CineSavant Column
Hello!
It’s Go-Go Gotengo time … and possibly time to revisit a favorite old thriller first seen in a no-subtitles laserdisc screening with Stuart Galbraith IV. I always thought the original movie basically appealed to ‘closet Imperialists’ amenable to the fantasy of a WW2 Japanese naval battleship with Super-powers. Kind of like our own infantile martial fantasies: ‘Gee, if Davy Crockett had machine guns at the Alamo…’
A couple of days ago I caught this impressive Atragon Model Kit for sale on Amazon. Well, ‘sort of’ on sale.
Note the sticker-shock price quote. And exacty how big would a 1/350 replica be — Ten inches?
I guess I’m leaving this one off my Christmas list . . . the ransom seems more than a little exorbitant, as if the sellers were hoping to snag a Saudi Prince with a serious Jones for Japanese Sci-fi. But I’m linking to it here just in case any of CineSavant’s Royal Saudi readers feel generous with their holiday gift giving. And don’t worry — delivery here in Los Angeles is quite secure, honest.
Until then I’ll (sigh) just have to be content with my (unassembled) S.S. Seaview model kit and my existing four-inch Gotengo model, which isn’t quite as impressive … I’ve known goldfish that were more intimidating.
Now some proud collector will send in a photo of his brand new, shiny Gotengo, which will be ten feet long, and take up the entire second car slot in his garage. Nothing’s worse than Atragon Envy.
I believe that Joe Dante circulated this page from ‘thestudiotour.com’, centered simply on Universal’s Immortal Psycho House. It’s a nice, unfussy collection of facts about the house, which apparently began as a ‘standee’ with only three sides. It got added to, and moved around the lot as time went on.
I like the matter-of-fact reportage, plus other extras of importance, like ‘where is Mrs. Bates’ dessicated head?’
I believe that I saw the house in 1965, when a beloved aunt took me on the Universal tour. The memory is foggy — I remember it being on a hill, but when our tram went by the ‘Singapore Lake,’ all I remember seeing was the battle tower from The War Lord.
And a reminder from restoration wizard (among his many talents) Dave Strohmaier, that this Friday the 25th, Turkey Day + 1, Turner Classic Movies will be devoting a block of programming to the 70th Anniversary of Cinerama.
In addition to the Strohmaier & Co. three-panel restorations of MGM’s How the West Was Won and the recently restored and reconfigured The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, they’ll be showing the very good docu on the restoration of George Pal’s Brothers Grimm movie. The work performed by Strohmaier’s crew is pretty amazing.
Remember that Cinerama was originally filmed with a three-camera system. TCM’s recommendation is that viewers place three video monitors side-by-side, to obtain the optimum 3-Panel wide-vision Cinerama effect.
Just kidding. Happy Thanksgiving! — Glenn Erickson