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The Reader

Posted by Notcot on Apr 29, 2012 in Cult Film
The Reader

For 15-year-old Michael Berg a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna and before long they embark on a passionate clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems. Years later as a law student observing a trial in Germany Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly and terribly it does – Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret. ‘A tender horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction. A thriller a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience’ INDEPENDENT SATURDAY MAGAZINE

Price : £ 5.79

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The Harder They Fall [DVD] [1956]

Posted by Notcot on Feb 5, 2011 in Noir

A movie that proved a fine swansong for Humphrey Bogart, The Harder They Fall is a gripping drama set against a background of fixed boxing matches. Not so much about the fights as the exploitation of the sport, the film is based on a novel by Budd Schulberg, whose Oscar-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront (1954) helped turn Rod Steiger into a star. Here Steiger delivers an equally bravura performance as the chillingly corrupt manager, Nick Benko, a man who will do anything to turn a buck. Bogart meanwhile is outstanding as unemployed sports writer Eddie Willis, hired against his better judgement to promote a no-hope Argentinean boxer, Toro Moreno (Mike Lane).

Powerfully written, if built around the unlikely premise of building a 10th-rate fighter into a world-class contender, the drama is essentially a battle for Willis’s soul as he is torn between money and conscience. Though the scenes with Bogart and Steiger facing off are the strongest and a veritable masterclass of hardboiled characterisation, Mark Robson, who also helmed the Kirk Douglas boxing classic Champion (1949), directs with a convincingly dirty realism, the final punishing and bloody match a clear influence on Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980).

On the DVD: The Harder They Fall‘s anamorphic 1.77:1 transfer is excellent with only one brief scene showing any significant print damage. Burnett Guffey’s noir-ish black-and-white cinematography looks sharp and fresh as the day it was shot, with only minimal grain. The mono sound is strong and clear, without a hint of distortion or compression. The only extra is a scored gallery of posters and lobby cards from other Bogart films available on Columbia. There are dubbed versions in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and a plethora of subtitle options. –Gary S Dalkin

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