DVD Savant, Glenn Erickson's Review Column at DVD Talk

Savant's new reviews today are:

If not for a few deviations from the format, this early talkie (1930) would be included in the list of great original gangster pictures. Lew Ayres is the cocky bootlegger-millionaire who thinks he can retire in peace, and in his second film James Cagney gets all the attention as a racketeer named "Mileaway". Cagney's free 'n' easy dialogue delivery shows how Warners would win the loyalty of the movie audience. The mostly tough and cynical story has a chilling, almost poetic ending. From the Warner Archive Collection.
5/22/12

Run For Cover
Blu-ray

James Cagney approaches his career sunset in a VistaVision and Technicolor western that makes him the surrogate father of an untamed and unprincipled young delinquent, John Derek. Viveca Lindfors co-stars but the movie is stolen by Daniel Fapp's glorious cinematography of the Colorado Rockies. Directed by Nicholas Ray. In Blu-ray from Olive Films.
5/22/12

and

Fat City

John Huston shows that his maverick sensibility is perfectly attuned to a story about an alcoholic loser. Has-been boxer and sometime farmworker Stacy Keach is backed up against the ropes by a shrill barfly that picks him up in a bar. Susan Tyrell is utterly fantastic as the woefully broken-down but screechingly demanding Oma. The other major attraction is Jeff Bridges as an aspiring pugilist who gets his nose flattened in his very first bout. With Candy Clark, just for good measure. From the Sony Pictures Choice Collection.
5/22/12

Hello!

As many outlets have, I received the official Fox/MGM announcement for their monstrous 22 Blu-ray box of James Bond movies this morning. It retails for $300 but is pre-selling at Amazon for $200. I think that even if I didn't already own several Bond BD discs, I'd still balk at the big investment; I guess the idea is that it's a perfect 'big gift' for someone for Christmas. Video companies keep looking for the big score, which I suppose is only natural. For the rest of us, we're all wondering when the titles will appear as individual buys. I have to say that there are only a few more Bonds that interest me personally, but a couple of them I really wish I could see in Blu-ray tonight. But please, I have no idea when they'll be sold individually!

My Saturday post on The Lawless (which I've fixed now, a typo-ridden copy went up on Saturday) did get a response from the alert John McElwee of Greenbriar Picture Shows. John reports that he's looking into writing one of his researched articles about the movie, to see if any evidence surfaces that the film's political content had any bearing on its scarcity on screens and on TV over the last 50 years. I'll definitely direct Savant readers to Greenbriar if the article appears!

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Lawless

Joseph Losey's furious exposé reveals the rampant racial/ethnic prejudice lurking behind the surface of small town America. Newspaperman Macdonald Carey tries to stop a mob from killing an accused Mexican-American boy, while his fellow journalists see opportunity in demonizing the suspect. Also starring the impressive Gail Russell, this is one of a handful of mid-century social dramas that can be called truly daring and courageous. From Olive Films.
5/19/12

Red Tails
Blu-ray

George Lucas's personal ode to the Tuskeegee Airmen is well intentioned and reasonably exciting old-fashioned hero worship. But it's also an historical insult, from its gross inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of the Army Air Corps, to its insipidly benign view of racial tensions in the services. A good cast of handsome actors, however. In Blu-ray from Lucasfilm/Fox.
5/19/12

and

Stuart Galbraith IV
Interviews Glenn Erickson

Who, Me? An earlier DVDTalk interview on the Sci-Fi genre, fandom across the decades and my book SCI-FI Savant moves home to the Savant archives. As my Egregious Self Promotion pages aren't quite ready yet, this will live on the Articles page, among author Stuart Galbraith IV's other incisive interview features. And that Erickson guy, he's brilliant!
5/19/12

Hello!

Pat Boone (left) would say hello too, but he's examining a residual check from a movie he made back in 1959 ...

I would like to have gotten today's Savant column posted earlier, but let me instead take the time to add a couple of good links...

Dick Dinman has been busy producing a trio of radio shows that he calls Dick Dinman's Journey to the Center of Pat Boone. With an assist from Arlene Dahl, Dinman devotes three shows to a Pat Boone interview that covers all aspects of Journey to the Center of the Earth, just out in Blu-ray from Twilight Time. We're promised the lowdown on James Mason, Marilyn Monroe (no, she didn't play the duck), an accident in Carlsbad Caverns and Boone's odd path to becoming a co-producer on the show. Here are the links -- Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Dinaman says that Mr. Boone also "sheds new light on the oft-repeated story about his "refusal" to kiss co-star Shirley Jones and frankly reveals why he later in his film career accepted the against-type role of an initially immoral character and the previously unscripted demands of that role which almost caused him to walk off the film." And I thought my personal moral dilemmas were difficult.

Hey, thanks to poster SWAC44 at TCM's Movie Morlocks site, I have a great link to The Goon Show, the 1950s British comedy radio show with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. The show in question is an elaborate, rather lengthy goofball takeoff on the BBC TV serial Quatermass and the Pit. It's weird, it's strange, it's sometimes hard to follow. But the direct take-offs on pompous BBC voices and attitudes are even crazier than what we are accustomed to with the later Monty Python crew. Sample: "This is the terror-stricken service of the BBC. Today at approximately this afternoon, a discovery was made on the site of the Notting Hill Gate site of the government's new dig-up-the-roads-plan-for-congesting-traffic scheme."

These guys are in love with silly noises and silliness in general. Don't stop when you hear the musical interludes, it's hard to say what's exactly happening then.

As an aid to understanding, they also provide a link to the full text of the script. If you have the capability, I recommend reading along while listening. I was constantly Googling oddball topical references made in the script, to find out what the Goonies were talking about. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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