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When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr’s sideshow sharpshooting act, he’s a dead-bang goner. He and she go together, as Bart ultimately says, “like guns and ammunition.” The two become bank robbers on the run, eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller, selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star, meeting in a sexually charged carny shooting contest and soon driven by impulses of violence and arousal they don’t fully understand. They’re young, foolish, doomed – and point blank in Gun Crazy’s unforgiving sights.

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Newly Mastered in HD! The great Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy, My Name is Julia Ross) directed this classic Monogram horror film about a man who unknowingly carries out a series of grisly murders while under the power of his insane and domineering wife (Betty Compson, The Docks of New York). Horror legend Bela Lugosi (Dracula, Chandu the Magician) stars in this dark Jekyll & Hyde tale as a kindly doctor whose thought-to-be-dead wife hypnotizes him, turning him into an unwitting homicidal killer. This was the first and the best of nine Monogram Pictures made by producer Sam Katzman (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, It Came from Beneath the Sea) co-starring Polly Ann Young (The Man From Utah) and Clarence Muse (The Black Stallion).

Description

After a promising start on Poverty Row quickies, Joseph H. Lewis (The Big Combo) made his first film at Columbia and established himself as a director to watch with this Gothic-tinged Hitchcockian breakout hit, which later proved so popular that Columbia promoted it to A-feature status. The morning after Julia Ross (Nina Foch, Executive Suite) takes a job in London as secretary to wealthy widow Mrs Williamson Hughes (Dame May Whitty, The Lady Vanishes), she wakes up in a windswept Cornish mansion, having been drugged. Mrs Hughes and her volatile son, Ralph (George Macready, Gilda), attempt to gaslight Julia into believing she is Ralph’s wife, Marion. Her belongings have been destroyed, the windows barred and the locals believe that she is mad. Will Julia be able to escape before she falls prey to the Hughes’ sinister charade? And what happened to the real Marion Hughes? A briskly paced and brilliantly stylised mystery that grabs its audience from the start, My Name Is Julia Ross immediately cemented Lewis’ place in the noir pantheon, and anticipated the elaborate identity-based deceptions found in future classic thrillers like Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Brian De Palma’s Obsession. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original uncompressed mono PCM audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Commentary by noir expert Alan K. Rode Identity Crisis: Joseph H. Lewis at Columbia - The Nitrate Diva (Nora Fiore) provides the background and an analysis of the film Theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by author and critic Adrian Martin

Description

Like his contemporaries Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder, Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy) dabbled in many genres, but excelled in the film noir tradition. A Hitchcockian tale of mystery and intrigue, So Dark the Night was one of his finest pictures. Inspector Cassin, a renowned Paris detective, departs to the country for a much-needed break. There he falls in love with the innkeeper’s daughter, Nanette, who is already betrothed to a local farmer. On the evening of their engagement party, Nanette and the farmer both disappear. Cassin takes up the case immediately to discover what happened to them and who is responsible. As with his celebrated noir masterpieces My Name Is Julia Ross and The Big Combo, Lewis elevates the twisty, pulpy material with some of the finest noir touches the genre has to offer, beautifully shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Burnett Guffey (Bonnie and Clyde). SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original uncompressed mono PCM audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Audio Commentary by critics Glenn Kenny and Farran Smith Nehme So Dark... Joseph H. Lewis at Columbia - Critic Imogen Sara Smith provides the background and an analysis of the film Theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tonci Zonjic FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic David Cairns

Description

DISC ONE: MURDERS IN THE ZOO NEW Audio Commentary With Author/Film Historian Greg Mank Still Gallery DISC TWO: MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET Theatrical Trailer Still Gallery DISC THREE: THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX NEW Gloriously Wicked: The Life And Legacy Of Lionel Atwill Featurette Still Gallery DISC FOUR: THE MAD GHOUL NEW Audio Commentary By Film Historian Thomas Reeder Still Gallery