Title: DePalma's MURDER A LA MOD on SW dvd
Description: "Lost" film found
Domenick Fraumeni - January 4, 2007 06:39 AM (GMT)
Something Weird dvd is releasing Brian De Palma's 1968 MURDER A LA MOD on a double feature dvd with the unrelated THE MOVING FINGER.
I can't recall seeing MURDER A LA MOD offered anywhere, until hearing about this at Ain't-It-Cool-news. This sounds like a really cool find.
SWV page for MURDER A LA MOD Michael Den Boer - January 4, 2007 07:47 AM (GMT)
I have seen it for sale at several Borders Books and Music stores. De Palma is one of my all time favorite filmmakers so I do plan on getting this one sooner then later. So far I haven't bought it because they charge full retail there.
Tim Lucas - January 13, 2007 08:20 PM (GMT)
I just reviewed this for SIGHT AND SOUND. It's very much a full-blown De Palma picture, a prankish thriller of such cleverly involuted design it could stand toe-to-toe with SNAKE EYES or FEMME FATALE, conceptually anyway. It also holds lots of little moments that prophecy all sorts of De Palmiana to come. For example, the name "Swan" can be seen on the clapboard, with De Palma's, in the movie-within-the-movie.
Jeff McKay - February 4, 2007 11:12 PM (GMT)
I finally got around to watching this and quite enjoyed it. It's somewhat clever in its changing perspective structure from one character to the next. The comedy stuff is a bit dated and goofy, but not really bad at all. After a somewhat slow start, the movie does really move pretty fast for its entire 80 minutes. Definitely some early DePalma flourishes on hand here, including a few moments that made me feel serious deja vu for PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE. If you really like, or liked, early DePalma, this is definitely worth a look.
Wade Sowers - February 8, 2007 10:28 PM (GMT)
. . . I love to find these early films by a director I admire - according to THE FILM ENCYCLOPEDIA, MURDER A LA MODE (1967) was the second movie he shot (after THE WEDDING PARTY), but among his first to secure a (limited) release . . . the visual humor, to me, seemed inspired by the then fashionalbe, and probably much admired by film students like De Palma, early movies of Richard Lester - as well as a little Charlie Chaplin footwork when William Finley runs down a sidewalk or turns a corner . . . as many of the above comments indicate, you can certainly see an early working out of some of his ideas - as an example, the opening of MURDER A LA MODE was used almost 40 years later in THE BLACK DAHLIA (2006), but it is just as creepy here . . .