Criterion and Spirit Entertainment have announced the UK disc releases to be released in September from the Criterion Collection. These include Billy Wilder's epitome of film-noir fatalism Double Indemnity and Michael Curtiz's bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition, Mildred Pierce on 4K UHD/Blu-ray, and Todd Solondz's disturbingly funny portrait of damaged souls reaching out for connection, Happiness on Blu-ray & 4K UHD/Blu-ray.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (USA 1944)

4K UHD & Blu-ray | 2 September 2024 | £29.99 (Amazon pre-order price)

Has dialogue ever been more perfectly hard-boiled? Has a femme fatale ever been as deliciously wicked as Barbara Stanwyck? And has 1940s Los Angeles ever looked so seductively sordid? Working with co-writer Raymond Chandler, director Billy Wilder launched himself onto the Hollywood A-list with this epitome of film-noir fatalism from James M. Cain’s pulp novel.

When slick salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) walks into the swank home of dissatisfied housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck), he intends to sell insurance, but he winds up becoming entangled with her in a far more sinister way.

Featuring scene-stealing supporting work from Edward G. Robinson and the chiaroscuro of cinematographer John F. Seitz, Double Indemnity is one of the most entertainingly perverse stories ever told and the standard by which all noir must be measured.

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring film critic Richard Schickel
• New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment
• New conversation between film historians Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith
• Billy, How Did You Do It?, a 1992 film by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow featuring interviews with director Billy Wilder
• Shadows of Suspense, a 2006 documentary on the making of Double Indemnity
• Radio adaptations from 1945 and 1950
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién

MILDRED PIERCE (USA 1945)

Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Joan Crawford’s iconic performance as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford’s career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by her bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent’s tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations.

Recasting James M. Cain’s rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional.

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Conversation with critics Molly Haskell and Robert Polito
• Excerpt from a 1970 episode of The David Frost Show featuring actor Joan Crawford
• Joan Craw­ford: The Ultimate Movie Star, a 2002 feature-length documentary
• Q&A with actor Ann Blyth from 2006, presented by filmmaker Marc Huestis and conducted by film historian Eddie Muller
• Segment from a 1969 episode of the Today show featuring Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith

HAPPINESS (USA 1998)

As disturbingly funny as it is audaciously empathetic, auteur of unease Todd Solondz’s portrait of damaged souls reaching out for connection reveals the existential void underneath middle-class suburban “normalcy.” An extraordinary ensemble cast – including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jane Adams, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, and Dylan Baker – embodies an array of loosely connected New Jersey deviants, depressives, and misfits, among them a frustrated phone-sex pest, an all-American dad concealing his pedophilic urges, and a lonely woman with a grisly secret, all of whom want just one thing: to be loved.

One of the most controversial films of the 1990s, the unflinching Happiness unnerves precisely because it dares to see the humanity in those most often denied it.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Maryse Alberti, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• New conversation between director Todd Solondz and filmmaker Charlotte Wells
• New interview with actor Dylan Baker
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Maryse Alberti, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• New conversation between director Todd Solondz and filmmaker Charlotte Wells
• New interview with actor Dylan Baker
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner