DVD Talk
Reviews & Columns
Reviews
DVD
TV on DVD
Blu-ray
International DVDs
Theatrical
Reviews by Studio
Video Games

Features
Collector Series DVDs
Easter Egg Database
Interviews
DVD Talk Radio
Feature Articles

Columns
Anime Talk
DVD Savant
HD Talk
Horror DVDs
Silent DVD

discussion forum
DVD Talk Forum

Resources
DVD Price Search
Customer Service #'s
RCE Info
Links

Columns




January 30, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

Rules For School
and Troubled Teens
(Separate discs)

Kino has released two (separate purchases) new discs in their series of Classic Educational Shorts. The downright punitive Rules for School covers attempts to get the little ankle-biters to sit still and learn something; Troubled Teens tackles the good stuff -- sex, drugs and reckless driving. It also contains the best copy so far of the priceless Teen Death classic, Last Date. From Kino Classics.
1/29/13

and

Flight
Blu-ray

Robert Zemeckis turns in a top directorial job with this Denzel Washington film about an airline pilot who's a walking time bomb -- he's drunk before, during and after flights. This particular ace of the skies pulls off a fantastic, one-in-a-million recovery from a crash dive, a brilliant piece of flying. Then the NTSB takes a look at his blood toxicology report, and everything changes... Besides a Blu-ray, this release contains a DVD, a Digital Copy and access to an Ultraviolet cloud copy. From Paramount Home Video.
1/29/13





Hello!

I'm a day late because of an uploading snag, which the DVDtalk people (thank you, John Sinnott) corrected in good time. So here we go, while you can still remember what DVD Savant is.

Joe Dante has passed on to this link to a 1953 newspaper supplement comic strip for Invaders from Mars, and I'm all too eager to follow suit. This is the best copy of this ragged bit of promotional art I've yet seen. BTW, Trailers from Hell has been putting up some great titles lately, a sampling being Josh Olson on Straight Time, Joe Dante on Orson Welles' The Stranger, Brian Trenchard-Smith on The Pirates of Blood River and Marshall Harvey on Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours.

And Gary Teetzel forwards a link to a blastr article by Dan Roth, a controversy about a plot point in the original graphic novel Watchmen. That's the sum total of fabulous links tonight, and comments too -- I have to make a run to the airport and do some fast errands.

Hey, correspondents like my Peter Pan essay... and so do I! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson



January 26, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

Peter Pan
Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Peter Pan, Wendy, Captain Hook and Tinker Bell look better than ever in a stunning HD Diamond Edition restoration of Disney's most exciting 1950s animated film. Savant's review recalls the experience of watching the show as a fairly tiny tot, and also takes a stab at the show's elevated sensuality -- there are a lot of sexual images and situations in this nostalgic, pre-adolescent fantasy! In Blu-ray, with an additional DVD disc and a Digital Copy, from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
1/26/13

The Jazz Singer
Blu-ray

Al Jolson gets the full HD treatment in this part -singing, momentarily talking musical that went down on the books as the show that put talking pictures on the map. A Jewish kid who has 'just gotta sing' must rebel against the teaching of his orthodox father. With May MacAvoy and Warner Oland. Two additional discs and an 88-page souvenir book fully cover the film and present a wealth of early sound short subjects and documentaries covering the transition from silents to sound. In Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
1/26/13

and

The Liquidator

A comedy SuperSpy spoof that has all the required ingredients but doesn't overcome its own cynical attitude. Cowardly Rod Taylor is Boysie Oakes, who gets the job to murder for the secret service but would rather take his girlfriends to bed. Sexy secretary Jill St John entices Boysie to a weekend romp in Nice, where agents Akim Tamiroff and Gabriela Licudi kidnap him instead. Lots of action, lots of happy-spy sex humor with babes in bikinis. With Trevor Howard as the spymaster who mistakenly believes that Boysie is a "born death merchant". From The Warner Archive Collection.
1/26/13





Hello!


It's a time crush today -- I have to be out moving furniture in a couple of hours, so I'm going to post without digging up a cute link or an observation about an upcoming disc. DVDtalk has sent along a BD screener of Denzel Washington's Flight, which I'll be getting to right away. It's also time to review Kino's Rules for School / Troubled Teens and Warner Archives' Three Strangers and My Forbidden Past.

Wait, this just in ... four radio shows from Dick Dinman on Danny Kaye, celebrating Warner Home Video's Blu-ray release of Hans Christian Andersen. Kaye's daughter Dena Kaye joins Dick for three separate shows, parts One, Two, and Three, and Warner Home Video's George Feltenstein joins in for a Fourth show about this release and other Samuel Goldwyn library pictures soon to come from Warner Home Video.

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson



January 22, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

It's In the Bag!
Blu-ray

Fans of old time radio -- and wild comedies in general -- will get a big kick from this genuinely loopy one-shot solo starring vehicle for radio legend Fred Allen. An ex-flea circus proprietor must locate six chairs, one of which contains a fabulous inheritance... any further elaboration of the plot is pointless. With Binnie Barnes, Jack Benny, Don Ameche, William Bendix, Robert Benchley, Rudy Vallee, Sidney Toler and about twenty more faces that once were well-known, and even better-known as voices on the radio. And this film is the source of the ultimate Zombie trivia question -- what movie introduces the idea of cannibalistic zombies, 23 years before George Romero? In Blu-ray from Olive Films.
1/22/13

Winter adé

Hiltrud Misselwitz' remarkable feminist documentary was made in East Germany just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and lets a group of women tell their stories of the struggle to find happiness in work and love. We discover that these citizens of a "workers' paradise" share with their Western counterparts the same materialistic values and personal heartbreaks, but with some problems exacerbated by restrictions in a society where the State is the final authority on everything. Particularly moving is the testimony of two teenage delinquents -- whose future in the East German system doesn't look very promising. From the DEFA Film Library.
1/22/13

and

Experiment in Terror
Blu-ray

Blake Edwards set out to make a scary woman-in-jeopardy thriller that jettisons older, more sentimental conventions, and put a scare into a lot of female viewers. He succeeds thanks to a spare screenplay, terrific acting and his own razor-precise direction. Lee Remick, Glenn Ford and Stephanie Powers shine, as does Ross Martin. Philip Lathrop's cinematography is stunning. With a notable, sinister score (auditable on an Isolated Music Track) from Henry Mancini. In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
1/22/13




Hello!

Hey, I'm proud of myself just for getting a substantive post out today ... with reviews of three worthy movies, as well.

I'm glad that VCI has finally made a full announcement for their upcoming (March 19) Blu-ray of Gorgo, which they've adorned with a number of extras. Why do we go crazy for favorite films? I have to say that an impressive encoding of this particular title will definitely transport me back to that infantile state where movies are M*A*G*I*C. We all have these 'zinger' titles because each of our experience is so much different. Guys who came along later than me are zonked over things like Soylent Green or Star Wars or even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang because they were at the perfect age for something to "pop" in their heads when the lights went down and the music started. I used to envy guys who got to see the core '50s sci-fi films new; I'd ask them what witnessing The Thing from Another World was like, first-hand. Now, of course I realize that great movie experiences were just as rare then as in any decade, and that I should be grateful for being able to see all the hits of the '60s as they appeared, as a relative innocent. And my envy of those guys who saw The Thing brand-new only goes so far. They're all ten years older than me, and my hair is gray enough now. Just the same, I'll try to impart to Savant readers the joy of watching Gorgo, even the parts where the special effects are wanting... because others need to share the fun.

Also imminent on the Savant radar are Severin's Zulu Dawn, Disney's Peter Pan (my first Dalt Wizzy movie, in a 1956 or '57 re-run), Cohen Media's silent The Thief of Bagdad (I saw the restoration last year: pretty amazing), Twilight Time's In Like Flint and Nicholas and Alexandra, Olive's The Red Menace, She-Devil and Diary of a Chambermaid, Criterion's Ministry of Fear and The Blob, and eventually the UK Hammer restoration of Dracula (Horror of Dracula). I won't go further into March, where more great titles are coming from VCI, Criterion, Kino, Olive and Twilight Time!

Thanks for reading --- Glenn Erickson



January 19, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

Wild River
Blu-ray

Elia Kazan's ode to the New Deal sends Washington agent Montgomery Clift to Tennessee to clear the way for a TVA dam -- and watches the fur fly. He runs up against local racism and locks horns with a stubborn matriarch (Jo Van Fleet) who refuses to sell. Clift's outsider also begins a torrid love affair with the lady's daughter (Lee Remick), that further rankles the locals. An incredibly intense romance mingles with a non-preachy look at social reality in the backwoods -- this is an unappreciated American classic not to be missed. With Albert Salmi. In a great transfer, in Blu-ray from Fox Home Entertainment.
1/19/13

and

Indiscreet
Blu-ray

This one's not getting the buzz it deserves. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman star in an impeccable, impeccably civilized romantic comedy set in a rainy London beautifully photographed by Freddie Young. Footloose stage star Bergman is willing to take diplomat Grant as a husband or a lover, but his bachelor's philosophy is to never divulge his actual marital status. The complications come when Grant falls in love as well. The movie is fine light entertainment of the kind that was disappearing in 1958, a show that lives and breathes on the sheer attractiveness of its stars. And finally in a superior HD transfer, in Blu-ray from Olive Films.
1/19/13




Hello!

Yes, Savant is a Big Fat Liar ... I've told my fellow reviewers that I wouldn't cover the new Blu-ray of Wild River because Fox hasn't offered review screeners. Well, I've been touting this title and whining about its absence on disc since the day I started writing the column. After enjoying the movie yet again, writing it up seemed the only thing to do. So what if DVD Savant has missed out on covering desirable Fox titles like Sunrise and the widescreen version of The Big Trail? I can think of worse tragedies.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting link: associate Michael Arick forwards a YouTube link to an Uncut surreal montage from the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the one that has always contained several frustrating censor cuts. The montage has its goofy aspects (Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner harnessed as carriage ponies!) but I think it communicates its (erotic) content far more coherently than the Dali montage in Hitchcock's Spellbound. And guess what? The montage has a glimmering or two of strongly implied nudity. Yes, I know, that should have been the first thing I said.

The hits just keep on coming from Olive Films -- Tom Giegel was the first to tip me off to a stack of announced (sans exact dates, I think) Blu-rays of some core MIA titles: The Devil and Miss Jones (not a porn film, but a great Jean Arthur comedy), Edgar G. Ulmer's fairly big budgeted, misanthropic drama Ruthless, John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright, the goofy Mickey Rooney-Robert Strauss slapstick farce The Atomic Kid, John Auer's Hell's Half Acre and...

... last but not least, Sam Fuller's China Gate, a completely crazy comic book war movie about mercenaries fighting the good fight against Commies in Vietnam way back in 1957. Some of us still have the crummy old Republic VHS on this title, which pan-scans Fuller's claim-to-fame shot of looker Angie Dickinson (sigh) stretching her signature "Lucky Legs" across the wide expanse of the CinemaScope screen. You haven't lived until you've seen Nat King Cole delivering position speeches about why he hates commies, as he fondles his machine gun. Cole also sings the ironically sensitive theme song. And the eeee-vil commie Major Cham is played by none other than Lee Van Cleef!

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



January 15, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

King of the Pecos
Blu-ray

John Wayne is charming in one of Republic Studios' best westerns of the '30s. The unassuming small-scale struggle of ranchers against a water-rights racketeer is a triumph of modest means and good craftsmanship. It's time that the 'programmer' westerns of the Depression years were rediscovered -- they may be juvenile, but they're a pure American art form. A flawless, beautiful HD transfer, in Blu-ray from Olive Films.
1/15/13


The Conspirators

Resistance saboteur Paul Henreid and woman-of-mystery Hedy Lamarr meet in Lisbon, only to find themselves caught up in intrigues between Nazi agents, anti-Nazi conspirators and the attentive Portuguese police. A great cast in this Casablanca-like thriller: Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Joseph Calleia. And music by Max Steiner. From The Warner Archive Collection.
1/15/13

and

The Tin Drum
Blu-ray

Günther Grass's celebrated, bizarre novel becomes a film masterpiece in the hands of director Volker Schlöndorff. Reacting to the traumatic political upheavals, a young German boy decides to stop growing at the age of three, and witnesses the horrors of the Nazi era while drumming a little drum. The controversial film has been restored to the director's original cut; and is accompanied with a number of new extras, including a 70-minute Schlöndorff interview piece. In Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
1/15/13




Hello! A fun movie-list exercise for the day:

Fox Home Video has put out a web invitation to vote on what vintage Blu-rays they should release, accompanied by a list of chosen titles that I suspecty is what the studio happens to have already transferred and on hand. It's by and large the same pictures we've seen in Fox's good DVD releases. It inspired me to look at Fox's impressive feature output pre- 1970 or so, to see what might be important to me personally. Twilight Time has given us some excellent Fox Blu-rays, especially with their Isolated Music Score feature. It's also possible that Criterion has plans to license more Fox library titles, or upgrade ones, like the Lubitsch Heaven Can Wait.

In general I was reminded of how many great Films Noir were released by Fox. It also seems likely that rights issues might be blocking the release of some of these titles, probably my favorites. Anyway, here's what I came up with. Asterisks (*) are already in Fox's list.

Bedazzled *, Broken Arrow, Call Northside 777, Captain from Castile *, Chad Hanna, Cry of the City (when? where? how?), Decision Before Dawn, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Enemy Below, Fallen Angel, Five Fingers, The Fly, Forever Amber (when? where? how?), From Hell to Texas (when? where? how?), Hell and High Water, House of Bamboo, The Hunters, The Gang's All Here, Garden of Evil, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir *, Hangover Square, Jane Eyre, Kiss of Death *, The Kremlin Letter, Leave Her to Heaven, Lifeboat, The Lodger, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Mark of Zorro, My Darling Clementine, Night and the City, Nightmare Alley, One Million Years B.C. (long cut), Orchestra Wives, The Ox-Bow Incident, People Will Talk, Pickup on South Street, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie *, The Prisoner of Shark Island, The Razor's Edge, Roxie Hart, The Seven-Ups, Sink the Bismarck, Sons and Lovers, Stormy Weather, They Came to Blow Up America (great MOD discovery), Warlock.

As you can see, a lot of great pictures are in there, that ought to be available on HD one way or another. I'm told that Twilight Time will be giving us a Fantastic Voyage Blu-ray fairly soon. But I've always wanted to know what became of Forever Amber, after a laserdisc was announced but cancelled about twenty years ago. My ancient VHS tape pretty much fell apart, and the picture looked and sounded incredible in nitrate Technicolor at UCLA.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



January 12, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

Our Man Flint
Blu-ray

Everyone's favorite outrageous SuperSpy Derek Flint is back in a dazzling HD presentation. James Coburn never looked better romancing women and karate-chopping bad guys to the terrific music of Jerry Goldsmith. The spirited espionage spoof ends up saying a lot about America's self-image in the golden years of the mid- 1960s. With Lee J. Cobb, Gila Golan and Edward Mulhare. In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
1/12/13

White Zombie
Blu-ray

Bela Lugosi's eerie voodoo classic is a PreCode horror landmark, and the first movie to feature living-dead zombie creatures walking among the living. Unfortunately, this 'restored' disc release has been very badly fumbled. The menu includes two HD encodings, one "Raw" and one Digitally Enhanced... and only one of them is even marginally acceptable. In Blu-ray from Holland Releasing / Kino Classics.
1/12/13

and

To Rome With Love
Blu-ray

Woody Allen continues to make his comedies on artistic autopilot. This informal omnibus sets four romantic stories in Rome, each with a fantastic or absurd angle. Trouble is, they're either cribbed from earlier movies or are expanded versions of one-joke ideas. Allen's stellar cast is well worth catching: Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page, Alessandra Mastronardi, Flavio Parenti, Alison Pill, Flavio Parenti, Fabio Armiliato, Ornella Muti and Allen himself. In Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Classics.
1/12/13




Hello!

It's unusually cold here in Los Angeles, but nothing like what folks back East or at higher elevations put up with. I have three reviews today: one old favorite in a fine new presentation, one favorite filmmaker who seems to have set his considerable talents on "coast", and a highly awaited classic regrettably fumbled in presentation. What else is cooking? Kino has other interesting releases out like the documentaries King and 5 Broken Cameras. Olive Films has sent me a couple more 1930s John Wayne westerns in Blu-ray, King of the Pecos and Frontier Horizon. And I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on some Warner Archive Collection titles that I should have reviewed earlier, or have never seen, including Devil's Doorway, The Voice of the Turtle, Thirteen Women and Three Strangers. The always-interesting WAC just announced some really desirable noir and crime pictures, which I'll try to get to in a few weeks.


One of my very favorite pictures, Elia Kazan's Wild River may not make it in screener form, which is a shame. It's due out in just three days on Blu-ray. I've heard from a couple of readers that they never liked Montgomery Clift in the movie, which perhaps explains why it didn't catch on when it was new back in 1960. I always deeply identified with Clift's character, personally.

Severin's Blu-ray of Zulu Dawn was to be out by this time as well, and in fact I'm already late with a promised review at another website. It's been pushed back to February 12 but I hope to have a review up even sooner. If you've only seen the inferior pan-scan versions, the movie will be an eye-opener. The original Zulu is a great crowd pleaser, but it represents the Zulu Wars as a triumph of noble, King-and-Country militarism. The 1979 prequel re-orients the subject back to the geopolitical reality of colonial conquest.


Next up on the Savant-awaited list is Olive Films' Blu-ray of She Devil (1957), an absolutely crazy meld of science fiction and screwed-up sexual politics, about a drug that liberates the evil side of a beautiful woman. The notion is that ALL women harbor secret monsters in their personalities, and that we helpless men must remain vigilant if they are to be properly repressed. Best of all, the movie is a straight murder-soap opera-thriller, and its gender politics appear to be almost completely unconscious. Thus She Devil is also an irresistible Camp hoot. Due out Feb. 26, hopefully in widescreen RegalScope.

Unless VCI pushes the date back, March 12 will see their promised restored Blu-ray release of the glorious monster spectacular Gorgo. I've been patiently waiting to see it in a decent copy since 1975, the last time a Technicolor print screened in Los Angeles. I have high hopes for this release.


Other Killer Attractions on the Savant radar: the vintage anti-Commie thriller The Red Menace ( Blu-ray, Olive Films, Feb. 26), the rare Mexican horror drama Monster (aka El Monstruo Resucitado,) (CAV, March 12), the Fritz Lang Graham Greene spy classic Ministry of Fear ( Blu-ray, Criterion, March 12), and everyone's favorite omnivorous protoplasm The Blob (Blu-ray, Criterion, March 12).

Finally, I'm crossing my fingers for Hammer's promised UK Blu-ray of the superb Horror of Dracula, reportedly due out on March 18. It will probably not be region-compatible with North American BD players. There's a lot of "ifs" with this one. We're looking forward to the much-touted restoration of a pair of long-censored shots recovered from a Japanese archive. We also need to consider some issues with Hammer's previous "legacy" library releases. Several of the new discs have unfortunate color choices and at least one has a poor soundtrack; and the consensus is that their new The Curse of Frankenstein disc is a mess. The Hammer website has offered lame double-talk arguments to support their frequently dead-wrong ideas about what the original aspect ratio of these films were. Just the same, I wish them well and will be hoping for a really great Dracula disc.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson



January 08, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Man Who Knew Too Much
(1934)

Blu-ray

Alfred Hitchcock finds his flamboyant, cinematic personal style in this grand suspense thriller, a show so good, he remade it twenty years later. Edna Best and Leslie Banks race to save their daughter from kidnapper-assassins led by Peter Lorre in his first English-language feature. An exemplary restored presentation, in Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
1/08/13


The Quiet Man
Blu-ray

John Ford, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen and most of their relatives join Dublin's Abbey players in bringing to life Ford's celebrated dream vision of Ireland. A repatriated Yankee boxer finds happiness and love in the old country, until his proud and stubborn bride holds out for the proper delivery of her wedding dowry. Slapstick, nostalgia and honest sentiment galore. And a great HD transfer, in Blu-ray from Olive Films.
1/08/13

and

Mrs. Miniver
Blu-ray

William Wyler struck Oscar gold with this heartfelt tribute to the English civilians that withstood hardship and bombings in the Battle of Britain. Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon and Teresa Wright watch as their men go to fight and battles blaze in the sky. This was a big picture for morale in the early year of the war, given a serious and heartfelt spin by director Wyler. In Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
1/08/13




Hello!

Dick Dinman weighs in today with another Classic Corner radio show, this time commemorating the TCM Vault Collection's new DVD release of a group of 1950s Joan Crawford films. The first part, TCM Vault's "Queen Bee" Joan Crawford features a discussion with Sony executive Rita Belda on Crawford's appeal. In Part Two Dick and Ms. Belda talk about upcoming TCM Vault Collection offerings, along with remarks about the new Lawrence of Arabla restoration.

Correspondent Dennis Fischer forwards a link to this Slate article about Terry Gilliam's The Wholly Family, a twenty-minute new 'sponsored short' comedy. The only requirements were that it be set in Naples and that nobody die. However, Vimeo almost immediately took down Slate's link... even before I could see it. Does it exist somewhere else in the great digital universe?

AnimEigo has a new samurai collection out, Sleepy Eyes of Death, Volume 3. I reviewed, Volume 2 in the series a couple of years ago, and found the films to be very entertaining -- star Raizo Ichikawa matches American leading men for pretty-boy looks, and his heroic Nemuri Kyoshiro cuts a fine figure when it comes to samurai action. The trick is that the character is only half-Japanese, and operates like a swordsman-detective, out of a humble abode in the notorious Yoshiwara district. If I'm counting right, these four Volume 3 entries finish off the Sleepy Eyes series. Favorite title: Hell Is a Woman. A couple of the plotlines bring in occult subject matter -- Nemuri Kyoshiro's father was apparently an Anglo Satanist, which doesn't sit well with demon-obsessed foes. Oh, yes, Kyoshiro's fatal sword technique is called the Full-Moon-Cut!

Next up: Kino Classics' White Zombie Blu-ray. Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson



January 05, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Well-Digger's Daughter
Blu-ray

Writer-director-star Daniel Auteuil's remake of a French classic by Marcel Pagnol is a thing of beauty in all respects. A poor but proud well-digger defends the honor of his family when his eldest daughter becomes involved with the son of wealthier town people. A genuinely moving story and touching performances.... this is just a quality show all around, and very highly recommended. Featuring Astrid Bergès-Frisbey. In Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.
1/05/13


Zig Zag

George Kennedy takes the starring role in a complex twist on the "gimmick" noir. Told he hasn't long to live, a clever family man frames himself for a high-profile unsolved kidnapping-murder, with the idea that his widow will get the reward. Almost too much of a puzzle for its own good, director Richard A. Colla's suspenseful thriller has excellent support from Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach and Steve Ihnat. From The Warner Archive Collection.
1/05/13

and

Beloved Infidel
Blu-ray

A romantic account of the final years in the life of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, adapted from the book by his lover Sheila Graham. A famous name reduced to a Hollywood hack, Fitgerald (Gregory Peck) meets gossip columnist Graham (Deborah Kerr) and their romance blooms -- only to be destroyed by the author's alcoholism and self-doubt. With an Isolated Music Score Track by composer Franz Waxman. In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
1/05/13




Hello!

I couldn't get the review out in time, but Olive Films' Blu-ray of The Quiet Man came in and is a very pleasant surprise -- it wipes out the memory of a disappointingly poor quality Artisan DVD from ten years ago. I should have the new review up on Tuesday.

In other news, Severin has pushed its Blu-ray of Zulu Dawn back to February 12, no explanation. Between now and then we have Wild River, The Jazz Singer, How Green Was My Valley, The Man Who Knew Too Much, White Zombie and Cabaret to look forward to on Blu.

Thanks for reading --- Back on Tuesday! Glenn Erickson



January 01, 2013

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Blu-ray

Nicholas Meyer's screenplay leads the way in this superior Sherlock Holmes yarn, in which Dr. Watson tricks Sherlock into taking a cure for cocaine addiction from none other than Vienna's Dr. Sigmund Freud. A great cast in really worthy roles: Nicol Williamson, Alan Arkin, Robert Duvall (!) and Laurence Olivier. And this time it's Freud who says the line, "It's elementary!" With Vanessa Redgrave, Joel Grey, Samantha Eggar and Charles Gray. Beautiful designs by Ken Adam and period scenery in London and Austria, all looking terrific in Blu-ray from Shout Factory / Universal.
1/01/13

and

Violence

This Monogram cheapie is a double undercover thriller (one exposé reporter; one Federal agent) further complicated with a hokey amnesia gimmick. But the premise fascinates, sociologically speaking: in 1947, a crypto-fascist political action group forms to help disgruntled veterans get their rights -- and make a grab for power and money. Nancy Coleman stars, supported by Michael O'Shea, Sheldon Leonard and the unsung Emory Parnell as a scurvy opportunist that inflames audiences with hatred and intolerance: "We have an organization that's 100% American!" And he isn't even on Fox News. Written by Stanley Rubin. A perfectly preserved gem from The Warner Archive Collection.
1/01/13




Hello! This is the New Year's column for DVD Savant, which I am of course writing and posting the day before. I don't believe it -- after days of rain and wind, it looks like it's going to be clear skies again over Pasadena for the Rose Parade. Every year, the Grinch in me wants to see that parade engulfed by a typhoon or something -- but if it did get rained out, I'd probably feel as bad as anyone else. Go figure.

Generous readers have sent in a couple of keen links: Martin Hennessee guides us to a couple of links to new workprint outtakes for Little Shop of Horrors, entitled Little Shop Cuttings Sprout Online. The selection includes a more reasonable shortened "Don't Feed the Plants" concluding scene.

Dennis Fischer sends us to a Slate.com page that compiles Six Science Fiction short films: Dystopias and Robots with Heart. The quality and variety are quite good.

Happy New Year, and may 2013 bring us happy dreams of new Blu-rays of Zulu Dawn, Wild River and Gorgo! --- thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson


Don't forget to write Savant at [email protected].

Advertise With Us

Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum |
Copyright © DVDTalk.com All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information