MUBI PRESENTS: THE TOXIC AVENGER

MUBI PRESENTS: THE TOXIC AVENGER

Posted on by Walter Tseng


THE TOXIC AVENGER
dir. Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, 1984
United States, 82 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4 – 7:30 PM w/ Lloyd Kaufman in person!
(This screening is $10)
FRIDAY MARCH 6 – MIDNIGHT

ONLINE TICKETS          FACEBOOK EVENT 

MUBI is excited to present these exclusive screenings to launch their new series dedicated to the infamous American independent production company Troma. Directed by the company’s founders, THE TOXIC AVENGER is an endlessly inspired oddity of a superhero movie—made long before the genre became rife with convention and impersonality.

THE TOXIC AVENGER is the first film in MUBI‘s series The Vulgar Disruptor: Troma Restored

Founded in 1974 by filmmakers Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the production-distribution company Troma has long been dedicated to realizing and releasing only the most transgressive of genre films. Troma is indisputably a landmark company in the American filmmaking landscape, upending all comfortable notions of both good and bad taste and high and low art.

MUBI celebrates their commitment to all things vulgar with this 6-film series which encompasses films across the company’s lifetime, starting with their initial runaway success of The Toxic Avenger through to what is surely the most gruesome adaptation of Romeo and Juliet ever realized, the aptly titled Tromeo & Juliet. From gross-out Shakespeare adaptations to a Nazi-hunting exploitation revenge flick, there’s something here for everyone.

THE TOXIC AVENGER will be available to stream on MUBI starting March 3. More info here.

MUBI is a curated streaming service. An ever-changing collection of hand-picked films. From new directors to award-winners. From everywhere on earth. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies — a new one, every single day. Always thoughtfully selected. MUBI is available to watch in 190 countries. On any screen or device, anywhere.

FREE AT LAST: The Marriage Circle

Posted on by Walter Tseng

New works are finally entering the public domain after a 20 year hiatus; come and celebrate the newly liberated films of 1924 with Spectacle!

THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE
dir. Ernst Lubitsch, 1924.
France. 85 min.
Silent with English intertitles

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 28 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS           FACEBOOK EVENT 

In this marital sex comedy, Lubitsch finds humor in the small conflicts and misunderstandings that arise in relationships. Lubitsch thought of The Marriage Circle as depicting “everyday people” who were “just a little bit bad and not too good.”

In Vienna, two married couples intersect; the newly-married and in-love Brauns and the mismatched Stocks. The flapperish Mizzi Stock, unsatisfied with her husband’s subdued and formal manner and lack of attention, throws herself at the first man she runs into, who happens to be the new husband of her best friend Charlotte Braun. As Mizzi pursues Doctor Braun, who does his best to evade her, Charlotte begins to suspect that he’s interested in another woman. Doctor Braun’s partner sees his chance and takes the opportunity to woo the unreceptive Charlotte. Hoping to procure a divorce from his restless wife, Professor Stock hires a detective who uncovers Mizzi’s connection to Doctor Braun, threatening his otherwise happy marriage.

JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE

Posted on by Walter Tseng


JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE
dir. Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy, 1996
United States, 58 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 27 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
(This event is $10)

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

100% of ticket sales will go to Access Reproductive Care – Southeast, an Atlanta-based service providing financial and logistical support for those in need of abortions in six southeastern states.

This fascinating political look at a little-known chapter in women’s history tells the story of “Jane”, the Chicago-based women’s health group who performed nearly 12,000 safe illegal abortions between 1969 and 1973 with no formal medical training.

Special thanks to Women Make Movies.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR GIRLS ARE?

Posted on by Walter Tseng

Burning rubber? Taking names? Climbing the social ladders of the Brooklyn organized crime scene? These women (gasp) do it all. Alternating between the schlock and the subversive, the films included in this series are best enjoyed with your own clique of delinquents, punks and biker toughs.

Special thanks to byNWR, G.B. Jones, Vtape, and AGFA.



CHAINED GIRLS
dir. Joseph P. Marwa, 1965
United States, 65 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Presented by byNWR

In contemporary times, sleaze documentarian Marwa’s expose of the secret lives of New York lesbians plays best wryly and tongue-and-cheek (and occasionally laugh out loud). This anthropological oddity is shot verité-style on the Greenwich Village streets, drastically underexposed, an amateurish eventide tour of mid-60s New York with the mysterious Sapphics as our guide. byNWR’s recent incredible restoration preserves an unforgettable pre-Stonewall curio.

screening with

THE YO-YO GANG
dir. G.B. Jones, 1992
Canada, 30 min.
In English.

Flash forward thirty years, to queercore Toronto, where Fifth Column’s G.B. Jones unleashed the furiously gritty punk opus Yo-Yo Gang, following a turf war between the titular girl clique and their nemeses, The Skateboard Bitches.



TEENAGE GANG DEBS
dir. Sande N. Johnson, 1966
United States, 72 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

“No one’s gonna cut me up, pigface!” growls no-goodnik Terry (Diane Conti), fresh in Brooklyn from Manhattan and vying to wrest control of the Brooklyn-based Rebels. An operatic teen movie full of brawls on the open Brooklyn streets, Teenage Gang Debs has a rightful rep as one of the most fun films in its genre.



GIRL GANG
dir. Robert C. Derteno, 1954
United States, 64 min.
In  English.

MONDAY, MARCH 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 23 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

A prime cut of 1950s cautionary schlock, Girl Gang chronicles the downfall of a group of teens who fall under the drug-addled sway of gangster kingpin. Funded by roadshow maestro George Weiss, who also funded Ed Wood’s films as well as Chained Girls, this z-grade relic was rescued from obscurity by Something Weird.



SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS
dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1968
United States, 88 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 15 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18 -10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Presented by the America Genre Film Archive.

Gore god Gordon Lewis gives girl gangs a go in this mean and nasty 1968 exploitation flick following the exploits of The Man-Eaters; biker chicks reigning over a Florida town. They race their bikes weekly on an airport tarmac, endowing the winner with “first pick from the stud line”. Shot in Miami (and reportedly starring actual motorcycle toughs), She-Devils is as colorful as exploitation films get.

CONTROL FREAKS

Posted on by Walter Tseng

A trio of horror films about controlling, overbearing, downright awful children.



THE PIT
dir. Lew Lehman, 1981
Canada, 96 min
In English.

FRIDAY, MARCH 13 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 21 – MIDNIGHT

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Left with a baby sitter, a bad boy with a teddy bear finds a pit with four hungry monsters.

The most cartoonish of the trilogy is also somehow, occasionally, the most unsettling. Jamie, as played by Sammy Snyders in his second-to-last credit (right behind ‘The Littlest Hobo’), is an obnoxious, cringey, and entirely too horny pre-teen with parents who coddle him and his ‘unique’ behavior as he burns through babysitters who can’t handle him. Oh, did we mention he also has a teddy bear who talks to him, and has also found a pit full of ‘friends’ in the woods?

Tonal shifts abound as Jamie’s increasing(ly uncomfortable) attraction to his new babysitter Sandy curdles into rage at her and everyone who’s ever bullied him. The less you know the better, but The Pit is certainly a ride worth taking.



THE CHILD
dir. Robert Voskanian, 1977
US, 82 min
In English.

SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MARCH 13 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

A 1930’s widower hires a governess for his daughter, who can summon zombies.

Almost the polar opposite of The Pit despite very similar synopses, The Child is a distinctly moodier and more serious affair. Alicianne is en route to her new job as the governess to a recently widowed man and his 11 year old daughter, Rosalie, when her car breaks down, leaving her to walk the rest of the way through the woods. On the way, she meets an old woman who warns her of strange happenings since the girl’s mother died, and it just gets weirder from there.

Manages to strike a tone somewhere between Bava and the dreamy weirdness of ‘Tombs of the Blind Dead’ – if woods, fog, and synth are your thing, look no further.



PATRICK
dir. Richard Franklin, 1978
Australia, 112 min
In English.

TUESDAY, MARCH 3 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 21 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

A comatose hospital patient harasses and kills through his powers of telekinesis to claim his private nurse as his own.

Patrick follows the life of Patrick’s new nurse, who discovers he can communicate telepathically, as she moves through relationships in a script that’s aged surprisingly well. As his obsession grows, his possessiveness becomes more manic – not to mention his powers.

The classiest (and longest) entry in the series, Patrick was a crossover Ozploitation hit at the time of its release. Don’t let the length scare you – it’s a worthy Hitchockian slow-burn, plus telekinetic powers.

Directed by Richard Franklin (Road Games, Cloak & Dagger) and heavily referenced (read: ripped off) by Tarantino in a few Kill Bill sequences.

OM-DAR-B-DAR

Posted on by Walter Tseng


OM-DAR-B-DAR
dir. Kamal Swaroop, 1988.
India. 101 min.
In Hindi with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 24 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 30 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Absurdist epic OM DAR-B-DAR is a pure outsider invention in Indian cinema, a shot at romance, religion, and commerce from the rocky hills of the northern province Rajasthan. The film showed at the Berlin film festival in 1988, but was instantly condemned to obscurity back at home where censors slapped it with an “adult” rating, assuring that it would never reach theaters. Were they befuddled by its barrage of nonsense, non-sequitur, and dream? Or did they find something overwhelmingly subversive in a film with such broad, if jumbled, satiric targets, complete dismissal of Indian filmmaking norms, and hero who, perhaps inspired by tadpoles refusing to metamorphose into frogs, inadvertently starts a religion and leads a mass revolt of suspended breath.

The film follows a family of iconoclasts. Father Babuji, after losing his job in a government office for issuing counterfeit Brahmin caste certificates to beggars, takes up astrology and calls his son Om to evade name-based astrological time-of-death predictions. Gayatri, the elder child is an independent unmarried 30-year-old who sits in the men’s section at the cinema and wonders if women will soon be climbing Everest without need of men. She eventually accepts the romantic overtures of layabout Jagadish because they request the same pop song on the radio and he attempts a love spell with a lock of her hair, but exercises her sexual agency in a hilariously Freudian anti-love scene. Om, for his part, runs away from home and leads the plot into a mass of convolutions involving a curse, a shoe filled with diamonds, and a few inadvertent miracles. Soon his ability to seemingly manifest wealth and hold his breath underwater, like the tadpoles of his biology classes, attracts religious followers, documentary filmmakers, and marketing personnel from PROMISE toothpaste.

It’s in the nature of this wild, often rigorously inexplicable film that sowing confusion takes on a renegade significance, and no two synopses written for it ever seem to describe the same story. Which you can take to mean that I’m able to provide only a smattering of its anarchic charms and mysteries in my own. For the rest, you’ll have to see it.

After 25 years in the wilderness, the film was at last restored and released to theaters in 2014. Director Kamal Swaroop, after a series of documentaries, has plans for a new feature. While this is all great news, in light of present events, it is worth noting that dissenting and minority voices are most important in their time, not buried for a quarter of a century to be safely lauded only much later.

CW: Contains some unnecessary frog violence.

BURNING FRAME: A Monthly Anarchist Film Series

Posted on by Kellen Dye

CALLING ALL LEFTISTS! The past few years have been a whirlwind: exhausting, invigorating, and ripe with potential. It’s tremendously difficult, when in the thick of it, to pause, reflect, or even find a moment to catch a breath. Especially when “it” refers to the rise of fascism on a global scale, with any number of future cataclysms hovering just over the horizon. But we digress.

Join us, then, for a series that asks: if not now, when? Come for great works of radical political filmmaking, stay for the generative discussions, or even just to gossip and gripe. The hope isthat this forum for authentic representations of successes, defeats, and the messy work of political action, will be thrilling, edifying, and maybe even inspire your next organizing project. To butcher the title of a great film for the sake of a moderately applicable pun: “Throw away your dogma, rally in the cinema.”


SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16 – 7:30 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Soviet Smut
dir. Yakov Levi, 2009
82 mins. Russia.
In Russian with English subtitles.

The videos of Yakov Levi define amateur, yukking (and yakking) it up as a fuck you to the censors, an affirmation of solidarity with the beleaguered, demeaned and oppressed. If it blanches the middlebrow it’s here. Filth that fights back, then. Comedies, horror, horror comedies: Levi does it all! So in the spirit of lumpy-proletariat transgression we give you a corpus so rotted through it’s possible the swampy, grotty stench will befoul fair Spectacle for years to come. Slop, grit, grime, tosh, goo: all the muck that’s fit to ogle.

TRACKING ISSUES – COURTNEY FATHOM SELL RETURNS!

Posted on by spectacletheater

TRACKING ISSUES (w/ Selected Shorts)
dir. Courtney Fathom Sell, 207-2019
various lengths, USA

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29TH – 7:30 PM

A film school drop out after his first semester, Sell began traveling the country with nothing but a bag of clothes, a few dollars, a laptop and his beloved Hi8 camera. Covering 42 of the 50 states in a whirlwind Kerouac-esque style, Sell obsessively and extensively documented his travels and the people he met along the way before he even turned 22.

From sleeping in parks, graveyards and the many floors of his friends apartments, Sell would shoot and edit simultaneously on his broken laptop wherever he could and present the works wherever they would have him. Previously being distributed on DVD by small labels, these early short documentaries never gained much public attention but were recognized for their gritty style.

TRACKING ISSUES
61 min.
(NY Premiere!)

“I think Courtney Sell has provided us with something essential – a heartfelt testament of times gone by yet countered by a persuasive resonance that illuminates backyard filmmaking in all its earnest past glory.” — Mark Borchardt (“Coven” and “The Dundee Project”)

Filmed over the course of twenty two years and made entirely on disposable cameras, Sell’s feature length doc explores his early obsession with documenting every moment of his childhood, his filmmaking aspirations / i.e. shooting horror shorts in his parents backyard with friends every weekend after school and eventually capturing the cancerous struggle and untimely death of his father. A heartfelt, hilarious and touching entry in Sell’s vast collection of doc work that has never seen the light of day until now! Be kind, rewind.

“Sell is the real thing and “Tracking Issues” is destined to become an underground classic.” — Jennifer M. Kroot (“It Came From Kuchar” & “To Be Takei”)

THE HOLE
10 min.

“Treats the place with dignity, neither romanticizing its struggles nor pathologizing its residents.” – Newsweek

Located 30 feet below sea level, home to the Federation of Black Cowboys & known for being a mafia body dumping ground, welcome to the most mysterious neighborhood in New York City.

“A beautiful and fascinating exploration” – Filmmaker Magazine

MY DYING DAY
10 min.

“Here’s another documentarian to watch out for” – DVD Talk

After being given only two months to live, Bradley Sell went on to outlive his Doctor’s “Death Sentence Diagnosis” of cancer by almost eight years. During his last months, Sell asked his son to document his final moments with his Hi8 camera – scenes including shopping for his coffin, standing at his own gravestone and visiting others living in hospice care (who don’t have any idea their friend is in the same position as they are). One of Sell’s most revealing and personal shorts; riddled with moments of humor & inspiration.

“I’d hate to throw the word “devastating” out again in regard to another movie about cancer, and luckily, Sell seemingly won’t allow it anyway. – Of course this is rough stuff, depending on how you approach it, but it’s also refreshingly upbeat, and never maudlin. The fact that it’s Sell’s own father fighting a losing battle against cancer makes this 10 minutes truly remarkable.” – DVD Talk

IN THE GOLDEN BLOOD OF THE SUNLIGHT / BABY, YOU HAE NO IDEA (2018)
45 min.

NYC Premiere!

With his Hi8 camera in one hand and a cold drink in the other, Sell embarked on a year long tour with the New Orleans based band “The Singing Knives”, creating a rock-doc tapestry that finds the members deep in the gator-filled swamps of the bayou, playing a live show at full speed in the back of a el camino and producing their first album inside a local dive bar. A rockin’ portrait of friendship (a band void of ego or suffering from any vicious arguments commonly depicted in such rock-docs) and a love letter to New Orleans.

Baby You Have No Idea – Sell’s short follow up to In the Golden Blood of the Sunlight, now a year later out of the swamp, finds the boys of The Singing Knives now stuffed in a Northwest recording studio and embarking on a short tour down the coast.

Featuring a notable and touching sequence with poet Walt Curtis (Author of “Mala Noche”) who gave the short its title.

LIVING LIKE A KING
9 min.

Known as the “Lower East Side Minster of Information”, East Village resident John King gives us a tour of his universe; from his roach-infested apartment (once awarded “Grossest Apartment in NYC”) to Union Square where he recalls his experiences with Warhol and members of the Factory.

A fun-loving portrait of a carefree and hilarious individual.

DIE KINDER DER TOTEN

Posted on by smacfarlane


DIE KINDER DER TOTEN
dirs. Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, 2019
90 mins. Austria/United States.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – 7:30 PM + 10 PM  w/filmmaker Kelly Copper in person for Q&A!
(These screenings are $10.)
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 – 7:30 PM w/filmmaker Kelly Copper in person for Q&A!
(This screening is $10.)

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

The Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s first foray into feature filmmaking is a silent movie-style zombie feature based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Austrian horror novel by author Elfriede Jelinek (The Piano Teacher), using classic silent film tropes (and corpses) to critique the country’s not-so-distant Nazi past. Producer Ulrich Seidl (director of IMPORT/EXPORT and the PARADISE TRILOGY) and the New York-based experimental theatrical troupe reenvision Jelinek’s 666-page epic as a Super-8 backyard slasher from the Hinterlands, “imbued with a midnight movie spirit reminiscent of John Waters and Guy Maddin” (AFI).

ANTI-VALENTINE’S 2020

Posted on by smacfarlane

This February, Spectacle presents a wide array of dreamy, twisted, hilarious and psychedelic tales of love, lust, blood, guts and everything in between.


PSYCHOS IN LOVE
dir. Gorman Bechard, 1987
88 mins. United States.
In English.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22 – 7:30 PM w/filmmaker Gorman Bechard in person for Q&A!
(This event is $10.)
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS         FACEBOOK EVENT

A strip club owner and a manicurist bond over their hates and loves, quickly learning of their mutual love for bloodshed, which leads to an increasingly morbid race to one-up each others murderous accomplishments as their relationship gets more serious.
The rare horror comedy that succeeds on all fronts – managing to be funny, grotesque, and dare we say sweet, in the same beat. 


UNMASKED PT. 25
(aka HAND OF DEATH)
dir. Anders Palm, 1988
88 mins. United Kingdom.
In English.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14 – MIDNIGHT

ONLINE TICKETS         FACEBOOK EVENT

Jackson, a lonely and terribly disfigured serial killer in a hockey mask, begins to question the point of all the killing he’s been doing when he befriends a beautiful blind woman. Will he be able to stop his murderous ways and lead a normal life?  That rare horror-spoof that manages to be both funny and sincere while nonetheless delivering on the jump scares + gore, UNMASKED PART 25 is sorely in need of another look. We’re screening the film in a glistening new digital remaster courtesy of our friends at Vinegar Syndrome.


LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET

dir. Roger Watkins, 1977.
77 mins. United States.
In English.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – MIDNIGHT

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Following a failed career as a pornographer and a stint in prison, unpleasant man Terry Hawkins (Roger Watkins) finally finds his calling as a director of snuff films. Exhausted with workaday pornography, a cortege of weary, nihilistic members of the leisure class finance his ventures. Terry shows his gratitude by making them the subjects of his next production. With most of the budget dedicated to the procurement of methamphetamines, director Roger Watkins nonetheless fashioned a singularly repellent work pitched somewhere between the grindhouse market and the Dada repertory. Beyond a genre curiosity, LAST HOUSE employs shock in the service of a dream-like exploration of dingy environs and irredeemable personalities.

[Content warning: Scenes in this film depict graphic torture, sexual assault, degraded yuppies indulging in racist iconography, and general unpleasantness.]


LABYRINTH OF DREAMS
(ユメノ銀河)
dir. Sogo Ishii, 1997
90 mins. Japan.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Ishii’s Hitchcockian tale of romantic obsession and aggression begins in a surrealist mixture of dream, memory, and rumor.  When bus conductor, Tomiko (Rena Komine), gets assigned to work with bus driver Niitaka (Tadanobu Asano, of ICHII THE KILLER and BRIGHT FUTURE), not only does she think that he looks like the man from her dreams, but that he also might be the man who married and killed her friend and co-worker. Determined to get revenge, Tomiko seduces him. But when she finds herself irresistibly attracted to him she gets obsessed with testing the sincerity of his murderous desires. Shot in dreamy black and white, Ishii melds many of the guttural DIY techniques of his early punk years with moody expressionist compositions reminiscent of Maya Deren to create a film both aggressive and disorienting as well as melancholic and contemplative.

“A Freudian fable of the night, filled with moons, rain, dark tunnels and imminent collisions.” – Tony Rayns, Senses of Cinema

OF HUMAN BONDAGE
Dir. John Cromwell, 1934
83 mins. United States.
In English.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

Upper-crust scribe W. Somerset Maugham’s epic novel of class-crossed romance gets the pre-Code treatment from maestro of melodrama John Cromwell (ANNE VICKERS, SCANDAL STREET) in Of Human Bondage, arguably the classiest title in our nation’s Public Domain. Screen idol Leslie Howard stars as the club-footed narrator, whose sensitive disposition is no match for the sailor’s mouth and sloe-eyes of co-star Bette Davis. In a scathing and sympathetic turn, Davis plays against type (and her Boston Brahmin bona fides), delivering a smoldering performance that is sure to leave you begging for more. The ur-anti-Valentine picture, Cromwell’s adaptation is a pre-cursor to Pialat that delivers its uglier scenes with a side of soft Hollywood shimmer.