What The Library of America is doing for our finest books-publishing immaculately edited definitive editions-Home Vision Cinema is doing on videocassette for some of the greatest international films.
Consider Home Vision Cinema`s 40th-anniversary edition of that classic French nail-biter, Henri-Georges Clouzot`s ”The Wages of Fear.”
Back in the 1950s, the decade when international film came of age, Clouzot`s suspenseful tale played the art-house circuit in what turned out to be a veritable Reader`s Digest 105-minute version.
Perusers of serious cinema magazines were teased-no, tormented-to learn that more than 40 minutes had been cut from the movie.
While texts have a way of turning up in attics and cellars and rummage sales, making The Library of America`s work a bit easier, trimmed film footage often disappears forever, such as the more than 40 minutes cut from Orson Welles` adaptation of ”The Magnificent Ambersons.”
But the sleuths working on behalf of the Chicago-based Home Vision Cinema and their partners, Janus Films and Voyager-Criterion, have a knack for finding missing footage and pristine prints.
Laser disc collectors will recognize Criterion as the company that puts out superb discs, often with supplementary material (outtakes, stills, critical interpretations, historical background), of American and foreign films.
The opening of ”The Wages of Fear” bears the Criterion label. And the restored version that follows, with new and easy-to-read English subtitles and a running time of 148 minutes, looks as if it were made just this year and released just last week (Home Vision Cinema, $39.95).
The black-and-white cinematography has a radiance that illuminates Las Piedras, the Latin American hellhole from which there is no exit. When an American-owned oil well catches fire, four desperate would-be escapees hire themselves out to bomb the blaze, which means driving two truckloads of explosive nitroglycerin over terrain that would make the infamous Burma Road look like I-80. Yves Montand heads the memorable quartet of down-and-outers.
Two aspects of the movie exemplify the decade`s best films: black-and-white photography and subtitles. At a time when everything on screen or video is in color, except for the occasional Woody Allen and parts of the
”film noir,” black-and-white still seems the proper palette to examine the human condition.
Back in the 1950s, black-and-white meant serious. Technicolor meant an entirely different kind of classic, such as ”Singin` in the Rain” or ”The Quiet Man.”
Did Sam Peckinpah see ”The Wages of Fear”? Bet your paycheck on it.
”Wages” begin with a close-up of three insects tied with string. The string is pulled by a little boy. Remember how Sam`s ”The Wild Bunch”
begins? Innocent-looking laughing children watch red ants swarming over scorpions. In Technicolor, but a black-and-white universe.
On the matter of influence, Alfred Hitchcock must have seen Clouzot`s 1955 thriller, ”Diabolique” (Home Vision Cinema, $39.95), because almost every critic who gave the film high praise invoked Hitch`s name.
Hitchcock figured he could make a low-budget black-and-white shocker better than anyone this side of Henri. For those who have been residing on the dark side of the moon, the shocker was ”Psycho” (1960), which made Hitch a millionaire but turned out to be an aesthetic albatross. The turkey that followed ”Psycho” was ”The Birds” (1963).
Meanwhile, ”Diabolique,” in this restored version with new subtitles, focuses on the deliciously perverse universe of a tormented wife and mistress co-plotting the murder of the husband/lover. It`s in sinister black-and-white, with more twists than a box of hairpins.
The Hitchcock connection continues with Michael Powell`s ”Peeping Tom”
(Home Vision Cinema, $39.95). While a former Brit, Hitch, was making his most famous film, ”Psycho,” Powell of ”The Red Shoes” was making his version of a psycho back home. Result? Big bucks, as noted, for Hitch, artistic ruin for Powell.
French film fans will glory in the Jean Renoir landmark ”Grand Illusion” (Home Vision Cinema, $29.95). And those who prefer their French fare on the arty side should be pleased by Jean Cocteau`s ”Blood of a Poet” and ”Testament of Orpheus” (Home Vision Cinema, $29.95 each).
The more recent ”Testament” (the release date varies from 1959, the year mentioned in the film itself, to 1960, the year listed on the cassette package) looks as fine as one expects from Home Vision Cinema`s lofty technical standards. But the earlier ”Blood of a Poet” (1930) begins with a two-line subtitle, and the bottom line on the video I watched was almost lopped off. The visuals that follow are not comparable to those of any of the Home Vision videos I saw.
Considering the company`s consistent high standards, I assume the original is the best print it could track down. Mind you, the picture is such a bizarre ”trip” that I didn`t much mind. Or care.
Just in its second year of releasing videocassettes, Home Vision Cinema has a plan comparable to that of The Library of America: releasing all the great international films, restored to their original beauty, with wide-screen ratios and running times.
Home Vision`s director of marketing, Jeff McGuire recounted the company`s convoluted chronicle. ”Our parent company, Public Media Inc., through our sister division Films Incorporated, has a long history of involvement in feature films. We distribute to the institutional marketplace-schools, libraries, art-house theaters, cruise ships, you name it.”
And, recalled Charles Benton, Home Vision`s CEO, Films Incorporated was founded in 1928, back when the new medium was 16 millimeter.
McGuire further explained the partnership that evolved with Janus. The company, he said, ”which has probably the most extensive collection of classic foreign films, was looking to make a move into the home video area. What we`ve done is form a joint venture with Janus: That was the genesis of Home Vision Cinema.
”Janus is a part-owner of Voyager-Criterion, which produces some of the finest laser discs in the world. Criterion does a lot of the technical work when we get involved in extreme restoration on these films.”
Home Vision`s initial launch last year included 10 titles. The present schedule is about three releases a month, all of which you`ll find at your favorite TLA or Video Library. And if you want to own these great films, you can do so by calling the toll-free number 1-800-262-8600.
