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This special limited edition spot gloss slipcover (designed by Adam Maida) is limited to 3,000 units and is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.
Welcome Vinegar Syndrome Labs (VSL) to the VS Sub-Label family! As with each of our sub-labels we are hoping to expand and defy expectations with the diversity of films we restore and release. As the name implies, VSL will serve as a kind of testing area for releasing genres and eras of film that one might not immediately expect to come from VS. The ultimate objective of VSL will be to see if these types of films will find an audience, and if so, pursue and release more of them…and even if not, still serve as a means of restoring more of the weird, rare, and unusual movies you might not expect from Vinegar Syndrome.
Detective Sergeant Edward X. Delaney has only a few weeks left before he retires after decades of service with the NYPD. Weary after seeing it all in a city now down at the heels, and with his wife just hospitalized with critical organ failure, he finds himself desperate to sort out a few Manhattan serial killings which leave victims with a gaping, round hole in their skulls. His captain wants him out, the department doesn't care, and all that Delaney has left is his dogged determination and a few sympathetic old friends and civilians who lend him a hand. Meanwhile, the killer's mysterious weapon, and completely random means of choosing his victims on the dark, isolated streets of affluent neighborhoods, is all for Delaney to solve in a city that no longer seems to make any sense.
A downbeat, gritty, neo-noir thriller set against sleazy 1980s NYC, director Brian Hutton’s (Kelly’s Heroes) adaptation of author Lawrence Sanders' bestselling novel, THE FIRST DEADLY SIN, marked the final starring role for legendary singer and actor Frank Sinatra (Von Ryan's Express, The Manchurian Candidate). It also boasts supporting roles from Academy Award® winner Faye Dunaway (Network, Mommie Dearest), Tony Award® winner James Whitmore (The Shawshank Redemption, Planet of the Apes), Academy Award® nominee Brenda Vaccaro (Midnight Cowboy, The House by the Lake), and Joe Spinell (Rocky, Maniac). Vinegar Syndrome Labs is delighted to finally bring this underseen, dirty old New York gem to Blu-ray, newly restored and featuring an illuminating assortment of extras.
directed by: Brian G. Hutton
starring: Frank Sinatra, Faye Dunaway, James Whitmore, Brenda Vaccaro, Joe Spinell
1980 / 112 min / 1.85:1 / English Mono
Additional info:
Overall rating: 4.7 / 5 from 10 reviews.
Review topics: ["film"].
"Bleak Christmas-in-New-York atmosphere, great city locations and eccentric supporting cast keep it afloat. Joe Spinell is, naturally, a highlight, and the whole thing has that strange, cheap, melancholy charm of a forgotten TV movie that briefly gets much darker and nastier than expected."
"Cool Sinatra thriller. Highly recommended. This is a great release too"
"A frank Sinatra slasher film"
"Later point in his career, but a compelling story and easily the best version of it we'll see."
"I liked this one a lot; a serial killer film shot on location in 1980 NYC? Of course! But it's one of those releases that didn't completely click until I checked out the extras. The film has a subplot concerning the cop on the serial killer case (Frank Sinatra) who has a very sick, hospitalized wife (Faye Dunaway, somewhat wasted in this role), that didn't really integrate itself into the movie in a way that made sense to me, so I found the dual narratives as clashing, and slowed the movie down. I watched the interview with a French guy who made a Faye Dunaway doc, Laurent Bouzereau, and he took all the disparate threads in my head and made them all make sense, and I "got" it. Bouzereau also is around my age, and in mentioning his movie touchstones, his Faye Dunaway film that got him interested in movies I was expecting CHINATOWN or NETWORK, but no. . . THE TOWERING INFERNO! Disaster Movies were the Marvel-ish spectacles of the '70s, and little kids like me were weaned on THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, AIRPORT '75, EARTHQUAKE (in Sensurround!), etc. I thought this was a great interview, and then another extra that runs through Sinatra's film career was also pretty awesome. The movie? It has Joe Spinell in a scene-stealing bit part, and serial killer David Dukes is suitably unhinged. This VSL is definitely recommended as long as you are conditioned to the slower burn of a 1980 drama starring Frank as a retiring cop."
"Le coffret est bien et la qualité du film l'est également."
"An all out long forgotten gem, Sinatra and Dunaway, in a moody must watch movie."
"I wasn't even aware this existed prior to the release. Talk about a well rounded cast!"
"Good film"
"Star studded cast with Sinatra and Faye Dunaway in this 1980 crime thriller. 4/5 stars!"
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