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Correspondent and now reviewer “B” sent along this note, plus a fascinating link about Seven Days in May that’s a nice follow-up to valued correspondent Michael Schlesinger’s note back on August 21 putting to rest a nagging controversy about the movie. The notes and correspondence on the other end of B’s link merit a close read:

“Dear Glenn: While looking up something entirely other, I ran across this U. of Wisconsin webpage about Seven Days in May. Kirk Douglas long ago donated his papers to U. Wis. — UA and Warners also have a lot of papers in the college’s archives — and this online compilation and overview of some documents relating to the picture’s production is very interesting. Like The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days would probably have never been made by anyone if JFK hadn’t given both his tacit approval and encouragement to the project.

The apparently unsolicited letter from Stanley Kubrick to Douglas regarding his opinion of and ideas about the Bailey/Knebel novel is downright fascinating. All accounts suggest that Kubrick and Douglas had a bitter professional parting a few years earlier; this thoughtful, intelligent note, and Douglas’ friendly response, makes clear that the two maintained at least some sort of cordial relationship. A detailed post-production memo from Douglas to his producer-partner Edward Lewis discusses certain reservations regarding the minor character of General Barney Rutkowski (played in the movie by editor Ferris Webster!). Kirk suggests the character simply be deleted; he’s still in the movie but the role may have been trimmed. The memo also gives a provocative description of the film’s original car-crash ending while making a good case that it needed to be re-thought and re-shot. [It was, of course, entirely re-worked and re-shot; it was lucky that Burt and Frankenheimer were then working on The Train and could figure out how to make Paris sub for Washington, D.C.]

I learned enough here to make me interested to know more, but it’s worth a look. — Best, Always. — B.”

Thanks, “B.” That link again: Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Be sure to follow the interior links to scans of original documentation, even the original letter from Stanley Kubrick.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

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More Twilight Time, Kino Lorber and ClassicFlix titles just in — expected reviews soon could be TT’s The Captain from Castile with Tyrone Power and The Pirates of Blood River with a black-clad Christopher Lee, looking as mean as a snake. Plus Twilight has Michael Caine in the superb Play Dirty, and I’m already eyeing The Selznick Since You Went Away, and the Jim Thompson adaptation This World, Then the Fireworks from Kino. ClassicFlix has new noirs on the way, but I’ve doubled back on their restored special editions for the ‘Foggy Poole’ epic The Killer is Loose and a Bette Davis picture, Another Man’s Poison. Plus from Lionsgate, I’m eager to spin the Manga-derived Anime In This Corner of the World.

I have notes wanting to hear about the Warner Archive’s The Green Slime and Severin’s The Devil’s Rain. Plus readers aren’t letting me get away with hinting at a review for a Region B disc of Colossus: The Forbin Project. I think it behooves me to make good on my promise for that one.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend — — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

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 It’s a day for vintage monster lore, with a fun ’50s monster link resource.

Talk about going back to one’s roots. Correspondent Michael Brunas just sent me the following note and link:

“I’m sure many of your readers remember these two 50-foot regular 8mm reels that were sold on the pages of Fantastic Monsters of the Films magazine in the early 1960s. I used to own both and have been seeking them out for years before a collector recently put them up on YouTube.”

“They’re very interesting souvenirs of the Paul Blaisell – Bob Burns collaboration. At the time many of us Monster Kids thought that the “Cliff Monster” model was actually a modified version of the classic, battery-driven Great Garloo toy that was popular in those days. I suspect that’s exactly the case. Best regards, Michael Brunas”

Do I remember? At age ten, I very strongly remember staring for minutes at a time at the full-page photo of The Cliff Monster in Fantastic Monsters. The pages devoted to ‘The Cliff Monster’ were a sales promotion; I mis-remembered ‘Golden Eagle Films’ as the defunct studio Eagle-Lion. Fantastic Monsters sold all kinds of ephemera from Paul Blaisdell, the maker of monsters and monster masks for American-International pictures. I most wanted to order slide sets of Blaisdell’s critters from It Conquered the World and The She-Creature.

The YouTube resurrection of the B&W 8mm films looks pretty good; they were uploaded by Donald Deveau just a couple of weeks ago. The home movie The Cliff Monster has some in-camera mattes, while Filmland Monsters intercuts trailer clips with home movie close-ups of Blaisdell’s monsters from the aforementioned movies, along with the bug-eyed critter from Invasion of the Saucermen.

At age 11 or so I managed to nab only two issues of Fantastic Monsters of the Films. There were apparently seven in all. I had to be both at the right magazine stand and also have 50 cents in my pocket, which back then was a tough combination. Actually, the biggest thrill here is finding the entire run of the magazine archived at Archive.org and instantly accessible. I can now read all the copies, even the issues I never saw. Besides enjoying Blaisdell and Burns’ exclusive photos and articles about the monsters they created, I can see who’s contributing, how they shamelessly promote themselves, and what fans are writing in — Ronnie Borst, Donnie Glut, Donald Shay!

Paul Blaisdell got his start in movie work as a client of agent Forrest Ackerman, so I assume the relationship was finished before this competing magazine was begun. Blaisdell was likely fed up with A.I.P., after being paid peanuts to create some of the studio’s most memorable monsters. By coincidence, esteemed TCM colleague John Miller today posted on Facebook about a Heritage auction of Albert Kallis’ original poster artwork for A.I.P.’s Invasion of the Saucermen, presumably with Blaisdell’s monster designs. He was paid a couple of hundred bucks back in 1957, whereas who knows how much this poster will go for?

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Did you survive Friday the 13th?

Do we even deserve this bounty of riches? Savant’s new reviews today are a trio of restored masterpieces, each so good that I’ve listed them in alphabetical order:

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It’s a full links weekend, to accompany a full house of hotly desired restorations. Over at The Passionate Moviegoer, Joe Baltake comes up with a relevant film clip to prove that zealots altered the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag in 1954, tweaking our vanishing separation of Church and State. Baltake’s article is called Harold and Maude, Donald & Cary.

Meanwhile, correspondent Stefan Anderssen sends a link to something that’s been around for a while but might have slipped one’s attention: a split-screen comparison of the Horror of Dracula reel found in Japan, versus the U.K. 2012 restoration: Hammer Dracula side by side comparison. The new bit with the disturbing ‘Dracula Cries’ shot commences at about 2:44. I’d like to see a comparison between Warner Home Video’s excellent color and the U.K.’s sharper but frustrating bluey-bluey tweaked transfer. Stefan reports that the German company Anolis is doing a new Blu-ray version of the Fisher Dracula. They might not be able to incorporate the recovered disintegration footage, but if they restore the film’s authentic Technicolor palette, I’ll be a vocal booster.

Savant correspondent Lee Broughton will be contributing another review soon. His new page Current Thinking on the Western just put up a short article by John Nudge recounting The History of the Spaghetti Western Web Board. The board has been the go-to destination for Italo western research since 1998 or so.

Gary Teetzel has been scouring vintage magazines and keeps coming up with gems, like Boris Karloff’s acting ads from the early 1920s. One even lists Mr. K’s Hollywood street address. Yesterday Gary came up with this Forrest Ackerman fan letter from a 1931 issue of New Movies magazine. It should be fairly self-explanatory. That’s Forry for you — leading with an emotional opinion, and already boasting of his collecting habit: “among the many that I possess.” Ray Bradbury famously wrote about, when he was a kid, soliciting Dietrich’s autograph on the sidewalk outside CBS on Sunset. I wonder if Ackerman was envious?

Gary also found something that’s been on the Web awhile that I missed, a collection of home movies from the Original ILM special effects facility out at 6846 Valjean Ave. in Van Nuys. I visited three times but only once in the daytime when the whole staff was there. At night we saw Richard Edlund and other happy cameramen taking a break while filming motion control spaceships. A poster over the front desk, originally printed to announce ‘The Star Wars, Coming Summer 1976′ had been altered to ‘Coming Summer 1977’, and that alteration updated to ‘Maybe in 1978?’

And finally, just announced by Twilight Time’s Nick Redman, their Blu-ray releases for January, all with a ship date of January 23: Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives with Mia Farrow (1992), Paul Mazurzky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice with Natalie Wood & Robert Culp (1969), Henry Koster’s My Cousin Rachel with Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton (1952) and Joseph Mankiewicz’s Dragonwyck with Gene Tierney and Vincent Price (1946).

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are: