Hello!

A season or two ago The Warner Archives’ George Feltenstein promised great Blu-ray news going forward on a monthly basis, and it soon became clear that he wasn’t kidding …

… since spring the monthly tally of WAC releases per month has doubled; every month has had can’t-miss-it special items ( Last Summer) and a pleasing selection of vintage vault classics.

September is better than we could have hoped. The Archive will release a 4K Disc of David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter, from 1970. This is one BIG movie, and the prospect in seeing it in 4K is already building up anticipation — Ryan’s was filmed in 65mm; I should think that it is going to look sensational. I’m already hearing from readers who know how much I like it personally.

Arriving with or near Ryan’s Daughter are some very desirable titles, in Blu-ray: John Ford’s The Lost Patrol, the Doris Day movie Please Don’t Eat the Daisies., Glenn Ford and Geraldine page in Dear Heart; Bette Davis in Marked Woman, the Complete Maverick TV Show from the 1950s, and the extreme-case preCode drama SkyScraper Souls.

We can also rest a little easier in regard to the umpcoming fancy restoration of Terence Fisher’s Dracula / Horror of Dracula. It’s expected this Fall, although I don’t think it’s been given an official date as yet. The good news is that the trusted home video producer
Constantine Nasr has posted a clear statement that assures us of the content of the new 4K remaster. Quoth Mr. Nasr:

“This is the complete original film prior to any censorship. Full stop. You’ve not seen what is here because I am working on this release, have seen it and can assure you that even past ‘restorations’ are incomplete.”

Finally, a trusted voice on the subject. So good for us …

And finally, Michael McQuarrie has located an online copy of the old  Victory at Sea TV show … not the full series of 26 half-hour shows, but the version that was edited into a single-length feature. It telescopes the entire season of the documentary show down to about 90 minutes. It’s a good way to get an overview of the Navy war, at least as how it was seen in 1956 or so, from Pearl Harbor to the A-Bomb. But it hasn’t been shown much since the 1960s.

It’s also nice to not have so many repeats of the Richard Rodgers / Robert Russell Bennett music score — I remember Steven Spielberg saying that he had asked John Williams to give some of his music for ‘1941’ the flavor of Victory at Sea, and that’s exactly the note hit when the submarine surfaces in the first scene.

P.D. copies of the whole series are easy to find. Michael looked for this feature version because I had written about it in my review last month of Fred Zinnemann’s  The Seventh Cross. I remembered being emotionally affected (as a child) by a brief montage alluding to concentration camp horror, that was not part of the finale of the TV show. I can now finally see that the shot of scores of hanged prisoners is not an outtake from The Seventh Cross, but part of the Army film record.

If you check out the end of the show, you’ll come across the montage — that brief shot that disturbed me had more impact because it was cross-dissolved with the shots before and after. The superimposed smoke made it look like a scene from hell. Video makes viewing a lot different now, because we can study individual shots — rather than wait a year to maybe catch them again.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

It’s pretty clever …. Joe Dante circulated this 1960s TV spot reportedly written by comic Stan Freberg.

The direction is excellent — most spots trying to look hip like this one, quickly date, but this one is as funny as ever. We always thought that Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels were spot-on with their performances, and here they show a sense of humor as well.

And another western parody, this one from Michael McQuarrie.

It’s a spoof of Spaghetti westerns and operetta, with stand ins for the characters of For a Few Dollars More. The joke isn’t particularly deep but the production and direction are excellent. We also liked the use of music.

The skit is from the Italian RAI TV organization. I’m told that it was originally posted by Italo Western expert Tom Betts.

No English subs … but Leone fans will get every joke.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Here I am, linking to an article I don’t like. I don’t think it reads as if written by AI; I just don’t agree with much of anything in it. It’s about Sam Peckinpah, with his personality and career spun to create an attractive image for a site called ‘Drunkard.’

The first tip-off is all the strange misinformation. Ride the High Country was Mr. P’s first feature?  It won three Oscar nominations?   I can generate plenty of sincere praise for some of Peckinpah’s films, but the phrase ‘he directed a handful of this country’s finest motion pictures’ doesn’t resonate. ‘He changed the way movies were written?’  I don’t think so.

‘Born and raised in the quiet suburbs of Northern California‘  After reading about Sam’s upbringing in ranch houses in historical mining country, that doesn’t sound right.

The text wants to elevate Peckinpah’s status by the fact that he was a big drinker, that his rough language made him cool. The author assures us that most criticism of Peckinpah is wrong, including that by his key biographers. For my money all four books by the Peckinpah bio posse paint strong, well-considered portraits of a very problematic artist. Ah the joys of drunken escapades in the California mountains. The joy of a movie sequence without dialogue or music, where bandits finish that last bottle of whiskey before going out to fight. Booze and guns, what could be better?

According to the author, evil studio executives sabotaged Peckinpah’s career, which made Sam’s outrageous behavior logical and appropriate. The examples in the article stroke Sam’s legend; the stories I heard first-hand from film crew people make one want to never meet the man.

The article builds on the fan opinion of Peckinpah, seeing his rebellion as justified and his self-destruction as somehow glorious. I agree that he’s a legend, but the glorious part escapes me. Admittedly, some of my favorite movies were made by very flawed people. Here’s to them.

Joe Dante just offered up this link … it’s like a much-needed public service message.

As a kid I lived on big Air Bases with multiple theaters one could walk to, or in a small city with a variety of theaters. But when I visited my grandmother in Henderson, Nevada, I saw the small-town theater experience — a little, clean family business with good projection and a grateful clientele. I saw  Hercules in the Haunted World there, my second exposure to a director whose name I would learn years later.

Rustin Thompson uploaded this little film, which is a movie trailer but doesn’t play like one. It’s only a couple of minutes long but it really makes one feel sorry for today’s kids. Nothing was better than wishing and hoping for Saturday, and the experience of a matinee in a real movie house.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Once again Michael McQuarrie surfaces with a good link. This is to a vintage audio recording called “Vincent Price Witchcraft & Magic”.

I had never heard of this record album, but according to CineSavant cohort Wayne Schmidt, it was a serious part of his childhood:

“I love this album. I’ve had it since it first came out, asked for it for Christmas. I ended up with two copies.  I still have one, but unfortunately they’re very delicate vinyl due to the length of each side. So the records are very scratchy and not pleasant to listen to.

FORTUNATELY Amazon had it as a download for purchase years back, and here’s the weird part . . . I was very familiar with the album. I’m listening to the mp3 when suddenly it starts going into an additional part not on the record. But it cuts off after a minute abruptly without finishing this new bit. I suspect when they digitized it they were using the original tapes and it had an unused outtake at the end of one side and no one caught it. Either that or Mr. Price was pontificating from the spirit world and someone rudely cut him off.

The album also came with a nifty booklet, and the Amazon’s mp3 purchase thoughtfully scanned it and made it part of the download.

I recommend it! It’s whimsical but also historically accurate, with some gruesome descriptions of witch tortures and what-have-you.” — Wayne

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson