On Blu-ray - David Hare rediscovers one of the great unsung Brit action noirs HELL DRIVERS

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Herbert Lom and Stanley Baker butch it up as a couple of fur lined/ leather jacketed brother truckers in Cy Endfield's knock-yer-socks-off crime drama Hell Drivers from 1957. The screen is from a spanking new Network/ITV/Canal Blu-ray derived from a terrific HD encode which appears to be sourced from original horizontal 8-perf VIstavision elements. Hence the dazzling, razor sharp high contrast brilliance of the B&W image in this rarest of beasts, a B&W VIstavision movie. Others include Fear Strikes Out (Robert Mulligan, 1956), and Short Cut to Hell (1957), the latter directed by James Cagney. Interestingly Network has taken the AR back to an original narrow-ish 1.66 which was the first screening format theatrically for the more common 35mm non Vistavision reduction prints, rather than recent DVD releases which were masked to (TV-friendly) 1.78.

On paper the drama looks like a cross between Clouzot's Le Salaire de la Peur (France, 1953) and Walsh's terrific 1940 They Drive by Night but Endfield focusses on the internal conflict within the team of drivers in substantially adapting his own screenplay from a short novel by John Kruse.

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The movie also pivots around a battalion of new supporting players, most who later blossomed in Brit Television, some for the first time in movies including David McCallum, Patrick McGoohan, a baby Sean Connery, William Hartnell (the first Dr. Who) and the wonderful already established Gordon Jackson (from The Strange Affair, David Greene, UK, 1968 ) as well as Jill Ireland in her debut and the sublime Peggy Cummins in the middle as love interest between Gino (Lom here mustachioed) and Tom (Stanley Baker.)

The movie bristles and pumps with conflict and deception between the men, which Endfield choreographs much as he does other alpha male group pieces like Zulu (UK, 1964) and Sea Fury (UK, 1958). Endfield's own devotion to the all male core of the conflict removes the film's tone from Noir to something much closer to Losey on a psychological sphere, and on a larger scale. HIs career needs quite some re-appraisal.

Digitisation, Restorations and Revivals (22) - Cine Vault at the Chauvel, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Scorsese's selection

Associate Editor (Restorations and Revivals) Simon Taaffe has come across the following screenings and other information. Click on the links for times, more detail etc where indicated.

Classics at the Chauvel move to front and centre

For years now the Chauvel Cinema ran a Monday night program dubbed its Cinémathèque using prints from the NFSA’s (16mm) Lending Collection. This seems to have been abandoned and the venue may now a step away from this low level, low standard part of its program and somewhere towards the light with its program on Friday nights dubbed the Cine-Vault. The venue’s website claims the program presents iconic, and cult film favourites on the big screen – the way they were meant to be seen. This program, which has evolved from the audience favourite Chauvel Cinematheque, still aims to showcase rare 35mm film prints where possible, offering the audience a chance to experience the wonders of celluloid projection alongside state-of-the-art digital projection and restorations of classic films.

Each Friday night at Chauvel Cinema, the Cine-Vault sessions are presented in curated, bespoke double features or single feature epics. $10 Movie Club & Concession | $12.50 General Admission

Of the first selection the oldest film on offer is Tod Browning’s Freaks (USA, 1932) doubled with John Waters’ Pink Flamingoes (USA, 1972). You get the programming drift towards so-called cult material from that combination but if, at last, the Chauvel is taking print quality seriously well that’s small step forward.

Details here

San Francisco Silent Film Festival

This is a high quality event, one which might serve as exemplary if ever anyone were to get serious about presenting a silent film festival here. Details of the whole event’s

Program are here

Of special note at the SFSFF is this special session (free but a donation is sought)

The special session promises a behind-the-curtain look at the international preservation scene with another edition of this popular free program.

Sharing their amazing preservation tales are Library of Congress’s George Willeman, who has managed to sync cylinders from Edison National Historical Park with eight films from LOC’s collection for his presentation on Edison Kinetophones from 1912–13; Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi from EYE Filmmuseum, whose presentation will reveal the wonders of EYE’s UNESCO-inscribed Jean Desmet collection; and Heather Linville from the Academy Film Archive, sharing rarely seen footage of globetrotting filmmaker adventuress Aloha Wanderwell.

Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria NY

Meanwhile on the other side of the US a program curated by Martin Scorsese under the rubric Great Restorations. Details on this link Martin Scorsese: Great Restorations

March 26–April 9

Martin Scorsese

The Museum has put this note on its website Martin Scorsese has long been a passionate champion for film preservation and restoration. In 1990, he co-founded The Film Foundation, which has been responsible for the restoration of more than 750 films, including fiction features, documentaries, and avant-garde cinema. And in 2007, he launched the World Cinema Project, dedicated to restoring neglected great films from around the world. To date, 28 films from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Central America, South America, and the Middle East have been restored, preserved and exhibited for a global audience. This series offers a small selection of some of the great movies that have been saved for theatrical presentation by these essential initiatives.

The final film in this series, on April 9, will be a program of avant-garde films selected by Martin Scorsese.