New from Kino Lorber is a 4K UHD release of Bill Condon’s 2025 film of Kander and Ebb’s musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, the third of Kander and Ebb’s trio of Broadway musicals about show business dreamers, and the third to be made into a film over the course of fifty-four years.

The first was Bob Fosse’s 1972 film of 1966’s Cabaret in which failed singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) imagines herself as a great star of a 1920s Berlin cabaret. The second was Rob Marshall’s 2002’s film of 1975’s Chicago in which Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) dreams of becoming a great vaudeville star. 1992’s Kiss of the Spider Woman was about Molina (played here by Tonituih), an Argentinian political prisoner whose fantasy life of dreaming about old movies is richer than his real life.

All three musicals were adaptations of previous works. Chicago was based on Maurine Dallas Watkins’ 1926 play of the same name filmed in 1927 and again in 1942 as Roxie Hart. Cabaret was based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera filmed in 1955, which itself was based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1937 novella, Sally Bowles. Kiss of the Spider Woman was based on the 1976 novel by Matthew Puig which had been filmed in 1985.

Condon, who provides feature length commentary on the release’s soundtrack, had been obsessed with turning Kander and Ebb’s musical into a film in the style of Fosse’s film version of Cabaret ever since he saw the play on Broadway.

Condon, whose breakthrough film was 1998’s Gods and Monsters which he both wrote and directed, and for which he won an Oscar for his screenplay, met Kander and Ebb when he adapted Chicago for which he was also nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay. It wasn’t until after Condon’s 2006 film version of Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen’s 1981 musical, Dreamgirls that he approached Kander (Ebb having died in 2004) and playwright Terrence McNally about making Kiss of the Spider Woman into a film. Both agreed but they couldn’t find the Argentinian holders of the rights to Puig’s novel and gave up on the idea around 2009.

McNally died of complications from Covid-19 in 2020. In 2022, his widower, Tony-winning Broadway producer Tom Kirdahy (Ragtime), tracked down Puig’s heirs and the rights were finally cleared.

Jennifer Lopez as the actress in the movies within the movie and Diego Luna as Valentin, Molina’s cellmate, were Condon’s only choices for those roles and both quickly agreed. The search for the film’s Molina resulted in thousands of candidates with L.A. born actor Tonatiuh finally securing the role.

Whereas the novel featured Molina’s conjuring up of five old movies, the 1985 film version had only two. The musical was about the actress in the movies named Aurora whose most memorable character was the Spider Woman.

The scenes with Lopez were filmed first, in 18 days in New Jersey, due to the actress-singer’s previous touring commitments. The remainder of the film was shot in Montevideo, Uruguay over several months.

Condon’s script made several changes to the musical including the ending. He also changed the title of the show’s last song from “His Name Was Molina” to “Her Name Was Molina” with Kander’s reluctant consent, suggesting that the character was pre-trans. It’s one of two changes that confused critics because it comes out of nowhere. If that was what Condon wanted to convey, it would have made more sense to state that early on, instead of pulling it out of nowhere at the film’s conclusion.

The other confusing change was having Jennifer Lopez play both her actress character and the Spider Woman as though they were separate personages in her last scene in the film.

Box office reception to the film was tepid but subsequent streaming picked up fans and Condon expects that the film will receive additional support on home video over time.

Kino Lorber has also released Cohen Film Collection’s 4K UHD upgrade of the 1987 Merchant-Ivory production of E.M. Forster’s Maurice with newly recorded feature length commentary by film critic Wade Major and Distinguished UCLA Professor of English Joseh Bristow in addition to the film’s 2017 remastered Blu-ray.

Forster was the author of such classic novels as A Passage to India and Where Angels Fear to Tread as well as A Room with a View and Howards End which were also filmed by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Maurice was written between 1913 and 1914 but not published until 1971, after his death in 1970 at 91. His last written novel was 1924’s A Passage to India.

Like all Forster’s works, the film is about class differences as well as the homosexuality of its title character played by James Wilby. It follows his platonic relationship with fellow aristocrat Hugh Grant and his eventual affair with Grant’s gamekeeper Rupert Graves. Like all Merchant-Ivory films, this one also features lush cinematography, art direction, set decoration, and costume design. It also contains strong supporting performances from the likes of Denholm Elliott, Simon Calllow, Ben Kingsley, Peter Eyre, Phoebe Nichols as Grant’s wife, Judy Parfitt as Grant’s mother, and Billie Whitelaw as Wilby’s mother.

Extras on the Blu-ray include writer-director Tom McCarthy’s interview with James Ivory at the film’s 2017 revival showing.

Also newly released by Kino Lorber is a 4K UHD upgrade of Jeannot Szwarc’s 1980 film, Somewhere in Time based on the novel, Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson.

The film, which met with universally negative reviews, flopped at the box-office but became an instant hit as one of the first VHS releases, and its popularity has never waned since.
While I am a sucker for well-made time travel movies from Berkeley Square to Time After Time, I’ve never cared much for this one with Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer in the leads. Even the great Teresa Wright as Seymour’s maid couldn’t sell me on it. While the upgrade is impressive, it’s still not enough to make me change my mind.

Happy viewing.