Hello!

Well, I’ve been inundated (submerged?) by inquiries about how I got the new Blu-ray of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea without joining a subscription club. Copies of Leagues are being sold on Ebay for big $, I am told. First, I have to assure the reader that I tout movies in general, and besides waving a link to certain outlets, I don’t do what every other page has done since the dawn of DVD, collect $ for referral links and hits. I’ve never had any contact with The Disney Movie Club and I have no beef with it. My jokes about Dalt Wizzy date back to an old Mad magazine comic that lampooned the amazing Walt Disney as an extraordinary money magnet.

I got my copy by leaning on a friend (begging, whining) to order one for me, which ended up being a considerable inconvenience on his part, so I’m not asking for any more favors. My advice is to get lucky and find a pal with kids that are big on Disney and might have sprung for the club membership.

I know that’s not very helpful. I don’t know if this means anything, but everyone I’ve talked to that glommed a copy of the new Blu-ray, expressed elation at its quality — and then complained about its complete lack of extras. I have so far received five notes asking if I think the show will be available in a ‘normal’ disc release. I haven’t a clue — that’s not Disney’s present battle plan. I was told that a digital version can be purchased online, if you don’t mind it being withdrawn someday. Cheerful, huh?

Hey, there’s more Blu-ray 3-D coming to get excited about, and this time the feature was directed by one of them there high-toned name directors, Douglas Sirk. Filmed all over Utah, Taza, Son of Cochise has a fine cast led by Rock Hudson and Barbara Rush and was released in full Technicolor 3-D.

The restoration was performed by the 3-D Film Archive, and hopefully the encoding will be good. Most of the Archives work looks sensational on Blu-ray 3-D, which has been partly discontinued in the U.S. but is still going strong in other regions. What a shame — competition doesn’t always make the product better or the market more inclusive. Anyway, this title has good chances of being a winner. Douglas Sirk is a fine action director, so I’m looking forward to it.

Last minute nooz: Gary Teetzel reports that Kino Lorber is going to release Frank and Eleanor Perry’s Ladybug Ladybug, the 1963 atom drama about the tragedy that ensues when a nuclear alert is received at a rural public school. It’s long been a favorite, ignored by MGM and UA, and only available in a feeble 16mm copy; I was traumatized by it at age 13 when it hit television. You can’t call it fully successful but it is unforgettable — a liberal picture overflowing with humanist angst and cruel irony. Perry doesn’t do well with some of the kids, but the adult cast is terrific — William Daniels, Jane Connell, Richard Hamilton, Kathryn Hays, Judith Lowry, Estelle Parsons and Nancy Marchand.

The joke with Ladybug Ladybug is, I’m afraid, that for the past 30 years I’ve been asking Gary when it’s coming out on DVD and later Blu-ray, knowing that the only MGM pix less likely to receive special attention are Operation Kid Brother (OK Connery) and Fearless Frank (Frank’s Greatest Adventure). Now I’m bullish on Fearless Frank! How about a special edition with a commentary by Philip Kaufman, Jon Voight and Joan Darling?  I’ve got an original poster (and boy is it ugly)!  In any case, It’s going to be something special to see the nearly forgotten Ladybug Ladybug in HD Blu-ray.

And I’m personally happy because I’ve finished a big photo exchange with collector Mike Siegel — in regard to my still-favorite film Major Dundee. I’ve nabbed one more image from a deleted scene, I think. Later this summer, should things work out, I’ll have a minor, ‘Major’ announcement regarding that favored show…

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Maybe I’ll take a chance on the upcoming Scream Factory release of Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out — I never got into the Terence Fisher film as others have, and it’s a chance to find out if I was in a bad mood that day. I have been promised a screener of John Gilling’s The Reptile, which I’ve avoided only because the copies I had contact with looked bad. I’m predisposed to like that one — I was always impressed by the makeup, and I don’t mind if it only shows up for a minute at the finish.

Kino’s October schedule has some indifferent titles, but also some interesting side benefits, like the Pushkin-adapted quasi-horror picture The Queen of Spades with Anton Walbrook and Edith Evans, and Basil Dearden’s psychological sci-fi tale The Mind Benders. How I saw this ‘adult’ movie at age 12 I don’t know. At the time I thought that the sense deprivation chamber used by Dirk Bogarde was crazy, weird, impossible fantasy.

But in the next sixty days Kino this month has so much great stuff, I’ll be dipping into it every week — French crime classics and science-fiction and horror favorites. Bob Le Flambeur, Dead of Night, Alphaville, Death Takes a Holiday, La Professionel, Lost Highway, A Foreign Affair, Blackmail, Murder!, Day of the Outlaw, Dinosaurus and 4D Man. I already have a late June release, the Powell/Pressburger Gone to Earth / The Wild Heart, and am rushing on a review.

And I see that Turner Classic Movies is showing the George Pal The War of the Worlds early in July, on the 9th I think. There’s a chance that it might be the new Paramount restoration, which so far is a no-show on disc. I’ll be setting the DVR in the hopes of catching it.

So far I’ve only seen samples of the new restoration, and am looking forward to a Blu-ray, Paramount, hint hint. I like this NYC poster of the premiere engagement … they misspelled the author’s name (all these images can be enlarged).

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello —

I’ve indeed been gone a few days, so no new reviews until Tuesday. I had a fine time up North, and as an added bonus got to revisit my old car, now being carefully tended by my daughter. And I’m sufficiently proud to include a photo … if I behave, she lets me drive it. Seriously I am kind of wiped out and will resume CineSavanting tomorrow. The accounts of subscribers on the silver and gold CineSavant plans will be credited one Saturday’s reviews.

I took a book with me, and read enough to run across a very welcome revelation. Critic-historian J. Hoberman has settled a problem for me, in his 2011 tome Army of Phantoms. In a 2000 review of the movie Rocketship X-M for Video Watchdog, I learned a big lesson about what one should write for print publication. In my review I wrote without absolute certainty that Dalton Trumbo was an uncredited writer on the 1950 movie by Kurt Neumann. It was credited as such in the IMDB, but that’s not why I made the claim.

Back at UCLA in around 1973, one of Trumbo’s daughters worked for a time in the Melnitz Hall office of the UCLA Film Archive. One day she showed me a mimeographed typed list of what the Trumbo family thought were Trumbo’s uncredited screenplays, and Rocketship X-M was on it. But I was never given a copy of the list, and the daughter did say that the listing was a work in progress … they were trying to nail down a full filmography for Mr. Trumbo. I should have kept my accreditation at the level of a rumor.

Now I discover J. Hoberman’s fine book. His work is surely fully vetted for all such facts, and he states it clearly. I can’t call myself vindicated — I was still guilty of amateur fact-collecting — but I do feel better.

A new review on Tuesday and a BUNCH thereafter — more very interesting discs have arrived from Kino.

— Thanks for Reading, Glenn

Hello!

No sun over Los Angeles today … and CineSavant will be taking a brief break!

I have no disc-related links in the hopper … but my magnificent significant spousal other came across something I didn’t know existed, a YouTube encoding of a 1982 animated Mafalda movie. Mafalda is a favorite, an Argentinian answer to Peanuts, perhaps, but not comparable for personalities. Malfalda and her friends have normal parents, a range of attitudes and the comic strips were often political. She has a fine personality and only acts up when things go bad or she feels cheated.

Oh … sorry, it’s in Spanish language only. The comics tripped me up because of the ‘vos’ that I can never keep straight. There’s a TV show, but this short feature looks as if it follows the comic strip in most essentials.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The summer’s bounty of sci-fi and fantasy discs are beginning to arrive — 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has reportedly shipped, which is good news. I tapped a Disney Club Member for a favor, but I realize not everyone has that option. It doesn’t look like I’ll be writing up The Monolith Monsters, but I saw some of it last Tuesday to see what the 2.0 scan looked like … everything framed up quite well, even if a few spiky monolith tops were trimmed here and there. There’s a 1:85 (not much taller) but no open-matte 1:37 that some fans (including vocal correspondent Tom Weaver) prefer.

I definitely ordered a couple titles I don’t expect to be receiving as screeners, but with an exception or two I need to concentrate on what I’m sent — I wish I could cover more of everything, and take time for reviews of things currently not on disc as well.

Readers right now are excited about 20,000 Leagues, The Universal Horror Collection, This Island Earth and the Quatermass movies 2 & …and the Pit; we’ll try to review as many of those as we can!  And Charlie Largent might hit a couple that I miss.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The thing about working a full week (Work!) is that I have to play catch-up on more than one desired title. I’m only just finding out that the Warner Archive’s Blu of the Jonny Quest TV series appears to have already been released as a big box store exclusive, so I’ll have to do some tracking down to get a screener, it appears. Will do my best… that animated series has a LOT of fans.

It’s also a favorite of reviewer/writer/artiste extraordinaire Charlie Largent, so I especially want to find out what he has to say about it. Personally, I think I left Hanna-Barbera behind after a couple of years of Huckleberry Hound… I defected to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Still looking to score a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Blu-ray from Disney Club — it wasn’t on the Club’s website for ordering before, but I’m informed that it will pop up today, day and date, for sale.

I like the tagline on this poster art… it breaks the rule of ‘ascendency’ in hype words. “Mighty, Magnificent… Memorable?”   I figured that one out suggesting trailer copy for Superman IV, where the writer had something like, “Threatens the Peace! Threatens the World! Threatens the survival of the Daily Planet!” To explain, I offered a silly example: “Danger! Annihilation! Inconvenience!” The hype needs to ascend, not descend.

Twilight Time’s Michael Finnegan announced their titles for August 20th, only three this time instead of the usual four: Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men, Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool and Philip Dunne, Clifford Odets & J. R. Salamanca’s (!) Elvis Presley movie, Wild in the Country (pictured). I think I’ve been confusing that Presley title with Follow That Dream for at least fifty years. I guess it isn’t a prequel to this movie, either. I’m still hoping that TT gets around to a Blu-ray upgrade for its first release, the DVD-only disc of John Huston’s The Kremlin Letter. That ultra-cynical movie is getting better with each passing year.

And finally, more new announcements. The Warner Archive’s July Blu-rays, are all winners: The James Cagney / Busby Berkeley pre-Code winner Footlight Parade, the original The Thin Man, Clint Eastwood’s Bronco Billy and Samuel Fuller’s Merrill’s Marauders.

The Criterion Collection will give us Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown, John Waters’ Polyester, Ritwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star, Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket, Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, and, and… Bill Forsyth’s marvelous Local Hero (pictured).

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson