Hello!

Welcome to ‘The Blues’ edition of CineSavant reviews. We chose the combination of movies with Blue in the title because… it just worked out that way. Gary Teetzel serves up the links today, gleaned for our perusal, with the questionable interests of CineSavant readers in mind.

First up, Gary says, ‘Blink and you’ll miss him.’

Go down to the forty-three second mark in a British Pathé ‘Sunday Pictorial Garden Party’ newsreel from 1951, for a brief glimpse of a familiar horror star. The newsreel is called Seeing Stars. I guess I’ve been watching a lot of vintage Brit productions on TCM, as I recognize more of these English actors than I thought I would.

Gary moves on to his next find:

“Listening to an old-time radio show while driving to work, I heard a commercial for an upcoming vintage radio documentary called Bomb Target U.S.A., which would look at what might happen if the Russkies tried to bomb the U.S.A. I was hoping for a lot of Cold War sensationalism, but it’s actually fairly dry, mostly trying to scare Americans by matter-of-factly stating that the country isn’t prepared. The ‘Past Daily’ piece is hosted by Arthur Godfrey, who also recorded official announcements to be used in the event of a nuclear attack. Yes, clearly when nuclear Armageddon is imminent, you want to hear the news from the down-home personality guy, the one with the ukelele.”

Real Generals (“Would a real General say that?”) tell about mis-identified aircraft and communication SNAFUs that make our defenses seem serious FAIL-UNSAFE. What kind of Fu Manchu / Dr. Strangelove nuclear mischief is afoot in those evil countries on the other side of the planet?   This sounds like scare stuff to inspire pictures like Hell and High Water.

And finally, as we’re both fans of Circus of Horrors, Gary was scouring old Trade Papers for notices that might enrich us about the film — you know, essential research. Exhibitors were initially told that the Anglo-Amalgamated shocker was in ‘scope, but they weren’t clued in as to how adult-oriented are the scenes with Erika Remberg (top image), Vanda Hudson (just above) and Yvonne Romain… the company clearly wanted to out-do Hammer in the girlie art department.

After the previous year’s Horrors of the Black Museum, you’d think that they’d have at least not booked a lot of kiddie matinees, where some of my friends reported that this gore-fest was better at teaching them about the Birds and the Bees. And I think American-International may have trimmed it a bit. I steal two clippings here, one a basic rave review, and another from Photoplay noting the film’s excellent pop song, ‘Look for a Star,’ that I remember being given a lot of radio play.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Yes, just one review today — time is limited this week because, because, uh, because I’ll have to explain it later. I even had to disappoint some friends going to see the new Godzillah Thrillah. But I should have two reviews up for Saturday, one of them from Charlie Largent.

But there is time to mention a new book, the Scripts from the Crypt #9 tome commemorating Son of Dracula, the Universal horror from 1943 starring Lon Chaney Jr. and directed by Robert Siodmak. As with the other SFTC books, this 300 page item annotates the entire screenplay, various articles and essays, including one by the director and another classifying Son of Dracula as ‘film noird’ (sic). The varied chapters contain a gallery of SOD- and Chaney- related film clippings, and even a breakdown of a proposed alternate sequel to Dracula, written in 1939, which may have been submitted by Bela Lugosi.

This time around Gary D. Rhodes takes top authorial billing, with the book’s major article on the film’s production. The picture may not yield as many sensational sidebar stories of other films in the SFTC series – no murders, no cast members with tragic or sordid futures — but the compensation is Son’s high quality reputation in the Universal tradition of horror. Robert Siodmak didn’t slack off because of the subject matter, but contributed stylistic graces that the industry noted, and that gave him a neat springboard to bigger films, starting with his very next thriller Phantom Lady, a full-on classic. That’s the way careers are supposed to work. Interviewer par excellence Tom Weaver scours his research files to come up with a veritable pleth… fplethor… a whole bunch of interesting and odd scrapbook trade paper announcements, newspaper and pub clippings, plus more arcane errata relating to the film and its personnel. Tom also does a bit of analysis of annotations found in the script.

Dr. Robert J. Kiss follows with his illuminating breakdown of the film’s release pattern, noting that the show played both as a stand-alone item and often in tandem with the downbeat The Mad Ghoul. Gregory William Mank checks in with an article on actress Louise Albritton, whose character can arguably be described as more central than Chaney’s Dracula — her scheme to double-cross the undead king after achieving immortality makes her horror dame cross the line into noir femme fatale territory.

And hold on to your big top!  CineSavant newshound Gary Teetzel slips in a last-minute report that Scream Factory has announced yet another wholly desirable horror item for Blu-ray, 1960’s marvelous Circus of Horrors. For me this is ‘exploitative’ horror perfection, a picture that’s forthright about its sadistic thrills, which are neatly mixed up with eye-candy voyeurism and luridly colored mutilation. With so many perverse and purely evil motivations afoot, the entire enterprise is somehow ‘pruriently wholesome,’ if such a thing can be.

It stars Anton Diffring, Erika Remberg, Yvonne Monlaur, Yvonne Romain, Donald Pleasance — a veritable smorgasbord of horror fiends and dames. And if that’s not enough, it’s one of the better circus movies, too. No release date has been set but we’ll be looking out for desirable extras.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Scream Factory has issued a list of extras for their upcoming This Island Earth disc release, and it sounds ideal. I have a book from years ago with a long Bob Skotak essay on the film’s making, and he’s been tapped for a commentary. I imagine that by now Bob will have the answers to 500 more questions about the filming of this borderline Technicolor/Eastmancolor picture. At this level of scholarly interest we don’t often see such a sterling example of professional courtesy — I believe that Tom Weaver was offered this commentary gig, and immediately recommended Skotak as the right man for the job. Skotak’s 2015 chat track for Queen of Blood will give you an idea of the depth of his knowledge & understanding of these older sci-fi thrillers. Tom of course would have been great too.

The show will be presented both widescreen and flat, which should appease the aspect ratio vigilantes (what? No 2:1?) Especially interesting is the fact that the 3-D Archive specialists have restored the original Perspecta Stereophonic Sound audio-distribution setup… I’ll be eager to hear Bob Furmanek’s expert definition of what Perspecta was and how it was created from a mono track. This time we’ll get to see David Schecter analyze the film’s music scoring — I haven’t seen Mr. Schecter since a convention in 2000. A new documentary is present as well.

And a close associate gives us this happy thought:

“If you look on the Shout! Factory site, there are several requests from MST3K fans to include the comedy feature version. I’m glad they were ignored.”

When that MST3K theatrical feature was released, I immediately lamented that it would likely hold up a decent restoration of This Island Earth, a grim thought later confirmed by a Universal employee. Even though we had to wait 24 years, these nice restorations are a good incentive to try to stay alive and hang around for a while longer.

Talk about never being satisfied — when it comes to new hungering for vintage Sci-fi on Blu-ray, I’m truly incorrigible. All this and announcements for Alphaville, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mothra, 4D Man, Quatermass 2 and Quatermass and the Pit!  Now all we need is a righteous Blu-ray release of Paramount’s dazzling new restoration of George Pal’s The War of the Worlds.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Just a bit of fun stuff today. With Godzilla King of the Monsters opening soon, friend-of-all-things Gojira Gary Teetzel rustled up some soundtrack previews, thoughtfully arranged by Kaiju character. And a couple use ‘traditional’ Toho music by Akira Ikufube and Yûji Koseki: Mothra’s Song and themes for Rodan, and Ghidorah. Plus a full cue called Old Rivals. Wait — don’t start these audio cues before you get your toys out!

We may still try to see the new feature in the bewildering promising ‘Screen X’ format, at a local Korean Theater … and Gary found a website that offers a tease of how it will look!

And if Godzilla isn’t enough fine cinematic achievement for you, Kino Lorber has announced some very agreeable extras for two of their Early Alfred Hitchcock releases. His first full-length talkie Blackmail comes with a Tim Lucas commentary, a screen test for the star Anny Ondra, and the entire silent version of the film as well, with a Mont Alto score. Murder! carries a commentary by Nick Pinkerton, a long-form docu on Hitchcock’s early pictures, an alternate ending, and an encoding of the film’s German version, with a different cast. These hits from 1929 and 1930 arrive on August 13.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The most welcome Blu-ray news in a while comes from The Disney Movie Club … which is finally offering Richard Fleischer’s 1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on Blu-ray. The release date is June 18 … for members only. A friend or two belong to the Club, but I don’t know if they like it… It doesn’t seem to be a forced subscription thing, exactly, but the text on their introductory offer has some Beagle Boy pitfalls, so beware.

Seven years ago at the AMIA’s REEL THING presentation, we saw a glorious restoration of 20,000 Leagues remastered at 2.55:1, with the ‘CinemaScope Mumps’ shots corrected by using extra image ‘real estate’ tucked beneath the soundtrack area. I have the restoration on my DVR from Turner Classic Movies, but that is of course compressed, so am excited about getting this long-AWOL Jules Verne wonder-movie. I swiped the inspiring image above from a Video Watchdog post by Tim Lucas.

Kino Lorber has announced two very good westerns for Region A: UA’s Day of the Outlaw, directed by André de Toth, with Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise and Venetia Stevenson, and Universal-International’s Man Without a Star, directed by King Vidor, with Kirk Douglas, Jeanne Crain, Claire Trevor, Richard Boone and William Campbell. CineSavant offers an easy guide to telling them apart: Outlaw = B&W and snow.  Star = Color and barbed wire.

The image above with Jeanne Crain has the rustic, outdoorsy pioneer flavor that I decided best represented these fine ’50s westerns.

And finally, a formatting gripe. Ads on CineSavant review pages are supposed to be displayed on the top and on the sides, but for the last few days they’ve suddenly popped up in the text of my reviews, 4 and 5 per article. Not cool, speaketh Savant. I’m told they’re working on a fix … but hasn’t this already happened before?  Sorry for the inconvenience. At least they’re not porn ads, which back on the DVDtalk page kicked in once or twice, and the webmaster wanted to know why I was concerned.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Some fun new disc news in the last week … The Warner Archive Collection has announced a Blu-ray with both versions of Gaslight, George Cukor’s more familiar 1944 Bergman / Boyer / Cotten remake, and an SD encoding of the Diana Wynyard / Anton Walbrook English original from 1940.

The WAC also has something in the works for a different kind of fan — Jonny Quest, The Complete Original Series. Now I’ll finally get to see the episode with the walking eye-monsters (if there really is one). Since I haven’t seen the show in fifty years, maybe I’ll be surprised by the supposed Non-PC content I’m hearing about online?

Also announced as pending from the WAC: None But the Brave, Corvette Summer, and Popeye: The 1940’s Vol. 2.

Twilight Time just sent out a note revealing its July titles, for the 16th of that month: Fred Zinnnemann’s Spanish Civil War drama with Gregory Peck Behold a Pale Horse, J.Lee Thompson’s loopy Cold War cartoon The Chairman, also with Peck; Susan Hayward & Charlton Heston in the costume drama The President’s Lady, and Phillip Dunne’s Ten North Frederick with Gary Cooper and Diane Varsi.

I’m eager to review TT’s May titles, due in the door next week… they include Steve McQueen in Horton Foote’s Baby the Rain Must Fall and the superior Edward Dmytryk western with Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, Warlock.

Gary Teetzel pointed me to a find from CD producer Ray Fiola: “Several years back, when producing the CD of the surviving King Kong music tracks, producer Ray Faiola came across a track he didn’t recognize. He thought it might be some sort of demo, because toward the end there is a snippet that seems to quote Kong’s Ann Darrow theme. Years later, Faiola has identified the track as Max Steiner’s main title for the lost 1933 RKO horror thriller The Monkey’s Paw.

So if you’ve ever wondered about Max Steiner’s score for this rarity, here’s a brief taste from Chelsea Rialto Studios: the Main Title for The Monkey’s Paw.

Well whaddaya know department: Correspondent Michael Draine informs me that the 1933 The Monkey’s Paw HAS been found … but only in a French Dub. Here’s a nice discussion board entry, with screen caps, at the Nitrateville Page. Thanks Michael!

Gary T. also sent along this photo from that old 1957 favorite The Monster that Challenged the World. (To see it larger, open it in a new window.) I thought, ‘How odd that an official still from a sci-fi horror picture should be a posed shot with a woman happily greeting the titular mollusk monster, as if it were an old friend.’ Then I had a thought about the identity of the lady on view, which Tom Weaver graciously confirmed: she is indeed none other than Pat Fielder, the screenwriter of Challenged and several other Levy-Gardner-Laven monster-thons.

This mini-revelation is probably old news to those that frequent online boards, but Ms. Fielder is a special case for me. In a decade with few or no opportunities for filmic advancement, especially for women, UCLA graduate Pat advanced from office assistant to screenwriter at L-G-L, racking up credits that made possible a career writing for TV. That’s the way good work and team loyalty is supposed to be rewarded. It makes the creators of Without Warning!, Vice Squad, The Vampire and The Return of Dracula seem like a great group of people.

And they even let Pat pose with Augie Lohman’s goopy sea-slug, just for fun. I hope Ms. Fielder knows she’s appreciated.

And from the talented Paul Gentry comes a little more news about Full Moon’s remaster of the 1980 Sci-fi Opus The Day Time Ended. If you want to get a jump on the disc before reading about the picture quality, here’s a link to the Amazon Page. I should be receiving it in a couple of weeks, to review; I only know it flat on television so am eager to see it for the first time in its wide Panavision framing.

I met Mr. Gentry briefly a couple of months ago when TDTE’s producer Wayne Schmidt flew down to record a commentary for the new disc. The movie’s effects were produced at the late David Allen’s shop out on Olive in Burbank. If memory serves, this was about the same time that several of our 1941 modelmakers were moonlighting there, building sets and miniature props for the proposed Charlie Band picture The Primevals.

When Greg Jein constructed a futuristic house model for The Day Time Ended I got to visit Allen’s shop, where Randy (Randall William) Cook was busy getting ready to do stop-motion animation. This is Paul Gentry’s photograph of Randy posing with the show’s two main monster puppets. Hey, Mr. Cook looks pretty good here — he could pass for a teenager, and no pictures of ME this old are as presentable. I was going to make a joke about other photos of Randy way back at my wedding, but instead want to congratulate him for a worthy honor: last Saturday, Randall William Cook was appointed an advisor to the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson