British label Eureka Entertainment has announced that it will add three new titles to its Blu-ray catalog: Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954), Joshua Logan's Picnic (1955), and TV's Shoah: The Four Sisters (2018).
Also included with this announcement is a brand new promotional trailer for the 4K restoration of the Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy, which will be released on Blu-ray in December.
A startlingly dark, late film noir masterwork by director Fritz Lang, HUMAN DESIRE reunites Lang with his hero Glenn Ford and femme fatale Gloria Grahame from the previous year's THE BIG HEAT and the screenwriter of Lang's 1952 noir CLASH BY NIGHT, ALFRED HAYES. Like those two classics, HUMAN DESIRE finds Lang casting a pitiless eye on all of the human weaknesses that define film noir: deception, infidelity, passion, and murder.
Adapted from the same Émile Zola novel previously filmed by Jean Renoir in LA BÊTE HUMAINE (1938), Lang's gripping thriller has Ford as train engineer Jeff, just home from the Korean War. He's instantly attracted to passenger Vicki (Grahame), not yet realizing that she's the abused wife of Jeff's alcoholic railroad yard superior Carl (Broderick Crawford) -- or that Vicki was just entangled in a jealousy-fuelled murder committed by Carl. As Jeff and Vicki embark on a steamy affair, she tells him about the crime, and Carl's blackmail hold on her. If only Carl could be taken out of the picture…
The only thing that's not pitch black in this noir are the ethical shades of grey inhabited by all its characters. Yet its placid small town setting also offers a unique perspective on the genre, with Lang uncovering sinister secrets on these quiet streets that could rival any big city immorality.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
1080p presentation on Blu-ray
LPCM Mono audio
Optional English SDH subtitles
A new and exclusive interview with film historian Tony Rayns
PLUS: A Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film alongside rare archival imagery
Synopsis: PICNIC is a portrait of the desires and frustrations simmering under the surface on an ordinary Labor Day in a small Kansas town. Starring William Holden in one of his most iconic roles, and Kim Novak in the performance that made her a star, the film is one of the most fondly remembered American classics of that decade, adapted by director Joshua Logan from his own Broadway production (which won a Pulitzer for playwright William Inge)
Drifter Hal (Holden) returns to his hometown, unemployed and with his college football glory days long behind him. Reunited with his old friend Alan (Cliff Robertson), Hal soon becomes acquainted with the Owens sisters, beautiful Madge (Novak) and budding poetess Millie (Susan Strasberg), along with the Owens family's boarder, schoolteacher Rosemary (Rosalind Russell). While Millie longs for Hal, his affections turn to Madge, and at the holiday picnic, passions ignite, jealousies erupt, accusations and rage explode, and Hal and Madge must decide if they can escape their small, stifling hometown.
While its examination of middle American mores may seem quaint today, PICNIC's torrid romances, erotically charged dancing, and Holden's torn shirt were considered bold and risqué in the conservative 50s, although now it can be viewed as an honest and moving study of a long-gone era. Featuring stunning Cinemascope photography by the legendary James Wong Howe.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
1080p presentation on Blu-ray
DTS-HD MA 5.1 or LPCM 2.0 audio options
Optional English SDH subtitles
Kim Novak's Hollywood PICNIC [18 mins] – an archival interview with the actress conducted by screenwriter and journalist, Stephen Rebello
Original Theatrical Trailer
PLUS: A Collector's booklet featuring a new essay on the film by Travis Crawford
Synopsis: Starting in 1999, Claude Lanzmann made several films that could be considered satellites of SHOAH, comprised of interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn't make it into the final, monumental work. In the last years of the late director's life, he decided to devote a film to four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself improbably alive after war's end: Ruth Elias; Paula Biren; Ada Lichtman; and Hannah Marton. Survivors of unimaginable Nazi horrors during the Holocaust, they tell their individual stories and become crucial witnesses to the barbarism they experienced. Each possesses a vivid intelligence and a commitment to candor that make their accounts of what they suffered through both searing and unforgettable.
THE FOUR SISTERS reminds audiences of the immense courage it took for these witnesses to return to their past as they share their deeply moving personal tragedies. The frankness of their words, their intensely scrutinised faces, and their bravery as they revisit unimaginable experiences will make them lasting presences in the moral universe of younger generations.
"What they have in common," wrote Lanzmann, "apart from the specific horrors each one of them was subjected to, is their intelligence, an incisive, sharp and carnal intelligence that rejects all pretence and false reasons-in a word-idealism." Lanzmann's films remarkably stay within the immediate present tense, where the absolute horror of the Shoah is always happening.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA – In 19th century Canton, Wong Fei-hung battles ruthless imperialist forces determined to subjugate his country and enslave his people, leading to a climactic fight sequence still regarded as one of the best ever filmed.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II – Wong Fei-hung faces off against the White Lotus Cult, a dangerous xenophobic group seeking to drive all European influence out of China, as well as a corrupt military officer, played by Donnie Yen in his breakthrough role.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA III – Wong Fei-hung travels to Peking and is forced to enter a martial-arts contest in order to prevent an assassination attempt against a prominent Chinese diplomat who wants to showcase traditional Chinese martial-arts, and restore national pride.
With action sequences choreographed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping, the Once Upon a Time in China series is a glorious high-point in martial-arts filmmaking, and Eureka Classics is proud to present Tsui Hark's original trilogy, as well as ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA (which saw Jet Li return to the Wong Fei-hung role after a four-year gap) for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK in a special Limited Edition 4-Disc Box Set loaded with extra content.