Hello !

Lovely Scilla Gabel invites you into her creepy domain! And Savant invites you to click on the 'top photo' (away from the pop-up), which links you to an old review of a movie you ought to see. More reviews will be here on Tuesday, so all you get for today's Pumpkin Day celebration are a couple of links!

HelpfulGary Teetzel sends us over to Angry Alien to see Godzilla reenacted in 30 seconds by Bunnies. It's an old gag, but when they do it with an appropriate deadpan attitude, it's always amusing.

And over at our favorite page Greenbriar Picture Shows, John McElwee is winding up a couple of days' worth of lavishly illustrated, nicely thought-out articles about Hammer Films. One zeroes in on the the campy ad campaign for a Chris Lee vampire epic, and the other about Hammer and other films' distribution on network TV during the heyday of the 1960s. John even knows how to dig through viewership stats in a coherent fashion. Look for Greenbriar columns dated October 29 and October 26. Great Stuff!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween -- Glenn Erickson

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Tuesday October 27, 2015

Happy Halloween, says our favorite Demon of Hell, who goes by the name of Stinky!  Savant's new reviews today are:

W.C. Fields Comedy Essentials Collection
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
DVD
  He's back and he's funnier than ever. William Claude Dukenfield was a mischievous, cagey entertainer, and the star of some of the best comedies ever. This five-disc DVD set contains eighteen of his best, all the way from Million Dollar Legs in 1932 to Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in 1941. Seeing some of his earlier pictures shows us more sides of his talent -- he was a top-rank juggler, of just about anything. International House is an all-star naughty pre-Code wonderment, while My Little Chickadee teams Fields with Mae West. On DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
10/27/15

My Darling Clementine
and Frontier Marshal
Arrow Academy
Region B UK Blu-ray
  We've already got a fine domestic disc with both versions of John Ford's fine Henry Fonda western. This UK release duplicates that arrangement with different extras, and throws in a fine HD transfer of an earlier Allan Dwan version of the same story -- with strong similarities -- called Frontier Marshal. It stars Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, Cesar Romero and Binnie Barnes and it's very good. On Region B UK Blu-ray from Arrow Academy.
10/27/15

The High Cost of Loving
The Warner Archive Collection
DVD
  Theatrical wiz José Ferrar stars in his second dramatic feature as director. Here he's teamed with newcomer Gena Rowlands as a married working couple. No longer a young Turk, Ferrar isn't on the list of employees invited to meet the new corporate bosses, which everyone knows means he'll be let go. He tries to keep it quiet, and grows anxious as his associates talk about winners and losers. Things are looking darkest just as his loving wife is bringing news of a baby on the way. The show builds up a terrific critique of anxiety in the Rat Race, but doesn't follow through. Great acting though, also from Joanne Gilbert and Bobby Troup. This had to be a 'study film' for Mad Men. On DVD from The Warner Archive Collection.
10/27/15

Jurassic World
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
3-D Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD
  Meet Indominus Rex, a designer dinosaur with the brain of Hannibal Lecter and a cloaking device like Predator! Steven Spielberg steps back and lets a pro team put together the biggest, safest, most-likely-to-earn-billions entry imaginable for the Jurassic Park franchise. The result surely scores in every way he intended. Splendid effects and a story line with zero downtime await lovers of spirited dinosaurs, the kind that love to eat people. Savant dismantles its mixed messages and unpleasant characters but hey... this thing entertains, and if it reflects Spielberg's privileged point of view, that's only natural. The 3-D is excellent on this Blu-ray, with DVD + Digital HD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
10/27/15

and

The Brood
The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray
  David Cronenberg swaps venereal ick-monsters for Samantha Eggar's mater furiosa, an annihilating female that commits her killings as would the villain of a Greek tragedy -- through her offspring. Oliver Reed is the new-age guru of 'Psychoplasmics,' who teaches Eggar to direct her rage in an utterly unique way. The disturbing concept sounds less preposterous when one finds out it was written in response to a brutal divorce experience. Hell hath no fury. Cronenberg's clever, insightful horrorshow comes with excellent extras. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
10/27/15

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Hello!

Some fast links today. And don't forget to backtrack a bit -- on Saturday I posted a review and a special guest article about Warners' new Special Effects Collection Blu-ray Set.

Over at Joe Baltake's the passionate moviegoer is a very good article on musicals called To Dub or not To Dub. I learned a couple of things about Singin' in the Rain I didn't know, and I once cut an hour-long show about the movie. Baltake's reader reactions are good too.

I got a note about a YouTube posting of a creepy old atomic doom animation called A Short Vision, that I realized I already wrote about four years ago at the Savant Column -- just scroll down to December 19. The direct link to the YouTube encoding is here. Even more interesting is a very thoroughly researched Conelrad essay about the film, Ed Sullivan's Atomic Show Stopper. Sullivan showed it twice on his TV show back in 1956, but as we find out, it was more of a personal business deal than a public service.

I didn't get to review all the interesting horror and fantasy releases in time for Halloween, but there were a lot of them and a bunch arrived only in the last few days. Here are a few I'll be getting around to very quickly, I think: Alain Resnais' J'taime J'taime and Burnt Offerings, (Kino); John Carpenter's Vampires, Scream and Scream Again and Count Yorga Vampire (Twilight Time); David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (Criterion); and Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and Phase IV (Olive). And that's not to mention the non-fantasy movies in my queue: Thieves' Highway and The Fireman's Ball (Arrow); The Hurricane and The Devil's Disciple (Kino); Sam Fuller's Run of the Arrow, Five Came Back and Barbary Coast (Warner Archive); A Special Day (Criterion); Devil in a Blue Dress and Black Widow (Twilight Time).

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Hello --

Savant has a special new article today:

Randall William Cook:
As Never Seen Before, 'New' Vintage Stop-Motion on Blu-ray
Opinion Article
 In celebration of Halloween, I have another special guest essay-article up, this time from a contributor I can actually name -- Randall William Cook, who rates special celebrity status around DVD Savant despite being a friend from way, way back. I hope he's writing a book about his career, because his Hollywood experiences range from UCLA film school, to acting and directing film and TV, to doing special make-ups, animation direction, front-rank stop motion direction, and second unit direction on big features. Heavily into digital work since the 1990s, Randy supervised character animation and sequence direction for the three Lord of the Rings movies, netting him an amazing three Oscars, three years straight. And he's still the same guy from college -- a new Harryhausen or Welles disc comes out, and he wants to know all about it. Oh, and Cook is a fine writer as well -- as I think this thoughtful piece shows.
10/24/15

and an accompanying new review:

Special Effects Collection
Warner Home Video
Blu-ray
  Two RKOs and two Warner hit features offer us a full course on old-school movie effects wizardry at its best. Willis O'Brien follows a classic with the interesting Son of Kong, and then hands the baton off to disciple Ray Harryhausen for the marvelously animated Mighty Joe Young. Harryhausen then pulls off his own effects magic for the first '50s giant monster epic, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. And the package finishes off as the Warner effects shop, in concert with great direction and editing, pulls off the best 'monster' sci-fi thriller of the decade in Them!, now offered at its original widescreen aspect ratio. It's all special enough to merit a mid-week review. On Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
10/24/15

Thanks for reading ! -- Glenn Erickson

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Tuesday October 20, 2015

Wow, look at this lineup of discs!
Savant's new reviews today are:

Kwaidan
The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray
 What makes a Ghost Story scary? This Japanese classic was almost too artistic for the Japanese. Masaki Kobayashi's four stories of terror work their spell through intensely beautiful images -- weirdly painted skies, strange mists -- and a Toru Takemitsu audio track that incorporates strange sounds as spooky musical punctuation. Viewers never forget the Woman of the Snow, or the faithful Hoichi the Earless. Restored to its full three-hour length for the first time, on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
10/20/15

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Blu-ray
  Writer Jesse Andrews and director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon invert the modern teen comedy: they lay on the quirky storytelling and goofy movie parodies, but give us characters that are reasonably human and complex. We're soon invested in a warm and rewarding drama. Young actors Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler and Olivia Cooke deal with real problems, and the movie doesn't try to change the subject to sex in every scene. A charming show, very worthwhile. On Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
10/20/15

Spartacus
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Blu-ray
 Restored Edition. Most of us love the Trumbo-Douglas-Kubrick thinking man's leftist gladiator epic, and after several iffy disc presentations this exacting digital restoration follows through on the photochemical reconstruction done 25 years ago. It looks incredibly good, almost too good to be a Blu-ray. Kirk contributes a new featurette interview, telling us that this is the show he'll be remembered for. On Blu-ray + Digital HD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
10/20/15

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Warner Home Video / Paramount
Blu-ray
  We still love John Ford's bitter-sentimental look back at the lost Myth of the West. John Wayne and James Stewart are at least 30 years too old for their roles, but everything seems to be happening in a foggy reverie, so what's the difference, Pilgrim?  Great comedy and Lee Marvin's marvelous villain, plus the assertive 'print the Legend' message that's been hotly debated ever since. On Blu-ray from Warner Home Video / Paramount.
10/20/15

and

Mad Men: The Final Season Part 2
Lionsgate
Blu-ray
  The miniseries saga of Don, Betty, Roger, Joan, Peggy and Bert deserved a terrific finish, and after seven + one seasons, creator Matthew Weiner delivers in fine style. The agency is absorbed by a mega-giant. Its talent is scattered, but each of our favorites moves on to a thoughtful, better-than-acceptable resolution -- all except for Don. He is given one of the more interesting character finales in TV history, even better than Robert Morse's topper at the end of Season Seven Part 1. On Blu-ray from Lionsgate.
10/20/15

---

Hello!

Wow, a great response to the article I put up last Saturday, DVD Savant's Guide to the New Wave of Classic Hammer Blu-rays.  Its writer really came through for me, and I'm happy to be able to make his name public! The Warners Special Effects box is due soon, with the Harryhausen movies and Them!, and I have something special planned for that as well.

The new discs are very exciting this week, what with great restoration-reconstructions of a favorite ghost omnibus, and what is probably the best of the 70mm Road Show sword 'n' sandal epics. Criterion's announcement for January gives us new Blus of Gilda (Rita Hayworth) and Bitter Rice (Sylvana Mangano).

What else is new? The Warner Archive has a new restoration of a forgotten 1934 musical called Sweet Adeline. I ran into it cutting promos in 1992, and was charmed. The storyline isn't so hot but there are three truly great Hammerstein-Kern songs for Irene Dunne to sing. One of them ("Why Was I Born?") is among the most moving performances I've seen. It's like a brief revisit to the glory of Dunne in Show Boat. I'll be reviewing Sweet Adeline soon enough, I hope.

Warners has a new 'people's choice' poll going to choose what library title is to be released next on their Blu-ray schedule. I clicked through it a couple of days ago. Unless the poll has already ended, you can dash off your druthers at this link. If it's closed, you can go to this link and see the results so far. Darn, Decoy didn't make much of a dent. But The Big Sleep is one that we've been crying for, for years. Both versions, pleeeze.

Correspondent David Faltsog just sent in this flashbak link to a full scan of the Screen Gems brochure for Universal's "Shock Theater" TV syndication package, the famous one from 1956 or 1958 that reportedly rebooted the popularity of horror movies. I recognize everybody on the cover except the fellow on the right -- is it supposed to be The Mad Ghoul? Note that the booklet bears out what Tom Weaver has said from time to time, that the roster is padded with a couple of dozen weak-tea mysteries and outdated spy shows. Thanks, David!    And thanks to Steven Sobolewski, who identifies the 'fellow on the right' as Noble Johnson in Murders in the Rue Morgue.

And although the whole world has seen it by now, it wouldn't be right not to link to the hottest video on the web, The Red Drum Getaway on Vimeo. With such a flawless edit to admire, the only thing I can say is,
"This is no boating accident amateur video effects job!"

Finally, a big thanks to correspondent Andrew Shields of Melbourne, who must have remembered me whining about missing out on a book about David Lynch's Dune, a movie-tie in from back in 1985. He found one in a used bookstore and sent it to me! I don't know if I'm really deserving of the gift, but I'm certainly grateful. It's funny, my impression of Melbourne remains a few scenes from the 1959 movie On the Beach, which make the city look idyllic. If it's changed as much as the rest of the world, maybe I should hang on to that illusion. What a treat! Thanks and more thanks.

And for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Hello !

I have a mid-week article up today. I was trying to think of more Halloween-related ideas when more questions came in about the quality and/or playability of Region B Blu-rays of Hammer films. I only own a couple of these, but I have a close contact very clued-in to the world of Hammer collecting, who also has on his professional re-zoom many years of maintaining, restoring and transferring studio films. And he's even worked with a few Hammers in his day. I've leaned on him to write an article for me.

Savant's new Article today is:

DVD Savant's Guide to the
New Wave of Classic Hammer Blu-rays
by a
Guest Reviewer

  It's a quick overview of over twenty Region B Hammer Blus from the past few years -- sorting out the various odd transfers and other ideosyncracies found therewith. Savant has tapped an industry transfer expert, who also happens to an opinionated Hammer fan, one I rely on frequently. I haven't seen all these, so I appreciate the guidance as well. It comes with a couple of frame comparisons, as well.
10/16/15

---

Tuesday October 13, 2015

Savant's new reviews today are:

Five Films by Patricio Guzmán
Icarus Films
DVD
  Savant admires the masterful political documentaries of Chilean Guzmán, whose films constitute a national epic for a beloved country traumatized for trying something new within the American sphere of influence. Besides the landmark 3-feature epic The Battle of Chile, this eight-DVD set includes Chile Obstinate Memory, The Pinochet Case, Salvador Allende, Nostalgia for the Light and Boris Nicot's Filming Obstinately: Meeting Patricio Guzmán With several short films and other extras, these shows are a breath of needed truth. On DVD from Icarus Films.
10/13/15

Tomorrowland
Disney Blu-ray
Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD
  Director Brad Bird and his co-writer Damon Lindelof take on a daring, ambitious science fiction project; they do so well that it's a crying shame that it didn't grab the general public. Chosen 'dreamers' are given glimpses of a gleaming Future City on the Horizon that exists in a parallel dimension of possibility. It's a chase film, a touchstone 'Sense of Wonder' epic and the most original and creative visual extravaganza of the year -- with inspiring visuals and a positive message about a future devoutly to be wish'd. The spacey gee-whiz thrills link the sci-fi themes to the pressing issue of rescuing a dying planet. George Clooney top-lines but actresses Britt Robertson and Raffey Cassidy steal the show. Fun customized Brad Bird extras, too. On Blu-ray and DVD + Digital HD from Disney Blu-ray.
10/13/15

The Sentinel
Scream Factory
Blu-ray
  Michael Winner is the bad-taste choice to give The Exorcist a run for its money in the faux-religious horror shocker sweepstakes. For once his basic camera direction is okay but he does less than nothing with his stellar cast. Game suffering heroine Cristina Raines is the unfortunate suicide attemptee chosen to be the new Gatekeeper for the portal to Hell; no Keymaster shows up but Winner pushes all manner of exploitative unpleasantry at the camera, Dick Smith gore effects and real sideshow oddities to represent 'evil' people. Easily the hands-down insensitivity champ of the '70s. The 'wow' supporting cast is worth spelling out: Chris Sarandon, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Kennedy, Deborah Raffin, Ava Gardner, John Carradine, Beverly D'Angelo, Eli Wallach, Sylvia Miles, Martin Balsam, José Ferrer, Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, William Hickey and Jeff Goldblum. With a generous selection of extras including three commentaries. Blu-ray from Scream Factory.
10/13/15

A Room with a View
The Criterion Collection
Blu-ray
  Perhaps the Merchant Ivory team's most gentle and pleasant film, this comedy of English manners both at home and abroad in Italy is a visual and dramatic delight. Society more or less prevents a young woman from experiencing the full glory of the glorious Florence, but a frowned-on romance blooms anyway. With a dream team of Brit talent circa 1985: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Simon Callow, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, Rupert Graves. With several fun interviews; looks wonderful on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
10/13/15

and

San Andreas
Warner Home Video
3-D Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD
  California's entire earthquake fault line goes haywire, with 9-point + shocks on the Jerry Lee Lewis Rigor Mortis scale! The geological wipeouts include Boulder Dam, downtown Los Angeles and most of the San Francisco peninsula. Fires! Tidal waves! A hero with muscles! Dogs and Cats shamelessly cohabiting! This expensive-looking Dwayne Johnson disaster spectacle looks sensationally good, with excellent 3-D effects and nearly wall-to-wall fun effects work, even if your Cal-tech experts will turn green at some of the overstated Temblor Tech Talk. Johnson ably fits the bill; also with Carla Cugino and Paul Giamatti, plus an awful lot of extras that volunteered to be drowned, burned, crushed, or to fall hundreds of feet to their deaths. What, and quit show biz?  The bountiful extras include an informative Earthquake featurette. A Quad-Format edition on 3-D Blu-ray and DVD + Digital HD from Warner Home Video.
10/13/15

---

Hello!

Saturday night took us to the CineFamily movie theater on Fairfax, a couple of blocks North of Canter's Deli, which is sort of an institution in that part of town. CineFamily was once the Silent Movie Theater, and a lot of history has gone down in its narrow spaces. A generous helping of fans jammed into the somewhat informal seating area, where the host introduced the 3-D Archives' Bob Furmanek and Greg Kintz, who flew in from back East and barely made it in time for the screening. Although they're both 3-D engineers, Bob credits Kintz with the Archive's technical achievements, which on something like their 3-D Rarities project could be pretty demanding. By re-aligning the left and right eyes in the digital realm, Kintz can optimize the depth illusion and in some cases correct errors committed in the camera. I think they told me that the negative cutter on one 3-D movie accidentally reversed the eyes on one shot, which they were able to fix without too much trouble. I don't even know what that would look like -- would the people on screen look concave? No, they'd probably just look like 'choice B' on a trip to the optometrist's.

We had come to see the horror phantasmagoria The Mask, which will be released as a Kino disc on November 24, with a number of special extras. The disc will be left-right Polaroid for Blu-ray, of course, but CineFamily projected The Mask in the red-green anaglyphic process, as it was originally shown in 1961. My eyesight has a hard time sorting that out, so I'll be looking forward to the Polaroid Blu-ray.

Furmanek and Kintz also hinted that they were quite a way through their 3-D overhaul of the 1954 science fiction picture GOG. I'm naturally keen to see how that one turns out. Gog and Magog are the original Daleks, if you know what I mean, and their design looks a lot more practical than those silly British salt-shakers.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Hello, news and links today, and more reviews on Tuesday.

I don't normally explain the 'column top' images I choose every few days; the idea is that they're click-links to older movies I've been thinking about, or an old review I re-read and thought to promote. As I like to say, if you're stuck on a plane with wi-fi and you can't sleep, go cruising through Glenn's old... well, maybe you have better things to do. This photo isn't from a feature film, but from a 1971 'dormie' movie I shot with other UCLA undergraduates on Sproul Hall's 5th floor, then called Sparta. I wonder if it still is called Sparta, or if the whole named- floors thing vanished when the dorms went co-ed. I'll have you know I attended an honest-to-bedsheets Toga Party my first semester in the Fall of 1970, so John Belushi wasn't kidding. Anyway, I'd have to dig out the 8mm film and read my credits to remember the name of the actor seen above. He told us he was a nephew of Harold Arlen, the songwriter; he also read Tarot cards. (Randy remembers, the name was Larry Noel. Can we reach him?) He mainly was tall and imposing, which made him perfect to play the horror role in this effort, the title of which also escapes me. I think my little movie was an unconscious gloss on Not of this Earth, but I don't remember being aware of the Corman movie at the time. This monster character ran around with a hood over his head, said hood sewn by my girlfriend Ruth Ann Barnett, bless her memory. When the hood came off, just looking at the monster's eyes was instant death. Alas, in film school I made no movies about simple human things.

Fellow film student Randall William Cook lived one floor up in Sproul, on the floor aptly named Chaos. He animated his notorious Attack of the Stew Men up there, but before that helped me out with this makeup job, which he completely designed himself. We went to Max Factor in Hollywood to get the mortician's wax that he used. That was memorable because we walked into the Highland Avenue showroom, which looked like a fashion salon from some fancy movie, with products sitting in little lit alcoves or sconces or whatever. A woman wearing white gloves found out what we wanted and directed us to a back room shop, a cluttered place with ordinary wooden benches, where the goop was actually mixed. It was a veritable mad lab. A man in a white lab coat sold Randy the magic stuff. Randy had to sculpt the wax right on the actor's face, which took at least a couple of hours.

I think Randy must have applied the makeup twice, because we filmed from midnight to 3am the first time. Randy played one of the victims, clutching his eyes and falling like a rock at the sight of the monster's blank eyeballs. On a later date we went out on the roof of Sproul Hall to film the conclusion. The monster-actor was a little scared because he couldn't see anything, which didn't help him look very menacing. My brilliant, incredible finish had the monster kill himself by looking at a mirror, see...   wait, don't go away, it didn't seem lame at the time... No matter what you think, I can claim that two future Oscar winners helped me make my UCLA student films.

That was fun. I'm still heading over to CineFamily at 5 tonight to see the L.A. Premiere of the 3-D Archives' restoration of The Mask, which is due out on 3-D Blu-ray later in November. I'm hoping to connect with the Archive's Bob Furmanek and Greg Kintz at the screening. And I'm still deciding whether to go see Wim Wenders Until the End of the World once again this October 25 at West L.A.'s NuArt Theater.

Finally, Alan K. Rode's Palm Springs Classic Science Fiction Festival spools out the best of the 1950s this Oct 23-25. Rode's special guests will include Kathleen Hughes of It Came from Outer Space, David Hedison of The Fly and Julie Adams of Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Let's see, I just saw Tomorrowland on the new Disney Blu-ray, and hope to review it shortly. And if things work out I will attend an Editor's Guild screening of The Martian next Wednesday night. So it's definitely a Sci-fi October this year.

Finally, DVD Beaver has put up a review of a UK Region B disc of the Savant favorite On the Beach. I want to grab it just to see the bountiful extras promised -- but Beaver doesn't even mention the fact that most of the audio track of our domestic Kino disc (reviewed here at Savant) was badly out of sync. The UK Beach disc streets, or beaches, on Oct 12. I'd really like to hear from a purchaser if its track aligns properly before buying.

More reviews on Tuesday -- Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Tuesday October 6, 2015

Savant's new reviews today are:

Horror Classics:
Four Chilling Movies from Hammer Films
Warner Home Video
Blu-ray
  Warners answers the call for horror from Hammer Films, with four thrillers starring the great Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee: The Mummy (1959), Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed and Taste the Blood of Dracula. The transfers are immaculate, and the Terence Fisher/Jack Asher is one of the top titles in the Hammer library, one that nails the company's special gifts. Technicolor was never richer than this. The only drawback drawback is that Chris Lee’s Dracula has so few lines of dialogue. The Frankenstein movie is a major re-discovery on HD as well. On Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
10/06/15

The Invisible Monster
Olive Films
Blu-ray
  Welcome to the weird world of Republic Serials, an art form with its own strict rules of content and conduct, which often have no resemblance to other movies, or any reality we know. This makes them irresistible. "The Phantom Ruler" has plans of world conquest, but can't seem to pull off an ordinary robbery or a simple murder, even with his (not very practical) invisibility rig. There's a punch-out every five minutes and a terrific Lydecker miniature special effect in almost every episode. Richard Webb and Aline Towne star, but we love the bad guys, who throw 1,001 punches and attempt as many evil acts of mayhem, but never seem to come out on top. "Calling Phantom Ruler! Come in Phantom Ruler!" On Blu-ray from Olive Films.
10/06/15

Two O'Clock Courage
The Warner Archive Collection
DVD
  An early entry from Anthony Mann, this light comedy thriller is also a borderline noir, what with amnesia as the plot hook and an all-night prowl on the streets of Los Angeles the RKO back lot. Tom Conway is the mixed-up possible murderer and cheerful Ann Rutherford the taxi driver who takes him on an adventure dodging the cops and the press. But the real thrill is in the secondary female leads -- Jean Brooks from the Val Lewton movies is a cagey murder suspect, and (Bette)Jane Greer makes her billed feature debut as a Gilda- like hot number swoon-bait noir babe, complete with a slinky wardrobe. There aren't many Jane Greer pictures where she turns on the sex appeal -- making this a must for her fans. On DVD from The Warner Archive Collection.
10/06/15

Diary of a Lost Girl
Kino Classics
Blu-ray
  G.W. Pabst's silent German classic, intact, restored and looking great. Louise Brooks is the virginal innocent abused by her father and his employee on the night of her own First Communion, who is betrayed by every level of the sex double standard. Brooks is nothing less than amazing, with a performance that doesn't date, and Pabst only has to show how things are to make a statement about societal hypocrisy. With arresting performances from an array of striking actors -- Valeska Gert, Sybille Schmitz, Fritz Rasp, Franziska Kinz, Edith Meinhard, Andrews Engelmann, Kurt Gerron, Siegfried Arno. Great German cinema doesn't get better. With a good commentary, and a later American short subject starring Brooks. On Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
10/06/15

and

Masterworks of American Avant-Garde
Experimental Film 1920-1970
Flicker Alley
Blu-ray
 Producer-archivist Dennis Shepard and curator Bruce Posner collect upwards of thirty famous and noteworthy art shorts through history, starting with the early-'20s attempts to translate various art 'isms' to the screen, to graphics-oriented abstractions, to 'city symphonies' to the dream visions of Maya Deren and later aesthetic experiments. Some of the most famous titles are here, and the list of artists includes most of the important names, from Kenneth Anger to Slavko Vorkapich. Many of the HD transfers are careful remasters at the proper projection speed and with original music. On Blu-ray from Flicker Alley.
10/06/15

---

Hello readers...

I've been on a Hammer kick this week, after watching most of the films in the new Warners box. I've been a fan since 1959 and The Mummy, and caught up with Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula at a kiddie matinee in 1964. Boy, it seemed as if there was something unforgettable happening every week on screens back then. I really got caught up in the excitement of the crowd of kids yelling and screaming in enthusiasm. These days parents wouldn't dare let kids go to the movies by themselves, it's all different now. I'm what could be called a passive fan. A best friend has visited Bray in England (and got a great jacket there, too) and counts himself a much more serious adept after seeing Kiss of the Vampire at an impressionable age. Most of the '60s Hammers where I came from showed at drive-ins, so were out of reach before television screenings, and remained remote except through stills in Famous Monsters. Actually, it wasn't until home video came along that one could really catch up with all the weird things seen in FM.

Savant college friends included other Hammer fans, a pair of published authors on film horror, and later a producer for Albert Band who took a job maintaining the film library in a large studio. For a few months around 1998-1999, this pal had 'discretionary access' to a screening room. His noted collector friends would drop by to show their choice film bits and also to see what my friend had found. I wrote up these 'secret screenings' in DVD Savant back in the day, where I'm sure they created the illusion that I was at the center of collector culture, which wasn't true at all. Notice here that I'm not naming names. It's not to be mysterious. I don't believe in collecting unearned 'association cred,' aka name-dropping, something that bugs me to no end on Facebook. I can't claim to have a personal relationship with these people, and if I did, it would be personal, not for broadcast.

Back to those screenings. I borrowed an MGM print or two of my own, only to find that A.I.P.'s only surviving 35mm copy of Voyage to the End of the Universe had totally rotted -- before we finished the first reel, the film was crumbling. A collector-director loaned his 35mm print of Tomb of Ligeia. A collector-producer brought in his reel of rare, prime-quality Roger Corman trailers, all the great items from the 1950s. A really nice collector I met through DVD Savant drove all the way from Phoenix with his IB Tech print of Mario Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World, which was a real treat.

Another highlight was a screening of a short reel of outtakes from Terence Fisher's The Revenge of Frankenstein, uncut silent dailies that had survived because they had been used to test a coating that would keep the color from fading. The color was indeed great, and the five minutes of film was a Hammerphile's dream come true. Complete with slates, we'd see Peter Cushing enter a room, deliver a line, remove his coat, etc. it looked as though he jumped to later dialogue lines that were to be seen from the same angle. It was obviously to conserve film; Fisher apparently pre-cut the movie in his shooting continuity. Hammer expert Ted Newsom was in attendance at that screening -- I barely knew him at the time. The amazing thing was that Ted knew Revenge so well that he was able to lip-sync the dialog of shots as they came up, and he hadn't seen the outtakes before. Whenever I've had a pressing Hammer question, Newsom has been the man with the answer.

These are just pre-Halloween musings; I'll try to slip in a couple more odd Halloween-themed items between now and the 31st. In this week's Hammer review, I grouse a bit about the uneven color/transfer treatment that's been given lately to classic Hammers over in England. I've asked my color/transfer specialist, who's also the major Hammerphile, to give me a quick assessment of the Blu-rays of the last few years -- some look smashing while others have odd issues. Maybe next week!

Oh, by the way, here's a Hammer-oriented link, to some Pathé newsreel snippets: Behind-the-Scenes at Hammer (X the Unknown, Frankenstein Created Woman & More). The Pathé site is a bit odd -- two times out of three I was sidetracked to a newsreel about Queen Elizabeth. So keep trying.

Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson