Wicked Games: Three Films by Robert Hossein

Criterion is the Mt. Everest of boutique labels. Its body of work – going as far back as the laserdisc days – includes some of the most important, most influential and most collectible films of all time. In an era when just being able to watch a classic film in its correct aspect ratio, they expanded to include commentary tracks, interviews, storyboards and alternate scenes before those special features were even a glint in the traditional studio marketer's eye. But, just like Everest, the boutique mountaintop has become a bit more crowded since then. And no one seems to be carrying the torch for introducing audiences to obscure, invigorating and adventurous cinema more than Radiance Films, the specialty label that released its first titles in 2023. Since then, their ratio of hits to misses has been nothing short of jaw-dropping, including their latest: three films from French actor-director Robert Hossein collected under the title Wicked Games.

Hossein, probably best known internationally for his role in Rififi, turns out to be even more fascinating behind the camera, obsessed with exposing the fragility of the male ego with a fatalistic world view that doesn’t believe in happy endings. The first film in the collection, The Wicked Go To Hell (1955), is a sweat-soaked bit of paranoia that begins with a prison breakout, then traps its two escapees at an isolated cottage as they compete for the affection of the young woman they’ve taken hostage. It’s a familiar noir set-up, but Hossein flips the script adeptly in favor of his female protagonist, who, despite not carrying a weapon, is armed to the teeth.

Nude in a White Car (1958) finds another opportunistic man (played by Hossein himself) trapped in a prison of his own making, this time between two wealthy half-sisters - one paralyzed, the other her caretaker - competing for his affection. But which of them is the sexual predator who forced him to have sex at gunpoint in a white Cadillac? The answer should be obvious, but Hossein gleefully keeps the audience guessing in a film that combines all the best elements of Hollywood noir with a sharp psychological edge that doesn’t pull any punches.

And finally there’s Hossein’s political western, The Taste of Violence (1961), which anticipates a lot of the ground Euro-Westerns would cover in the coming decade. Charged with kidnapping the daughter of a Central American dictator for a prison exchange, Perez (Hossein) finds himself falling for his hostage instead and defending her against his money-hungry companions. A dark and stylish anti-war story, the film takes advantage of the wide-open landscape just as the walls of reality come closing in. With long dialogue-free stretches of action and suspense, Hossein’s filmmaking approach here evolves into something that rises above genre, inhabiting a world where love is an impossible dream and idealism a death sentence.

If Criterion built the blueprint for what boutique home video could be, Radiance is rewriting it for a new generation. And their Blu-ray presentation of Wicked Games, limited to 3000 copies, is a reminder that the world of cinema is still vast, strange and full of voices worth rediscovering. Each film retains a beautiful filmic texture in the 2K restorations; and instead of piling on the extras, the supplements are thoughtfully curated to explore each film and Hossein’s career as a whole. Tim Lucas provides a triple-play of superb commentary tracks in addition to a new Making Of for Wicked and featurette by Howard S. Berger, new visual essay and archival interview for Nude and appreciations by Alex Cox and C. Courtney Joyner for Violence. The packaging includes a sturdy case with terrific artwork and liner notes.