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In my review last week of Espionage Agent I vented my opinions about pre-war studio difficulties in making anti-Nazi movies, what with the isolationism and (I think) pro-German political climate then in the country. What I didn’t say, that several readers pointed out, is that some of the pro-isolation noise came from liberals and communists, at the time reacting to Hitler’s brief pact with Stalin. So thanks for keeping me straight there.

A reaction from Dick Dinman was to give me an early listen to his two new DVD Classics Corner On the Air show online talks with author Ben Urwand about his nonfiction book The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler, which, to quote the always dramatic Mr. Dinman, “chronicles the shocking depths to which all of the major studios sunk during the ’30s in order to maintain business with Hitler and his minions.” The second show includes praise for Ernst Lubitsch’s crazy comedy To Be Or Not To Be. The show comes in two halves, Part One and Part Two.

The following is an actual friends-of-Savant kidding & harassment email chain, with only the names redacted. Make of it what you will.

Friend #2: Obviously I’m not telling you guys something you don’t know, but I took the frame grab that was on Glenn’s page, imported it into Photoshop and hit “auto correct,” and didn’t do anything else to it. It could still use some finessing, but are the Italians really saying they think the top one is the way it should look? I don’t read the forums, what’s been the general reaction to it?

Glenn: That’s it. I’ve been found out, and there’s no way I can face the angry mob now that it knows the extent of my crime. I’m too emotional to write a suicide note, so don’t bother going through my pockets when you find me under the bridge. “It’s too Yell-ooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

Well, I still think my friends are funny. Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Some fast notices and links today: Kino Lorber has laid out its release calendar for the rest of the year, and it’s got some great items. In addition to two versions of Nathan Juran’s Jack the Giant Killer on June 12, we’ll be getting Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window (June 19), TV’s The Martian Chronicles on June 26, two cuts of Selznick’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (July 10), and the not-seen-for-a-long-time Douglas-Lancaster noir I Walk Alone (July 24).

At the other end of the summer Kino will continue with both the TV and theatrical versions of the apocalyptic The Day After (August 7), Sangaree in 3D (September 18), both cuts of Michael Powell’s Jennifer Jones picture Gone to Earth / The Wild Heart (September 25), and The Farmer’s Daughter, The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler and The Spiral Staircase all September 25. It doesn’t stop: October 16 brings us the cult TV movie Trilogy of Terror, November 6 the previously MIA Ray Milland thriller Lisbon, and November 13 the second season of the Sci-fi series The Outer Limits.

Bob Furmanek informally announced another 3D release from Kino, Jivaro, but it has no date as yet so I’m thinking it’s for 2019.

Meanwhile, The Warner Archive Collection just announced a Blu-ray of both versions of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the CinemaScope one we know, plus the 1:77 ‘insurance’ version that I have to say plays extremely well on home video, maybe better than the C’Scope. They looked good on DVD and ought to be a knockout on Blu — even in screwy Ansco color.

Gary Teetzel tips us off to a touted 4Kk restoration of the Brit ‘how I won the war’ epic The Dam Busters; the U.K article isn’t too swift but it comes with a pretty good copy of the trailer. Love the movie, even if that music gets old fast.

Joe Dante circulated this Vimeo link to a trailer mashup, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Max Fury Road. It says it’s three years old but I was impressed with the quality of the cutting.

Finally, for years I’ve been receiving informed tip-offs and research bulletins from a valued European contact, Stefan Andersson. With all the huzzarah circulating about the new Fistful of Dollars disc from Kino, I asked Stefan if I could just print his whole rundown on previous versions and the way the title is being discussed on other pages. You just need to know that Stefan uses ‘FOD’ for the film title, and ‘resto’ for restoration. A bunch of links connect to entries on the Home Theater Forum; other connections are a bit involved but I found them rewarding.

From May 16, 2018:

“Hi Glenn!  I just read your review of the Kino Fistful of Dollars (FOD).

I haven’t personally seen any of these FOD discs, and so cannot vouch for quality or region compatibility. Nor am I certain that my research is 100% complete and accurate. But I wanted to keep you posted about the various options out there. Best, Stefan”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Potential good news about Scream Factory’s upcoming (May 22) Blu-ray of The Vampire and the Ballerina; we’ve been told that it at least has both English and Italian audio. I’ve been corrected in regard to the film’s running time — the original L’Amante del Vampiro is not seven minutes longer. My expert says that there were no picture differences between the language versions (besides the title sequence). He also reports that the film was apparently regarded as fairly hot stuff back in the day. Milwaukee’s motion picture commission deemed it ‘Mature Entertainment’ along with (among others) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Mr. Arkadin. By contrast, Jules and Jim and Phaedra were ‘Adults Only.’ The Legion of Decency gave The Vampire and the Ballerina a ‘B’, ‘Objectionable in Part for All.’

Back at MGM in 1994, John Kirk loaned me a non-subtitled VHS tape made from UA’s foreign video master, which I had to watch with my linguist spouse, to learn what was being said in Italian. The chubby ‘ballet dancers’ were amusing, and she found the finale unintentionally hilarious, with the female vampire henpecking her ineffective spouse in Italian as they retreat to the roof with dawn approaching. I still think it’s an excellent idea for a vampire picture: a queen bee mama fiend sends her hubby out to bring back blood. Their appearances change radically depending on how sated they are. The ‘servant’ husband’s work is never done. Here’s hoping that Scream’s disc is a keeper.

Olive Films’ May 29 release of Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow should be a real treat as well, depending on the quality of the transfer and source materials. I saw it only once in 35mm and the B&W cinematography looked great. The prints shown on TV always had weak sound and the same splices in the same places. They also barely registered the film’s interesting shots using infrared film — which gives some scenes a particularly crisp, bleak appearance. I hope to be able to report good news with this one — besides Robert Ryan, Harry Belafonte and Ed Begley in fine form, it has great work from Shelley Winters and especially Gloria Grahame.

Gary Teetzel found this article crowing about some goofy local publicity for King Kong’s 1956 theatrical comeback, only four years after a 1952 release that made almost as much money as its first run in 1933.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Children, are you ready for Mother’s Day?

Gary Teetzel reports on a new docu about the revered Sci-fi illustrator Chesley Bonestell, Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with The Future that just premiered at the Newport Film Festival. The commentators tell us that Bonestell began as an architect and contributed to the designs for New York’s Chrysler Building as well as the Golden Gate Bridge. The home page for the film is here, and a trailer is viewable here. And I even learned how to pronounce ‘Bonestell.’

When I caught this Italian poster for Godzilla Raids Again I first noted that it uses the ‘King of the Monsters’ title that found its way onto the Americanization of Honda’s original Godzilla. I suppose this Italo version could actually be a re-dub of the U.S. derivative Gigantis The Fire Monster because of the style of the two monsters in the artwork. I also like the hype tagline across the top: “All the World is At Arms Against the Diabolical Nuclear Monsters in the Very Brilliant Film of Science Fantasy.”

I asked Gary Teetzel what he made of the single anglicized name ‘Jack Wallace’ in the list of actors, not to mention ‘Fred’ Kasay and ‘Susy’ Setsuko. Actually, all of the names appear to have been made up or scrambled from the Japanese originals. And since when did a Japanese monster movie need to billboard a list of actors?

Gary doesn’t think that there was an Italian variant of the film, with additional actors added. His guess is that the Italian distributor was just pulling a fast one, trying to fool patrons into thinking it was a western-made film. He also reminded me that, for no understandable reason, the German distributors would put the word ‘Frankenstein’ in the titles of most Japanese monster movies.

Gary also reminded me that Bill Warren’s researches found that an abandoned project was for the short lived AB-PT film company to build a new English-language movie around the Godzilla Raids Again effects footage, called The Volcano Monsters. As reported by Bob Skotak, Ib Melchoir worked on a screenplay for it.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson