CineSavant Column

Tuesday April 7, 2020


Hello!

Here’s some fun. Correspondent Alan Dezzani sent along a link to a Carlsburg Beer ad that uses part of the finale to Ice Cold in Alex. I don’t want that spoiled so you’ll have to find it on your own. However, Mr. Dezzani’s other link to a Carling Black Label Gag Advertisement riffing off of The Dam Busters spoils nothing, so here ya go … it’s pretty cute. Correspondent ‘Willard’ sent in the same ad link, thanks!


And Severin Films promises a screwy treat for sometime in May: Fritz Böttger’s Horrors of Spider Island, another title like Eegah and Monstrosity that falls under Herschel Gordon Lewis’s category of A Subject for Further Research, like Cancer!  Long a title destined for confusion, photos from this weird 1960 horror show were featured in long-ago issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. I think it’s the film where I first realized at age ten that advertising just plain LIES: “hey, somebody just painted big teeth and claws on a photo to hype the monster.” The show is rumored to be awful but that’s no barrier to enjoyment here. Two versions are promised, one from the uncut German negative and another from the American version. And I hope the presentation sorts out the titles and versions … what the heck is It’s Hot in Paradise, anyway?   I’ll repeat Nathaniel Thompson’s memorable blurb from the Severin artwork: “One of the odder fusions of monster mashing and girlie ogling from the early days of Euro exploitation.”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson