NoShame

Last updated
NoShame
IndustryDVD releases
FateOut of business
Defunct2006
HeadquartersItaly, United States
ProductsDVD

NoShame, or NoShame Films, was an Italian-American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult Italian movies on DVD.

Cult film film that has acquired a cult following

A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, an elaborate subculture that engage in repeated viewings, quoting dialogue, and audience participation. Inclusive definitions allow for major studio productions, especially box office bombs, while exclusive definitions focus more on obscure, transgressive films shunned by the mainstream. The difficulty in defining the term and subjectivity of what qualifies as a cult film mirror classificatory disputes about art. The term cult film itself was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies, though cult was in common use in film analysis for decades prior to that.

Cinema of Italy

The Cinema of Italy comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film as well as 12 Palmes d'Or, one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.

Contents

History

NoShame Films started its office in Italy and opened an office in Los Angeles, California the following year. Its specialty was remastering and releasing cult Italian films on DVD from such subgenres as giallo and poliziotteschi. [1] [2] [3] The company was praised by DVD collectors for the amount of effort that went into its releases, which included thick booklets and plenty of special features. [4]

<i>Giallo</i> literature and film genre

Giallo is a 20th-century Italian genre of literature and film. Especially outside Italy, giallo refers specifically to a particular Italian thriller-horror genre that has mystery or detective elements and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements. In Italy, the term generally denotes thrillers, typically of the crime fiction, mystery, and horror subgenres, regardless of the country of origin.

Poliziotteschi constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as Italo-crime, Euro-crime, poliziesco, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy and increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.

In 2006 the company quietly went out of business, amid rumors of content/privacy lawsuits initiated by a former Mayfair Model, with its website going offline and all future releases being canceled. [1] Its previously released DVDs also started to go out of print. [5] A new DVD company, MYA Communications, releases many films along the same lines as NoShame and has even slowly started to re-issue some of NoShame's out-of-print films. [6]

DVD releases

<i>Almost Human</i> (1974 film) 1974 Italian film directed by Umberto Lenzi

Almost Human is a 1974 Italian poliziotteschi film directed by Umberto Lenzi. This film stars Tomas Milian, Henry Silva, Ray Lovelock and Anita Strindberg. The film is also known in English language markets as The Kidnap of Mary Lou.

<i>Boccaccio 70</i> 1962 Italian anthology film

Boccaccio '70 is a 1962 Italian anthology film produced by Carlo Ponti and directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica, from an idea by Cesare Zavattini. It is an anthology of four episodes, each by one of the directors, all about a different aspect of morality and love in modern times, in the style of Giovanni Boccaccio.

<i>The Case of the Scorpions Tail</i> 1971 film by Sergio Martino

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail is a 1971 Italian giallo film directed by Sergio Martino, produced by Luciano Martino and co-written by Ernesto Gastaldi and Eduardo Maria Brochero. It starred George Hilton, Anita Strindberg, Ida Galli and Janine Reynaud, and the music soundtrack was by Bruno Nicolai.

Notes

  1. 1 2 NoShame Films Official Website
  2. ↑ NoShame promo, GreenCine. Accessed 20 July 2010.
  3. ↑ NoShame's Official MySpace Page
  4. ↑ NoShame DVD Review
  5. ↑ List of NoShame films on Amazon.com
  6. ↑ "NoMore NoShame", Rare & OOP DVDs. Accessed 20 July 2010.
  7. ↑ Promo ad copies only with distribution of final cut terminated by interim injunction California Court on behalf Jane Doe aka UK legal brief #ZS143785. Re : JPhillips Holdings vs. #5478e LTD acting as NoShame films USA-Subsequently de-listed from IMDb database due to "home movie" designation. IMDb

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