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As they say up on Gower Gulch,  I Cunha Believe It.  It’s been leaked that The Film Detective has plans to follow its remastered disc of Giant from the Unknown with a second Richard E. Cunha Astor Pictures release, the occasionally indescribable Frankenstein’s Daughter.  I have to say I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Cunha’s other two cinematic masterpieces, She Demons and Missile to the Moon. Did they shoot these pictures back-to-back?  All four were released in 1958 and I’ll bet they were filmed to become a pair of double bills.

All four titles might dwell at the weak end of ’50s drive-in exploitation — just look at the trashy posters sometime — but more likely than not they made their money back and then some. I found She Demons to be the most fun, being high-camp schlock with a starring performance from Irish McCalla. It’s also in terrible taste. And I’m here to testify that I saw Missile to the Moon when it was new. I loved it, especially the dreaded lunar ‘Rock Men.’  At age eight I thought they were really scary.

Since Paramount has some rights to these pictures, I wonder if they’re getting released because the corporation fronted for new transfers. I hope all four come out remastered and widescreen-formatted. Giant is announced, Frankenstein’s Daughter seems pretty likely, and at this point I need to emphasize that Demons & Missile are just CineSavant wishful thinking.

Dick Dinman’s latest Classics Corner On the Air show centers on the William Wyler favorite Roman Holiday with the participation of discussion guest Catherine Wyler — and a special ‘cameo’ appearance by Cecilia Peck.

And roving researcher Gary Teetzel comes through with two fun links. The first I may have put up before, it’s an archive.org link to the entire run of the magazine Fantastic Monsters of the Films, the one put together by Paul Blaisdell and Bob Burns way back in the early ‘sixties. I think I only had two issues, but I read them until they fell apart. Now they’re fun to read for the ‘coming soon’ columns that list movies that never happened, or that underwent title changes. Example: A.I.P.’s then-upcoming Panic in Year Zero!  is listed under the title Survival.

Gary also sends along a real find, an episode of TV’s The Jack Benny Program starring Billy Wilder, from 1962. Billy is pretty good — when Jack opens the door at about seventeen minutes in, the tall wilder is leaning on the doorjam in what looks like a typical pose. We wonder if the celebrity value of Billy Wilder might have been lost on average audiences across the country, even though UA had been promoting him as a star director, like Alfred Hitchcock.

Gary located an even more arcane director guest-starring on a TV comedy sitcom: Charles Vidor on the George Burns & Gracie Allen Show. It’s from 1958. I guess now I know what Charles Vidor looked and sounded like.

And finally, author David Schow comes through with a great YouTube piece — A Conversation with Rod Serling. Serling talks like he does on his Twilight Zone intros, with a mild case of lockjaw. It certainly makes him stand out as an individual. He’s also naturally erudite … in other words, I’m jealous. It’s 1968 and he’s not happy that anthology series can’t get on the air. Rod smokes throughout, and even coughs now and then.

The moderators are Bernie Harrison and the author James Dickey, the author of Deliverance. His authentic Southern voice arrives first at 4:55!  Expect plenty of talk about intellectual deserts on television, a medium that Dickey calls a platform for the delivery of commercials.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Correspondent ‘Bee’ sends along this pretty amazing Cartoon Research article by Keith Scott entitled Avery …. Vol. 2??? Well, Imagine That!  The article’s real mission is to divulge the identities of scores of voice talent names and what they did on specific cartoons. The list is pretty amazing, and Scott includes bio information, inside comments, and other research. It makes us more aware of how sophisticated and artful are those Avery cartoon tracks — masterpieces of pitch and timing.   He even identifies a lady who whistles on a cartoon soundtrack.  That reminds me, we’re due to review the WAC’s Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 2 Disc…

And contributor-reviewer Lee Broughton has an interesting article up on his Current Thinking on the Western page: the current entry for December 13, 2020 is called An Interview with Filmmaker Chris Keller. I don’t know whether to think of Keller as an amateur or a professional. The uptake on him is that he’s one of those Euro-fans of Italo westerns that visits shooting sites in Almeria, Spain — and films his own movies there. He calls them amateur productions but they’re too elaborate and professional to to be dismissed so quickly. The main one under discussion in the interview is called …. and then the Vultures had a Feast. The article contains a free link to see it online (!) plus links to other Keller mini-masterpieces — made completely with the help of friends. Vultures has the participation of an actress from some Spaghettis, who was married to a director.

And thanks to Matt Rovner for the review today of the Classics of Yiddish Cinema films. Matt collaborated with me on a commentary for Arch Oboler’s sci-fi classic Five, which will be coming from Viavision [Imprint] in February. The image above is from the Yiddish folk-horror movie The Dybbuk (1937), which is partly restored and presented in two versions.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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First up is some fun from the rumor mill. Since I’ve heard it from three separate sources now — and one of them someone likely to know, I don’t feel too hasty passing on the unconfirmed report that a Blu-ray is on the way for George Pal’s Destination Moon. That’s the epochal science fiction movie that jump-started both Pal’s live-action career and the entire 1950s Sci-fi wave. For all I know, the in-the-works disc is already common knowledge on the web boards. Various rights for this particular title are spread out here and there so there’s no saying where exactly it comes from or who to ask about it, and I have no further details. What’s important to us diehard fans is getting all the ’50s greats out in editions that show them at their best. The one available DVD of this show is pretty ragged.

Yes, in strict historical terms Germans and Soviets were the first to make movies about going to the moon with rocket technology. But Pal’s picture is the one that captured the imagination just as the feasibility of such an incredible journey gained traction. Moon was still included in the discussion when the real moon landing came in 1969 — the network news shows ran film clips from Pal’s show, and also from Things to Come to illustrate 20th-century notions of ‘The Conquest of Space.’ I remember the news broadcasters reporting that Apollo 11’s LEM module had to do a last-minute sideways maneuver to find a suitable landing spot — and one commentator noting that that a similar close-call incident had been depicted in Destination Moon.

And wow —  What a happy surprise from The Warner Archive Collection for January. The WAC’s Blu-ray announcements showcase four new items: After the Thin Man is the first sequel for William Powell & Myrna Loy, Room for One More is a follow-up for Cary Grant & Betsy Drake’s Every Girl Should Be Married and the great MGM musical Good News has the must- see ‘Pass that Peace Pipe’ number with Joan McCracken.

The killer announcement is for a movie I was beginning to fear would never be cleared for a disc release, the terrific Doris Day musical The Pajama Game. It’s up there as Day’s best or near-best movie — all the songs are wonderful show-stoppers, and Day’s exuberant character is perfectly tuned to her image. It’s also a great show for Carol Haney and Reta Shaw, and of course the choreography of Bob Fosse. Neither The Pajama Game nor Damn Yankees has been around on hard media since 2005 or so; I’m not sure either has even been screened on TCM, although I’m told that a good encoding of Yankees can be seen on Amazon Prime. Pajama Game is going to be a super winter treat.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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If you’re still interested in The Wonders of Aladdin with Donald O’Connor, a helpful page called Peplum TV documents six minutes of scenes cut from the movie, with images. For a kiddie picture, it’s rather adult. You’ll have to scroll down a ways to the November 26 entry.

So, looking at what’s coming up at CineSavant through the holidays… already in my fat widdle hands are the following, in alphabetical order:

Attack (KL Studio Classics),
Buffalo Bill and the Indians (Powerhouse Indicator),
Crash (The Criterion Collection),
Devil in a Blue Dress (Powerhouse Indicator),
Diary of a Mad Housewife (KL Studio Classics),
Essential Film Noir (Viavision [Imprint]),
Go West and College, The Buster Keaton Collection Volume 4 (Cohen),
Hard Eight (Viavision [Imprint]),
The Harvey Girls (Warner Archive),
Holiday Affair (Warner Archive),
The Kiss Before the Mirror (KL Studio Classics),
The Lost Weekend (KL Studio Classics),
Mister Roberts (Warner Archive),
Moonstruck (The Criterion Collection),
Mouchette (The Criterion Collection),
Plague Town (Severin),
Tales of the Uncanny (Severin), and
A Town Like Alice (Umbrella, DVD).

As for discs promised but not quite received I’m told that the following are on the way — and let it be proclaimed far and wide that we have FAITH in the good old U.S. Mail:

Giant from the Unknown (The Film Detective), the Astor Pictures epic about a hybernating Spanish Conquistador …

… a new edition of the murderous noir Sudden Fear (Cohen), with Joan Crawford, Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame,

… and a special UK edition of The Masque of the Red Death (Studiocanal), another opportunity, with different extras, to see the new full restoration of the Roger Corman / Vincent Price favorite.

And finally, Viavision [Imprint]’s February titles have been announced. I’m especially looking forward to a trio of very special movies:

John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday, with a commentary by Stephen Prince.

← Mark Robson’s The Bridges at Toko-Ri will carry a commentary by Alan K. Rode, which ought to be a treat

And Arch Oboler’s atom apocalypse classic Five will have a commentary with myself and Oboler biographer Matt Rovner, plus a video analysis with Kim Newman.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson