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A prison break, femme fatales and a genre-defining western: Robert Hossein (Rififi) was, both behind and in front of the camera, one of French cinema’s great unsung stylists. Three of his finest genre exploits are collected here.

In a hard penitentiary, two prisoners fight off the rumour that one of them denounced a recently executed inmate. With their fellow convicts at their throats they join forces and escape. Along the way, they hole up in a remote beach cabin where they take the angel-faced occupant (Marina Vlady, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her) as their hostage while they figure out their next move. The feature debut of Robert Hossein, The Wicked Go to Hell was adapted from the novel by celebrated crime writer Frédéric Dard (Paris Pick-up), a prison escape film that spins into a fatalistic noir, oozing with atmosphere from its striking compositions and explosions of violence.

On an evening stroll, Pierre (Robert Hossein, also director) is invited into a white car by a female voice. Upon getting in he finds a nude blonde with her face obscured by shadow. After sharing an intimate moment, Pierre tries to get to know her but she produces a revolver and orders him to leave. Astonished by the events, Pierre determines to find the woman and traces the car to an address where two blonde sisters live (Marina Vlady, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Odile Versois, Passport to Shame), one who claims to never go out and another who is paralysed. Following his explosive debut, director Robert Hossein re-teams with celebrated crime writer Frédéric Dard for this sultry mystery evoking Hitchcock and classic noir.

In a Latin American country ruled by a dictator, revolutionary leader Perez (Robert Hossein, also director) holds up a train to kidnap the dictator’s daughter (Giovanna Ralli, The Mercenary) to trade her for captured revolutionaries. Perez takes her across dangerous terrain with his two lieutenants Chamaco (Mario Adorf, The Italian Connection) and Chico. But the bounty on her head is high and compatriots may be easily tempted to switch sides. Anticipating later Zapata Westerns that focused on revolution like A Bullet for the General and The Wild Bunch, The Taste of Violence is also one of the most visually striking Euro Westerns, bearing resemblance to work by Akira Kurosawa.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

2K restorations by Gaumont for each film, presented on three discs
Original uncompressed mono audio for each film
Audio commentary on each film by critic and author Tim Lucas (2025)
Picking Strawberries - A newly created ‘making of’ featurette with historian Lucas Balbo, featuring archive interviews with Hossein and Jean Rollin (2025)
Behind Marked Eyes: The Cinematic Stare of Robert Hossein - A newly created featurette by Howard S. Berger about Hossein and his work (2025)
Interview with actor Marina Vlady (2014)
The Evolution of the Femme Fatale in Classic French Cinema - A visual essay by critic Samm Deighan (2025)
The Taste of Violence appreciation by filmmaker and Western authority Alex Cox (2025)
Interview with author C. Courtney Joyner on The Taste of Violence and the Zapata Western subgenre (2025)
Trailer
Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Walter Chaw and newly translated archival archival writing by Lucas Balbo
Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Released in the UK/US: November 17th/18th.

One of those French actors and directors who is very well known in his own country but hardly known at all in the English-speaking world. Quite an exciting set - I've only seen The Taste of Violence, many years ago, which I remember being impressed by its stripped-back intensity.

Haven’t seen Le Gout de la violence but here’s my thoughts on the other two

domino harvey wrote: Fri Jul 27, 2018 7:30 pm
Les salauds vont en enfer (Robert Hossein 1955)
Well, that’s quite a title (Roughly Bastards Go to Hell), and for a while the film delivers the right level of bombast to sustain it. Two cellmates are ratted out to the entire prison as being possible snitches and for the length of the film both deny it while accusing the other of having to be the rat. Eventually they realize that having the entire joint hating them can only end badly, so they kill a couple guards and escape. Once the pair leaves the prison the film’s manic energy slows down and we get a much less interesting (and far more familiar) noir story of two men fighting over a beautiful woman. While I don’t think much of the back half of this film, Marina Vlady’s entrance in this movie is so ridiculous that it’s almost worth recommending. There are worse autuers to crib from than Sam Fuller, but even an actual Fuller film can get pretty tedious, and a blurry Xerox like this highlights the bad as much as the good in such an over the top kinetic approach.

Toi… le venin (Robert Hossein 1958)
Director/star Hossein is picked up by a mysterious unseen blonde woman while walking along the highway, has sex with her, and is then dumped. He tracks her down and figures out she must either be one of two sisters, one of whom is crippled in a wheelchair (Marina Vlady again). Exactly zero points awarded for figuring this one out about five steps early. I thought this fared slightly better than the other Hossein film I watched this round, but Hossein is still not much of a director, and the amateur hour visual bridges in this movie are so poorly done that they’re kinda endearing.

Wish the set was La nuit des espions and Les Scelerats instead…

I like the idea that Radiance are determined to make us watch all the films that domino dismissed during his French film period!

That reminds me, Michel Deville is mid now

domino harvey wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 10:47 am Wish the set was La nuit des espions and Les Scelerats instead…

Le Gout de la violence is an uninspired western, but hopefully there's another volume of Hossein's better work to come, especially Les yeux cernes which is right up Radiance's alley (and more fitting to the set's title!) I'm surprised something like this was prioritized - it's so bathetic and dull

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 4:29 pm[…] Les yeux cernes which is right up Radiance's alley (and more fitting to the set's title!)

One of the special features in this set is even named after it! (Behind Marked Eyes) Wonder if it had to be cut last minute?

domino harvey wrote: Fri Jul 27, 2018 7:30 pm Les salauds vont en enfer (Robert Hossein 1955)
Well, that’s quite a title (Roughly Bastards Go to Hell), and for a while the film delivers the right level of bombast to sustain it. Two cellmates are ratted out to the entire prison as being possible snitches and for the length of the film both deny it while accusing the other of having to be the rat. Eventually they realize that having the entire joint hating them can only end badly, so they kill a couple guards and escape. Once the pair leaves the prison the film’s manic energy slows down and we get a much less interesting (and far more familiar) noir story of two men fighting over a beautiful woman. While I don’t think much of the back half of this film, Marina Vlady’s entrance in this movie is so ridiculous that it’s almost worth recommending. There are worse autuers to crib from than Sam Fuller, but even an actual Fuller film can get pretty tedious, and a blurry Xerox like this highlights the bad as much as the good in such an over the top kinetic approach.
Wish the set was La nuit des espions and Les Scelerats instead…

I can only echo this writeup. The first part is halfway decent, especially as we're acclimating to the dilemma at play. Hossein introduces information gradually, and it's fun to play catchup to the context within the prison walls. Once the second act begins though, this is a snorefest. The back half is incredibly frustrating, in part because the noir setup doesn't even make sense given the circumstances of the "love triangle"s initiation. Like many, I hate using the word "boring" to describe art but its drama meanders after a nonsensical start and I couldn't buy into it at all. Everyone is an idiot on top of being unlikeable.

Given that Radiance's French selections have been, um, less than stellar, should we be worried at the sheer number of French titles being teased for 2026? I've literally only liked two of the French films they've released so far.

I mean, I think the single best release of the year was a French film from Radiance, so I still have faith

The curation could well be more to my liking next year but so far the hit to miss ratio has been way off.

I think there are some decent-to-great French releases and sets with at least one great film in them, so I’m hopeful as well. The other countries’ outputs have been worse imo. Not a huge fan of the heavy Italian/Japan focus, and will welcome more from France

Yeah, outside of Bava gialli and spaghetti westerns plus The Leopard, Italian cinema does nothing for me, so I tend to gravitate towards French films but Trauffaut bores me and I only liked Je t'aime Je t'aime and the Ventura noir from the first set so far. At the same time, not every Japanese title has appealed to me. But I don't want to turn this into the "why won't Radiance release only what I want?" thread. Just hoping I get more out of their French selections in 2026.

To keep it on track, there are at least four other good Hossein films out there if this sells well, so we could potentially get a more consistent box set!

The last thing we need is another label releasing just the canon, or being heavily commercially minded focussing on low-hanging fruit like horror or the output of the anglosphere over the last 30 years. We are blessed to have Radiance. It makes me sad to read some of these comments.

I'm fairly certain the critics are more about liking / not liking what was released than the movies being within the canon or not. There are tons of well-known movies that haven't aged well, and plenty of great little-known movies. I don't think people will mind releases from the 2nd category.

After watching these films, I'm kind of interested in seeing more from Hossein. He's interesting enough on a visual level, with The Taste of Violence's spectacular use of landscape the high point of the set, but I found all of these films ultimately dramatically inert.

The Wicked Go to Hell works okay in the prison and during the escape (though Hossein himself overacts unforgivably during his brief appearance), but the conflicts become more banal and predictable as it progresses, with the male leads failing to develop any distinctive character or build a convincing relationship (why are they sticking together, again?) and Marina Vlady failing to rise above "enigmatic" eye candy. The way Hossein's camera literally looks her up and down on first appearance sums up the value the film puts on her character.

Nude in a White Car has more meat on its bones, but ultimately it's one of those tricksy-plotted Agatha Christie contraptions that you're always one or two steps ahead of. (Basic rule of perfunctory whodunnits #1: if one character is initially presented at the outset as having a cast-iron alibi (e.g. is confirmed to be in another place at the time of the murder, has a broken arm or is in a wheelchair), they're the culprit. Basic rule of perfunctory whodunnits #2: if all the suspicion suddenly shifts to a particular character, they're not the culprit.) In this film there are only two suspects, and the film bounces back and forth between them with the predictability of a ping-pong match, while the real culprit is obvious throughout if only because of the inevitable "ironic" denouement that's been waiting in the wings since we first entered the house. Throughout it all, the basic plot just makes no damn sense. It operates as if an elaborate trap has been laid for Hossein's character, but his walking into it is something nobody could have predicted. And the blonde's behaviour in the opening sequence has no plausible motivation. if she wants to perpetuate her deception, picking up and running down midnight randos isn't the way to go about it! And then the other suspect keeps going and doing wildly suspicious things for no reason other than to implicate herself for our benefit.

The Taste of Violence is the best of the bunch, because it looks amazing and has a simpler but more basically functional throughline of chase / suspense / escape. But again, as a drama it falls flat for me because the characters are so thinly drawn and generic. When we get to the ending, the visual treatment suggests that this moment should be powerful, but Hossein's character has never evolved far beyond being mission-focussed, and Giovanna Ralli has been little more than a passive observer throughout the film, so expecting us to believe that any kind of deep connection has been forged between them in the course of their journey is a bit rich and more than a bit unearned.

Le Gout de la violence is sadly just as middling as expected. Had to laugh at Alex Cox trying to argue Hossein had a consistent style though. While this one does not quite as easily fit my thesis of Hossein always co-opting the work of another director (clearly we are in Viva Zapata land here, but the film isn’t much like Kazan’s), it is still abundantly clear that Hossein just does not have the sauce that all great or even interesting directors are working with, and this film resembles his other work of this period not at all. This is admirably smart looking and uses its minuscule budget well (95% of this film takes place outdoors without sets) but to what ends? The material just isn’t there, and Hossein cannot overcome it no matter how many tricks he tries out because he does not have that elusive Factor X that could elevate this familiar exercise