World Noir Vol. 1 (blu ray) Limited Edition boxset

Film noir was first applied by French critics to the visual and thematic darkness of the flood of American films in the post-War period. Those films, often by European emigré filmmakers, were influenced by European filmmaking modes, notably French poetic realism and Weimar cinema.

The American noirs that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s in turn influenced cinema around the world again.

This ongoing Radiance Films box set series attempts to capture the trails of the noir influence across the globe, from the pre-War period to the emergence of neo-noir, expanding our understanding and availability of this rich filmmaking tradition.

World Noir Vol 1 focuses on the 1950s with three films exhibiting noir traits while still evoking their home genre trends and quirks:

• From 1957, in Koreyoshi Kurahara’s I AM WAITING a failed boxer and a waitress with a dark past run afoul of an underworld syndicate that seeks to exploit the woman to its own ends
• Edouard Molinaro’s 1959 WITNESS IN THE CITY, a wealthy industrialist murders his lover, throwing her from a train to look like suicide.
• Pietro Germi’s THE FACTS OF MURDER, an inspector called to a Roman apartment building to investigate a robbery, questions the tenants but soon realises something is amiss. As the investigation progresses a simple robbery leads to a murder case.

I AM WAITING

• Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
• Yujiro in Europe - a documentary on star Yujiro Ishihara during location shooting in Europe (1959, 41 mins)
• The Yujiro Effect - a visual essay by Mark Schilling (2023, 13 mins)
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork 
  

WITNESS IN THE CITY

• Introduction by critic Tony Rayns (2023, 17 mins)
• Interview with Philippe Durant, biographer of Lino Ventura, who speaks about the film and the iconic actor (2014, 11 mins)
• French noir - critic and author Ginette Vincendeau provides an overview of noir in France during the 1950s (2023, 23 mins)
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork 
  

THE FACTS OF MURDER

• New interview with Pietro Germi expert Mario Sesti (2023, 47 mins))
• The Man With the Cigar in His Mouth - a documentary about Pietro Germi featuring interviews with his colleagues and collaborators including Mario Monicelli, Claudia Cardinale, Stefania Sandrelli, Giuseppe Tornatore among others (Mario Sesti, 1997, 41 mins)
• What's Black and Yellow All Over? All Shades of Italian Film Noir - visual essay by Paul A. J. Lewis on the presence of noir trends in Italian cinema and the evolution of the genre (2023, 19 mins)
• Newly translated English subtitles 
  
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork