Kaput Lager - Gli ultimi giorni delle SS (1977)

 

Durng World War II, an American major is captured by the Germans and thrown into a POW camp run by a sadistic Nazi officer, whose main pleasures are whipping the local female population and...

Director: Luigi Batzella (as Ivan Kathansky)
Writer: Luigi Batzella
Stars: Richard Harrison, Lea Lander, Isarco Ravaioli

Waris Hussein - Melody (1971)

This romantic fantasy is told through the viewpoint of the children in the story, the adults playing only supporting roles. Daniel Latimer (Mark Lester) befriends the troublesome Ornshaw (Jack Wild). One day, Daniel falls in love with Melody Perkins (Tracy Hyde) and announce to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future, but now. However, the adults, parents and teachers alike try to dissuade them. Ornshaw also doesn’t like this because he feels that Melody is taking away his friend. But later on, Ornshaw and their classmates are determined to go ahead with their plans for the young couple.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Welt am Draht AKA World on a Wire (1973)

Based on Daniel F. Galouye's novel "Simulacron Three" Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 2 part TV production is a science-fiction classic that explores the notion of a computer-generated other world, pre-dating The Matrix by 26 years. Since its original broadcast in 1973 it has rarely been seen and following increasing demand the Fassbinder Foundation have restored this remarkable film.

Werner Herzog - Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes AKA Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)

The most famed and well-regarded collaboration between New German Cinema director Werner Herzog and his frequent leading man, Klaus Kinski, this epic historical drama was legendary for the arduousness of its on-location filming and the convincing zealous obsession employed by Kinski in playing the title role. Exhausted and near to admitting failure in its quest for riches, the 1650-51 expedition of Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repulles) bogs down in the impenetrable jungles of Peru. As a last-ditch effort to locate treasure, Pizarro orders a party to scout ahead for signs of El Dorado, the fabled seven cities of gold. In command are a trio of nobles, Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra), Fernando de Guzman (Peter Berling), and Lope de Aguirre (Kinski). Traveling by river raft, the explorers are besieged by hostile natives, disease, starvation and treacherous waters.

Robert Altman - The Long Goodbye (1973)

Director Robert Altman, famous for his ability to turn any genre inside out, takes aim at film noir with this evocative adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel. Altman's Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is a relatively unsuccessful private eye living and working in 1970s Los Angeles. Stepping into the shoes of the notorious detective, Gould delivers a captivating performance that is the definition of '70s hip: he spends the entire film mumbling to himself, smoking cigarettes, and making wisecracks to everyone he encounters.

Roman Polanski - Le Locataire aka The Tenant (1976)

Director Roman Polanski casts himself in the lead of the psychological thriller The Tenant. Trelkovsky (Polanski) rents an apartment in a spooky old residential building, where his neighbors - mostly old recluses - eye him with suspicious contempt.

Van Guylder - Hollywood Babylon (1972)

"Interesting little exploitmenatary!? Is that a word? This is a documentary of sorts on Hollywood in the 20's and 30's. It shows reenactments of many of the major scandals which mostly involved sex. As this film is for "adults only", the vignettes involve mainly naked people running around and/or having sex. I thought this was quite an interesting little history lesson about the golden days of Hollywood and yet an exploitation movie at the same time. Neat little concept. 70's exploitation queen Uschi Digart is one of the co-stars and it is based on the book of the same name by Kenneth Anger. Released by Something Weird Video. - Chainsaw Fodder

Orson Welles - F for Fake (1974)

Orson Welles' free-form documentary about fakery focusses on the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory and Elmyr's biographer, Clifford Irving, who also wrote the celebrated fraudulent Howard Hughes autobiography, then touches on the reclusive Hughes and Welles' own career (which started with a faked resume and a phony Martian invasion). On the way, Welles plays a few tricks of his own on the audience.

Sam Peckinpah - Cross of Iron (1977)

A quote from Bertolt Brecht ends this bitter and angry war film by Sam Peckinpah: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." Peckinpah's intense and belligerently non-commercial work, (based on the book by Willi Heinrich), is a World War II tale told from the German perspective, following a platoon of German soldiers in the Russia of 1943, when the German Wehrmacht forces had been decimated and the Germans were retreating along the Russian front.

Ridley Scott - The Duellists [+Extras] (1977)

Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel star in this dramatic film about two officers in Napoleon's army who violently confront each other in a series of duels. The duels begin as a reaction to a minor incident and escalate into a consuming passion that rules the lives of both men for a period of 30 years. Based on Joseph Conrad's story, 'The Duellists' explores the themes of obsession, honor and violence. This visually breathtaking film weaves a compelling story through to an unexpected outcome. It was awarded the "Best Debut Film" at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations.

Claude Jutra - Mon oncle Antoine [+Extras] (1971)

With Mon Oncle Antoine, actor Jean Duceppe established himself as Canada's principle purveyor of eccentric relatives. Playing the uncle of 15-year-old Jacques Ganon, Duceppe acts as the lad's confidante through the difficult coming-of-age process. The Canadian backwoods and the mining-town milieu of the 1940s are displayed to excellent nostalgic advantage in this retrospective piece from writer/director Claude Jutra (who also plays a supporting role).

Gary Nelson - The Black Hole (1979)

The crew of the spaceship Palamino stumbles across the ``lost'' ship U.S.S. Cygnus, hovering on the edge of an immense black hole. Once aboard, they find the ship is manned by robots - it's only human inhabitant, one Dr. Hans Reinhardt; an eminent scientist, missing for the past twenty years. His plan - to enter the Black Hole . . . Whether Dr. Reinhardt is a genius or a mad-man, one thing is for sure, he will not be denied his life's dream. What lies beyond the Black Hole? Immortality . . .or, Oblivion . . . ?

Saul Bass - Phase IV (1974)

Quiet, haunting, beautiful Phase IV is an intriguing, and largely overlooked, science-fiction masterwork centred on the latent destructive power of the insect world and humanity’s inherent vulnerability in the face of catastrophic change.

Curiously enough, the only feature film directed by Saul Bass - the ingenious credit sequence specialist - contains no credit sequences. The story begins in space, a shot of the sun emanating a solar flare. A colony of ants seem to have picked up a signal from the flare, something that shifts them up the evolutionary scale, something that gives them purpose, a desire to dominate the planet. At first they concentrate on eliminating their nearest threats: spiders, mice, lizards. Later, they direct their sole attention to the next most advanced creatures on the planet: us.

Jean Eustache - La Maman Et La Putain AKA The Mother And The Whore (1973)

In his 1982 obituary for Jean Eustache, critic Serge Daney wrote that thanks to The Mother and the Whore, people would remember exactly what it was like in Paris for the generation that came in the wake of May 1968. The Mother and the Whore is most certainly a document of its time, as precise in its rendering of the rhythms and textures of Bohemian life as it is possible to imagine. But it's also much more than that. Eustache digs deeply into the emotional complications between the triangle of Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud, in what may be his greatest role), Marie (Bernadette Lafont, the 'mother') and Veronika (Françoise Lebrun, the 'whore').

Jean-Luc Godard - Ici et ailleurs AKA Here and Elsewhere (1976)

Jean-Luc Godard's short feature about the PLO was initially shot with Jean-Pierre Gorin in the Middle East in 1970, but when he edited the footage with Anne-Marie Mieville several years later, many of the soldiers that had been filmed were dead. Reflecting on this fact, as well as on the problems of recording history and of making political statements on film, Godard and Mieville produced a thoughtful and provocative essay on the subject.

Jesus Franco - Die Sklavinnen aka Swedish Nympho Slaves (1976)

After a woman has been found by the police she desperately tells her story of being kidnapped, drugged and tortured by Princess Arminda (Lina Romay). For years the police have been trying to shut down Arminda's sex palace called The Pagoda, but have been unable to get close enough due to her having friends in high places. Now they have found the woman who will help put Arminda away for years.

Another rare Jess Franco's title on dvd presented in its Uncut Anamorphic Widescreen Version with English subtitles, you cannot go wrong with this rare title!

Theodoros Angelopoulos - Anaparastassi (Reconstruction) and Ekpombi (Broadcast) (1970)

This is a very rare film so I decided to upload it without the subtitles. I've also included a short Angelepolous film, Ekpomb (1968)i, along with it. Since I don't speak or read Greek, I can't tell you much about either film. Ekpombi has no description on allmovie nor on imdb. It's documentary style, focused on the swinging sixties.

As for Anaparastassi (Reconstruction, also known as "Reconstruction of a Crime" ) here is what allmovie says:

Luciano Ercoli - La Morte Cammina Con I Tacchi Alti aka Death Walks On High Heels (1971)

Death Walks in High Heels (La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti, 1971) is a twisted tale that has a complicated plot structure guaranteed to surprise, but all the classic elements of the giallo are here in spades, from black-gloved murderer to psychosexual weirdness. Scott stars as high-class Parisian stripper Nicole Rochard, who is being stalked with threatening phone calls culminating in a visit from a blue-eyed maniac wielding a straight razor, going on about some diamonds.

Jose Mojica Marins - O Ritual dos Sádicos AKA Awakening of the Beast (1970)

Brazilian horror icon Jose Mojica Marins explores the drug culture as only he can in this distinctive blend of terror and surrealistic images. A group of leading Brazilian psychiatrists have come together to debate the effects of recreational drugs (particularly LSD, marijuana, and cocaine) on their patients, with noted filmmaker Marins in attendance. As the doctors exchange increasingly bizarre stories -- running from a female college student led into a fatal sexual encounter with a group of pot-smoking bohemians to an older cocaine-addled woman obsessed with miscegenation and bestiality -- one proposes an unusual experiment.

John Coney - Sun Ra: Space Is the Place [+Extras] (1974)

Science fiction, blaxploitation, cosmic free-jazz and radical race politics combine when Sun Ra returns to earth in his music-powered space ship to battle for the future of the black race and offer an "alter-destiny" to those who would join him.