Here’s the opening to Fiction Factory’s newly-produced 60 minute documentary OUTLAW BROTHERS: THE MAKING OF THE LONG RIDERS with Walter Hill, James Keach and Robert Carradine, which will feature on Second Sight’s UK Blu-ray of THE LONG RIDERS, released on 3rd June. Other newly-produced Fiction Factory extras for THE LONG RIDERS are THE NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID: ANATOMY OF A SCENE (15 minutes) and SLOW MOTION: WALTER HILL ON SAM PECKINPAH (6 minutes).
On 17 April, Carlotta Films in Paris will publish two classic films by Hollywood professional Richard Fleischer (1916-2006) on DVD and blu-ray: VIOLENT SATURDAY (1955) and THE BOSTON STRANGLER (1968). Fiction Factory has produced three bonus features for these releases: William Friedkin, director of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE EXORCIST and recently KILLER JOE, a big admirer of Fleischer’s work, took pleasure in introducing both films, and for THE BOSTON STRANGLER, there will be an additional 30-minute feature called REAL KILLER, FAKE NOSE: RICHARD FLEISCHER’S THE BOSTON STRANGLER REMEMBERED, in which veteran cinematographer Richard H. Kline, actress Sally Kellerman, and Mark Fleischer, Richard’s son, take turns in discussing the technical challenges and innovations of this film as well as Tony Curtis’s knock-out performance in the title role.
Brian De Palma’s cult thriller DRESSED TO KILL (French title: PULSIONS) is now out in France on DVD and blu-ray via Carlotta Films, sporting no less than four Fiction Factory productions among the bonus features. Click on the play button above for an excerpt of LESSONS IN FILMMAKING: KEITH GORDON ON DRESSED TO KILL.
Fiction Factory just finished production on a series of filmed interviews on two of Brian De Palma’s most popular thrillers, DRESSED TO KILL (1980) and BLOW OUT (1981). Pictured above (clockwise from top left) are actress Angie Dickinson (on DRESSED TO KILL), cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (on BLOW OUT), producer George Litto (on both films), Nancy Allen (on both films), and actor Keith Gordon (on DRESSED TO KILL).
The seven interviews will be featured on the upcoming French DVD and blu-ray editions of DRESSED TO KILL and BLOW OUT, announced by Paris-based Carlotta Films for 21 November.
Fiction Factory is producing a 40-minute documentary called WILL HE LIVE OR WILL HE DIE, in which legendary Hollywood writer/director Walter Hill recalls the making of his 1981 cult favourite, SOUTHERN COMFORT, starring Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe. Robert Fischer visited Hill in the latter’s Beverly Hills home and was granted a rare opportunity: This is only the third time (after a filmed introduction to THE WARRIORS in 2005 and a participation in a documentary on BROKEN TRAILS in 2006) that Walter Hill agreed to talk about one of his films in front of a camera. Fiction Factory has already licensed WILL HE LIVE OR WILL HE DIE: WALTER HILL ON SOUTHERN COMFORT to Second Sight Films (London) for their upcoming DVD and Blu-ray releases of SOUTHERN COMFORT.
These are a few images (beware of possible spoilers!) of the brand-new Fiction Factory documentary ALDRICH OVER MUNICH: THE MAKING OF »TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING«, available for licensing worldwide through Global Screen, Munich. (Global Screen also handles world rights for the digitally restored version of TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING, a Lorimar-Geria production which Robert Aldrich shot in 1976.) Featured in these first two minutes of the 66-minute documentary are, in order of appearance, Aldrich biographer Alain Silver, Aldrich’s daughter Adell, actor Gerald S. O’Loughlin, and assistant director (now a producer) Wolfgang Glattes.
Fiction Factory is finishing production on two bonus features for upcoming DVD and blu-ray releases of Markus Schleinzer’s controversial debut feature, MICHAEL. The film, which was shown in competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, describes the last five months of 10-year-old Wolfgang and 35-year-old Michael’s involuntary life together. Robert Fischer filmed interviews with both writer/helmer Schleinzer (45 minutes) and main actor Michael Fuith (13 minutes) last January at the Max Ophüls Preis festival in Saarbrücken, where MICHAEL won two of the main awards: best film and best actor. Kino Kontrovers will release the film on DVD in Germany. World sales of MICHAEL are handled by Les Films du Losange, Paris.
On 23 April, Park Circus, the Glasgow-based UK label for selected arthouse titles on DVD and Blu-ray, will bring out two recently restored films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder: I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME (1976) and DESPAIR (1978). Both DVDs (and, in case of DESPAIR, the blu-ray, too) will contain a feature-length documentary about the making of these films: OF LOVE AND CONSTRAINTS: SPECULATIONS ON FASSBINDER’S »I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME« features interviews with actors Vitus Zeplichal and Elke Aberle and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, while THE CINEMA AND ITS DOUBLE: FASSBINDER’S »DESPAIR« REVISITED has Ballhaus along with screenwriter Tom Stoppard, actress Andréa Ferréol and many others. Both documentaries were directed by Robert Fischer and produced by Fiction Factory, Munich. (See »Films« and »DVD/Blu-rays« for further details.)
