Here’s some fun. Correspondent Alan Dezzani sent along a link to a Carlsburg Beer ad that uses part of the finale to Ice Cold in Alex. I don’t want that spoiled so you’ll have to find it on your own. However, Mr. Dezzani’s other link to a Carling Black Label Gag Advertisement riffing off of The Dam Busters spoils nothing, so here ya go … it’s pretty cute. Correspondent ‘Willard’ sent in the same ad link, thanks!

And Severin Films promises a screwy treat for sometime in May: Fritz Böttger’s Horrors of Spider Island, another title like Eegah and Monstrosity that falls under Herschel Gordon Lewis’s category of A Subject for Further Research, like Cancer!  Long a title destined for confusion, photos from this weird 1960 horror show were featured in long-ago issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. I think it’s the film where I first realized at age ten that advertising just plain LIES: “hey, somebody just painted big teeth and claws on a photo to hype the monster.” The show is rumored to be awful but that’s no barrier to enjoyment here. Two versions are promised, one from the uncut German negative and another from the American version. And I hope the presentation sorts out the titles and versions … what the heck is It’s Hot in Paradise, anyway?   I’ll repeat Nathaniel Thompson’s memorable blurb from the Severin artwork: “One of the odder fusions of monster mashing and girlie ogling from the early days of Euro exploitation.”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The world of commerce is certainly taking a hit right now, with much of the retail workforce at home where it belongs — we’re Doing The Right Thing. Blu-rays are hardly essential goods, and some may be a bit hard to come by until science gets the upper hand on that which has forced us all to self-isolate. Actually, I’ve been getting reports that readers are receiving ordered discs, even if the turnaround time is no longer just a day or two … meanwhile, Amazon appears to have stopped delivering foodstuff items, at least in Los Angeles.

As this is primarily an entertainment website, we’ll continue to review discs as they come in, even items that may not be easily purchased. Discs keep arriving, and if they dry up we’ll have fun reviewing whatever films appeal. I’ve already endorsed Charlie Largent’s idea to backtrack and cover some of his favorite horror items. Companies are still announcing discs, even if ‘current events’ are likely sabotage some of the schedules. Various pundits and the usual yack-track suspects tell us they’re still being commissioned for new commentaries. Life will go on; the Earth will abide — and most of us have much bigger concerns…!

We’re hoping that Scream Factory’s discs for April, May and June stay in the pipeline: Danger: Diabolik!, Day the World Ended!  Meanwhile, they’ve optimistically announced six more titles for July: the Hammer chiller Kiss of the Vampire (a Wayne Schmidt favorite), Roman Polanski’s The Tenant, the faux-kinky Tattoo with Maud Adams and Bruce Dern, Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift, Bert I. Gordon’s crazy War of the Colossal Beast (with its high-voltage color finale?), and Herman Cohen’s opus teenagerus How to Make a Monster (with its Paul Blaisdell mask gallery in color?). I think I should lean on Craig Reardon to help review How to Make a Monster — it’s about a studio makeup man, and I’m sure it’s re-e-a-lly accurate.

Sony/Columbia just wrote to tell us about a lavish Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection, appointed with “six top titles from the Sony catalog making their 4K debuts, + a host of great bonus features including a hardcover book.” The titles are certainly impressive: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, Gandhi, A League of Their Own ( ↑ ) and Jerry Maguire. Sony says that the last two titles were selected via an entertainment poll; I strongly approve of the choice. The eighty-page book will have an extensive essay written by the much-valued Julie Kirgo. The formidable list of extras includes a Blu-ray copy of each title, and the home video premiere of a Columbia 50th Anniversary TV show from 1975, that includes input from ‘Frank Capra, Phil Silvers and Orson Welles.’

We’re told that review discs are on the way from the UK for Powerhouse Indicator’s upcoming slate of titles, three of which are Blu-ray debuts. Jack Garfein’s The Strange One is the odd film out, followed by four of John Ford’s Columbia titles: The Whole Town’s Talking, The Long Gray Line ( ↑ ), The Last Hurrah and Gideon’s Way.

Finally, correspondent Jonathan Gluckman forwards this Brainstuff video with Jonathan Strickland, explaining a term I’ve certainly used too much without knowing exactly what it is, The Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic Accent: Why Do People In Old Movies Talk Weird?  The casual talk is not exactly Gospel from the Mount, but I did learn a thing or two.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

A curious page signed by ‘Crysknife007’ at bandcamp has since 2015 been providing something he calls Forbidden Planet: The Great Krell Machine Ambient Noise. If you remember, the alien race The Krell constructed a giant computer as massive as a steel mill, but with twenty square miles of giant mechanical relays… I guess the Krell never got the hang of microelectronics?  Everything worked just swell until The Krell stumbled into Facebook-style social networking. This audio link is a fair description:

“This is twenty or so minutes of the core ambient sound from inside the Great Krell Machine from Forbidden Planet. Set your favorite music player to play this track on repeat as you go to sleep and you should have no trouble drifting off. Set your player to loop seamlessly to avoid turbulence. This is perfect for imagining some of your deepest secrets, fears, and joys as you drift off to sleep. Also perfect for studying, focusing at work, or just having on where you live as you go about your day.”

Fudge. I was counting on using the audio track to project physical manifestations of my subconscious id to any part of the planet they wanted to go. But this is still very cool. If you listen hard enough, you can hear those millions of mechanical relays kicking over.

This next item is pretty far off base, maybe. Getting tired of my playlist during lockdown, I went searching for some web radio to shake things up, and found a stream called Sweet 16 Oldies. A disco track just snuck in but the majority of records are from the 1960s. The selection is halfway creative — I hear ‘hits’ I haven’t heard in a long time… even the losers are amusing.

I guess (sigh) this is comfort music for listeners around my age group. But I’m never ashamed of Rock ‘n’ Roll in any guise. Look at it this way… we’re still listening to music that is now all over fifty years old. What radio stations in 1965 still played songs from 1925?

I like the homemade radio ads from Elizabethtown, with positive little remarks about our current health crisis. This will certainly keep me sedated entertained for a while. (note, Monday afternoon: The Oldies radio stream just now (3:30 pm) switched over to a fundamentalist preacher. I’m retreating to my playlist for a while. If the feed doesn’t soon revert to safe ‘n’ sane oldies, I’ll know that the whole thing is a boomer trap!)

Finally, we’ve got some sad news that finally came through on FB a couple of days ago. Career film critic and blogger Joe Baltake has passed away. I frequently linked to his thoughtful articles on his The Passionate Moviegoer page. We corresponded frequently too. Joe was quick with welcome corrections — his emails began more than once with “I’m impossible. Whenever I spot a gaffe, I can’t control myself.” I didn’t learn about Joe’s impressive journalistic background until I had already known him several years. A good obit for him is up at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

‘The Passionate Moviegoer’ went quiet last summer, leaving a scary note about Joe’s health that was the last word we heard from him for almost three months. When he came back online in October we celebrated — ‘Hooray for Joe Baltake’ (10.15.19). Joe continued with his blog updates until February 3. His last blog entry is about his favorite film, The Apartment. He will be greatly missed by all of us that enjoyed the enthusiasm and good will of his writing.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello to all, and God bless my bunker hideout happy home. Back off mail carrier, that’s closer than six feet–

We still concentrate on the day-to-day essentials here at CineSavant. Eating, breathing, worrying about loved ones takes precedence on our scale of concern too. Please don’t think me callous if CineSavant continues with the decadent fantasy that disc collecting is serious business…

What with the general disruption, so many companies working from home and the mail slightly slowed down, I wonder if we’ll see delays in disc street dates?  (Boy, this does read as frivolous. Onward, just the same.)

We still have April 19 listed for Scream Factory’s upcoming Danger: Diabolik disc. Gary Teetzel forwarded a list of extras and features announced for the disc. The stats don’t mention a new transfer… this may be the same very good transfer from the old DVD. I thought the old Paramount DVD got pretty much everything right on this difficult title, except that their composite mix dropped the relative volume of the music track. I’ve seen Diabolik projected multiple times, and Ennio Morricone’s cues slam in loud and stay loud throughout the show. We were hoping for an original Italian version as an extra, but we’ll of course be happy for what we get with this Mario Bava gem. The one new extra will be a commentary with Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson.

Gary T. has become a regular Sidney Falco for the CineSavant Column, but with a nicer personality. This ‘item’ is indeed a treat, even if I’m not a fan of some of the songs that have been assigned new lyrics. The performer nail tunes from Les Miserables, The Lion King etc.. Pretty cute stuff — Zach Timson Broadway Virus Parodies is clever and funny in addition to being a great showcase for Timson’s talent.

And finally, Gary points me to a thoughtful, timely set of Public Service links: as explained at Deadline.Com the cast of Contagion have created several bold and solidarity-building PSA messages about the Health Crisis that’s transformed all our lives.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson