Digi-Schlock: DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY/RACE WITH THE DEVIL (Shout! Factory Blu-Ray)
When Shout! Factory began issuing DVD's of 20th Century Fox films a few years back, many a cult movie collector hoped these films would one day also receive a blu-ray release from the company. The company's latest release takes a stab at making good on those wishes, offering a high-definition upgrade for their previous double-DVD set of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry and Race With The Devil - and the results deliver old-fashioned drive-in excitement with a new level of audio-visual polish.
If you're not familiar with these films, they are two Peter Fonda vehicles released during the mid-70's that feature a lot of car-chase excitement. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is a chase movie with an undercurrent of Vanishing Point-style existentialism that pairs Fonda with Susan George. Race With The Devil combines the chase movie with occult-themed horror and '70s-style paranoid thriller elements, with Warren Oates serving as a worthy co-star to Fonda.
Schlockmania has posted film reviews for both films in the past:
- to read the full film review for Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, click here.
- to read the full film review for Race With The Devil, click here.
The transfers for both films look impressive on blu-ray. In terms of cinematography, both films lean heavily on outdoor exteriors full of racing and crashing cars and all the action looks nice and crisp in these transfers. It's also worth noting that extended nighttime scenes in Race With The Devil hold up nicely on this disc, with the black levels looking solid. Both films feature lossless presentations of their original mono soundtracks and t he 
results are nice and clear, with plenty of oomph to the car chase sound effects.
In terms of extras, the bonus features from Shout! Factory's DVD releases of these films are ported over, including commentary tracks and retrospective featurettes (the only things not carried over are some bonus trailers for other Shout! Factory releases). Those special features were covered extensively in Schlockmania's past reviews of these discs and you can access those reviews here:
- to read about the special features for Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, click here.
- to read about the special features Race With The Devil, click here.
In short, this new blu-ray offers a strong A/V upgrade for fans of these films while also retaining the quality extra features from their respective DVDs. If you love vintage drive-in excitement on blu-ray, this release is worth the modest investment.