Not too long ago (around the time of the Punic Wars), before downloads, before DVDs, before satellite, before VHS, before laser disc, before cable, there was...broadcast television, where various independent and network-owned stations offered up a steady diet of commercials, series, old movies, Mass for Shut-Ins, and more commercials―seven days a week, 20-hours a day. Now, there were certain days and certain times during the week (at least in my TV market...but it was pretty standard all over the country) where you could depend on seeing the kinds of movies you can now easily order from the studios' M.O.D. services. However...you had to park yourself in front of the TV at those times to see them: if you were late, or there was another show on a different channel, you were out of luck―and maybe for good with that particular, fleeting title. If you had a decent independent channel in your area, Sunday mornings were good for family movies like Warners' The Andy Hardy Collection, Volume 1. Weekdays in the afternoon (say around 3:00 or 4:00), someone's station usually offered a Big Show or Afternoon Movie or best of best, Dialing for Dollars Movie―a nice alternative to the cartoons and syndicated sitcoms playing elsewhere, and a good place to catch some of the "newer," bigger-budgeted studio movies from the '50s like The Big Caper or Tall Story. Saturday afternoons usually had a horror/sci-fi show (Sir Graves Ghastly!) where you could catch something like The Magnetic Monster or Gog. Friday and Saturday nights' Late, Late Shows were good venues for some of the "edgier" action and, um...more "adult" offerings like Impasse or The First Time, while the weekly mid-morning movie shows like Detroit's beloved Bill Kennedy at the Movies―perfect for a day home from school―had all the old Warner Bros. and MGM mellers and musicals like You Can't Get Away With Murder and Rhapsody in Blue for the housewives to peek in on while they vacuumed and dusted and did the laundry.
What a god-awful time for movie-watching. Actually, that's true and not true. Movie lovers who grew up when I did will tell you that catching a movie on TV was kind of special back then, because you only had one shot at it. If a movie you had been dying to see showed up on TV Guide's schedule, planning your day to watch it was an anticipatory treat. Even better: you never knew what might happen when you tuned in: if Busting was on Friday night at 11:30, and your parents were asleep and someone at the station screwed up and didn't edit the print right, allowing you to actually hear a swear word or two, that was big stuff back then. But truth be told, as much as I enjoy nostalgia...it's better now, and M.O.D.s are a perfect illustration of better living through technology. The impossible-to-find movie you want to see and to own and to watch over and over again at any time of the day or night, uncut and commercial free (and even in its proper screen ratio) can be yours with a simple click of the mouse. Maybe some day soon, when movies are pumped right into our skulls ("Honey...I picked my nose and accidentally ordered up Lorenzo Lamas' Body Rock again,"), people will be nostalgic for M.O.D. discs like I'm occasionally wistful about those old TV movie-watching days. Right now, though, the best way to indulge your cult and library title cravings is to order a manufactured-on-demand disc pronto, and The M.O.D. Squad is the first and best place you should check out for all your buying recommendations!
It's been a few months since the last M.O.D. Squad column (proof there is a god), so we have loads of one-stop reviews for you. Let's dig in! First up is a spotlight review of director Peter Hyams' neglected cop actioner classic from 1974, Busting, from M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection
BUSTING
"You guys have been watching too many moving picture films."An overlooked gem from the violent, cynical '70s...and a personal favorite of mine. M-G-M's own M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service, the Limited Edition Collection, for hard-to-find library and cult titles, has released Busting, the 1974 buddy cop actioner from United Artists, written and directed Peter Hyams, and starring Elliott Gould, Robert Blake, Allen Garfield, Antonio Fargas, Michael Lerner, and Sid Haig. Terrifically exciting and completely depressing in equal doses, Busting's suffocating pessimism about "law and order," and where two ordinary cops fit into that rigged system, is relentless; this one ranks right up there with the other greats from that "golden decade" of cop movies. An original trailer is included in this okay widescreen transfer.
L.A. Vice detectives Keneely and Farrel (Elliott Gould and Robert Blake) know they have a solid bust with gorgeous, high-priced hooker Jackie Faraday (Cornelia Sharpe). They've been tapping her phone for a month, and now they need her latest trick, Dr. Berman, D.D.S. (Logan Ramsey), who just nailed Jackie in his dentist chair (insert your own dental joke here), to set up Keneely as a trustworthy new client. They bust Jackie, and begin to wreck her apartment until she coughs up her little black appointment book...filled with the names of prominent L.A. citizens, including some in the D.A.'s office. Before you know it, Keneely and Farrel are hauled into their superior's office, Sergeant Kenefick (John Lawrence), where it is strongly suggested they lie under oath to sabotage their case against Jackie. You see, to satisfy the higher-up officials who answer to slimy gangster Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield)―who seemingly has everyone on the payroll―this case needs to just...go away. Just to bring home the point as to whom is really in charge, Keneely and Farrel start pulling some dirty duty, including busting a rough-and-tumble gay bar and watching out for perverts in a public park's toilet. Aware that they're completely alone, they decide to work off hours to nail Rizzo, hounding him at every turn in the hopes of forcing his hand with an upcoming dope score.
A favorite since I saw it at the drive-in when I was a kid, and one of my "holy grails" of missing DVDs now fulfilled, watching Busting in its correct widescreen ratio after I don't know how many years, I was even more impressed by the artful combination of thrills and cynical depression (a tough act to make work) that writer/director Peter Hyams pulled off with his first major big-screen directorial assignment (perhaps not surprising, either, when you factor in the veteran producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, responsible up to that time for gritty, intelligent hits like They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The New Centurions, and The Mechanic). Criminally not nearly as well known as its comedic doppelganger from the same year, director Richard Rush's delightfully droll Freebie and the Bean, Busting came out in February of 1974 to little business and mixed critical reception, while Freebie and the Bean, sporting two arguably "hotter" box office stars (James Caan and Alan Arkin), and reportedly held up so as not to compete with Busting, was released in December where it quickly became one of Warner Bros.' biggest hits of the year (although the critics liked it even less than Busting). Having just watched Freebie and the Bean for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago (another "holy grail" saved by M.O.D. services), it's easy to see why audiences would go for that deliberately goofy speedball, while staying away from the blackly funny but morose, futile Busting.
Produced and released at the approaching nadir of American cynicism and depression over the developing Watergate scandal and the ongoing Vietnam crisis, Busting's gestalt is pure early '70s American pessimism for anything that smacks of authority or "establishment." What separates Busting from other cop movies at that time that looked askance at the then-current state of law and order in America, such as Dirty Harry (where Harry had to watch helplessly as the courts sided with the attackers rather than the victims), is that Keneely and Farrel have no one on their side: not the courts, not the public, not even their own police force. No one has their back. They're completely alone in their commitment to following the law, with a growing, numbed shock of realization that even their brothers-in-arms―their fellow cops―are actively working with the criminals to at the very least humiliate them...if not to get them killed outright ("We're so f*cking alone on this thing it ain't even a joke," Blake dejectedly says to a zoned-out Gould). Rizzo runs the show, and through his pay-offs to the higher-ups in politics, the courts, and the police department, he can get any of Keneely and Farrel's busts written off without a ripple of complaint from the lower men on the totem pole who have to answer to their own corrupt superiors, or lose their jobs (the team's immediate superior says he has one job: pick up his phone that's connected to the higher-ups and answer, "Yes, sir," to anything that's said).
Everything in Busting is illegal and corrupt. When Keneely and Farrel bust the gorgeous hooker Jackie (lynx-eyed beauty Cornelia Sharp, looking socko in the buff), all it takes is a "someone made a phone call" threat from their immediate superior, and they know the jig is up. They ignore the Sergeant's suggestion they change their testimony (the sergeant who's smoking illegal mail-order Cuban cigars), but when they find that Jackie's little black book has been replaced with a fresh, clean one down at the Evidence Desk, Keneely finally sees how deep the fix goes ("He knows, everybody knows!" he disgustedly taunts, as he throws the counterfeit book at the on-the-take evidence sergeant, played to perfection by the gruff Richard X. Slattery). With the evidence destroyed by their very own, Keneely and Farrel no longer have a case, and Gould has to "throw" his testimony on the stand, to his own deep shame (Gould gets to do a bit of "Elliott Gould shtick" after this scene, leaving the courtroom and giving a sardonic, hallelujah reading of The Pledge of Allegiance before attacking a pimp who laughs at him). Even the crooks look at Keneely and Farrel with dulled astonishment that they're stupid enough to buck the system that's in place. When they go to bust a porno shop that features prostitution and drug dealing in the back, manager Marvin (the delightfully weasely Michael Lerner), who spots the undercover Farrel as a cop the second he walks in, chides Blake with a school marmish, "You know you're not supposed to come in here," unafraid to even name his protector, "Rizzo won't like that," because he knows Rizzo is immune. They can't even get the crooked evidence sergeant to get a warrant to search Marvin's place for drugs, because he obstinately stalls them by insisting he's not going to wake the judge up at 1:00am. So Keneely and Farrel search anyway (precipitating the movie's pulse-pounding central chase scene), and once they have the perps trapped in a building, the back-up they called for (two measly uniforms are sent) deliberately let the crooks go, forcing an enraged Keneely to call them "pigs" (and when Keneely forces the issue about the uniformed officers, their superior refuses to hear the complaint).
In screenwriter Hyams' world, Keneely and Farrel aren't even allowed the solace of self-denial in their efforts to bust Rizzo; they know they're completely ineffectual as vice officers because all the other cops are actively working with the criminals (Blake sneers, "Big tough cops," as he commiserates with Gould about how they can't even keep the hookers off the streets because Rizzo gets them released immediately). Busted down to humiliating toilet duty to catch perverts in the park, they still stay on Rizzo ("We sure made mincemeat outta him," Farrel fatalistically jokes after they fail to shake the gangster during a threatening interview)...but he just laughs at them, openly mocking them for their gung-ho idealism, because he's already in solid with the authorities ("What's funny is, you guys really think you're doing something," Rizzo jeers). The ending MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD drives this point home brilliantly, with Rizzo, well and truly busted for dealing drugs in his hospital room, laughing at a disbelieving Keneely as he lays out exactly how's he's going to beat Keneely's bust. Director Hyams' freeze-frame ending on Gould's pissed-off face, with the soundtrack flash-forwarding to ex-cop Keneely applying for a civilian job, leaves absolutely no room for the audience to celebrate anything Gould or Blake did during the movie. It was all for nothing. The concept of "law and order" simply doesn't exist if you can just buy it off.
Busting's production design matches its dyspeptic moral outlook, with cinematographer Earl Rath (lots of noted, and now classic, television assignments, like Go Ask Alice, Gargoyles, and The Waltons' pilot, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story), pushing the grain and fuzzy, diffused lighting through a sea of grimy greens and yellows and reds and blacks. Director Peter Hyams, who also worked in television prior to this first assignment, immediately establishes his penchant for kinetic action sequences with several remarkable set pieces here, particularly the astounding central chase that has Rath's camera wildly dollying down narrow hallways as criminals run past and then back in front of the camera, blasting guns as the visual schematic takes front-and-back as well as lateral movement, the excitement level rising with the help of that sick, funky groove theme by noted composer Billy Goldenberg (Rath isn't using Steadycam here...because it wasn't on the market yet, but you might think so). Hyams takes the chase to L.A.s' famed Farmer's Market, where he slows the dollys down as Gould and Blake stalk the criminals, with terrified on-lookers crouching in frozen fear as Hyams sinuously glides his camera along the crowded stalls. It's a remarkable sequence, much imitated over the years by other directors (Hyams would elaborate on this technique in his other films, most notably in the sci-fi remake of High Noon, Outland, where Sean Connery has a similarly exciting foot chase), and it's bolstered by Hyams' sure hand in keeping Busting exciting throughout...even when its central message and tone are such downers.
As for the leads, Gould and Blake are an inspired, if deliberately low-key, pairing. Busting came at an interesting period in their careers. Top-billed Elliott Gould, having captured the critics' and the public's imagination with his quirky, non-traditional movie star looks and charm in big hits like Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H, was by 1974 completely overexposed, running through too many film projects that were receiving at best mixed reviews from the critics and more worryingly, little response from the public: I Love My Wife, Getting Straight, Little Murders, Who?, a misplaced M*A*S*H retread, S*P*Y*S, and two brilliant but sadly neglected Robert Altman classics, California Split and the noir The Long Goodbye (his leading man status in A-list pictures wouldn't really recover from this period of oversaturation). Blake's position was even more perilous than Gould's by 1974. Having scrabbled his way back from early fame as a kid performer in the Our Gang comedies, and, after working through supporting roles in films like A Town Without Pity, PT 109, and The Greatest Story Ever Told, Blake had hit the critical big time in 1967 with his masterful lead work in Richard Brooks' riveting In Cold Blood. Starring roles followed, such as Tell Them Willie Boy is Here and in 1973 (like Gould's The Long Goodbye), Blake's own neglected classic, Electra Glide in Blue, but his film work was sporadic and unsuccessful at the box office. Indeed, Busting's failure would lead Blake to return to TV for the most iconic role of his career: Baretta.
Together, Blake and Gould aren't excessively cute or even "buddy buddy" acting here; their low-key demeanor is more in keeping with Busting's overall tone. They're consistently amusing, though, with Gould doing his "Groucho Marx-as-basketball-player" bent leg and gum-chewing shtick (Hyams makes sure we get a briefly funny shot of Gould getting a stick during the Farmer's Market sequence), and Blake acting tough with his unlit cigarette and his little pre-Baretta one-liners. "Film" students (yeech) looking for a quick term paper subject the night before can make a lot out of Hyams' pushing the boundaries of the subliminal homoerotic underpinnings of the "buddy film" genre when he has the boys here dancing with each other in a gay bar (it's played for laughs, until Hyams gets serious with a scary bar fight, shot in sick neon red, as the tough drag queens beat the living sh*t out of Gould and Blake). If I had one small complaint about Busting, it would be that comparative scenes with Blake seem to be missing. We get Gould speaking about his idealism as a young cop, and a good silent sequence of Gould, shamed by his false testimony, going home to his anonymous, cramped apartment and crashing on his sofa bed...but not a glimpse of Blake off-duty (the final freeze-frame also focuses exclusively on Gould's future fate, not Blake's). It's a minor point, though, and one that doesn't detract from Busting's overall, significant achievement.
The DVD:
The Video:
When Busting used to show up on TV, some shots in the gay bar scene would be excised (after some minor complaints from activist groups at the time of the movie's release), with some "new" material added to pad out the running time (I remember Blake talking to a kid at the park, telling him to get some vitamin C for his cold). As far as I can tell, Busting is complete here, with the gay bar scene intact (and the vitamin C stuff gone). The anamorphically-enhanced, 1.85:1 widescreen image looks grainy and soft...but it was shot that way, so overall, it's a solid transfer, with some minor screen anomalies like scratches and dirt.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track is acceptable, with little or no hiss, and a strong re-recording level. No subtitles or closed-captions available.
The Extras:
There's an original trailer included here―a good one, too, that really sells the picture.
Final Thoughts:
An overlooked, neglected classic; one of the best cop movies of the '70s―and that means it's one of the best cop movies ever. Director and screenwriter Peter Hyams creates a dyspeptic, sordid world (probably not too far from the truth) where everyone is either on the take or afraid to speak up, and where the efforts of two crusading cops don't amount to squat. Terrifically exciting and depressing as hell, all at the same time, with two perfectly cast leads. A knockout. On content alone, I'm giving Busting our highest ranking here at DVDTalk: the DVD Talk Collector Series award.
DVDTalk editor John Sinnott looked at The Magnetic Monster, the 1953 Curt Siodmak monster flick starring Richard Carlson, King Donovan, and Jean Byron, and its "sequel," if you will, Gog, from 1954, starring Richard Egan, Herbert Marshall, and Constance Dowling:
When people think of 50's sci-fi B-movies, they conjure up images of really poor special effects and monsters that obviously look like a guy in a costume that was created in someone's garage. That wasn't always the case though, and one good counter example is The Magnetic Monster, a picture released through United Artists that has recently seen the light of day once again through M-G-M's M.O.D. program. This is a well-scripted solid SF film, rumored to have been a pitch for a TV series, about a government organization of scientists, the OSI, that was in charge of tracking down strange and unusual phenomena in the atomic age. Much better than the typical 50's SF low-budget fare, the movie has ironically been largely forgotten. Hopefully this release will remedy that situation.
One year after The Magnetic Monster was released, the producer, Ivan Tors, made a sequel of sorts, Gog. This film also featured an agent from the OSI investigating some mysterious occurrences but Tors was able to avoid the major misstep of the first film: this one is much more visually interesting. Too bad it's not nearly as exciting and way too talky. Even so, this M-G-M Limited Edition Collection M.O.D. disc is great and goes well with Tors' earlier film; they make a terrific pair.
Stuart Galbraith IV reviewed Thirteen Women, the 1932 cult horror movie starring Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne, and Ricardo Cortez, Three Came To Kill, the 1960 Cameron Mitchell intriguer, 1961's cheap-but-efficient noir, You Have to Run Fast, from director Edward L. Cahn, Jungle Heat, a spy programmer from 1957, and Ray Milland's Hostile Witness from 1968:
A deliriously lurid, pre-Code thriller with supernatural elements, Thirteen Women plays like a prehistoric antecedent to the "body count" films of the 1970s and '80s. Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, and Myrna Loy star in this RKO production, based on Tiffany Thayer's "startling book." The film may originally have been released at 73 minutes, but all that survives today is a fast-paced 59-minute version. A Warner Archive Collection manufactured-on-demand title, the full-frame, black-and-white Thirteen Women gets a solid, all-region video transfer though, alas, there are no extra features.
An efficient little thriller from the team of producer Robert E. Kent, writer Orville Hampton, and director Edward L. Cahn , Three Came to Kill offers a tautly-told, intriguing little story perfectly suited to its limited budget. Though a bit flamboyant, Cameron Mitchell is excellent in the leading role, and like other Kent/Hampton/Cahn collaborations the climax is violent and action-packed. A Limited Edition Collection manufactured-on-demand title from M-G-M, Three Came to Kill sources what seems to be a comparatively recent transfer but it's in the wrong aspect ratio, 1.33:1 full frame when it should be 1.66:1 enhanced widescreen. Fortunately, Three Came to Kill reformats to 1.78:1 reasonably well. The picture remains reasonably sharp zoomed in though the cropping is a bit tight here and there. No extras.
Undistinguished but not bad, You Have to Run Fast is a late-entry noir, produced on the cheap (probably in the $100,000 range) by that prolific triumvirate of producer Robert E. Kent, director Edward L. Cahn, and (usually) writer Orville H. Hampton. Though hardly classics, their dozens of films together during the late 1950s and early-'60s were usually efficient programmers, a few of which (It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Riot in Juvenile Prison) achieved some minor degree of fame. Modestly entertaining, You Have to Run Fast is well directed and offers a very lively if at times absurd and unintentionally funny climax. An M-G-M Limited Edition Collection manufactured-on-demand release, You Have to Run Fast gets a very decent, 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer though, not surprisingly, no extra features.
The story goes that Jungle Heat was shot in Hawaii immediately after 1957's Voodoo Island, another Bel-Air production executive produced by Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, the latter serving as this film's director. Like Voodoo Island, a dull picture top-lining Boris Karloff, Jungle Heat has an interesting cast (actor Rhodes Reason appears in both, in fact) and Kauai, Hawaii locations but otherwise is quite lackluster. Characters mull about, talking to one another, but the story never seems to be going anywhere. With its undercurrent of Japanese fifth columnists threatening plantation owners in the days prior to Pearl Harbor, Jungle Heat at first seems promising but overall it's very disappointing. A Limited Edition Collection manufactured-on-demand title from M-G-M, Jungle Heat sources an old, old transfer, complete with '80s era UA logo, that's 1.37:1 full-frame when it should be 16:9 enhanced widescreen. The transfer is as lackluster as the movie. No extras.
A mostly tepid courtroom meller starring and directed by Ray Milland, Hostile Witness, based on a play, lacks flair and is unimaginatively cast. It's not terrible and has its moments, but Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution or your average episode of Rumpole of the Bailey is a lot more fun. An M-G-M Limited Edition Collection manufactured-on-demand release, Hostile Witness is presented in 1.78:1 enhanced widescreen, approximating its original widescreen theatrical aspect ratio. The transfer is a bit dirty but otherwise fine. No extras.
Nick Hartel looked at Enter the Ninja, the 1981 chop-socky flick starring Franco Nero and Sho Kosugi:
1981's Enter the Ninja, the Menahem Golan-directed (of Golan-Globus fame) production kick-started the career of B-movie star Sho Kosugi who went on to make a number of more visceral ninja films. Rounding up Franco Nero as the mostly silent hero, Enter the Ninja has a few pacing issues, but delivers the goods and then some, particularly in the opening 10-minutes and finale, culminating in a mano-a-mano ninja showdown. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection release features a visually pleasing 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and serviceable English 2.0 soundtrack. Enter the Ninja is a solid addition to the collection of any B-movie fan.
Kurt Dahlke looked at Zone Troopers, the 1985 sci-fi actioner:
Zone Troopers, the earnest and goofy genre effort from 1985, is a fun amalgam of World War II-era combat movies and aliens on earth action-adventure-thrillers. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, but without any air of pretension or condescension, it's a welcome discovery for those who―probably because of its silly VHS cover―passed it over on the rental shelves in years past. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection does a pretty good job with this obscure release, delivering a great-looking print of nostalgic, pulp-style movie, one deserving of a wider audience and maybe, someday, a disc with some cool extras. Gritty, exciting and daft―and featuring Tim Thomerson's spot-on performance as Sergeant Stone―this M.O.D. disc of Zone Troopers will do for now.
Entertaining, at times even brilliant little noir "B" programmer from M-G-M's M.O.D. program, the Limited Edition Collection. Vice Squad the 1953 United Artists police procedural from celebrated Levy-Gardner-Laven, starring Edward G. Robinson, Paulette Goddard, Porter Hall, Adam Williams, Edward Binns, and Lee Van Cleef, sets out to portray one hectic day in the life of a L.A. Captain of Detectives Vice Squad expertly juggles several storylines, creating quite a bit of suspense―and humor―as old pro Robinson sets those lazy reptilian eyes in a perpetual squint, sneering at the various criminals, lawyers, and politicians who make his impossible job all the more difficult. No extras for this good-looking transfer.
Trim little "B" noir...with a nicely perverse subtext. The Big Caper, based on Lionel White's pulp thriller and starring Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa, James Gregory, and Corey Allen was directed by Robert Stevens for economical terseness―no doubt insisted upon by "Dollar Bills" producers Howard B. Pine and William C. Thomas. The Big Caper isn't as well known as The Killing, Stanley Kubrick's 1956 adaptation of another White heist novel...but it delivers the crime action goods while giving a deviant little poke in the eye to pop culture's stereotypical view of 1950s America. No extras for this razor-sharp transfer.
A delight for fans...but incomplete. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection has released The Andy Hardy Collection, Volume 1, a scattershot attempt to sample the first two-thirds of the iconic, 16-film M-G-M "B" series that starred "Mighty Mite" Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden, Sara Haden, and Ann Rutherford. The six titles included here are 1937's You're Only Young Once, 1938's Out West with the Hardys, 1939's Judge Hardy and Son, 1940's Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, and 1941's Andy Hardy's Private Secretary and Life Begins for Andy Hardy (leaving out opener A Family Affair, Judge Hardy's Children, Love Finds Andy Hardy, The Hardys Ride High, and Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever, if you wanted to watch the series in order, to Life Begins). Of course, I'm not going to recommend you "skip" an opportunity to see these six delightful Hardy films, particularly since they've been so long in coming to DVD (after all, there could be rights considerations I'm unaware of). However, it is a major disappointment for serious movie fans―the very people to whom the Archive is trying to cater―not to get this landmark series started off in complete, proper release order. Solid transfers and original trailers help, though.
Delightful, quirky, satiric college sex comedy. Tall Story, the 1960 Joshua Logan-directed comedy starring Anthony Perkins and Jane Fonda, was based on the minor Broadway hit from celebrated playwrights Lindsay and Crouse. Combining and spoofing all sorts of subgenres―the college comedy, the sex comedy, the sports comedy, the teen comedy―Tall Story didn't click with audiences or big city critics when it first appeared, but now it plays as one of the better studio comedies from that transitional period. An original trailer is included in this superior-looking remastered black and white widescreen transfer.
Low-budget, low-key (and perhaps a tad too familiar) WWII tale, competently directed and performed. M-G-M's own M.O.D. The Thousand Plane Raid (the DVD cover lists it as The 1000 Plane Raid), a 1969 war drama from Mirisch Films and United Artists, directed by Boris Sagal and starring Christopher George, Laraine Stephens, Gary Marshal, and a host of familiar movie and TV faces, will likely disappoint those looking for a glossy, star-studded, action-packed, big-budget epic along the lines of 1969's similar Battle of Britain. Loyal fans of the WWII action genre, however, will probably enjoy it...even if they've seen this all done before. An original trailer is included.
Pussycat, pussycat...I don't hate you. I just find you rather desperate and completely unfunny. So please go away. Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You , the ersatz "sequel" to Woody Allen's What's New, Pussycat?, released by United Artists in 1970, starring Ian McShane and a god-awful Severn Darden, with equally ridiculous John Gavin and Joyce Van Patten inexplicably along for the ride, didn't satisfy anyone when it came out. Regular readers of mine (all three of you) know that it doesn't take much in a movie like this to make me happy. So when I write that Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You made me very unhappy...you can believe it. No extras for this good-looking transfer.
A "nudie cutie" that's only so-so cutie...and not at all nudie. Diary of a Bachelor, the minuscule-budgeted indie released by American International Pictures in 1964, directed by famed exploitation producer Sandy Howard, written by Freddie Francis (under a well-advised pseudonym), and starring William Traylor as "The Bachelor," is a breezy little dirty joke with just a smidgeon of dirt in it. Diary of a Bachelor could have been a lot more fun it fully embraced its latent nudie cutie urges, or if it had concentrated on a more interesting bachelor here, played by the marvelous Joe Silver. Still...Diary of a Bachelor moves along quickly enough, it's racier than anything Doris Day was doing at the time, and some of the performances are quite bright―a curiosity piece for anyone interested in indie filmmaking from that period. No extras for this razor-sharp and white transfer.
Another Aubrey Schenck-produced sweaty he-man action adventure, ripped from the pages of Argosy and For Men Only. Impasse, the 1969 actioner from United Artists starring Burt Reynolds, Anne Francis, Miko Mayama, Lyle Bettger, Rodolfo Acosta, and Jeff Corey, has evocative Philippine location work and a no-nonsense approach to its straightforward heist plot, delivering pulpy genre work that's entirely respectable. No extras for this good-looking transfer.
Watchable exploitation actioner...but only just. A Small Town in Texas, the 1976 American International flick starring Timothy Bottoms, Susan George, and Bo Hopkins, and helmed by Race With the Devil's Jack Starrett, is a cleanly-directed, straightforward revenge story...with almost no context. A Small Town in Texas sported some wowzer car stunts (for 1976, at least), and a good turn by evil Hopkins...but that's about all, disappointing drive-in fans then and now who expect some hard-core action and a little T & A from this kind of set-up. No extras for this good-looking transfer.
Shorthand 70s international heist comedy: completely improbable, often dopey...but entertaining for that hapless breeziness. Inside Out, the 1975 heist comedy from Warners starring Telly Savalas, Robert Culp, James Mason, and Aldo Ray, is a sometimes shaky, lower-budget international "deal picture" production if I ever saw one. Inside Out doesn't bother to explain a lot of things about its plot to snatch long-buried Nazis gold in East Germany, but somehow you don't seem to mind because the pace is swift, while actors look thoroughly bemused at the ridiculousness of the enterprise. No extras for this okay-looking transfer.
Soulful, well-acted gangster/prison combo from the mean streets of the Warner Bros.' lot. You Can't Get Away With Murder, the 1939 action meller based on a play by real-life Sing Sing Penitentiary Warden Lewis E. Lawes, starring Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, the Dead End Kids' Billy Halop, John Litel, and Henry Travers, isn't as well known as some of Bogie's other gangster pics from this period (probably because he's really only a supporting player here to the excellent Billy Halop). You Can't Get Away With Murder's title doesn't leave a lot of room for speculation as to where all the criminals are going to wind up at the end of the movie, but as with so many of these Warner urban efforts from this period, it's fast-paced, exciting, and pleasantly reflective from time to time. An original trailer is included in this super-sharp remastered edition.
Entertaining, gorgeously-photographed nature "docudrama." The Savage Wild, the 1970 documentary released by American International Pictures, and narrated, produced, directed and lensed by famed nature photographer and outdoorsman Gordon Eastman (who also stars here and writes a song if that isn't enough for you), shows nothing too savage here in this relatively straightforward look at some cute (but vicious) wolf cubs in the Yukon territory. So kids and families will be the best bet for this enjoyable, informative indie from way, way back. No extras for this terrific-looking transfer.
Innocuous, forgettable "coming of age" dramedy featuring two of the Eight Wonders of the World in 1969: Niagara Falls, and a heartbreakingly beautiful Jackie Bisset. The First Time, the 1969 programmer from the Mirisch Company, released by United Artists, and starring Jacqueline Bisset, West Stern, Rick Kelman, and Wink Roberts, has some good (but excessive) location work in Canada, pushing The First Time dangerously close to travelogue status. However, the dirty-minded-but-spotlessly-clean script may prove mildly agreeable if you want to spend an hour and a half in the company of lovely Jackie. An original trailer (with a different title) is included here on this terrific-looking transfer.
Captivating, offbeat WWII adventure. Hannibal Brooks, the 1969 Michael Winner-directed charmer from United Artists, written by Dick Clement and Ian Lafrenais (purportedly based in part on a true story), and starring Oliver Reed, Michael J. Pollard, Wolfgang Preiss, Helmut Lohner, Peter Carsten, Karin Baal, and Aida the Elephant as Lucy, is part animal picture, part WWII spoof, part anti-war film, and part pro-war film―no wonder it puzzled audiences and critics back in '69. Its gentle, even quizzical attitude about the horrors of war is as effective as its farcical spoofing and its genuinely touching love story a soldier and an elephant. An original trailer is included in this good-looking widescreen transfer.
Alternately hilarious and quite chilling (and finally depressing) ultra-black sci-fi comedy. The Bed-Sitting Room, the 1969 United Artist release directed by Richard Lester, based on the play by comedian and co-star Spike Milligan and John Antrobus, starring Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Rita Tushingham, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Mona Washbourne, Harry Secombe, Roy Kinnear, and Marty Feldman, was a notorious flop during its original release. Since then, The Bed-Sitting Room has developed a minor cult following, perhaps more for the of so many iconic British comedy stars (Cook and Moore are probably the main drivers of that here), rather than for the frequently uncomfortable material. A trailer is included for this nice transfer.
Disturbing; at times mesmerizing and perplexing. Something Wild, the 1961 indie drama released through United Artists, starring Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Mildred Dunnock, Martin Kosleck, Doris Roberts, and Jean Stapleton, is a harsh, uncompromising look at the aftermath of a vicious rape...giving way unexpectedly to a strange, dreamy (and to some viewers, repellant) hostage/romance plot. Shot on the seamy streets of New York, and featuring two remarkable performances by the lead actors, Something Wild is something special. No extras for this black and white full-screen transfer.
Quietly harrowing little interior drama, with an assured performance by Elliott Gould. Inside Out, the 1986 drama from M-G-M, written and directed by Robert Taicher, and starring Elliott Gould, Howard Hesseman, Jennifer Tilly, Beah Richards, and Dana Elcar, is a small, claustrophobic film that uses agoraphobia as its framework for some subtle commentary on modern life today. Inside Out probably got lost in all the turmoil when M-G-M was thought to be going bankrupt in 1986...but I doubt it would have achieved the level of acceptance that say, James L. Brooks' similar, slicker, sunnier As Good As It Gets did eleven years later: there's no "fun" to be had here at all. No extras for this good-looking transfer.
Not as snappy as you'd expect from the Brothers' Warner...but you do have all that marvelous Gershwin music. Rhapsody in Blue, the 1945 biopic of composer George Gershwin starring Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn, Albert Bassermann, Morris Carnovsky, Rosemary DeCamp, and playing themselves, Oscar Levant, Paul "The King of Jazz" Whiteman, Al Jolson, George White, Hazel Scott and Anne Brown, is chock-full of Gershwin's driving, jazzy songs and compositions...and overflowing with bogus, trumped-up dramatics and bathos in an attempt to make its subject more "interesting." Hard to dislike from a musical standpoint, but it's a slog in-between. An original trailer is included.
Workaday WWII adventure. Hell Boats, the 1970 WWII naval actioner from Mirisch Films' Oakmont Productions and released by United Artists, starring James Franciscus, Ronald Allen, Elizabeth Shepherd, and Reuven Bar-Yotam, and directed by talented Paul Wendkos, is languidly, hypnotically trite, but the sporadic action is okay in this junior-grade Guns of Navarone. No extras for this nice-looking widescreen transfer.
Interesting, little-seen mid-scale WWII actioner with some disturbing themes. Hornets' Nest, the 1970 United Artists release starring Rock Hudson, Sylva Koscina, Sergio Fantoni, and Mark Colleano, is directed in typical tough-guy fashion by Phil Karlson, providing the usual quota of late-sixties WWII action, along with some intriguing asides about the psychological effects of brutal, no-holds-barred warfare. An original trailer is included.
Violent, nasty blaxploitation/prison epic starring big, bad Jim Brown. The Slams, the 1973 M-G-M actioner co-starring gorgeous Judy Pace, Frank DeKova, and Ted Cassidy, is not referenced as often as Brown's more recognizable exploitation numbers from this period of his career. The Slams is crude and exciting filmmaking from scripter Richard DeLong Adams and director Jonathan Kaplan; it's a winner for anyone into this genre and time period. An original trailer is included in this good-looking transfer.
See you next time, right here at The M.O.D. Squad!
]]>With the holidays almost here, it's a perfect time to cuddle up in front of the TV and watch your favorite movies and TV series. But how do you catch those hard-to-find cult favorites that never seem to air on television anymore? Easy-go to The M.O.D. Squad and check out all the latest reviews of manufactured on demand discs, straight from the studio vaults! Right here, right now, at The M.O.D. Squad!
No jokes or spoofs this holiday edition. Just a wish from all of us here at The M.O.D. Squad that wherever you are, that whatever you believe, and that whatever you celebrate, that you have friends and loved ones with you, and that your days ahead are joyous. Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays, M.O.D. lovers!
We have quite a few M.O.D. reviews to help bring the curtain down on 2011, so when you're counting your Christmas cash, running around in a dazed frenzy trying to figure out what to spend it on, calm down, read The M.O.D. Squad, bring up your illegal internet, and order your M.O.D.s for instant gratification. Let's dig in! First up is a spotlight review from Paul Mavis for the classic CBS family adventure series, Daktari
DAKTARI: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
Irresistible for kids and families. Warner Bros.' indispensable Archive Collection, their M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) library of little-seen TV and movie favorites, has released Daktari: The Complete First Season, a four-disc, 18-episode collection of the smash-hit CBS mid-season replacement from 1966, based on producer Ivan Tors' 1965 feature film success, Clarence, The Cross-Eyed Lion. Starring Marshall Thompson, Cheryl Miller, Yale Summers, Hedley Mattingly, Hari Rhodes, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion himself, and Judy the Chimpanzee, Daktari is typical second-phase fare from producer Ivan Tors: family-friendly, (largely) non-violent, animal-centric, and simplistic perhaps in storytelling...but entertaining, nonetheless. No extras for this nice-looking transfer.
East Africa, 1965. In the Wameru province, still under the nominal control of the British Empire, veterinarian Dr. Marsh Tracy (Marshall Thompson) has secured permission from the area governor to set aside not only many square miles for a game preserve, but also to operate the Wameru Study Center for Animal Behavior and hospital. There, with the aid of his pretty young daughter Paula (Cheryl Miller), "Daktari" (Swahili for "doctor") is experimenting with his "affection training" method of dealing with animals: no guns, no prods, no whips--just love and affection and respect when handling a wild, savage animal that could easily rip out your throat. Aiding him in his research is handsome American Jack Dane (Yale Summers), and handsome African local Mike (Hari Rhodes), both aspiring zoologists working on their field studies. Of course, Daktari's new methods of respecting these brutes rubs the various poachers, thieves, and local tribesmen that seem to crawl all over Africa the wrong way, so Daktari's preserve is under constant assault from small-minded men who can't see that if you only talk slowly and clearly to a fang-dripping leopard, letting him know you want to be friends, the leopard will automatically release your throat and begin purring like a tabby kitten. Helping keep those persistent poachers away are District Officer Hedley (Hedley Mattingly), a "veddy" British military officer, Clarence, a cross-eyed lion who's as gentle as a lamb, and Judy, the mischievous chimp who apparently is the smartest one of the bunch, such are her powers not only in understanding human speech and cognitive thought, but also her ability to positively slay any foe with a deadly show of overwhelming cuteness.
I have very vague memories of Daktari from my childhood, most probably from syndication rather than during its original run. Certainly producer Ivan Tors' Flipper played more frequently in re-runs, attaining a level of pop culture awareness that far exceeded Daktari?an ironic development considering Daktari's strong showing in the Nielsen ratings, compared to Flipper's lower profile. With producer Tors in full animal/kid/family-friendly mode by 1965, it probably wasn't hard for CBS to bet on another Tors animal series. Flipper, over on NBC, was coming to the end of its successful run, so Tors certainly didn't want his presence on network television to wane. The feature film that was the basis for Daktari, Clarence The Cross-Eyed Lion (starring Daktari's Marshall Thompson and Cheryl Miller in the same roles) had been a drive-in and matinee hit for M-G-M in the summer of 1965. A few years before, Howard Hawk's Hatari (which Daktari resembles in structure), had been a solid hit for John Wayne, while Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was cleaning up in syndication. And as always, all those Hollywood Tarzan epics were delivering consistent ratings on local TV stations with a whole new generation of kids whose parents grew up on those jungle adventures (with ABC soon putting Tarzan on the small screen in the fall of 1966, no doubt buoyed by the success of Daktari). Couple all that with a killer time slot on the CBS sked (right behind The Red Skelton Hour, the fourth most-watched series for the year), and all Tors had to do was get an hour's worth of serviceable jungle adventure together every week, and watch the money roll right in.
As for those "serviceable" adventures, let's face it: Daktari isn't high drama. Nor does it have to be, frankly. Daktari is designed as family entertainment, with heavy doses of it aimed squarely at young children, so simplistic storylines about Daktari and his crew patching up sick and wounded animals, with evil, one-note poachers prowling around the peripheries (it's remarkable how many poachers show up this season) work well enough (like the Tarzan movies, interlopers always equal trouble). As produced, these episodes mesh perfectly into kids' short attention spans, with dialogue scenes kept short and uncomplicated, punctuated more than frequently with cutaways to a cute animal like Judy, or stock footage from Africa. The deepest discussions you're going to get from the rather stock characters here are whether or not man should kill animal; in Return of the Killer, Part 1, Mike asks Daktari several times who created all of this (nature), to which Daktari grimaces sheepishly and says nothing. Clearly, Daktari at this point is more interested in the animals than the humans. And again, that's just fine. What 8-year-old needs a discussion in existential angst over man's place among the beasts?
Those kids wanted to see Judy the chimp in action, and executive producer Tors makes sure she gets more screen time than all the other actors combined. If Daktari was intended to capitalize on the popularity of big-screen Clarence The Cross-Eyed Lion, clearly a decision was made early to focus instead on Judy, who is leaps and bounds more appealing (all sleepy Clarence can do is look confused or annoyed as the double-vision special effect is slapped on for diminishing-returns laughs). Like Tors' Flipper, she's a star who knows it. As an adult, it's easy to laugh at the frequently ridiculous things we're shown that Judy supposedly can understand and do without prompting, just by merely telling her. But kids believe it (and love it, as evidenced by a couple of my little kids who squealed every time Judy came on). Like Lassie or Flipper, Judy apparently can follow quite complicated instructions from her human counterparts, along with deciphering subtle interpersonal intimations that would confuse a 10-year-old...that is, when she isn't just cognitively acting out on her own (I love when she takes it upon herself to take out a poacher by setting up a trap to block his car). It's hilarious when Paula or Daktari make her look right at them and rattle off a long explanation as to why she needs to stay and nurse a sick fellow animal (which she does immediately and with alacrity), but no one is denying it's also enormously entertaining to see this charismatic little actor go through her paces. In Judy and the Hyena, she has to fake an arm injury, and the way she holds her little arm, it's remarkable how believable it looks (unless....). In that same episode, this little chimp is actually able to express, with the help of editing, of course, something as complex as ennui, for god's sake--a level of subtle emotion her human counterparts aren't exactly called on to execute here, considering their cardboard construction.
The other animals get in on the act, too; I thought I'd die laughing when Paula is supposedly giving Clarence complicated instructions...over a walkie talkie (I wouldn't have even been able to follow them), but Judy is clearly the star here (monkeys acting silly are money in the bank for kids. There's a terrific sequence that goes on quite long where a family of monkeys destroys the hospital--complete with a shot of the handler sneaking into the frame--that's about as close to "monkey porn for kids" as you're ever going to get). As for all that "affection training" mumbo-jumbo that Daktari is always touting, it sure sounds nice (if you ignore the accusations that trainer Ralph Helfer was merely doping up all those critters). But you'd have to be mental to go out into the African bush with a dart gun-toting Daktari who claims very few animals have natural enemies, or that most animals in the bush are "friendly and intelligent, and we treat them with respect and fondness (remind me of that when a vicious, screaming baboon is squatting on my chest). There's no question some of the actors feel differently, though; Hari Rhodes, in the first episode, looks like he's ready to bolt for the honey wagon when that "friendly, intelligent" cheetah flips out and gets ready to pounce on him, while Hedley Mattingly looks decidedly nervous, locked up in a cage with a big black bear (in Africa?) that starts gnawing on his arm.
If anyone back in 1965 cared about tigers and bears showing up in a show about Africa, Tors and his team of scripters simply toss it off as Daktari's experiments in "interspecies relationships," and the problem is solved. Clearly, the locale of the hospital isn't Africa, but Africa, U.S.A., animal trainer Ralph Helfer's wildlife park in Soledad Canyon, 40 miles outside of Los Angeles (is that snow on the ground in one scene?), and supposedly, the interiors were shot at Tors' Florida studios (that must have been a fun commute for the actors--perhaps it was cheaper for Tors that way, rather than shooting at M-G-M and getting charged for the studio overhead?). But again, what kid knew that back in 1965? The production design is skillful enough to make anyone but the most curmudgeonly accept it all as a smack at bush reality; if the editing is a little rough, and some of the stock footage is overused, who cares? Certainly not the target audience, then or now. After watching a few episodes before they peeled off to do other things, I asked my littler kids if they thought Africa looked like fun, and they said, "Sure. The monkeys there know just what you're saying." Case closed for Daktari.
It's hard to say if CBS thought they had as big a winner on their hands as they got with Daktari, but clearly someone placed it with care on the CBS sked. Coming in at mid-season in January, 1966, occupying once-mighty Rawhide that had since crashed and burned out, Daktari decimated its competition in its Tuesday 7:30pm timeslot. Over on ABC, Combat, which had been the 10th most watched series in the country the year before, dropped out of the Nielsen Top Thirty altogether against Clarence and Judy, while over on NBC, Daktari faced one of the all-time most popular butt-of-the-joke series in television history: the legendary My Mother the Car with Jerry Van Dyke (it's really not that bad...) and the innocuous non-starter, Please Don't Eat the Daisies. With 4th most popular show in the country The Red Skelton Hour as lead-out, Daktari in just half a season scored as the 14th most show of the entire 1965-1966 season, a remarkable feat that it would best in its sophomore session, when it would enter the vaunted Nielsen Top Ten.
The DVD:
The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 transfer for Daktari: The Complete First Season looks fairly good, with okay-to-good color (perhaps a bit muddy at times, but that could be the original look), a sharpish picture, and minimal grain.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track is okay, with a bit more hiss than expected, but a strong re-recording level. No subtitles or close-captions available.
The Extras:
No extras for Daktari: The Complete First Season.
Final Thoughts:
Recommended family fare. Producer Ivan Tors may not have been John Houseman, but he delivered a quality product that was entertaining, time and again, and Daktari was no exception. A natural for little kids who like to watch animals do funny tricks and stunts, Daktari keeps it simple, keeps it light, and keeps it fun. I'm recommending Daktari: The Complete First Season.
Matt Hinrichs looked Lost Horizon, the notorious 1973 musical adaptation of James Hilton's novel, starring the eclectic cast of Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, George Kennedy, Olivia Hussey, Michael York, Charles Boyer, and John Gielgud:
Lost Horizon is a bloated, bizarre, miscast mess of a movie, but there are a lot of good things going for it, as well. Like a lot of films with awful reputations, the end product is not nearly as terrible as one would think. Lost Horizon is a good example of a terrible film given a great presentation on DVD. Although it will never be a masterpiece, the thoughtful extras and nicely done picture/soundtrack turn the film into a highly misunderstood, sometimes even enjoyable fiasco that is worth a second look.
Rohit Rao reviewed 1986's cult comedy, Detective School Dropouts, starring Steve Landsberg and Lorin Dreyfuss:
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. That must have been what David Landsberg and Lorin Dreyfuss were thinking when they sat down to write Detective School Dropouts, which would turn into a starring vehicle for themselves. The fact that the 1986 film turned out to be a commercial failure doesn't take away from the fact that Landsberg and Dreyfuss created an entertaining bit of silliness that makes me want to smack my head with one hand and clutch my gut with the other. Slapstick is a tough business to get right. Underplay it and the effect is missed altogether. Overplay it and the proceedings just feel childish and unfunny. Credit goes to Landsberg and Dreyfuss for presenting their particular brand of humor in a manner that consistently yields big laughs. Audiences didn't flock to the film on its initial release but this release from M-G-M's manufactured-on-demand program gives us a chance to correct their oversight. It comes highly recommended.
Despite its title, the obscure, Poverty Row mystery-comedy, The Living Ghost, isn't a horror movie and has no ghosts in it, living or otherwise. A pristine new transfer of this Monogram Studios production might trump other available versions, at least for hard-core fans of super-cheap movies, but this video transfer here is only fair with weak blacks that give it a washed-out appearance. Add to that, the film is a very typical example of Monogram's movies from that period: cheap, claustrophobic, and uneventful. However, star Dunn is breezy and agreeable, as is ingénue Joan Woodbury, and despite its extremely low budget (well under $50,000, probably in the $15,000-$20,000 range), by Poverty Row Horrors standards it has a couple of halfway-good points.
Not much needs to be said of this very minor B-movie notable only for its two leads, Forrest Tucker and gorgeous Allison Hayes, plus the fact that Counterplot seems to have been made entirely on location in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a very different place when this was made. Despite veteran talent behind the camera as well, the picture abounds in genre clichés and its second-half is dominated by a terrible performance by Gerald Milton, a Fred Clark type unsuccessfully channeling Sydney Greenstreet. This M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection disc is presented in the wrong aspect ratio, 1.33:1 full frame instead of its proper 1.85:1, but the transfer is decent and zoomed-in reformats to 1.78:1 reasonably well. Karl Struss's compositions are infinitely better framed at this ratio.
"Hello? Doctor Blood's office." Most British horror films from the late 1950s through the early '60s fall into one of two categories: Hammer films and imitation Hammer films. Others were throwbacks to Hollywood mad scientist movies of the 1940s, which is the case here. The story and screenplay is credited to Jerry Juran, who under the name Nathan Juran began as an esteemed art director in the 1940s before switching to directing in the early 1950s. Either his taste-meter was broken or he liked to keep busy, because as a director he alternated between good and rotten movies. It's not clear how Doctor Blood's Coffin ended up as a British film directed not by Juran but rather by Sidney J. Furie, a London-based Canadian at the beginning of his long career, but the poor script certainly bears Juran's stamp. The movie is unusual in a number of ways, and at 92 minutes, overlong, boring, and generally uneventful. It works from a scary, even disturbing premise, but that's lost in a misguided approach and a ludicrous approach to medical matters and science generally. Despite the nonsensical if provocative title--there's a coffin in the movie, but it's not Doctor Blood's, nor does it have any significance in the story--it's not a neo-Gothic in the Hammer mode. I'm glad M-G-M chose to release it; personally, I've wanted to see it for many years. Their Limited Edition Collection disc offers a nice 16:9 enhanced widescreen presentation with no extra features.
In case you had any lingering suspicions, and thought that maybe, just maybe, Morey Amsterdam might have been the real brains behind The Dick Van Dyke Show, look no further than Amsterdam's magnum opus, the feature film in which he not only stars, but also produced and co-wrote: 1966's Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title. Alarmingly bad yet fascinating, it may be a car wreck of a movie, but for various reasons it's absolutely a must-see along the lines of other cinematic atrocities such as Skidoo (1968) and Myra Breckenridge (1970). And especially if you're a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title is exactly the kind of movie Amsterdam's Buddy Sorrell would have made without Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie) to rein him in. Partly because of the film's many unbilled star cameos, this has long been sought after by a small but determined group of collectors. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection disc is worth the wait, featuring as it does a sparkling 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer. And remember, as Morey says at the end: "Many of your friends will be coming to see this thrilling and absorbing picture. Don't spoil it for them by divulging the thrilling and shocking ending!"
Neither good/unusual enough to sustain its two-hour running time, nor so-bad-it's-good. Instead, Death of a Scoundrel is mostly long and dull, though certainly a curiosity. Part of the problem is that the picture isn't anything like audiences might have imagined. Given the title and its star, George Sanders, one might reasonably have expected some kind of riff on his Academy Award-winning signature role, as coldly calculating, acerbically witty theater critic Addison DeWitt, in All About Eve (1950). Instead, Sanders gives an embarrassingly bad performance, one of the worst of his career. In this he plays a part that at times is almost the opposite of his usual screen persona and, unexpectedly, it seems to have been too much for him to handle; in certain scenes he's like an amateur. An all-region Warner Archive Collection, manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD, Death of a Scoundrel gets a decent 1.85:1 enhanced widescreen transfer. No extras.
For what it is, namely a low-budget B-Western probably shot in 10 days or less, this is actually pretty decent. Nothing about it is remotely groundbreaking, nor is it particularly notable in any way. However, the script by Orville H. Hampton and the direction by Edward L. Cahn are reasonably intelligent, creative, and workmanlike, and the cast of mostly aging genre veterans is enjoyable, particularly Buster Crabbe and Barton MacLane. Also helping things enormously is the fact that Gunfighters of Abilene boasts a sparkling anamorphic widescreen transfer and this Limited Edition Collection disc even includes a trailer.
An intriguing oddity unique to all of cinema, this began life as a 1951 Broadway musical-comedy, about an egomaniacal, joke-stealing television comedian, Jerry Biffle, and his frenetic adventures while preparing for the new season of his top-rated variety series. It was clear to Broadway audiences that Biffle was patterned after egomaniacal, joke-stealing Milton Berle even though comedian Phil Silvers (who won a Tony) played Jerry, Silvers still several years away from his signature role as Sgt. Bilko. The show was a very modest success, and apparently it did reasonably well when the mostly-intact company took it on the road. To save money, it was decided that, rather than adapt Top Banana like other movie musicals, the film version would essentially document a complete performance of the stage show. Reusing the stage version's sets, costumes, and props, Top Banana unfolds entirely onstage, supposedly (but not really) in front of an occasionally seen, rarely heard from theater audience. Further, the whole thing was filmed in 3-D, the idea being that moviegoers would vicariously experience a Broadway-style performance, from the vantage point of top dollar theater "seats." Long unavailable, now at last there's M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection disc. It's missing about 15 minutes of footage and the print has several awkward splices, but the color is good and the image is sharp, despite some reports that all M-G-M currently has in its vault are 16mm elements. And, of course, it's not in 3-D.
Incident in an Alley is a tightly made independent film from the start of the 1960s that, despite its adherence to fairly straightforward genre construction (or perhaps because of it), is entirely forgettable. Directed by B-movie stalwart Robert E. Kent (It! The Terror from Beyond Space) and based on a short story by The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling, the movie details a fairly standard police story, following one cop's crises after a bad night on the beat. It's fast and it's efficient, and the story about a cop shooting a young boy explores the questions surrounding the killing with a minimum of fuss. The performances and the direction are all okay enough, and everything fits in place nicely--which ultimately makes Incident in an Alley a mildly entertaining but insubstantial viewing experience. It's of some interest to fans of Rod Serling, who wrote the story that the film is adapted from, but casual viewers need not work too hard to get their hands on the disc.
Behind the Mask is a dismal misfire. Walter Gibson's pulp avenger, the Shadow, has survived the decades and adapted well to a variety of media, leaping from prose to radio and even starring in some pretty fantastic comics through the 1980s and 1990s. The Shadow is a masked crimefighter who is secretly rich do-gooder Lamont Cranston. He has mystical powers of hypnotism at his disposal and is known for his insidious laugh. It's his trademark. All the more weird, then, that the Shadow never laughs in Phil Karlson's 1946 movie Behind the Mask. You won't laugh either, even though for all intents and purposes it appears you're supposed to. Behind the Mask is a light comedy adaptation of the Shadow story. George Callahan's script leans heavily toward social comedy, all but forgetting that its source material is gritty crime fiction. This would be fine if the film was actually funny, but Callahan's dull-witted dialogue is done no added favors by Karlson's plodding direction. As a comedy director, Phil Karlson (Kansas City Confidential) totally fizzles. Most of the physical gags end up being poorly staged pantomime, which the director then tries to rescue with idiotic cartoon sound effects. The actors appear bemused by the sitcom scenarios they find themselves in, but none of them are convincing as erudite socialites, much less effective amateur detectives.
And a good time was had by all. Thoughtful trash. M-G-M's own M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service of hard-to-find library and cult titles has released Devil's Angels, the 1967 American International Pictures biker flick from producer Roger Corman starring John Cassavetes, Beverly Adams, Mimsy Farmer, Leo Gordon, and Buck Taylor. Written by AIP master-in-residence, Charles Griffith, Devil's Angels doesn't blow its cool until its nasty, brief ending, building up a good head of steam through solid scripting and performances. Necessary viewing for anyone interested in the evolution of the 60s biker movies.
Hong Kong phooey. M-G-M's own M-G-M Limited Edition Collection has released Kill a Dragon, the 1967 United Artists cheapie Hong Kong actioner starring huffers and puffers Jack Palance, Fernando Lamas, Aldo Ray, and Don Knight. Some great location work in Hong Kong, along with the fun of seeing Palance shooting for James Bond (and not even hitting Dino's Matt Helm)...but a lot more action would have sure helped this combo Casablanca/Seven Samurai pastiche. Kill a Dragon isn't at all good...but that's what makes it good (I got that out of a fortune cookie). Jack Palance is hopelessly funny as a Bondian Bogey. A mess, but undeniably amusing. An original trailer is included in this just-okay transfer.
Perfectly acceptable maloney. Malone, the 1987 actioner from Orion Pictures starring Burt Reynolds, Cliff Robertson, Lauren Hutton, Cynthia Gibb, Scott Wilson, and Kenneth McMillan, is a rather straightforward exploiter, with a somber, low-key Reynolds. Malone plays more like TV than the big screen, with various 80s action film cliches intact, but not too overly-done. Agreeable time waster if you're an 80s action/Burt Reynolds completist. Nothing too terribly originally here...but adequate, nonetheless. No extras for this okay transfer.
Warner Premiere Digital has released the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection, a 20 mini-episode gathering of "motion comic" digital shorts that Warner Bros. produced and released (first on iTunes) in 2008. Based on the original cartoon strips by Charles Schulz, these "motion comics" aren't any more "limited" in their animation than the average Cartoon Network offering, so don't let the "motion comic" tag fool you with these simple but sharply-rendered widescreen offerings. They're quite fun, too, with Charles Schulz's original strip ideas intact, executed simply and with bounce.
Fast, fun Christmas romance of mistaken identity, with a decidedly subversive undertone. Warner Bros.' indispensable Archive Collection of M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) library and cult tiles has released Bachelor Mother, the 1939 mistaken motherhood farce from RKO starring dollface Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson, and E.E. Clive. A cleverly designed comedy that gets away with a lot more than you'd expect from a 1939 studio release, Bachelor Mother keeps surprising us with its cheeky, fresh attitude about motherhood and Depression-era economics in a way that may not have been seen on screens since the Production Code went into effect...but one that was surely understood by a lot of women out in the audiences lining up for this major Rogers hit. A so-so transfer with no extras, this time around.
Completely, deliciously, crazy. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection of M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) cult and little-seen titles has released Golden Needles, the 1974 chop socky opus released by American International, directed by none other than Enter the Dragon's Robert Clouse, and starring human cement mixer Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Ashley, Ann Southern, Jim Kelly, and Burgess Meredith. That particular cast, starring in that particular genre of movie, should be enough right there to get your fingers flying over the keyboard to order this...this bizarre film. A genuine curiosity, in a fairly good transfer...but no extras.
See you next time, in the New Year, right here at The M.O.D. Squad!
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Here at DVDTalk, depending on the approaching season or upcoming holiday, we usually like to have a little fun with our M.O.D. Squad column. With Thanksgiving this Thursday, however, it might be a nice change of pace for The M.O.D. Squad to get serious for a moment while we contemplate the bounty and blessings that continue to fall upon our country.
Amen.
Now...on to the turkey and M.O.D.s. You see, what groups like PETA don't understand is that 28-pound Frankenstein turkey you've lovingly stuffed and trussed-up and basted and slow-roasted to absolutely golden dark brown perfection isn't just a deliciously fowl murder, it's a beautifully apt metaphor for American exceptionalism―just like the M.O.D. discs you are going to order after you read this column. Now, we can skip discussing the mashed potatoes (regular and sweet), or the sizzling candied yams with golden brown marshmallows on top, or the cranberry sauce (jellied and whole), or the hot gravy smothering the savory onion and celery stuffing, or the puffy, yeasty dinner rolls swimming in real creamery butter, or the green bean and french-fried onion casserole, or the Waldorf salad, or the Jell-O® mold with shaved carrots, or the ice-cold spiced pumpkin pie covered in real whipped cream, served with piping hot coffee. Forget all of that, because American technology so far has chosen to hold off on further improving those Thanksgiving delicacies.
We only need to look to the modern-day turkey to understand why we're Numero Uno on this godforsaken husk of a planet. The first settlers here in America―the Vikings―had to fill out their meager Thanksgiving/orgy of violence celebrations with the few scrawny, gamey, stringy wild turkeys they were able to bring down in mid-flight with their battleaxes―quite a bit of effort for not much payoff when they saw how little white meat was left. Later, the Pilgrims were willing to accept any food offerings their Indian neighbors brought for their first shared Thanksgiving feast―buffalo, rattlesnake, bears, anything―as long as it helped fill everyone up after the few emaciated, bony game turkeys were devoured. Enter modern chemistry in the 1950s and more importantly, bodybuilders. Seeing that the American consumer was finally fed up with trying to feed a family of fifteen from the carcass of a puny 8-pound weakling bird, American scientists poured over the various male bodybuilding magazines that were available only through mail-order, and soon realized they would have to wait another ten years before anabolic steroids were invented. And that brings us to the genetically engineered turkey of today, the Frankenstein turkey as he's affectionately known, 25lbs if he's an ounce, with 24 of it all breast meat―a marvel of American ingenuity, science and good old-fashioned Yankee know-how, where a need in the American consumer is seen, and it is met.
It's the same thing with M.O.D.s. The American consumer, fed up with going out in the middle of the night on Black Friday to stand in line for 13 hours for the chance, the chance, mind you, of maybe finding that little-seen vintage movie or TV series on disc―only to discover a thousand copies of the latest George Clooney disaster, in full screen, no less―demanded a solution and it was solved: the M.O.D., where cult favorites, obscure TV treasures, and forgotten classics are resurrected on DVD and made-to-order for you. No one else. Just you. So, in keeping with the true spirit of Thanksgiving―that would be gluttony―we offer an overflowing cornucopia of reviews for this holiday edition of The M.O.D. Squad, including everything from Christmas-themed outings to rough-and-ready Westerns to horrific whodunits. So loosen your belts and unbutton your pants, Thanksgiving-loving American You, because you are going to be stuffed by the end of this column (just click on the titles for buying info and full reviews). Let's go!
CHRISTMAS
Increasingly for many of us, Thanksgiving is the official kick-off for the Christmas buying season, so some Christmas-themed reviews would seem appropriate for openers. Paul Mavis looks at Susan Slept Here, Never Say Goodbye, A Flintstone Christmas Collection, and Yogi's First Christmas, all from Warner Bros.' Archive Collection.
A charming little Christmas present for your stocking. Susan Slept Here, the 1954 Frank Tashlin-directed romantic comedy from RKO starring Dick Powell (in his last film role), spunky Debbie Reynolds, sultry Anne Francis, and sour Glenda Farrell, is a cute "will she or won't she" sex comedy with the added spice of jail bait danger. A 1950s sex comedy that's scrupulously clean...with a very dirty-minded story and leering visuals, devotees of director Frank Tashlin will enjoy picking out his trademark obsessions, while fans of Powell and Reynolds will enjoy their clicky chemistry. A most welcome surprise, and perfect holiday-themed viewing in this bright, widescreen Technicolor® release.
Light, fun Christmas-themed screwball comedy, and a nice change of pace for suave Errol Flynn. Never Say Goodbye, the 1946 romantic comedy from Warner Bros. starring Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, and Forrrest Tucker, is completely implausible in that delightful screwball tradition, with the skilled performers putting this one over firmly into the plus column. If you only see tights and flashing sabers when you think of Errol Flynn, you should think again: he's urbane and silly and loose as a goose here in this farce, while the rest of the cast lend able support. A perfect little film for all the romantics out there to watch in front of the fire, with the Christmas tree lights softly twinkling.
Worth it alone for the bright A Flintstone Christmas...but the added A Flintstone Family Christmas is a lump of coal in your stocking. A Flintstone Christmas Collection, which gathers together the 1977 NBC effort, A Flintstone Christmas, and the 1993 ABC entry, A Flintstone Family Christmas, should please fans of those vintage Hanna-Barbera efforts that popped up on small screens during those long, long holiday days in front of the TV. A Flintstone Christmas is a rather sweet effort, with a solid story and some cute songs, but A Flintstone Family Christmas is off-putting junk, with inappropriate material for a family Christmas special.
A good-enough Hanna-Barbera late entry for the smarter-than-the-average type bear. Yogi's First Christmas, the 1980 syndicated feature starring Yogi, Boo Boo, and Ranger Smith, with some special guest stars including Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss (even), Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, and Cindy Bear (and let's not forget the fat man himself, Santy Claus), is almost critic-proof. This isn't rocket science: Yogi's First Christmas puts some H-B superstars together in a Yuletide-themed story filled with a lot of gags, and the Christmas-minded small fry, even if they've never heard of these characters, will respond favorably. Animation isn't all Fantasias and Pixar® "triumphs," you know; it's also the meat-and-potatoes sked-fillers like Yogi's First Christmas, a syndicated romp that may look skimpy to some, but which made a whole bunch of kids back in 1980 very happy to be sitting in front of their Curtis-Mathis and Sony Trinitron sets.
Action/adventure flicks are always welcome here at DVDTalk's The M.O.D. Squad, and we've reviewed quite a few hard-charging M.O.D.s over the past few weeks.
Newcomer to the Squad Rohit Rao looks at 1990's Dark Angel:
If I were to assemble a movie in the mold of a prototypical 80s action flick, what would I need? I would get a beefy star but not someone obvious like a Schwarzenegger or a Stallone. Someone like a Dolph Lundgren would be perfect for the slab of cheesy awesomeness that I'm thinking of. It would be a buddy cop movie (obviously), so I'd also need someone who could annoy Dolph while providing some comic relief. I'm also thinking of a score in the style of Jan Hammer's guitar spiked synth-iness (a boy can dream). It would also feature (in no particular order): explosions, car chases, aliens, explosions, sleeveless vests, gunplay, strippers wearing cowboy hats and explosions. What do you mean, it's already been done? Director Craig Baxley's 1990 flick, Dark Angel, is a fun little buddy cop movie that finds Dolph Lundgren in a more relaxed (but still butt-kicking) mode. It also features evil drug dealing aliens and plenty of explosions. If that's your sort of thing (and why shouldn't it be?), then step right up. If you demand even a little more substance than that, then I probably lost you at 'strippers wearing cowboy hats'. Dolph fans will definitely find plenty to love.
Paul Mavis looks at Hero's Island, Raiders of the Seven Seas, The Steel Lady, PT 109, The Passage, and The Glory Stompers:
An altogether strange, oddly effective no-budget pirate movie...with deliberately damned few pirate movie thrills and an anti-hero lead everyone seems to mistake for Blackbeard the Pirate. United Artists' obscure 1962 adventure, Hero's Island, starring James Mason, Neville Brand, Kate Manx, Rip Torn, Warren Oates, and Harry Dean Stanton, is the complete genetic opposite of another 1962 sea adventure you're probably more familiar with―Marlon Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty. Hero's Island focuses instead on a pirate's downtime with some down-on-their-luck settlers, believably creating a world that looks and sounds and feels like it supposed time frame―a completely different feel to it than 99 percent of the typical Hollywood period pieces from that time frame.
A well-done if minor pirate adventure, with a better-than-expected cast. United Artist's 1953 pirate adventure flick, Raiders of the Seven Seas, starring John Payne as the notorious Barbarossa, with Donna Reed and Lon Chaney, Jr. along for the boat ride, is studio-bound as all get-out, with sporadic action and some snappy dialogue, Raiders of the Seven Seas probably satisfied the kids at the matinees back in '53, but today, its B-movie allure should best appeal to fans of the attractive stars here, as well as genre completists.
Like one of those 1950s men's adventure magazine stories come to life. The Steel Lady, the 1953 desert action film released through United Artists, starring Rod Cameron, Tab Hunter, John Dehner, Richard Erdman, and John Abbott, has some heavyweight talent behind the cameras, and a solid cast up front. The Steel Lady delivers the adventure goods without any pesky navel-gazing: it tells its fast, action-filled story and that's it, thank god. High adventure on a low budget: a clean, efficient actioner, without an ounce of head-scratching psychology to its beefy proceedings. The very definition of a competent B-movie adventure, The Steel Lady, within its parameters, is perfect.
Decent-enough account of John F. Kennedy's wartime heroics...with some big problems. PT 109, the 1963 big-scale WWII actioner from Warner Bros. that purports to tell the story of JFK's time aboard Motor Patrol Torpedo Boat 109, and the heroism he and his men summoned up when they were shipwrecked in the Japanese-controlled Solomon Islands, stars dead-ringer Cliff Robertson, along with some familiar TV faces. PT 109 may be a little too TV-goofy for the more discriminating WWII movie fan, but it gets the job done well enough...I suppose. Way, way too long, and too good to be true when it shows a JFK who's preternaturally calm in the face of WWII, it at least looks good, and the action, when it shows up, is okay.
A truly terrible WWII actioner...that you know you want to see (if just for the jockstrap alone). The Passage, the 1979 Hemdale production, released by United Artists here in the States, stars Anthony Quinn, Malcolm McDowell, James Mason, Patricia Neal, Christopher Lee, Michael Lonsdale, and Kay Lenz (her name is in its own separate "box" in the credits...whoopee!). Anyone lucky enough (like myself) to have seen The Passage the way it was meant to be seen―in a completely abandoned theater―will tell you it's one of the most gloriously bad WWII thrillers ever made...which makes it must viewing for anyone who craves awful moviemaking. Numbskulled WWII heroics, all in delicious bad taste, The Passage is notorious with WWII genre aficionados for blowing its potential (great cast, good story idea, decent budget), but if you enjoy bad moviemaking, it's a joy to behold.
The Glory Stompers, the cult 1967 biker flick from American International Pictures, starring Dennis Hopper, man, and Jody McCrea, Chris Noel, Jock Mahoney, Casey Kasem, and Robert Tessier, was released right on the cusp when biker films started to go raunchy. The Glory Stompers' thrills are probably PG-rated now, but scintillating widescreen cinematography, fast-moving direction, and a typically interesting, hyper performance from Dennis Hopper, man, makes The Glory Stompers a must-own exploitation classic. One of the best examples of this genre, from this time period.
Sticking with the rough 'n' ready, we've quite a few Westerns featured this issue, as well. Paul Mavis looks at Trooper Hook, Rebel in Town, Grayeagle, War Paint, and Valerie:
Tough, layered, underrated Western...marred only by a too-abrupt wrap-up...or is it a compromised print used for the transfer? Trooper Hook, the 1957 U.A. release directed by Gunsmoke's Charles Marquis Warren and starring Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Earl Holliman, and Edward Andrews, achieves moments worthy of the best of Ford, with a central performance by McCrea that's one of his finest. But some abrupt, obvious cuts, and a run time that differs from other sources, adds some suspicion to this fair, no-extras transfer. Trooper Hook takes a hard, cold look at the culture clash between Whites and Indians, while drawing a sympathetic portrayal of rape victim Barbara Stanwyck's nine-year ordeal as the "wife" of an Apache chief. A thinking man's Western in a cleanly-designed, exciting package.
Neat, compact little B-western with a solid psychological underpinning to its vengeful story. Rebel in Town, a post-War Between the States Western drama released by United Artists in 1956, stars John Payne, Ruth Roman, J. Carrol Naish, Ben Cooper, Ben Johnson, and John Smith. If you're a fan of Payne's, then you'll know his career after his A-list leading days with 20th Century-Fox was filled with interesting little Bs...and Rebel in Town certainly fits that description. A surprisingly nimble, efficient B-western with a lot going on under the surface.
Simply divine whenever Alex Cord sniffs the wind before constipation strangles off his few hilarious lines. Rather goofy, simplistic retread of elements from The Searchers, with a paralyzingly funny lead turn by Alex Cord (which helps make this mess all the more enjoyable). Grayeagle, the 1977 Western from American International Pictures, directed by none other than The Legend of Boggy Creek's Charles B. Pierce, and starring Academy Award-winning actor Ben Johnson, Lana "Plenty O'Toole" Wood, Sicilian-American actor Iron Eyes Cody, Paul Fix, Charles B. Pierce himself, and Alex Cord as Grayeagle, may have had potential under a different director, but as is, it's a botched job whose faults are undeniably fun.
Solid meat-and-potatoes oater with a good cast and a refreshing no-b.s. attitude towards its tale of battling Whites and Indians. Similar to the classic The Lost Patrol, War Paint, the 1953 Western from United Artists starring Robert Stack, Joan Taylor, Charles McGraw, Peter Graves, and Keith Larsen, sets up its situation―a U.S. Cavalry patrol dying out in the desert at the hands of a "helpful" Indian guide―with a no-nonsense straightness that's as hard and clean as the movie's beautiful Death Valley, California locales.
Interesting, well-acted Rashomon knock-off. Valerie, the 1957 Western courtroom drama from United Artists, stars Sterling Hayden, Anita Ekberg, and Anthony Steel. Directed with a steady, sure hand by Gerd Oswald (the brilliant A Kiss Before Dying), Valerie doesn't break any new ground within the flashback Western subgenre, but intriguing subtexts give this low-budget affair some spark. Not as thematically deep as its inspiration, Rashomon, but still rather interesting and naturally from director Oswald, technically quite solid. Sterling Hayden gives another off-beat tough-guy performance, while Anita Ekberg is nicely effective as either the devoted wife...or the slutty whore, depending on whose flashback you believe.
Some excellent M.O.D. dramas were reviewed here at DVDTalk over the past few weeks. Jamie S. Rich looks at The White Bus and Tomorrow is Forever:
The White Bus is a bit of an odd duck. Less than an hour long, and featuring no known stars (though Anthony Hopkins makes the briefest of debuts), this collaboration between Lindsay Anderson and Shelagh Delaney bridges the gap between British kitchen sink and the anarchic late-'60s cinema that was just getting underway. A precursor to Anderson's breakthrough classic If...., The White Bus represents a similar ennui, though from a female point of view. At once confounding and profound, it's a surprising discovery. Made in 1967, the film is effective in its simplicity. It tracks a career girl (the comely Patricia Healey) from her regular commute to a random tour bus that takes her back North, stopping at factories and art museums and presenting a compare/contrast of modern city life and maybe a more traditional vision of England. The final scenes sew it up nicely, paying good on the experimental elements that Anderson has played with up until that point.
Tomorrow is Forever was probably begun with the best of intentions, but whatever those were, they were eventually squandered. This post-War production, directed by Irving Pichel in 1946, functions as an after-the-fact justification for the extraordinary sacrifice that was asked of wives and mothers who lost loved ones to combat. The message is dressed up as a romantic melodrama, with Claudette Colbert starring as a woman who believes she lost her first husband to World War I and is about to send their son off to WWII. Orson Welles stands beside her, covered in old man make-up, playing the husband who went to war and came back as an Austrian. I ain't making this up, folks, but someone else sure did! It's an okay picture, though bloodless. Never has doing the right thing been less exciting.
Paul Mavis looks at Until They Sail, The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel, and One Man's Journey:
Average wartime soaper with a superlative cast...and a stolid director. Until They Sail, the 1957 M-G-M WWII romance directed by Robert Wise and starring Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, and Sandra Dee, should knock your socks off with that roster of talent...but it's entirely too tasteful for what should be a culture-clash of horny, war-torn lovers. Until They Sail works as basic melodrama, and you'll enjoy looking at the pretty people in gorgeous, creamy black and white widescreen...but that's all from this chilly affair. Until They Sail is recommended for hard-core melodrama and soap lovers, and loyal fans of the stars.
Solid reworking of the time-honored medico construct of new, uppity doctor clashing with crusty veteran. The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel, the 1979 made-for-television movie, stars Lindsay Wagner, Miss Jane Wyman, Andrew Duggan, Gary Lockwood, Brock Peters, John Reilly, Dorothy McGuire, and James Woods. The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel may pretty-up its sometimes over-the-top portrayal of the "mountain folk" of the Blue Ride Mountains of 1930s Appalachia, but scripters keep things agreeably even-handed. So what if it the central storyline resembles Ma & Pa Kettle Meet Dr. Kildare? The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel, although slightly broad at times and pasteurized for 1979 network consumption, is a lot more fair-minded about the mountain culture it depicts than you'd probably get in a similar cable exercise today. And it's quite touching at times, too.
A fairly standard fictionalized biopic, but done with feeling. One Man's Way, the 1964 United Artists biopic of The Power of Positive Thinking author, Norman Vincent Peale, based on the book, Minister to Millions by Arthur Gordon, and starring Don Murray, William Windom, and Diana Hyland, is fictionalized, to be sure, but quite earnest and appealing in a square-headed way. Don Murray gives it his all here as Norman Vincent Peale, and the results, at times, are surprisingly moving. Biopic lovers and those looking for a good family picture centered around a religious theme will find One Man's Way recommended.
If comedies are more to your liking this holiday season, try these funny outings. DVDTalk editor John Sinnott looks at Hollywood Party:
1934's Hollywood Party is the find of the year. Funny, entertaining, and historical, it's a film that should be well known, but really isn't. Not only does it feature appearances by Ted Healy and "His Stooges," Laurel and Hardy, Jimmy Durante, and Lupe Velez, but it also has a cartoon in the middle that was animated at the Disney Studios―in Technicolor, no less. Oh yeah, and Mickey Mouse makes an appearance too. There are big production numbers and a slew of lesser stars that show up, the women wearing elegant and often risqué gowns. What more could you ask for in a film?
Kurt Dahlke reviews 1981's Neighbors:
Neighbors uses Belushi and Aykroyd to push the dark comedy motif into strange corners. The famously troubled production produced a film that was critically reviled, yet even with all that (constant fighting amongst all involved, a last-minute role switch between the stars, and more), Belushi's last film manages to be uncomfortably funny and bizarre. Featuring an Odd Couple motif that's both disturbingly weird and disturbingly mild, enjoy as Aykroyd in nightmarish form pushes Belushi's "normal life" over the edge (no one was going for normal here―except for the morons who added Bill Conti's awful score at the last minute―and in fact Belushi got so abnormal that this was his final film before his suicidal overdose.) The movie is wrong-headed on nearly all counts, but at 30 years removed it looks like that wrongness is right, the kind of stuff that makes you laugh despite yourself. For fans of weird cinema, and especially Belushi/Aykroyd fans, Neighbors is a lost oddity that's recommended.
Paul Mavis looks at The Fastest Guitar Alive and The Courtship of Eddie's Father: The Complete First Season:
A Sam Katzman cheapie that could have starred the King, but gave The Big O his one and only shot at movie stardom. The Fastest Guitar Alive, M-G-M's 1967 Civil War musical spy comedy starring singer Roy Orbison, Maggie Pierce, Joan Freeman, and Sammy Jackson, is typical of a later Katzman M-G-M effort (a little more polish than his earlier Columbia works, with the emphasis on speed above all else). The Fastest Guitar Alive comes and goes without leaving much of an impression...but it's innocuous enough, and fans of Orbison the singer―not the actor―probably won't mind those seven songs crammed into the short running time.
A sweet, gentle sitcom, expertly produced. The Courtship of Eddie's Father: The Complete First Season, stars Bill Bixby, Brandon Cruz, Academy Award-winner Miyoshi Umeki, James Komack (the creator/producer/writer of the series), and Kristina Holland. Bill Bixby was never better as the understanding father, while little Brandon Cruz gives an unaffected, natural performance as sad little Eddie, wishing for a new mom; their scenes together are believable and quite tender. Equally good are Miyoshi Umeki (so subtle and skilled), James Komack (beautifully laid-back and hip), and Kristina Holland (groovy). Just as good as you remember it.
A solid "whodunit" on a snowy, dark night goes down a treat here at DVDTalk. John Sinnott looks at The Falcon Mystery Movie Collection Volume 1:
Glitz and glamour, suave gentlemen and lovely ladies: that is what you'll get with The Falcon Mystery Movie Collection Volume 1, a set of the first seven movies in the franchise. These detective films aren't so much about whodunnit as they are about watching The Falcon (George Sanders, later replaced by Tom Conway) go to night clubs and parties and staying one step ahead of the police. It's a case where the chase is more important than the solution. Warner Archives has done a great job bringing this fun and enjoyable franchise to home video.
Paul Mavis looks at two Hart to Hart reunion movies, Hart to Hart: Home Is Where The Hart Is and Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart, and the frightening Night Watch:
A sweet, low-key little surprise. Hart to Hart: Home Is Where The Hart Is, the second of eight Hart to Hart reunion movies produced in the mid-90s, stars the luscious Stefanie Powers and suave Robert Wagner―and of course Max's Lionel Stander―plus some big-name Hollywood veterans like Maureen O'Sullivan, Alan Young, Howard Keel, and Roddy McDowall. Hart to Hart: Home Is Where The Hart Is has a very gentle, romantic vibe to its almost-sad mystery, with the glamour and glitz and one-liners of a typical Hart to Hart episode waylaid this time for a more tranquil, bucolic Murder, She Wrote feel. And that's just fine with this reviewer.
Another entertaining Hart to Hart reunion movie. Hart to Hart: Crimes of the Hart, the third of eight Hart to Hart reunion movies produced in the mid-90s, stars gorgeous Stefanie Powers and charming Robert Wagner, with Lionel Stander and an eclectic group of supporting players including Alan Rachins, Lew Ayres, Richard Belzer, John Stockwell, Alec Mapa, and Audra Lindley, Hart to Hart: Crimes Of The Hart has a nice wintry New York feel to its light take on The Phantom of the Opera, giving fans of the original series a nice change of pace from the show's usual sunny SoCal climes.
Delicious, creepy, Grand Guignol thriller, with the divine Liz going off the rails in splendid fashion. 1973's hard-to-find Night Watch, based on the play by Lucille Fletcher and directed by Brian G. Hutton, and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, Billie Whitelaw, and Robert Lang, achieves the next-to-impossible with its overly familiar tale of a woman going mad: it genuinely surprises you with a triple-twist ending that's as unexpected as it is bloody (and bloody marvelous). Director Brian G. Hutton's atmospheric, nervy adaptation of Lucille Fletcher's play starts out subtly and goes for broke during its horrific final moments, while Elizabeth Taylor gives a performance that should have brought her back into the critical limelight. The rest of the British cast is excellent. A genuinely creepy shocker that scores in all departments.
Finally, how about some fantasy? John Sinnott looks at The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao:
The last film that fantasist George Pal directed, The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, is a minor masterpiece. Tony Randall gives a performance that will surprise most viewers and the whole production is a wonderful, fantastic tale. This Warner Archives release ports over the extras from the original DVD and has a great looking picture. Go ahead and snag a copy.
See you next time, right here at The M.O.D. Squad!
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In this special Halloween edition of The M.O.D. Squad, we are about to unfold the story of the M.O.D.s, a product of science which seeks to recreate a movie or television show after its own DVD image without reckoning upon long lines at the big box stores or delayed shipping due to out-of-stock items. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation―life and movies. We think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to, uh, well...we warned you.
The twilight, in the blackly-shadowed Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. High atop a craggy hill, the moldering, forbidding Castle Dracula balefully stares down as you struggle through the fog-shrouded thickets. Once inside the castle, you claw past the elaborate cobwebs and, mindful of the crumbling stairs, descend into the inky void that is the castle's bowels. There, a simple teak coffin lies upon the dirt floor of a vast Romanesque cellar, the foul stench of fetid decay momentarily holding you back. As you creep forward, fearful of the growing darkness outside, you slowly raise the coffin lid against its screeching, complaining hinges to find your prey: the undead Count Dracula, still asleep. Swiftly tearing open your satchel, you pull out your wooden mallet and a freshly-minted Warners' Archive Collection edition of The Snow Devils, ready to pound the M.O.D. into the rotted chest of the vampire, when the Count suddenly opens his eyes....
No, that's not it.
Stolid, picturesque Frankenstein Village, nestled in the towering, icy mountains of Switzerland. Having discovered the drowned body of poor little Maria (she loved flowers so), you urge on the enraged Frankensteinians to gather their pitchforks and torches and surge towards Frankenstein Castle, intent on finally ending that hideous, profane experiment of Dr. Henry Frankenstein's known simply as "the monster." You lead the way towards the old mill watchtower, where you spy the ungodly creature on high, hoisting the unconscious doctor over its head, only to see the patchwork ogre throw its own creator over the railing to the windmill blades below. Realizing that only the purifying fires of hell will destroy this...this thing of ungodly science and technology, you implore your brethren to pull out their clean, chaste, almost...holy M.O.D.s like A Quiet Day in the Country or The Terminal Manand cast them upon the ground to be ignited in a conflagration that will surely end this fiend's savage rein....
Hmmmm....nah.
Okay. You've just ripped off your boss to the tune of 40,000 smackers and you're lam-assing your way out of Phoenix towards Cal-i-forn-eye-ayyyy (you'd hide the dough in your bra, but your breasts are so large there's no room). A blinding downpour necessitates a detour to the crappy byway highway Bates Motel ("See America Last" if you end up here...), where disarmingly goofy candy corn-cruncher Norman Bates offers you a room, cold sandwiches, and some awkward, uncomfortable chit-chat as you coolly assess his dorkiness. Feeling positively dirty after trapped mamma's boy Norman's din-din conversation, you escape back to your clean little cabin and strip down (hubba) for some showering action. Unwrapping the soap, you let the warm, cleansing water pour over your lush body as you decide once and for all to return the 40,000 clams you boosted. However...as you bathe that frankly incredible body that remains frustratingly below-frame, a blurry, matronly figure entering the john can be seen through the shower curtain, coming closer. Closer. With a M.O.D. of The Last Dinosaur in her raised hand as she viciously yanks back the curtain....
Uh...nope.
Okay, maybe the real Halloween for you won't be that horrifyingly cool, but it's fun to dream, isn't it? And you can certainly get started on that Halloween dream by ordering up some frightful M.O.D.s―like the ones we're going to review in this latest Squad edition (see how this all comes together?). So...into the belly of the beast with our special Halloween horror-themed M.O.D. Squad edition, chock-full of frightful reviews (wait a minute...), with the spotlight on the brilliant Italian psychological/splatter ghost story, A Quiet Place in the Country , offered exclusively from Warner Bros.' online Archive Collection (just remember to click on the titles for full reviews and places to buy):
A Quiet Place in the Country
Brilliant psychological/supernatural horror movie. M-G-M and 20th Century-Fox, through their own M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service, the M-G-M Limited Edition Collection, has released A Quiet Place in the Country (Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna), the 1969 Italian-French shocker starring Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, directed by Elio Petri (it appears here under a new banner for the Limited Edition Collection: World Films). A sensuous, scary, horrifying nightmare of artistic madness...or supernatural possession (?), A Quiet Place in the Country was totally new to me―and it blew me away. An original trailer is included for this beautiful widescreen transfer, but don't be mislead by the back cover of M-G-M's disc holder: A Quiet Place in the Country is presented here in its original Italian language track with optional English subtitles, as M-G-M states...but the original English dub is also available on the disc, too―very cool.
Leonardo Ferri (Franco Nero), is one of the top young avante garde painters in Milan, Italy...and he's quickly going crazy there; he hasn't completed a painting in two months. Threatened by his agent/lover Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave), who's insistent on keeping the touchy, mercurial artist productive while he's still the flavor of the month, Leonardo accepts an offer to work at a count's villa. However, upon arrival, he freaks out and leaves (the Count and Flavia made too big a deal of the arrangement, including inviting the press), being drawn to a crumbling, abandoned villa farther out in the country. Insisting that Flavia purchase the villa for him, Leonardo discovers from the property's caretaker, Attilio (Georges Geret), that the former owner, killed in an RAF air raid during WWII, was a young countess who was vilified by the townspeople for being sexually promiscuous. Quickly becoming obsessed with finding out who this woman was, Leonardo begins to lose his grip on reality...or is he being tormented by the young countess' ghost?
MAJOR MOVIE-RUINING PLOT SPOILERS WARNING!
Prior to this disc showing up in my mailbox, A Quiet Place in the Country would have been just another title in director Elio Petri's list of films to me. Petri's The 10th Victim is a yearly favorite of mine, and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion impressed me when I saw it back in college, but A Quiet Place in the Country was completely new to me (I didn't even know who starred in it until I saw the DVD cover). How cool, then, is it to find the kind of movie that hits all the marks for you―1960s European filmmaking, big international stars, a glossy, dazzling visual approach to sex and violence―when you never even heard of it before? That kind of discovery is exactly what the studios' M.O.D. library services should be about: little-seen titles that need to be more readily available.
Whether or not you take A Quiet Place in the Country as a ghost story or a psychological horror story (or a combo of the two) is entirely up to you, because director and co-writer Petri, along with scripter Luciano Vincenzoni (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Duck, You Sucker) let you know right up front that A Quiet Place in the Country is going to be more of a self-reflexive commentary rather than a straight-ahead story―not a surprise from this ideas-focused director. With the credits rolling over superimposed splices, scratches and film leader tags, the opening shot of Nero, strapped to a chair, goes to close-up when Vincenzoni blatantly switches the rotating camera lens. That all looks very 60s European "film trendy" now, but it's also the equivalent of having a title card say, "Once upon a time..." It's fantasy. Everything is suspect in A Quiet Place in the Country because not only is the lead character obviously delusion, the director also remains resolutely deceptive and illusionary.
It isn't hard to get at the ideas Petri and Vincenzoni are throwing around here; they're fairly straightforward in their musings about artistic alienation and specifically emasculation in 1969's increasingly mechanized, electronicized western world. The opening sequence, which we learn is really a dream (or is it...), makes its point pretty clearly. Artist Nero, almost naked, is strapped down to a chair, unable to move, when his agent/lover Redgrave comes in from shopping, having bought several pointless gadgets ("a submarine television for scuba diving"). She plugs in all the appliances at his feet, turns them on, and then takes off her panties to turn him on, before he breaks free and tries to kill her―before she knifes him over and over again in the tub...with her clothes off...and then on again. Later, Nero has a vision (?) of Redgrave as nurse, wheeling him around, incapacitated, through the streets, after she's bought some more expensive items (no doubt from the commission she obtains from the paintings she keeps prodding him to execute). None of this is too terribly hard to get at, but it's presented within the framework of Nero being a schizophrenic (and later possibly haunted by a real/unreal ghost), so we're constantly kept off guard by the flashforwards and delusions as to Petri's intentions: message, or story.
Another theme Petri explores here is the connection between pornography and violence. Having bought soft-core nudie mags (Petri has the magazines "announce" themselves over the soundtrack, as if they're running through Nero's head), Nero heads to bed and reads the stories in an exaggerated, dramatic voice, scorning them (while at the same time, obviously, enjoying the pictures), while Redgrave joins in, eventually becoming turned on herself―which immediately disgusts Nero (which really shows he's crazy, because Redgrave looks incredible here in her black lingerie). When Nero needs to get jacked-up to work (after his recounted dream is laughed at by Redgrave before she orders him to paint again, like an employee or a little boy), he looks at alternating slides of naked women and war atrocities (one assumes they're from Vietnam). And when he does make love to Redgrave, it becomes a parody of what he sees in the books, roughly pushing her face away and choking her. He's angry at her for turning him into a commodity (he states he doesn't work for profits when she insists she needs a certain number of paintings from him); he's turned on by the pornography he looks at, and he's terrified of her sexual hold over him that has contributed to his artistic indecisiveness. The movie's early sequence showing Nero painting (big, wet, red messy paintings, full of water/sexual symbolism that he constantly paints over in indecision) is brilliant, showing inspiration running afoul of artistic frustration and almost certainly madness (Petri is smart enough to keep this all in perspective, though; later in the movie, when someone compliments Nero on his paintings illustrating the "crisis of humans," he sarcastically rejoins they illustrate the crisis of "horse turds").
Once Nero takes up residence at the crumbling villa, and becomes obsessed with the story of its former occupant, the ghost story elements of A Quiet Place in the Country kick in through several remarkable sequences where Petri, with the aid of cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, editor Ruggero Mastroianni, and Ennio Morricone's discordant, chaotic score, thoroughly discombobulate the viewer as to whether or not a ghost is haunting Nero, or if he's imagining it all in his delusional sickness. Again, reality and illusion are indistinguishable from each other here. At one point, it seems certain that some entity has spilled Nero's paints and made a complete mess of his workroom...but at the brilliantly-staged séance scene towards the end of the film, it seems certain Nero was behind all of the ghostly occurrences after all (Nero walks the line perfectly here between sympathetic, sick artist, and possessed lunatic).
Petri even goes so far as to shoot the entire final act as if he's concretely saying everything is in Nero's head (Petri shows Nero making love to the ghost of the countessa, before he jump cuts to Nero making love to no one...and then himself!), right down to the "imagined" slaying of Redgrave, an absolutely horrifying, nauseating sequence that reminds one of the Manson killings in its savage brutality (Nero, bearded like Manson, flails away at Redgrave with a shovel, bonging her repeatedly in the face―looks quite real―before he drags her lifeless body onto the kitchen table and chops it up for the Frigidaire®). However, the next morning, Nero finds her quite alive as the cops come (first for the caretaker, before Nero, in a nice bit of Hitchcockian suspense and misdirection), ready to lock him up in the nut house. As he paints away, satisfying his orderly's request for small, little paintings in exchange for nudie mags, we see Redgrave collecting the paintings from the orderly, and commenting positively on Nero's work (another jab at modern commerce versus artistic freedom). Did the ghost push him over the edge, or did he do it himself? Was there a ghost? Did he really murder Redgrave, or imagine it? Maybe he's been in the asylum the entire time, and this is all just another fevered delusion, like the opening dream sequence? It all depends on how you look at it....
The DVD:
The Video:
The anamorphically enhanced, 1.85:1 widescreen image for A Quiet Place in the Country looks quite good, with solid color, a sharpish image, and only minor dirt and scratches.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 mono audio track is re-recorded at a high level, with all dialogue quite clear and sharp. Again: don't let the back of the DVD cover fool you―both the original Italian language track and the English dub are available here, both with English subtitles. Very nice for one of these M.O.D. presentations.
The Extras:
There's an original trailer for A Quiet Place in the Country. It's just as creepy as the movie.
Final Thoughts:
Disturbing, sensational aural/visual experience. Writer/director Elio Petri creates a completely unstable environment for his tale of personal madness, artistic chaos, and supernatural violence. Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero are beautiful to look at here. One of a kind. On content alone, I'm giving A Quiet Place in the Country our highest rating here at DVDTalk: the DVD Talk Collector Series award.
It's all horror, all the time here for this Halloween edition of The M.O.D. Squad, so let's drive a stake through our recent horror M.O.D. reviews:
DVDTalk editor John Sinnott reviews Lon Chaney's little-seen 1925 effort, The Monster, The Snow Devils, the final film in the Gamma I Quadrilogy, and the Rankin-Bass/ Tsuburaya production of The Last Dinosaur:
1925 was a good year for Lon Chaney. He had become a big name star with The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, and made the unsettling He Who Gets Slapped the following year. In '25, he would release two more outstanding films: The Phantom of the Opera and The Unholy Three, along with a more minor film, The Monster, opposite comedian Johnny Arthur. This lesser know Chaney film is now available through Warner's Archive Collection. The Monster tries to meld Arthur's humorous milksop character with some chilling "old house" aspects, and while each of them works on their own, the two elements don't really mix well (did the producer or director really think they would?). Even with this flaw, Chaney gives a great performance and the film is actually very enjoyable.
With the release of The Snow Devils, Warner Archives has put out the final film in the Gamma I Quadrilogy on DVD. That's quite a treat for fans of hokey 60's sci-fi movies (and I usually abhor the term "sci-fi"... it sounds childish and shouldn't be used for films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but in the case of these films, the term fits all too well). These four Italian films, War of the Planets, Wild, Wild Planet, War Between the Planets, and Snow Devils were directed by Antonio Margheriti in a period of weeks in 1965. Shot at the same time on a very limited budget (and freely reusing footage between the various movies), they aren't really sequels to one another, but they do all take place in the same shared universe of cars with plastic roofs and interplanetary space ships. And, as one might guess from the origin, these aren't the height of filmmaking as The Snow Devils clearly illustrates. Still, even for its faults, and there are many, the film is a wild ride. Partially bergfilme (a German genre of films involving mountain climbing), part spy film, part monster movie, and part outer space adventure, this movie tries to do it all.
In 1977, Rankin/Bass Productions (the people who created a lot of the holiday stop-motion TV specials like Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town and Mad Monster Party decided to make the jump to the silver screen. They teamed up with Tsuburaya Productions, the Japanese company behind Ultraman, to create The Last Dinosaur. On paper it sounds like a "can't miss" scenario. The script concerns a lost prehistoric valley, just like the popular The Land That Time Forgot which did very well at the box office two years earlier; the cost could be kept down by using Tsuburaya's expertise in "man in a suit" monsters; and there would be a lot of interest on both sides of the Pacific. Unfortunately, the bad dialog, bad acting, and silly plot devices will leave most viewers either laughing or rolling their eyes. For that reason, if you're looking for a so-bad-its-good film, you should definitely give this one a try.
Kurt Dahlke looks at the cult Aussie horror flick, Razorback, and tasty, tacky, The Incredible Melting Man:
Fitting nicely into the pantheon of great Australian genre flicks, Razorback deserves its spot with the beasts, but not the relative obscurity it garnered. Now, Warner Brothers' Archive Collection will kindly send you a M.O.D. of this essential Aussie monster movie, a cult movie that deserves a wider audience. Featuring moody photography, a tense atmosphere, and a great, judiciously employed monster, Razorback rises above genre trappings and Jaws comparisons to become a tense horror-thriller in its own right. Recommended.
Maybe in 1977 light sabers were the thing, but for director William Sachs, the only thing the stars were good for was turning people into melting maniacs: monsters craving flesh as their faces turned to goo. OK, only one monster, and not really the next Universal Legacy Monster, as they wanted you to think, but with a bunch of misguided gore and unintentional hilarity that wallowed in ignominy, The Incredible Melting Man proved that Joe Six-pack would go to the theater specifically to see some dude's face melt. For that reason alone, any self-respecting horror fan should find this dumb-as-a-stump piece of midnight madness highly recommended...until an extras-packed Blu-ray comes along, that is.
And Paul Mavis looks at Larry Cohen's A Return to Salem's Lot, Mark Harmon's Ted Bundy take in The Deliberate Stranger, the deliciously creepy TV movie, The Possessed, the kinda-gory 1977 Joe Don Baker actioner, The Pack, and Michael Crichton's cerebral sci-fi/horror, The Terminal Man:
Co-written and directed by Larry Cohen, and starring Michael Moriarty, director Sam Fuller, Andrew Duggan, June Havoc, and Evelyn Keyes, A Return to Salem's Lot grooves along to its own quirky rhythms (not surprising considering its writer/director), offering up mild pleasures for those who may be looking for something outside the ordinary low-budget horror conventions. Too interesting to miss, but regrettably not very scary, A Return to Salem's Lot always has lots of intriguing ideas floating around, but not enough of them are developed to make much of a dent against Cohen's slipshod construction and tame thrills. Certainly worth a rental for anyone interested in Cohen, though.
Necessarily sanitized but extremely effective, accurate account of one of America's most notorious serial killers. Warner Bros.' on-line M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) Archive Collection service has released The Deliberate Stranger, the 1986 NBC miniseries starring Mark Harmon as Ted Bundy, who admitted to murdering at least 30 women during a horrific four-year killing spree in the mid-1970s. Directed by veteran television helmer Marvin J. Chomsky, and with a superlative supporting cast including Frederic Forrest, George Grizzard, Ben Masters, Glynnis O'Connor, John Ashton, Bonnie Bartlett, Billy Green Bush, and M. Emmet Walsh, The Deliberate Stranger still frightens, in no small part due to the remarkable change of image orchestrated here by handsome lead, Mark Harmon.
Excellent made-for-TV shocker. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection was made for abandoned movies like The Possessed, the 1977 supernatural thriller from the ABC network, starring James Farentino, Joan Hackett, Claudette Nevins, Eugene Roche, the dewy Ann Dusenberry, and just-a-few-short-weeks-away-from-international-mega-superstardom, Harrison Ford. Reminiscent, certainly, of The Exorcist, The Possessed gets its own seriously creepy little vibe going, with an intelligent script, surprisingly effective special effects, top-notch performances, and a genuinely unsettling, scary ending. How about that for an almost-forgotten little made-for-TV movie?
Lassie Come Home...So You Can Rip My Face Off!. It gets a little silly towards the end...but the dog attacks are great. Warner Bros.' essential Archive Collection of M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) library titles has released The Pack (also known as The Long Dark Night), the 1977 "man versus nature" reworking of The Birds and Jaws, starring Joe Don Baker. Directed with a lot of verve by Enter the Dragon's Robert Clouse (who also wrote the screenplay based on the better book by David Fisher), The Pack may have its seemingly obligatory genre lapses of logic, it may not deliver the gore we've become accustomed to for this kind of movie; and its 70s genre conventions may amuse us...but it's suspenseful enough, and the dogs deliver the goods. Perfect fall/Halloween viewing for the nostalgic out there.
Cold, impersonal, distant Frankenstein re-imagining―and a fairly perverse jab at its horror/suspense genre conventions. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection, their M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service, has released The Terminal Man, the 1974 adaptation of author Michael Crichton's 1972 novel, written and directed for the screen by Michael Hodges, and starring George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, and Jill Clayburgh. Not successful with either the public or the critics when first released, The Terminal Man plays well today as a rigidly-controlled visual experience, with a positively ruthless hands-off demeanor...but that diffident stance and crushingly bleak viewpoint turns off a lot of viewers. Writer/director Mike Hodges doesn't want you anywhere near this film (and don't you have any genre fun!), and that's a daring move for what everyone involved was probably expecting from this Michael Crichton adaptation: another exciting Westworld-type thriller. Definitely an acquired taste, and there are problems with the script...but the overall effect is chilly, and chilling.
Stuart Galbraith IV looks at the colorful British thriller, Black Zoo, and the mesmerizing The Phantom of Hollywood:
1963's Black Zoo, is a colorful but absurd thriller with horror elements ... and an inescapable gay subtext common to all of producer Herman Cohen's films, at least from I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). His favorite leading man, Michael Gough is wildly over-the-top as a prissy, monomaniacal owner of a private zoo. The movie, however, is a tired reworking of concepts done more entertainingly though certainly not any better before. It's not as startlingly gruesome as Horrors of the Black Museum or as wonderfully goofy as Konga (Gough's ripe performance in that is a sight to behold), but it is in color and Panavision, and has a good cast. Long unavailable, for genre fans it's still recommended.
For movie buffs, 1074's The Phantom of Hollywood, is an absolute must. Its premise is obvious, even inevitable―a shadowy figure lurking about a disused studio backlot, in a modern-dress Phantom of the Opera. But its timing, its weirdly autobiographical, even confessional approach, and use of MGM's actual backlot as it was literally being ripped apart and sold off, is ingenious, heartbreaking, and utterly mesmerizing. It helps that The Phantom of Hollywood is also an exceptionally good TV-movie, one of the best of its kind during the Golden Age for such things. The Phantom of Hollywood gets a great, full-frame transfer just in time for Halloween.
See you next time, right here at The M.O.D. Squad!
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Hi, M.O.D. mavens. Well, regardless of what the weather looks like outside your cave, the arrival of the new school year always puts us in the mood for fall here at DVDTalk's M.O.D. Squad. The days get shorter, there's a perceptible nip in the breeze, the leaves loose their fecund green vitality and begin to turn dark shades of red and orange and yellow, and the softer light of autumn comes in sideways and golden as the laughter of children playing in the fields quietly fades away.
Yes, we're obsessed with death here at DVDTalk.
And death always reminds us of two important events you should mark on your fall calendar: the Christmas buying season and the coming Apocalypse.
Your holiday buying is the more difficult of the two. With only 106 buying days left until Santa Claus bypasses your chimney again―oh he exists, kids...he's just a bastard, is all―you're not going to want to fool around with lines out into the parking lot of your big box stores when you're trying to find that certain special DVD for a friend or loved one on Christmas Eve and all they've got is 63 copies of some public domain Cantinflas title and Brad Pitt's entire oeuvre ("Ok...gimme the Cantiflas one.") so you're running around from store to store emptying your tank that cost 58 bucks and change in gas because who the hell wants an electric car in the snow before you get hungry and try to get a seat at Olive Garden® but you might as well be asking for St. Peter's chair itself because they're booked up for the next hour and a half but they'll gladly give you that glowing disc that buzzes and tells you when your party is ready so you go outside and see how far you can chuck that glowing red disc into traffic and to hell with their endless pasta bowls because it all tastes the same anyway before you trudge back into Hell and wait in a line that makes the DMV look like backstage at the Victoria's Secret® lingerie show with everyone smelling of wet coats and mittens and greasy hair and rage before you get up to the counter and realize that what you thought was the first season of Medical Center because Chad Everett is a dreamboat and could cut you from your knave to your chaps anytime he wanted to ain't the first season of Medical Center because they don't sell that in stores but is instead the third season of Grey's Anatomy because it looked vaguely doctorish and who the hell would want to watch that piece of #$&% anyway so get online and order your special M.O.D.s through the Warner Archive website and your Christmas buying will be worry free.
But you're probably saying right now, "Isn't it a little early to be writing about Christmas and wet, smelly coats and Olive Garden®?" And we answer, "No, because Christmas plays better than Columbus Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving in the article."
What are you, a critic?
As for the coming End of Days, you tell me who the survivor is going to be? Is it the guy running out into the street, the street that's cracking and heaving as the fires of Hell whoosh up through the chasms, consuming those unlucky enough to loose their purchase and fall in? Is it the woman who dodges the flaming balls of lava that rain down on the screaming masses as she tries to get a seat at Olive Garden®? Or is it the old coot cackling and hooting on top of a mountain of M.O.D. discs, a veritable treasure trove of booty to be traded and bartered for foodstuffs and services from the roving bands of outlaw bikers who now cruelly rule the land, looking only to satisfy their carnal lusts while completing their collection of made-for-TV movies on disc?
It's that guy, can't you see that? So you best ditch the ammunition and the sacks of rice and start collecting a boatload of M.O.D.s but quick. It's your only chance.
Autumnal thoughts aside, let's look at our latest crop of M.O.D. reviews for this issue of The M.O.D. Squad. Our spotlight review this time goes to Paul Mavis' take on the cult TV spy series, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One , offered exclusively from Warner Bros.' online Archive Collection:
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One
Not the equal of its host series, but still light and silly and fun spy-jinks...at least for this first half-season. Warner Bros.' essential on-line library of M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) discs, the Archive Collection, has released The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One, a split-season 4-disc, 15-episode set of the failed 1966 spin-off of NBC's iconic TV spy series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. Starring the luscious Stephanie Powers, with (too much) assistance from game Noel Harrison (and of course U.N.C.L.E. chief Alexander Waverly, played by Leo G. Carroll), The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'s April Dancer isn't exactly a threat to Emma Peel or Honey West fans, but she does have a certain way about her, so lovers of sixties' espionage fare and the original U.N.C.L.E. series will deem this necessary viewing. No extras, unfortunately.
New York City, 1966. Behind the anonymous concrete and steel façade of their high-rise office building, the agents for U.N.C.L.E. toil unceasingly against their arch nemesis: THRUSH. Headed up by chief Alexander Waverly (Leo G. Carroll), the multi-national, apolitical spy agency U.N.C.L.E. ("United Network Command for Law and Enforcement") constantly battles the nefarious THRUSH, a shadowy world-wide criminal organization that gives aid and comfort to a bizarre amalgamation of steely-eyed opportunists, cold, deadly assassins, mundane bureaucrats, and half-crazed megalomaniacs―all of whom would stop at nothing to subvert world peace in order claim dominion over the civilized world. Two U.N.C.L.E. agents that get more than their fair share of assignments are April Dancer (Stephanie Powers), and her British sidekick, Mark Slate (Noel Harrison). Dancer, fluent in several languages, sports the latest fashions from Carnaby Street, while lanky, bemused Slate offers frequent backup for the often-times kidnapped Dancer. Together, they fight the agents of THRUSH, who use everything from "slow motion" poisons to the crystals of long-lost Atlantis, to gain world domination.
SPOILERS ALERT!
I'm not sure if I've ever read or heard anything really positive about The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., either from critics or fans of the original host series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (the more committed fans blame Man's cancellation in part on Girl's failure―which is a bit of a stretch). But I found myself enjoying it for what it was: a disposable, spoofy spy action comedy that was entertaining enough to keep me coming back. Now, back in 2007 (can it be that long ago?), I wrote an extensive (and well-received) review of the mammoth Time-Life gift set of the entire The Man From U.N.C.L.E. series (click here to read that review), so I'm a confirmed fan of the franchise (that's "fan," not "expert," so please―no enraged emails from rabid U.N.C.L.E. fanatics). Certainly, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. doesn't come close to that series' best moments (the sublime black and white first season, and the fun second color season)...but importantly, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. is really no worse than some of the more blatant excesses of Man's botched third season. And more often than not, it's quite fun, even if the stories and the production aren't exactly top-notch.
For fans of 1960s espionage television, picking out where The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. goes wrong isn't too terribly difficult, since more of it seems "wrong" than "right"...if you want to dig your heels in and hate it by comparison with other female spy projects. There's no doubt that the tiara for the genre's best female representative still resides snugly on Diana Rigg's head; her Emma Peel creation in the British cult classic The Avengers will forever be the benchmark for smart, sexy, independent, ass-kicking female spies. If you want to dig a little deeper, the year before The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. premiered, ABC tried to cash in on global "Bondmania" with its failed (but often brilliant) female spy adventure, Honey West, with the equally knee-weakening Anne Francis in the title role (you can click here for my review of that criminally-neglected series). So although the genre of television spies is overwhelmingly tilted towards male representatives (that's a whole other review), NBC's The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. spin-off doesn't automatically score pop-culture cred just because its protagonist is a woman.
Obviously, the biggest difference fans of the genre will notice with The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. is that April Dancer isn't much of an agent. Critically, we're not given any backstory on her entrance into U.N.C.L.E., nor her training, nor the amount of time she's been with the company. In The Montori Device Affair, which aired as the fifth episode, it's vaguely suggested that April is somehow a novice, appearing late and flustered for a meeting, and dressed in a virginal Peter Pan-collared outfit with her hair pulled back like a good little school marm. However, prior to that and after, she's a low-talking pro dressed to the nines. So we have to suss out where she stands in the U.N.C.L.E. organization on our own, and after watching the fifteen episodes here...we have to wonder what it is, exactly, that she does for them. The main problem is: she just isn't very physically involved here. In The Dog-Gone Affair, she holds the dog while Mark fights the baddie. In The Prisoner of Zalamar Affair, Mark drives the bulldozer as a weapon, while April tags along for the ride. And in The Mata Hari Affair, April literally cowers in front of a menacing Edward Mulhare, until Mark rescues her. According to contemporary reports of the day, this concept of having April sidestep the action aspects of espionage was intentional (why the networks did this I can only guess―perhaps because they were still afraid of a too physical, too assertive female lead?). However, it doesn't play well, particularly in comparison to dynamic head-crunchers Emma Peel and Honey West. It's almost as if April has become the "innocent victim" that was the staple of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. plots: more acted upon than acting.
Distressingly, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'s April Dancer is a bit of a stiff when it comes to the sex department, too. One of the best aspects of The Avengers episodes was the teasing "is she or isn't she interested" element of Emma Peel's relationship with Patrick Mcnee's John Steed. Sexual tension, albeit tastefully (and intriguingly) vague, was exploited from the start. In The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., however, April and Mark are much more disinterested buddies, or worse, brother and sister, in their asexual chemistry together (again, a qualified assessment since I only have the first 15 episodes here). Not only does that flatten out Powers' character, it's fatal to Noel Harrison's Slate, who's presented as a British-hip, slightly geeky Michael Caine type (a "quirky" sidekick in the spirit of Man's Illya Kuryakin), but who gets to do almost nothing with that sketchy portrait. Even worse, at least in these first 15 episodes, Powers―a gorgeous, sexy actress―comes over as almost standoffish when sex rears its ugly head. A good example is in The Mother Muffin Affair; when guest cross-over star Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo asks April to take off her sweater, Powers looks like she wants to throw up. For a secret agent designed to use her sex as a weapon, April Dancer is awfully prim and proper when the chips are down.
I can't say I was too pleased, either, with The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'s seemingly deliberate efforts to distance itself from its original host series. Nowhere (so far at least) is there a secret U.N.C.L.E. entrance for April and Mark (as in Man's celebrated Del Floria's Tailor Shop), while the offices of U.N.C.L.E. seemed to be reduced to a couple of two-wall corner mock-ups, with poor Leo G. Carroll always stuck with a communicator in his face. I never get tired of seeing the M-G-M backlot in the U.N.C.L.E. franchise (there's a great motorcycle chase in The Mother Muffin Affair, and a long-range shoot-out all over the lot in The Garden of Evil Affair), but those looking for the usual M-G-M sheen and gloss of the Man series will find The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. just a little bit more chintzy, a little more reduced in scope and gloss (even the gadgets are scarce, with April relying on her pocket transistor radio/communicator/sleeping dart gun a little too much).
With that kind of complaining, one might assume this review is going south on The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., but on the contrary, those drawbacks (and they are fundamental) don't negate the fun that can still be had here if the viewer is willing to go along with the spirit of the piece. How much of that willingness is predicated on nostalgia for such '60s exercises is of course, open for debate, but regardless, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. is consistently amusing...even if for all the wrong reasons. Anyone looking for the odd, surreal storylines of a typical Avengers episode will probably be disappointed here, although one or two come close. If the typical The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. storyline isn't exactly top-notch television espionage, it's at least entertaining, with little touches that strike you as either desperate or amusing, depending on your tolerance. A good example is the first episode, The Dog-Gone Affair, where the antidote for a "slow motion" poison is couriered by fleas on a weiner dog. I found that inexplicably silly...and funny. In The Prisoner of Zalamar Affair, a desert sheik (on the set of Elvis Presley's Harum Scarum, perhaps???) watches what else? The Sheik, with Valentino. And best of all, when he's done with his popcorn, he does what any annoying jerk in the movie theater does: he blows up the bag and pops it (the fact that he dies on poisoned popcorn just sealed the deal for me). There's no end to frequently funny recycled Perils of Pauline situations here, their hoary old clichés agreeably punched up, including Powers hung upside down over a pit of piranhas, or Mark on a rope bridge, suspended over a lava flow. And as I wrote, you might even find one or two storylines worthy of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'s more illustrious British counterpart; screenwriting legend Richard Matheson's The Atlantis Affair is a marvelously weird little entry, where a Caribbean enclave is ruled by Honore Le Gallows (the deliciously sniffy Claude Woolman), who insists on keeping the modern world at bay as he celebrates life in the 17th century. Matheson throws in everything from duels to glowing crystals from the lost city of Atlantis for one of the best entries here.
And as much as I dislike using the cliché, The Girl >From U.N.C.L.E. does have sizeable "camp" appeal (yeech), probably the only plus-factor of the U.N.C.L.E. franchise moving towards the-then briefly popular Batman craze. A sight like Boris Karloff in drag (The Mother Muffin Affair) is probably worth the price of the set alone, while watching the lithe, sexy Powers dance as Mata Hari in what else, The Mata Hari Affair, ain't no small bonus, either, fellas. In The Montori Device Affair, one of my favorites comedic actors, Edward Andrews, complete with inky black hair and silver sideburn wings, is an Italian fashion photographer, while John Carradine dons his familiar coke bottle-bottom glasses again, pasting his hair down the middle like Shemp Howard. The Lethal Eagle Affair (another bright, smart outing worthy of The Avengers), has British icon Margaret Leighton hamming it up delightfully as a former THRUSH agent desperately trying to return to the fold. Director Richard C. Sarafian (Vanishing Point) has a lot of fun directing smoothie Lloyd Bochner as a romancing, crooning gypsy in The Romany Lie Affair, right after comedy legend Mitchell Leisen directs Bochner in a broad, hilarious performance in The Danish Blue Affair (Dom De Luise is a scream, too). Watch Bochner barely conceal his delight in delivering this line after April blows the door off his cave dungeon: "Now I have to get a new door for my key!" (it looks like lots of stuff were later ripped off from this episode, including Diamonds Are Forever's "alimentary, my dear..." punchline, and that bit in Austin Powers with the too-small hallway and the electric cart). Even something as broad as The Faustus Affair is finally fun, if you just let it happen and get into the spirit of the silliness (I love Raymond Massey's office-from-Hell, and the atmosphere rooms were pretty cool).
As for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.'s raison d'etre, you can't really blame NBC for trying to come up with a way of minting more of the runaway success of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in 1965. In its sophomore session, Man went from a series that was this close to being cancelled in 1964, to a nationwide phenomenon that rode "Bondmania" into the Nielsen Top 15. I'm sure executives at NBC had every right to believe the worldwide spy craze would continue with American TV audiences, so why not try and mint another U.N.C.L.E. hit? Unfortunately, by the time The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. made it through production for the 1966-1967 season, a combination of a disastrous time slot and devastating blow to its host series, doomed the fledging spy show to "one-season wonder" status. Dropping The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back down an hour and a half (never good to air an hour-long series starting on the bottom half-hour) to 8:30pm on Fridays, it faced the stiff one-two punch of Hogan's Heroes and The CBS Friday Night Movie (17th and 18th respectively in the ratings). With an emphasis on more Batman silliness (a white-hot fad that had already faded by 1966), Man dropped out of the Nielsen Top Thirty altogether that year―an ominous sign for the fortunes of its connected spin-off). Added to that, a general feeling of franchise saturation with the various U.N.C.L.E. movies (stitched together from the TV episodes) already out in theaters, and it's no wonder that audiences in the fall of 1966 weren't all that hyped to catch April Dancer's adventures. Premiering on September 13, 1966, in its regular Tuesday night 7:30pm time slot, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. didn't have much cause for worry from the final season of the once-mighty ABC war drama, Combat!...but it did get slaughtered by the rising adventure series Daktari, over on CBS, which finished at an amazing 7th overall for the 1966-1967 season. The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. didn't stand a chance against that juggernaut, and it was quietly cancelled by the spring (with its host series managing to limp along for an additional half-season the following year before it, too, disappeared).
The DVD:
The Video:
The full-screen, 1.37:1 color transfers for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One, vary from a tad dark and red (the opener), to beautifully valued and lush (The Romany Lie Affair). Images are sharp, and screen anomalies are light. Perhaps not "remastered," but they still look quite good.
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio tracks are serviceable, with a generally healthy re-recorded level and little fluctuation. No subtitles or close-captions, however.
The Extras:
No extras, unfortunately (too bad someone couldn't have convinced that well-spoken doll Stephanie Powers to run a commentary track for one or two of the episodes here)
Final Thoughts:
I'm always suspicious of "final verdicts" on TV series that nobody seems to like, and sure enough, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. wasn't nearly as bad as I had been led to believe. In fact...it was quite fun. Anyone in the mood for entertaining, silly '60s spy-spoof spy-jinks will find The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One amusing, while fans of the delectable Stephanie Powers will no doubt enjoy her numerous fabulous wardrobe changes, and her tongue-in-cheek thesping. I'm recommending The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series - Part One.
We have a nice mix of fantasy, animation, sci-fi, drama, and comedy in this go-around of The M.O.D. Squad issue, so let's get right to it, shall we, because we're waiting for our Olive Garden® buzzer and you're going to need a sack of flour when the Sons of Silence come a'callin':
Jamie S. Rich looks at the Korean War actioner, One Minute to Zero, and the 1953 remake of The Awful Truth, Let's Do It Again:
Robert Mitchum stars in One Minute to Zero as an officer in the Korean War, taking on commies and the United Nations and any other sissy that comes his way. Too bad he didn't use the same rough hands on the script, which really needs to man up. This thinly veiled propaganda trudges along through the first two acts, with director Tay Garnett staging unexciting warfare and a romance with Ann Blyth that fizzles like a milky soufflé. That said, the big battle that closes the picture does get the blood flowing, though you might feel as mentally fatigued as the soldiers by the time you finally get there. Call this particular clash "The Big Gray Blah."
An odd rescue from the obscure bins, 1953's Let's Do It Again is a likable remake of The Awful Truth, taking Arthur Richman's original play and updating it as a showbiz musical. Jane Wyman and Ray Milland star as the couple dueling over divorce papers, scheming to make the other jealous so he or she will give in and get back together with her or him. The former Mrs. Ronald Reagan outshines her co-star, but then the script gives her the most would-be suitors and seems to suggest she's whom we should be rooting for anyway. The direction by Alexander Hall is tepid, but the presentation is colorful. Enjoyable romantic fluff.
John Sinnott looks at the 1990 version of Captain America:
Did you see Captain America: The First Avenger in theater and are your looking for more exciting adventures of the star spangled hero? If so, keep looking. If, on the other hand, you see the need for more movies where the President of the United States gets into fist fights and you also spend a lot of time wishing that superhero movies would have the protagonist pounding on a 70+ year old villain (that'd be cool!) then you're prayers have been answered. The 1990 film, Captain America, has all that and more. A so-bad-it's-good flick that you have to see to believe.
And Paul Mavis looks at three TV offerings: CBS's ratings' hit, Medical Center: The Complete First Season, NBC's big 80s nighttime soap/drama, The Yellow Rose: The Complete Series, and Hanna-Barbera's 70s Saturday morning favorite, Valley of the Dinosaurs: The Complete Series:
Dreamy Dr. Joe can crack my chest open anytime. In fact, he already did...when he first flashed those cold, cold baby blues at me. Warner Bros.' increasingly addictive Archive Collection, their exclusive on-line outlet for M.O.D. discs of their library titles, has rescued from obscurity one of the best TV dramas from the 1970s: CBS's Medical Center. Starring heartthrobs Chad Everett and James Daly (you bet Daly was also a heartthrob―my granny would get the vapors whenever he adjusted his stethoscope), Medical Center: The Complete First Seasonis a six-disc, 26-episode collection of the popular, long-running medico show's premiere outing, and it's just what you'd expect from a network A-list series from that time period: beautifully written, performed and produced. Some of the context may be necessarily dated...but the core is as relevant now as it was 40-some years ago.
Warner Bros.' Archive Collection has released The Yellow Rose: The Complete Series, a five-disc, 22-episode collection of the NBC would-be blockbuster nighttime soap starring Sam Elliott, Cybill Shepherd, David Soul, Edward Albert, Chuck Connors, Susan Anspach, Noah Beery, Jr. and Ken Curtis. Clearly an intended answer by then-loser NBC to big Nielsen winners Dallas and Dynasty, The Yellow Rose had a gritty, compelling, epic sweep to its big, big Texas tale of two powerful families battling over land and oil. However, about mid-way through the season, the whole thing goes all wrong, and The Yellow Rose rode off into the sunset after just one season. Still, The Yellow Rose: The Complete Series has enough solid episodes at the front, and good performances throughout, to recommend it to fans of the vintage prime time soap opera genre, and of the stars.
Enjoyable, fast-moving Hanna-Barbera 70s toon. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection of M.O.D. discs has dug into their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection vaults and released Valley of the Dinosaurs: The Complete Series, a two-disc, 16-episode gathering of the 1974 Saturday morning animated series' entire run. I would imagine most people are more familiar with Sid and Marty Krofft's live-action/stop-motion Land of the Lost, which premiered on the same day as cell animation Valley of the Dinosaurs, and which tells almost exactly the same story of a family lost in a prehistoric land. However, Valley of the Dinosaurs holds up pretty well against other H-B offerings from that time, with action-filled scripts and better-than-average animation.
See you next time, right here at The M.O.D. Squad!
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Hey, M.O.D. fans. Let's ask you something: in your DVD library, do you keep your M.O.D.s separate from your "store bought" discs?
We knew it.
You don't let them rub shoulders alphabetically or Dewey Decimal System-style with your Wal-Mart® bargain bin castoffs, do you. You have a special shelf for your M.O.D.s, don't you. Right over the mantle. With a baby spot on them. And when your neighbor stops by and stands transfixed in front of them, you saunter over―a little smugly, we allow―putting a firm but gentle hand on his shoulder while calmly saying, "These...are not for you. These are special. You can't just buy them anywhere." Don't you. And as you lead him away as he struggles to grab one last look over his shoulder at the entire series of Man from Atlantis or Budd Boetticher's The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, that's when you know...when you know, that it's you who are special. You, you M.O.D. collector. You, you M.O.D. lover.
You feel good about yourself knowing that, don't you?
For this latest edition of DVDTalk's The M.O.D. Squad, we've got a whole slew of new M.O.D. reviews, with the emphasis definitely on action and suspense (can you tell it's mainly dudes here at DVDTalk?) as we get ready to tell this summer to, "kiss off!" As well, announcements about upcoming M.O.D. releases, reviews, and sales, along with a new feature―our M.O.D. Squad Spotlight, where we take a closer look at a special M.O.D. release―are all here for you, too, M.O.D. maven. So let's get to it!
Man from Atlantis
Our new M.O.D. Squad Spotlight section features DVDTalk editor John Sinnott's full review of Man from Atlantis: The Complete Television Series, the NBC sci-fi cult favorite from 1977, starring Bobby Ewing Patrick Duffy that spanned four made-for-TV movies and an aborted-run 13-episode first (and last) season. The Man from Atlantis movies and regular series episodes are exactly the kind of programs perfectly suited to a M.O.D. service like the W.B.'s Archive Collection: a well-remembered fan favorite...with iffy prospects of a wide disc printing and release. John Sinnott had a lot of fun revisiting this series; here's his review:
Man from Atlantis
reviews by John Sinnott
Back in the summer of 1977 if you went to the public pool
that I frequented, you'd see a lot of young boys (especially yours
truly)
diving underwater and moving around like they were having an epileptic
seizure. We weren't having fits, we were
trying to swim link Mark Harris, the Man from Atlantis.
The series started off with not one, not two,
but four made-for-TV movies that were rated highly enough to earn the
concept a
weekly TV series. After that lengthy
trial, you'd assume that the show would get solid ratings.
That wasn't the case. A lower
budget, silly scripts and a villain
who was featured way to often doomed the show to only 13 episodes.
Still fondly remembered (and featuring
Little-seen thrillers, forgotten large-scale actioners, cult exploitation classics―if you're looking for something different, something not on the tube every other weekend (we hereby vow no Tyler Perry reviews in The M.O.D. Squad...ever!), this is the place to find it.
Paul Mavis looks at The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, Follow Me Quietly, The Southern Star, Cannon for Cordoba, Hennessy, and The Threat:
A humorous, ice-cold "B" gangster flick with a knock-out central performance, the 1960 actioner The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, helmed by cult director Budd Boetticher and starring Ray Danton in his signature role, is a nasty little homage to earlier Warner Bros. gangster classics, pulling off the neat trick of denying the audience any sympathy for its psychopathic villain―and that usually doesn't happen in these types of movies. Playing around with the genre's conventions, Boetticher gives us a perverse, blackly humorous, violent good time (b>Bonnie and Clyde, anyone?), while memorably denying us the opportunity to find one crumb of redeeming virtue in the title character. Ray Danton is simply brilliant in a criminally neglected performance.
A strange, unsettling film noir mystery with a disturbing subtext, RKO's 1949 thriller, Follow Me Quietly, may come in at an impossibly short 59 minutes...but it packs an unnerving wallop. Directed by Richard Fleischer, with a screenplay based on a story co-written by another celebrated noir alumni, Anthony Mann, dreamy/nightmarish Follow Me Quietly is a brilliant little thriller that's all the more remarkable for its economy of execution and its unsettling subtext that links an obsessed cop and a vicious serial killer a little too closely for comfort.
Lazy fun. The Southern Star, the 1969 adventure comedy based on the Jules Verne novel L'Étoile du sud, starring George Segal, Ursula Andress (topless!), Harry Andrews, Ian Hendry, Johnny Sekka, and Orson Welles, is the damnedest, most casual big-budget adventure film you probably never saw. It's difficult to pin down the source of The Southern Star's breezy, sometimes inept approach. But then again...who cares? How many times have you seen this kind of A-list production with such a charmingly nonchalant attitude? The jokes are mostly good, the adventure is hackneyed (and funny for that clichéd familiarity), and the performances are bright (even gorgeous stone-face Andress smiles a couple of times...before getting topless!). What a fun discovery of a little-seen film.
Cannon for Cordoba, the 1970 Mirisch production (for U.A.) starring George Peppard, Giovanna Ralli (I'm feeling faint...), Raf Vallone, Peter Duel, and Don Gordon, is a derivative but solid, action-filled oater. Obviously inspired by better action flicks like The Wild Bunch, The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, and The Professionals, Cannon for Cordoba may not be all that original in story or design, but it moves along at a fast clip thanks to good workmanlike direction from Paul Wendkos, while headliner Peppard is in his usual (and enjoyable) snotty mood. It hits what it aims at: a fast-moving Western action story with some good performances to anchor it.A solid The Day of the Jackal knock-off, Hennessy, the 1975 American International Pictures actioner starring Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, Richard Johnson, Eric Porter and Trevor Howard, kicked up a bit of dust when first released because footage of the British Royal Family was skillfully inserted―without their approval―into the narrative, but today, if it's remembered at all, Hennesy gets a nod for a relatively rare low-key turn by hambone extraordinaire Rod Steiger, and clean direction by Don Sharp. Hennessy's basic framework may be derivative, but it's executed with some efficient verve...even if the final action is a little silly. A grim, layered little revenge drama, given a big boost by Rod Steiger's quiet turn.
A fast-moving, hard-edged little B-noir from RKO. The Threat, a 1949 thriller starring Michael O'Shea, Virginia Grey, Charles McGraw, Frank Conroy, and Robert Shayne, has a speedy run time of only 65 minutes, telling its revenge story quickly and neatly, with a beautifully psychotic central performance by gravel-voiced McGraw to distinguish it.
Jamie S. Rich reviews The Purple Gang, Three Hours to Kill, and Blind Alley:
Frank McDonald's 1959 The Purple Gang is an entertaining if underwhelming take on a true story. Documenting the crew of young toughs that terrorized Prohibition-era Detroit and the cop that brought them down, it was part of a wave of anti-crime pictures the Hollywood studios made to show they weren't just about exploitation. Much of the story is by numbers--hotheaded thug takes over the gang, dedicated police detective doesn't rest until he takes him down--but some fine supporting players and the director's facility for artful framing keep it interesting. The Purple Gang is also notable for a young Robert Blake deviously chipping away at his craft as the main gangster. The Purple Gang is lacking in surprises, but dependable.
The 1939 crime thriller Blind Alley is a familiar hostage scenario: killer on the run traps a group of people in their own home waiting for his way out. Though this Charles Vidor adaptation of a popular stage play has the added narrative wrinkle of the homeowner being a Freudian psychologist, the script never really transcends the very basic plotting. The movie moves at a languid and predictable pace, though Chester Morris as the troubled bad guy manages to sizzle in just about every scene. Likewise, Vidor's cinematic portrayals of his inner turmoil seem inventive even all these years later. Too bad the rest of the production never quite rises to the same level. A functional old-school nailbiter, entertaining but somewhat forgettable.
Alfred Werker's 1954 western Three Hours to Kill leaves the fancy stuff for other cowboy movies, but what it lacks in fuss it makes up for in efficient storytelling. Dana Andrews leads the cast as a wronged man returning to town to clear his name and get some payback for the rope scar on his neck. Donna Reed plays his lost love, while Dianne Foster is the hooker with a heart of gold who always knew he didn't murder anybody. (Carolyn Jones also has a brief role as a sexy blonde card dealer). The movie covers the late afternoon hunt that Andrews' character undertakes, seeking out the real killer and exposing the town's dark secrets. It's not great or even super memorable, but Werker takes the material seriously and manages to pull a tight little action picture out of the otherwise very basic plotline.
Moving over to dramas and comedies, Jamie S. Rich looks at Jules Dassin's Phaedra:
Jules Dassin's 1962 retelling of Euripides is a sensuous celebration of all things Greek. Phaedra stars the director's wife, Melina Mercouri, as the title character and Anthony Perkins as the stepson with whom she has a dangerous affair. The story is one of sex and consequences, and Dassin embraces its central metaphors and stokes their fires using arty photography and breathless pacing. Theirs is a feverish love affair, and the downfall that follows hits hard. Phaedra maybe can't maintain the energy it starts out with, but the performances are strong, the music infectious, and the overall staging is excellent.
Nick Hartel looks at Hart to Hart Returns:
Falling prey to "past their prime" reunion syndrome, Hart to Hart Returns fumbles to regain its early 80s stride opening far too many narrative doors that often are shut ham-handedly at the last minute. Once Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers manage to chip away some of the old rust, the magic that made the original series shines through, despite the main narrative being uninspired genre drivel. Presented in a manner fitting of its network TV roots, the 1.33:1 original aspect ratio transfer and plain Dolby 2.0 audio track will whisk you back to the days of the ultra rich and suave using their detective skills for good, sticking it to greedy industrialists and murderers or quite simply 90-minutes of passable escapist entertainment.
Kurt Dahlke looks at Meet the Stewarts:
Meet the Stewarts, a B-picture comedy from the 1940s, doesn't feel nearly as dated as you'd expect. Despite a leisurely pace and some less-than-politically-correct jokes, universal themes and smart humor make this William Holden/ Frances Dee starrer as good a way to shut off your brain as you'd find with many other smart modern comedies. With a raft of farcical performances still grounded in emotional reality, The Stewarts is a movie―and a married couple―you'll find recommended.
And Paul Mavis looks at The Hucksters:
Thoroughly enjoyable, if a tad long, M-G-M glossy, 1947's The Hucksters, the all-star, cleaned-up adaptation of the blockbuster best seller by Frederic Wakeman that took a cynical look at the worlds of radio and advertisement, sees the King of Hollywood, Clark Gable, return to form after a disastrous post-war comeback vehicle, Adventure, in 1945. Ably supported by Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Ava Gardner, Keenan Wynn, and Edward Arnold, The Hucksters may be necessarily sanitized out of context, and there's certainly too much romancing for the long running time...but Gable is King, and the swipes at the media and advertising worlds are as true today as they were over 70 years ago.
And we're gonna review 'em all...and more, right here at The M.O.D. Squad! See you next time!
Have a question about MOD discs? Have a suggestion or correction? Drop us an e-mail and we'll try to devote an upcoming column to reader's comments!
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This week when your mailman offers up only bills and cackles, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity, you know," while his face seems to melt off its skull in a mirage haze, we here at DVDTalk's The M.O.D. Squad recommend flinging a public domain DVD at his plastic pith helmet (we found those heavy Canadian knock-offs like The Fat Spy or The Boy in the Plastic Bubble work nicely). If, however, you're lucky enough to receive a freshly-pressed, manufactured-on-demand disc of a movie you've been dying to see, invite that civil servant to hitch up his wool shorts and dip his piddies in your wading pool because M.O.D. titles are life-savers this sweltering summer. In this god-forsaken heat you don't want to screw around with endless choices on cable or some confusing on-line service, further frazzling your deep-fried brain?you know what you want, so order it up and hang out at the kids' Slip-n-Slide® until it comes right to your door.
If, however, you're too wasted from the heat to know what you're doing ("Please nail a damp sponge to my head, someone...is that you, Grampa? You're dead!"), we can help here at The M.O.D. Squad. Even bigger than our premier issue, this month's column is bursting with M.O.D. reviews to point you in the right direction for hot summer fun in front of your big screen monitor (...or maybe your phone, if you're downloading direct for the Warner Archive titles). Our review staff here at DVDTalk's The M.O.D. Squad is an eclectic bunch (read: squirrelly), and we're offering up reviews covering a wide range of genres this time out, so don't limit yourself. Dive deep, pallie?that's where the really cool water is.
The first rule of thumb for surviving a heat wave is to stay calm and keep hydrated watch cartoons; a body can only survive three days at the most without old-timey cell animation. Wily desert rat Jamie S. Rich knows where to dig for toons, coming up with a look at the H-B classic, The Herculoids :
"The Herculoids: The Complete Series collects the 1967 cartoon series on two-discs, and it's an odd duck to try to assess. This whacked-out space-age prehistoric animation show (how many demographics were they hoping to hit?) is a lot of inane fun, no doubt, but The Herculoids is also an artifact from a time when animation was maybe bigger on ideas than the execution allowed for. This series has some super cool characters and each individual ten-minute adventure works well on its own―it's all kinetic energy, there is no nuance or pathos, so how could they not? As a package, though, it may strain the senses. "Credibility" is not a word that exists in Zandor's vocabulary! Good for one run, through, but you may have to watch some Tarkovsky sci-fi afterwards just to restore balance to your tilted brain space." (read Jamie's full review here)
Reviewer Neil Lumbard, no stranger either to Earth's most plentiful resource―cartoons―offers up reviews of Challenge of the GoBots: The Original Miniseries and The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones for the thirsty:
"Challenge of the GoBots is an incredibly fun and campy adventure through the weirder side of Hanna-Barbera. This robotic action series offered quite a few dramatically different elements that set it apart from the more popular Transformers creation. It's an interesting show that will appeal to fans of other fun action cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera, such as Space Ghost and Bird Man. As for The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, ever wondered what it would be like for the stone age family to meet the space age family? So did a lot of other people... and this film is the proof of that. This made-for-TV film offers a surprisingly fun glimpse into exactly how wacky things can get when two of the most popular families created in animated television history cross paths. There are many exciting possibilities presented as in any good sci-fi yarn." (read Neil's full reviews here and here)
Okay...I'll give you that war is hell...but traversing a patch of blistering sand in your bare feet ain't no picnic, either. So snag your Guinness® flip-flops with the matching hat from that damned dog, get under the sun umbrella, and keep the battlefields safely on your digital displays. DVDTalk Commander John Sinnott looks at Destroyer:
"A patriotic film from 1943, Destroyer stars Edward G. Robinson and Glenn Ford as two members of a newly commissioned destroyer who go to war against each other while trying to get the ship into the thick of things against the Japanese. While the movie is short of surprises or plot twists, the cast is so good that it's a lot of fun to watch." (read John's full review here)New grunt Christopher McQuain hops-to Toward the Unknown:
"If we're judging Mervyn LeRoy's 1956 Cold War-paranoia military drama as art, you're out of luck. But as artifact? It's rich with unsublimated examples of Eisenhower-era fantasy and nightmare, with Holden as playing an air force test pilot who, plagued by his 14-month internment as a POW in Korea, is too mentally unstable to be trusted with prototypical space-race technology. The lurid, glaring, Technicolor question is not, of course, whether Holden's character is owed some consideration by the government that sent him to Korea, but whether he'll get over his posttraumatic nailbiting in time to become the fully functioning cold warrior that any real American man would want to be. It's not a "good" movie, exactly; but as a time capsule, it is endlessly fascinating." (read Christopher's full review here)Grizzled veteran Stuart Galbraith IV takes a hard look at Battle of the Coral Sea:
"Promising much but delivering little, Battle of the Coral Sea (1959) is a lower-budgeted pastiche of much better movies. The title, poster art, and coming attractions trailer are misleading: the Battle of the Coral Sea doesn't commence until the movie is nearly over, about five minutes before the end. Instead, the picture starts out as a routine submarine movie then transitions into a low-rent Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) ―by way of The Camp on Blood Island (1957)―weakly referencing popular movies that, like Battle of the Coral Sea, were distributed by Columbia. Cliff Robertson is the submarine skipper who makes like Alec Guinness. At least this Columbia Classics title gets an excellent 1.85:1 enhanced widescreen presentation, along with an action-packed, hard-sell trailer." (read Stuart's full review here)Jamie S. Rich, in full retreat, looks over his shoulder at Eight Iron Men:
"War may be hell, but it's not always good drama. Eight Iron Men, the 1952 World War II drama helmed by Edward Dmytryk, is one of those hard to quantify movies that really does everything right, but somehow comes out being not all that great anyway. In a way, it's a wartime chamber piece, following a platoon of men stuck in one bombed-out building as they try to figure out how to save one of their own from sniper fire before the company moves out. With staunch performances from Lee Marvin and Richard Kiley on opposite ends of the argument, you'd think the film could generate some steam, but not even a couple of shootouts can raise it out of the doldrums. Being workmanlike means you aren't all bad when the workmen are this good, but it still should have been better." (read Jamie's full review here)And Nick Hartel salutes The Rack:
"Engulfed by the shadows of obscurity, this 1956 courtroom thriller followed on the heels of star Paul Newman's breakout hit, Someone Up Their Likes Me. Director Arnold Laven turns in a handsomely shot, steadily moving film that lets Rod Serling's original teleplay seep into the minds of viewers. Newman plays Capt. Edward W. Hall, Jr., a psychologically tortured Korean war vet accused of collaboration during his time in a POW camp. The film is a slow burn for the first half, before entering the halls of a military tribunal where Newman dials back his performance to a more realistic level and help put the final touches on a morally ambiguous tale of honor and the limits of sanity. Touted by Warner as being remastered, this Archive release sports an above-average 1.85:1 original aspect ratio transfer that still suffers from some noticeable print damage and an ear pleasing, dialogue driven English mono soundtrack." (read Nick's full review here)
Nothing says overheated summer like a pitcher of lemonade out on the front porch as the drunken couple down the block take their third screaming fight of the night out into the middle of the street ("Did I just feel a breeze? Oh, here come the cops."). If you're unfortunate enough to live in a good neighborhood, you'll have to get your vicarious heavy drama kicks via the movies, and the staff here at DVDTalk love heavy drama. Christopher McQuain looks at The Juggler:
"It might be thematically overstuffed―it takes on topics like The Holocaust, the State of Israel, and post-traumatic stress in its 90 minutes―but The Juggler is well worth seeking out for the experience of director Edward Dmytryk's sure hand with visuals, tone, and pacing; and star Kirk Douglas―as a German Jew who survived the Nazi camps, lost his family, and is now relocating to the newly established Israel―offers up his usual, undeniable charisma. It may not do full justice to all the thorny questions it raises, but The Juggler is a remarkable, riveting example of Hollywood craft in the twilight of the studios' golden age." (read Christopher's full review here)Stuart Galbraith IV looks at Park Row:
"Despite a budget really too low for its ambitions, Samuel Fuller's Park Row (1952) is at once a romantic, exciting, and authentic portrait of the New York newspaper business circa 1886. Fuller himself was every inch the cigar-chomping The Front Page reporter, supposedly covering the crime beat while still a teenager and credited with breaking the news of Jeanne Eagles's death when he was barely 17 years old. Park Row, Fuller's fourth low-budget film as a director, was obviously a personal project and he sank all his money into its production, some $200,000―save for a grand he kept for vodka and cigars. The film is Fuller's Citizen Kane: the subject matter is similar and like Orson Welles's masterpiece Fuller crams every scene with innovation and terrific performances. Part of MGM's Limited Edition Collection line of DVD-Rs, Park Row has been given a strong black and white, full-frame video transfer that does the picture justice. The only extra feature, alas, is a trailer, but it's complete with text and narration." (read Stuart's full review here)
Bill Gibron looks at A Thousand Clowns, The Woman on the Beach, and Because They're Young:
"There is something supremely satisfying about watching a well written and realized work. As the ideas bounce around on carefully constructed sentences and scenes, as perfectly in sync actors make the verbal volleys come to life, you can't imagine anything better. There is also something supremely frustrating about the experience as well. Real life is not "scripted." It doesn't come with pithy one liners, accurate single paragraph pronouncements, or participants in perfect control of their 'character.' Thus we have the main dilemma in A Thousand Clowns. Herb Gardner may not be Neil Simon, but he does write a damn fine dramatic comedy. He has the nuances and the nuttiness of these early '60s oddballs down pat. He also has a lot of interesting things to say about the human condition. But Gardner is also a writer first. These people talk like - well, as one character says to another at one point - like everything was put on paper down for them before hand. Granted, the words are exciting and electrifying, but too often than not, they feel like pages in a playbook, not actual thoughts. Watching The Woman on the Beach is like experiencing shards of genius wrapped inside a weird, indecipherable narrative. Renior's visual flair, combined with his love of character, should make this manipulative noir work - and he definitely does try. The opening sequence where Robert Ryan is reliving his wartime attack is merciless in its optical invention. In between the dream like walk along the ocean floor, the skeletal remains, and the shadowy sections of destroyed ship, we witness a bravura turn by a man known for his cinematic artistry. And then the storyline kicks in and things start to fall apart. For all his dashing darkness, Ryan can't make his character sympathetic. Similarly, Joan Bennett's lonely lady is laughable, her motives unclear and her desires even foggier. When they first meet (alongside a decaying beached boat that begins a major narrative set-piece), there is no chemistry, so the instant attraction feels forced. Later, when he is sacrificing his sanity for she, the lack of any carnal connection renders their already unrealistic romance moot. As for Because They're Young, get ready to feel bad―really bad―about loving a manipulative melodrama as much as you will adore Because They're Young. By definition, this shouldn't work. Not at all. Dick Clark is an odd choice for any movie role, let alone the overly involved teacher still smarting from a tragedy (and a professional miscalculation) in the past. He's not the father figure type, those he's saddled with one of those TV typecast tykes who's all big eyes and toed-headed tears, and his past as a big time college quarterback is constantly challenged by the Bandstand host's lack of significant physicality. And yet thanks to the many kitchen sink machinations in the script, as well as a Central Casting collection of overripe adolescents (the criminal loner, the bad girl, the dopey cheerleader, the equally lunkheaded jock) we get a pre-Beatles break from all the juvenile delinquency and cautionary exemplifying. Instead, this is a movie that moves along at a wicked pace, wearing out its welcome over one socially questionable concern before lightly leaping to another. It's all very pot boiler plate, and all so very soap opera satisfying." (read Bill's full reviews here, here, and here )Jamie S. Rich looks at The Reluctant Saint and The Goddess:
"Edward Dmytryk's 1963 film, The Reluctant Saint, does a good job of tackling some difficult-to-portray religious material, but perhaps is too reverent where it counts. Maximilian Schell turns in a fantastic, physical performance as Saint Joseph of Cupertino, the village idiot who eventually rose to sainthood―quite literally, if you believe the stories of his levitating during religious ecstasy. The Reluctant Saint has some humor and some heart, and Dmytryk treats the material seriously, but it's kind of bloodless, particularly when the story itself turns dark. As for the showbiz tragedy, The Goddess, it's a real surprise. This melodramatic effort by writer Paddy Chayefsky and director John Cromwell is exactly the kind of movie one would hope a movies-on-demand initiative would unearth: a little-known, imperfect film that maybe has gone unfairly unnoticed. The Goddess is a startlingly prescient fictionalized take on the Marilyn Monroe mythos made while Marilyn Monroe was right at the tipping point between her greatest successes and her difficult final years. Chayefsky gives us a life in three acts: young girl dreaming big, young woman chasing those dreams, and the bitter reality of getting what she wants. Kim Stanley gives it her best shot in trying to be this invented starlet, and there are good supporting performances from Lloyd Bridges and Betty Lou Holland, but The Goddess falls short of its full mark. Still, the writing is so good and the performances so riveting, and Cromwell directs with such an assured hand, you'll want to sit through it nonetheless." (read Jamie's full reviews here and here)And Paul Mavis, a near-hysteric, wallows in Mister Buddwing, The Interns, and A Rage To Live:
"Three good performances from the lead actresses, and some effective location shooting in New York City...but miscast Garner is saddled with a painfully pretentious script. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection has released Mister Buddwing, the 1966 amnesiac drama starring James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Angela Lansbury and Katherine Ross. It's tough to screw up an amnesia movie; it always works to have the audience fumble around with the lead character, searching with him to find his identity. However...you have to like that lead character, and "Mister Buddwing" is a pretentious bore with a serious case of "morning icks," to quote a much funnier, tortured New Yorker. Mister Buddwing doesn't convince with its faux-nouvelle vague veneer, its obvious, clichéd subplot about selling out in America, nor especially in the disastrous miscasting of James Garner as a tortured artist trying to find his "identity." Only the lead actresses bring something valuable to the table, with Simmons and Pleshette particularly good in their flashy turns; for them alone, Mister Buddwing rates a look. A vintage behind-the-scenes featurette for Mister Buddwing has been included here as a bonus―nice. As for The Interns...calling Dr. Earnest! Dr. Hysteria! Dr. Soapy! Lovers of vintage medical dramas still waiting in vain for dreamy Drs. Casey or Kildare to return will no doubt take to The Interns, the 1962 drama from Columbia Pictures, made available through Sony's own M.O.D. on-line service. Starring a cast of future TV and movie stars like Cliff Robertson, Buddy Ebsen, Telly Savalas, and Stefanie Powers...along with a few almost-wases like Nick Adams and Haya Harareet, The Interns will probably get laughs from anyone who thinks the hilariously self-conscious E.R. is the be-all end-all of hospital dramas. But for those who like their doctoring straight-up platitudinous and faux-revealing, then The Interns' soapy prescription is positively therapeutic. No extras for this okay transfer. And if one is offered lush, husky-voiced Suzanne Pleshette as a nymphomaniac? Count me in. A Rage To Live, a 1965 super-sudser from United Artists, based on the 1949 best-selling pot boiler from O'Hara, and starring Pleshette, Bradford Dillman, Ben Gazzara, and Peter Graves, is a potentially intriguing look at a woman's psycho-sexual obsessions. This glossy bedroom drama can't quite overcome its still-landlocked Hollywood studio treatment (no nudity or frank sexual depictions, as would have been the case just a few years later), but as a big-screen soaper, it hits all the marks fans of this genre expect, with a beautiful black and white transfer here a big bonus. Anyone expecting a "serious" discussion of nymphomania should look elsewhere than A Rage To Live. This gorgeous-looking 1965 pot boiler is more interested in putting beautiful people in suitably titillating, compromising positions so we the audience can enjoy it all from afar―and that's how we like our soap operas. It helps, too, that Suzanne Pleshette is not only gorgeous, but also that she gives one of her best performances here." (read Paul's full reviews here, here, and here)
Here's a summertime fantasy for you: those high school senior girls at the adjacent backyard pool party don't think you're a perv for clipping the same hedge for four hours. We know that old summertime scam at DVDTalk, and we caught you at it. It's much safer to indulge your fantasies in front of the widescreen. Stuart Galbraith IV peeps at Creatures the World Forgot:
"Hammer's last stab at the caveman genre was Creatures the World Forgot (1971), the fourth and least entertaining of the bunch. On the plus side, it reunited One Million Years, B.C. (1966) director Don Chaffey with composer Mario Nascimbene. They contributed as much to that film as Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion dinosaurs, giving the underrated film an otherworldly and genuinely prehistoric feel. Sadly, Creatures the World Forgot doesn't generate 1/10th as much compelling atmosphere, though there are wisps of it here and there. However, what interest is generated pretty much evaporates after the first act, and toward the end chances are good you'll be pleading for it to end. Part of Sony's Columbia Classics line of DVD-Rs, Creatures the World Forgot looks fantastic, and at 95:20 appears to be the uncut, unrated and A-rated British version of the film, though it's not entirely clear if it was cut for its GP-rated American run. The film is presented in 16:9 enhanced widescreen, and comes with a similarly enhanced widescreen trailer." (read Stuart's full review here)
Ah, music to our sun-burnt, peeling ears: the sound of those same snotty high school girls belly-flopping off the low board. "SAAAAA-MACK! Whaaaaaaaaa!" Stuart Galbraith IV lends an ear to Hoedown
"Yet another pleasant B-picture surprise from Sony's terrific Columbia Classics line of manufactured-on-demand DVD-Rs, Hoedown was advertised as a showcase for country music singer Eddy Arnold and a few other country and western swing acts. In fact more than half the film satirizes the world of B-Westerns and their promotion, with Jock Mahoney playing an inept, washed-up cowboy star. The music is good and the comedy is fast, funny and sometimes pretty clever. Best of all Mahoney is paired with "Yodeling Blonde Bombshell" Carolina Cotton, a performer I'd never heard of until this movie. She's delightful, naturally funny and talented. She and Mahoney make an irresistibly cute couple. There are no extras and no menu screens at all―just pop the disc in and away you go―but the full frame, black and white image looks fantastic." (read Stuart's full review here)
Bill Gibron looks at Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter:
"Who waits until the end of their run as teen dream Tiger Beat fodder to aim for a motion picture breakout? Similarly, who uses a hit from three years before as the hook attempting to reestablish such fading fan interest ? The obvious answer is Herman's Hermits (or whoever was handling them at the time). On paper, something like Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter should be gangbusters. The lads are very likeable and capable of controlling the screen. In addition, several stellar supporting players were brought in to help, including My Fair Lady's Stanley Holloway. Add in a real slice of life feel (Manchester is often seen as more weird, working class version of Alice's Wonderland), a few decent songs, and a genial musical hall spirit and the results should be both toe tapping and knee slapping. Instead, MBYGALD plays like a time capsule clipped of its humor and wit." (read Bill's full review here )And Paul Mavis brings Christmas in July with the holiday-themed Get Yourself a College Girl:
"A good-looking, mildly amusing Sam Katzman cheapie for M-G-M, helped considerably by some socko musical numbers. Warner Bros.' Archive Collection has released Get Yourself a College Girl, the 1964 musical/sex comedy starring Mary Ann Mobley, Chad Everett, Joan O'Brien, Nancy Sinatra, Chris Noel, and featuring musical numbers by The Animals, The Dave Clark Five, Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto, The Standells, and The Jimmy Smith Trio. The girls look great, the guys are handsome duds, and the music rocks and sways. Get Yourself a College Girl may not be all that funny, but it's amusing here and there, the tiny, fake sets are eye-poppingly colorful, and the girls are pretty. So what else do you need? An original trailer is included in this great-looking disc." (read Paul's full review here)
Witnessing the punishing effects of this god-awful summer, one could be forgiven for thinking that brown, burnt-out, dead husk of a yard is now nothing more than another lonely, dusty trail for the suburban cowboy astride his trusty John Deere® steed (our city-dwelling readers laugh at such bucolic, clichéd allusions...as they sit in their undershirts in front of their open iceboxes, waiting to go bowling). Stuart Galbraith IV travels to the Laramie Mountains:
"By B-Western series standards Laramie Mountains (1952) isn't much but for its intended audience, mostly kids, it delivers the requisite quotient of cowboy action, lowbrow comedy, and songs. This Durango Kid series entry from Columbia was one of the last of its kind; The Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers had already made the move to television, and a TV version of William Boyd's Hopalong Cassidy would premiere later that fall. Part of Sony's terrific Columbia Classics line of DVD-Rs, this and The Kid from Broken Gun represent the third and fourth Durango Kid movies out on DVD. Once again they look great but are also quite short yet expensive. They run just 53-55 minutes but the retail price is $19.95. That's like paying nearly twenty bucks for a single episode of Bonanza. I bet if they went the 10-movie route as Warner's Archive has done with its Tim Holt series, they'd sell a lot more copies." (read Stuart's full review here)
Forget the unforgiving jungles or frozen wastelands or horrific plane crash sites―in this heat the most adventuresome we want to get is determining how long we can stay passed out on the couch in front of the fan. If you do manage to rouse yourself ("Honey...you smell like rotten garbage. Get up."), you'll want to check out these adventure flicks reviewed by Stuart Galbraith IV: Jungle Manhunt, Crash Landing, and The Call of the Wild:
"After playing Tarzan for about 15 years, first at MGM and later at RKO, an increasingly flabby Johnny Weissmuller worked his way further down the Hollywood food chain, ending up at lowly Columbia where for a time he starred as Alex Raymond and Don Moore's comic strip hero Jungle Jim, in sixteen features produced during 1948-1956. Jungle Manhunt (1951) is both a bit cheaper and more routine than the earliest entries yet isn't as goofily over-the-top as the later ones, and this Columbia Classics title has been splendiferously remastered. Its narrative incorporates two jungle movie staples: the search for a wealthy man lost deep in the jungle and nefarious treasure hunters frightening superstitious local natives and enslaving them. However, Jungle Manhunt does briefly feature dinosaurs, making this also science fiction. And, what's more, its coming attractions trailer, included as an extra, briefly shows off an outrageously silly-looking monster mercifully cut from the final theatrical version. Crash Landing (1958), basically Sam Katzman's low-budget answer to The High and the Mighty (1955), is an entertaining if B-movie variation of the John Wayne/William A. Wellman blockbuster with an almost identical story. Crash Landing was one of five Fred F. Sears-directed features released in 1958―a pretty astounding achievement when you consider that he died in 1957. Sears, a former actor, literally worked himself into a fatal heart attack at age forty-four. Despite a very modest budget, probably in the $175,000-$350,000 range versus The High and the Mighty's $1,500,000, Crash Landing is reasonably engrossing with a genuinely suspenseful climax. Part of Sony's Columbia Classics line of Screen Classics By Request DVD-Rs, Crash Landing looks sensational, the 1.85:1 black and white production given a bright and nearly flawless 16:9 enhanced widescreen presentation. A trailer complete with narration and text and also 16:9 enhanced is tossed in as an extra feature. As for this 1972 adaptation of Jack London's famous 1903 novel, The Call of the Wild is a real anomaly, downright bizarre even. It improbably brought together A-list Hollywood star Charlton Heston, still near the peak of his fame, with shady Harry Alan Towers, a one-time procurer, bail-jumper, and possible Soviet spy-turned-movie producer, best known for his cheapo Fu Manchu movies and long association with schlockmeisters like director Jesus Franco. Typical of Towers's productions, The Call of the Wild is a multinational patchwork filmed in Norway and Spain, with American, French, German, Austrian, and Spanish actors, whose salaries were shakily financed with money coming from all over Europe. Though the direction is credited to Ken Annakin, a veteran British filmmaker who knew his way around big league pictures, The Call of the Wild is itself only marginally professional, looking not at all like Heston's other movies but typical of Towers's oeuvre. Just under a dozen public domain labels have offered Call of the Wild on DVD through the years, but MGM's Limited Edition Collection DVD-R is by far the best looking, and it's in 16:9 enhanced widescreen. Whether film fans are willing to pay a little extra for this remains to be seen, but MGM deserves a lot of credit for finally officially releasing it. It makes for strange but fascinating viewing." (read Stuart's full reviews here, here, and here)
We don't know about you, but here at DVDTalk, there's nothing funnier in the summertime than watching that loud-mouthed, no-nothing neighbor of ours fall asleep while catching some rays...for hours ("Look! Roger's going to split open like an overcooked weinie!"). You may not find anything that subtle in the upcoming movies, but our staff had a good chuckle with these titles. John Sinnott, no weinie himself, reviews The Canterville Ghost and Strictly Dynamite:
"Based (rather loosely) on a story by Oscar Wilde, 1986's made-for-TV film The Canterville Ghost is a light, enjoyable flick. When a family suddenly inherits a British estate, they think it's the end of their problems. Until they discover it's haunted by a crotchety ghost. Staring John Gielgud who plays his role nicely and a very young Alyssa Milano, the film is a fun if innocuous TV movie that can be enjoyed by the entire family. It may not be high art but it's still enjoyable and worth watching. As for Strictly Dynamite, after being teamed up with comic genius Buster Keaton for a trio of early talkies in 1932-1933, vaudeville star Jimmy Durante was paired with the south-of-the-border beauty Lupe Velez for a couple of films. The second of these, Strictly Dynamite, is a fun light romp that has recently been released through Warner's Archives collection. When a down-on-his-luck author from the sticks gets a job writing jokes for a TV comic and his female partner (Durante and Velez) he thinks he's selling out. But when he finds out how much money he can make, and how enjoyable going to parties until all hours can be, he starts enjoying his job and ignoring his faithful wife. Durante is a bit more restrained in this film than usual (though just a bit) and Lupe Velez isn't utilized as much as she could have been, but it's still a gem of a film that's well worth checking out." (read John's full reviews here and here)Nick Hartel looks at See Here, Private Hargrove:
"See Here, Private Hargrove may have been a hit upon release (inspiring a sequel shortly after), taken in wake of far superior big screen and small screen war/boot camp comedy fare, it just doesn't past muster. While Robert Walker is solid playing a character every bit the opposite his iconic Bruno Anthony, the various hijinks he and co-star Keenan Wynn are thrown into eventually become tired and merely tolerable. The Warner Archive provides a technically solid disk presenting the film with a more than adequate mono audio track and eye-pleasing 1.33:1 original aspect ratio transfer. More a curiosity piece than an essential, 1944's See Here, Private Hargrove will give you some laughs, just not a lot of hearty ones." (read Nick's full review here)Bill Gibron looks at Birds Do It and Hot Stuff
"WOW! This is one weird-ass movie. The last 25 minutes are literally a stunt double for Soupy Sales endlessly dangling over Miami's intercostals waterway, wires in full view as the doppelganger dips up and down over the sea. In between, actor Arthur O'Connell continues his character actor on crack rabies impersonation, the monkey from Daktari operates a big orange lever, and Sales himself shows up, greenscreened and goofy, hoping that his pained expression and mannerisms match those of his paid twin. Oh, and did we mention Tab Hunter trying to play it cool as a evil double agent? No? Well, that doesn't begin to describe this unhinged Hellsapoppin experiment. This is a film that forgets all the basics of moviemaking, that tosses aside narrative logic, character continuity, mise-en-scene, and even simple human emotion in order to make room for more of Sales' patented pantomime. Then, they go and forget to give the TV icon anything interesting to do, except watch a paid daredevil mimic his signature flail over the waters of South Florida. Hot Stuff, on the other hand, is a sitcom stuffed into a 90 minute movie running time. It's a playful set-up, including the various cliched character beats of our leads, twisted into a series of stunted vignettes, some playing perfectly, others missing the mark by mega-miles. Though the simplistic script is laced with curse words (no F-bombs, though) and the steamy Miami locale gives everything a hot and humid grit, DeLuise is still channeling his mentor, Mel Brooks, and the results are equally scattered. This is not laugh out loud funny as much as smile on your face silly. The situations are too broadly drawn and forced to be truly hilarious. Instead, they amble by with the requisite amount of entertainment value, leaving you satisfied if a little suspicious. Indeed, the two biggest questions you will have after watching this freewheeling farce are (1) who thought this was a decent idea for a big screen laugher? and (2) who argued for DeLuise's skills as a first time filmmaker?" (read Bill's full reviews here and here)And Stuart Galbraith IV reviews Soldier in the Rain:
"Considering the talent involved―Steve McQueen, Jackie Gleason, Tuesday Weld, William Goldman, Blake Edwards, Henri Mancini, director Ralph Nelson―Soldier in the Rain (1963) is not a fondly remembered army comedy-drama. Hot on the heels of McQueen's star-solidifying role in The Great Escape and Gleason's celebrated role as Minnesota Fats in The Hustler, as well as a juicy part in Nelson's film of Requiem for a Heavyweight, they must have seemed―and still seem―like a pairing with dynamite potential. And, to some extent, they deliver. The picture is notable for its schizophrenic tone. Most of the film consists of very broad comedy but then it gets serious and sentimental near the end, something audiences weren't prepared for. A Warner Archive Collection release on DVD-R format, it's in 16:9 enhanced widescreen but is one of their weaker transfers. The image is on the soft side while appearing digitally tweaked with DNR, or something. The opening titles almost look like black and white videotape and the image overall isn't nearly as sharp as the many outstanding looking if lesser Allied Artists titles Warner Home Video has released in the past. There are no extras." (read Stuart's full review here)
Talk about science fiction: there's this completely unproven theory out there that actually claims it's hot outside right now because of the lightbulbs we use, the cars we drive, and how gassy our cows are. Hee hee! Let's get to John Sinnott's sci-fi reviews for Probe and The Curse of the Faceless Man as we melt our eyeballs staring at the sole cause of this heat wave:
"A made-for-TV movie that would be turned into the TV show Search, Probe is an interesting high-tech spy flick that tries to be a mystery/action/SF adventure and nearly succeeds in pulling it off, but not quite. Created by Leslie Stevens, the man behind the original The Outer Limits, the story of a spy aided by some high-tech gadgets (well, high tech circa 1972) had a lot of potential. And while the futuristic technology that's a cornerstone of the film is commonplace today, the real reason the film doesn't work better is that the lead ((Hugh O'Brian) isn't a convincing spy. It's not the actor's fault, the script didn't give him that macho self-confidence that the other agents possess. It's not a bad movie at all and there are some decent parts, it just isn't a classic. And The Curse of the Faceless Man.... Ahhh, SF B-movies from the 50's and 60's. You either love 'em or hate 'em, and DVDTalk reviewer John Sinnott is definitely in the former camp. Made with very small budgets, tight shooting schedules and often with a less-than-stellar cast, John loves seeing what the cast and crew were able to create under those less-than-ideal conditions. Often they're pretty horrible, but sometimes a gem would be created. Falling in between those two extremes is 1958's The Curse of the Faceless Man, an obscure flick penned by Jerome Bixby (Star Trek:TOS, The Man from Earth) and staring a young Richard Anderson (The Six Million Dollar Man). While the plot has holes (to put it mildly) director Edward L. Cahn was able to stretch his meager budget to create an eerie and atmospheric tale that's more enjoyable than it has any right to be. (read John's full reviews here and here)
Summertime heat wave horrors? Sleeveless large-mesh wife-beaters? Any public swimming pool? Binkie the Chihuahua left in the car? Kid stuff. Not having something good to watch on television while wilting passersby spontaneously burst into flames―now that's a summertime horror story. Binkie-killer Kurt Dahlke looks at Out of the Dark:
"This late-'80s thriller is a curious mix of sex, horror and humor, with a frankly degenerate cast including Tracey Walter, Karen Black, and Paul Bartel and Divine (both in strange cameos). A killer clown is on the loose, murdering phone sex operators, leaving us to marvel at creepy, sometimes disturbing murders, kinky soft-core sex, and not a soul to identify with. For connoisseurs of cuckoo cruelty, it's just too peculiar to pass up." (read Kurt's full review here)And proud owner of a white, sleeveless nylon mesh wife-beater, Paul Mavis, looks at Burn, Witch, Burn! and A Reflection of Fear:
"It ranks right up there with the celebrated Night of the Demon. M-G-M's fun, fun M.O.D. line of discs, the Limited Edition Collection (available via Amazon.com), has released Burn, Witch, Burn!, the American International Pictures title for the 1962 U.K. production, Night of the Eagle, starring Janet Blair, Peter Wyngarde, and Margaret Johnson. Featuring an intelligent, spooky script by horror masters Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont (with an apparent uncredited assist by George Baxt), and tense, scary direction by Sidney Hayers, Burn, Witch, Burn! is a superlative witchcraft shocker you need to see. It surely belongs with the absolute best of the genre. A suitably creepy trailer is included in this nice-looking widescreen transfer. As for A Reflection of Fear, the final final twist ending is a wowzer...but it makes absolutely no sense. Still...this is one creepy little shocker. Sony's own M.O.D. line of Columbia Classics vault titles has released A Reflection of Fear, the 1973 horror drama starring Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman, Mary Ure, Sondra Locke, Mitchell Ryan, and Signe Hasso. Directed by celebrated cinematographer William A. Fraker, A Reflection of Fear apparently went through post-production hell, including extensive cuts and a delayed release before it was dumped onto a double bill (with The Creeping Flesh!), and it certainly shows, with a choppy storyline that's heavy on atmosphere and light on brains. Still...it's scary. An original trailer is included as a bonus for this good-looking transfer." (read Paul's full reviews here and here)
When all else fails, when a comedy or a musical or a cartoon won't distract you from the fact that you appear to be sitting on the surface of the Sun, an action-filled thriller can jolt you back to life. Stuart Galbraith IV looks at Cloudburst and The Destructors:
"One of Hammer's very best early films, Cloudburst (1952) is a multifaceted thriller unusual in many respects. Leo Marks adapted his own stage play, and it stars Robert Preston, who had been acting in Hollywood movies since the late 1930s but was still years away from his signature role as The Music Man. Both Preston and Marks had been intelligence officers during World War II, Preston with the U.S. 9th Air Force and Marks as a cryptographer for the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.). Their personal histories lend enormous credibility and verisimilitude to the film's setting and its dramatic complications. Marks sometimes wrote richly romantic code poems for the agents he sent behind enemy lines, the most famous of which, The Life That I Have, was immortalized in the excellent British film about spy Violette Szabo, Carve Her Name with Pride (1958). His fascination with codes also plays a role in his script of Peeping Tom (1960), the once-reviled Michael Powell film now considered a masterpiece. Cloudburst incorporates all of these same elements, including its strange, beguiling romanticism. Despite some minor warping of the surviving film elements, the black and white, full-frame Cloudburst looks quite good on DVD. Part of MGM's ,i>Limited Edition Collection line of DVD-Rs, this title deserves to find a bigger audience. As for The Destructors originally released as The Marseille Contract, it's a meandering crime thriller notable for co-star Michael Caine's interesting performance as an assassin and James Mason's as Caine's drug kingpin target. Hero-by-default Anthony Quinn overacts in his offbeat part, but the French locations are good, and while Robert Parrish's direction is pretty flaccid, driver/stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne's second unit car chases are exciting and audacious. Part of MGM's Limited Edition Collection line of DVD-Rs, this British-French co-production, distributed by American International Pictures (AIP) in America but by Warner Bros. elsewhere, is all over the map in terms of picture quality. Most of it looks great but at other times, such as its nighttime pre-credits opening, the image is rife with eye-straining edge enhancement. Fortunately, this is only intermittently distracting." (read Stuart's full reviews here and here)Kurt Dahlke looks at Detour To Terror:
"Even without O.J. Simpson's sullied presence, Detour To Terror is an odd, convoluted and all-too-chatty made-for-TV potboiler. Nutcase Lorenzo Lamas hijacks Arte Johnson's Vegas-bound tour bus, piloted by Simpson. While the movie looks and sounds quite nice in this M.O.D. version, with beautiful, edgy cinematography and an evocative score, sadly intermittent thrills give way to lots of bickering and seething in the sun, as Lamas' plans go awry and clichéd tourists argue incessantly. Arte Johnson's presence simply pushes the entire thing off of a cliff, making this campy relic an oddly intriguing proposition." (read Kurt's full review here)Jamie S. Rich looks at The Man in the Net:
"I can't pretend to really know what went on behind the scenes in 1959 when The Man in the Net was being made, but I can't imagine any of the people involved were all that excited to be on the set. If they were, it certainly didn't translate into the work. Directed by Michael Curtiz from a script by Reginald Rose, The Man in the Net provides Alan Ladd with a late-in-life starring vehicle, letting him pretend to be 20 years younger while hiding in the woods after being falsely accused of killing his wife. He's the kind of guy who stubbornly makes the wrong choices for no good reason and whom people hate or love for the same no good reasons, and the only ones more bored by his predicament are the audience. The only possible excuse to watch this dull thriller is if you're a huge Carolyn Jones fan. She's very good, everything else is just a waste of time." (read Jamie's full review here)Nick Hartel looks at Blood & Concrete:
"Arriving with good, but imperfect 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer and stereo audio presentation, 1991's Blood and Concrete is yet another example of the forgotten talents of Billy Zane who is forced to hold his own against two show-stealing performances: one brief role from Darren McGavin as a homicidal homicide detective and the second, a more integral part to this strange tale of stolen drugs, dead bodies, punk rock, and romance is Mark Pellegrino, who plays, I kid you not, a gay hustler turned small-time muscle for a seedy drug kingpin who spends most of the film menacing Zane from his convertible while blasting dance music. Far from a perfect film (the resolution never matches the zany buildup), it's a nice forgotten indie diversion." (read Nick's full review here)And Paul Mavis rounds up the thriller section with looks at Smile Jenny, You're Dead, Hammerhead, The F.B.I.: The First Season, Part One, The File of the Golden Goose, Fragment of Fear, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, and The Boss
"The second beginning for the cult detective series, Harry O. Warner Bros.' unstoppable Archive Collection service of M.O.D. discs has released Smile Jenny, You're Dead, the 1974 pilot that finally sold ABC on David Janssen's proposed detective series, Harry O. Co-starring a solid cast of pros including John Anderson, Howard Da Silva, Martin Gabel, Clu Gulager, Tim McIntire, Andrea Marcovicci, and little Jodie Foster, Smile Jenny, You're Dead is a beautifully observed, low-key mystery/romance, with a tone and pace quite unlike most of the detective smash-'em-ups that were popular on the tube in the early '70s. No extras, but the transfer looks terrific. As for Hammerhead...maybe they screwed around with it in post-production. Sony's own line of M.O.D. discs has released Hammerhead, the appropriately titled 1968 spy picture starring Ben Casey's Vince Edwards and the completely edible Judy Geeson, with a whole slew of familiar British faces like Diana Dors, Peter Vaughan, Michael Bates and Patrick Cargill filling up the colorful frames. "Dopey" doesn't begin to describe Hammerhead, but if you're like me and grew up on Bond rip-offs like this showing up on Saturday night TV ("Get your elbow out of my popcorn! I'm watching the Hammerhead spy thing! I'm telling Mom!"), you'll feel an affectionate nostalgia for such goofiness. Vince Edwards is more than a bit of a stiff, but Judy Geeson makes up for him and the movie's shortcomings by just being herself: adorable. Television's The F.B.I. features solid, entertaining storytelling, beautifully produced. Warner Bros.' indispensable Archive Collection of M.O.D. discs rescues another essential title from the lost pages of television's past with The F.B.I.: The First Season, Part One, a 4-disc, 16-episode collection that gathers together the first half of this Quinn Martin production's premiere 1965 season. Grumblings aside about this release's split season selection, The F.B.I. has all the hallmarks of classic 1960s television drama: lean, carefully-structured scripts, efficient, no-nonsense direction, a charismatic lead performance by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., matchless casting with Hollywood's best supporting players, and production values that rivaled TV's big-screen counterparts at the time. No extras with this set, and the original materials used for the transfers here are just beginning to go south...but necessary viewing for anyone interested in this time period and genre. The File of the Golden Goose is so bad it's fun at the beginning, and then it gets worse...which makes it more fun. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection has dug up The File of the Golden Goose, the 1969 international crime meller from United Artists starring Yul Brynner ("Ohhhhh-bay?"), Charles Gray and Edward Woodward. One of Brynner's last hurrahs as the lead in a halfway decent studio effort, The File of the Golden Goose didn't satisfy anyone when it first came out, but it's worth at least a look if you're in need of some bald-pated Brynner shtick...and who doesn't like that? A solid vintage trailer is included as a bonus. Fragment of Fear is a terrific, little-seen suspenser. Sony's Columbia Classics line of M.O.D. discs has come up with 1970's Fragment of Fear, starring David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt. Written by Paul Dehn (all the original Planet of the Apes sequels) and directed by Richard C. Sarafian (the original Vanishing Point), Fragment of Fear has a deliciously creepy tone to its deceptively simply tale of murder, espionage and madness, expertly whipped up to a paranoid froth that should satisfy fans looking for some genuine chills. All red herrings and paranoid delusions, Fragment of Fear depends on its atmosphere alone, and it brilliantly achieves a genuinely frightening waking nightmare world where the viewer can't be sure of what is or isn't reality. Dismissed upon its release in 1970, Fragment of Fear deserves a better reputation. A vintage trailer is included as an extra for this good-looking transfer. And now...the drive-in. Thank You! Oh Thank You Great and Terrifying Exploitation God-Head, Thou Grim Ruler of the Drive-In Heavens, for Revealing One of Your Wonders Again! Aaaaaaaaaand...that would be Lynda Carter gettin' nekkid. M-G-M's indispensable Limited Edition Collection line of M.O.D. discs has granted the wish of every teen boy who went to the drive-in in 1976 (or who later watched it every time Showtime ran it) by re-exposing the single most beautiful creature to ever grace the American drive-in screen topless: Marjoe Gortner, in the iconic actioner, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw. And Lynda Carter ain't too shabby, either. One of the last, great classics of the drive-in era, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw is perfection in exploitation fare, offering up potent doses of nudity and violence that wowed drunken audiences in their cars back in our Bicentennial Year. An original trailer accompanies this essential library title. And finally, a coarse, vital, low-budget crime meller. M-G-M's Limited Edition Collection of M.O.D. discs has released The Boss, the 1956 crime drama starring John Payne, directed by Byron Haskin (War of the Worlds), from a script by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo (under the pseudonym Ben L. Perry). A sensational little programmer, featuring one of John Payne's best performances, The Boss plays like a mini-The Godfather, Part II, painting a crude, epic sweep of a story that details the corruption that's endemic to American politics. One of the best "B" movies of the 1950s, The full-screen print is exceedingly rough, though, and that soundtrack is almost a deal-breaker...but the The Boss is so involving, you eventually put aside the limitations of the original materials used here for the transfer." (read Paul's full reviews here)The heat...has cooled. So what's coming up for future M.O.D. releases (and our next column)? You a Connie Francis]]>