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BLU CRITERION: Hard Day's Night, All That Heaven Allows

Criterion has scheduled June street dates for their Blu-Ray / DVD Combo's of The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955).

Both are making their Blu debut and come with loads of bonus features (below).

Meet the Beatles! Just one month after they exploded onto the U.S. scene with their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, John, Paul, George, and Ringo began working on a project that would bring their revolutionary talent to the big screen.

A Hard Day's Night, in which the bandmates play slapstick versions of themselves, captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever.

Directed with raucous, anything-goes verve by Richard Lester and featuring a slew of iconic pop anthems, including the title track, 'Can't Buy Me Love,' 'I Should Have Known Better,' and 'If I Fell,' A Hard Day's Night, which reconceived the movie musical and exerted an incalculable influence on the music video, is one of the most deliriously entertaining movies of all time.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio commentary featuring various members of the film's cast and crew (dual-format only)
  • In Their Own Voices, a new piece combining interviews with the Beatles from 1964 with behind-the-scenes footage and photos
  • You Can't Do That: The Making of 'A Hard Day's Night,' a 1994 documentary program by producer Walter Shenson
  • Things They Said Today, a 2002 documentary about the film featuring Lester, music producer George Martin, writer Alun Owen, cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, and others (dual-format only)
  • New piece about Lester's early work, featuring a new audio interview with the director (dual-format only)
  • The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film(1959), Lester's Oscar-nominated short featuring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan (dual-format only)
  • Anatomy of a Style, a new piece on Lester's approach to editing (dual-format only)
  • New interview with Mark Lewisohn, author of The Beatles: All These Years-Volume One, Tune In (dual-format only)
  • Deleted scene (dual-format only)
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton

This heartbreakingly beautiful film by Douglas Sirk follows the blossoming love between a well-off suburban widow (Jane Wyman) and her handsome and earthy younger gardener (Rock Hudson). After their romance prompts the scorn of her selfish children and snooty country club friends, she must decide whether to pursue her own happiness or carry on a lonely, hemmed-in existence for the sake of the approval of others.

With the help of ace cinematographer Russell Metty, Sirk imbued nearly every shot with a vivid and distinct emotional tenor. A profoundly felt film about class and conformity in small-town America, All That Heaven Allows is a pinnacle of expressionistic Hollywood melodrama.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio commentary featuring John Mercer, co-author of Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility  and film scholar Tamar Jeffers-McDonald
  • Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992), a groundbreaking essay film about the actor by Mark Rappaport
  • French television interview with Sirk from 1982
  • Excerpts from Behind the Mirror: A Profile of Douglas Sirk, a 1979 BBC documentary featuring rare interview footage with the director
  • Contract Kid: William Reynolds on Douglas Sirk, a 2007 interview with the actor, who costarred in three Sirk films, including All That Heaven Allows
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Laura Mulvey and an excerpt from a 1971 essay by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder on Sirk