Blu-ray Review: BLACK TUESDAY (1954)

Looney Tunes was my introduction to Edward G. Robinson who Buggs Bunny would regularly impersonate, most famously in the 1946 cartoon short Racketeer Rabbit. Interestingly the first movie I saw Robinson in was Soylent Green, which was sadly his last. Now fans can enjoy the liver-lipped actor at his meanest in the bleak obscure classic Black Tuesday – which is available now on Blu-ray in the UK from Eureka Entertainment.

As the minutes count down to an appointment with the electric chair, condemned gangster, Vincent Canelli (Robinson) and bank robber Peter Manning (Peter Graves), escape death row with a daring plan to recover some stolen loot before leaving the country.

Black Tuesday was more or less an unseen classic outside of theatres up until a few years ago and only received its first physical media release last year with editions in the United States, Canada, and most recently the United Kingdom.

At just 80 minutes, it plays out like a basic crime-noir B-feature, but for more perceptive viewers there’s more beneath such as themes of nihilism, justice and redemption. Between the film’s two primary locations, the prison from which our convicts escape to their hideout, Canelli and Manning haven’t failed to avoid the fate that ultimately awaits them. They have simply traded one form of execution for another, while sadly involving several innocent people. If anything, they have only succeeded in depriving the public of a morbid spectacle of death. Between the callousness of Canelli and the police’s refusal to negotiate, it’s a bleak story with fleeting moments of humanity.

I personally wasn’t too impressed with Black Tuesday, but I can understand the praise people have for it, especially those who have contributed to this Blu-ray release. Outside of Robinson’s performance, who is truly despicable as the aging criminal, the film feels stiff and underplayed by the supporting cast, and minor characters, who are strangely non-reactionary considering the number of sudden deaths and “unexpected” moments.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Limited Edition (2000 copies)
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow
A new audio commentary with film noir expert Sergio Angelini, host of the Tipping My Fedora podcast
From Argentina to Hollywood – a new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on director Hugo Fregonese
No Escape – A brand new video essay by Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City
A new video interview with critic and co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato Ehsan Khoshbakht
Theatrical trailer
A Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Black Tuesday by critic Barry Forshaw and film writer Craig Ian Mann

This edition of Black Tuesday comes with all new supplementary content including a commentary and three featurettes. Despite being a single-man show, Sergio Angelini’s commentary feels conversational and constantly keeps the viewer interested with a constant flow of behind-the-scenes trivia and information.

The three featurettes often overlap in subject matter, but will no doubt leave owners of this set with a wealth of knowledge on an overlooked filmmaker. While Sheldon Hall goes in-depth regarding Hugo Fregonese’s filmography, Imogen Sara Smith focuses on Black Tuesday’s place in noir history. Fittingly, Ehsan Khoshbakht’s interview combines both topics in an effort to explain why the film remained unavailable for so long. – by Hannah Lynch

VIDEO AND AUDIO

Eureka presents a 1080p rendering from a 2K scan of the 35mm fine grains, which certainly shows through in the digital format. There’s a nice texture to the black-and-white image in the film’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with a darkened quality for the noir style. Dialogue and the constant crack of gunfight are loud and nicely balanced in LPCM 2.0 and with the amount of 1950’s fast talk, English subtitles are included for use if needed.

Black Tuesday may represent the end of the line for violent criminals, but also a dramatic final Hollywood feature for director, Hugo Fregonese, who returned to his Argentinian roots while Robinson parted ways with the genre that immortalised him as a screen icon.

BLACK TUESDAY
(1954, director: Hugo Fregonese)