Hello!

Three random disc and screening announcements today. Matthew Rovner, our resident Arch Oboler expert, reminds us that a Blu-ray of Oboler’s movie Bwana Devil is on the way. The 3-D Film Archives’ restoration comes from the original ‘Ansco Color’ camera negatives.

The announcement here is for New Yorkers with an itch to see the movie that ignited the 1950s 3-D craze — on the screen with an audience. It’s at the Film Forum on the evening of May 13 — the premiere of a 4K digital restoration of the show in full 3-D.

Robert Furmanek will handle the presentation; it has a Film Forum info page:

Bwana Devil in 3-D!
One of the earliest ‘MGM Video Savant’ attempts at an article is still up, now dated 1998 instead of ’97.” It was my attempt to sum up what we knew of classic 3-D, based on the sparse Los Angeles screening opportunities up to that time. We had no idea that the 3-D Film Archive people were already busy working to revive the 3-D movie movement. Here’s the link: 3-D: Hollywood’s Most Misunderstood Miracle.

 

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This new disc announcement is of the ‘exotic’ variety, bound to appeal to collectors of the strange. In conjunction with the Something Weird people, the Film Masters disc boutique has packaged what we at one time would call a ‘Hillbilly’ double bill, a Backwoods Double Feature of Common Law Wife (1963) and  Jennie, Wife/Child (1968). The release date is given as June 25.

The announcement text fills in the details. Not long ago we would offhandedly refer to these movies as Hillbilly Exploitation, but it’s good to think a bit now before applying that word.

A year ago I wrote up a French movie that referred to Gypsies, and found that it’s in the same category. Not sure how to handle that when talking about old movies, that come from a different time. One person reminded me of the word Romani, which is surely better, but I still felt as if I had been ticketed by the Vocabulary Police. As for Hillbillies — does that mean one can no longer write about Li’l Abner?

 

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A much more obscure film  is the subject of a New York screening announcement from the company Arbelos. This one qualifies as genuine vintage experimental American film art. It’s the seldom-screened 1961 drama Time of the Heathen, by Peter Kass.

The movie is called a ‘post- A-bomb Thriller’ and ‘a lost marvel of independent filmmaking.’  Director Kass is said to have been primarily known as an acting teacher. The main player John Heffernan has a very familiar face to go with an eclectic variety of credits in little parts. Two films in his IMDB list are The Sting and  God Told Me To.

This little promotional clip makes Time of the Heathen look as if it were shot without sound. The clips of a color sequence with strange superimpositions reminds us that the cameraman is the well-known experimentalist Ed Emshwiller.

The partial synopsis says that the post-apocalyptic context has something to do with ‘the shifting racial politics of the 1960s.’  We are also told that Time of the Heathen “culminates in one of cinema’s most memorable, psychedelic, and unclassifiable endings.”

Yes, we know we are easy prey for exotic movie fare. Jonas Mekas sort-of reviewed Time of the Heathen for The Village Voice, but managed to communicate nothing about it except “you dig it or you don’t dig it.”  Why can’t I put together useful review advice like that?  We’ll be looking to see if Arbelos offers a Blu-ray.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson