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

Joe E. Brown wins ball games and woos Olivia de Havilland (in her first film) in this funny baseball comedy, with William Frawley, Roscoe Karns and a number of actual big league ball players. And wait 'til you see Brown's insane pitching style -- ! From the Warner Archive Collection.
7.27.10

and
The Girl-Getters

Oliver Reed leads a pack of enterprising young men who use "The System" to sweep girls off their feet at a summer seashore resort. But Reed meets his match in Jane Merrow, a thoroughly modern "thrush" with her own ideas about using people. Michael Winner's excellent Brit teen picture features adult themes and terrific B&W cinematography by Nicolas Roeg. From VCI
7.27.10

Greetings! Starting my third week of uploading weirdness but by now the review treadmill is back in operation. Have been getting updates on ComicCon from my friend. He reports a stabbing incident at a panel yesterday that interrupted big presentations for new pictures, and surprise appearances by stars like Robert Downey Jr. and even Harrison Ford.

Correspondent Gordon Thomas sends links to Harry Lee Green's blog called Hairy Green Eyeball, which has posted entire vintage Dell & Charlton movie tie-in Comic Books. The first examples offered are The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Gorgo and The Vikings.

On September 21 Kino is releasing the "Complete Saga" of the original Louis Feuillade Fantomas serials from 1913 and 1914. I've seen a couple of chapters of this great show, which is preserved quite well -- Inspector Juve pursues but never seems able to capture the master criminal Fantomas on the streets. That's where much of the show is filmed, so the serial is also a rather uncanny time machine back to pre-WW1 Paris!

I've also just received another batch of Warner Archive Collection discs, so will be reviewing a number of titles of interest in the next few weeks: Al Capone, Best of the Bad Men, Carny, Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, The Grasshopper, The McConnell Story, Tiger Shark, Cass Timberlane, Brewster McCloud and Verboten! The early Edward G. Robinson newspaper tale Five Star Final is next, but If anybody would like me to review any particular title sooner than later, let me know. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 5

Some really great noir gems in this new collection, with eight titles from MGM, Warner Bros., RKO and Allied Artists: Cornered, Deadline at Dawn, Desperate, Backfire, Armored Car Robbery, Dial 1119, The Phenix City Story and Crime in the Streets. All are restored and Phenix City Story is the long version. Crime in the Streets is a revelation -- after viewing the first scene you'll be convinced that the makers of the Broadway play West Side Story cribbed from it! Warner Home Video.
7/22/10

and
Two Films by Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu's first talking picture The Only Son and a wartime drama he made six years later, There Was a Father, are two similarly-themed masterpieces of parental sacrifice and commitment. Terrific Japanese classic cinema from Criterion.
7/22/10

Greetings! Well, we're looking at day 12 of the uploading problem, but I'm told it might be solved and done with tomorrow. Sorry to make these Savant Columns so grim. I have news of interesting releases coming in and even some fun links, but the scramble to get reviews up in the roundabout way I'm doing them now takes a lot of time. I also admit that some of this is my own doing -- a self-imposed format change that's only two weeks old -- it's different enough to be confusing, routine-wise.

I have a close friend down at Comic-Con; his reports are so amusing that I might ask to post them under an assumed name! But I have to contact him first and he's running a long schedule down there.

Thanks ever for reading ... hang in there ... maybe on Sunday I'll be back with a lot more fun stuff. Glenn Erickson

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