Hello!

We wuz robbed of a couple of the most desired and expected horror items promised for Halloween. But there is some good news: attendees of the Academy’s re-premiere screening last Saturday night of Terence Fisher’s Dracula aka Horror of Dracula returned with positive reports.

CineSavant’s advisor Gary Teetzel was there to watch history being made. Besides reporting a packed house that watched in rapt attention, Gary reports that

“It looks and sounds very good. Color looks excellent — not the excessive blue of the BFI restoration. The restored footage is in much better condition and integrates much more smoothly. As for added footage, I think there is an extra shot of Drac writhing in agony in the sunlight. The “face peeling” shot looks like it might be a few frames longer.”

That sounds fine and dandy to us. Trailers from Hell’s Joe Dante also attended, and circulated his reaction. His word for the restoration: Impeccable. Joe wrote that

“the added destruction scenes from the Japanese version are seamlessly integrated and somehow the music is still in sync. And to my nostalgic delight it even begins and ends with the original 1958 Universal International logo.”

So I guess we won’t be regretting our pre-release purchase of the movie, as it is now something grand to anticipate for Thanksgiving … you know, brightening up the world, post-election. when a review comes along we will try to compare this lauded restoration to some of the promises made by Hammer in the last half-year.

Also forwarded by Joe Dante is a fairly remarkable TV spot clip that would seem to augur who knows what for the Shape of Things to Come in everything audiovisual. The legendary movie star Greta Garbo is digitally resurrected through AI to host a corporate TV commercial.

I look at the recreation and think to myself, ‘I can see giveaways,’ and ‘sometimes she doesn’t look like the Greta we know.’  Does that make the slightest bit of difference?  Going forward, photos and video will no longer suffice as evidence for anything.

The spot doesn’t acknowledge the creepiness of the AI exercise, but it does have a sweet finale … a clip from a film advertisement Garbo made in 1919.

This also means that a then-preposterous joke from an old issue of The National Lampoon, written and illustrated by Edward Sorel, could now come to pass: the great movie star Greta Garbo could emerge from retirement to appear on TV’s Celebrity Bowling.

Thanks for reading, & see you on Halloween — Glenn Erickson