Arrow Academy June Titles
Arrow Academy, the “art house” label of Arrow films, posted their June Blu-ray announcements today, which consist of a classic film noir from Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past, Cat People) and a 1963 thriller from the great Carol Reed (The Third Man). Being that Arrow Academy is a British company, keep in mind that not all of their titles will be released both in the U.K. and the U.S., due to distribution rights. However, Arrow always makes it perfectly clear which Blu-rays will be offered in both the U.K. and U.S. versus which ones are U.K. only.
Listed below are the disc descriptions directly from Arrow Academy:
NEW UK TITLE: Nightfall (Blu-ray)
Featuring striking monochromatic photography by Oscar-winner Burnett Guffey (From Here to Eternity), Nightfall is a gripping and inventive late-period noir
Release dates: 3 June
During his long and varied career, Jacques Tourneur (The Comedy of Terrors, Cat People) tackled a breadth of genres on both sides of the Atlantic. With 1956’s Nightfall, he returns to the noir trappings he tackled so successfully with Out of the Past for a tale of deception, intrigue and paranoia.
Adapted from the novel by prolific crime fiction author James Goodis (Dark Passage), Nightfall is the story of Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray, The Violent Ones; The Naked and the Dead), an innocent man wrongly accused of murder. On the same night he has a chance encounter in a bar with glamorous model Marie (Anne Bancroft, The Graduate), the hoods he’s spent the past year running from catch up with him, determined to recover the money they believe he stole from them. Pursued by both the hoods and law enforcement, Vanning and Marie go on the lam, leading to a desperate chase that takes them from the streets of Los Angeles to the snowy peaks of Wyoming.
Eschewing both the big names associated with the genre and its familiar urban locales, and featuring striking monochromatic photography by Oscar-winner Burnett Guffey (From Here to Eternity), Nightfall is a gripping and inventive late-period noir which shows that, even in its twilight years, the genre still had room for innovation.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation, restored from original film elements
- Original lossless mono soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- New audio commentary by author and critic Bryan Reesman
- White and Black, a new video appreciation of Nightfall by film historian Philip Kemp
- Do I Look Like a Married Man?, a new video essay on the themes of Nightfall by author and critic Kat Ellinger
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Amy Simmons
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: The Running Man (Blu-ray)
This underappreciated entry in Carol Reed’s celebrated oeuvre makes its official worldwide home video premiere, complete with insightful new bonus features.
Release dates: 17/18 June
Over a decade after redefining the thriller with The Third Man, director Carol Reed returned to the genre with The Running Man. Reuniting with that film’s cinematographer Robert Krasker (BAFTA-nominated for his work here), Reed goes in the opposite direction visually, framing the twisty plot in sun-kissed widescreen colour.
Rex Black (Laurence Harvey, Walk On The Wild Side) has successfully faked his death in a plane crash and escaped to sunny Málaga under a new identity, waiting for his wife Stella (Lee Remick, Anatomy Of A Murder) to arrive with £50,000 of life insurance money. It’s the start of a blissful, trouble-free new life for the couple – until Stephen (Alan Bates, Gosford Park), the insurance agent in charge of investigating Rex’s death, suddenly arrives in town. Is he just holidaying in Spain, as he claims, or is he on assignment to foil Rex’s scheme?
Adapted by John Mortimer (later the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey) from the novel The Ballad of the Running Man by Shelley Smith, this underappreciated entry in Reed’s celebrated oeuvre makes its official worldwide home video premiere, complete with insightful new bonus features.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- 2K restoration of the film by Sony Pictures
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-Ray presentation
- Original uncompressed mono audio
- Isolated music and effects track
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by Peter William Evans, author of British Film-Makers: Carol Reed
- On The Trail Of The Running Man, all-new featurette with crew members such as script supervisor Angela Allen and assistant director Kits Browning
- Lee Remick at the National Film Theatre, an audio-only recording of the actor’s appearance at the NFT in 1970
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original artwork
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Barry Forshaw
