In the new “The Naked Gun” movie, Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. is obsessed with early aughts culture. He laments the Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime show and being refused Freedom Fries. He’s a superfan of the Black Eyed Peas and “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.” And, when it comes to watching his precious episodes of “Buffy,” they are (well, at least, they were) all stored on his TiVo which was, crucially, not connected to the internet so the episodes wouldn’t expire.
The early aughts was a strange, but also exciting time when it came to consuming media. There were no streaming services — even watching a movie trailer online, something we take entirely for granted today, could take hours to download if it was something popular like, say, the “Attack of the Clones” trailer. But the explosion of the DVD market was truly exciting.
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Finally, films could be viewed in their proper aspect ratios without the need for bulky laserdisc players that required multiple discs and flipping those multiple discs while viewing. Finally, a whole world of bonus features and commentary tracks were available to the masses, presented in a quality that was, frankly, good enough for the cathode-ray televisions of the era that most people still had.
I like to think that Frank Drebin Jr. has a whole closet filled with DVDs of “Dante’s Peak” and “Six Days, Seven Nights.” But one that he almost definitely does not have is the Criterion DVD release of “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.”
The Criterion Collection, arguably the best-known boutique film distributer of home media, was (in partnership with Janus Films), a pioneer in the early days of LaserDiscs. Many of innovations that have already been referenced — proper aspect ratios and commentary tracks — were developed in the 1980s by Criterion.
Criterion entered the DVD market in 1998 with its release of “Seven Samurai.” (The “Grand Illusion” disc that Criterion intended to be its first release was delayed due to restoration work.) The Collection’s DVDs, all individually numbered on the spine, became must-haves for cinephiles and home theater enthusiasts, no matter what the film in question happened to be. The 17th film in the Criterion Collection’s DVD coffers would wind up being, let’s say, “remarkable,” for a few reasons.
“Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” was actually first released into the Criterion Collection in 1993, on LaserDisc. This is, obviously, a very controversial film and, thankfully, it is not my job to get into any of the themes of the film itself, which has been explored at length for your entertainment on this very website. (Though, for the sake of this piece, I did watch the film and I do have to question the morals of at least a few of the characters. A couple of the things that happen just may cross a line. I’m no lawyer, but some of the characters’ actions might be considered “crimes.”)
Aleen Stein was a founder of The Criterion Collection and, until 2024, was still a shareholder in the company. And, yes, she remembers when “Salò” became an inductee into The Criterion Collection on LaserDisc. “Generally, my partners Bill Becker and Jonathan Turell pitched the films,” Stein told IndieWire. “I didn’t have that much of an opinion if something belongs in The Criterion Collection or not. Sometimes I did.”
As it turns out, “Salò” was one of the films she had an opinion on. “I thought ‘Walkabout,’ for example, should be in the collection, and they decided that I was right and put it in there. ‘Salò,’ I thought, should not be in there because it was such a disgusting movie,” she said. “And they overruled me. ‘Ghostbusters,’ for example, I thought was an iconic comedy and should really should be in there and they agreed with me.” (For those who did not know, yes, “Ghostbusters” was released as a Criterion LaserDisc in 1989.)
Stein explained her partners’ reasoning: “They were also the owners of Janus Films and they tended to put anything that was in Janus into The Criterion Collection. That was probably the main criteria why ‘Salò’ ended up getting into the collection.” And then things got really nuts.
Here’s what happened: The Criterion DVD release of “Salò” was released in 1998 and then, suddenly, it was no longer available. For collectors who just had to have every Criterion spine number, missing #17 was kind of a big deal. Keep in mind, DVD players in 1998 would set a consumer back around $700. So, around the time DVD players became more affordable — and when most collectors would be starting to put a Criterion DVD collection together — it was near-impossible to get The Criterion Collection #17.
The secondary market on eBay exploded. For almost a decade, The Criterion Collection DVD of “Salò” wasn’t just the Holy Grail of Criterion collectors, it became the Holy Grail of all DVD collectors. And even if collectors could find a disc on sale, eBay prices soared to around $300 a pop.
When I reached out to The Criterion Collection to get some basic information about why the DVD had gone out of print, I was told they would not be participating. I did speak to a number of people who had knowledge of the situation, however, and I was told it was mostly a rights issue — hardly the sort of mundane answer befitting such a wild film.
It’s frustratingly difficult to find eBay sale history, especially for auctions that ended two decades ago, but I did find some old message board entries from the era discussing the pretty insane prices for “Salò,” a movie most people don’t even enjoy watching. Gathering from these message boards and my own memory, the price of the disc usually hovered around $400. Though, in 2004 a user on a message board called “Steve Hoffman Music Forums” was distraught to see a disc for sale on eBay for $950. (Though it’s unclear if this disc actually sold for that price.)
Here are two from 2002 from people who just want to watch the film, but can’t afford the eBay prices. One solution offered was to buy a Region 2 disc of the film, but, back then that also involved buying a Region 2 DVD player. (If you buy a 4K disc today, it will play on any player. Back then, there were region codes that made it very difficult to watch films that were not released by a U.S. distributor.)
A user named Veli-Matti Reitti wrote, “Since the criterion version of this masterpiece is almost impossible to find anymore except through ebay where you’ll be forced to pay ridiculous amounts for it if you somehow manage to land the winning bid. From what i’ve read and heard the transfer looks great and i wouldn’t mind owning a copy of it but due to the price difference i’ll probably have to buy my first R2 DVD.”
He’s offered some advice on obtaining a region two DVD, but Paul_D can’t figure out what all the fuss is about, “Could someone explain what all the fuss is about with this film? I’ve done multiple searches all over the place and I can’t come up with a satisfying explanation as to why this is so controversial. I know it has risque content, but its reputation is unprecedented. Why?”
Why indeed.
Here’s one from 2003 warning of the Criterion bootlegs of “Salò” that flooded the market, and notes on how to avoid buying one. A user named Seb seemed confused that the notoriously high-priced “Salò” is only $50 on eBay, and was worried he’s not buying the real deal, followed by some very intense gratitude for any answers: “Is EVERYONE selling bootlegs? Or is it the bootleg-scare? What is going on, and WHERE can I find my LEGIT copy? THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Seb”
As a user named Jeff pointed out to Seb that, he was, indeed, looking at bootlegs. Jeff gave Seb some tips on how to spot the forgeries: “All the ones listed under “salo criterion” are bootlegs. While they look pretty close on the cover, a couple of dead giveaways are: Chapter stops: should be 29, not 6 or 9. Picture disc: the legit one HAS a white ring in the center, artwork does not go to the center of the disc.”
Here’s one from 2006 warning owners to sell their copies now because Criterion would be selling the disc again, which eventually did happen. “Quick, eBay your Salo DVD now! Criterion re-release coming soon!,” warned PaulP, based on something he read on a blog that no longer exists. He added, “P.S.: You’ll also note that there’s a hint that Andrei Rublev and Shock Corridor may be coming as new re-releases soon too.”
Great news for PaulP, he’s correct, those two titles are also available on Criterion’s website. And you can purchase the Blu-ray directly from Criterion as you read this.
What’s funny about the brand-new Blu-ray Criterion disc that you can buy right now for $31.96 (or less if you wait for a sale), is that this specific DVD of “Salò” from 1998 still goes for around $50 on eBay.
My only hope, if we are all blessed enough to get another “Naked Gun” movie, is that Frank Drebin Jr. adds the secondary market cost of the Criterion DVD of “Salò” to his extensive list of 25-year-old pop culture grievances. It’s a worthy one.
IndieWire’s ’70s Week is presented by Bleecker Street’s “RELAY.” Riz Ahmed plays a world class “fixer” who specializes in brokering lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten their ruin. IndieWire calls “RELAY” “sharp, fun, and smartly entertaining from its first scene to its final twist, ‘RELAY’ is a modern paranoid thriller that harkens back to the genre’s ’70s heyday.” From director David Mackenzie (“Hell or High Water”) and also starring Lily James, in theaters August 22.
