n The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun
Whenever a French director shoots a thriller, someone shouts “Hitchcock!” In Joann Sfar’s stylish film, the reference might be Psycho as a seemingly responsible secretary steals her boss’s Thunderbird and races into adventure. But instead of encountering a psycho along the way, she could be undergoing a psychotic breakdown, a fracturing of her personality—unless the reference is to Vertigo’s incredibly convoluted murder scheme. Truly suspenseful, The Lady keeps us wondering what will come next.
n The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Italy produced many modestly budgeted horror films in the 1970s and among the most interesting is this minor gem from director Francesco Barilli. Protagonist Silvia is a young woman gradually unsettled by an accumulation of uncanny details: strange sounds, reflections of things that aren’t there, suspicious faces. Are these hallucinations, ghosts, repressed memories or the actions of a sinister cabal? The Perfume of the Lady in Black is all the more disturbing for being low key.
n Panic in the Year Zero!
Ray Milland plays a father driving his family to a fishing vacation when he notices blinding white light in the rear view mirror. And then a mushroom cloud rises over Los Angeles. Milland directed this 1962 nuclear war thriller on the bomb’s immediate aftermath, which includes price gauging, looting, murder and distrust all around. Making their way to the mountain, the family encounters vigilantes and that staple of the era’s B movies—homicidal beatniks. Frankie Avalon costars.
n “Hogan’s Heroes: The Complete Series”
By the time of “Hogan’s Heroes” (1965-1971), enough time had passed for World War II to seem funny. A smarmy looking Bob Crane starred as Col. Hogan, a resourceful POW fighting the Nazis from right under their noses. The slapstick reduced the Germans to buffoonery, especially with the cooperative Sgt. “I know nothing” Schultz (John Banner) and the hapless Col. Klink (Emmy-winning Werner Klemperer). “The Complete Series” includes all 168 episodes plus special features.
