Nostalgia Kinky

Radiance has released a splendid 4K/Blu-ray combo edition of Brian De Palma’s first masterpiece, Hi, Mom! (1970), loaded up with hours of essential supplements. Featuring a vibrant new scan from the original negative, Hi, Mom! has never looked better, and this Radiance edition is a must-have for both De Palma and counterculture fans. It can be ordered directly from Radiance or MVD here in the States.

Hi, Mom! is the 5th feature-length film directed by De Palma and the follow-up to his first minor breakthrough, Greetings (1968). A savage satire centered on anti-consumerism and the hollowness of the American Dream, Hi, Mom! is a raging film. Absurdist, angry, hysterical, and disturbingly topical, Hi, Mom! boldly announces Brian De Palma as the great American filmmaker of the seventies, although certainly few noted it at the time.

While Hi, Mom! is a landmark film in the career of De Palma it also offers its star Robert De Niro one of the first truly great roles of his fabled filmography. De Niro delivers a caustically charismatic performance for De Palma, one that he’d build on in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1983).

Not surprisingly, De Niro dominates Hi, Mom! but the film is filled with great performances, from Jennifer Salt’s charming turn to an early appearance by a trim Charles Drurning. Many a familiar face from De Palma’s repertoire also appear, such as future Phantom of the Paradise (1974) star Gerrit Graham.

De Palma is in ferocious form behind the camera, offering up a brilliantly made self-referential satire featuring a film-within-a-film and a politically charged section focused on a New York Black militant theater troupe. De Palma’s growth behind the camera, since his feature debut just two years previous, is astonishing. Also incredible is the way Hi, Mom! foreshadows so many future De Palma classics, with his future porno-chic inspired Body Double (1984) being its sister film.

Hi, Mom! isn’t as well known as the startling number of classic films De Palma made in its wake, but it remains amongst his most important. It is ground zero for many of his cinematic, thematic, and technical obsessions. I’m so happy Radiance has chosen to grant it this terrific edition.

Hi, Mom! was previously available on Blu-ray via Arrow’s rather disappointing The Early Films of De Palma De Niro set. Disappointing in that save for an interview with co-writer Charles Hirsch (ported over here), it was a bare-bones edition. Radiance has thankfully corrected that with this wonderful 4K/Blu-ray combo.

Along with Arrow’s archival interview, we also get an authoritative commentary by De Palma scholar Travis Woods and a terrifically insightful new chat with critic Ellen E. Jones. Best of all are the two bonus features on the disc, both of which are new to the De Palma HD library.

First up, we have the rather remarkable Son of Greetings, a fascinatingly fractured behind-the-scenes look at two of modern film’s most important figures at the dawns of their careers. Of course, the thing that’s cool about Son of Greetings is that the makers of it had no clue how important De Palma and De Niro were soon to be, making this most unique.

Son of Greetings is totally formless, playing out as a loose connection of shots from chronicling the making of Hi Mom!. British director Peter Davis has no real interest here in creating a typical documentary; instead, he opts for a fly-on-the-wall approach, capturing various moments often on the streets of 1970’s New York. It’s a neat watch.

Son of Greetings makes an ideal bonus feature for the film it documents. Perhaps for some, this rather aimless and experimental 76-minute film will be a chore to get through, but I found it so fascinating. Seeing my boy Bobby pre-Mean Streets signing, probably one of his first autographs, messed me up a bit. Great watch.

Even better is the long missing on HD, Dionysus in ‘69, De Palma’s startling filmed experimental theater time-capsule. Pretty much worth the price of this entire Radiance release, the anarchic and liberating Dionysus in ‘69 remains one of De Palma’s boldest works. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s monumental Chelsea Girls (1967), Dionysus in ‘69 is a completely split-screen experience that manipulates time in a live theatrical setting in startling ways.

Based on an experimental theater production of Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’, Dionysus in ‘69 finds De Palma intimately filming the The Performance Group, an NYC experimental theater collective. Filmed in stark documentary style black and white by De Palma and future Oscar winner Bruce Joel Rubin, Dionysus in ‘69 is even more challenging than Hi, Mom!. This is a real counterculture call to arms that landed an X rating and much legal trouble, due to the film’s extensive onstage nudity.

Dionysus in ‘69 will be a chore for anyone not interested in experimental theater or performance art, but it shows De Palma at the dawn of his career already in a more daring place than any of his New Hollywood peers ever dared travel. Dionysus in ‘69 is an incredible film and one of the best cinema/stage hybrids ever made. Its place as a supplement on this edition of Hi, Mom! is most welcome. Finally, this limited edition obi-stripped set comes with a lengthy booklet featuring a new essay by award-winning Matt Zoller Seitz.

So a HUGE recommendation for this new Radiance edition of one of Brian De Palma’s greatest films. Well worth a double-dip for those who already have the past Arrow release.

Here is a large gallery of additional clippings concerning both Dionysus in ‘69 and Hi, Mom! I discovered while researching this. Enjoy.

-Jeremy Richey, May 2026-