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HistoryProf wrote:i don't quite understand the calls for Cobra Woman...saw it on TCM once upon a time and thought it was hilariously cheesy.

Matt wrote:Criterion used to have a sense of humor and release campy/cheesy films like this with some regularity. Or does everyone take their po-faced justifications for Flesh for Frankenstein/Blood for Dracula, The Blob, Fiend Without a Face, The Honeymoon Killers, Sisters, the Monsters and Madmen films, and Equinox as important independent films at face value?

HistoryProf wrote:all those you list are more than just low budget cheese - Cobra is big budget camp - and hardly path breaking in any sense, or otherwise "important". Now i'm not one to take the mission statement as gospel, and welcome thinking outside the box, I was just curious about this particular title as one people seem to be fond of. It just wasn't one that would ever strike me as something Criterion would do, and I certainly don't see anything in the collection now that would fit as a precursor. That list is all genre stuff and one uber independent flick (Honeymoon Killers) - not post-war B schlock.

starmanof51 wrote:

HistoryProf wrote:all those you list are more than just low budget cheese - Cobra is big budget camp - and hardly path breaking in any sense, or otherwise "important". Now i'm not one to take the mission statement as gospel, and welcome thinking outside the box, I was just curious about this particular title as one people seem to be fond of. It just wasn't one that would ever strike me as something Criterion would do, and I certainly don't see anything in the collection now that would fit as a precursor. That list is all genre stuff and one uber independent flick (Honeymoon Killers) - not post-war B schlock.

Let me take a stab at it. You say that the titles that Matt lists are more than just low budget cheese. I find that debateable, most strongly in the case of the Monsters and Madmen box. But let's go with that. You also seem to want to somehow differentiate between "genre stuff" and "post-war B schlock", if not qualitatively (do you?) then at least as precedent for that holy wacky C. I'd say it's also "genre stuff", just a few years earlier than those others. If you're going to insist on words like schlock and cheese, why make such a distinction between "post-war B schlock" and post-Korean war B schlock? If you see something a little grander in Matt's list, consider that there's also something a little grander here as well. I think you're of the feeling that Cobra Woman is routine and unremarkable, and that's the puzzling bit for you. I'd counter that it's damn near unique, I don't think there's anything within a decade either direction of it quite like it.

It starts by trading on established genre stuff, trying to make a buck on people that were fond of Thief of Bagdad, most specifically. That's not unique, but there's no getting around the first and foremost virtues - Siodmak knows what he's about, and I find the quality of the technicolor photography to frequently be a match for ToB, with some spectacular greens and blues. It's way up there just on the basis of a list of "Great 40s Eye Candy." But that's not what makes it special. What sends it to the stratosphere (at least for me, and I think some of the others voting for it) is the sense of hysteria and decadence emanating from Cobra Island in general, the kinky-dancehall Cobra Throne Room more specifically, and the Cobra Queen as hysteria (and decadence?...ooh, hopefully decadence!) personifed. That Throne Room sees some brazen shit - the casual violence, especially at the end, and those wiggy dances with the Cobra Maidens - this feels emotionally like precode stuff, stuff that just wasn't done in 1944, and stuff you don't start seeing much of again for another decade. It's an island unto itself. If you start looking for similar stuff, you'd naturally look at the other Universal/Montez Technicolor exercises in exotica. Universal has made a couple readily available - Arabian Nights, Ali Baba. These have their virtues, and are pretty enough, but they don't have that wild-eyed hysteria. I keep using that word, don't I? Not to go all auteury on you, but I think Siodmak must get a lot of credit for the uniqueness here. I think of Phantom Lady, from the very same year, and that great jazz drum scene with Elisha Cook and Ella Raines - again, hysteria - something really dangerous and unique (musical rape!) jumping up out of some dime a dozen "post-war B schlock".

And of course Criterion has already included a trailer for it in the Killers set.

Apologies if I sound more combative than I mean to, Prof, - this is definitely a case of Defending Your Darlings, as the Lists forum would have it.

No rights at the moment, but we saw Sembene's translator in the office not long ago, so maybe there's hope

onedimension wrote:Is that 'The Sweet Smell of Success' Criterion just posted a shot of on their Facebook page?

But what is this necessary if there's a bare bones 2001 MGM dvd release In Stock. Why do we need an HD upgrade with (hopefully) great supplements from Criterion?

Tribe wrote:Bill Melidoneas is unhappy:

But what is this necessary if there's a bare bones 2001 MGM dvd release In Stock. Why do we need an HD upgrade with (hopefully) great supplements from Criterion?

Tribe wrote:Bill Melidoneas is unhappy:

But what is this necessary if there's a bare bones 2001 MGM dvd release In Stock. Why do we need an HD upgrade with (hopefully) great supplements from Criterion?

Cinephrenic wrote:Now bring on the Kubricks!

Tribe wrote:Bill Melidoneas is unhappy:

But what is this necessary if there's a bare bones 2001 MGM dvd release In Stock. Why do we need an HD upgrade with (hopefully) great supplements from Criterion?