Now On Blu-Ray: WHAT?, FELICITY, THAT'S SEXPLOITATION, & KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY From Severin Films

Roman Polanski's 1972 film What? (Che?) is an odd little film. Released between the critically acclaimed duo of Macbeth and Chinatown, What? sees Polanski taking a sideways swipe at the type of comedy he'd executed so successfully with 1967's The Fearless Vampire Killers. The film has been cut to pieces over the years, and has until now been unavailable on digital home video in the United States, but Severin Films is here to save the day with a lovely new Blu-ray release of a film that should find plenty of fans with a bit of exposure, pun intended.

When an innocent American girl names Nancy, played by Sydne Rome, literally stumbles into a chaotic Italian villa her world gets turned upside down in a hilariously ribald sequence of odd events. What? appeared at the tail end of a wave of European sexy art-house comedies that put plenty of skin on American independent screens, though this one seems to have slipped through the fingers of history, in spite of its directorial pedigree. In addition to Polanski in the director's chair, we also get the king of Italian sex comedies, Marcello Mastroianni as Alex, a syphilitic pimp who has won the heart of young miss Nancy in spite of his many glaring faults. It's a truly strange film, but one with a quaint charm and just enough edgy sex and violence to leave its audience, both popular and critical, a bit confused and titillated.

There isn't much of a plot to What?, the film simply meanders from one outrageous situation to another, each vignette most likely ending – or beginning, and sometimes both – with Nancy bare-ass naked. In spite of the saucy nature of the film and its characters, there is surprisingly little adult action on the screen, though there is nudity to spare from Rome, who appears to have embraced the free-wheeling '70s with abandon.

What is apparent, however, is Polanski's hearty appetite for satire and bawdy humor. Everyone engages is some sort of farcical behavior, not least of which Mastroianni's former pimp character and a clergyman who happens to be staying at this villa. Everyone is in competition with everyone else in terms of who can create the most ridiculous little biome within this secluded compound. Sydne Rome does a wonderful job portraying the wispy conduit between each of the numerous letches and louts within the villa, and a lovely surrogate for an audience likely to be as confused as her protagonist, but also just as amused as we are.

I'm not entirely surprised that American audiences didn't take to the film, our prudish and puritan nature doesn't mix well with the less stuffy sexual attitudes of Europe then or now, but I am surprised that the film hasn't had a proper US release on digital home video. Severin Films rectifies that issue with this lovely disc and for any fans of this period of European sex comedy, you are sure to find something to enjoy in What?

The Disc:

Severin Films previously released What? on DVD in the UK back in 2008, it was among their first releases but never made landfall here in the States. This new Blu-ray is a substantial improvement over that other offering in terms of audio and visual fidelity. The new HD transfer of this uncut version of the film is beautiful to look at, and the restoration is pretty damned good for a film of this vintage. No major damage is present, and the clarity and level of fine detail is quite impressive. There are moments in the film that look as though they could've been shot yesterday, and I found myself surprised at just how good it looks. The new audio track is clean and clear and treats Polanski's dialogue and Claudio Gizzi's score with respect.

Severin have ported over their extras from the 2008 DVD they released and they are just as good now as they were then. A thirty minute interview with star Sydne Rome covers her introduction to Polanski and the shooting of the film. She has a general positive view of the film and her director and she's happy to recount these stories. Interviews with composer Gizzi and cinematographer Marcello Gatti round out the package and deliver enough interesting anecdotal and historical context to justify their inclusion. The only thing that the package lacks is input from Polanski, but its absence is understandable in light of numerous factors which will surely be obvious to most film fans.

What? definitely deserves a second look as it serves as a bit of a last hurrah for Polanski's absurdist streak so obviously on display in The Fearless Vampire Killers. Definitely recommended.

I first became aware of Felicity director John Lamond in Mark Hartley's explosive documentary on Australian exploitation cinema, Not Quite Hollywood. In that film he is interviewed about his contributions to the moral deterioration of Australian cinema and he is entirely unapologetic, even thirty years later. In Not Quite Hollywood, Lamond's earlier mondo style documentary featuresThe ABC of Love and Sex and Australia After Dark gave the viewer a decent idea of what he was about. With Felicity, Lamond translated his interest in T & A into a feature that is ostensibly about female sexual discovery, but manages to deliver thrills and plenty of skin for those uninterested in liberation.

Felicity (Glory Annen) is a young girl sent away to finishing school by her parents. When she's not studying in the classroom, she's busy exploring her and her classmates' blooming sexuality. She's strictly a look-but-don't-touch kind of girl at school, but a sudden celebratory excursion to Hong Kong on her parents' dime changes all of that. When Felicity lands in the Pearl of the Orient, she almost immediately begins to sow her wild oats among the expat community living there, leading to a number of fairly involved lovemaking scenes between she and numerous, frequently anonymous, partners. In the end, however, Felicity learns that the connection between love and lust makes for far more satisfying sex than the odd one night stand.

John Lamond's film follows in the wake of the sexual revolution of the '70s. While it wasn't ahead of the curve by any means – by 1978 this was all pretty old hat as hardcore pornography was already approaching the mainstream – it did provide plenty of skin for young men and women to ogle. There are a number of fascinating aspects to this film apart from the obvious copious amounts of nudity of all stripes.

Felicity is probably most notable for following a woman's journey of sexual discovery, an unapologetic and forward woman at that. There is no shame in Felicity's game as she seduces and is seduced by all and sundry and recounts each of her stories in vivid detail to her friends at the breakfast table the next morning. While a few of her adventures venture dangerously near rape, Felicity owns all of her dalliances and never attempts to make any excuses for herself. Why should she? In addition to the sometimes questionable nature of the consent involved in her encounters, there is also the fact that she has no issue moving between partners, and even genders, with a fluidity rarely seen on screen even today. The only overt mention of any kind of non-heterosexual lifestyle is made in reference to an effete clothier who is providing Felicity with various bits of barely-there lingerie, but her affinity for sex with men and women is quite plain and out in the open.

While Felicity is happy to bed whomever happens to cross her path while in Hong Kong, sometimes even going so far as to engage in random stranger sex whilst in the middle of searching for her boyfriend, there are some lines the film isn't willing to cross. Even though the vast majority of the film takes place in Hong Kong, never does Felicity engage in experiments with Asian men. Perhaps in 1978 they were still seen as too effeminate and emasculated to Western eyes. She does engage in a bit of sapphic fun with a local fixer, Me Ling, but even that character is played by a non-Chinese performer, Joni Flynn. I'm sure there was no racist intent at the time, but watching the film these days makes it quite clear.

Glory Annen's guileless performance as Felicity is one of wide-eyed wonder and discovery. This is a film that is designed to appeal to men as the budding confessions of a nymphomaniac, but there is power in her embrace of her own sexual power. Felicity may be used and abused on occasion, but she gets back up and utilizes those experiences to her sexual advantage, she owns her power and never makes the same mistake twice. It's an interesting document of a time that has passed us by, though it remains entertaining and relevant today.

The Disc:

Felicity comes to us on Blu-ray from Severin Films, who first released the film on DVD back in 2006, and a decade of improvement in restoration technology have done it some good. The film was shot with an intentionally hazy look designed to mirror the other softcore adventure films of the time, so a certain lack of fine detail is to be expected. The color, on the other hand, definitely receives a boost from this new presentation. Felicity was never going to be a showstopper on Blu-ray – an abundance of grainy low-light shooting leads to a ton of underexposure and heavy grain on the source material – but it looks pretty darned good for what it is.

Severin recycles several older extras for this new release, but they are abundant, so I'm not going to complain. In terms of extras directly related to the film we get an audio commentary from Lamond ans his star Glory Annen, and an hour of fascinating outtakes from Hartley's Not Quite Hollywood documentary featuring Annen and Lamond, as well as cinematographer Garry Wapshott. In addition to these, we get even more of Lamond in the form of his two above-mentioned mondo docs, The ABC of Love and Sex and Australia After Dark, both of which were previously released on Severin sub-label Intervision Picture Corp. Both films also feature all of the bonus features available on those discs as extras, so if you have those two discs, you can safely give them to friends because Felicity on Blu-ray now has you covered.

I wasn't lucky enough to see Felicity as a young man, though if I did my head might have exploded. Seeing it as an adult with half a lifetime of experience under my belt though, I was still charmed by its innocence and genuine sense of joy. Definitely a fun film.

Frank Henenlotter's documentary on the often overlooked genre of sexploitation cinema, That's Sexploitation!, is an exhaustive and at times exhausting look at sleazy cinema from the '30s through the '70s. Henenlotter's name might be familiar to some as the director of such grimy classics as the Basket Case trilogy, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he's also quite a vocal advocate of film archiving, specifically the kind of movies that most people would like to forget. He's had a long and fruitful friendship with old-time mail order heroes Something Weird Video and it is through this collaboration that Henenlotter's two documentaries have been born. The first, Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore, was a look at the pioneering gore films of that one-of-a-kind hustler; the second is this film, and they share more than a little in terms of DNA. That DNA belongs to legendary exploitation exhibitor David Friedman.

Here's where the review gets a bit more mixed. That's Sexploitation! is formally a documentary, but in reality it plays more like a visual essay or a video lecture. Both of these options would be fine if delivered live on a stage with clips to illustrate, but without that kind of personal interaction, the project feels very indulgent. The vast majority of the film is footage of the late Friedman narrating the history of the sexploitation genre and its many manifestations – hygiene films, nudist camp films, nudie cuties, roughies, et cetera – with an abundance of clips to illustrate. Occasionally Henenlotter steps in to facilitate the transitions and provide clarity and specificity to Friedman's remarkable memories.

My two biggest issues with this format are that it is very formal, in spite of the rambunctious and randy nature of the content, and second that it is really, really long. At a little over two hour and fifteen minutes, That's Sexploitation! becomes more of a chore than a light-hearted romp through the seedier side of cinema history. That's no slight to Friedman, the man was a national treasure, and the fact that we have this document of a small part of his knowledge and personal involvement with this poorly documented section of American cultural history is a godsend. However, there are definitely too many examples and clips in the film. I'd place the ratio of clips to content at something like 75:25, which means that there is a lot or run time spent on this footage. It becomes a bit tiresome as an academic exercise, especially when you consider that most of them were designed to be 8 minute reels, and not features.

Henenlotter is also a national treasure and his commitment to shedding light on these types of films is well-documented and goes back decades. Not only is he a huge proponent of archiving these films, he's also an incredibly engaging speaker, as anyone who has ever seen an interview with him would know. He essentially hands Friedman the microphone and lets him talk, which is both a blessing and a curse. As a matter of respect, there's no doubt that these are Friedman's stories to tell, and he's an engaging speaker, however, Henenlotter has a kind of presence that would've help to soften to blow of the run time if he'd sped along the proceedings more often.

There is clearly enough material in That's Sexploitation! to film multiple feature length documentaries, and hopefully someday some of the outtakes from Henenlotter and Friedman will see the light of day as a way of filling in some of the anecdotal gaps in the narrative, but as it stands, I don't think we'll ever seen as thorough a treatment of the genre as we get here. I'm incredibly happy that the film exists as a testament to Friedman's standing in the history of film in America as well as a testament to the tenacity and expansive scope of Something Weird founder Mike Vraney, who is the primary source of the archival footage with which the film overflows. I just wish they'd been a little more ruthless in the editing room.

The Disc:

That's Sexploitation! is a low budget labor of love, and the very nature of the subject matter demands that the A/V quality of the film will vary wildly. That being said, it looks and sounds just fine.

The extras included on this Blu-ray disc from Severin Film are hefty, though it may be a bit of an effort to get through the whole disc. Henenlotter and the later Vraney's partner at SWV, Lisa Petrucci provide a commentary track for the film. The two of them talk about the context of many of the chosen clips as well as sharing their memories of working with Friedman and Vraney over the years. It's as engaging to listen to as any Henenlotter project and I highly recommend it. The second huge chunk of extra material is a 3.5 hour session of shorts and loops from the Something Weird Video archive to illustrate exactly what audiences have seen over the years. The collection includes films from the '30s right through to the end of sexploitation in the '70s. Some are great, some are not so great, but it's a very good primer, I just wouldn't recommend trying it all at once.

If you're interested at all in sexploitation films, specifically American ones, this is an easy recommendation. Though the film is long and does wear out its welcome near the end, it is incredibly informative and its first person narrative from David Friendman is incredible..

We are in the glory days of trailer compilation home video releases. This kind of party mix release has been around as long as I can remember and I certainly remember making my own VHS mix tapes when I was a teenager twenty-some years ago. Today, however, the technology has advanced and access to these kinds of compilations has widened making it a viable market for home video labels. The gold standard of this kind of release is almost certainly Synapse Films' 42^nd Street Forever series. With half a dozen DVD releases and one Blu-ray release that spans three and a half hours, its hard to beat. However, that hasn't stopped others from trying, and the competition has driven overall quality up. Drafthouse Films threw in their hat with Trailer War, Something Weird Video has always been in the market, and recent start-up Garagehouse Pictures has a pair of winners in their Trailer Trauma series, now we have Severin Films entering the fray with Kung Fu Trailers of Fury, and I am glad.

Most of the trailer compilations on the market feature teasers from films whose genres are all over the map. Where Severin's offering obviously stands out is that it focuses very narrowly on Hong Kong Kung Fu films from a particular collection. In and of itself that is a niche that has no competition. Many of the other compilations have kung fu trailers as part of their running time, but no one else has narrowed their focus to this genre which is so wide and varied on its own. The result is two hours of kicking, punching, comedy, drama, action, and romance from one of the most fruitful film booms in history.

I'm not going to list or review each trailer in the compilation, there are websites out there that do that for you, and I'm of the opinion that discovering them for yourself is most of the fun with these kinds of releases. I will say that I was never bored, a hundred and twenty minutes is a lot of short bursts of awesomeness and classic kung fu trailers are among the most entertaining out there. What is worth noting is that these trailers, all of which apparently come from the treasure trove of The Cube cinema in England, look pretty wonderful on this Blu-ray disc and they are even subtitled for viewers, which is something I didn't expect at all! It's a wonderful collection of the best chop socky trailers you're likely to see all in one place.

There are a few extras worth discussing in the collection, and they only enhance the set's innate appeal. A Brief History of Kung Fu Cinema features noted expert Ric Meyers, author of Films of Fury, and Frank Djeng (Tai Seng) talking about Kung Fu cinema and its long and storied hold over Hong Kong arts culture and film in particular. They start in the '30s and move all the way through the fading years of traditional kung fu cinema in the early '80s taking time to stop and talk about watershed moments and characters in the genre. It's about as informative a thirty minute segment as you're likely to encounter. There is also a twelve minute segment titled Way of the Cube which explores the Cube cinema in the UK and the discovery of this cache of trailers in the old Chinese business office that they shared a building with. It's definitely entertaining and it is the kind of story that definitely keeps alive the hope that somewhere out there your favorite film still exists in some old theater somewhere gathering dust, just waiting to be rediscovered. Lastly there is a commentary with Meyer, Michael Worth (The Brucesploitation Bible), Greg Schiller (martial arts instructor), and Rick Stelow (Drunken Master Video) that is entertaining and incredibly informative. All of the participants are very well informed and as a group, their conversation is type on which we'd all dream of eavesdropping at a film festival or revival. Very fun.

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury fills a niche and fills it well, definitely required viewing for any kung fu film fan.