Olive Films

[domino harvey]

Highly recommend the Red Squirrel

[therewillbeblus]

Highly recommend the Red Squirrel

That's a great one. It was incredibly cheap (~$5) on Hamilton Book for the last few years, but seems to've sold out/been removed

[Rayon Vert]

I'm glad I got the special editions for Father Goose and Operation Petticoat during our Cary Grant list project. They look quite good.

As blu-rays that don't seem to have had other releases in the US or the UK, I'd recommend Men in War (more than any other single film here - for my taste!), A Double Life, Body and Soul, Vincent and Theo, Penny Serenade, the Signature edition of A Letter from an Unknown Woman.

It isn't one of his best but they also have Fuller's China Gate, for the completists. Although I see it's had a release in Australia on Imprint.

[The Narrator Returns]

I can't recommend John Sayles' Baby It's You highly enough, if nothing else I owe it to Olive for introducing me to what's become one of my favorite movies.

[Feego]

It isn't one of his best but they also have Fuller's China Gate, for the completists. Although I see it's had a release in Australia on Imprint.

Another for Fuller completists is his bizarre Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, filmed as an episode of a German police procedural TV series but eschewing the serious nature of the show to produce a wryly comic parody. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I had a lot of fun with it.

[Rayon Vert]

I'd never even heard about that!

[Feego]

Literally the only reason I even know about it is because of the Olive release. It's a film that seems to rarely be discussed.

[tolbs1010]

And sent me on a panic buy for 10 titles:
Odds against tomorrow
Pork chop hill
Pursued

Pursued is excellent. A favorite Walsh, a favorite Mitchum, and a memorable supporting cast. A panic buy that will be a keeper.

[What A Disgrace]

Pursued is my favorite Walsh, behind Strawberry Blonde (with Me And My Gal and The Bowery among the films I most want to see), and my favorite 40s western behind Canyon Passage. If Walsh is the master of combining genres into a cohesive (or not) whole, then its particularly impressive that this is a combination of westerns, and film noir, the latter of which scarcely even existed at the time and, furthermore, wasn't defined in such a fashion that Walsh would be cognizant of it.

[tolbs1010]

As you said, it's doubtful Walsh was thinking about the kind of cross-genre alchemy that is present in several of his films. He was just a great, economical visual storyteller and the noirish mood he sets in Pursued (with a big assist from James Wong Howe) perfectly serves the material. I'm not sure it's really Western or Noir. Just a damn good movie. Though the structure of it does remind me a bit of one of the quintessential Noirs, The Killers, which came out the year prior.

Not so fun fact: Jim Morrison watched it the night he died, according to IMDb.

[Rayon Vert]

Hey, that means he left this world with a great watch.

[Rayon Vert]

Just to be clear the potentially "lesser" Walsh films I ordered were Distant Drums and The King and Four Queens. All my other 8 picks were rated 7 or higher on IMDB, they're classic Hollywood, and I don't have them - that's usually my criteria for purchasing a lot (most?) of my discs!

(I have seen White Heat, Gentleman Jim because of domino, The Roaring Twenties and for some reason The Lawless Breed - it must have been packaged with something else -, from Walsh, but I've purposefully avoided the rest so that I can do a chronological deep-dive one day. If I get there. It's always nice to think there's a potentially glorious country ahead of you you haven't visited yet.)

[domino harvey]

I don’t think I’ve seen that one, was either a different film or a different member!

[tolbs1010]

(I have seen White Heat, Gentleman Jim because of domino, The Roaring Twenties and for some reason The Lawless Breed - it must have been packaged with something else -, from Walsh, but I've purposefully avoided the rest so that I can do a chronological deep-dive one day. If I get there. It's always nice to think there's a potentially glorious country ahead of you you haven't visited yet.)

Walsh is a big, bountiful country that I keep coming back to. Yet I have never seen The Strawberry Blonde which I'm going to have to blind buy based on this Forum's (and other trusted sources) enthusiasm for it. And mostly because I can't find it for free anywhere.

[Rayon Vert]

I don’t think I’ve seen that one, was either a different film or a different member!

I was sure it was you that recommended it back in the 40s list or another list project! That's odd.

[Rayon Vert]

I don’t think I’ve seen that one, was either a different film or a different member!

I was sure it was you that recommended it back in the 40s list or another list project! That's odd.

I did a forum search. It appears I hallucinated the whole thing.

[therewillbeblus]

Some off-the-cuff recs, for those who don't have them yet: Black Caesar, The Geisha Boy,The Devil and Miss Jones, A Bucket of Blood, The Trip and Kiss Me, Stupid

[colinr0380]

As you said, it's doubtful Walsh was thinking about the kind of cross-genre alchemy that is present in several of his films. He was just a great, economical visual storyteller and the noirish mood he sets in Pursued (with a big assist from James Wong Howe) perfectly serves the material. I'm not sure it's really Western or Noir. Just a damn good movie.

It's probably just a fruitful to think of Pursued in the tradition of the 'psychoanalytic' trend of the period: Spellbound, The Dark Mirror, Strategic Air Command, and so on - which go deep into the neuroses of their characters. The big element in Pursued is the main character being plagued by repressed childhood memories of the glinting spurs on the boots of the person who killed his family. I suppose these films show that Vertigo did not just come out of nowhere!

[The Narrator Returns]

Olive may be dead but their Signature Blu-Ray of Letter From an Unknown Woman gets an extreme close-up in Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door.