Leadbelly (Gordon Parks, 1976)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Leadbelly.

In his final theatrical film, celebrated director Gordon Parks cast Roger E. Mosley as the iconic blues and folk singer Huddie Ledbetter, better known to music history as Lead Belly, the King of the 12-String Guitar. Dramatizing the musician’s turbulent life from his early 20s to his mid-40s, Leadbelly follows Huddie as he performs at bars and sukey jumps, learns the blues from “Blind Lemon” Jefferson, faces violent racism and its deadly consequences, and twice finds himself incarcerated, labouring on back-breaking chain gangs and performing at the behest of white authorities. Combining pastoral simplicity with the resilient and rebellious spirit of the 1970s, all to the sounds of Lead Belly’s iconic songs, Leadbelly offers a vibrant and harrowing portrait of the segregated Jim Crow South and stood as the film Parks most admired amongst his own filmography.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with filmmaker Spike Lee and music historians Kip Lornell and Charles Wolfe
• March of Time newsreel on Lead Belly
• Three Songs by Leadbelly, Blanding Shaw and Wah Mong Chang’s 1945 footage edited together two decades later by folk singer Pete Seeger
• Legend of Lead Belly, Alan Ravenscroft 52-minute documentary on the folk singer
• Selected performances from A Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly
• Archival interview with folklorist Alan Lomax
• Theatrical trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: A new essay by scholar L. Roi Boyd III and novelist Richard Wright’s 1937 tribute to Lead Belly written for the Daily Worker

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

Based on I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, the autobiographical book of chain gang escapee Robert E. Burns, Mervyn LeRoy’s uncompromising and starkly realistic 1932 drama, about an out of work veteran twice railroaded into the hell of a Georgia chain gang, still has the power to shock. Paul Muni commands the screen in a brilliantly lived-in performance as a man whose only prospect is a life perpetually on the run, and the film’s gritty realism spares no anger at a cruel and unjust legal system. Eighty years later, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang remains the studio era’s greatest social message film and it stands as a crucial turning point for Warner Bros., Paul Muni, Robert E. Burns, and the American prison system.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2005 by film historian Richard B. Jewell
• Vintage musical short 20,000 Cheers for the Chain Gang!
• The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, a 1987 TV movie starring Val Kilmer and adapting Robert E. Burns’ I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang
• Theatrical trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: A new essay by TCM film historian and author Scott McGee

A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents A Place in the Sun.

Based on Theodore Dreiser’s landmark novel An American Tragedy, George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun is a swooningly noir-stained melodrama featuring Montgomery Clift as a handsome young man eager to win a place in respectable society. His ambitious dream seems to fall into place when he accepts a job offer from a wealthy relation and falls deeply in love with a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor), however a secret relationship with a factory girl (Shelley Winters) and her pregnancy threatens his future and inspires his murderous impulses. Called “the greatest movie ever made about America” by Charlie Chaplin, Steven’s film skillfully alternates between affluent, sun-washed romance and shadowy, fateful film noir, crafting an idealized vision of movie love against a sour portrait of the American dream and what lies beneath it.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 4K digital master with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary with George Stevens Jr. and associate producer Ivan Moffat
• New interview with film critic Imogen Sara Smith
• George Stevens and His Place in the Sun, a 20-minute documentary on the making of the film
• George Stevens: The Filmmakers Who Knew Him, archival interviews with Warren Beatty, Frank Capra, Joe Mankiewicz, Rouben Mamoulian, Antonio Vellani, Robert Wise, Alan J. Pakula, and Fred Zinnemann
• Theatrical Trailer
• Optional English subtitles
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Laurent Jullier

Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard, 1978)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Straight Time.

In this highly underrated classic of ’70s crime cinema, Dustin Hoffman shrewdly stars as Max Dembo, an ex-con just released from a six-year stretch in prison for armed robbery and struggling to go straight while under the oversight of his smug parole officer. Despite finding a job, a home, and even a girl of his own, Max remains trapped in an unrelenting criminal system until he breaks free with ruthless, criminal abandon and tragic consequences. Adapted from Edward Bunker’s No Beast So Fierce, featuring a score by David Shire, and boasting a terrific supporting cast including Theresa Russell, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey, M. Emmet Walsh, and Kathy Bates, Ulu Grosbard’s Straight Time is a lean and bitter portrait of inevitable recidivism.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 4K digital master with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary from 2007 with director Ulu Grospard and actor Dustin Hoffman
• New interviews with actors Hoffman, Theresa Russell, and Kathy Bates
• Straight Time: He Wrote It For Criminals, a 1978 documentary on writer Edward Bunker and the making of the film
• Theatrical trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by novelist Jonathan Lethem

Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Winchester ’73.

A one-of-a-kind rifle, the Winchester ’73, passes through a diverse group of desperate characters, summarizing the Western genre while also revitalizing it. In his first of eight indelible collaborations with director Anthony Mann, James Stewart is cast against type as Lin McAdam, an upright frontiersman obsessed with tracking down murderer Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) and always finding himself a step behind the iconic rifle wrongfully stolen from him. Featuring Shelley Winters as a saloon girl looking to settle down, Dan Duryea as a crazed outlaw, John McIntire as a sly gun trader, Rock Hudson as an aggrieved Indian chief, and a young Tony Curtis in an early screen role, Winchester ’73 ushered in a new era for the Western that replaced squeaky clean heroes with flawed, complex protagonists and re-made James Stewart into a mature, complicated screen presence.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by Universal Pictures in partnership with The Film Foundation and in consultation with filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New introduction by Scorsese
• Audio commentary with actor James Stewart and film historian Paul Lindenschmidt
• Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1951, featuring actors James Stewart and Stephen McNally
• Theatrical trailer
• Poster Gallery
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Sarah Hagelin and an except from firearm historian R.L. Wilson’s Winchester: An American Legend

Payday (Daryl Duke, 1972)

FOR MAURY DANN, EVERY DAY IS “PAYDAY”

In a rare starring role, Rip Torn plays Maury Dann, a hard-living country singer traveling the Deep South honky tonk circuit. Dann’s good ol’ boy smile charms even passing fans, but in private he is a greedy, entitled, and pitiless tyrant ruling from the back seat of a Cadillac sedan. Set over a day and a half, Payday reveals Maury’s unrepentant selfishness and cynicism, bedding young fans, popping pills, and casting off members of his entourage once they have outlasted his needs. Dann’s self-serving and hedonistic ways come to a head in a late night parking lot scuffle, transforming his megalomania into inevitable self-destruction.

Music critic and Payday producer Ralph Gleason declared that the objective of this staggeringly jaundiced portrait was a desire to provide an honest portrayal of life in the country music business. Under the direction of Daryl Duke (The Silent Partner), Payday rejected the polished image of country music, pointed the way toward the approaching outlaw country movement, and placed a spotlight on the magnetic presence of Rip Torn.

Special Edition Contents:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Feature-length audio commentary with director Daryl Duke and producer Saul Zaentz
• Risk Management, a new interview with actor Michael C. Gwynne
• Ride-along, a new interview with actor Elayne Heilveil
• Passing Through, a new interview with actor Cliff Emmich
• The Music Man, a new interview with music supervisor Ed Bogas
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork choices

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by musician and scholar Kim Simpson