VIDEO . . . WHAT’S NEW : ‘Unrated’ Tapes Rate High With Renters

While no theatrical blockbusters show up on this week’s new-video schedule, there’s no shortage of movies, including some “scandalous” imports.

The most scandalous new videocassette is, in fact, “Scandal.” This 1989 British film about the 1963 Profumo case was trimmed of some sexy scenes to gain an R rating in this country. Starring Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, John Hurt, Roland Gift and Bridget Fonda, “Scandal” is available from HBO in both R-rated (106 minutes) and unrated (115 minutes) versions.

It makes one wonder whether we will be seeing more films submitted to the Motion Picture Assn. of America with scenes that the producers know will earn an X rating, dutifully withdrawn and recut to gain an R-rated theatrical release, then released on video in both versions. Result: publicity for the film and the video, and a “hot” edge for the unrated, unedited version.

This seems to happening most in the horror field. Latest example: “Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III,” which was resubmitted last week to avoid an X rating. Wonder what the chances are that the excised violent scenes will show up in an unrated video version in a few months?

Other films new at your video store:

If you howled at Pedro Almodovar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” then you might like to rent the Bunuel-influenced Spanish director’s offbeat and even darker 1986 film “Matador” (Cinevista, $79.95, unrated, subtitled), all about a retired matador and his decidedly strange activities and acquaintances.

Three years before making her Hollywood debut in “Intermezzo,” Ingrid Bergman starred in the original Swedish version of the touching love story about a young pianist and the older, married man who falls for her. Directed by Gustav Molander, this subtitled 1936 “Intermezzo” (Crocus, $79.95) now joins its U.S. remake on the video shelves.

SVS has three notable, subtitled Japanese films for $59.95 each: Akira Kurosawa’s version of Gorky’s grim social drama “The Lower Depths” (1957), Kenji Mizoguchi’s portrait of a Japanese woman, “Osaka Elegy” (1936), and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s “The Face of Another” (1966), which, like the new U.S. film “Johnny Handsome,” concerns a once-disfigured man with a new face.

The 1942 Italian drama “We the Living” (JCI, $79.95, two cassettes) is at least a curio for its cast (Rossano Brazzi, Alida Valli), its source (an Ayn Rand novel about love and betrayal in the Soviet Union of the 1920s), and its length (174 minutes).

“Wonderwall: The Movie” (Studio, $79.95) was an unsuccessful 1968 British picture that will probably be of most interest now to Beatles fans, since George Harrison, with a little help from friends such as Eric Clapton and Ravi Shankar, contributed the score.

This week’s smaller domestic crop includes “Leviathan” (MGM/UA, $89.95, R), which took the “Alien” plot under water with stars Peter Weller and Amanda Pays but without the craftsmanship of another ’89 beneath-the-waves sci-fi film, “The Abyss”; and “Lost Angels” (Orion, $89.98, R), a Hugh Hudson-directed drama about a troubled young man, starring Donald Sutherland and Adam Horovitz (of the Beastie Boys).

OTHER NEW VIDEOS

Fans of that one-of-a-kind 1966-71 afternoon soap opera/horror series “Dark Shadows” will be happy to know that MPI is offering “The Resurrection of Barnabas Collins” ($29.95), a two-hour tape featuring an overview of the series and the first five episodes, and the “Dark Shadows Three-Pack,” three cassettes containing five episodes each sold as a set only ($79.95).