Hello!

We’re a few hours early with this post!   The holidays are creeping up, and CineSavant is taking the liberty of (don’t tell anyone) a day off here and there. That’s the explanation for the presence of just one review today. Charlie Largent tells me it’s a winner, a set of vintage titles that are old yet will be brand new to most U.S. horror fans.

I’ve been happy returning emails lately, and not all of it is thanks for embarrassing corrections. Please be aware of the email posted up on the right, on a link under the photo of the CE3K flying saucer.  I don’t collect addresses or data or make such same available to anyone without permission, so people with questions or gripes or comments are welcome to write in, as always.

↑  Some quickie news forwarded last week by the dependable Gary Teetzel — the Criterion Newsletter has let slip that there will be an upcoming Blu-ray of the studio’s major gangster epic The Roaring Twenties, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Gladys George. It’s an entertaining recap of the genre, perhaps using Mark Hellinger’s ‘historical’ framing theme of Prohibition to get past the Production Code. On the other hand, the bluenoses in the Breen office probably wanted as much as anybody to see Cagney do his tough-guy stuff again.

The Roaring Twenties was dropped from Warner Home Video’s first Gangster Blu-ray collection, and that was a full ten years ago. The movie’s popularity is such that, at the time, we couldn’t imagine a reason for holding it back. We now theorize that Criterion has had it in a license lay-away limbo for some time.  Our guess is that’s the same reason why Criterion occasionally releases 20th-Fox titles, currently locked away by Disney . . . the licensing deals must have been made years in advance.

Until told otherwise, that’s our best uninformed theory, with no intention to deceive.

Wow, this gigantic house has only four bedrooms?  They must be enormous live-in suites. Friend Malcolm Alcala sent in the link.

The glamour real estate article grabbed my attention because I always imagined James Whale living in Beverly Hills. They identify this as Los Feliz, and note that the main photo shows the Griffith Obserevatory in the background — Whale’s house is therefore just East of the Observatory, and would likely be visible in scenes in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause.

It sometimes feels strange to have lived in Los Angeles for so long, and only realize now who and what was living around me, in various directions, for years. Obviously, James Whale’s tenure was before my time. One of the reasons I enjoy Michael Connelly’s Bosch books are the constant familiar locations — places in Hollywood, Los Feliz, and the valley that we frequent, including restaurants. I just finished a chapter in a Connelly Jack McEvoy book with a shootout scene. It happens on a spur street in Sherman Oaks, right where I worked at a producer’s house for fifteen years … fully described.

Anyway, here’s the super house being sold for a pittance, pocket change!  The interiors are pretty incredible. Looking at my own property taxes, I’m going to hold off putting in a bid:

‘Frankenstein’ Director James Whale’s Former Home in Los Feliz Listed for $7.24M.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson