Warner's Director's Showcase: Take Two in March


Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of six films as part of their “Director’s Showcase” series on 27th March 2007. This second group of films is honoring the powers behind the camera with first-time DVD releases of Prince of the City (2-Disc Special Edition), Payday, Steelyard Blues, Straight Time, Tell Me a Riddle and Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Featured directors are Sidney Lumet, John Badham, Ulu Grosbard, Lee Grant, Daryl Duke and Alan Myerson. The films have all-new transfers and include bonus features such as commentaries, featurettes and vintage interviews. Each title will sell individually for $19.97 SRP.

Payday (1972)
Rip Torn (Men in Black, The Larry Sanders Show) sings his own songs and gives an indelible performance as Maury, a less-than-first-rank country singer whose fame rises in contrast to the depths to which his soul will sink in satisfying his hedonistic urges. He pushes his entourage to the limit and puts the women around him at odds with each other. With a skilled ensemble cast directed by Daryl Duke, Payday is “accurate and observant, one of those welcome movies made by people with genuine knowledge of their subject” (John Collis, Time Out Film Guide).

DVD Special Features:
Commentary by director Daryl Duke and producer Saul Zaentz
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English (feature film only)

Prince of the City (2-Disc Special Edition) (1981)
“The first thing a cop learns is that he can’t trust nobody but his partners,” detective Danny Ciello tells an assistant D.A. “I sleep with my wife but I live with my partners. I will never give them up.” From Robert Daley’s riveting book about New York City police corruption investigations, director/co-writer Sidney Lumet’s film portrays a squad that pays a terrible price when one in its ranks does just that. Treat Williams (as Ciello, inspired by real-life undercover narcotics cop Robert Leuci) leads a terrific ensemble cast which includes Jerry Orbach, Bob Balaban and Lindsay Crouse in a standout performance as Leuci’s wife. This gripping film, which features 130 locations and 126 speaking parts, won Lumet a New York Film Critics Best Director Award and an Oscar nomination (with Jay Presson Allen) for the screenplay.

DVD Special Features:
New featurette Prince of the City: The Real Story
Theatrical trailer
Languages: English & Français (dubbed in Quebec)
Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)

Steelyard Blues (1972)
Klute collaborators Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland reunite in a more lighthearted vein for this funny, freewheeling fable from writer David S. Ward and producers Tony Bill and Michael and Julia Phillips, the team behind the same year’s Academy Award-winning* Best Picture The Sting. Alan Myerson directs Fonda as Iris, a good-natured hooker whose clientele includes a Who’s Who of City Hall. But she’s faithful to free-spirited parolee Jesse Veldini (Sutherland), who’s itching to resume his career as a demolition derby driver. Veldini’s return could ruin the reelection campaign of his ambitious DA brother (Howard Hesseman) – so steps are taken to make the ex-jailbird toe the line. Peter Boyle, John Savage and Garry Goodrow co-star.

DVD Special Features:
Vintage featurette Would You Believe? Peter Boyle!
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)

Straight Time (1978)
After years behind bars, Max Dembo faces Straight Time. He hopes it will mean a new life, a job, a place to call home, perhaps even a girl of his own. Instead, it’s a one-way ticket to disaster. Dustin Hoffman plays Max, a freed con trapped by an indifferent criminal system and his self-destructive bent. Before and during production, Hoffman apprenticed himself to Edward Bunker, the ex-con whose book No Beast So Fierce inspired the movie. The resulting experience is intensely real and superbly acted by Hoffman and a terrific ensemble (Theresa Russell, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey, M. Emmet Walsh and Kathy Bates).

DVD Special Features:
Commentary by Dustin Hoffman and director Ulu Grosbard
Vintage featurette Straight Time: He Wrote It for Criminals
Theatrical trailer
Languages: English & Français
Subtitles: English, Français, Español, Português & Chinese (feature film only)

Tell Me a Riddle (1980)
Tell Me a Riddle is a tender story of rediscovering love – and the extraordinary teaming of three Academy Award winners: Melvyn Douglas, Lila Kedrova and Lee Grant in a memorable debut as director. The romance in David (Douglas) and Eva’s (Kedrova) 47-year marriage has faded like the paint on their house. David wants to sell and move into a retirement home; Eva will hear none of it. If time heals all wounds, it must work fast because the memory-haunted Eva hasn’t much time. Maybe a trip to San Francisco will bring change. Perhaps the couple’s granddaughter (Brooke Adams) can help them rekindle a spirit of openness and hope. In this film of Tillie Olsen’s award-winning novella, it’s all in the graceful, thoughtful telling.

DVD Special Features:
Theatrical trailer
Languages: English & Français
Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)

Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981)
In this searing screen version of the hit Broadway play by Brian Clark, Richard Dreyfuss plays gifted sculptor Ken Harrison -- a hospitalized quadriplegic, jousting with physicians, teasing nurses and striving to persuade hospital authorities and the justice system that he can’t be denied one of the few choices he has left. John Badham directs a compelling cast, including John Cassavetes, Christine Lahti and Bob Balaban.

DVD Special Features:
Commentary director John Badham and composer Arthur B. Rubinstein
Theatrical trailer
Subtitles: English (feature film only)