Color, 1981, 84 mins. 49 secs.
Directed by Ulli Lommel
Starring Suzanna Love, Robert Walker Jr., Jeff Winchester
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray & DVD) (US R0 HD/NTSC), 88 Films (Blu-ray) (UK R0 HD), Image Entertainment (DVD) (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9)
scoring a significant 
hit with The Boogey Man, director and onetime Fassbinder acting stable member Ulli Lommel realized he'd found his new calling and embarked on a spree of genre films in the early '80s, many starring his wife at the time, Suzanna Love. Immediately after BrainWaves he intended to embark on Boogeyman II in Arizona, but his plans changed when he spied a recreation of London Bridge across the Colorado River and came up with the idea for a twisty, blood-drenched thriller mixing film noir with Vertigo and Belle de Jour from a female perspective. The result, Olivia, proved to be a tough sell for distributors and ended up circulating under a number of other titles like A Taste of Sin and Double Jeopardy (mostly in heavily cut prints). In its intended form, the film proved to be his strongest showcase for Love as she gets to try on numerous looks and personas as a woman with serious identity issues; the two would team up again in quick succession for Boogeyman II, The Devonsville Terror, and Revenge of the Stolen Stars, after which they divorced and Lommel's career started veering off in some truly bizarre directions until his death in 2017.
some dark and strange detours of its own. 
Dreamlike and haunting, Olivia is easily one of the strongest of Lommel's American films and feels the most indebted to his superior German work (such as Tenderness of the Wolves). His exaggerated visual approach and weird sense of pacing actually work in his favor here as the story jumps ahead years at a time more than once with some drastic shifts in locales, and Love does a fine job of anchoring the film as the one narrative constant. It's also fascinating to see how this film not only wears its influences openly but also anticipates what would come soon after with Body Double and Crimes of Passion, both of which would pair up nicely with this one. In fact, this one joins the Brian De Palma films of the time as an indicator of the erotic thriller craze that would explode within a few years, and it's all given a nice surrealistic gloss by the electronic score by Joel Goldsmith. 
In 2020, Vinegar Syndrome brought the film back into circulation domestically with a Blu-ray and DVD combo edition including limited embossed slipcover packaging available directly from the company's site. The big news here is that the film is finally uncut for the 
very first time since the '80s VHS era (and definitely for the first time on disc), with the fresh 4K scan from the original camera negative resulting in the most impressive a/v presentation by far. An opening disclaimer notes that the negative was kept in substandard conditions and has some moisture damage in the first reel, though it's minor and can mainly be spotted during a few of the really dark shots when young Olivia is spying on her mom. It really looks great and features a gorgeous color palette only hinted at in earlier releases, particularly the little accents of red and royal blue in Love's costumes. The DTS-HD MA English 2.0 mono track is also in great shape (a tape source had to be used for the minute of reinstated footage, but it's hard to tell), and optional English SDH subtitles are included. Among the extras, the big score here is "Becoming Olivia" (15m7s) with Love finally chatting about her role including the temporary crush she had on Walker, the use of vodka to prepare for her nude scenes and the drive-by hate crime that kept her from getting a DUI, the possible reasons for the recurring prostitute motif in Lommel's work, the director's tireless work ethic, and the reason for their separation. Then "Taking on Many Roles" (17m10s) features writer and assistant director John P. Marsh talking about his multitasking on Lommel's set (including set dressing and other tasks) after first meeting the director at a barbecue and bonding over their mutual hatred of Richard Nixon. Then one of the film's other cinematographers, Jon Kranhouse, appears in "A Chance Meeting" (18m1s) to note how his career really started by Lommel who made it possible for him to amass enough work to get in the union, as well as the trickery involved to pull off the multiple international locations. Finally in "Learning From Ulli" (19m28s), editor and co-producer Terrell Tannen notes Lommel's gradual transformation from German to L.A. clothing culture (including his omnipresent Dodgers cap), his location scouting in his new black Cadillac, and the genre culture around the time that was open to endless possibilities if you didn't care about making much money. Also included are the theatrical Double Jeopardy trailer and a reel of Super 8mm production footage (19m55s) shot by Marsh, who also provides narration pointing out the various crew members (including one who still owes him fifty bucks) and pinpointing where each bit fell in the production schedule. VINEGAR SYNDROME (Blu-ray)
88 FILMS (Blu-ray)
IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT (DVD)
