Savant's going late to keep the column going for the next week or so, with long work days leaving little writing time. Instead of getting chintzy with the reviews, I'm writing fewer of them. The new reviews today are

It was fun reviewing GUNGA DIN as it relates closely to two other fascinating movies sharing the same subject, sort of. The Thugee cult made fun of in the George Stevens film became the focus of a Hammer horror called THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY, a movie so relentlessly sadistic that it influenced a repressive wave of censorship in England in 1959. Also, the Merchant-Ivory THE DECEIVERS, starring Pierce Brosnan is a more realistic account of the Thuggee crimes and will be released about a month from now by Home Vision Entertainment. I'm looking forward to discussing the whole subgenre of crazed cult stranglers in that review, as the Hammer film is not yet out in any form.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson