News

The Unknown Man Of Shandigor (1967) Lands On Video-on-demand March 1St From Deaf Crocodile And Grasshopper Films

Long-Unseen 60s Swiss Black & White Cold War Spy Thriller Stars Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Jacques Dufilho, Daniel Emilfork, and Famed Singer-Songwriter Serge Gainsbourg

Recently restored in 4K from the camera negative by the Cinémathèque suisse with additional digital restoration by Deaf Crocodile, Jean-Louis Roy’s visually stunning The Unknown Man Of Shandigor originally screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 and stars legendary French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and famed Chilean cult actor Daniel Emilfork. Deaf Crocodile Films and Grasshopper Films will be releasing the long-unseen 60s Cold War super-spy thriller on VOD on March 1st, 2022.

The Unknown Man Of Shandigor is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors, part-dr. Strangelove, part-Alphaville, with sly nods to British TV shows like “The Avengers” and “Doctor Who.” The film stars a who’s who of...

It’s something completely different . . . a genuine obscurity, a Swiss spy fantasy from the 1960s with major appeal to fans keen on (not in this order) art cinema, Fritz Lang, superspy romps, surreal silent serials, Eurocult actors, and visuals with a New Wave-ish flair. Teams of assassins vie for an atom secret held by mad scientist Daniel Emilfork. The spies target his gorgeous, innocent daughter Marie-France Boyer, but she’s obsessed with a romantic memory from ‘last summer in Shandigor.’ Jean-Louis Roy’s unique, precision-crafted gem evokes the graphic-novel pulp appeal of Dr. Mabuse, Alphaville, Judex or Diabolik — yet it is unlike any of them. It’s comic nonsense, but also earnest and original.

The Unknown Man of Shandigor

Blu-ray

Deaf Crocodile Films

1967 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date January 22, 2022 / L’inconnu de Shandigor / Available through Vinegar Syndrome / 34.98

Starring: Marie-France Boyer, Ben Carruthers, Daniel Emilfork, Jacques Dufilho, Serge Gainsbourg,...

It’s 1967 (probably). The famous inventor, Von Krantz (Daniel Emilfork), has created a device which could reshape the Cold War by rendering nuclear devices useless, but upon realising that various governments want it for political reasons rather than for the sake of world peace, he refuses to share it with anybody, instead retreating to his fortified villa (it’s a Swiss film so nobody is surprised that he owns one of these) and refusing to communicate with the outside world. With him are his albino assistant Yvan (Marcel Imhoff) and his beautiful daughter Sylvaine (Marie-France Boyer), who serves as his carer since he can’t walk. Just outside are not-very-secret agents from the US, the Ussr and France, along with a number of free agents, all determined to find some way of stealing the device.

Made as a B-movie to satisfy the then rampant public demand for spy thrillers, The Unknown Man Of.

"Plants may sweat profusely but never sully themselves."—W.H. AudenFull Bloom is a series, written by Patrick Holzapfel and illustrated by Ivana Miloš, that reconsiders plants in cinema. Directors have given certain flowers, trees or herbs special attention for many different reasons. It’s time to give them the credit they deserve and highlight their contributions to cinema, in full bloom.It’s impossible to miss the sunflowers in Agnès Varda’s not-quite-as-sunny-as-it-seems Le bonheur (1965). They appear right in the title sequence of the film, accompanied by title cards in the yellow of the flowers. Throughout the film they reappear in different shapes and forms, for example on dresses, postcards, and in bouquets. Varda’s film not only deals with a man perfectly happy with both his wife and his mistress, she deals with the way this world may look in his mind. Shot in beautiful colours by cinematographers...