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New on Disc: 'Shark!' and more …

8 Jul, 2013 By: Mike Clark

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Shark!

Olive, Drama, $19.95 DVD, $29.95
Blu-ray, ‘PG.’
Stars Burt Reynolds, Arthur Kennedy, Barry Sullivan, Silvia Pinal.
1969. Shark! features a pre-Deliverance/Cosmopolitan centerfold Burt Reynolds under the tutelage of a stylistically shaky Samuel Fuller, who certainly made no claims for the result. The picture is hardly any lost treasure (which, as a matter of fact, is what motivates the characters). Instead, it’s the kind of provocatively cast action junk to see to keep your hand in. For a cheapie likely not shot on the greatest film stock ever invented, the Olive Blu-ray captures a surprising amount of detail if you like sweaty or even grimy faces in close-up. In addition to bookending shark sequences that don’t look fake, there are a couple amusing scenes where Reynolds (or his stuntman) more or less bench-presses plural bad guys over his head and gives them the big heave.
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Front Page Woman

Available through online retailers via Warner Archive
Warner, Drama, $18.95 DVD, NR.
Stars Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns.
1935. Launched by a catchy title that hasn’t lost any marquee allure (at least for journalists) over nearly eight decades, this Warner Bros. newshound melodrama offers one of the more twisted views of how events of the day get conveyed to a junk-ravenous public. In Front Page Woman, in which its implied feminist angle is exploited all the way, co-smitten Bette Davis and George Brent do get flirty on occasion, yet mostly exist to stab each other in the back while competing on stories for rival publications. The bandying here has farcical components, and we’re asked to swallow a story that is played at least marginally straight — and thus seems all the more bizarre.
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