleep with, which shows how much of a traditionalist he really was. The interviewees are much more entertaining in the doc than they are in the movie. There is also a gallery of ephemera Jarman saved from the production, including original 8mm footage of some scenes, images of the annotated and illustrated script, costume sketches and continuity stills, and pages form Jarman's extensive scrapbook about both the making of the film and its reception. None of this makes the film any less ugly however, nor understandable.

Finally there is an eight-page insert with an essay by Tony Peake that gives a good account of Jarman and his intentions with the film, transfer info, DVD credits, cast and crew, and chapter titles. There's also the unhelpful theatrical trailer.

Ne noir pas

QUAI DES ORFèVRES

Original Movie:

• Theatrical premiere: 1947
  
• 102 minutes
  
• NR
  
• Majestic Films
  
• Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
  
• Credited Writers: Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jean Ferry from the novel by Stanislas-André Steeman
  
• Cast: Suzy Delair (Marguerite Chauffornier Martineau, aka Jenny Lamour), Bernard Blier (Maurice Martineau), Louis Jouvet (Inspector Antoine), Simone Renant (Dora Monier)
  
• Cinematography: Armand Thirard
  
• Editing: Charles Bretoneiche
  
• Significant music: Francis Lopez
  
• Awards: Edgar for best foreign film Festival
  
• Budget: NA
  
• Stated initial box office returns: NA

Plot in one sentence: A hapless husband tries to protect his singer wife from implication in a murder.

Disc Stats:

Extras:

• Video interviews with Clouzot, Blier, Renant, and Selair, from a 1971 French television show (17:02)
  
• Theatrical trailer (3:29)
  
• Poster gallery (eight images)
  
• Eight page insert with an essay by Luc Sante, transfer info, DVD credits, cast and crew, chapter titles, and pin up of Suzy Delair in saucy gear
  

Another film I didn't understand was Henri-Georges Clouzot's third feature film, QUAI DES ORFèVRES, a police drama (the title, I learned, is the equivalent of Scotland Yard). Clouzot is the "French Hitchcock," but in fact their films are very different. I would say that Clouzot's are much less suspenseful and rely too much on elaborate narrative tricks. Also, his films tend to be existential exercises like WAGES OF FEAR than dramas of marriage and family. QUAI DES ORFèVRES is something more like Hitchcock, but not much.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed watching it. I just didn't understand it. Partially, this incomprehension is explained in Luc Sante's liner notes. He points out that Clouzot is less interested in the plot, derived from a Belgian thriller that he didn't even read until after the script was written, than in the milieu of music shops, disreputable photo studios, and backstage hijinks. It's noirish to the extent that there is a murder and a femme fatale. But other than that, the film is more like an American backstage comedy.

The plot such as it is concerns one Marguerite Chauffornier Martineau , a singer with the stage name Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair). She is married to her dull accompanist Maurice (Bernard Blier), but doesn't mind flirting with everyone else in the world, including the photographer downstairs, Dora (Simone Renant), a lesbian with the hots for Jenny. Dora has a sideline in shooting cheesecake photos for a rich hunchback also obsessed with Jenny. When the deformed man winds up dead, Maurice thinks Jenny did it, and Dora slavishly cleans up all the evidence. Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) is the cop on the scene trying to sort out all this confusion, and he has problems of his own.

Clouzot won the best director prize at the Venice Film Festival for this movie, probably because it placed character above car chases, but in my view that seems to be the problem. Entertaining as it can be, the film is unbalanced. The various elements don't have equal weight. Comparing the film to some of Fritz Lang's American adultery thrillers shows why. Lang embraced a stripped down narrative in which character was not lost in "characteristics."

But I'm sounding a little negative about the film and I don't mean to. The supplementary material is a great aid to such as I who seem to have a problem understanding movies these days. They include excepts from a French television show in which Clouzot and the cast were interviewed, the trailer, a slim poster gallery, and an eight page insert with an enormously helpful essay by Luc Sante.

DVD QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Punk has such an agenda about what was cool and what wasn't cool … The best thing we did on that was the outfits that the punk gang wear when they go out to murder Jane County or whoever it is, these weird random attacks they did in the film. We made them these uniforms out of green army jumpsuits, and we got pink rubber gloves and epaulettes and on the back we painted the slogan which were the last few lines from PSYCHO, you know, he wouldn't even harm a fly, and little photos of pornography we put in window pockets on the jumpsuit. I also had tampons hanging off them, and there was a fantastic moment where all the various actresses — Jordan, Jenny Runacre, Toyah, you know, the girls who were in the gang— they came to me and they said, 'We have a problem.' I said, 'OK, what is it?' 'We have a real problem with wearing Tampons on the uniform.' 'Oh, well take 'em off.' It's a shame, actually, because I thought it was kind of a powerful thing, an aggressive thing, and at that time punk fashion was all about confrontation." —John Maybury, production designer for JUBILEE, on working on the film.

NEXT TIME: DIE ANOTHER DAY, BITTER MOON, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, ABOUT SCHMIDT, and more!

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