Vintage Movies From the Soviet Union and Ida Lupino

The eclectic Kino on Video has two new vintage video collections on tap for the discerning connoisseur: “The Soviet Avant-Garde” and “Ida Lupino”: Queen of the Bs.”

“Films of the Soviet Avant-Garde” ($30 each) is a five-tape, seven-film series spotlighting some of the best-known films from the early Soviet era--a time when art and cinema were promoted as cultural institutions of the state and emphasis was put on experimental styles and techniques.

The majority of the seven films in the collection have remained unseen in the U.S. until now because of Western censorship and circulation problems due to anti-communist sentiment.

The films are technical marvels that feature rapid, innovative editing techniques and camera work. They are must-sees for historic reasons rather than dramatic content. In fact, many of the films are actually entertaining because they’re bogged down by communist propaganda and rhetoric.

The best of the lot is Dziga Vertov’s exhilarating “Man With a Movie Camera” from 1929. Vertov utilizes breathtaking editing and camera techniques to follow a roving cameraman as he records the lives of the Soviet people from dawn to dusk. The unique, witty score was recorded by the Alloy Orchestra using Vertov’s instructions for musical and non-musical accompaniment.

In the 1926 psychological thriller “By the Law,” Lev Kuleshov veers away from the political. Adapted from Jack London’s “The Unexpected,” the film deals with a disgruntled Alaskan gold prospector who goes mad and murders two of his fellow shareholders. The two surviving members must decide what to do with the insane killer.

Included on the cassette is the 1926 comedy “Chess Fever.”

Vsevolod Pudovkin’s 1928 epic “Storm Over Asia” boasts incredible photography and dazzling action sequences. The film deals with a renegade Mongol--a descendant of the mighty Genghis Khan--who rebels against Western occupational forces and joins the Soviet partisans fighting in the mountains. Kino’s edition is 30 minutes longer than any version previously available in the U.S.

Pudovkin’s 1933 “Deserter,” the only sound film in the series, focuses on a German shipboard laborer who joins a workers’ strike. Starved, beaten down and embittered, he is sent as an envoy to the USSR, where he is rejuvenated by the optimism of the workers’ state.

Rounding out the collection are the documentaries “Turksib,” from 1929, and 1930’s “Salt for Svanetia.”

Arriving Tuesday from Kino is the juicy “Ida Lupino: Queen of the Bs” ($25 each), which features three films Lupino directed: “Not Wanted,” “The Hitch-Hiker” and “The Bigamist.”

The British-born Lupino was one of the most popular actresses in the Warner Bros. stable during the 1940s, starring in such classics as “High Sierra’ and “They Drive by Night.” In the late ‘40s, Lupino left Warners and founded the Filmmakers, an independent production company that made small-scale dramatic films, often exploring controversial subject matters.

Lupino was virtually the only female director working in Hollywood at the time. She went on to direct several episodes of such TV series as “The Twilight Zone” and “Gunsmoke,” and the 1966 baby boomer fave “The Trouble With Angels.”

At 31, she co-wrote and produced the gritty 1949 drama “Not Wanted,” which examined the then-taboo subject of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When original director Elmer Clifton suffered a heart attack on the third day of production, Lupino took over the reins as director, though she didn’t accept any credit. Sally Forrest stars as a young waitress who becomes an unwed mother after an ill-fated one-night stand.

Lupino’s best effort is 1953’s “The Hitch-Hiker,” a taut, leanly acted film noir. Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy play two Everymen-homebodies driving to Mexico for a fishing trip when they stop to help a stranded motorist, unaware he’s a serial killer (a great William Talman) on the lam.

The same year, Lupino directed the compelling “The Bigamist.” O’Brien gives a sympathetic portrayal of a traveling salesman with two lives and two wives (Lupino and Joan Fontaine).

To order both collections call (800) 562-3330.