Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

The Girls  Project X / New Yorker
The Femme Fatale Collection:
  Mesa of Lost Women, Devil Girl from Mars, The Astounding She-Monster
 Image and
Second Chorus  Image

Hello Again from Savant central! More Sci-Fi fun and art movie surprises. I'm hoping the October titles start coming in soon -- a couple of Warner boxed sets and individual releases are due in just a few days. I did just get in a double bill of THE DEVIL'S HAND and THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN/MADMAN OF MANDORAS and will be checking it out soon -- one of the shows is the work of a professor back at UCLA, David Bradley. Thanks for reading, and thanks for the continued corrections! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen  Kino
Billy Wilder Speaks  Kino
A Home of Your Own  Digital Classics
PAL Region 2 by Lee Broughton
and
The Last Broadcast  Wavelength

And a pleasant Tuesday to you! Feedback from the Sci-Fi, Frankenstein & Dracula reviews has been positive, so Savant is in a particularly good mood -- especially after some helpful readers corrected some of my, uh, creative facts.

One of the better web discussion boards has a post claiming that an edit had been made to the Sci-Fi set's transfer of The Incredible Shrinking Man, that at the end of the spider battle sequence, 16mm prints show an extra shot of 'spider goo' dripping down onto Scott Carey's forearm before the jump-cut and music disruption. It's obvious that something was removed, and by power of suggestion I'm already 'remembering' the shot that the reader mentions, but I just can't trust that memory. I don't remember what happened in the 35mm print that I saw, or on old TV showings, except that some kind of jump cut was always there. I checked the new DVD against a 1988 VHS pre-record I've saved (want to be able to show people how bad the old pan-scan version looks) and they're identical, cut-wise. The spider goo reaches Carey's fist, there's a repeated-frame 'hold', and then the jump cut. If there's more, we'd love to see it some day. That's just for the record. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection
Tarantula, The Mole People, The Incredible Shrinking Man,
The Monolith Monsters, Monster on the Campus
 Universal
Frankenstein 75th Anniversary Edition  Universal and
Dracula 75th Anniversary Edition  Universal

Hello from Gower street -- not a lot to report tonight. Saw two new films last week. HOLLYWOODLAND was somewhat downbeat but well made and thoughtful. It captured perfectly the thrill of George Reeves in the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN TV show -- specifically visualizing the image in Savant's review of kids dropping everything to run to the TV set when they heard the show's distinctive main theme. A lot less interesting, in fact a gnawing bore, was FLYBOYS, an absolutely brainless pile of flying clichés held together by a lot of CGI airplanes that continually tell us that it's all fake -- impossible angles, ridiculously optimized action. No fun at all. Enjoy the all-Universal monster-thon reviews! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

So Ends Our Night  VCI
Jigoku  Criterion and
The Assassination of Trotsky  Lance Entertainment

Hello again ... I guess we're all wondering how difficult it is / isn't going to be to get a UNIVERSAL SCI FI ULTIMATE EDITION with all those 50s hits, now that it's a Best Buy Exclusive. No screener has come my way but I'll do my best to get it reviewed.

Did my one and only trip to the big Sabucat 3D fest on its last day to see CEASE FIRE! and DOOM TOWN, which can certainly be called rarities. CEASE FIRE! was filmed with real soldiers in Korea, although I didn't believe any of the bunk about live ammo and explosives being used -- those mine and grenade explosions were going off right next to the non-pro actors. Unfortunately, the movie wastes its chance to say something meaningful about ordinary heroism (the soldiers must go on a dangerous patrol within hours of an expected armistice) by relying on tired action clichés. The overall realism is to be commended, although the bulk of the picture could have been shot in Southern California.

DOOM TOWN was a short about an atom test narrated by a rather skeptical and pacifist news columnist. The bomb footage is brief and in color, and includes a few of those famous shots of test-zone buildings being blown to bits and bursting into flame. I don't think any of that footage was in 3D, and some of it may have been tinted. Who can tell, when the only color is red? (note - the program notes said that that footage had been replaced, so viewers hoping to see a nuclear explosion in 3D, didn't). In the end, our observer strolls into the (hopefully roentgen-'cold') desert, musing that Man can now blow up almost anything, but he can't build a single blade of grass. Unfortunately, the columnist also assures us that he's going to make his kid happy by ghost-writing his school composition, a piece about Hoover Dam. Even Beaver Cleaver's parents didn't do his homework for him! The guy thinks he has an elevated sensitivity, yet he's teaching his boy very destructive life lessons. A kid who grows up letting somebody else do the think-work for him, is the kind who will vote to build more nuclear weapons! (?)

I think DOOM TOWN has real potential as a reality-based TV series. Every week the sombre hero observes something melancholy in man's society, offers poetic thoughts, and helps his kids cheat on their homework. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Picture posed after an interview with Mickey Hargitay, a very nice fellow, 1997.

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Japan's Longest Day  AnimEigo
Brainiac (El Barón del terror)  CasaNegra and
Weird Worlds Collection:
Destination Moon, Project Moonbase, Phantom Planet & First Spaceship on Venus  Image

I'd like to make a special expression of thanks for the many minor (and some not so minor) corrections I've been receiving from friendly readers lately; although I try my best some really odd things slip through and I'm grateful for not having my foolishness last more than a few hours. Poor Savant, I'm sure it's getting near time for the cholorform with that guy.

But not so fast. I am looking forward to a wealth of attractive titles coming in the next couple of months: Warners' Bogart boxed set, Universal's Science Fiction boxed set (a Best Buy Exclusive), Warners' Hollywood's Legends of Horror boxed set, Columbia's Karloff set, Fox's The Panic in Needle Park, Facets' Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, Criterion's Hands over the City, Warners' Astaire-Rogers Set #2, Warners' RKO Weismuller Tarzan Set, Fox's The Quiller Memorandum, Paramount's Oh! What a Lovely War and ¡Police Squad! full series, Classic Media's Mothra vs. Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, Criterion's The Fallen Idol, Warners' Forbidden Planet, Universal's King Kong extended edition, Dark Sky's Blood of the Vampire / The Hellfire Club double bill, and the most-wanted gem of all, Criterion's Pandora's Box. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

9/11 Press for Truth  Disinformation
Brazil  Criterion
Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de ultratumba)  CasaNegra and
Seduced and Abandoned  Criterion

The big 3D Exhibition has begun at the Egyptian in Hollywood, and so far Savant's been talked into going to see CEASE FIRE and DOOM TOWN next Sunday, the last night of the series. To my surprise, I've been told that there are plenty of seats at most screenings, so it might be a good last-minute entertainment of choice!

Great news from Facets Video - - in October they're releasing the Czech comedy-Fantasy WHO WANTS TO KILL JESSIE?, a 1966 movie about comic characters who come to life and have to survive in the real world - even though their only means of communication is through literal written dialogue balloons. Star Olga Shoberová made a couple of international films, including THE VENGEANCE OF SHE, as Olinka Berova.

Also, a long-unseen John Cromwell movie called SO ENDS OUR NIGHT made early in 1941 from an Erich Maria Remarque story about Nazi terror, is coming out from VCI. A screener for that one is on the way. I only remember one gripping scene of Fredric March being cornered, and have never forgotten it. I hope the copy is good ...

That's just about it for the moment ... I should have reviews for JIGOKU and JAPAN's LONGEST DAY up on Saturday. Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Roma cittá libera  NoShame
The Swindle  New Yorker
and
Open Letter to the Evening News  NoShame

It's a foreign film weekend at DVD Savant, highlighting the continuing efforts of NoShame and New Yorker to edgeu ... edzu, eduk --- teach us a few things about film history. In other brief news, a hint in this week's Criterion newsletter says 'move over Lugosi, make room for Karloff,' which we guess is their way of leaking the news that Richard Gordon's English thrillers The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood are on the way in presumably terrific Criterion editions. Corridors has some legendary surgical scenes that the existing Image DVD ellipses with a crude splice; it'll be interesting to get the straight dope on that picture. And if I remember correctly Christopher Lee has fun with a Bill Sykes-like thug character named Resurrection Joe. Tom Weaver has said that the discs may be out in January or February. Can Richard Gordon's First Man Into Space and The Atomic Submarine be far behind?

The photo above is a simple vanity offering. Out of 500 snaps of a vacation road trip a couple are bound to be good, if only by accident. This is the Grand Canyon between rain showers early in August. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

The Wicker Man  (1973) Anchor Bay
Nina Simone - Live at Montreux 1976  Eagle Eye and
The Amazing Mr. X  Image

Not a lot to say for myself ... am receiving the usual helpful corrections and further information about the films reviewed here. Will be checking my mailbox carefully for new discs to review. A number of good titles (Seduced and Abandoned, Brazil, Japan's Longest Day) are going to arrive after street date, but that's a scheduling problem I haven't quite yet conquered. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Hello! Savant's new reviews today are

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)  Legend
Playtime  Criterion and
Shinbone Alley  Image/Fine Arts

Savant's review of Kings Row has been amended with an informative Email with a possible revelation about the film's character Dr. Tower, played by Claude Rains. I'd always skipped over review references to an incestuous aspect to Tower's relationship with his daughter Cassandra, but apparently in the original book, that's indeed the case. Yet Tower is still a loving and concerned physician convinced that Cassandra has inherited a mental illness from her mother. I guess I'll have to read the book now, to straighten it all out.

Paramount has announced a big-deal Savant guilty pleasure, Richard Attenborough's overlong but dazzling Oh! What a Lovely War! It's a musical that alters WW1-era songs to satirical and creepy anti-war effect. The movie stars just about every big English actor alive in 1969 and is said to be coming out on November 7.

UK correspondent Lee Broughton forwarded this funny re-jiggering of High Noon, a You Tube item called High Tech Noon. It's brilliant stuff -- maybe some readers haven't seen it yet.

Another must-see You Tube show steered to us via the If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger ... site: The Existentialist by Leon Prochnik, 1963. This looks simple for the first few scenes, and then I get very confused on how specific shots were done and who was an 'actor' and who wasn't. It's listed as a good example of the "New American Cinema" movement -- Jonas Mekas and company, etc., and is about 8 minutes long. As is the norm for amazing film finds, the IMDB doesn't list The Existentialist under its director or its cameraman, the famous Ed Emshwiller. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson