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Arrow Films
In the post-war years, the proliferation of transnational European co-productions gave rise to a cross-pollination of genres, with the same films sold in different markets as belonging to different movements. Among these, Riccardo Freda (I vampiri, The Horrible Dr. Hichock)'s Double Face was marketed in West Germany as an Edgar Wallace 'krimi', while in Italy it was sold as a giallo in the tradition of Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, combining elements from both genres for a unique and unforgettable viewing experience.
When wealthy businessman John Alexander (the legendary Klaus Kinski, giving an atypically restrained performance)'s unfaithful wife Helen (Margaret Lee, Circus of Fear) dies in a car crash, it initially looks like a freak accident. However, the plot thickens when evidence arises suggesting that the car was tampered with prior to the crash. And John's entire perception of reality is thrown into doubt when he discovers a recently-shot pornographic movie which appears to feature Helen – suggesting that she is in fact alive and playing an elaborate mind game on him…
Psychological, psychedelic, and at times just plain psychotic, Double Face stands as one of the most engaging and enjoyable films in Freda's lengthy and diverse career – a densely-plotted, visually-stunning giallo that evokes much of the same ambience of paranoia and decadence as such classics of the genre as One on Top of the Other and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin.
Special Features
- Brand new 2K restoration of the full-length Italian version of the film from the original 35mm camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Uncompressed mono 1.0 LPCM audio
- Original English and Italian soundtracks, titles and credits
- Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
- New audio commentary by author and critic Tim Lucas
- New video interview with composer Nora Orlandi
- The Many Faces of Nora Orlandi, a new appreciation of the varied career of the film's composer by musician and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon
- The Terrifying Dr. Freda, a new video essay on Riccardo Freda's gialli by author and critic Amy Simmons
- Extensive image gallery from the collection of Christian Ostermeier, including the original German pressbook and lobby cards, and the complete Italian cineromanzo adaptation
- Original Italian and English theatrical trailers
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
- Arrow Video
- 91 minutes
- 15
- 1.85:1
- Italian
- English
- 1
- Arrow Video
- Riccardo Freda
- Klaus Kinski
- Christiane Krüger
- Günther Stoll
- English, English SDH
- 1969
- B
Double Face Blu-ray
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Arrow Films
In the post-war years, the proliferation of transnational European co-productions gave rise to a cross-pollination of genres, with the same films sold in different markets as belonging to different movements. Among these, Riccardo Freda (I vampiri, The Horrible Dr. Hichock)'s Double Face was marketed in West Germany as an Edgar Wallace 'krimi', while in Italy it was sold as a giallo in the tradition of Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, combining elements from both genres for a unique and unforgettable viewing experience.
When wealthy businessman John Alexander (the legendary Klaus Kinski, giving an atypically restrained performance)'s unfaithful wife Helen (Margaret Lee, Circus of Fear) dies in a car crash, it initially looks like a freak accident. However, the plot thickens when evidence arises suggesting that the car was tampered with prior to the crash. And John's entire perception of reality is thrown into doubt when he discovers a recently-shot pornographic movie which appears to feature Helen – suggesting that she is in fact alive and playing an elaborate mind game on him…
Psychological, psychedelic, and at times just plain psychotic, Double Face stands as one of the most engaging and enjoyable films in Freda's lengthy and diverse career – a densely-plotted, visually-stunning giallo that evokes much of the same ambience of paranoia and decadence as such classics of the genre as One on Top of the Other and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin.
Special Features
- Brand new 2K restoration of the full-length Italian version of the film from the original 35mm camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Uncompressed mono 1.0 LPCM audio
- Original English and Italian soundtracks, titles and credits
- Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
- New audio commentary by author and critic Tim Lucas
- New video interview with composer Nora Orlandi
- The Many Faces of Nora Orlandi, a new appreciation of the varied career of the film's composer by musician and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon
- The Terrifying Dr. Freda, a new video essay on Riccardo Freda's gialli by author and critic Amy Simmons
- Extensive image gallery from the collection of Christian Ostermeier, including the original German pressbook and lobby cards, and the complete Italian cineromanzo adaptation
- Original Italian and English theatrical trailers
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
- Arrow Video
- 91 minutes
- 15
- 1.85:1
- Italian
- English
- 1
- Arrow Video
- Riccardo Freda
- Klaus Kinski
- Christiane Krüger
- Günther Stoll
- English, English SDH
- 1969
- B
Customer Reviews
Top Customer Reviews
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Double Face
Klaus Kinski is awesome in this one.
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Maestro Riccardo Freda's is one especially serpentine, sporadically steamy, spine-tingler!
Extremely versatile Italian director Riccardo Freda's fearfully fascinating crime chiller contains all the dizzyingly convoluted plotting one would readily expect of a Edgar Wallace Krimi or perverse Black-Gloved Giallo, and the more hysterical elements of both are to be found in this terminally twisted tale of dapper businessman John Alexander (Klaus Kinski) and his apparently brief, whirlwind romance with the voluptuous and eminently capricious sauce-pot Helen Brown (Margaret Lee) with their marriage cooling, her palpable disinterest slowly engendering a rather twitchy, paranoid state in her increasingly anxious hubby perfectly suited to the mercurial acting talents of leonine, bug-eyed barnstormer Klaus Kinski! 'Double Face' for all its innate absurdity proves no less delightfully eccentric than its frequently intense blue-eyed star, while delivering an atypically subdued performance, kinky Kinski nonetheless exudes a barely repressed mania which makes his rather volatile, slap-happy John Alexander a darkly compelling character and by far the most complex and engaging Giallo archetype in fear-master Freda's delirious, altogether duplicitous 'Double Face', with its double-dealing dames, black-hatted villains sinister Soho smut-makers, blissed out, bike riding beatniks all woozily wrapped up in the smokey, fuzzy haze of Nora Orlandi's persistently psychedelic, deliciously groovy score. Mirroring his quixotic star, Maestro Riccardo Freda's serpentine, sporadically steamy spine-tingler while undeniably handsome to look at contains more than its fair share of illicit secrets!
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