One is married to Joan Crawford and the other is leaving his wife to be with her.  Maybe he markets quality clothes hangers? 
Photo Link 
Hello!

A change of plans for a few days at CineSavant … Charlie Largent will be uploading a new CineSavant article or two — not necessarily reviews — that will appear normally at Trailers from Hell. I’m not present to monitor things or run a real CineSavant Column, but if new writing is uploaded to the site, the place to find will be TCM’s  CineSavant Archives Review Log,  inside the TCM website. Everything we publish immediately pops up there.

That link’s single column is also a good to scan through the procession of older reviews and their attendant artwork. If plan is to post on the usual days, so if you wish to see what’s next, check in on Tuesday, September 10.

All is fine; CineSavant ree-vyoos and CineSavant bizz-ness will ree-zoom soon enough. Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Recognize him?  It’s his first credited movie, directed by Michael Powell.

 

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We don’t yet have any specs or a release date, but the word is out that Mario Bava’s unmatched comic-book supervillain thriller  Danger: Diabolik is coming to 4K Ultra HD. The last round of releases for this title was in 2020, with Shout! Factory and [Imprint] giving us excellent remastered editions that got everything right — the correct dialogue, good color, properly mixed music. We were very happy. Hopefully the people who remaster this new 4K package won’t encounter any problems.

If it’s a winner, all that will be left for us fans of John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell is to find out how different the original Italian version might have been. Also, Kino announced back in February of ’23 that they had also acquired the  three recent Diabolik features made in Italy.  We wonder if those are still in the works…

 

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Having been gainfully employed through the 1990s (those were the days…), a lot of TV shows I shoulda saw slipped by, including this one from 1991- 1992 … that I later learned employed directors Joe Dante and Bob Balaban.

It’s a Sci-fi horror show about creepy phenomena afoot in a neighborhood, and only two young friends have the ‘vision’ to see what’s a-happenin’. One fan described it as ‘The Outer Limits for kids.’  Dante directed five out of 19 episodes, including the opener; I see that actor John Astin participates, and Belinda Belaski and a 16-year-old Tobey Maguire do an episode or two as well. The leading player is Omri Katz, who we love in Joe Dante’s  Matinee, produced not long afterward.

The point is that the whole season of shows is now viewable online for free on Tubi … until some super remastered disc comes along, the quality looks pretty good to us.

— Eerie Indiana — the Full Series — 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

We want it!  All versions, with deleted scenes and that great Jean Prodromidés music!

 

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The Australian outfit [Imprint] has announced four new 4K + Blu-ray discs, two of which are tagged on CineSavant’s disc radar. I reviewed Richard Attenborough’s  A Bridge Too Far twenty years ago but only remember its enormous scale; a deluxe edition might be really special. Wolfgang Petersen’s  The Neverending Story should look sensational in 4K Ultra HD … it was one of my most successful ‘parenting’ outings with my 5 year-old daughter.

A Bridge Too Far is newly scanned 4K disc + two Blu-ray set of the all-star epic war movie.

The Never Ending Story is a 40th Anniversary Limited Edition four-disc set in leatherette book packaging … in addition to other extras, it carries the original German Extended Cut, also on 4K and Blu-ray — it’s a full ten minutes longer.

Both discs are due on November 11. Being offered at the same time are 4K / Blu-ray sets of  The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Sam Peckinpah’s  Convoy. Imprint’s website has full details.

 

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And good Halloween news just arrived from The Warner Archive Collection:

The label’s October Blu-ray releases start with the musical  Sweethearts with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, the 1965 TV series  A Man Called Shenandoah with Robert Horton; and Christopher Guest’s  For Your Consideration with Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer and Parker Posey.

What with the Val Lewton double bill coming from Criterion, their new Halloween-themed releases all but clean out the bag of WAC horror titles from the 1940s: the classic Michael Curtiz / Boris Karloff zombie picture  The Walking Dead (1936); the odd Humphrey Bogart mad doctor picture  The Return of Dr. X, and Robert Florey’s  The Beast with Five Fingers, with Peter Lorre.

It actually might be a belated Halloween treat — street date isn’t until October 29.

Gary Teetzel wonders if next year the WAC will move on to chillers from the ’50s and ’60s, like  Macabre,  The Disembodied,  Black Zoo,  The Frozen Dead, etcetera.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

She may have indeed been guilty … to what degree does that matter?

 

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Wartime motivational inspiration is the subject of a link sent by advisor Gary Teetzel. World War II saw lots of morale-building entertainment; this short subject reminds the hundreds of thousands of defense plant workers that they’re soldiers too, with a duty is to stay fit to keep those assembly lines moving. The 8-minute film is called Keeping Fit. It’s in the form of a lecture to 4,000 aircraft workers … gee, the company president is talking about workers wasting time, but his tirade has shut down the entire plant.

The Universal picture has an all-name cast: Robert Stack, Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr., Andy Devine, Anne Gwynne, Dick Foran, Louise Albritton, Don Porter, Ralph Morgan, Mary Wickes. Handsome Stack is the star of the day, and shirtless for part of his 90-second appearance. Universal’s stock company Adonis faints on the assembly line, and is scolded by the factory doctor to get in shape. Nobody’s about to suggest that the men at the plant might be being overworked. As Gary noted, the movie blames wives for not serving nutritious meals. That can’t have been easy when everything desirable is rationed.

Gary sent the link because it’s yet another rare and unusual appearance by a horror star. ‘Fat ‘n’ Lazy’ Andy Devine licks a giant lollypop at work; neighbor Lon Chaney Jr. talks him into taking up bowling or playing horseshoes. Chaney appeared to age 15 years between 1945 and 1950, so maybe Andy should have been coaching Lon … in real life, Devine outlived Chaney by a few years.

Too bad Broderick Crawford and Lon Chaney Jr. had no scenes together — they could have kicked each other in the shins!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

The most excellent Baron Munchausen acquitted himself very well in this Sci-fi oddity.

 

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You didn’t derive enough nightmares from  August 10th’s  CineSavant Column dose of AI horror?  Never despair:

The Vape is back with more dreadful visions, this time leaning toward enormous, Kaiju-like rude beasts slouching toward Bethlehem. Giant ill-defined silverfish-things floating in the sky, anybody?  It’s as if the hinges busted on Julian Karswell’s portal to Hell, setting free Satan’s entire demonic menagerie.

Quick, gather up little children that you want to see scarred forever — why should the illusion of a benign universe be quashed only for adults?

‘Village Live’ epizode 99530 zoology special. 

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And we confess to having purloined a link circulated by Joe Dante, a quite satisfying video lecture by matttt about a legend of comic books.

The Hunt for the Anonymous Cartoonist who Transformed Pop Culture.
Many of us already know about this great talent, but the real issue here is his suppression by a publishing company with illusions to maintain — and a desire to pay peanuts for the genius of ‘hired help’ that brought in millions in profits. This particular story has a happy ending … the bona fide great artist wasn’t acknowledged until he was retired and no longer working, but he could have remained unknown, thinking that his life’s work wasn’t significant or appreciated.

The video is really sentimental and inspirational, and the art shown is wonderful.

 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

It’s like I’m 8 years old again, and everything on TV is wonderful…