Classic Trailer: The List of Adrian Messenger

Sorry that's not quite accurate, this is not a trailer - couldn't find one on youtube. Instead here are the opening credits of The List of Adrian Messsenger, another old neglected gem Vendetta Films is releasing soon. They're still one of the few distributors around anymore who actually manage to really dig into the back catalogue and find lesser known films worth unearthing, so it's good to support these guys whenever we can. This one's a nifty whodunnit from John Huston, with one of the great A-list casts of the period: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchem, Tony Curtis, George C. Scott. If you like old-fashioned mysteries with a slight gimmicky twist, add this to your queue now!

Classic Trailer: Compulsion

Continuing to surprise us with the odd unexpected back catalogue gem, Vendetta Films are due to release Compulsion, Richard Fleischer's 1959 take on the notorious "crime of the century" case of Leopold and Loeb, two college students who murdered a fourteen-year-old boy solely to see if they could commit the "perfect time". The case has also inspired films like Funny Games, Murder by Numbers and perhaps most famously, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. Fleischer's film is considered one of the most faithful to the story. Essential viewing for fans of true crime flicks. Here's the trailer:

Classic Trailer: Metropolis: Reconstructed & Restored

Fritz Lang's monumental sci-fi classic Metropolis has finally been reconstructed and restored and DVD and Blu-ray is out today from Madman! This new release contains the original 150-minute director's cut and reinstates 25 minutes of footage that was thought to have been lost for 80 years. You can read more about the restored footage here, and if you've never this film, this is the best possible version available. Here's a glimpse of what to expect...

Classic Trailer: Diva

Jean-Jacques Beineix's wild, influential, super-stylish "New New Wave" thriller Diva is getting a long overdue re-release by Vendetta Films today. Essential viewing if you're a fan of '80s cinema. Check out the trailer here:



Also new to DVD from Beineix: Locked-In Syndrome, Roselyn and the Lions, Moon in the Gutter. Betty Blue has come out on Blu-ray, but alas it's the shorter version.