Ridley Scott has been extremely upset with Disney for the mishandling of the theatrical release of The Last Duel, one of the films Disney inherited from 20th Century-Fox in its acquisition of the studio. He should be.

This underseen film is a much better one than most of the tripe being promulgated for audience awareness and awards glory. Right now, it’s my third favorite film of the year behind The Power of the Dog and Belfast. Based on a true story, this is easily Scott’s best film since Thelma & Louise from thirty years ago.

The last third of the film, written by Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) in which Jodie Comer takes center stage, contains the year’s best work from a feminist point of view. It blows The Lost Daughter and Spencer off the screen.

Set in late 14th Century France, Comer plays a noblewoman who is raped by the king’s squire (Adam Driver) while her husband (Matt Damon) is away. No one believes her, thinking she is covering up an affair, especially since she becomes pregnant after five years of infertility with Damon following the rape. Young Charles VI (Alex Lawther), rather than putting his squire on trial after Damon forces the issue at Comer’s insistence, gets the two to agree to a duel to the death. The survivor will be vindicated in the eyes of God, the King, and the law. The loser will have his body stripped, dragged, and hung upside down in the town square. If Damon loses, Comer will be shackled and burned at the stake, and her newborn child will be become a ward of the state.

Comer, and Harriet Walter as her monster of a mother-in-law, are both superb. It’s a visual knockout with a splendid score by Harry Gregson-Williams (Ridley’s The Martian).

It’s available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K.

Wes Anderson, on the other hand, had the advantage of long-drawn-out anticipation of the release of his latest film, The French Dispatch, due to the film’s year-long postponement due to the Covid pandemic. Unfortunately, the film fails to live up to expectations.

Like all of the quirky filmmaker’s works, his latest is a visual wonder, packed with an all-star cast, but unlike previous works from Bottle Rocket through Isle of Dogs, there isn’t a single character we can identify with in this saga of a Kansas-based newspaper with a Paris office in which the action, or inaction, takes place.

Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Benicio Del Toro, Tilda Swinton, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, and the rest of the cast are always welcome in our living rooms, but they’ve all been used to better advantage elsewhere.

It’s available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Kino Lorber begins 2022 where it left off in 2021, with the release of a barrage of interesting old movies we never thought we’d see on Blu-ray.

The oldest are the early Alfred Hitchcock films, Number 17 and Rich and Strange from his British period, both released in 1932.

Hitchcock hated Number 17 which he was forced to make under contract. Set mostly in a London apartment house where a detective has tracked down a bunch of jewel thieves, it’s all talk until the rushed finale. The Blu-ray, however, does contain a fascinating nearly hour-long documentary on Hitchcock’s early years.

Rich and Strange, on the other hand, was a project closer to the director’s heart. One of Hitchcock’s rare comedies, it’s about a working stiff who receives an unexpected inheritance, quits his job, and goes on a life-changing ocean voyage with his wife. It’s not bad, but it’s not the Hitchcock we’ve come to love, either. It’s more Mr. & Mrs. Smith, his flop 1940 American-made comedy, than Foreign Correspondent, that same year’s pulse-pounding suspense classic.

Jean Hersholt has top billing in 1933’s The Crime of the Century in which he plays a psychiatrist who turns himself in to the police for a murder he is afraid he will commit if he’s not locked up. He isn’t locked up, and the murder is committed, but not by him. Wynne Gibson, Stuart Erwin, and Frances Dee co-star is this enticing thriller.

Stage actress Mary Morris stars in Double Door, her one and only film, in which she plays a meanspirited spinster determined to keep her nephew’s wife (Evelyn Venable) from getting her hands on the family jewels even to the point of locking her in the walk-in-safe hidden behind the double door in her room. Anne Revere and Kent Taylor co-star in this white-knuckle thriller.

John Farrow’s 1943 war film China was an unusual one for its time. Except for stars Alan Ladd, Loretta Young, William Bendix, and bit player Tala Birell, there are no Caucasian actors in the film, and more importantly, no Caucasian actors masquerading as Asians. The film was made to convince American audiences that China deserved our support against the evil “Japs” at the outbreak of World War II. Philip Ahn, Richard Loo, Victor Sen Young, Iris Wong, Marianne Quon, Irene Tsao, and Soo Young are among the many outstanding Asian actors and actresses given rare chances to shine as something other than the stock characters they were usually given to play.

Mitchell Leisen’s 1947 film Golden Earrings teamed Marlene Dietrich as a gypsy and Ray Milland as a British spy in pre-World War II Germany. The plot revolves around Milland getting his hands on the Nazis’ formula for poison gas with Dietrich’s help. Dietrich and Milland couldn’t stand one another, but you wouldn’t know it from their highly professional performances.

Edward G. Robinson is at the top of his game as the industrialist with a guilty conscience in 1948’s All My Sons, the film version of Arthur Miller’s 1947 Tony award-winning play.

James Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns, and Sybil Thorndike lead the starry cast of Michael Anderson’s 1959 film Shake Hands with the Devil, one of the best films ever made about the Irish “troubles” of 1921. Johns and Thorndike are particularly memorable.

All these Kino Lorber releases contain full length audio commentaries except Shake Hands with the Devil which contains a newly filmed on-camera interview with 92-year-old Murray, currently the longest living Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor for 1956’s Bus Stop.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include Dune and Halloween Kills.