Hello!

We start off with something interesting courtesy of a circulated link from Joe Dante.

It’s a new Guardian article by Dalya Alberge about a film Charles Chaplin was actively working on when he died in 1977. Its screenplay is reportedly going to be published.

The biggest hint in the article is that the film is “a fantasy about “Sarapha, a beautiful creature with wings, a bird with a human body, which has the power to cure illness and bring peace to the world.”

I say bring it on for real.

Another un-filmed movie project associated with Charles Chaplin has already been published, in a book dealing with critic/screenwriter James Agee. It’s a full script for an ‘atom war’ idea that Agee hoped Chaplin would film. This was in the late 1940s, just before Chaplin went into exile.

The ‘lost screenplay’ is printed in Wrankovics’ book Chaplin and Agee. The balance of the book is about Agee’s efforts to rescue Chaplin from the cultural lynch mob that tarred him both a pervert and an anti-American Red.

And long-time correspondent Lee Kaplan contributes something very pleasing, a clip to a terrific animated short subject that will get us in a good mood for El dí de los muertos. Without words, it defines the meaning of a Day of the Dead holiday altar.

It’s a brief man & dog story by … Victoria México?  An early title card that appears on the video is Xolo, defined as a breed of Mexican dog. It was a sacred animal for the Aztecs, full name Xoloitzcuintle.

The film is very touching, and very much in keeping with the sentimental, positive meaning of the holiday. Dog lovers uninterested in the feline epic Flow may be charmed.

And you .. Who is waiting for you? … take me to the river…

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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

Hello!

The world is full of awful, dreadful, just plain Bad news … but we happily appropriate a link distributed by the illustrious David J. Schow, all about bad things happening at Disneyland.

Sometimes we ask ourselves if we have a morbid streak, or if we just like Charles Addams cartoons. I’m an easy-going guy who doesn’t hold a grudge, yet I grumble each New Years’ day when inclement skies suddenly turn Kodak-perfect for our local Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena. Can’t there be one January 1st where we can see expensive corporate floats blown to flinders by a typhoon, raining rose petals all over Southern California?

I digress. The article Schow has found is a dutiful tabulation of disaster at Disneyland, once the ‘happiest place on Earth’ for all, but that now is affordable only for households that control a six-figure salary. At ‘MapQuest Travel,’ writer Kevin Saltarelli enumerates 13 highly unlucky events that Dalt Wizzy’s Magic Kingdom suffered over time.

There are some truly sad cases, as there have been several fatal accidents at Disneyland. The article isn’t sleazy …. it just can’t help but appeal to normal curiosity. For example, the title for entry #7 simply reads Don’t Sneak into Disneyland.   Another is about the less lethal effect of listening too long to the song “It’s a Small World.”  Who can resist that?

Again, we’re not trying to be sadistic here, but when visiting the park, our thoughts did wander at times … nothing can be made absolutely safe.

Meanwhile, over at The Film Noir Foundation …

the new issue of Noir City, Issue number 23, is available. It’s accessible at the bottom of the Film Noir Foundation Page. The articles this time around are of special interest.

Jake Hinkson examines the notion of the ‘Southern Noir Gothic’ film, as represented by pictures like  The Story of Temple Drake. We also get a good article by Danilo Castro about the legendary stunt driver Bill Hickman, the ‘star’ of Bullitt who was closely linked to the fatal end of James Dean.

Oren Shai looks in on the French noir films of actor-director Robert Hossein. Finally, it’s about time that sometbody got around to the cheapie crime pix of Sam Katzman … Rachel Walther exposes all of those ‘city expose’ pictures.

Linsey Ford profiles the movie career of Peter Lorre. Ben Terrall compares the book and movie of  Devil In a Blue Dress, and Christian Gutierrez examines a classic Mexican film that edges toward the definition of film noir. Finally, we always go for the reviews of critic Sean Axmaker. Each issue of Noir City is a compendium of the latest thinking on the world of noir.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Here’s a video I thought was special, forwarded by David J. Schow :

It’s a lengthy video piece featuring self-described ‘horror filmmaker’ William Malone. If he’s the same Mr. Malone I met in 1975, I tried to hire his homemade copy of Robby the Robot for our UCLA screening of Forbidden Planet. Some of the effects modelmakers on ‘1941’ worked with Malone as well, on his ‘Syngenor’ movie.

Is that a rare German poster of Der Herr der Welt on the wall behind Mr. Malone?  This man thinks like I do.

The ‘Undertaking Cinema’ video is Malone’s explanation of his trials and errors in low-budget filmmaking. He sounds honest and candid, and it’s both amusing and educational. And it has Klaus Kinski, too!

We also want to call out the activities of sometime – CineSavant reviewer Lee Broughton, who began here 20 years ago with reviews of a wide range of Italo western releases.

It’s a simple call-out to note Lee’s new sideline in expert disc added value extras. Our ‘UK Correspondent’ has been picked up by some choice boutique labels. His latest efforts are for Eureka Entertainment and 88 Films:

1. ) The video essay Homelands: German Indianthusiasm and The Sons of Great Bear, which appears on Eureka’s Blu-ray of Josef Mach’s East German western,  The Sons of Great Bear (1965).

2. ) An audio commentary, along with a booklet essay entitled The Man Called Noon and British Gothic westerns, for 88 Films’ Blu-ray of Peter Collinson’s stylish British western  The Man Called Noon (1973).

I for one am curious as to just what a western produced in communist East Germany would look like. Did some beach stand in for the desert?  Lee Broughton’s CineSavant reviews include last year’s  The Borderlands, and we liked his essay in this year’s release of Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s  Steppenwolf. Lee’s home page is  here.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

I start out with what is a fun photo for me. Ten years ago I gave up trying to take care of my 1966 Mustang GT — with no garage for it and inadequate $ to really fix it up, I told my daughter that I might have to get rid of it. The solution was to give it to her … she got the ‘car’ bug more seriously than I ever did; she’s about 500 miles up in the Bay Area and has a garage to keep it safe.

Once or twice in the past I’ve posted pix of the car, which I get to drive for a few minutes every other year or so. She reworked parts of it and keeps it in great condition.

My daughter loves a particular Wim Wenders film almost as much as I do, and used its title for her custom license plate. And a few weeks ago she finally got the opportunity to take a posed picture with the Mustang in downtown San Francisco, matching a camera angle seen in the Wenders movie. So here it is … it can be enlarged so that the license plate is readable. Someday we’ll get some pictures matching the angles in the movie perfectly.

Dependable Michael McQuarrie sends along a pair of timely short subjects from World War 2, one English and one American. I have to say, the speech to America’s generals earlier this week, urging them to get tough, kill without mercy, etc., was pretty bizarre.

Well, I think I need to get tough around the house … and these two training films from our parents’ war are just the thing I need.

The 1940 English piece is all about battlefield etiquette, and a concept of ‘controlled fire’ — selling the idea that only infantry action that will succeed is orderly and directed by an officer. We love the vintage voiceover guy and his repeated admonition: “Shoot to kill!”

The basic message is to not shoot too early, and give away your position. It’s also judged unwise when scouting, to just stand up in the middle of a field where you can be picked off. Since training films were made to serve a purpose, you can bet that someone requested the topic because soldiers were just wandering around presenting themselves as targets. The training film is 35 minutes long — I can see young recruits being either confused or bored. But that title surely got ’em. Here’s the link:

The American picture makes its point with the kind of ruthlessness we associate with smart-aleck Warners cartoons, starting with its sarcastic title. It’s a gem, a well-directed piece with a very recognizable Stephen McNally and Barry Nelson playing tough GIs.

McNally captures two Japanese infantrymen who have just killed ten of his friends. The prisoners tell him that the American soldiers killed themselves, by making their positions known, ‘hiding’ in plain sight, and bunching up where a single machine gun burst could kill them all. It’s corny but effective, as it gets the point across. It’s also only about 8 minutes long, leaving nobody time to get bored.

Lock ‘n’ load!  America’s secretary of defense needs you ready to be tough. Here’s your link!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson