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Hello again ... reviews are lagging a bit behind street date but I think I'm keeping up the quality. The problem with the Preston Sturges Comedies is that they're so funny, one forgets to think of them in terms of a review.

Gary Teetzel sent me this YouTube link, of a deleted scene from Superman IV which I hope to be reviewing soon. Although I saw several work prints of this movie while at Cannon, I don't remember anything like this ... a rather silly confrontation between Superman and Lex Luthor's first, failed attempt to make a Nuclear Man. It's pretty much a 'good riddance' deleted scene, what with all the product placement, etc.. ... and we wonder if it will be on the final disc. The movie had many deleted scenes, and some of them were improvements on what's in the finished cut. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

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Hello! I was invited to a preview of Paul Verhoeven's new thriller Black Book (Zwartboek) last week, which turned out to be terrific movie. Verhoeven returns to Holland for another lengthy and detailed story of anti-Nazi resistance produced on a lavish scale like his previous masterpiece, 1977's Soldier of Orange. Derek de Lint and Dolf de Vries return in key roles, but the film follows the fortunes of the beautiful Ellis (Carice van Houten), a survivor of a massacre of Jews who joins the resistance and beds a senior occupation official (Sebastian Koch) as part of her mission. It's based on many true incidents gathered into one rather packed storyline, so unlike Soldier of Orange, it's not a "true" story. A few disturbing and excessive scenes, including one that was entirely unnecessary, will immediately define this as Verhoeven's work. But the movie has great performances, a great lead actress in Ms. van Houten and is the most exciting new film I've seen this year. I believe it hopes to become one of this year's nominees for best Foreign Film. It apparently doesn't open here until March. -- Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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It looks like three reviews today, but it's really nine, so Savant's sense of guilt isn't as acute as it might be. I'm hoping to have the Preston Sturges Boxed Set reviewed by next Tuesday, what with the holiday coming up and all.

My news from a good but unofficial source is that John Huston's The Kremlin Letter missed its street date of Nov. 7 not for legal reasons but because the transfer quality didn't pass muster with Fox Home Video. That's a very good sign and typical of that company's overall commitment to quality. We certainly hope that Kremlin catches up with us sooner than later -- it's a Savant favorite along with (please, please) the international version of Fox's The Sicilian Clan.

I'm off to see (I hope) a new Paul Verhoeven film tonight. It's his first in decades made back in Holland, so I'll be excited to see what he comes up with ... Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Hello again ... most of the late fall desirables are reported to be on their way, including Superman II The Richard Donner Cut, The Last Voyage, The Most Beautiful Wife, The Quiller Memorandum, Mothra vs. Godzilla, The Paul Newman Collection, The Glamour Girl Collection (Kino), The Conformist, The Dean Martin Double Feature (I hope they aren't painful), and Preston Sturges The Filmmaker Collection. One hotly desired title that missed its street date is Fox's The Kremlin Letter, and I'd like to know that it's not in any kind of legal bind, like the skipped Fox Noir title Boomerang!

As far as keeping up with the reviews goes, I'm being consistently late but not falling farther behind. If this were college I'd be pulling D's and F's, but .... (clever finish vanishes in mental fog) .... it's not college, so there.

I've been buying more discs lately and found a copy of the R2 BBC Quatermass TV Serials the other day ... when I get done watching all eight hours or so I might choke out a review, if it's wanted. The disc has been out quite a long time, but it's the kind of thing Savant can't resist.

Every once in a while when I'm too loopy to write, I'll google myself and see what's cookin' in the libel department. This time I found a Baking site about Cream Puffs that quotes my four-year-old Mildred Pierce Review in the weirdest way. It's down the page, at the May 11 entry, and no, I am not a cream puff.

Best to all and see you in a couple of days ... early word tells me that the new 007 Casino Royale is actually pretty good ... Thanks, Glenn Erickson

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Hello again ... this is where the Savant review schedule stretches out a bit, as having so many boxed sets hit in just a few weeks (Karloff, MGM Classics, Astaire & Rogers, Hitchcock TV, Addams Family TV, Gary Cooper, Tarzan) is pushing a couple of sets (Brando, Paul Newman) back past their street dates. Managing more than one a week gets hairy, but I'll keep trying!

Thanks to today's great Greenbriar Louise Brooks pictorial, I'm all charged up for Criterion's upcoming Pandora's Box disc set. Ever since seeing a ratty copy on PBS in the late 1970s, I've hoped that it would be restored some day, and hopefully this DVD will be it.

Gary Teetzel pointed out this website with information and demos of the new Criterion and Eclipse Logos. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Had a terrific time last Wednesday night at the Egyptian theater, for Warner Home Video's premiere promotion for its new DVD (and HD DVD) of Forbidden Planet. DVD Talk's generous Geoffrey Kleinman secured the invite, and we gathered dutifully in the foyer with a retinue of WHV suits and their guests and the invited celebrities. The host for the screening was robot restorer Fred Barton and his talking Robby the Robot duplicate; Robby provided the actual intro speech for the screening.

I took a seat next to some dedicated fans that had come from out of town to see the screening; one had a rather good-looking FP blaster replica and a stack of magazines to be signed. The kicker was that these weren't kids but marginal senior citizens only a little older than myself. Being only four years old when the movie was new, I of course had no personal memories of its original release; for me it was a pan-scanned B&W item chopped up on TV until MGM once again made (faded) theatrical prints available in the 1970s.

Forbidden Planet looked fine projected on the giant Egyptian screen; the colors are now brighter than I've ever seen them even if they still look as if they had to be 'rescued and revived' from faded materials. And on the huge Egyptian screen the audio sounded better than ever. (Note, 01/05/07: Bruce Chambers has corrected me ... Warner Home Video supplied a DLP projector and a hard drive containing a K2000 version of the film; what we saw projected was not a 1080 DVD.)

After the screening Barton invited the guests down front for a lengthy discussion: Earl Holliman, Warren Stevens, Richard Anderson and the lovely Anne Francis, still as trim and frisky as ever. Faced with some uninspired prompting, the group self-generated a lively discussion of the Sci-Fi movie that pleased the audience and showed plenty of respect -- if they once dismissed it from their personal list of proud achievements, it's back up there now. Ms. Francis has always been a favorite, and she's every bit as charming today.

Savant doesn't drag cameras to these events, so there won't be any photos posed with the Robby the Robot facsimile. That now seems like a slightly missed opportunity. But you may report me to Warner Home Video for filching an extra Robby the Robot Cookie to create the above graphic.

For those incredibly hip people that gravitate toward the Russian Science Fiction Festival that's been touring the nation, it's now playing in Vancouver. The films are being shown more than once, giving viewers a second chance at the more interesting ones; they're also showing more titles than we saw here at the American Cinematheque. Robert Richardson provided us with this info, and points out that the organizer and host of the series is our own respected Robert Skotak, effects expert and Sci-Fi Film authority, information that wasn't even publicized here. The series is showing a film called FIRST ON THE MOON, a 2005 mockumentary about a glorious Stalin-era moon shot - 30 years before Apollo 11. I wish I could have seen that one -- maybe it will find a rightful distributor on DVD.

Also, correspondent Christophe Michel clued Savant to a new German DVD of Hangmen Also Die! that has the entire missing Hangmen Also Die! Jump Cut footage intact! The Jump Cut article has been fully annotated. And it was only a six-year wait! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

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So VOTE! Vote Early! Vote Often! Savant will be out there playing good citizen at the crack of dawn ....
..... and don't forget the important candidate for 2008!

Reviews and screenings chug along into November; Savant has the Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando sets on the way, along with at least some of the attractive Fox spy pictures (if they show) and musicals from Fox and Universal. Now's also the time to get out there and do one's Christmas shopping, but is Savant acting on that wise advice? .... not yet. Back again on Saturday, when we'll see if the political scorecard has changed, if not the political climate. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

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Some fun news. DVDTalk's Geoffrey Kleinman secured a Savant invite to the premiere screening last night of SUPERMAN II, THE RICHARD DONNER CUT at the Director's Guild. SUPERMAN I and II originally started as one huge script and was then divided into two movies; Richard Donner completed much of the filming for the second half when he was fired and replaced by Richard Lester. Lester re-shot most of Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder's scenes, and his movie ended up junking a lot of original plot and replacing it with new material. The most important element was Warner's dropping of Marlon Brando's scenes from SUPERMAN II to save money; he was replaced by Susannah York, who played Kal-el's mother.

Several popular websites have been screaming for years to see this version reconstituted. As part of a massive Superman push this year, Warner Home Video has been remastering fancy versions of the Christopher Reeve films as well as collecting other Superman rarities like the Columbia Kirk Alyn serials and the Max Fleischer Paramount cartoons (restored from original elements, we're told). A note to 'the press' asked us not to review Donner's recut before the DVD release, but nobody said anything about reviewing the evening, which was impressive on its own.

The Guild theater had a rather small section set aside for 'press' and 'guests' and a phalanx of video cameramen were on hand to record both the entrance of the VIPs (they gravitated immediately to the reception room bar) and the spirited discussion after the movie. The Warner Home Video host introduced a hefty list of special guests in the audience: Richard Donner, his restoration editor/producer Michael Thau, screenwriter and special consultant Tom Mankiewicz, Margot Kidder, Marc McClure, Sarah Douglas, and Jack O'Halloran. Representing other-generation Super-films were 50s Lois Lane Noel Neill and the new Man of Steel, Brandon Routh, along with his director Bryan Singer, his editor/composer John Ottman and his Jimmy Olsen Sam Huntington. Representing Marlon Brando were his son and daughter. All took spirited bows to the expected applause.

After the screening, which was understandably well received, the key actors, Thau, Donner and Mankiewicz took the stage and favored us with about a half hour of pleasant talk, memories and clarifications about the shooting. The actors explained how they were cast, Kidder talked at length about the politics on the set and the difference between Lester's style and Donner's -- she thought Lester was too cynical for the material. Kidder said she had been vocal in her antipathy toward the producers, which led to her SUPERMAN III part being cut down to only a few lines. Donner and Mankiewicz reminisced about the craziness in figuring out how to end the movies; the producers had panicked and moved the 'turn back the clock' finish from part two back to the end of part one. All in all, the evening was excellent for this kind of outing: No terrible delays, no egotistical stars being obnoxious and a limit set on mutual back-patting.

I'm looking forward to reviewing the disc when it comes out in a few weeks. I loved SUPERMAN I but thought Lester's II was a major betrayal of the characters and tone established in the first film. The restoration fixes many of its problems.

Thanks for reading!, Glenn Erickson