Hello! Some fun links today.

Correspondent Stefan Andersson turns our attention to the web magazine The Edit Room Floor, where the April 15 issue has a three-part article on the Italian restoration of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Stefan reports that they´ve even found the Italian censorship notes and translated them into English. Thanks Stefan — !

Ever wonder what the great screenwriter Samuel Taylor looks or sounds like? Like a great gentleman, that’s what. The writer of Vertigo speaks for seven full minutes about Alfred Hitchcock, in this Eyes on Cinema YouTube clip forwarded by correspondent Craig Reardon. And Taylor expresses his own opinion of the absurdity of the storyline of Vertigo.

And about my review last week of Blast-Off, advisor Gary Teetzel reminded me that producer Harry Alan Towers did indeed work with Orson Welles in two radio shows, The Adventures of Harry Lime and The Black Museum.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

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Correspondent John Vincent, in correcting a mistake I made about the Max Fleischer animation studio mentioned in last Tuesday’s column, also tipped me off to his website / blog Uncle John’s Crazy Town. The page is a pretty amusing ongoing ode to animation in general. John’s latest entry is about a short series of pictures called Fleischer’s Animated Antics. They look familiar — I’m not sure whether or not I’ve seen them.

A Book Review: Tom Weaver has a new book out in his Bear Manor ‘Scripts from the Crypt’ series, an informative dive into Boris Karloff worship called Boris Karloff’s The Veil. Definitely an item for focused fans on the greatest of all horror stars – and there are plenty of them out there — The Veil digs into a heretofore underreported episode in the Mr. K’s career – his late ’50s years hosting spooky TV shows, while moonlighting as a change-of-pace special guest on TV variety shows, like that of Dinah Shore. Karloff fans that think they know everything about their hero may receive something of a shock, as the book uncovers a TV show called The Veil. Ten episodes were produced in 1958, but when the fabled Hal Roach studio went belly-up they were consigned to the vault and never aired.

Weaver’s book series to some degree follows a research ‘n’ scrapbook format grouped around reprints of some key scripts from the ill-fated series. Much in the book’s favor is the sheer unfamiliarity of the subject, here illuminated by a lifetime of research. Weaver’s key essay has sufficient data to tell the story of the series in great detail, with little or no guesswork. Each of the episodes is explained in full detail, with mini-bios for the actors involved. When Weaver showed ‘rescued’ episodes to one of the show’s directors, he couldn’t remember working on it! For other angles Weaver relies on specialized essays. Barbara Bibas Montero’s piece covers the career of her father, the show’s producer. Martin Varno (yes, THE Martin Varno, the legendary screenwriter of Night of the Blood Beast) offers a glimpse of what working life was like on the Roach lot, a huge Culver City studio crumbling in disrepair, and soon to fall into receivership.

The book’s multiple perspectives are good, too. Weaver presents a well-documented account of the studio’s demise as reported in the trade papers. Hal Roach Jr. announced dozens of upcoming shows, just days before the whole studio went before the auction block. That’s followed up by an excellent overview of fantasy-horror TV production in the late ’50s by Dr. Robert J. Kiss. The takeaway info is that The Veil would at best have shaped up as a weak sister to its genre competition One Step Beyond, and Karloff’s later hit show Thriller. And we even hear the story of how the original film material was rescued from oblivion, by the late proprietor of the Something Weird video label, Mike Vraney.

Tom Weaver can be highly critical of genre pictures that don’t meet his personal criteria, and his writing refuses to sugarcoat The Veil. Despite some good playing, he finds that most of the episodes are weak both in story and execution, with Boris Karloff’s recurring roles only infrequently giving him a diverting character to play. Weaver is surprisingly hard on Karloff, for seemingly taking any job that came along and even for being a pinchpenny. To me it’s entirely understandable if the old gent just put on his gracious act for P.R. purposes. Before stardom came he’d led as brutal a life as a ‘wandering actor’ could, working in unreliable stage companies out in Canada and the northwest. He’d long ago discovered that he could work simultaneously on Broadway and in junk movies, without a deleterious effect on his career. True, the series doesn’t sound like much of a keeper, but the detail is absorbing. Was Karloff required to provide some of his own costumes? Weaver marvels at the fact that he always wears the same tie, not only in the spooky episode intros, but also when in character in some of the shows.

Boris Karloff’s The Veil concludes with some extra scripts, some interesting photos and collector errata such as an appendix on a grim double murder committed by the actor’s niece back in England. Everything is thoroughly indexed and annotated, making this a serious reference book as well, not just a compendium of fan fluff or (cough) reviewer opinion. Weaver always manages to make interesting reading of what the mainstream might consider some pretty minor ’50s horror efforts. This particular subject may sound less essential than others, but the book’s peek into the realities of ’50s horror TV production is often illuminating.

I may be a little late with next Tuesday’s reviews — it’s a family weekend and if I go near a TV monitor it will be for pleasure.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

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You may still have a chance to see them — this afternoon and evening TCM is showing movies by Edgar G. Ulmer, including a pair I barely remember, The Naked Dawn and The Cavern.
Plus the usual suspects The Black Cat, Detour, and The Man from Planet X. I keep tuning in for Detour, hoping a perfect print will someday surface. Best wishes to Arriané!

Joe Dante has circulated a YouTube link to a 1930s tour of Max Fleischer’s Animation studio in Florida … in Cinecolor. It’s at a YouTube link called Popular Science. I hope those animators didn’t wear those ties and tight collars all the time, in the hot Florida climate.

And if you’re on your way to Rio de Janeiro, don’t forget the wolfsbane, garlic and crucifixes. As reported by Gary Teetzel, they’re currently having a slight problem with vampire bats down there. Time to wear shirts with collars again.

As soon as I posted the review for the French movie above, I received a nice note from correspondent Pierre-Charles Robitaille, who reminded me that, in addition to “Renée Simonot (mother of Catherine Deneuve, born in 1915) and Gisèle Casadesus, a noted member of La Comédie Française (b.1914), the beautiful Danielle Darrieux, on May 1st, joined the circle of French actresses who have lived for more than a century.”  Thanks, Pierre.

And finally, before I forget, the news has broken online that Kino will be remastering and releasing on disc the two seasons of Leslie Stevens’ and Joe Stefano’s Outer Limits. That’s great news for those of us who shivered in front of our TVs wondering what it meant that a ‘control voice’ was taking over our televisions. They say that season one will hit this Fall and season two next Spring. I asked OL expert David J. Schow a while back if the show was filmed allowing for widescreen, so that it could be re-formatted and shown theatrically overseas. He said no, so we’ll have to make do with all those great Conrad Hall images in the flat format. But the HD clarity should make them look MUCH better — all those misty shots in the Outer Limits style will no longer resolve as digital mush.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Gary Teetzel is on top of the links again today, reporting first on the storm of excited stop-motion fans talking about a new restoration of Willis O’Brien’s 1925 The Lost World. Reading all of the posts is a bit confusing, but the new version appears to be of much better quality, and as much as ten minutes longer than anything we’ve seen. That claim wouldn’t mean much if the frame rate were simply being slowed down; but those that have seen it say that numerous new scenes are involved, with new animation. The disc is coming from Flicker Alley and the extras include a new Bob Israel score, new transfers of three other Willis O’Brien animation items. And Gary links to a restored clip that shows scenes with original tinting. To me it looks almost too good to be true.

And as promised, Gary reports on his screening of the new Pirates of the Caribbean in the new “ScreenX” format from South Korea. It doesn’t seem to be so much a new format as an enhanced screening experience. I haven’t seen it but it sounds rather like the feature on old flat Disney animation movies, that fill in the pillarbox extremes on widescreen TVs with ‘related’ visual information, something like art illumination in ancient books. Here’s Gary’s report.

On Tuesday, May 30, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales at the CGV Cinema in Los Angeles’ Koreatown to experience the film in “ScreenX.” First developed in South Korea in 2012, the process is a modern twist on Cinerama: additional picture information is projected onto the side walls of a movie theater to give viewers ultra-wide, panoramic visuals — a full 270 degrees of image. ScreenX has been used on several South Korean feature films and in-theater advertisements; Piratesmarks the first Hollywood feature to receive a (very limited) U.S. release in the process.

It should be noted up front that the entire film did not utilize the system, but rather just 10 to 15 minutes sprinkled throughout the runtime, not unlike the selected scenes Christopher Nolan shot in IMAX for the last two Dark Knight films. Furthermore, in a small handful of instances the walls did not depict contiguous image, but general “atmosphere,” such as flickering flames.

So how was it? First, a few negatives. Since the system projects directly onto theater walls and not smooth screens (at least in the venue where I saw it), one might note a distracting detail now and then, like the auditorium’s speakers. Also, since the film was shot with only the front screen in mind, visuals on the walls sometimes draw the eye away from where the central action is. A few establishing shots using the process are relatively brief and don’t give the viewer enough time to take in the full image.

In spite of those drawbacks, the system was at times very impressive, and did indeed deliver the ‘immersive’ effect promised in the ballyhoo. The best sequences came just before the climax, in which the characters explore some fantasy environments. Several shots linger long enough for viewers to take in dazzling sights all around them. It’s very effective and adds a touch of welcome old-fashioned showmanship to the proceedings.

Ultimately, though, one walks away from ScreenX feeling its application to narrative features to be limited. Even if filmmakers planned to use the format from the get-go, it’s unlikely that audiences would want to sit through an entire feature that demanded they constantly turn their heads right and left to follow the action. It would be ideal for travelogues or perhaps some experimental shorts–but when was the last time you saw a travelogue or a short subject in a mainstream theater?

For more information on ScreenX, check out their website. For Angelenos interested in seeing the process for themselves, the ScreenX version of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is still playing at the CGV Cinemas in Koreatown and Buena Park. Note that the film has English audio, but Korean subtitles. — Gary Teetzel

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson