The latest Fiction Factory documentary just finished production: THE BEAST INSIDE: CREATING »WOLF« is a 55-minute making-of featuring brand-new interviews with producer Douglas Wick, co-writer Wesley Strick and legendary special make up artist Rick Baker. WOLF (1994), directed by Mike Nichols and starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer, is not so much a werewolf movie but a film about a normal guy’s coping with his animal nature: high-class entertainment, as funny as it is frightening. THE BEAST INSIDE will be featured on British boutique label Indicator’s dual format release of WOLF, due out within the next months.

John Huston’s sombre but compassionate boxing drama FAT CITY (1972) is a criminally-underseen late-career masterpiece from the great director. Peppered with outstanding performances, this gritty yet affectionate look at the world of small-time boxing highlights a down-and-out fighter (Stacy Keach) and a young up-and-comer (Jeff Bridges), both moving through a world of seedy gyms and flop houses. The new Fiction Factory documentary SUCKER PUNCH BLUES: A LOOK BACK ON JOHN HUSTON’S »FAT CITY«, featuring interviews with actors Keach and Candy Clark, casting director Fred Roos and assistant cameraman Gary Vidor, chronicles the making of this modern classic and will first be available on British boutique label Indicator’s dual-format release of the film in late March.

https://vimeo.com/203493883

In January, Fiction Factory head Robert Fischer reconnected with John Moulder-Brown to shoot interviews on two more of the actor’s films from the early 1970s. Having discussed Jerzy Skolimowski’s DEEP END (see here) and Maximilian Schell’s FIRST LOVE in 2011, they now sat down to talk about Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s cult classic THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (La Residencia, 1970) and Luchino Visconti’s lush and masterful historical drama LUDWIG (1973). Moulder-Brown was happy to go back in time and share his memories about creating these truly enigmatic characters, and the two interviews (with a running time between 20 and 25 minutes each) will soon become available for international DVD and blu-ray releases.

John Moulder-Brown on Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED: a short clip from the interview

John Moulder-Brown on Luchino Visconti’s LUDWIG: a short clip from the interview

In Fiction Factory’s brand-new interview feature THE WOMAN IS DANGEROUS, filmmaker Vanessa Wanger Hope talks passionately about her grandparents — Hollywood star Joan Bennett and producer Walter Wanger — and the pair’s collaboration with director Fritz Lang on no less than four films: MAN HUNT (1941), THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944), SCARLET STREET (1945) and SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR (1947), the latter two produced by Diana Productions, a company founded and run by the star/producer/director trio. But the main focus here is on Joan Bennett’s life and career and on MAN HUNT, which will come out on blu-ray in the UK early next year, with THE WOMAN IS DANGEROUS included as an extra feature!

Here at Fiction Factory we just finished editing on RUNNING IN THE DARK, in which film scholar Glenn Erickson tells the fascinating story behind Jules Dassin’s noir masterpiece NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950), starring Richard Widmark as an American low-life racketeer literally running out of luck in London. Watch out for this 42-minute documentary on an upcoming blu-ray of NIGHT AND THE CITY.

British cult actress Judy Geeson (TO SIR WITH LOVE, BERSERK, DOOMWATCH) recently met with Robert Fischer in Los Angeles to reminisce about Richard Fleischer’s true-crime drama 10 RILLINGTON PLACE (1971), in which she plays John Hurt’s wife and is — spoiler alert! — famously killed by none other than Britain’s notorious serial killer John Christie (Richard Attenborough). The 22-minute documentary, BEING BERYL: JUDY GEESON ON RICHARD FLEISCHER’S 10 RILLINGTON PLACE, will first appear as a bonus feature on Paris-based Carlotta Film’s DVD and blu-ray editions of Fleischer’s film later this year.

Joseph Wambaugh wrote his first novel »The New Centurions« while still active as a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, and his fact-based, painfully realistic book became a nation-wide bestseller when it came out in 1971. Replacing heroic cops with struggling, psychologically damaged characters, Wambaugh changed crime literature forever. Richard Fleischer’s filming of Wambaugh’s novel, also called THE NEW CENTURIONS, followed a year later and, in turn, revolutionized crime movies. Now, 45 years later, the Fiction Factory documentary COP STORIES: THE MAKING OF RICHARD FLEISCHER’S THE NEW CENTURIONS, featuring new filmed interviews with writer Joseph Wambaugh, star Stacy Keach, technical advisor Richard E. Kalk (Wambaugh’s real-life LAPD partner) and assistant cameraman Ronald Vidor, chronicles the production of that landmark film in all its stages from script to screen. The 45-minute documentary will be avilable later this year.

In the works at Fiction Factory is a 20-minute documentary on Guy Green’s controversial 1968 film THE MAGUS, adapted from the bestselling John Fowles novel by the author himself and starring Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Candice Bergen and Anna Karina. In the documentary, ENCHANTED ISLAND: MICHAEL GREEN ON GUY GREEN AND THE FILMING OF THE MAGUS, it is the director’s son who takes us back to the summer of 1967 and gives a first-hand account of how the Spanish island of Mallorca and its gorgeous beaches stood in for the fictitious Greek isle described in Fowles’ novel.

The recently restored director’s cut of Sam Fuller’s DEAD PIGEON ON BEETHOVEN STREET is now out on DVD and blu-ray from Olive Films (USA). In both formats, the release includes the feature-length Fiction Factory documentary RETURN TO BEETHOVEN STREET: SAM FULLER IN GERMANY, featuring rare archival footage of Fuller on the set and new interviews with actors Christa Lang-Fuller, Eric P. Caspar and Hans-Christoph Blumenberg, fellow directors and Fuller fans Wim Wenders and Dominik Graf, film scholars Bill Krohn and Janet Bergstrom, Fuller’s daughter Samantha and more.

Independent British distributors Signal One Entertainment have just announced two blu-ray releases that will feature a string of brand-new Fiction Factory productions.

Frank Perry’s DOC (1971) is set in 1881 and begins with Doc Holliday entering the ‘No Name Saloon’ and challenging a man to a game of poker. He bets his horse for the opponent’s wife, the whore Katie Elder, and wins. From then on, Elder goes wherever Doc goes. When they arrive in Tombstone, Sheriff Wyatt Earp is standing as a candidate in the local election, but hostilities erupt and the Clanton family, a gang of outlaw cowboys, make their opposition felt. Doc soon joins forces with Earp and his brothers to take on the Clanton gang. This gritty, revisionist take on the true story of the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral stars Stacy Keach as Doc Holliday and Faye Dunaway as Kate Elder, and features music by the legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb (Wichita Lineman). Signal One’s blu-ray of DOC (street date: 29 February) will feature these two Fiction Factory features: TRUTH BE TOLD: STACY KEACH ON FRANK PERRY’S »DOC« (20 min), and OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM: ALAN HEIM ON EDITING FRANK PERRY’S »DOC« (25 min).

In Bob Rafelson’s BLACK WIDOW (1987), FBI investigator Alexandra Barnes (Debra Winger) becomes obsessed with proving glamorous socialite Catharine Petersen (Theresa Russell) is a murderess, responsible for the deaths of several millionaires who died suspiciously soon after marrying. Believing her to have assumed a new identity each time, Agent Barnes sets out to prove her suspicions, but finds that she too is falling under the spell of her seductive suspect. This stylish thriller from director Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces, The Postman Always Rings Twice) features brilliant performances by two of Hollywood’s most exciting actresses, and stunning cinematography by the legendary Conrad L. Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man), who returned to make Black Widow after a ten-year absence from film-making. Signal One’s blu-ray of BLACK WIDOW (street date: 7 March) will feature these two Fiction Factory features: THE PREDATOR AND HER PREY: RON BASS ON WRITING »BLACK WIDOW« (27 min), and BRIGHT COLORS, DEEP BLACKS: CONRAD L. HALL AND THE VISUAL STYLE OF »BLACK WIDOW« (29 min).