CineSavant Column

Tuesday October 26, 2021

 

Hello!

Is this a CineSavant ‘gift guide?’

Two months short of the holidays, it’s disc round-up time. I’m here to report on what’s on hand to review, and what’s expected in the mail hopper. I’m glad I have Charlie Largent’s capable input — he’s keen on horror and animation subjects that I’m not.

As I said last time we’re again current with The Warner Archive Collection, and happy that George Feltenstein is once again on the team over there in Burbank. Besides today’s review of the WAC’s Mad Love we’ve got the favorites Straight Time, The Ghost Ship + Bedlam, Children of the Damned, The Window, Santa Fe Trail in reach for review, as well as Eye of the Devil, Night Shift, Dinner at Eight and the really very good Mary Stevens, M.D.. Not yet here but said to be on its way is Tex Avery Volume 3.

Also in-house and looking for review openings are, from KL Studio Classics: Misery 4K, The Cheat, Devil and the Deep, Torch Singer, The Mad Doctor, Mystery of Edwin Drood and Secret of the Blue Room. Charlie has dibs on the W.C. Fields pix The Old Fashioned Way, It’s a Gift and The Bank Dick. Through Kino Charlie also has Scorpion Releasing’s Fritz the Cat and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat on tap. Kino also distributes Code Red’s One More Train to Rob and the Cook + Moore Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Criterion Collection gives us Satyajit Ray’s fascinating Devi, and from Powerhouse Indicator we’re looking at Midway and Macarthur. Midway is one that I want to give another chance — I once saw a trailer for that thing in Sensurround, and it nearly deafened me. Also can’t leave out Arrow’s Legend and Deep Red 4K, and Viavision [Imprint] Television’s massive box of Space: 1999, The Complete Series Ultimate Edition.

 

That’s what’s presently in hand; here’s what’s expected momentarily, or soon, or who knows?  If The Film Detective’s Frankenstein’s Daughter arrives it might get the last open review slot before Halloween; the same goes for Severin Films’ coveted An Angel for Satan with Barbara Steele. Expected from overseas are a brace of desirable Viavision [Imprint] September titles, which include two different films of The Browning Version; A Reflection of Fear, Ned Kelly, The Assassination Bureau (Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas!) and a gift box with all three Harry Palmer spy adventures: The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, and Billion Dollar Brain.

Flicker Alley has three interesting items: a quaduple bill of Call it Murder, Back Page, Woman in the Dark and The Crime of Dr. Crespi called ‘In the Shadow of Hollywood’, plus two Argentinian Noirs restored by The Film Noir Foundation, The Beast Must Die (La bestia debe morir) and The Bitter Stems (Los Tallos Amargos). A little later will come the release of Flicker Alley’s Cinema of Discovery: Julien Duvivier in the 1920s silent film collection. I’ll look to friend and scholar Allan Peach for help with that one.

Paramount has come through lately with screeners; should copies be freed up we’re on tap for some attractive 4K items: The Addams Family 4K, Scream 4K, and later on, It’s a Wonderful Life 4K and Reds 4K.

Criterion promises a new restoration of La Strada, Mulholland Dr. 4K, Once Upon a Time in China, Menace to Society and Citizen Kane 4K. And I have my eye on KL Studio Classics’ Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’78 4K and the noir classics The Accused, Among the Living, Deported and the poetic Night Has a Thousand Eyes. Through Kino, The Cohen Collection also has a CineSavant favorite coming up, The Deceivers with Pierce Brosnan.

That’s a lot of discs to sort out — we don’t necessarily receive all of them, so we’ll do our best to give proper coverage!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson