Hello!

Here’s a really nice link circulated by Joe Dante, about a piece of Hollywood history about to disappear. The nature of moviemaking in Los Angeles has changed 100% since I had anything to do with it — most of the places I worked no longer exist (along with places where I lived and restaurants where I ate). We expect that, but some changes are bigger than others.

The Daily Woo’s YouTube tour Last Look Inside Warner Bros Ranch Before Demolition Begins is a narrated tour of the many facade houses on the old WB Ranch lot. It’s a leisurely walkabout through standing sets, movie real estate that will bring back 101 memories from films and TV shows.

I don’t mind helping out Ignite Films by passing on the news that their superlative disc from last year, the restoration of the 1953 Invaders from Mars, is no longer an Ignite exclusive, and can be purchased through Amazon, Barnes & Noble (do they still have periodic sales?) and other mass outlets.

It’s still available in 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD, and includes all of Ignite’s special extras. I’ve studied the feature  several times in the last few months, and I’m still in awe of its very busy, very expressive music score . . . the orchestral collage really holds the picture together, helping the weird images add up to more than the sum of their parts. The music track is as ‘experimental’ as William Cameron Menzies’ strange production design.

I haven’t seen it personally, but I don’t mind publicizing CineSavant correspondent Peter A. Yacavone’s new book on a Japanese director of celebrated yakuza gangster pictures:
Negative, Nonsensical, and Non-Conformist: The Films of Suzuki Seijun

It’s from the University of Michigan Press and came out in April. One reason I don’t mind plugging it sight unseen is its odd distribution scheme — the kindle version is free.  It’s over 400 pages in length and analyzes all of Suzuki’s 49 feature films. At CineSavant we’ve reviewed Branded to Kill (a Criterion 4K came out a month ago),  Kanto Wanderer,  Gate of Flesh and Take Aim at the Police Van.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Today we’ve got a new podcast from Dick Dinman, who reached into his archive of celebrity recordings to revive a discussion of King Solomon’s Mines with star Stewart Granger. The 1950s adventure tale is from The Warner Archive and co-stars Deborah Kerr.

I’ll be curious to see King Solomon’s Mines myself, as old TV prints weren’t all that attractive. As a little kid the show was sold to me as great filmmaking — I somehow got the idea that it was 3 hours long, an impression that must have been the result of sitting through endless TV commercial interruptions.

And we’re finding out that the new (?) Film Masters disc label has another ’50s shock title in the works, building on from last month’s announcement of a double bill of Giant Gila Monster & The Killer Shrews. I’ll have to ask for some clarification on that title, as I haven’t seen the announcement renewed.

Reported as due out on October 24th is a Blu-ray the first feature by Monte Hellman for Gene & Roger Corman’s Filmgroup company, Beast from Haunted Cave. It’s the runaway production filmed in South Dakota from the Charles Griffith screenplay. We’ve always liked it, especially with Hellman’s direction.

On the same special edition disc as an extra is the other Corman picture filmed simultaneously, Ski Troop Attack, noted as the one where Corman himself plays a German soldier. As always, we hope for the best with these ‘newly restored’ discs ‘from 35mm archival materials’ — and we’re usually pleasantly surprised. C. Courtney Joyner and Tom Weaver are associated with the extras.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Helpful correspondent Michael McQuarrie sends along a YouTube link for a TV pilot I’ve never heard of . . . someone had the unmitigated gall to turn Joseph Heller’s surreal nightmare into a goofy TV show. It worked for M*A*S*H . . . but please . . . the damn thing uses a laugh track.

The half-hour 1973 pilot show Catch 22 is a jaw-dropper . . . the small-screen version puts the Mike Nichols film on the same level as McHale’s Navy, but minus the occasional laughs. As Yossarian, we have … wait for it … Richard Dreyfuss. He was better as a wacked-out Baby Face Nelson in the same year’s Dillinger — no real characterization, but funny as hell.

Is it possible that this came about because Paramount wanted to put hours of unused feature footage to use?  Some of the flying stuff looks new, specially shot for the pilot. In addition to Richard Dreyfuss, the show stars Dana Elcar and Susanne Zenor. Neal Hefti did the music and Richard Quine directed. Amazing.

A monster box arrived unannounced yesterday from Arrow Video, entitled Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams. Good old film & video swashbuckler Charles Band is suspected revered as the man behind several studio labels of fantastic exploitation, first on film and later on direct-to-video. His biggest success was his studio Empire Films in the 1980s. The boxed set’s nostalgic theme is a vintage video store, for those misguided earnest fans of ’80s schlock fantasy & Horror.

The titles included are The Dungeonmaster, Dolls, Cellar Dweller, Arena and Robot Jox, all remastered for Blu-ray. Three of them are directed by Stuart Gordon.

The appeal is the bounty of special features and extras, all delineated here. Someone should compile a ‘Big Book of Stories’ about the companies Empire, Full Moon, etc. …. that would be eye-opening. I once had a meeting with Charles Band veteran John Carl Buechler, who was looking for an editor. It was an opportunity to work for free, on a script that was unreadable!  But he seemed a very nice guy.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello, and Happy D-Day!

Anybody out there hiding old home movies in their closet, from when we were teenagers and were convinced we’d all become film directors?

This link to a disc release on the way was circulated by Joe Dante, who added the cogent comment, “I sure hope nobody uncovers MY student films!”

The link is to a Blu-ray offering of The Adam Rifkin Film Festival, the director’s compilation of his own potentially humiliating teen-amateur pix, all preserved for posterity. Either he’s just honest and forthcoming, or this is part of a restitution deal he’s made to get into heaven . . . that’s what it would take to get me to show everything I filmed back in the Bad Teen Home Movie capital of the world, San Bernardino, California. Hey, no fair, I made a film called ‘Armageddon’ too … The website has an amusing video sampler attached.

I’ve begun digitizing my old 8mm and Super 8 pix; the biggest problem is when the 60 year-old tape splices, not done very well to begin with, fall apart in the digitizer. But hey, there were a couple of images I wasn’t ashamed of, that I posted here — although the film in question was really from my college dorm, not my teen years.  ↓

Way back in 2005 I reviewed a DVD release called Monster Kid Home Movies, a compilation of 8mm fun from the likes of Bob Burns, Gary Gammill, Frank Dietz and (gasp) Tom Weaver. Who says that All You Need to Make a Movie is a Girl and a Gun?  The subject matter here is rubber monster masks and claymation dinosaurs, filmed mostly in back yards. The disc producer was Joe Busam, who afterwards invited me to send in one of MY home movies. Boy, did that throw a scare into me — you’d think I was going to be sent to prison. These guys have more nerve than me.

And we follow up with what at the CineSavant Column passes for a gala photo feature!

Researcher & Advisor Gary Teetzel sent along these images from the Monsterpalooza convention over the weekend. He always comes back with interesting items, and the most fun is seeing him pose with every celebrity on the planet — any actress that takes her picture with him, goes up a few notches in my esteem. They all seem to be having as much fun as Gary, too.

←  Anyway, this time around one of Gary’s snaps was of a Monsterpalooza display with an  Invaders from Mars  theme. That of course got my attention . . . I love those big velour Mutants, that always looked as if they could have been called The Invasion of the Pajama People, from the planet Sleepytime.   I rather expected this bruiser to be more greenish in color, but who’s complaining?

→  Number two is not a miniature of the ancient Aurora Frankenstein plastic model kit, but a full-sized figure with giant props, like the oversized Testors paint bottle and glue tube. Fooled me; I kind of wish that something normal-sized was in the photo, to show its real scale.

←  Number three is a pair of Cosplay folk, their theme being Creepshow. They look great to me; Gary has a whole history of bizarre outfits, makeups, etc., in his convention Cosplay photo history.

↓  According to Gary’s notes the last photo is a full diorama in bronze, of Ray Harryhausen directing the Cyclops & Dragon fight from 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

All 4 of these photos can be enlarged quite a bit, either zoomed or opened in a new window.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The ever-searching Gary Teetzel has come up with a good one — a YouTube encoding of a vintage English Public Service Spot featuring a welcome celebrity host. As Gary explains:

“Here’s a rarity — a 1946 short subject about road safety, with Peter Cushing addressing the audience as a doctor. His contribution starts about 90 seconds in or so. We expect him to return at the end, but he doesn’t.”

It Might Be You

It’s 14 minutes of ‘quality’ filmmaking. A young Alfie Bass is present as well. Cushing’s delivery and voiceover is as polished as ever. Gary’s further comment includes some close observation of the actor’s voice:

“Gee, if they had waited another ten years or so, Peter Cushing could have played the part as Baron Frankenstein, and encouraged the audience to get into accidents to provide him with more spare body parts. But we notice right away that Cushing’s voice is a little different here; it sounds a little thinner, and his diction lacks the crispness and theatricality he would use when playing aristocratic characters like Baron Frankenstein, Van Helsing or Grand Moff Tarkin. It’s maybe just a choice he made as an actor, but consider: The very next year Cushing gets cast in the film Hamlet, and afterward is invited to tour with Laurence Olivier. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Cushing’s crisp, precise, British theatrical diction was polished during his year or so of touring with Sir Larry & Viv.”

We’re definitely playing disc review catch up at CineSavant, with May’s offerings to cover and more good discs arriving every day. In hand and either being written or in the hopper is a tall stack of titles, in no particular order: The boxed set Mexico Macabre: Four Sinister Tales from the Alameda Films Vault 1959-1963; Alexandr Ptushko’s The Tale of Tsar Saltan; Cecil B. DeMille’s The Crusades; the naughty pre-Code Search for Beauty; Fritz Lang’s Kurt Weill drama You and Me; Raoul Walsh’s The Strawberry Blonde and A Lion is In the Streets; Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill; Marcel Ophuls’ Occupation documentary The Sorrow and the Pity.

The bounty continues with the new remasters of Max Fleischer’s Superman 1941-1943 animated cartoons; the boxed set From Hollywood to Heaven the Lost and Saved films of the Ormond Family; Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise 4K; Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter 4K; Max Ophuls’ There’s No Tomorrow (Sans lendermain), Robert Aldrich’s Hustle and The Longest Yard 4K; the Anna May Wong Collection, René Clément’s Joy House (Les félins); and three full Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema collections: XII, XIII and XIV.

For June, we are expecting the earlier restored pre-Code Safe in Hell and are eagerly awaiting Otto Preminger’s Angel Face; Eleanor Parker in Caged; Joan Crawford in The Damned Don’t Cry; Howard Hawks’ Land of the Pharaohs; and John Sturges The Old Man and the Sea.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson