Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Bless Gary Teetzel ... he's linked me to more good stuff. This link is three minutes of Eiji Tusburaya directing special effects for "War of the Gargantuas." It's only shots of the effects wizard's camera-side manner, but that's enough: "CutCutCutCutCut!"

Previously reviewed discs streeting today include The Bette Davis Collection Vol. 2 and Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. Savant will be reviewing this week's Rice People, Innocent Sorcerers, The Valerio Zurlini Box Set, London, and Agent #1, as well as last week's The Goebbels Experiment, Hamsun, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Tora! Tora! Tora! and The Last Wagon. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

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

Hello! Savant's new reviews today are

Savant just went through all those Cecil B. DeMille pictures and is still reeling ... not a heck of a lot to report here except it's raining in California ... no toads yet.

Savant has already reviewed these pictures streeting today: Harlan County, USA, The Seven-Ups, These Thousand Hills and Viridiana. In the next week or two I'll catch up with Hamsun, You're in the Navy Now, The Culpepper Cattle Company, Murder Inc., The Dirty Dozen, The Longest Day, The Proud Ones and Tora!Tora!Tora!. No The St. Valentine's Day Massacre yet in sight; I'll get to it if I have to (eeek!) run out and buy (-faint-) a copy. Thanks! Glenn Erickson

Haloo! Savant's new reviews today are

To share in a little controversy, Savant's been monitoring a discussion of the proper aspect ratio of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which came out in region 2 recently in an appropriately enhanced widescreen presentation. The consensus is (mostly through generous info from Tom Weaver) that the film was shot with a hard matte sometimes at 1:85 and sometimes at 1:66 (Like Danger: Diabolik). Previous video versions and even recent 35mm film prints have been Pan-Scanned from the wider frame. Guido Bibra has offered some comparisons between the new transfer and older videotape versions of Jack Arnold's movie: Guido Bibra's Incredible Shrinking Man comparison. Here's hoping that we see a region 1 version soon ... I'm afraid the one thing we all agree on is that we're counting those chickens before they've hatched.

On a different note, perhaps this has been circulating for months and Savant is the last one to see it, but I don't care --- this fake trailer takeoff on The Ten Commandments is really funny. Thanks to reader Karl Morton IV for the link: Ten Things I Hate about Commandments.

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Sort of in a rush tonight ... should have reviews up next time for the excellent Elevator to the Gallows and Decision Before Dawn. Am working on the Fox gangster and western films now and was just told that the Cecil B. DeMille and Bette Davis 2 sets are on their way. Am getting a lot of fun feedback on Earthquake - mostly fond memories of the audio gimmick Sensurround. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Greetings from California, where temperatures seem finally to be settling into what's expected for late Spring -- the high 80s. Savant is just getting into the Fox Gangster offerings, and hoping that The St. Valentine's Day Massacre still comes in. I know there are plenty of box set bargains out there, but I was impressed by the low price asked on Amazon for Fox's Classic Crime Collection - Street Justice: (Murder Inc., The French Connection, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The Seven-Ups). Maybe it's even cheaper elsewhere, but that's pretty low.

Gary Teetzel informs me that Val Guest has died. We saw the great director at Cinematheque screenings of his films, often accompanied by his wife Yolande Donlan; well into his 90s he seemed to be in fine shape. Although Guest made all kinds of films, he was practically alone in the highest ranks of British science fiction movies, with his The Quatermass Xperiment (the film credited with boosting Hammer films to the forefront), the superb Quatermass 2, the thoughtful The Abominable Snowman and The Day the Earth Caught Fire. I cut an interview docu for The Quatermass Xperiment for Greg Carson at MGM in 2003; I hope Sony/MGM somedays sees fit to release it. Guest's remarks on the Casino Royale DVD are priceless. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson.

Savant's new reviews today are

Not much to report today; Of the films being released on May 9 I already have Earthquake, Late Spring and the single-disc 400 Blows in hand to review, with Munich supposedly on the way. A lot of the Fox genre titles also came in and I'll be getting to them as well. Thanks for reading -- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

How about that announcement that Lucasland is reversing their solemn word, and will release the first three Star Wars films in their original versions? Of course, we'll have to buy them as part of double sets, along with the revised versions. Surely this is a way to tap into DVD gold one more time before HD comes along, the same way the Star Wars people sold a zillion VHS sets of the first three films ten years ago, just before DVD came in. Is Savant cynical about this?

Universal has hinted without details on Dracula and Frankenstein DVD re-packagings for Halloween, making Savant think a 'fan site' is just a conduit for pre-announcement hype. But they also promise Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff collections, which raises our hopes just the same. Perhaps the Karloff estate isn't an impediment to Boris-themed releases, as was once thought. Right about now is when fantastic film fans are looking for announcements of Halloween genre product from the majors, so everyone's a bit antsy.

I've been dropping by a film review site in the German language written by frequent Savant correspondent Guido Bibra and his two associates Jens Vogel and Dusty Seissler. It's called Bibra-Online.de and its listings are pretty thorough. Reading about movies I'm already familiar with is a good way to stretch my high-school German knowledge. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Greetings! Had sort of a monster fan evening on Sunday night. The publicity people promoting a new docu disc called The Sci-Fi Boys had a screening at Universal. Since it was on the lot I left my camera at home only to discover that it was a wide open photo-op with (beware, idle name-drop warning) some top fan luminaries present: Ray Harryhausen, John Landis, Forry Ackerman, Bob Burns, Ann Robinson, Basil Gogos and filmmaker Paul Davids.

The movie was an ode to fandom, extolling the inspiration of Harryhausen, George Pal and others as broadcast to hundreds of thousands of 1960s boomer kids through Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Present effects and makeup masters talk about how they got hooked on fantasy and monsters. Feature clips illustrate discussion about the takeover of CGI effects. The show is definitely aimed at a splinter audience - the kind eager to see clips from the ancient Famous Monsters contest movie, "Siegfried Saves Metropolis!"

Key interviews are dated from 2003 (although we see ol' Forry through the ages, bless him) and the project seems to have come about with Universal money from the King Kong ad campaign. Peter Jackson provides opening and closing statements. It gets a bit sentimental with Ackerman, the Don of monster fandom.

Davids announced a new organization called CINEROUGE, which bestowed an award on Ray Harryhausen after the show ... a really impressive sculpture of Lon Chaney as the Phantom. (Photos by Gil Frazee) The Sci-Fi Boys is at present a Best Buy exclusive.

Savant received his discs of the Arkoff features (finally) but didn't feel like rushing a review out in just one evening ... I guess I have to admit to having a lot of Sci Fi boy blood in my veins. Next time. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson