Hello!

Quite a while ago Gary Teetzel forwarded a good link to clips from the film library of the late special effects artist Wah Chang. A new clip has shown up, of Chang and Gene Warren photographing effects shots of the submarine the Hydronaut cruising and diving for the Ivan Tors movie Around the World Under the Sea. I guess the blue background must not be a blue screen for matting purposes, because the submarine itself is partly painted blue — it’s just a dry-for-wet underwater sub shot. Other views of the Project Unlimited effects shop reveal the Albatross from Master of the World sitting abandoned on a shelf. As one might suspect, the miniature is not very big, at least not this particular model.

Joe Dante circulated a nice link to Ron Hutchinson’s Vitaphone article about Warners’ notorious ‘lost’ 1933 pre-Code comedy Convention City, Where is Convention City Hiding?  The article has some nice photos, and comes to the conclusion that a print of one kind or another is likely out there somewhere, ready to be discovered. Hutchinson also reminds us that, despite its reputation as an un-see-able item, the movie is almost certainly no more racy than other WB pre-Codes of the day. But with that look in Joan Blondell’s eye, we can dream, can’t we?

↑  Gary again scores with more research from trade magazines. Here he uncovers a vintage Spanish language ad for Warners’ Boris Karloff thriller The Walking Dead (1936). Gary’s not sure the picture was ever released with this title ‘De mis verdugos me vengue’, because ad art does exist for the Spanish title Los Muertos Andan (‘The Dead Walk’). But sometimes the foreign titles differed between markets in Mexico, Spain and South America. To me ‘De mis verdugos me vengue’ (‘I took vengeance on my executioners’) sounds like a classy sell for Buenos Aires or Madrid.

Just in from the web: Indicator has announced for July 23 their boxed set Hammer Volume 3 Blood and Terror: The Camp On Blood Island, Yesterday’s Enemy, The Stranglers of Bombay, and The Terror of the Tongs. It looks like they’ve put all their potentially PC offensive and racially insensitive titles in one basket. Stranglers is a definite favorite, and the rarely-seen Yesterday’s Enemy is one of the most honest pictures about real warfare that I’ve seen.

↓  Here’s something my broker and I found during the long attic search for vintage movie poster paper — a four-sheet for one of my favorites, the 1952 Sci-fi propaganda head-scratcher Red Planet Mars. I think it’s a four-sheet, because it’s in four pieces, meant to be pasted on a wall by a professional paperhanger. If there is another like this in existence, I’d be surprised, as it’s a rare item indeed. Now to find a wall big enough to hold it a buyer more nuts about the movie than I am.

Also rejected by my broker is the bottom half of an original Woodstock two-sheet. The missing top two thirds was just a big blurry image of a crowd, and this bottom half has plenty of the same graphic, plus a big representation of the credit block and famous logo. Anyone interested?

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

I wasn’t kidding about being late last Saturday: CineSavant has no new reviews today. We’ve been doing a mass inventory of the old movie posters from up in my attic. Many have been there for forty years. I’ve compiled a list with the aim of selling a bunch of them a little later on. I’ll report on them here, if that comes to pass. Part of starting up CineSavant as my own page was to make evil mercenary profitable ideas like this possible — I might be able to sell them directly through the page. My unwritten contract with disc providers is that I don’t re-sell review discs, but I’ve been collecting other stuff since the 1970s.

I do have a couple of reviews done but I think I’ll delay them at least another day. Hence this collector’s photo of the chaos, inventory-wise, at CineSavant Central.

Thanks for reading! Glenn

Hello!

The news this week is that Janus films, The Academy Film Archive and the Film Foundation have restored Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour, the most celebrated ‘B’ noir on the books. The Criterion website describes the restoration process thusly:

“The restoration team began by examining potential sources, including: a 35mm dupe negative from The Museum of Modern Art, which was incomplete and riddled with jump cuts; a 35mm safety composite print from the Cinematheque Française; and a 35mm nitrate print from the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique. That print, thought to have been made from the original camera negative, was clearly the best element in terms of image clarity, contrast, and density, but had never been considered as a source for preservation because it contained burned-in French and Flemish subtitles.”

I’ll be very interested in seeing how that process works — we need to see that enormous grimy coffee cup in the Reno diner looking perfect, jump cuts and all. The Academy’s Michael Pogorzelski says he’s been keen to restore Detour for quite awhile. Official rights for the old PRC feature may have been established by now. Previously it was my understanding that it is a Public Domain title, and that the big problem with earlier restoration efforts has been that some of the better film elements have been tied up with private collectors.

The full story can be read at Ryan Gallagher’s Criterion article, Janus Films to Tour New 4K Restoration of Edgar G. Ulmer’s DETOUR.

Dick Dinman has another timely DVD Classics Corner On the Air show online, this time about two new Warner Archive Collection releases: Dick Dinman & Eddie Muller dispense a double dose of Dana. In other words, Dinman and Muller talk about Dana Andrews’ career with special emphasis on the new WAC Blu-rays of Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

A set of links to other Dinman DVD Classics Corner On the Air shows is at this address.

I’ll be Out of Action this weekend, doing an inventory in the depths of the CineSavant vaults, with a friend driving in from out of state to help make it happen. So expect new reviews from myself, and I think Charlie Largent, perhaps next Wednesday.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

We lead off with some vintage French artwork for The Day of Triffids, which looks like a poster but is not. I recognize the layout format from publications in Spanish and Italian, but to be sure asked Michael Hyatt, who confirms that it is a photo-novelization of the movie.

Hyatt also told me that back in the day this item was the only way the French could ‘see’ the movie: import quotas prevented a theatrical release there in the first place! That, in spite of the fact that a good third of Triffids takes place in France, and the co-star is French. Mike collects Triffids posters; I’m guessing that he likely figured this out when no French poster existed to be found.

A trailer rarity at Trailers from Hell yesterday — The Folks at Red Wolf Inn, with a snappy commentary by David DeCoteau.

Twilight Time for July has been announced: director Roger Spottiswoode’s epic The Children of Huang Shi, the 1965 costume pic Genghis Khan, Mark Rydell’s delightful Cinderella Liberty and Raoul Walsh’s The Revolt of Mamie Stover with Jane Russell as a ‘fallen woman’ in Honolulu who ends up owning half the real estate on Waikiki.

Only a couple of years ago I finally figured out that a number of B&W ‘Mexican’ effects scenes in Kurt Neumann’s sci-fi thriller Kronos were achieved by adding animated effects to color Hawaii-set scenes from Mamie Stover, mainly, a giant robot and electromagnetic ‘force waves.’ I think adding a giant robot and electromagnetic force waves is a good way to improve most any travelogue landscape photo.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

A very interesting link reached me through Joe Dante, about one of the oldest Hollywood missing-film mysteries on the books — the legendary Giant Vampire Attack scene that was cut out of the 1936 Tarzan Escapes, almost at the last minute. Bill and Sue-On Hillman’s Edgar Rice Burroughs-zine has an excellently researched article with new information that makes it seem possible that the missing scene might someday be located in a foreign archive or film exchange. As this third MGM feature is the first Tarzan to be considered a ‘kid’s picture,’ the scary scene was cut after preview audiences thought it unsuitable for children.

BUT — the scene was reinstated for a 1954 release, before disappearing once again. The author of the full article saw the reissue as a kid, and his description makes it sound as extreme as the fantastic horrors in Tarzan and His Mate. Trailers from Hell’s Charlie Largent did a newspaper research snoop followup on the article’s claim, and did indeed come across the ad for the Dec. 22, 1954 double bill that Bill Hillman saw (above)!

Charlie noted that filming the flying bat creatures on wires, that swoop down and carry off helpless victims, likely gave MGM needed engineering experience for when it came time to film the flying monkeys of The Wizard of Oz, three or four years later.

Gary Teetzel has also been scouring old industry newspapers, this time for information about the 1932 horror classic Island of Lost Souls. He found a score of interesting blurbs about possible casting, and the talent search for a ‘Panther Girl’ for the movie. This first clipping has an odd list of stars attached to the project, though obviously not permanently: Nancy Carroll, Fay Wray, Irving Pichel, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Noah Beery. If you know the picture it’s not difficult to guess what the actors’ roles would be:

This second clipping is a good reminder why studios didn’t make more shocking, transgressive horror pictures. You can’t buy a review this negative, as they used to say. I think this particular blurb ends up being funny, due to its final two words:

And it’s another DVD Classics Corner On the Air show, this time about the new Kino 3-D release: Dick Dinman & Bob Furmanek Survive the Horror of the 3-D The Maze. I made sure I got the basic tech facts right in my CineSavant review last week, but Dinman’s interview with Bob Furmanek goes into more detail about “the challenges inherent in restoring not only 3D picture but 3 Channel Stereo Sound to this much requested creep-fest.” The disc arrives next Tuesday.

I always keep forgetting to say it, but Dick Dinman’s half-hour shows always cover more topics as well. A set of links to other DVD CCOA shows is at this address.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson