I've ordered the upcoming Alian Delon Box set from Lionsgate which includes:

Diaboliquement vôtre (1967) aka Diabolically Yours
La Piscine (1969) aka The Swimming Pool
La Veuve Couderc (1971) aka The Widow Couderc
Le Gitan (1975) aka The Gypsy
Notre histoire (1984) aka Separate Rooms


For those of you who were waiting, there's a review up at DVD Beaver with all the vital specs included.

The films are all in or around a 1.66:1 ascpect ratio with anamorphic, progressive scan transfers. LA PISCINE has burned in English subtitles, but the other discs offer removable subs. There are 3 discs. LA PISCINE is on a DVD5 disc by itself, DIABOLIQUEMENT VOTRE and LE VEUVE COUDERC are on a single DVD9 as are LE GITAN and NOTRE HISTOIRE.

The are no extras, ala Eclipse, but the price, I paid $27.95, is approximately $6 bucks a film.

I've also picked the recent Lionsgate Bunuel and Godard sets and look forward to their future releases.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews3..._collection.htm

Both LA PISCINE and DIABOLICALLY YOURS had been released with English dubs so its too bad they were not included though both undoubtedly play better in French.

Delon and Charles Bronson's HONOR AMONG THIEVES aka ADIEU L'AMI would definitely play better in French. Lionsgate recent release of the DVD sports a nice anamorphic transfer but it only has an English track.

The film takes place in Paris and Bronson is supposed to be a former French Foreign Legionnaire, so he should speak fluent French, albeit with an accent. The film's English track is a bit jarring and some of the translations like the doll saying "papa gone" when her string is pulled, when it's more likely something like "daddy go bye-bye" is a bit awkward.

Though a friend and I, who I also work with, and who borrowed the disc from me after I saw it, have been walking past each other at work the last few days saying "Papa Gone!" :D

Dave Kehr has also reviewed the Lionsgate box set in his DVD reviews this week (see link below).

I'm working my way through the set chronologically and have watched DIABOLICALLY YOURS (DY) and LA PISCINE (LP) so far. Both are in French with solid anamorphic tranfers, pillar-boxed at 1.66:1.

DY is a thriller about a man (Delon, of course) who has been in an auto accident and is suffering from amnesia, while LP reminds me of a Claude Chabrol film from his LA FEMME INFIDELE and WEDDING IN BLOOD period. Both films were very good.

I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the set, especially THE WIDOW COUDERC, based on a Georges Simenon novel and NOTRE HISTOIRE by Bertand Blier, who, IMHO, is a very underrated director. The GYPSY looks pretty good too.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/movies/h...html?ref=movies

Yes, the english dub versions on those two were once put out by Charter and Unicorn.

THE GYPSY was also released on VHS in an english version via Mirisch Video.

I think it's easier to watch Delon speaking English than Bronson dubbed into French.

. . . the heck with that Bunuel/Godard stuff, Michael, this is the Lionsgate/Studio Canel set I am looking forward to . . .

http://www.dvdempire.com/exec/v4_item.asp?...item_id=1393082

Myself, I'm looking forward to UNTAMABLE ANGELIQUE! ;)

http://www.worldofangelique.com/movies.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mich%C3%A8le_Mercier

Back to the Delon Box-Set, last night I watched THE WIDOW OF COUDERC, which has outstanding performances by Simon Signoret and Delon and gorgeous cinematography byWalter Wottitz.

BTW, on March 25, 2008, The New York Review of Books (NYROB) released a new paperback edition of the novel this film is based upon as The Widow. One of Simenon's roman durs, The Widow, was released the same year as Camus' The Stranger, 1942. It's set in rural France just prior to the Nazi invasion, and deals with a Protagonist who, like Camus' Meursault, has commited a murder. According to an article by Paul Theroux in the Times Literary Supplement, Georges Simenon, the existential hack (see link below), literary giants as diverse as Andre Gide, Henry Miller, Thornton Wilder and Jorge Amado admired his work, and Gide felt that The Widow was superior to the The Stranger. Theroux has also written the introduction to the new NYROB edition.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle3539880.ece

WIDOW is terrific. So is the (arguably) even more bleak film of Simenon's LE CHAT (1972), with Signoret and Jean Gabin. There's a thought: A "Late Gabin" box? (An "Any Gabin" box?) A Signoret set? Keep 'em coming, Lionsgate/Studio Canal: The Loren, Deneuve, and Angelique boxes all look pretty enticing.

And that article was marvelous. A protean talent, Simenon was.

I'll have to check out LE CHAT.

Simenon's roman durs are as hardboiled as anything Hammett, Cain, Chandler, Thompson, Himes, Goodis, McCoy, etc., wrote. Since 2005, The New York Review of Books has slowly been re-releasing many of these with new introductions, or after words, by famous authors.

http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/authors/9712

Last year was a big year for "discovering" writers whom I'd always meant to read - Simenon, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler - but never had, even though I owned some of their books. This year I'm reading Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series and Strangers on a Train. I've previously only read The Owl by her.

Back to Lionsgate, it seems like someone there has been eating a lot of Freedom Fries lately (pâté aussi) what with their Delon, Renoir, Godard, Bunuel (a secret Freedom person) releases, and their upcoming ANGELIQUE, Deneuve and Loren (I bet she speaks Freedomese too) box-sets.

Très Bon! :)
Formidable! :lol:

. . . we finally dug into this Delon set and certainly agree the first two moves are excellent (or "very good") . . LA PISCINE/THE SWIMMING POOL (1969) did remind us a bit of Chabrol, as did DIABOLIQUEMENT VOTRE/DIABOLICALLY YOURS (1967), in that both have a lot to say about what festers under the surface of the lives these people lead in their nice country homes - LA PISCINE also might have been an influence on Francios Ozon 's SWIMMING POOL (2002) in its sort of creepy use of people hanging around a pool at a French country home with lots of sexual tension going on between the characters - some of the events in Ozon's movie even reflect those in the earlier film . . . we certainly hope folks take these well produced LionsGate sets to heart and that we will continue to see such nice transfers of StudioCanal holdings as they hold the rights to a lot of stuff . . . this set is really right up there with the work being done by Eclipse . . .

. . . just in case it gives anyone the needed push to purchase the CATHERINE DENEUVE 5-FILM COLLECTION from Lionsgate/Studio Canal, it contains Alain Delon's crime film called LE CHOC (1982), which I have never seen, in what will probably be a very nice transfer (based on the rest of the work Lionsgate has done with this stuff) . . .

Apparently the Loren DVD set is a disappointment, image-wise (and mostly movie-wise), but I forgive them one misstep.

It's in my wish list at DDD, so I'll be putting in my cart and picking it up for 20% of now. Thanks, Wade! ...for the push. :)