CineSavant Column
Hello!
It’s that time of year again. Here are three desirable Halloween discs worthy of special note . . . one comes out today.
Radiance Films is promising, on October 25, a newly remastered Blu-ray of Malpertius, from director Harry Kümel of Daughters of Darkness. It’s a wholly weird picture with a special performance by Orson Welles. A sailor returns home (sort of) to find a strange group of people living his uncle’s house, apparently waiting for the bedridden man to die. The identity of the ‘visitors’ turns out to be something utterly fantastic. Radiance’s extras promise to be something special.
It will arrive a tad after Halloween, but Arrow Video USA has our curiosity up with a 4K remaster of Peter Hyams’ Outland, a futuristic drama with Sean Connery and Peter Boyle. Something’s gone wrong at a mining colony on a moon of Jupiter, and ‘space marshal’ Connery is dispatched to sort it out. Back in the day, we were interested in Outland because it used a ‘new process’ involving miniatures and front projection. We’ve only seen it on cable TV so will be interested to see what it looks like in 4K.
And The Warner Archive Collection has clearly been watching what Hammer Films is up to with their fancy giant boxed sets of vintage Hammer titles. This initial Technicolor Hammer hit The Curse of Frankenstein was remastered by the WAC back in 2020, but we’re about to behold a full-on new restoration, with two 4K discs and one Blu-ray, with multiple aspect ratios and an enormous roster of video extras.
It’s a favorite that few will pass up … could Horror of Dracula be next? If the WAC mirrors Hammer’s presumed release for that one, it could conceivably give American viewers a good look at the extended Japanese cut of the film.
We normally link to MovieZyng for WAC releases, but I didn’t find a page there for this disc.
From correspondent and advisor Gary Teetzel comes a quick lesson on the Persistence of Unadulterated BS in vintage Hollywood promotions. It’s one of Gary’s articles made from strings of old Trade Paper notices. Gary:
If you’ve seen posters or lobby cards for Bert I. Gordon’s THE BOY AND THE PIRATES, you may have noticed that the film was promoted as being in “Perceptovision”:
Unsurprisingly, “Perceptovision” was nothing but a name Gordon decided to slap onto his own familiar brand of special effects. One can imagine Gordon seeing Columbia’s exciting announcements declaring Ray Harryhausen’s films as being in “Dynamation” and “SuperDynamation.” B.I. Gordon must have decided to hype his own visual effects in a similar way.
From the February 29, 1960 FILM BULLETIN, here’s some United Artists hype promising that Perceptovision was a “new concept in special effects”:
From Mel Konecoff’s “The New York Scene” column in the March 2 issue of MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR, here’s Gordon promising that Perceptovision had been “perfected”:
The FILM BULLETIN review claims Perceptovision to be a patented process (or, as the typo puts it, a “pantentel” process):
Sadly, as far as I can tell, Gordon never went on to invent and perfect “SuperPerceptiovision.” — Gary
‘Perceptovision’ my a–! It is indeed a very ‘special’ process — if you can perceive it, you’re having visions!
Frankly, we’re Shocked! Shocked! to discover that advertising baloney was an important factor in promoting motion pictures! We promo editors never fudged the truth back at Cannon Films … (cough). Our only takeaway from Gary’s exposé is to wonder how producer-director William Castle reacted when he got wind of Bert I. Gordon’s special process. Just the year before, Castle promoted his very successful thriller The Tingler with a genuine special presentation gimmick, called simply, ‘Percepto.’
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson