Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are
Various news: The Digital Bits reported this week that Universal will at long last be re-issuing the 1955 Technicolor space opera This Island Earth as a separate disc, not as part of a collection. It comes out on August 29 . . . in fullscreen. It looks okay that way but was meant to be shown widescreen -- the original Variety review printed the studio recommendation that it be shown with a 2:1 ratio. There's as yet no mention of any extras. (Thanks Gary Teetzel).
Tim Lucas' Video Watchblog turned Savant on to a site that was so fascinating, I spent half the night glomming every single archived entry. It's called If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats and is a huge grouping of cultural errata, duly annotated. The site's subheading is Cultural and Personal Observations by Tom Sutpen and Stephen Cooke. Recommended.
Also recommended is a lengthy, fascinating Bright Lights Gordon Thomas article on Ben-Hur, the two movies and the Lew Wallace book that they were based on. Gordon has been a Savant correspondent for years, and he's really come through this time.
I don't have a review up yet for the John Wayne boxed set, but here's a preview: One of the extras for the two-disc set of The Searchers is a miniature reprint of the original Dell Comic book version ... I looked at it, and they've carefully removed all of the references to Ethan Edward's racism or his attempts to kill Debbie!
A final note ... individual copies of The St. Valentine's Day Massacre were apparently held up, but now one's on its way to Savant central and I should have a review up within the week. Actually, I have to pick it up at the Clark Street Garage at about 10:45 in the morning .... Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson
Posted by DVD Savant at May 26, 2006 09:09 AM