“The Douglas Sirk Collection” (Kino Classics Blu-ray)
When cineastes turn to Nazi Germany, thoughts run to directors fleeing to Hollywood at their first chance and propaganda spectacles by filmmakers who stayed on. The truth was a bit more complicated. With nary a swastika in sight, Danish-born Detlev Sierck made films for four years under the Nazis before finally emigrating. Both of his 1937 German films on this Blu-ray set, To New Shores and La Habanera, were well-furnished costume comedies-tragedies starring Sweden’s Zara Leander, the glamorous leading lady of German cinema in the Hitler era. The music, sets and screenplays are indistinguishable from what Hollywood studios were producing at the same time. After arriving in Hollywood, the director changed his name to Douglas Sirk and eventually became known for such grand melodramas as Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows. (David Luhrssen)
Heartworn Highways (Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
Some of the artists heard on Heartworn Highways (1976) were called folksingers or singer-songwriters; others were tagged as country, country-rock, Southern rock or outlaw country. Nowadays their homespun music with its audible roots in the South would be accommodated under the big tent of Americana. Director Jim Szalapski (1945-2000) was a fan of the musicians he recorded for his documentary, including Guy Clark, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. The film is a leisurely stroll through studio sessions, bar rooms and David Allan Coe’s show at a Tennessee prison. Cult favorite Townes Van Zandt is seen wandering the farmyard of his trailer home, raising chickens and swigging from a whiskey bottle on one and a Coke can on the other. Heartworn Highways Revisited (2017) has also been issued on Blu-ray. (David Luhrssen)
The Night of the Following Day (Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
A young, kidnapped girl (a millionaire’s daughter) is given assurance: “We are professional criminals. We won’t hurt you if the ransom is paid.” But nothing works out according to plan in this 1969 drama. Marlon Brando stars as the murmuring conscience of the criminal gang whose conflicts break to the surface as the hours go by. Director Herbert Cornfield maintains a melancholy tone matching the rainy, autumnal French landscape. Tension gradually mounts—along with the fatalistic sense that everyone is doomed. (David Luhrssen)
