Hello!

Frivolous things first … Gary Teetzel forwards this YouTube link to a French variety show with a Star Wars French Disco Ballet, clearly from 1977 when every miserable TV show on the planet was looking for a Star Wars tie-in gimmick. The non-choreography looks like something a harried troupe threw together in an afternoon, and gave to the video editors to composite. I’d laugh, except that it’s halfway interesting compared to much of the variety show dreck from that decade… I had to sit through a Brady Bunch musical special or two.

Bob Furmanek forwards this video pitch for the 3-D Film Archive’s latest 3-D restoration. Their Kickstarter campaigns have resulted in some great work, such as the recent (flat) Africa Screams disc. Now Bob makes a good case, on-camera, for a new project: Help Restore the 1977 Martial-Arts Classic DYNASTY in 3-D!

These last two items involve things I worked on. Thirty years later, I’ve been contacted by Randal Viscovich, the writer of the 1989 horror film Night Visitor, which I edited for producer Alain Silver on the Culver Studios lot back in (cough) 1988. He tells me that the new Blu-ray is out now from Scorpion Films, so I’ll have to go check it out. Last December I was taped talking about the film for some of the extras; Randal’s already corrected one piece of my faulty memory. I may even get a chance to review the disc. Sitting above so cozy is the teenager-hating devil worshipper Allen Garfield, with his demonology-challenged brother Michael J. Pollard.

And Alan K. Rode’s Facebook announcement is true; last week we braved the raging Coronavirus in Cahuenga Pass to record a full commentary for a movie that gets altogether too much attention around here, Major Dundee. Unlike my solo commentary last year for Explosive Media out of Germany, this commentary is a free-ranging conversation-discussion. The pairing seemed to go well — Alan added historical details of the Old West that placed some of the film’s action in a greater context.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson