Savant's new reviews today are

He Walked by Night MGM
The Last Tycoon Paramount
The Marrying Kind Columbia TriStar and
Darling MGM.

It's Thanksgiving day. But we've set it aside for a workday to try and catch up with things around the Savant homestead. At least that's one turkey less for the axe. I am taking the next couple of days off, so the next batch 'o reviews won't be a comin' until probably Sunday or even Monday. The backlog is being whittled down, so I don't feel quite as strained as I was a week ago.

With Disney's Treasures compilations of Space and War themed material postponed until March, here's what Savant's looking to review soon: Already in my greedy hands are Rolling Stones: Four Flicks, Naked Lunch, Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory, Heat and Dust, Bombay Talkie, The Great Gatsby, Lord Love a Duck, Hud, This Property is Condemned, The Looking Glass War, I.M. Pei, Les Uns Et Les Autres, Ashes and Diamonds, Kanal, Schizopolis, My House in Umbria, Charlotte Sometimes and Bonjour Tristesse. If there's anything in there that anyone's dying to hear about, drop me a line. I'm also hoping for To Live and Die in LA (I edited the extra content on it, brag brag), Lola, Bay of Angels and a curious Image double bill of Stranger from Venus and The Cosmic Man, neither of which I've seen. I'm not sure if any more Criterions, HVes, Anchor Bays or Fantomas will arrive before the end of the year, but I am hoping for a covert screener of A Boy and His Dog. Even if December gets a little thin, it's been a great year for DVDs ... all I have to do now is snag guilty pleasures The Silencers (spy sleaze) and The Long Ships (fumbled Viking fun) in a used bin somewhere and life will be complete.

Enjoy the long weekend if you're getting one. Avoid traffic accidents if you're here, and other kinds of havoc if you're overseas. Bless us all, and here's hoping for peace ... Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

The Edge of the World Milestone
Our Town FOCUSfilm
More Sex and Drugs and
Social Engineering 201 both Fantoma.

Howdy ... just tried to go out an buy a simple television for my mother at a Target and a Fry's store, and ran into two salespeople who behaved like car dealers - everything reasonable was out of stock (after long trips to the stockroom) but there plenty of other, more expensive sets to buy. So I'll have to try again tomorrow. I got the impression that they were dawdling in the backroom to make my time investment such that I'd break down and buy something more expensive. Or at least that's what I'm thinking in my present, dark frame of mind.

I'm really happy with the general run of library discs I'm getting to review; you must be very aware that Savant doesn't cover most of the really big titles - mainly because everyone and their hamster has a review out on them, sooner than I could get one out and probably with a more accurate description of the audio quality. By foregoing the blockbusters to other DVD Talk reviewers, I get most of the older titles I ask for, and every so often there's an unheralded gem among them. A case in point is MGM's new little disc of HE WALKED BY NIGHT, a public domain (?) title I've seen in cheap, bad looking versions forever. I'm going to have fun reviewing this excellent film noir - the visual quality is terrific, and it was a pleasure to watch.

Back to the discs - and some sundry editorial work that hooked me over the weekend. If the DVD don't break and we don't have an earthquake, I'll be back with more discs on Thanksgiving Day .... Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

The Stephen Sondheim Collection Image
Crime of Passion MGM
Tokyo Story Criterion 217 and
Silkwood MGM.

Two items to relate tonight, one normal and the other very odd. First, PBS is showing the disc I just reviewed of Oklahoma! in LA tonight, so it might be playing in your vicinity soon. I'm going to tune in for a peek, just to see if they've left it letterboxed (as it looks so good that way) or done some kind of scan on it. As this is a big Saturday show, I wouldn't be surprised if it were sawed up into ten parts and used as a subscription drive attraction ... I'll send in my money, but I'll watch this thing back on the DVD where it looks better.

The second issue is more off the wall. Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) is on the art theater circuit right now in a revitalized print, and may be coming to DVD in the next couple of years. But today's LA times had a small column about a medical report that face transplants are now possible but unlikely, for (unelaborated) ethical and moral reasons. I always thought the weakest part of the Georges Franju movie, that now makes audiences giggle instead of faint, was the surgery scene where a face is lifted from a victim as a one-piece mask, with cut-out holes for the eyes and mouth. The newspaper illustration for the little article is identical - with a cutout for the nose too. How practical a Frankenstein-like cookie cutter face would be, I don't know, but the article is dead serious about the details of reconnecting nerves and the like. It also falls into line with Franju's medical details, which I once thought were hooey (well, at least the radiation treatment part). The text says that the new face would be a combination of the donor and the recipient (a chilling aspect of Yeux), and that the recipient would have to take anti-rejection drugs indefinitely. The tissue rejection issue is the main thrust of the movie - I reread the article three times, trying to determine if it was a joke!

The accuracy of the original 1959 movie may be related to a real plastic surgeon I saw profiled on 60 minutes in the late 70s. He was French, and honed his craft reconstructing shattered faces in WW2, becoming known as a miracle man. In the filmed interview, he was as arrogant and self-important as an opera tenor with a bad attitude, obviously way over-impressed with his abilities and talent ... not unlike Georges Franju's Dr. Genessier of Les yeux. I immediately decided that if he wasn't the inspiration for the horror film, he should have been.

The idea of identity changing plastic surgery chills me to the bone, to coin a phrase. A PBS show I once saw talked about reshaping faces where skulls had not developed properly, and thoughtfully explained the process of dropping the whole face from the skull like a peeled banana, doing major bone work, and then explained how the face would be tacked back into place. Then they started to show the real thing - and I dived for the channel changer like my life depended on it. Interesting the things one doesn't feel the need to see with one's own eyes ...

This LA Times article really takes the cake. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

OKLAHOMA! Image
SU EXCELENCIA Columbia TriStar
STREET SMART MGM and
SHIP OF FOOLS Columbia TriStar.

All I have to mention today is thanks for the emails - Happily, I keep being contacted by people enthusiastic about the same films that excite me. One man talked about seeing LA STRADA at the Fairfax Theater in LA in 1956. Others come forward with information that I lack (I know there are juicy backstage stories associated with SHIP OF FOOLS, but don't know any specifics) or make corrections that are more than appreciated ... confusing THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW with THE LADY IN THE LAKE is the kind of brain-disconnect that just happens, like it or not.

Not that errors shouldn't be caught, but the forgiving quality of web writing (oops, I was an idiot, let's revise) encourages one to write first and ask questions later. I make it a nightly chore to go back and pick out an earlier review to scan for typos, errors, and garden-variety stupid writing. I always manage to find enough flubs to keep me humble. Three years ago I had the illusion that I knew how to spell embarass, mysoginy and even liason. Hopefully I'm getting better. I want to be a real, grown-up published writer some day, the kind with editors to catch my worst gaffes.

The saving grace is that most readers are as forgiving as I am. Thanks for putting up with the errors. If I leave out an article or use its for it's, let it go ... if I confuse Bernardo Bertolucci with Roberto Rossellini while glibly dropping names, feel free to correct me with as much derision as feels good! Thanks for all, Glenn Erickson

Hello! Savant's new reviews today are

LA STRADA Criterion
PALE FLOWER Home Vision
and
LIANNA MGM.

In addition to the Savant reviews above, I've added a short notice to the DVDTalk review database only: THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE.

Let's see ... saw KILL BILL VOLUME 1 a second time on Sunday, and now am willing to be enthusiastic about it; I was still a bit bored by the unending final battle but the invention, sense of humor and playful use of everything pulp in exploitation cinema was again delightful.

Last night I saw 21 GRAMS, which didn't impress much. It's completely nonlinear construction for me does nothing but make the story a lot of work to follow, and about halfway through I realized that if the tale were simply told straight, it wouldn't be very impressive. Also, there's at least two too many obsessed, extreme characters that all must be given their showoff Oscar moments. It's ugly too. I've only seen a few of these films that seek to be more 'real' by presenting deliberately degraded images, and I'm already tired of them.

Most of the lower-tier MGM crime films due out in Early December are coming my way, hopefully including TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA, for which disc I contributed to the extras. And I'm also hoping to nab two early Jacques Demy romances, BAY OF ANGELS and LOLA, the prequel to THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. I remember LOLA as an emotional masterpiece and can't wait to find out if I feel the same way. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

PRETTY BABY Paramount
WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? Wellspring
DARK PASSAGE Warners and
THE SOLID GOLD CADILLAC Columbia.

I saw MASTER AND COMMANDER at a Fox-lot screening Thursday night. It's a fine film, and I hope the fact that it doesn't try to appeal to a youth market doesn't hurt it. It's almost all action but the story and tone stay completely faithful to the 1805 setting of the Napoleonic Wars - there's no anachronistic pitch to woo crossover audiences, and no consessions to PC concepts. Best of all, the story has the old-fashioned feel of a great book.

Peter Weir's command of the screen is total, and so are the special effects, that (I'm told) account for much of the 'actual' sailing we see, from ships at sea to the rigging of sails. It's all flawless, and the filming of the storm scenes, etc., is much less obtrusive than in the previous movie THE PERFECT STORM.

The tale is told without concession to modern exposition. If an actor explains something, it's done once and is said as it would be in 1805. We have to figure out the operation of the ship and the various customs and duties on our own. In other words, nothing is dumbed down. I didn't hear a lot of the dialogue ... I'm ready to go again.

There are practically no women in the film and no romance. Besides the conflict with the French Navy, Russell Crowe has problems with his ship's doctor and other leadership snags; the closest film I remember to the tone of this one is DAMN THE DEFIANT, and that pales in comparison to the scope and verve of this one. It's a real movie, and five times the show that GLADIATOR was.

Back soon with more reviews... Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (Universal),
LOONEY TUNES PREMIERE COLLECTION (Warners),
BROADWAY'S LOST TREASURES (Acorn Media) ,
STORYVILLE (Columbia TriStar),
and a Region 2 release by Stuart Galbraith IV,
THE SORCERERS

Stuart Galbraith is a relatively new reviewer at DVDTalk, and a good one. His review-ography can be found on the DVDTalk review page

In addition to the Savant reviews above, I've added a short notice to the DVDTalk review database only: THE ANNA NICOLE SHOW, first season.

My hypothesis about serialized two part movies garnered two more examples from readers - JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING, and the original THE DAY AFTER, which would certainly be long enough to break into two parts. Some people thought I had said there was a version of THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE on film, and no, there's not ...

Also, some people asked what I thought of the Academy Screeners debacle. In my opinion, Valenti won't back down from his decision (nobody admits the slightest mistake any more) and the Oscars are going to be messed up this year. Personally, when I think of the millions in postage and duplicating costs associated with the mailings of screeners, it all seems like a waste to me ... they should go to the academy voters and we critics need to fend for ourselves. But that makes no allowance for the critics in outlying markets, and the fact that screeners level the playing field. Without them, films from the major studios have a distinct advantage. Moving the Oscars up a month to February also makes things more convenient for the majors (I think I'm right - they did move up this year, didn't they?). Anyway, I like screeners but here in Los Angeles all the studios are generous with screenings, so I really don't feel like complaining. I do admire the Chicago Critics' stand - they responded to Valenti with a broadside of their own: they don't like being scapegoated as the source of piracy, and for that insult they're not going to vote for the best films this year at all. That's pretty nervy. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

¡Hola! Savant's new reviews today are
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Paramount),
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER (First Run Features),
THE WORLD OF APU (Columbia TriStar),
and two Region 2 releases reviewed by Lee Broughton,
MOUNTAIN: SEA OF FIRE and
OZZY OSBOURNE: THE PRINCE OF F****** DARKNESS

(links and descriptions below)

I'm getting a lot of mail from people excited about the release of the third instalment of the LORD OF THE RINGS series, especially the marathon screening dates already booked across the country that will preface the new show with the earlier two. I'm with you in spirit - in my twenties I attended plenty of Marathons and loved the experience - but I'll sit this one out. We'll be repeating a family ritual from '01 and '02 - I arrange a fancy evening with my kids home for the holidays, we all see it together, and then they tell me how they already saw it a week before back in their college town.

I like the idea of serialized epics. I loved the grim cliffhanger of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, that we had to wait two years to find out what would happen next. KILL BILL VOLUMES ONE and TWO? Great idea. I wouldn't mind if 3 or 4 hour movies were broken into pieces and released like this more often, as Fritz Lang did in 1920s Germany, until UFA's foreign partners put the Kaibosh on such extravagance. Maybe METROPOLIS could have survived intact had it been broken into two parts (gee, where would the intermission be?). Is it too much to ask for David Lynch to come back and assemble a gargantuan 2 film version of DUNE? UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD is finally coming out in Wim Wenders' three-film version this spring, and you can bet it's going to be the highlight of this writer's season.

My idea of heaven would be a five-hour DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS or MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, and if it weren't for the flurry of those astral collision movies six years ago, I had the perfect solution to format WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: two two-hour features. Part one would tell the story of the destruction of Earth, concentrating on characters who aren't selected to go on the Space Ark to the new planet. We stay with them, watching the Ark leave, not knowing if it will get where it's going, and whammo, the world ends with a bang. Part two restarts a day earlier, and shows the final prep and launch of the Space Ark, but this time following people chosen to go, who before were seen only peripherally. The losers are shunted aside. The launch occurs again, this time experienced from entirely new perspectives than the apocalyptic vision of film one. The rest of the second movie details the Arkian's adventures on their new planet. I like it. Sounds good, huh? It's registered, so don't get any ideas.

The nice thing about the idea of releasing serialized features is that when the inital fru-fru of the release dies down, you're left with a natural double bill, like the two Three Musketeers movies, or Fritz Lang's latter-day The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb. The obvious trick is not to experience a production melt-down as happened on SUPERMAN, and screwed up the number 2 of that split-script. There was an earlier two-part German film that failed so badly it's almost totally forgotten: the 1959 Mistress of the World - what a find that would be for some DVD company now.

DVDTalk is changing servers, with the hopeful result of better service and faster downloads. Let's wish Fearless Leader Geoffrey Kleinman luck with it all. He knows what he's doing and sure seems to work hard. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Hello, Savant is sort of waiting for my internet service to resume so I can post ... this little interruption may be a benefit by making me re-think some of my spelling and less-inspired assertions.

Last week I blabbed about wanting to change my front page format. I'm going to do an experiment by not linking to the new reviews up top ... today they are

THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, THE FIRST TWO SEASONS,
HIGH SIERRA,
LE CERCLE ROUGE and
OLEANNA,

My so-called 'column' had become a prose duplicate of the listing below, and after a year or so, the essential dumbness of this arrangement finally dawned on me. Now you'll have to go to the 'new features' spot a few inches down the page to read the new blurbs and make the links. If you just want to skip the Savant blab and get to the reviews, I suggest linking to the mid-page link instead of up here. Hope this little idea doesn't backfire.

I'm going to try and reserve most of the column space for various printable gab and news I've heard during the week. Today though, I'll just bore you with thoughts about DVD Savant itself.

I'm curious as to how many read Savant and who they are. As the readership is split between the 'original' pages I personally cultivate, and the copies in the greater DVD Talk review database (and over at Rotten Tomatoes, and I think, still at DVD Basen), I never know how big my audience is. Nobody's complaining, but I have the feeling that it varies greatly. The review pages have hit counters that only cover who comes here, and they can be misleading. I've checked back on a title that a few days earlier registered 2,000 hits, and found it reverted to 57 or so, which can be a little humbling.

Fearless DVD Talk leader Geoffrey Kleinman has been taking good care of Savant, and recently replaced the 'search' function on the main page, which had pooped out at the 500 article mark. I haven't been able to check it yet, so I'm not sure how it's working. My Review Search pages work fine to see a full list of Savant reviews, but when I want to access a single review quickly, the most efficient way is still to go to Yahoo or Google and type in 'review title dvd savant'. Most of them come up right away.

Let me stress one more time the benefit of reading Savant here at the original site, instead of at DVD Talk (sorry Geoffrey). If I make some egregious error, I'll fix it in both places, but most revisions and fixes happen only here. Original Savant reviews have a full credit list up top. And when Savant's helpful correspondents write in with rebuttals and other information, I only update the original review. For instance, a reader contradicted the notion that Andy Williams sang for Lauren Bacall in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with info that trumped other printed reports. And a reader of the review of HELL'S HIGHWAY, THE STORY OF HIGHWAY SAFETY FILMS reported in with his own feelings about the subject - he was one of those 6 year-olds in Ohio subjected to the graphic movie about child molesters.

So basically, revisiting old articles often results in new goodies to read. I'll try to report these revisions more often here on the front page.

Finally, thanks for all the feedback on CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. I guess I didn't enrage anyone with my inability to see any merit in the film, but I got lots of email about how the movie is an affectionate favorite anyway. One rule at DVD Savant: Don't tell people what they're supposed to like or want to see. I'd hate to have to defend my taste in a court of law - "So, Mr. Erickson, if that really is your name ... tell us again how many times you've watched THE MYSTERIANS ...."

Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Rounding out the week are four more titles to try and get in a couple of this week's anticipated hits. They're an unusually old bunch even by Savant's standards, but when they start making new films as good as these, I'll review them.

Warners' To Have and Have Not gives us star appeal at its best, a romantic couple famous for pairing up offscreen during the making of the movie. Howard Hawks' adventure provides the background for the legendary get-together of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and it's a good movie, too. "Maybe it happens this way ..."

Fox's Studio Classics presentation of The Ox-Bow Incident proves that the studio doesn't play around with the cream of its library; this title never made the studio a dime but has quality in spades. Henry Fonda's star persona is buried in a lynching story that uses a Western framework for a socially-conscious drama. It's tough, unpleasant and not what one expects from Hollywood in WW2.

Image and Blackhawk's The General and Steamboat Bill Jr. is a delightful double bill and a must-see for everybody. This time around, the improved Buster Keaton comedies have knockout eccentric musical accompaniment from The Alloy Orchestra.

Choosing Critics' Choice's Stage Door Canteen was a choice that I have to say was a mistake; its a great film for star recognition and 40s big bands, but the version here is strictly 3rd rate.

Thanks for all the corrections lately ... That's Vermithrax Pejorative, not Verminthrax; what was I thinking? I'm digging into some TV series and a fancy foreign crime picture from Criterion. Have you heard that Criterion will be bringing out Sam Fuller's Pickup on South Street? Nothing could be finer from where Savant stands, especially if it augurs a Criterion arrangement to release Fox titles. Think of it ... Wild River ... Bigger than Life ... Night and the City ... and a zillion others. The trouble with inside company business being none of my business, is that it's none of my business. Otherwise I'd be asking Criterion people if Eyes Without a Face is on the horizon. We'll find out together, and maybe that's more fun ... most of the scoops I get don't work out anyway. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Happy November from Los Angeles, where Halloween rainstorms and cold weather are allowing a lot of firefighters to get some sleep. Now the reviews can start rolling out ... besides the ones below, I hope to have a couple of the terrific new Humphrey Bogart pictures covered by street date.

Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films is something I never expected to see, a docu on the making of those gore movies about car crashes shown to us high school kids back when the authorities sought to scare us into 'appropriate behaviors.' Bret Wood's docu is mostly on the mark, and a second disc oozes with three complete films - including the notorious Signal 30 - and clips from a dozen more. Yikes!

MGM pulls out the stops for a lavish Special Edition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a film Savant grudgingly admits is some kind of a children's classic, even though it drives him up the wall.

Fox's A Christmas Wish really irks Savant. It's a remarketed, retitled, colorized bit of subterfuge. Hidden behind the glitzy packaging and extras that proclaim it a rediscovered Christmas classic, is a minor but underachieving Jimmy Durante movie from 1949 called The Great Rupert, with its title altered and its credits reshuffled to favor a passel of new 'producers'. "Hi Kids! Let's learn about the word, SCAM!"

Beautifully transferred is Paramount's Dragonslayer, the handsome return of giant stop-motion monsters to the screen courtesy of ILM's animator Phil Tippett. Fans of Lord of the Rings will enjoy this fairly serious tale of old magic being replaced by new religions, and a rigged lottery to provide virgin sacrifices to the horrible Verminthrax Pejorative (great name!).

Thanks again for all the letters, which is the most fun of running this column. I think I'm going to have to spring for a real AV audio system, after THE INDIANA JONES COLLECTION proved to be another of those discs where the center channel doesn't play on my 65" Mitsubishi rear projection set. There were others before, but the only one I really remember was GREASE, and my initial review foolishly blamed the disc! I think I have it all hooked up correctly, and can't determine if the problem is my player or the TV ... Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson