Hello!

Some Halloween-type reviews posted here today, that didn’t quite make the date. More horror, and some truly campy horror, are on the way.

I’m all healthy again, and grateful that I average two or three years between bouts with the common cold. It’s good to feel better, even if the weather’s gotten colder. It at least helps our heroic firemen battle California’s blazes.

← Correspondent John Black has tipped me to a German Colosseo Blu Ray, coming December 6, for Der Gauner von Bagdad — the 1961 Steve Reeves movie we know as The Thief of Bagdad. John says that it should be the first full CinemaScope home video release of this picture. This is news because quality releases of vintage Sword’n’Sandal pictures, even with Steve Reeves, are depressingly scarce (NOTE: I have no idea what the disc quality will be). The listing says Region B, but with English as one of the audio choices. It sounds promising, even though I miss Reeves with his full beard … as a kid I saw Steve Reeves in The Last Days of Pompeii, but not this one. Is it any good?

→ And a last stab at Halloween: I love this Youtube offering of a B&W theater promo plug for some kind of kooky spooky Spook Show — with music swiped from Bernard Herrmann! It’s called “35mm Trailer Dr Sin/Dracula”. The music track DOES make it a little scary!

November should be fun — I’ll try to keep up the flow of reviews. Hopefully some house-related issues won’t slow me up.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson