1960 Commentary

Jules (Fernandel) is a wily French peasant who dallies with a local widow and enjoys spats with his fellow sheepherders. One day he comes across a hidden stash of money and throws a party for all his friends, making them jealous over his newfound fortune. Then he plays a worse trick on them by handing over the money to everyone, confounding their assumptions about their entrenched rivalry. In the end, Jules has the last laugh, because a close look at the currency reveals a startling new fact that sheds light on his strange behavior.

This weird and chilling tale of vampires and the undead seeking to bring their kind back to life features the evil Marco (Ronald Remy), an updated version of the vampiric Count Dracula replete with cape, fangs, and clean-shaven head! Marco seeks to reanimate his long lost love and infuse her with the blood of his victims as he casts his evil spell over the inhabitants of a lonely village. Sharp fangs gleam in the night as bloodsuckers and bats seek fresh blood from the veins of their victims in this eerie drive-in favorite, also known as "The Vampire People" and featuring unusual color photography and tinting effects.

A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.

Master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with Marcello Mastroianni as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director who, overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken, plunges into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque."

Mr. Topaze ('Peter Sellers') is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town who is honest to a fault. He is fired when he refuses to give a passing grade to a bad student, the grandson of a wealthy baroness. Castel Benac (Herbert Lom), a government official who runs a crooked financial business on the side, is persuaded by his mistress, Suzy (Nadia Gray), a musical comedy actress, to hire Mr. Topaze as the front man for his business. Gradually, Topaze becomes a rapacious financier who sacrifices his honesty for success and, in a final stroke of business bravado, fires Benac and acquires Suzy in the deal. An old friend and colleague, Tamise (Michael Gough) questions him and tells Topaze that if what he now says and practices indicates there are no more honest men.

Features new remastered editions of five works from the director whose movies crossed new frontiers.

In honor of Ingmar Bergman’s one hundredth birthday, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive collection of his films ever released on home video. One of the most revelatory voices to emerge from the postwar explosion of international art-house cinema, Bergman was a master storyteller who startled the world with his stark intensity and naked pursuit of the most profound metaphysical and spiritual questions. The struggles of faith and morality, the nature of dreams, and the agonies and ecstasies of human relationships—Bergman explored these subjects in films ranging from comedies whose lightness and complexity belie their brooding hearts to groundbreaking formal experiments and excruciatingly intimate explorations of family life.

The last film by Yasujiro Ozu was also his final masterpiece, a gently heartbreaking story about a man’s dignifed resignation to life’s shifting currents and society’s modernization. Though the widower Shuhei (frequent Ozu leading man Chishu Ryu) has been living comfortably for years with his grown daughter, a series of events leads him to accept and encourage her marriage and departure from their home. As elegantly composed and achingly tender as any of the Japanese master’s films, An Autumn Afternoon is one of cinema’s fondest farewells.

A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.

A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.