Franco Noir (Blu-ray)

THE AMERICAN PREMIERE OF JESS FRANCO'S TWO LONG-UNSEEN FILM NOIRS Following his international breakthrough with THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF, director Jess Franco delivered a startling pair of crime thrillers that pistol-whipped European notions of film noir while lighting the fuse on Uncle Jess' own insane aesthetic. Set in New Orleans and based on a novel by the authors of VERTIGO, DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES is a hard-boiled tale of betrayal, violence and revenge featuring smoky jazz compositions by Franco himself. Jean Servais of RIFIFI fame stars in RIFIFI IN THE CITY, a nihilistic trip through a pulp underworld of thugs, snitches, nightclub dames and black-gloved giallo-style murders. Both films - which led an impressed Orson Welles to hire Franco as his assistant on CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT - now feature HD scans from the original negatives for the first time ever.