Hello!

The Warner Archive, Warners itself, and MGM are hitting me with desirable reissues. We want to cover a lot of them and they are arriving fast, so we might be trying an abbreviated review format. All will have a quality assessment, as CineSavant readers just want to make sure they’re not disappointed with what they’ve bought.

We ordered a reissue Blu of Michael Caine’s Get Carter one day before a fancy 4K disc was announced, coming up in August. So expect that one to be reviewed twice in the next couple of months. Maybe I can break this habit of over-writing everything. We’ll see.

But it’s also an opportunity to write more about The Wild Bunch!  How could I resist that?  That’s one WB title that really wants an ambitious 4K remaster and special editon … you know, with restored bits from Sam Peckinpah’s personal version. Or send it to Criterion, like  Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dreams never end here at CineSavant.

And we look look kindly to Film Masters’ upcoming disc release of the delirious atomic hysteria opus Invasion, U.S.A..  The notorious Albert Zugsmith production depicts those sneaky commies annihilating America with an overwhelming nuclear full court press. It’s not exactly responsible filmmaking; 1952 had its crazies, for sure.

The ‘communist invasion’ is all done with slippery special effects and an outrageous manipulation of military stock footage. The central drama is a hoot, with scenes of oily Gerald Mohr hitting on pert & perky Peggie Castle in a Manhattan bar. Lending some class to the proceedings is the terrific Dan O’Herlihy, as a bartender who delivers an eerie warning of doom.

This one will be great fun to write up. We hope those ’35mm archival elements’ Film Masters describes are in tip-top shape. The disc’s equivalent of a second feature to ‘clear the house’ is Rocket Attack, U.S.A., a mind-numbing anti-movie from that great auteur Barry Mahon. But fans of atom freakout movies will want to see that one, too.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson