CineSavant Column
Hello!
An amusing, impressively professional Spaghetti Western effort comes from Ulrich Angersbach, who started corresponding with me twenty years ago when I was still ‘MGM Video Savant.’ Ulrich then later helped me from making too many egregious errors on MGM’s special editions of the Sergio Leone films; he was one of several Leone super-fans (unfair word) that provided research and graphics. Herr Angersbach also appears to be a major component of the Europe-based fan group that made regular pilgrimages to Almeria, Spain, to document locations for the Dollars films and even shoot their own elaborate productions. This one’s the most adept I’ve seen so far: Un Hombre, Una Ciudad y Un Ave Maria. The aim seems to be to imitate the Italo style, and on that count it succeeds quite well — to me the ‘look’ is correct.
Gary Teetzel tells me that Arrow Academy will be releasing the Joe Pevney – James Cagney Man of a Thousand Faces in October, with a Tim Lucas commentary and a video piece from Kim Newman.
We at first thought it would be only Region B, but Gary confirmed that it would also be a stateside release.
The experts I know don’t think much of the makeup, mostly masks, used to recreate Cagney’s Lon Chaney characterizations, and the movie has many inaccuracies. But I’ve always liked it — it respects the horror star, and there was precious little of that around in 1957. Plus, it has Jane Greer (swoon), and who can say No to her?
The thumbnail on the left can be opened in a new window, to see Arrow’s full artwork more clearly.
A review for the new This Island Earth disc is on the way — thanks for all the ‘where is it?’ notes asking when I was getting to it. It would have been done today except that, for the copy I was going to review from, Scream Factory somehow shipped the wrong title, something called Silent Hill. The review is half written already, but the replacement better come in time!
Yet another wallet-emptying steer from Gary Teetzel: far be it from me to tout for specific products — ha ha ha ha what else do I end up doing here? — but I’m sorely tempted to nab yet another soundtrack CD from Kritzerland. I’ve previously sprung for Morricone soundtracks and the cues for Crack in the World, and this new offering is giving me a serious itch in my pocketbook. It’s the original George Antheil – Ernest Gold – Marni Nixon soundtrack for the wholly psychotronic Dementia aka Daughter of Horror.
I’m still proud of my review of the old OOP DVD, with Bret Wood’s excellent documentary slide show. What better way to go insane than by listening to this in good quality? Yes, I’ve been seduced by everything about Dementia ever since my midnight trip to the graveyard: