Hello!

A brief news bit today. Just last night the Academy screened Edgar G. Ulmer’s amazing ‘loser noir’ classic Detour, the new restoration that premiered at the AMIA’s The Reel Thing a few weeks back. As one of the more desired of Hollywood pictures partly tied up in the hands of private collectors, Detour has been languishing in an unrestored state far too long. I wasn’t able to attend last night’s scheduled screening, and am curious to know what if anything was said about the film’s ownership status. Ulmer’s daughter Arianné Ulmer Cipes has been promoting her father’s career and restoring his films for the last 25 years or so; finally bringing the director’s most celebrated picture back to the fore must be a big step for her. I interviewed Arianné about life her with her adventurous filmmaking parents on last year’s Blu-ray of The Man from Planet X. Around 2003 or so she opened her files to show me PRC paperwork proving that Detour wasn’t quite the phantom shoestring film that overzealous reviewers had made it out to be — its shooting schedule was brief but she assured me that the budget ($135,000, I think) was above average for a PRC picture in 1945. When Arianné wrote to let me know me about last night’s screening she hinted that a Blu-ray would be on the way soon, from Criterion. I hope that works out to be true.

The Criterion Collection did just announce its December titles: Donald Sutherland in A Dry White Season, Sam Fuller’s Forty Guns (↑), Ingmar Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel, and Julien Duvivier’s highly-recommended Panique. Plus Olive Films has released full extras details for its Olive Signature disc of Invasion of the Body Snatchers: two audio commentaries and multiple retrospective featurettes. The presence of the late Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter in the extras may mean that Olive has been able to access highly desirable materials assembled upwards of ten years ago, for a special edition that was never released.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Just in time for Halloween, Shout Factory has announced a Blu-ray of Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman, the initial Filmgroup production and nearly the only one made in Hollywood, before new Guild guidelines prompted Corman to flee out of town for filming, to North Dakota, Puerto Rico and finally Europe. The specs make us hope for a quality item, with two commentaries, a theatrical aspect ratio and an extra version with padding scenes added for TV (which might look strange matted to 1:85…). The show is small-scale but much liked, thanks to Susan Cabot’s energetic performance and Corman’s tapping into an interesting office vibe. In a good version it ought to be a keeper. Just don’t expect a literal representation of the famed poster illustration to show up — the title insect looks like a hot date for one of the Zanti Misfits.

By all means Shout Factory, keep unearthing quality encodings of more arcane ’50s items, from Corman and others.

CineSavant is gearing up for a busy September and October review season, with Charlie Largent helping out. Likely titles already in hand are Scenes from a Marriage, Looker, The Trip to Bountiful and the sublime, irreplaceable My Man Godfrey (↑).  I’m expecting a wave of must-review items in the door at any time: The Last Hurrah, The Other Side of Midnight and The Bravados from Twilight Time, Andrei Rublev, A Raisin in the Sun and The Naked Prey from Criterion, and Good Times, The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler, The Spiral Staircase and Trilogy of Terror from Kino. Plus we must catch up with an August title that slipped by, Severin’s The Changeling.

Although it hasn’t really surfaced yet, people online are scratching their heads about color choices for the new Criterion Blu-ray of Brian De Palma’s Sisters. I haven’t seen it either, but I can attest that original preview prints and A.I.P.’s release prints — I saw it three times when new — were not things of beauty, with mismatched color, and the A.I.P. print sickly green and grainy, too. I never got the Arrow Region B, so I can’t compare with that either. GOOD movie, though!

And I finally caught up with a 1940 picture, The Monster and the Girl, from Paramount, that seems created in a different galaxy than the horrors from Universal. It’s the only ape-on-the-loose picture I’ve seen where an ape-suited character is consistently well handled… some of the scenes are quite impressive. In researching it for TCM, I read contemporary trade reviews that theorized that its story had been severely altered by the Production Code office, mostly to neutralize a sidebar theme of forced prostitution. But the movie is much more weird than that — it enters into a series of flashbacks from which it never returns — even the confusing The Locket doubles back to its starting point. The story is ostensibly the memory of the leading lady Ellen Drew, yet she has no knowledge of most of what happens … and never even finds out the ‘secret identity’ of the title ape monster!   Somebody page Tom Weaver to straighten me out — I have to see it again, just to find out if I ‘read’ it wrong.

The web’s Dark Corners offers a pretty funny crazy video review of The Monster and the Girl.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

My 3-D setup is getting a bit of a workout this week, what with viewing and re-viewing the Creature Legacy Collection. I took Universal up on their offer to replace the disc, which should arrive in a month or so. But the Legacy Collection is still being sold on Amazon, with delivery promised all but instantaneously. So I’m not sure what’s going on — a replacement, but no recall?

But an early check disc of the 3-D, Technicolor Sangaree is in hand, a Paramount feature starring Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl. A very early release in the 3-D boom, this one is a costume picture set in the Carolinas just after the Revolutionary War. The 3-D Film Archive had to do a lot of work to revive the faded film elements, especially the color. I hope to be reviewing it for this Saturday, the 15th.

Joe Dante’s ultra-long The Film Orgy is still circulating, and apparently on tour?  It just showed in Glasgow, Scotland, as reported by the engaging (and highly contagious) critic David Cairns. There has never been a theatrical experience comparable to The Movie Orgy’s huge conglomeration of excruciatingly funny clips from the cultural Quisinart of TV spots, TV shows and crazy feature films, collected by Dante and Jon Davison ‘back in the day’ and originally shown on college campuses. A YouTube excerpt from 2011 serves as a sampler. And here’s my review from ten years ago when it screened at The New Beverly. I think I captured the crazy mood well. As they once said of rampaging movie monsters, there’s no telling where this thing will turn up next.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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We’re back in business, disc-wise, with the new arrivals The Virgin Soldiers, Scenes from a Marriage, Big Wednesday, Looker, The Farmer’s Daughter and Queen of Outer Space to wade into. Promised and upcoming are Good Times, The Trip to Bountiful, Andrei Rublev, The Last Hurrah, The Other Side of Midnight, The Bravados, The Swarm, The Cyclops and in 3-D, Sangaree.

Powerhouse Indicator just announced Age of Consent, Charlie Bubbles, Georgy Girl and The Wrong Box as upcoming titles; I haven’t seen Charlie Bubbles but am a fan of all the rest.

And — It looks like there’s a possibility of very good news concerning the problems a week ago with the new Universal Legends release of Revenge of the Creature on 3-D and 2-D. Universal put out an email through which purchasers of the Legacy Collection, or the super-release with all the Legacy Collections, can receive a remastered disc of Revenge of the Creature/The Creature Walks Among Us with Revenge supposedly encoded at full HD, depth and flat versions alike.

It sounds too good to be true, and when it happens I’ll be first to shout Universal’s praises. As has been proven before, disc consumers respond enthusiastically when treated well, and Uni has released its share of terrific, fan-sensitive library titles.

I got an email back assigning me an Inquiry # and letting me know that replacement discs will be ready in a few weeks. The notice is out there on the web; if you can’t find it write me and I’ll be happy to forward Universal’s replacement offer.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

After our scrape last week scratching our heads at the side-by-side 3-D images in Revenge of the Creature, Gary Teetzel started to wonder if some online videos designed for VR headsets would work on a 3-D TV. And the answer is Yes, Most will. Gary says,

“Use your smart 3-D TV to go on YouTube. Do a search for ‘Virtual Reality SBS.’ You’ll find a ton of stuff you can watch in 3-D using the ‘3-D side-by-side’ setting on the TV remote. Almost all are demo videos for VR systems or games. The game samples sometimes don’t work too well; I can’t get the images to converge. Also, my TV seemed unable to correctly handle 360-degree videos. The YouTube channel ‘3D n’ Play’ had several of the best. Try these and have fun:

3D Insane Effects

3D Demo Compilation

VR Video Pop Out Effect Video!

World’s Best 3D POP OUT Effects EVER, Part 1

Cmoar Roller Coaster

Galapagos Islands 3D HD Virtual Reality Experience

Over at Trailers from Hell Brian Trenchard-Smith comments on the trailer for James Clavell’s The Last Valley, an excellent epic that I was lucky to see in 70mm when new and always thought very intelligent. The only disc out is of really mediocre quality… I have it somewhere upstairs…

And fans of James Whale will want to peek in at John McElwee’s Greenbriar Picture Shows for September 3 — he has a detailed run-down with photos on the James Whale picture that hardest to see, 1930’s Journey’s End with Colin Clive and David Manners. It’s reportedly as important a film about WW1 trench warfare, as the same year’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson