Savant's new reviews today are

Hello again ...

For those of you frustrated by Best Buy's exclusives, I picked up copies of The Shuttered Room / It! and Chamber of Horrors / Brides of Fu Manchu for a friend, as they've been set out on the sales shelves early. I got the last copy of one of the titles at my local store yesterday, a fact that may be frustrating to fans that show up on the official release date -- next Tuesday -- to find the racks bare.

The remarkable Kevin Pyrtle, who last year gave us a chance to see Abel Gance's original 1931 French La fin du monde, has unearthed the incredibly incoherent American version from 1934, The End of the World. You can watch the whole thing online, here. They've even credited it to a fake director! Most of the American version appears to be made of scenes not in the French cut ... including a solid half-hour of chaotic eve-of-the-end-of-the-world montages, all done in Gance's unmistakable editing style. It even has a barrage of Armageddon- like meteors as the comet passes, not seen in the "long" French version. Kevin's own page (recommended) is at this link.

My Touch of Evil review has been amended with an email from correspondent Nick Aretakis. It's self-explanatory -- and contains the text of a heretofore unpublished Orson Welles note to producer Albert Zugsmith!

Lo-o-ongtime correspondent 'B' forwards this attractive new postage stamp art celebrating Bette Davis, with the suggestion that something is missing from the picture! 'B's suspicion is far too probable to be just a guess: Davis' fingers are obviously holding a cigarette. My sister suggested an alternate interpretation: Bette might be very religious and is simply blessing someone!

I have an L.A. Confidential Blu-ray review up at Film.com, at this link. I can watch that show once a year and still enjoy every minute of it. Thanks -- Glenn Erickson