Black Tights

Customer Reviews:

Excellent. Brilliant Carmen........2007-07-12

Best combination of fetching legs since Eleanor Powell danced alone. The Carmen sequence was enchanting.

Dancers who should not be forgotten.......2007-02-25

I am a lifelong fan of Cyd Charisse and consider her the very best female dancer hollywood has ever produced - she never disappoints and her feature is the best of the DVD. Moira Shearer, whom I also like but know less of, is also wonderful in her way, vulnerable and graceful. I found Roland Petit's Cyrano (ballet, not his performance) a bit convoluted - a lot of material to get into a feauterette. Zizi Jeanmarie is the epitome of the French dancer and the ballet itself the epitome of what we foreigners think Paris was back in the early 20th centura.

Gallic charm to spare in this balletomane's dream!.......2005-06-19

BLACK TIGHTS is a delightful film which showcases 4 ballets choreographed by Roland Petit and featuring his well-known ballet troupe. His wife Zizi Jeanmaire is the central figure in both "La Croqueuse de Diamants" and "Carmen". Moira Shearer stars in "Cyrano de Bergerac" and Cyd Charisse cavorts in "Deuil en 24 Heures". Maurice Chevalier appears to introduce each segment.

For fans of Zizi Jeanmaire, the movie is a must just for "Carmen" alone. This was the ballet created especially for her by Roland Petit. It launched her international career and she danced the role from London to Broadway. This film perfectly recreates the original production, highlighted by her beguiling footwork in "Seguidille". Petit recreates the role of Don Jose. "La Croqueuse de Diamants" is the story of a young woman who lives in a den of thieves and loves to eat diamonds (as Chevalier says, "charming, but expensive"). Jeanmaire's special charms radiate off the screen.

In "Cyrano de Bergerac", Moira Shearer of THE RED SHOES fame plays Roxanne with Roland Petit in the title role. The story of unrequited love plays out it's tragic course and Shearer emotes beautifully as the conflicted Roxanne. Petit gives arguably one of his greatest performances as Cyrano.

"Deuil en 24 Heures" features Cyd Charisse as a young coquette who flirts with younger men, enraging her more-mature husband who gets killed in a duel. The young woman then decides to kick up her heels at Maxim's.

Each of the 30-minute segments is a complete joy. You have no less than 3 of the most beautiful ballet dancers to appear onscreen, coupled with Roland Petit's innovative and economic choreography. A film that balletomanes won't be able to resist!

Not really what dreams are made of!.......2000-07-19

"Black Tights" belongs to an exciting part of my childhood which helped create a great love for ballet, opera and film art. So naturally, a DVD presentation of this rare - and at least for me - almost mythical film was something to look forward to! But unfortunately, this KINO presentation leaves much to be desired. I guess that this film is now a public domain title, which means that a negative or at least a perfect print might not be available anywhere. But the print used for DVD-transfer by KINO is often badly worn, especially at the reel change points appearing about every tenth minute - proof that a 70mm print was the base for the transfer. Considering this, the sound quality is surprisingly bad and the aspect ratio is not correct. (It should measure 2,2:1 if properly made.)Thankfully, the colors have not faded too badly (some reels display quite a gorgeous palette), but contrasts are weak, and scratches and dirt sometimes overwhelm the image to a point where you almost feel like throwing the disc in the nearest garbage can! But...it's still a rare and nostalgic film with lots of camp value and some very charismatic dancing stars, so it stays in the collection, if reluctantly. It will be interesting to see what the upcoming version from VCI will look like. I have no high hopes this time though! There surely must exist a better kept print somewhere in the world! Shame on KINO! They should have included a warning sticker on the package: For die-hard fans and fools only!

I expected more from Kino Video.......2000-06-26

I was really looking forward to the DVD version of this film. Too bad Kino didn't take the time to clean the picture and fix the audio. I guess I shouldn't complain. Ballet is so rare on DVD, I will grab any I can find. But a film with Cyd Charisse, Moira Shearer, Zizi Jeanmarie and Roland Petit deserves a better presentation.

Average customer rating:

Unhinged and Groovy!

Black Tight Killer
Starring: Akira Kobayashi , Chieko Matsubara , and Yuriko Sawanouchi
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305943850
Release Date: 2000-08-15

Amazon.com

Filmed in delirious pop-art color and directed like a live-action comic book, this tongue-in-cheek Japanese spy thriller plays like a surreal cliffhanger serial dropped into swinging Tokyo and zipped through on fast-forward. Go-go-dancing female assassins in form-fitting black leather bedevil a globetrotting photographer as he battles the Yakuza thugs and American gangsters who keep kidnapping his stewardess girlfriend. The women, armed with ninja chewing gum bullets, razor-sharp phonograph records, and explosive golf balls, alternately flirt and fight it out with our suave hero (played with effortless charisma by Akika Kobayashi), while his doe-eyed innocent honey Chieko Matsubara is tied up and staked out in one kinky trap after another. Director Yasuharu Hasebe was a disciple of genre-busting legend Seijun Suzuki, and this debut film plays like a pulpier take on Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. The ostensible plot has something to do with a fortune in World War II gold and a super-secret treasure map, but it's merely an excuse for outrageous set pieces and high-energy fight scenes, edited with jackhammer rapidity and a giddy disdain for logic. Dig that crazy score of jangly surf rock and funky jazz, and have a ball with the typo-riddled subtitles--they become just another goofy element of this campy masterpiece.

The sharp widescreen print is mildly worn but vivid and bright. The DVD also features a 20-minute video interview with the director, which for some reason is dubbed over in English rather than subtitled. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Playgirl assassins a-go-go! A Mod/Pop Art sixties masterpiece masquerading as a gangster/spy spoof, "Black Tight Killers" (Ore Ni Sawaru To Abunaize, roughly "Don't Touch Me, I'm Dangerous") stars then-current matinee idol and singing star Akira Kobayashi as a combat photographer trying to save his stewardess girlfriend (Chieko Matsubara) from an alliance of American mobsters and Japanese yakuza (gangsters). He's alternately helped and hindered by a strange band of girl assassins who use razor-sharp 45 rpm records as weapons and wads of bubblegum to blind pursuers. What he soon discovers is that everyone is after a cache of gold hidden by Matsubara's late father immediately after World War II. The first film from one of Nikkatsu Studios' most talented late sixties directors, Yasuharu Hasebe, "Black Tight Killers" shows a definite influence from Hasebe's mentor, the iconoclastic and brilliant Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tokyo Drifter).

Customer Reviews:

Unhinged and Groovy!.......2000-10-26

The Amazon reviewer captured this movie perfectly -- I'm here to tell you it's not hype. I caught this during its one public screening in L.A.; when I learned it would show briefly in NYC, I called friends there and warned them that missing it now meant missing it forever. Thank God I was wrong! BTK is a blast.

The comparison to Suzuki Seijun is a bit misleading. With Suzuki, enjoyment depends on your appreciation for his idiosyncracies and how they overtake the standard genre moves. Black Tight Killers, however, doesn't subvert 60's spy flicks; it jazzes them up. Where Bond movies are sly, BTK is loopy; while Bond has become very familiar, the unwinking giddiness to this offshoot tastes fresh. The cinematography and design keep the party going: Unable to compete with 007 lushness, they compensate (and then some) with style and humor.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent. Brilliant Carmen........2007-07-12

Best combination of fetching legs since Eleanor Powell danced alone. The Carmen sequence was enchanting.

Dancers who should not be forgotten.......2007-02-25

Gallic charm to spare in this balletomane's dream!.......2005-06-19

Not really what dreams are made of!.......2000-07-19

I expected more from Kino Video.......2000-06-26

Average customer rating:

Five Stars for the Unmentioned Surprise Bonus: Early Experimental Dance Film

Black Tights & The Bolshoi Ballet

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Ballet & Dance | Musicals & Performing Arts | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000063K1H

Customer Reviews:

Five Stars for the Unmentioned Surprise Bonus: Early Experimental Dance Film.......2007-08-31

This DVD would not be very high on my list were it not for the final 10 minute bonus at the end of the program. After the unbearably kitschy Black Tights and Bolshoi '67, we discover an unexpected little gem titled Spring Night, an early experimental dance film.

Spring Night is a lushly erotic miniature ballet in the stylistic lineage of the Ballets Russes. It was made in 1935, only a half dozen years after the death of Serge Diaghilev. It was choreographed by the beautiful and sinuous Russian dancer David Lichine, who danced with and choreographed for Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, one of the splinter companies that formed after the death of Diaghilev.

Spring Night is a Symbolist fusion of stunningly innovative dance, drama, spiritual subtext, cinematographer's art and music, produced by the very long-lived Adolph Zukor, who was one of the pioneers of the film industry. The elegant and hypnotic camera work was done by George Clemens, who went on to do the cinematography for Twilght Zone and other popular television shows.

The dancing is exquisite. Lichine's partner, Texan Nana Gollner is a lovely and inspired match for his exotic beauty, grace and elasticity. Their dancing has a mystical sensuality that is rarely seen. Lichine was a dancer/choreographer for the Ballets Russes, the same company that bore the crown jewel Nijinsky, one of the 20th century's most ingenius, mysterious and innovative dancers. Watching Lichine in the role of the Faun in Spring Night evokes images of Nijinsky as the same character, but in different works. Incredulously, there are no films of Nijinsky dancing, although photographs of him elude to something so beautiful, strange and uniquely groundbreaking that one weeps for more, and for his lost genius, stolen by schizophrenia extreme to such a degree that he had to leave the stage at a quite early age.

If you are at all interested in the Ballets Russes and its contributions to modern art, Spring Night is a gift. Especially if you have seen the outstanding, recently released documentary, Ballets Russes, you may find Spring Night to be especially important and informative. David Lichine's wife was one of the Baby Ballerinas featured in the documentary Ballets Russes, and is interviewed extensively there. There are film clips in BR of the beloved dance team David Lichine and his wife Tania Riabuchinska. She and her husband provided the dance of the Hippos in Disney's Fantasia. Ballets Russes

This short appears on a DVD with Black Tights and Boshoi '67, two lesser offerings that nonetheless have valuable moments, including a surrealistic Bolero danced by dazzling Bolshoi artists. Bolshoi '67 is surprisingly poor, compared to some of Czinner's other masterly works. His impressive list of performance films include the immortal Karajan Rosenkavelier with Schwartzkopf, the Furtwangler film of Don Giovanni with Cesare Siepi, Romeo and Juliet with Nureyev and Fonteyn, and the long missing and deeply desired Bolshoi Ballet from 1957 with Ulanova's only "complete" (or complete enough) Giselle. This was just finally released.

Czinner was known for immortalizing masterpieces of music theater on film, so it's somewhat strange that he directed Bolshoi '67, which is a narrated story of a little girl studying ballet in the Soviet Union, and can hardly be called a masterpiece. The childishly babbling film provides us, thankfully, with plenty of opportunities to see works in rehearsal and staged, with ample instances of star dancers of the Bolshoi popping in to inspire and relieve the exhausted students.

Black Tights does have abundant beautiful women with long, gorgeous legs. But the choreography, music and content do not appeal to me, although it may to many others because of their attachment to some of the beauteous stars of the film, like Cyd Charise, Zizi Jean-Maire and Moira Shearer of The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffmann.

The price of this budget DVD is worth paying just to experience Spring Night, a sacred artifact from the passing age of the Ballets Russes.

My only fear is that this short is not mentioned on Amazon's description of the program (although it never was, and was consequently quite a delicious surprise). If you are interested in seeing Spring Night, I recommend you contact the seller to see if it's listed on the box.

Average customer rating:

Barely Legal Blacks

Manufacturer: Mverick
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Watch the hottest young black girls

DVD:

DVD

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