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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Fox and His Friends (1975)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Jackpot of All Trades

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Fox and His Friends on DVD

Rainer Werner Fassbinder practically sweated films.

Coming from the German New Wave of the 60s and 70s (which also included Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders), Fassbinder (1945-82) poured out something like 40 films in his brief 37 years of life before he committed suicide in 1982 with a drug overdose.

Fassbinder was also the heir apparent to Douglas Sirk, concentrating mostly on gut-wrenching melodramas, doomed romances and other volatile relationships. Because he worked so fast, his films all have a sense of urgency and potency, as if no other film matters in that moment.

To save time, he also worked with the same cast and crew again and again, including the great cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who went on to photograph many of Martin Scorsese's films, including Gangs of New York.

Now, both Wellspring Media and Fantoma Films have finally begun releasing many of Fassbinder's films on DVD.

One of Fassbinder's own personal favorites, the powerful Fox and His Friends (1975, Wellspring Media, $24.98) may also be the greatest gay film ever made (alongside Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together). Fassbinder delivers a powerfully intuitive performance as Fox, a former circus worker forced to go straight when his boss is arrested. He wins the lottery and falls into the company of some sleazy, well-to-do types, who eventually cause him to spend his entire fortune. Carl Boehm (a.k.a. Karlheinz Böhm), best known as the clean-cut killer in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) co-stars.

DVD Details: The DVD boasts a gorgeous transfer, but few extras.

Starring: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Chatel, Karlheinz Böhm (a.k.a. Karl-Heinz Böhm), Adrian Hoven, Christiane Maybach, Harry Baer (a.k.a. Harry Bär), Hans Zander, Kurt Raab
Written by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Christian Hohoff
Directed by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Language: German with English subtitles
Running Time: 123 minutes
Date: January 2, 2003