HAPPY END 15

1967 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★

Commentary, Video essay, Booklet

The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning in this pitchblack experimental comedy from Czech director Oldrich Lipský and co-writer Milos Macourek. Shot in sepia tones and employing reverse chronology, it tells the surreal story of convicted murderer Bedrich (a wonderful Vladimír Mensík) from death to birth, with characters moving backwards in time through the frame. Filled with sight gags and incongruous dialogue, the digitally restored Happy End playfully celebrates cinema’s illusionistic nature. Informative extras.

FEAR CITY 18

1984 ★★★★★ OUT NOW BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★

Commentary, Uncut version, Booklet

Following brutal rape-revenge thriller Ms. 45 (1981), controversial filmmaker Abel Ferrara enjoyed an unlikely flirtation with the mainstream, the fruits of which include this entertainingly sleazy thriller about a martial-arts maniac murdering Manhattan’s strippers. If anything, given the gonzo plot, Fear City could have done with being even weirder, but Ferrara adds lashings of scuzzy NYC grime. The alternate cut restores some lesbian drama the censors apparently found more concerning than women having their fingers cut off.

MARY POPPINS PG

Nanny GOAT…

1964 ★★★★★ OUT 29 MARCH CINEMAS

Now 60 years old, the Disney classic gets a 4K cinema rerelease in time for the Easter hols. Based on P.L. Travers’ book series and starring Julie Andrews as the magical English nanny who comes to look after the Banks family, Robert Stevenson’s film set an Oscar benchmark for the Mouse House: 13 nominations and five wins, including Best Actress for Andrews (in her first major film role, no less). Set in 1910, in a London that feels like it’s been conjured from a dream, it’s an utterly effervescent experience.

What worked then still works today, not least the brilliantly memorable songs by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, including A Spoonful of Sugar, Let’s Go Fly a Kite and the Oscar-winning Chim Chim Cher-ee. True, you still have to stomach Dick Van Dyke’s wayward Cockney accent as Bert, Poppins’ odd-job-man pal, but that now feels like part of the charm. As, of course, does Van Dyke’s other role in the film, hidden initially behind an anagramatical credit.

While David Tomlinson as the father to the not-too-brattish Jane and Michael (Karen Dotrice, Matthew Garber) is particularly well cast, nothing can surpass Andrews, whose no-nonsense but warm-hearted nanny never puts a foot (or a precise line reading) wrong. Factor in the animated flourishes – Van Dyke and those dancing penguins together on stage – and Mary Poppins still entertains, in the most delightful way.

THE VERDICT Timeless and joyful family fare. Or to put it another way, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

ROOM AT THE TOP 12

1958 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL

EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentaries, Featurettes, Gallery

‘A raw savage story of our times,’ promised the publicity for this adaptation of John Braine’s bestseller. Director Jack Clayton’s ferocious and frank tale of ambition and adultery ushered in a new era of social realism in British cinema. Replacing the earlier BFI Blu-ray, Studiocanal’s disc doesn’t offer any upgrades to the film itself, but adds a couple of new extras, with actor Delena Kidd vividly describing leading lady Simone Signoret as ‘astonishing… I remember she had the most incredible smell.’

THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK 15

1969 ★★★★★ OUT 8 APRIL BD

EXTRAS ★★★★★

Commentary, Extended cut/scenes, Featurettes, Gallery, Booklet

A lonely lady (Sandy Dennis) invites a seemingly adrift 19- year-old (Michael Burns) into her apartment, but isn’t so keen to let him leave… The trailer pushes Park as a psychosexual thriller (probing the ‘deepest crevices of human emotion’), but it’s more quirky than thirsty, thanks to a pre-M*A*S*H Robert Altman minting several of his trademarks, from unvarnished dialogue to inquisitive zooms. Minor Altman for sure, but pleasingly loose for a ‘genre’ flick.