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First Things First: correspondent Alan Dezzani sends along this pretty-neat three-minute YouTube mini-spectacle, called Slot Car Rendition of Movie Car Chase! It should be self-explanatory.

John McElwee’s great Greenbriar Picture Shows column for February 27, 2020 has a subject no sci-fi fan could resist: John looks at the import double bills handed Hammer’s Quatermass Films, plus the Q-Thriller wanna-be X The Unknown. John’s distribution – exhibition mindset always points out things that never occurred to me: it seems that these English sci-fi films fared better or worse at U.S.A. box offices depending on what co-feature they were paired with. Quatermass 2 was one of the few Hammers to be doubled up with a non-horror or sci-fi feature, and accordingly did less well. Thanks John!

I’m getting very happy news that the U.K. concern Eureka / Masters of Cinema will be putting out a (hopefully gloriously restored) Blu-ray of the CineSavant must-see favorite The 1,0000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. The release date given is the 18th of May. For his final feature film, Fritz Lang revived the evil mastermind of his two silent classics and one early sound masterpiece … even though the diabolical Mabuse was technically killed off back in the silent epic.

Although the storyline slips in odd Edgar Wallace elements like a murderous seance, Lang pushes Mabuse’s ’empire of crime’ into the atomic age — with an existential, apocalyptic worldview. In vintage thrillers like his silent Spies, Lang had practically invented the playbook of the modern espionage/paranoia thriller. Rather than fall back on old ideas, 1,000 Eyes both invents and elaborates on the theme of total surveillance through closed circuit television. And Lang’s fearless, brilliant ‘James Bond’ undercover agent turns out not to be Peter Van Eyck’s handsome hero.

Can you tell that this is a special movie for CineSavant? MoC’s disc looks to have included David Kalat’s great old audio commentary (unless he recorded a new one).

A great deal of discussion is afoot this week about a new Australian disc company called Viavision / Imprint. They’re advertising a string of Paramount-licensed titles that include two science fiction films not available on Blu-ray anywhere else, Gene Fowler Jr.’s I Married a Monster from Outer Space and George Pal’s The War of the Worlds. The classic, Oscar-winning invasion from space epic will reportedly be the new 4K restoration with the popular wire-removal revisions. The spec sheet mentions a new 5.1 mix plus original mono audio. The disc stats also call out the good extras from the 2005 DVD.

We don’t yet know what the discs’ status is re: region locking. Another bit of cold-water news is that the discs aren’t cheap, and there’s a sobering shipping fee to order them from down under. A close associate has ordered a WOTW disc anyway, so I might be able to review it in a few weeks.

The other titles in the first batch of five Imprint releases are Waterloo, The Duellists and Sorry, Wrong Number.

Closer to home, we’re also excited about Kino Classics’ upcoming Blu-ray of the restored 1920 The Golem: Wie en der Welt Kam. It’s a Murnau Stiftung restoration job that ought to be a revelatory experience … of all the silent German classics we saw at film school, The Golem looked the worst. The terrible, ratty prints must have been sourced from bad copies that were unsteady and mis-framed. But the movie itself was obviously beautifully designed and produced — the still photos published in fancy cinema books were works of art. The new disc is a follow-up on a U.K. Masters of Cinema release from last year. Kino says their version will carry an alternate U.S. version, a comparison feature, and a Tim Lucas commentary; its street date is April 14.

Gary Teetzel adds the information that a German disc of Paul Leni’s classic Waxworks (Das Wachsfiguren Kabinett) will arrive even sooner, on March 13.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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A trusted correspondent wrote me excitedly the other day to say that he’d seen the BFI’s recent restoration of John Huston’s Moulin Rouge in 4K. He reports that it looked great — wonderful color and not a bit of dirt or damage to be found anywhere. The audio is the same as it has been, good but not terrific. Moulin Rouge is an exceptional Technicolor feature in that Huston and his DP Oswald Morris experimented with ways to approximate the palette of colors associated with Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, a process which gave the Technicolor experts fits. I saw the show once in original IB Tech and remember it as being eye-popping. I hope a Region A Blu-ray is forthcoming.

One point of interest is, of course, that Moulin Rouge is the first film with both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. We’re not counting Olivier’s Hamlet, for even if Chris Lee is there lurking in the background, we don’t see him. When José Ferrer bitterly rattles off a list of the superior qualities of Peter Cushing’s Marcel to Suzanne Flon:

“He is everything a woman could desire . . . tall . . . handsome . . . rich . . .”

I wanted him to add:

“He can keep you safe from vampires. If you die he can bring you back to life.”

My correspondent thinks that what we need is a fake trailer for Moulin Rouge, one that gives proper respect to the presence of Lee and Cushing:

Narrator:

For fans of great song melodies and lyrics, here’s a link to a new interview recorded by correspondent Christopher Rywalt. The host is Bill Weinberg, and his interview subjects are Ernie and Deena Harburg, the son and daughter-in-law of Yip Harburg, the lyricist of The Wizard of Oz and Finian’s Rainbow, among many other songs and musicals.

Much of the interview discusses Broadway musicals, with some talk about New York’s Lower East Side, where the Harburgs still live. I’m told that there’s also a lot of political talk, since Yip was very progressive and poured a lot of that into his work — he co-wrote ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime. Harburg was blacklisted for a few years in the 1950s. Christopher says that the interview will probably be edited a bit before going live, he describes it as a ‘little rambly’ at the moment, but adds that Yip’s thoughts touch on some interesting things about Oz. I myself have only listened to the first few minutes, so like, caveat emptor, hepcats.

Today’s ‘Why is this picture here?’ link up top is a somewhat sad story, as there is still no really proper commercial Blu-ray available of The Horrible Dr. Hichcock out there that can be fully recommended. The link given is to Olive’s just-okay encoding of the English language cut. I find it really inferior to the great Italian original — which so far doesn’t exist in any officially subtitled version running at 24fps. Were Riccardo Freda’s film readily available, I think it would create a demand for its terrific but nowhere-to-be-found Roman Vlad soundtrack, which in my not-so-humble opinion is at or near the top of the all-time best-of list of spooky/haunted horror music. Bernard Hichcock’s slimy forbidden desires (muah-ha-hahahah) ooze through the weird, swooning music score.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Last time out I was discussing a special effect in West Side Story, and contradicting the explanation for how it was done as presented in a CBS Sunday Morning news piece. I said that the shot shown above, of Richard Beymer against the stylized New York background, is not a large scenic backdrop painted on a giant canvas, but a transparency of a much smaller painting, rear-projected behind the singing actor walking on a treadmill. Of course, after that statement was out half a day, I found myself digging out a Blu-ray of West Side to make sure I remembered the shot correctly.

But Gary Teetzel again came to the rescue — how many times is this now?  He looked up a 1961 article in American Cinematographer that offers proof that I read the shot correctly. If you open the grab of the article on the right in a new window, it will be big enough to read. →

Or you can skate back 59 years and read the entire article.

I make my share of mistakes about movies and try to own up to my goofs as best I can. I remember asking Michael Arick once about a 70mm IB Technicolor print of something. He just patiently folded his hands on the desk in front of him and said, “Think about it, Glenn. There is no such thing as 70mm IB Technicolor.” Oops, live and learn.

I just don’t want to be one of those clowns in a Joe Dante movie that’s always sneering at ‘blue matte lines’ or saying, “A real general wouldn’t say that” … except that’s almost exactly what I do in the review today of the Glenn Ford — Debbie Reynolds comedy.

A few months back I happily joined in the chorus of web optimists reacting to the rumor that Susan Hart, the sole owner of a sizable number of 1950s American-International movies, was about to release them to home video. The obnoxious state of affairs is that they have been mostly withheld from circulation through the entire era of DVD and Blu-ray, to the frustration of fans everywhere. Most of the folks who saw the shows new back in 1956 – 1959 are older than I am, and as a group are beginning to mosey on up into that big cattle ranch in the sky.

Well, a few days ago author-interviewer Tom Weaver popped our collective balloon of hope for this one, posting on a web board:

Tom: “Here comes the wet blanket (me). Susan Hart called today to gossip about this and that, and I told her about this [web board] thread — the claim that she’s making a deal with Shout! and that her pictures would soon start appearing. I knew what she’d say before she said it:

“That’s ridiculous. A total fabrication! I’m giving Shout the rights to NNNNNNNNNNNoth-ing!”

I have collector friends with whom I just can’t discuss certain touchy subjects — I’ve given up asking why they don’t find a way to release films they control, that simply can’t be seen in good quality anywhere. It doesn’t matter to them that the fan base of the films is thinning out. Property is property and they just don’t see a way of making a profit from it, without losing total control, without ‘giving it away.’ And it’s their business, not mine, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Except whine once in a while.

I have the solution for President Trump’s slam at the Academy for awarding the Best Picture Oscar to a South Korean movie, instead of something All-American, wholesome and politically acceptable like Gone With the Wind. If he screens ‘Parasite’ at the White House, show him This Version.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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My thanks to Toby Roan, who after reading an older article about a Special Effect Shot in Kronos, tracked down the magazine I remembered reading, and sent me a copy!   FantaScene Vol. 1 No. 2 was from Summer 1976, and was indeed put together by Robert and Dennis Skotak, using their interview material with Hollywood effects folk like Jack Rabin, Irving Block, etc.

The FantaScene cover art made me realize that my eye is critical of some visuals and not others. In Forbidden Planet’s Id Monster attack scene, the invisible creature is ‘painted’ by the disintegrator blast of the Space Force’s ray guns. But I just realized now, that what literally happens is that the red-fire flux illuminates a line drawing of the Id Monster. For a few seconds, he becomes The King of Cartoons, atomic edition. A remake of this scene would seem a perfect subject for CGI work, with the sizzling energy flowing over parts of the monster. Perhaps sections would be disintegrated, only to be instantly regenerated by the Krell energy projector.

I hope that Robert Skotak does follow through on his promises to publish more of his research … I enjoyed his book on Ib Melchior, and he’s accumulated a huge volume of original research on Eastern Bloc sci-fi pictures. His commentary on last year’s Blu-ray of This Island Earth, good as it was, only scratched the surface of his discoveries.

Gary Teetzel sent this link along a week or so ago, and I’ve just now found the time to check it out. Rescuing Scenic Backdrops from Hollywood’s Golden Age gives us a good look at those giant movie artworks that used to be everywhere in pictures — a while back, I even noted a severely wrinkled city backdrop in Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman. Most seem to be from MGM, which maintained a dedicated building for the painting of huge CinemaScope backdrop canvases. That art shop had an elevator to raise and lower the canvas into a slot in the floor, so the artist didn’t have to work on a scaffold.

It’s pretty cool to see the landscape of Altair-4 unfurl. ( ↑ ) I’m pretty sure the giant cycloramic backdrop we see is just one of two or maybe three, that wrapped around the soundstage in a big circle, partly surrounding the spaceship.

The common mistake I’ve noticed with backdrops seen through doors and windows, is giving them a perfect exposure, that often says, ‘artificial studio work.’ When we take photos indoors, windows almost always burn out, at least a little. Overexposing what’s outside the window a little bit always makes the scene look more real.

Some of the scenic paintings in the news piece (like one I think from the June Allyson Little Women) are in static, locked-off shots, with the effect that they resemble matte paintings, much smaller artworks combined in the camera. I had always thought that the view of the Yellow Brick Road on the way out of Munchkinland was a matte painting, not a large backdrop, because the shot doesn’t move. Maybe these people know better, and it indeed was an artwork backdrop.

On the other hand, there’s the news piece’s questionable example of Richard Beymer against the stylized New York background from the original West Side Story. I’m fairly certain that what we see is not a scenic background, but a smaller matte painting, rear-projected behind the singing actor walking on a treadmill. I know that the background artwork of the city buildings was painted on a piece of masonite about eight feet wide, because the original hung over a sofa in Linwood Dunn’s reception room at his Film Effects of Hollywood building. Hoyt Yeatman and I visited that office in 1975, and immediately recognized it.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson