Hello!

A couple of disc announcements today — Cohen media is releasing the vintage 1948 English drama Corridor of Mirrors. It’s the first film directed by Terence Young and the first film appearance for Christopher Lee, which should raise some interest even though he reportedly only gets two lines in one scene. The semi-fantastic story is said to be fine art- oriented and on the precious side — yet most reviews I’ve read were enthusiastic. It’s due on October 19, through Kino Lorber.

Then there’s the surprise announcement of a Director’s Cut for Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13, from Lionsgate. The re-edit reportedly removes a scene or two. The best news is that it is sourced from the original negative — all other disc copies of this Public Domain picture have been derived from prints. An Official Restoration Trailer is viewable online.

The IMDB states that American Zoetrope produced this new 4K restoration of Dementia 13 in 2018. It will have an intro and audio commentary from Francis Ford Coppola. In a separate menu item will be the original opening called the ‘D-13 prologue.” It was a test administered to viewers to see if they were sane enough to watch Dementia 13 without going stark raving mad. Coppola reportedly culled five or six minutes of scenes to make his ‘Director’s Cut,’ and we’re not sure if those outs will be on the disc. And what’s the story with the famous axe murder, the film’s most notorious scene?   We’ve read that it was an add-on directed by Jack Hill, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

The restoration is billed as ‘Francis Ford Coppola’s First Movie’ … does that mean we won’t be seeing Director’s Cuts of Tonight for Sure and Battle Beyond the Sun?

The lineup of expected new reviews (after this brief August slowdown) looks very exciting. Charlie Largent will have the fabulous Arrow Daimajin box and the Viavision Hammer Four Gothic Horror Films box, while I’m tackling the Viavision Silver Screams Cinema box. We’re also got Criterion’s Ashes and Diamonds and FunCity Editions’ Rancho Deluxe.

I’m looking forward to Arrow’s 4K of David Lynch’s Dune, their Moju / The Blind Beast and Kino Lorber’s Peter Ibbetson. If that Gary Cooper show looks good it ought to be a revelation: full-on surrealism from Paramount in 1934. Didn’t know Henry Hathaway had it in him.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson