Small-time criminal Wah Dee (Andy Lau) is enlisted by his boss Trumpet (Tommy Wong) to be the getaway driver for a heist which, of course, goes completely wrong. Dee takes Jo Jo (Jacklyn Chien-Lien Wu) hostage but the bosses order her to be killed. Instead, they escape together and fall in love while being chased by the cops and the crooks.

Directed by Benny Chan and produced by Johnnie To and Ringo Lam, A Moment of Romance brings Hong Kong alive, both in its abandoned places and its neon-lit night, as two lovers from different worlds realize that perhaps they would be safer by leaving each other yet unable to do so.

This movie was so essential that Andy Lau got the nickname of his character from it, Wah Dee. It also has the kind of ending that you expect from the New Hollywood or the Hong Kong New Wave. It’s romantic at the very same time that it is heartbreaking.

A Moment of Romance II was released in 1993 featuring a new storyline. Benny Chan and Jacklyn Wu returned as director and lead actress respectively with Aaron Kwok as the male star A third and final installment, A Moment of Romance III, was released in 1996 with Johnnie To, producer of the first two films, directing and Lau and Wu being reunited.

Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings, the Radiance Films blu ray release has a 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative, as well as an archival audio interview with Benny Chan; In Love and Danger: HK Cinema Through A Moment of Romance, a new visual essay by critic and Asian cinema expert David Desser; commentary by Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng; newly translated English subtitles by Dylan Cheung; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the iconic cast and crew by critic Sean Gilman and a profile of Benny Chan by Tony Williams, co-editor of Hong Kong Neo Noir. You can get it from MVD.

Translating as Hot Delusion or Hot Frenzy, this film was also released as Delirium and has nothing to do with the 1987 giallo Delirium AKA Photos of Gioia. Instead, it stars one-time Mr. Universe and the former husband of Jayne Mansfield Mickey Hargitay as Dr. Herbert Lyutak, a man who is a psychological consultant to the police and the serial killer they’ve been chasing.

Just when he decides to let his wife Marcia (Rita Calderoni, who was in Nude for Satan and The Amazons) in on the secret, someone starts providing him with alibis and covering up for him, which is good, because Herbert can only perform in the bedroom when he’s beating his wife or murdering other women.

I mean, not good. Good for the story.

There’s also a dream sequence where Marcia and the maid engage in a sapphic encounter while Mickey remains in chains, flipping out and chewing chunks out of scenery that may nearly choke the entire cast. It’s awesome.

The American cut adds in a Vietnam subplot, where Herbert is now a PTSD-damaged ‘Nam vet and Calderoni the field nurse who fell in love with him. It also has two more murders, so there’s that.

Director Renato Polselli has the type of scuzzy credits that mark him as a talent to look into further, like The Vampire and the Ballerina, The Reincarnation of Isabel AKA Black Magic Rites (also starring Hargitay and Calderoni), Revelations of a Psychiatrist on the World of Sexual Perversion and Mania.

There’s a great interview with Polselli by Jay Slater in which he speaks about this film:

“Aristide Massaccesi, Italy’s leading hardcore director, copied much of Polselli’s film for his Buio Omega (1979) – well, it has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Knowing that several Asian markets preferred graphic material, Polselli shot two versions of Delirio caldo. The weaker print, destined for America was further heavily cut by 11 minutes of sex and torture. Also, Polselli re-wrote the narrative and ending so that the film was not as complex as his European edit. The uncut version (which can be found on video cassette in France) features a different conclusion, long scenes of narrative and of course, lots of naked female flesh and striking violence. The spicy ladies in this film are ravishing, no wonder the Italian title translates as Hot Delirium! The actresses (Tano Cimarosa, Krista Barrymore and Katia Cardinali) are stripped of their clothing by their murderer, beaten, masturbated, and finally killed. In one sequence, Hargitay beats his wife with an iron bar, bruising her back in the process, before buggering her with the blunt instrument, a spectacle cut from the American and Dutch videos. Perhaps the strongest scene is where a blonde woman is beaten and then drowned in a bath. Yet again, Polselli twists this sequence by making her beating more severe, followed by scenes of her sucking a truncheon and then having her twat spanked! Apart from the visual differences, the full version shows the woman enjoying her sexual frenzy, while in the American print, she is in fear of her life. “Yeah, that particular scene was one of the strongest in Delirio caldo,” Polselli explains. “I made six films with that particular actress who starred in the very heavy sex scenes. She once asked me to direct her in a hardcore film, but I never got round to making it.”

Even after extensive edits and alterations, the American distributors were unhappy with Delirio caldo. “I found out that I could fool them with the sex scenes by using different camera angles or editing different footage into the film. I thought my European cut was perfect for the Americans who bought the rights. However, they thought it was way too strong for their audience. Now, this is a funny story.” Suddenly, Polselli is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “I received a phone call from the American buyers who asked me if I could film a Vietnam sequence and edit it into their release. Yeah, like sure! So I bought 16mm war documentary footage and project it onto a wall in my cellar. I then dressed Hargitay as an American soldier and asked him to stand in front of the wall, except this time he was on location in a bogus Vietnam. Afterwards, I spliced in the new war film and the Americans were delighted.” In the uncut version of Delirio caldo, the eagle-eyed may witness a few shots of Italians trying to imitate English policemen. Apparently, Polselli intended to have the film set in England, but the Americans cut out all references to Blighty.”

Vinegar Syndrome has released this on blu ray, saying that Delirium has to be “considered its director’s crowning achievement and a high point of on-screen perversity in the annals of giallo history.” Along wth a commentary track from film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth, there’s an interview with Polselli, a portrait of his life by his daughter Vanessa, the American edit and more. Get it now from Vinegar Syndrome.

The Three Stooges have been had nearly a century of entertaining fans. Now, whether you’re a lifelong Stoogephile or just a casual knucklehead, you are sure to find something to love about this comprehensive tribute to America’s most beloved madcaps: Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe and Curly Joe.

There’s over 8 hours of material on this set, including unreleased outtakes, color home movies, rare television appearances and commercials, theatrical trailers, unseen archival interview footage, forgotten audio recordings from live stooge appearances, family photo galleries and so much more.

It all starts with an HD version of the award-winning documentary program Stooges: The Men Behind the Mayhem, introduced by Curly Howard’s grandson Bradley Server. This film will take you through the history of the Stooges, starting with Ted Healy and His Stooges, consisting originally of Ted Healy and Moe Howard. Some time later, they were joined by Moe’s brother, Shemp Howard and then Larry Fine. They made Soup to Nuts before Shemp left, Curly came in and the three went away from Healy.

The biography doesn’t get too deep into Ted Healey’s mysterious death at the hands of future James Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, his cousin Pat DiCicco and Wallace Beery at Cafe Trocadero, an incident that was covered up by MGM.

Regardless, it is quite rich in its history of the Three Stooges, their shorts and their career resurgence as Screen Gems sold the shorts to a new audience of kids watching TV.

This set also has two lost films, the movie Surprise, Suprise starring Moe, Larry and Curly and Everybody Likes Music, which starts Shemp.

It’s been decades since the Three Stooges released their last film and yet they remain popular. Their films have never left American television and while they will never be as celebrated as smarter comedy acts, they survived tragedy and changes in number that would have destroyed any other comedy team.

When my parents first married, my mom woke up one night very late and heard a very loud noise downstairs. My father wasn’t in bed. As she got closer to the TV room, she thought he was having some kind of attack. She had never heard him laugh so hard. He was watching a Three Stooges short. I lost my father last year and I always think so fondly of him whenever I watch one of their appearances, as if he were still here with me in some way.

You can get this set from MVD.

The Truth According to Satann (it was originally released as The Truth According to Satan and this is the censored revised title) is about how Roibert (Isarco Ravaioli) believes that his depression is the result of his constantly on-the-make ex-lover Diana (Rita Calderoni). He tries to shoot himself in a game of Russian Roulette and fails. He also lives when he tries to hang himself when she opens the door, then lays all the blame on her for everything.

This being a movie by Renato Polselli, of course Roibert has interrupted Diana in the midst of her romance/BDSM relationship with Yanita (Marie-Paule Bastin). But this is where Roibert turns the tables, as he strips her and just when you think he’s going to kill her, he stabs himself and makes sure to get her prints all over the knife and his blood all over her.

The movie shifts gears when it turns out that next door neighbor Totoletto (Sergio Ammirata) has seen the entire thing and decides to torture Diana with this knowledge, all while he remains obsessed over his diet of eating two eggs every hour on the hour, quacking like a duck and calling her cabbagehead.

Calderoni is a real trooper in this. Beyond the knife play already mentioned, she’s covered in blood and then showered while fully clothed, then has dogs eat raw meat off of her body. She also has numerous near-mental breakdowns while Polselli edits in scenes of warfare and the origins of how Roibert and Diana got together. He even has Totoletto try and turn Yanita from slave to master, but Diana has too strong of a personality for that.

If I tell you it all ends with red skies and dancing hippies, will it make any more sense?

According to a great interview that Jay Slater did with the director, “Because of the word gospel in the title, La verita’ secondo Satana was instantly accused of blasphemy and its distribution was very limited. Once considered a lost title, Polselli’s film was broadcast on the smallest Italian television networks during the early 80s. To bypass censorship and distribution hassles, Polselli shot three different versions and although the movie was released five times during the 70s, the director added new footage to each print, while deleted certain scenes. The hardest print of La Verita’ secondo Satana features a close-up of the female orgasm. To achieve this, Polselli filmed the actress’s face, body and pubic region in extreme detail as the female orgasm is less evident than the male. Polselli is proud to be one of the first hardcore directors to film such a steamy scene.”

Known as Death Vengeance in the UK, this Philadelphia-set crime thriller starts with a news story about the increase in violence since JFK’s assassination in 1963. With the increase in crime, Philadelphia is becoming unsafe. Proud Italian-American John D’Angelo (Tom Skeritt) runs a deli with his wife Lisa (Patti LuPone). One night, they see a pimp named Eldorado (Pete Richardson ) beating one of his girls. She yells at him to stop and he chases their car, ramming it, and causes the death of their unborn child. Not long after, John’s mother Vera (Gina DeAngelis) is attacked and the crooks take her wedding ring.

Enough is enough.

John and his best friend Vince Morelli (Michael Sarrazin) start The People’s Neighborhood Patrol (PNP), with their own uniforms of blue hats and vests that have a PNP logo on them, headquarters to take phone calls and even vehicles. With Vince’s help, the police allow the PNP to patrol the neighborhood. The problem is the PNP does whatever it wants, like going into a nuisance bar and attacking everyone in it.

John does what he wants even as his acts are seen as racial discrimination by a small portion of the African-American community like Ivanhoe Washington (Yaphet Kotto), the leader of a black vigilante group. He actually finds the two men who stole the wedding ring from John’s mother and gives them over to him. John only attacks the black one, which proves the point.

John runs for councilman in the upcoming election but Vince is killed by Eldorado. To get back at him, he organizes a full-scale attack on crime in a local park that even gets the cops involved. Eldorado gets away and John is arrested, but told where his enemy lives. The cops say they are “too busy” and ask him to take care of it; a favor will be asked for later. John has effectively sold out, but it feels good dropping a grenade on the pimp and getting rid of him forever.

John wins the election and celebrates inside his deli. The neighborhood is all cleaned up and kids are playing in the park. Is this a happy ending?

It’s based on Anthony Imperiale, who advocated armed white self-defense. During the 1967 Newark riots, he formed the North Ward First Aid Squad to escort Italian-Americans through racially troubled neighborhoods. When he was accused of being a vigilante, he said, “When the Black Panther comes, the white hunter will be waiting.” He had a long career in politics, then founded a volunteer ambulance company in Newark. He was praised by his former political rivals for his generosity, sense of humor and commitment to equal treatment. Of course, both his kids went to jail for shooting people after arguments, but there you go.

Fighting Back is a weird movie in that it feels like it’s so right wing yet I wonder if all the newsreel footage and in your face moments are supposed to swing you the other direction. Maybe it’s just an exploitation movie.

The Arrow Video blu ray of Fighting Back has a High Definition blu ray presentation, as well as interviews with director Lewis Teague and camera operator Daniele Nannuzzi, a trailer, a TV commercial, an image gallery, a double-sided fold-out poster and reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Luke Insect and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critics Rob Skvarla and Walter Chaw, and a career-spanning interview with director Lewis Teague. You can get Fighting Back from MVD.

The suggested eroticism of The Vampire and the Ballerina was amped up in Polselli’s quasi-sequel, which was a troubled production started in 1961 and was not released until three years later, it was started as Il vampiro dell’opera (The Vampire of the Opera) and once box office fortunes changed against vampires, the name was slightly altered. Along with Piero Regnoli’s L’ultima preda del vampire (The Playgirls and the Vampire), even more eroticism was added to the bloodsucking. Of course, Gastaldi also wrote all three of these movies, even if he demurred that they were movies similar to others he wrote, only with vampires.

The difference in the few years in between movies is that now the dancers may embrace and even have a timid kiss between one another. Those that devour Polselli’s later films will giggle a bit at this; no corncob penetration here. For 1964, it had to be pretty titillating. So is the opening, in which the monstrous fiend in the opera chases a woman in a nightgown who is carrying the much-needed candelabra until he stabs her with a pitchfork.

Sandro (Marco Mariani) is the leader of an experimental dance group with Giulia (Barbara Hawards) as the star. Soon they are attacked by the titular bad guy, Stefano (Giuseppe Addobatti), and his five vampire wives. The human victims must keep dancing to battle Stefano’s psychic attacks and the suggestions he’s put inside their minds to stay within his crumbling theater.

Polselli’s later films aren’t just insane. They look that way as he never stops moving the camera. That starts happening here as well and I can’t get enough of this movie. Let that fog flow in, chain those vampire women to the wall and let’s dance.

You can watch this on Tubi or buy it on the Severin Danza Macabra: The Italian Gothic Collection Volume 1 set.

Hammer’s Dracula was a big deal in Italy and, as you know, my people see imitation as the most sincere way of saying they like something. Except that Renato Polselli was a believer in the magical power of not just violence, but also sex.

1960 was a big year for Eurohorror: Bava’s Black Sunday, Majano’s Atom Age Vampire, Vadim’s Blood and Roses, Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, Böttger’s Horrors of Spider Island, Ferroni’s Mill of the Stone Women and this movie’s spiritual relative, The Playgirls and the Vampire. All of these movies on some level — and some more than others — have the blood on the throat and the hot blood in the heart, so to speak.

As a crew of ballerinas rehearses in a castle, the professor (Pier Ugo Gragnani) explains vampires to them. This goes down as several young girls have already had their blood drained, you know, just like a vampire would.  There’s also romance, as Luisa (Hélène Rémy) and the master of the dance troupe Giorgio (Gino Turini) are getting together while Francesca (Tina Gloriani) is falling for the professor’s son Luca (Isarco Ravaioli).

The four decide to go on a double date into the woods where they find the abandoned castle of Contessa Alda (María Luisa Rolando). Are you the least bit surprised that the Contessa is still there and wearing a dress that looks ancient? Or that Luisa is soon attacked by a monster and becomes the Lucy to Francesca’s Mina? Perhaps the biggest surprise, seeing that this is made all the way back in 1960, is that Luisa and Francesca seem to be closer than any of their relationships with men.

Polselli sets the trend for many Italian exploitation directors that will follow. And by that, I mean, he outright copies not only from Terence Fisher but from nearly every vampire movie that has come before, all the way back to Vampyr.

This was written by Polselli, Giuseppe Pellegrini and Ernesto Gastaldi, who would go on to make so many movies. I love the idea that the Countess uses Herman to drain the women, which makes him young and vital again, then she drains him to do the same for herself, making him ugly again and someone who she rejects. This has been their pattern for what seems like years and he does it all for love. She does it all for herself.

Taken from Groovy Doom.

I can’t believe that MGM brought this to America and released it in a double feature with Tower of London. There’s a great new Shout! Factory release that has not only the film, but the Super 8 United Artists home version, which tells the story in so much less time.