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It’s awful but it needs to be seen to be believed. That notorious Star Wars Christmas Special has become something to avoid, but it was accompanied by many agonizing TV guest star arrangements involving personal appearances by robots and wookies. Michael McQuarrie found this 1970s example, a Donny and Marie variety special.

Only a part of the show is present. At about a minute-twenty in, they call out the night’s guest stars, all of whom are costumed for a galaxy far away:

“Tonight, our guests are Redd Fox (cloaked like Obi-Wan), Kris Kristofferson (no costume), Paul Lynde (in an imperial uniform), The Osmond Brothers (split screen), and from Star Wars, R2-D2, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader — and our own Ice Angels! (cakewalk line)”.

The show has been trimmed down to favor the Star Wars skit, with Donny as Luke and Marie as Leia. A storm trooper chorus enters snapping their fingers. Why wasn’t this filmed in IMAX?

Advisor Gary Teetzel turns us toward something that might be fun, although it might help to be 14 years old again — a reboot of a classic Japanese fantasy from Toho, and from the effects people that made Godzilla Minus One.

Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya’s original The Human Vapor (Gas Ningen Daiichigo) from 1960 starred the great Yoshio Tsuchiya. It wasn’t released here until 1964, imported and dubbed by ‘Brenco Pictures Company’ to serve on a double bill with Toho’s  Gorath. Both pictures soon went to TV, and rights issues have so far held up a U.S. disc release of any kind. In the original, the Human Vapor commits his crimes ‘for the sake of his love, a beautiful dancer.’

Back around 1999, Gary Teetzel and I asked author Stuart Galbraith to loan us his Japanese laserdiscs of numerous Toho classics. They were letterboxed and sometimes in stereo sound, but none had English subtitles. So we picked our way through the fun visuals of  Atragon (why are there so many characters?) and  Furankenshutain Tai Barugon (what, it’s all different!) without really following the stories. The Human Vapor was no exception. I vaguely remember an ending set up as a double suicide situation — could that be correct?

This new streaming promo sees the new Human Vapor shaping up as an action spectacle. It’s a pretty classy teaser edit. The transformation visuals certainly harmonize with the original, and the rest looks reasonably stylish. It’s coming to Netflix early in July.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Michael McQuarrie came through again — we’ve been checking out this little video prize: 45 minutes of fabulous 16mm home movies from the set of Franklin Schaffner’s original  Planet of the Apes.

It’s the work of actor Roddy McDowall, whose still photos and home movies are legendary. Some of these scenes showed up in featurettes promoting the release of the first Planet of the Apes discs, but this is McDowall’s entire uncut reel.

The location is the Malibu cove that serves as the Chimpanzees’ archeological dig that proves heretical to the Ourang powers that be. If I’m not mistaken, the rocks at the south of this particular beach is the location for the fabulous crane setup and effects composite for the film’s famous final shot.

Everybody cooperates with Roddy and his camera — it looks like a happy set. The 16mm footage was posted by one ‘twilightfan69.’

And since we’re on the subject of monkeys, this is a good time for a Book Review that I should have posted a week ago.

The book in question is by Ray Morton, whose  Close Encounters Making-Of Book from 2007 is also a good read. This tome is King Kong, The History of a Movie Icon, published on April 2 of this year. It’s an updating, revision and enlargement of a first edition published in 2005.

Especially with its new material, this overall survey of all things King Kong is a good follow-up to George Turner’s older making-of book, which of course only covers the 1933 original. Morton chronicles the entire Kong saga, through the 1933 sequel, the Toho films of the 1960s, Dino De Laurentiis’s films, Peter Jackson’s 2005 reboot and the ongoing series from Legendary Entertainment.

None of the chapters are given short shrift, not even Toho’s effort. This where the fans divide into two groups, where the ‘Willis O’Brien or Nothing’ purists face off against those that see merit in some of the newer versions, or just choose to be non-judgmental. Author Morton is good at organizing the facts in a logical and entertaining way. We read about what the major players Merian Cooper, Ruth Rose and others did to earn their fandom fame, as well as their backgrounds and other accomplishments.

The book sticks to the major ‘official’ Kong films first, which brings in a great many players in films made in different decades. There’s the infamous John Beck, and the beloved Eiji Tsuburaya, the mogul Dino de Laurentiis with his super-Kong given a 99% to 1% split between Rick Baker and Carlo Rambaldi, and Peter Jackson choosing Kong as his pet project after Lord of the Rings.

Along the way Morton offers succinct and (to this date) definitive accounts of subjects as diverse as the ‘missing’ 1933 spider pit sequence, Ray Harryhausen’s work on Mighty Joe Young, the non-functioning robot Kong and De Laurentiis’s full-court press to have said robot win an Oscar. Jackson’s Kong and the Legendary reboot are covered just as thoroughly as the classic versions. And the book winds up with what seems like an endless stream of Kong TV shows, special films, and outright rip-off productions that used the Kong name but sometimes didn’t even have a giant ape.

The text offers up nuggets we hadn’t heard. Apparently the rights holder RKO General was going to sue the makers of the rip-off feature Konga, until its producers arranged to buy a lot of advertising on RKO General’s TV stations.

At about 360 pages, Morton’s book is a substantial read and a good reference to all filmic angles on the Big Monkey of Skull Island. The text is accompanied by many B&W photos and illustrations. It can be ordered from most booksellers; the link given here is a direct line to Bloombury Academic:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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If the news from Film Masters is true, we’re in for a pleasant surprise. A series of Roger Corman films are going to be shown at Cannes this year, and it looks like Film Masters is behind the recent restoration of Corman’s gangland saga Machine Gun Kelly. The 1958 feature stars Charles Bronson, Susan Cabot, Barboura Morris, Morey Amsterdam, Richard Devon and Jack Lambert. It’s quite a kick.

In the link to the original (very good) trailer one can see the blurb for a process called ‘Superama.’ It’s not a dodge, like American-International’s misleading ‘Wide Screen’ logos … it’s a variation on the film format SuperScope, grabbing a 2:1 slot out of the middle of a flat image. I saw a 35mm print of Machine Gun Kelly projected at Warners in 1978, when James Ursini was hired to do research for a film company. The anamorphic re-position cropped out at least one hand-held gun positioned low in the frame.

We assume that A.I.P. also made flat prints available … old 16mm TV prints were flat, with lots of ‘free space’ top and bottom. Film Masters says A.I.P. released two features format-adjusted for Superama in 1958, but there is actually a third.

Film Masters promises a ‘larger announcement,’ which we hope will mean a disc release. It’s a nice movie to book-end with Roger Corman’s later studio picture  The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Next up, Joe Dante circulated this link to the “Missing Movies Newsletter” for Spring 2026, which celebrates two re-found movies —

The first is a 1989 adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel, The Kill-Off, directed by Maggie Greenwald. The page has a link in which Ms. Greenwald herself explains what happened to her movie, and how she found it.

The second movie is a ‘gritty independent action film’ by Sam Firstenberg, Riverbend, also from 1989. We get to learn the story of the recovery of that film as well.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Some good news on the disc-viewing home front, thanks to a little help from friend Allan Peach and a win-win deal with Daughter #1.

I marked the date when I stopped being 3-D capable last year: on March 9, 2025 my fabulous 65″ LG TV died, the one that had both 4K and 3-D capability. Ever since electronics companies stopped manufacturing 3D monitors, I knew my days with 3-D were numbered. I’d even resigned myself to the inevitable: passive Blu-ray 3-D is terrific but not something to weep and wail over. Well, not too much.

We won’t go into my piddling reasons for not wanting a video projector, some of which have 3-D capability, but all of which use active glasses. The beauty of passive 3-D was that the glasses don’t have batteries. A dozen pairs cost very little.

It just so happens that my daughter’s TV is an old 40″ Samsung from 2015 with active 3-D capability. Serious 3-D enthusiast Allan Peach convinced me to try it out. She generously contributed it to the cause; and we drove it back from her place last week. Allan’s research showed the right glasses to order, and now we are in business once again.

The glasses were a bit pricey, and the first set I bought had a malfunctioning pair that didn’t synch with the TV no matter what we did. The Amazon replacements (next day service) made me fully functional. The TV is the one in my office to check discs for menus, extras, etc., which will work out well.

You needed to know ALL of this. At least we will be able to review the anticipated Jerry Lewis disc, and also the klunky but cute Cat Women of the Moon, whenever that comes out. The 3-D looks almost as good as on the old giant set. The 3-D reviews will flow.  At least for a little while longer, the thirty or so Blu-ray 3-D discs here will be able to do more than collect dust.

A public service of C.S.I. — CineSavant Self-interest Industries.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Here’s something nice for special effects fans, posted quite a while ago by by Ellen Woodrue.

Correspondent Lee Kaplan pointed us to this documentary on a fascinating film artist, Emilio Ruiz del Río.  He’s been creating film illusions with hanging miniatures and complex perspective tricks since the 1940s; we first learned of him through  David Lynch’s Dune in 1984. The ingenuity and precision employed are truly fantastic.

The hour-long show was directed by Sigrid Monleón for Aiete-Ariane films in 2008. Other notables contributing are Enzo G. Castellari, Guillermo de Toro, Ray Harryhausen, José López Rodero, Juan Piquer Simón, and Eduardo Noriega.

I could bring up Spanish language closed captions, and friend Malcolm Alcala showed me how to shift them to other languages. But the effects work on view needs no translation. The title does … it means ‘the ultimate trick.’

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson