Hammer Film’s Ingrid Pitt on Blu
Just catching up on editing and uploading reviews after recording several podcasts this week, of which the first should debut near the end of the month.
Best-known for a pair of Hammer shockers, Ingrid Pitt was an underrated actress whose career was curtailed by being pigeon-holed as a scream queen and being caught in the downward production spiral of Britain’s crumbling film industry at the tip of the seventies.
Synapse Films’ new Blu-ray edition of Countess Dracula (1971) presents the actress in perhaps her best role – she’s shocking, lusty, witty, and fun – plus a few new extras, as the film was originally released 11 years ago on DVD as part of MGM’s Midnite Movies series.
Vastly superior Italian art to the cheap AIP poster which features images nowhere to be found in the film!
Ingrid does indeed lose her head, but Kate never kneels before Zod as depicted quite falsely in this Spanish poster.
That double-bill disc also included Pitt’s better-known film, The Vampire Lovers (1970), which Scream Factory / Shout Factory released last year on Blu. I’ve added a review of that disc, plus Pitt’s film debut – a silly Spanish shocker ripe for a good remake called Sound of Horror / El sonido de la muerte (1966).
That film is currently out on Alpha on DVD and on YouTube, but what’s really needed is a proper widescreen DVD edition, since the film also co-stars Soledad Miranda, Jess Franco’s other favourite muse, who died in a car accident not long after making a splash in Vampyros Lesbos (1971).
Coming shortly: Twilight Time revisits actress Nancy Kwan in a new Blu-ray edition of Fate is the Hunter (1964) + a review of the forgotten B-film The Corrupt Ones (1967).
Cheers,
Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com
Category: Blu-ray / DVD Film Review
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