New Release Tuesday! This week there’s Spanish film noir, Hearst x2, Mississippi blues, alien plants, mall phantoms, Tammy Faye Bakker, long-lost ninjas, the first batch of Criterion 4K discs, and more.

AMERICAN NIGHT (2021)

ANGELS HARD AS THEY COME (1971)

A drug deal is foiled when the cops show up. They agree to meet in a few days out in the desert and complete the deal. The Angels head for the meeting place. On the way, they meet up with the Dragons and are invited to come party with some hippies in an old ghost town. The General, leader of the Dragons, is a psychotic dwarf, and his henchman, Axe, isn’t too stable either. The trouble starts when one of the hippie girls is murdered and the Dragons decide that one of the Angels did it. (Blu-ray)

BEAST MUST DIE (1952)

Mystery writer Felix Lane, (legendary Spanish actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta), suffers a tragic loss; his nine-year-old son is killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Desperate for vengeance, Lane bypasses the authorities, adopts a new identity, and begins looking for clues that will lead him to the culprit. The suspense reaches hair-raising levels as Felix’s vendetta leads him to infiltrate an affluent family rife with its own intrigues. But who among this highly suspect bunch is the killer? And will Felix follow his mission to its bitter end? Based on Cecil Day-Lewis’ influential 1936 novel The Beast Must Die (written as Nicholas Blake), Viñoly Barreto’s film is a stunning adaptation of one of the true landmarks of crime fiction and psychological suspense. (DVD and Blu-ray)

BITTER STEMS (1956)

Alfredo Gasper, a dissatisfied Buenos Aires newspaperman (Carlos Cores), partners with Paar Liudas, a clever Hungarian refugee (Vassili Lambrinos) who needs money to bring his family from Argentina. Together they create a bogus correspondence school, exploiting the hopes of would-be journalists. As their scheme succeeds beyond their wildest dreams, a mystery woman from Liudas’ past sparks Gasper’s suspicion: his charming colleague may be playing him for a sucker. Soon Gasper finds himself plotting the perfect crime – but fate has many twists in store. (DVD and Blu-ray)

BURY ME AN ANGEL (1972)

Dag Bandy (Dixie Peabody, Night Call Nurses) is red-hot passion and cold-steel anger all rolled into one explosive six-foot frame … a hellcat with a major score to settle. Faced with the killing of her brother, Dag has been pushed over the edge and onto the open road, ready to make the killer pay. With a pair of sidekicks in tow, Dag roars, brawls, and terrorizes her way across the countryside on a mission of bloody, violent vengeance. God help any man, woman, or child who stands in her way! (Blu-ray

CAGE AUX FOLLES II (1981)

Ugo Tognazzi (La Grande Bouffe) and Michel Serrault (Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud) reprise their roles as the two madcap domestic partners from the hilarious smash hit La Cage aux Folles. Having “become the most improbable of male screen heroes” (New York), Renato and Albin are this time taking on the secret service in an unforgettable cross-country—not to mention cross-dressing—adventure. In a move to make his partner, Renato (Tognazzi), jealous, the flamboyant Albin (Serrault) waits in a local café—dressed as a woman—hoping to be picked up. But Albin gets more than he bargains for when the fly he catches in his web is actually a spy who uses him as an unwitting courier of secret microfilm! Now on the run from ruthless agents, Albin and Renato flee to Italy where they attempt to hide out on a farm with Albin posing as Renato’s wife! Can Albin escape the deadly pursuit of these relentless spies or does he have to sustain this charade—as a woman—forever? Édouard Molinaro (A Pain in the Ass) returns to the director’s chair and maestro Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) provides the score for this uproarious sequel! (Blu-ray)

CITIZEN HEARST (2021) (AMERICAN EXPERIENCE) (2 DISKS)

CITIZEN KANE (1941) (CRITERION/4 DISKS)

In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst–like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also unleashed a torrent of stylistic innovations—from the jigsaw-puzzle narrative structure to the stunning deep-focus camera work of Gregg Toland—that have ensured that Citizen Kane remains fresh and galvanizing for every new generation of moviegoers to encounter it. (4K UHD and Blu-ray)

DEEP BLUES (1991)

In 1990, veteran music film director Robert Mugge and renowned music scholar Robert Palmer ventured deep into the heart of the North Mississippi Hill Country and Mississippi Delta to seek out the best rural blues acts currently working. Starting on Beale Street in Memphis, they headed south to the juke joints, lounges, front porches, and parlors of Holly Springs, Greenville, Clarksdale, Bentonia, and Lexington. Along the way, they visited celebrated landmarks and documented talented artists cut off from the mainstream of the recording industry. The resulting film, commissioned by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, expresses reverence for the rich musical history of the region, spotlighting local performers, soon to be world-renowned, thanks in large part to the film, and demonstrating how the blues continues to thrive in new generations of gifted musicians.  (DVD and Blu-ray)

DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995)

Another spoof from the mind of Mel Brooks. This time he’s out to poke fun at the Dracula myth. Basically, he took “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” gave it a new cast and a new script and made a big joke out of it. The usual, rich English are attacked by Dracula and Dr. Van Helsing is brought in to save the day. (Blu-ray)

EIGHT HUNDRED (2020)

From the highly acclaimed director of Mr. Six, Guan Hu, and producer Edward Cheng (Terminator: Dark Fate), comes the incredible true story of the outnumbered and under-equipped Chinese soldiers heroically defending the Sihang Warehouse from 20,000 members of the formidable Imperial Japanese Army during the bloody Battle of Shanghai. (DVD and Blu-ray)

EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (2021)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is an intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall and redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (Jessica Chastain). In the 1970s and ’80s, Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) built a burgeoning religious broadcasting network and theme park – until rivals, financial wrongdoing and scandal toppled their empire. (DVD and Blu-ray)

FLAG DAY (2021)

IN THE SHADOW OF HOLLYWOOD: HIGHLIGHTS FROM POVERTY ROW (1934) (4 FILMS) (2 DISKS)

Independent films produced in the shadow of Hollywood’s major studios were given the less than complimentary nickname “Poverty Row,” which existed in Hollywood between the 1920s and 1960s. They were usually produced on small budgets, at rented facilities, and on a short production schedule. Despite being overshadowed by bigger studio projects, many of these films have since been rediscovered and appropriately hailed as exceptional and inventive. In fact, more than a few notable names were featured in these films, such as Humphrey Bogart, Fay Wray, Erich von Stroheim, Sterling Holloway and others. Each of these new restorations, from archival 35mm material, feature a film scholar commentary that offers production history, historical context, and an opportunity to explore this under-appreciated part of film history – an enriching experience for film enthusiasts of all ages! (Blu-ray)

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) (2 DISKS)

From acclaimed filmmaker Philip Kaufman (The Wanderers) comes this chilling ’70s adaptation of Jack Finney’s classic novel The Body Snatchers. Filmy spores fall from space over San Francisco, and the city blossoms with beautiful new flora. People take the flowers home and, as they sleep, the plants creep over them, devouring their bodies and stealing their identities—their emotions, their uniqueness, their souls. If you notice an eerie change in someone very close to you, chances are you’re next! More than just a highly effective sci-fi thriller, Invasion of the Body Snatchers treats contemporary problems of urban paranoia and loss of individuality with intelligence and sensitivity… and ends with the single most horrifying frame in movies. Featuring a brilliant screenplay by W.D. Richter (Big Trouble in Little China), gritty camerawork by Michael Chapman (Raging Bull) and awe-inspiring special effects. (4K UHD and Blu-ray)

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON (1987)

Chris Hammond is a typical high school senior pursuing his general education: girls, cars and music. His father, Dr. Jack Hammond, is a successful heart surgeon, on the verge of being named Chief of Staff at a leading hospital. They’re about as close as a father and son can get…but they’re about to become even closer. In one split second, father and son accidentally change bodies, resulting in a chaotic change of lifestyle for both of them. The son gets the Jaguar, the gold card and the boss’s wife. His father gets the allowance, the biology final and the fake ID! (Blu-ray)

LULLABY OF BROADWAY (1951)

C’mon and listen to songbird Doris Day heads toward Great White Way stardom in this sparkling songfest full of favorite standards!

The steps of the studio set towered before her like a pyramid. All Doris Day had to do was dance up and down those steps wearing a flowing gold lame dress. “You’ve got to be out of your minds,” Day exclaimed in a voice heard across the soundstage. “I can’t even walk up and down those stairs.”

She danced divinely–and sang–in this musical delight about a singer newly arrived in New York – and destined for fame in the capable company of co-stars Gene Nelson, S.Z. Sakall, Billy De Wolfe, Gladys George and Florence Bates.

Savor the Oscar winning title tune, Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” “Somebody Loves Me” and six more swell songs. C’mon along and listen to (and watch) this Lullaby of Broadway. (Blu-ray)

MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY (2021)

Ma Belle, My Beauty explores the intimate re-encounter between two former lovers of a polyamorous triad. Bertie, a musician, has recently married and moved to southern France where she’s since been uninspired. Lane shows up hoping to get Bertie back in the swing of things — but old passions and pains simmer to the surface when Lane takes interest in another woman. (Blu-ray)

MENACE II SOCIETY (1993) (CRITERION/2 DISKS)

NEW YORK NINJA (2021) (2 DISKS)

John is just an average man working as a sound technician for a New York City news station, until one day his pregnant wife is brutally murdered while witnessing the kidnapping of a young woman in broad daylight. Turning to the police for help, John soon learns that the city is overrun with crime and the police are too busy to help. Dressing as a white ninja, John takes to the streets as a sword wielding vigilante hell bent on cleaning up the streets of the city he once loved by ridding it of muggers, pickpockets, rapists, and gang members. However, in John’s quest for justice, he soon finds himself the target of every criminal in the city, including a mysterious villain known only as the Plutonium Killer. Will John survive to become the hero that New York City so desperately needs?

Originally directed by and starring martial arts actor John Liu (The Secret Rivals, Invincible Armor) in his only American production, New York Ninja was filmed entirely on 35mm in 1984, but the project was abandoned during production resulting in all original sound materials being lost over time. 35 years later, Vinegar Syndrome acquired the original unedited camera negative and painstakingly constructed and completed the film. Enlisting the voice talents of genre favorites: Don “The Dragon” Wilson (Bloodfist, Whatever It Takes), Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead, Nightmare Sisters), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes, Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies), Vince Murdocco (Night Hunter, LA Wars), Matt Mitler (The Mutilator, Battle for the Lost Planet), Leon Isaac Kennedy (Lone Wolf McQuade, Penitentiary), Ginger Lynn Allen (The Devil’s Rejects, Vice Academy), and Cynthia Rothrock (China O’Brien, Martial Law) Vinegar Syndrome Pictures is extremely proud to present this truly one of kind film experience. Restored in 4K from the original camera elements, New York Ninja is finally available in all of its ridiculous over-the-top glory for the first time ever after spending nearly four decades in film obscurity.

NIGHT GALLERY: SEASON 1 (1969) (2 DISKS)

Prepare for the chill of a lifetime as the master of suspense, Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), hosts every spine-tingling episode from the complete first season of Night Gallery. Thrill to stories performed by Hollywood greats including Joan Crawford, Ossie Davis, Larry Hagman, Diane Keaton, Roddy McDowall, Burgess Meredith and Agnes Moorehead, and directed by cinematic masters like Steven Spielberg (Jaws) in this unforgettable series. (Blu-ray)

PHANTOM OF THE MALL: ERIC’S REVENGE (1989) (ARROW LIMITED EDITION) (2 DISKS)

High school sweethearts Eric Matthews and Melody Austin are so in love, but their youthful romance is cut tragically short when Eric apparently dies in a fire that engulfs his family home. One year later and Melody is trying to move on with her life, taking up a job at the newly built Midwood Mall along with her friends. But the mall, which stands on the very site of Eric’s former home, has an uninvited guest – a shadowy, scarred figure which haunts its airducts and subterranean passageways, hellbent on exacting vengeance on the mall’s crooked developers. (Blu-ray)

SHOW, THE (2020)

From the mind of Alan Moore comes a new feature film directed by Mitch Jenkins. A frighteningly focused man of many talents, passports and identities arrives at England’s broken heart—a haunted midlands town that has collapsed into a black hole of dreams—only to find that this new territory is at least as strange and dangerous as he is. Attempting to locate a certain person and a certain artifact for his insistent client, he finds himself sinking in a quicksand twilight world of dead Lotharios, comatose sleeping beauties, Voodoo gangsters, masked adventurers, unlikely private eyes and violent women… and this is Northampton when it’s still awake. Once the town closes its eyes, there is another world entirely going on beneath the twitching lids, a world of glittering and sinister delirium much worse than any social or economic devastation. Welcome to the British nightmare with its gorgeous flesh, its tinsel, its luminous light-entertainment monsters and its hallucinatory austerity… (DVD)

SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER-HAIRED WITCH (1968)

A young girl named Sayuri is reunited with her estranged family after years in an orphanage – but trouble lurks within the walls of the large family home. Her mother is an amnesiac after a car accident six months earlier, her sullen sister is confined to the attic and a young housemaid dies inexplicably of a heart attack just before Sayuri arrives… is it all connected to her father’s work studying venomous snakes? And is the fanged, serpentine figure that haunts Sayuri’s dreams the same one spying on her through holes in the wall? (Blu-ray)

STINGRAY (1978) (DIRECTOR’S CUT)

Lonigan and his partner Tony, two drug dealers, shoot two cops who attempt to set them up, and run away with a million bucks and the drugs, which they stash in a red Corvette Stingray in a used car lot. When they attempt to recover their stash with their leader, Abigail, they find out that two happy-go-lucky dudes, Elmo and Al, have bought the car. They quickly pursue the two along with the police who think that the car’s new owners are the criminals. (Blu-ray)

THIN MAN GOES HOME (1945) (WARNER ARCHIVE)

Outlaws come and go in Nick and Nora’s lives. Now it’s time to meet the in-laws.

The debonair sleuths leave little Nicky Jr. at boarding school, grab Asta and head to Nick’s boyhood home of Sycamore Springs. Of course, wherever they go, murder has a way of showing up on the doorstep—a point proven in this fifth Thin Man film.

Nick can show off his gumshoe talents for his parents (Harry Davenport and Lucile Watson) when an artist is killed. And he’ll do it without customary liquid inspirations because Nick (William Powell) is on the wagon. He’s also on his game. As is Nora (Myrna Loy), wrestling a folding lawn chair, tailing a presumed suspect through town, igniting a pool-hall rumble and cracking wise as goodas she gets. (Blu-ray)

THIS IS FRANCIS X. BUSHMAN (2021)

Famous for his performance as Messala in the silent epic Ben-Hur (1925), Bushman’s legendary career spanned six decades with over 200 film credits to his name. Narrated by the actor’s grandson, Academy Award–winning film technician Chris Bushman, and, courtesy of remastered audio recordings, by Francis X. Bushman himself, this engaging documentary aims to shine a light on one of the earliest and most sought-after Hollywood “megastars” in history. (Blu-ray)

UNCUT GEMS (2019) (CRITERION/2 DISKS)