What a concept … a heroic leader with INTEGRITY.

 

Hello!

Just when you thought westerns were ‘deader than a beaver hat,’ the Warner Archive Collection comes out with a big one: the WAC’s first 4K Ultra HD release will be the John Ford/John Wayne classic The Searchers, newly remastered and fresh from screenings where it was blown up to 70mm.

The release date is December 17; the official press release is here, Pilgrim. It’s offered in a 4K/BD combo or as just a Blu-ray. For people pre-ordering at Movie Zyng, I’m told this:

“Movie Zyng is offering a pre-order special that you can also share with your audience. The code DUKE used at checkout will yield a 10% discount on the 4k title when ordered by November 30th.”

CineSavant usually doesn’t go for sales promotions, but Allied Vaughn tells us this is partly a George Feltenstein product, and we don’t pass up an opportunity to tub-thump for George.

Aw, who am I fooling?  It’s naked self-interest:  if The Searchers sells well in 4K, The Wild Bunch would be a natural to follow.

 

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Madness! Madness!

Halloween is over, but if you’re a masochist looking to wallow in the pain and dread of this last week, we have the nightmare site for you, ready and waiting.

I tell ya, Hieronymous Bosch is back, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Got Him!

It’s six minutes of impossibly macabre and disturbing ‘horror tableaux’ from the VAPE. His creations are B&W AI-generated mind-warpers that seem to be pulled from our darker subconscious. We previously linked to a pair of VAPE shudder-samplers. Some of the earlier nasty visions appear to be reprised in this laugh-a-minute picnic appalling cavalcade of horror.

We’ve chosen to reproduce a couple of the least brain-damaging images. The link IF YOU DARE is

 

‘vilage live epizode 1-6’ 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

In an old 16mm movie catalog, 1972: what was then a Big Mystery title.

 

Hello!

This item circulated by Joe Dante is something you’ll want to zoom into, or ‘open in a new window’ that will show it full-sized. It’s an ad cooked up by none other than Forrest J. Ackerman. It appears to have been placed in ‘the trades’ sometime in 1958, around when Forry might have been prepping the debut of his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Ackerman was an enthusiast of Sci-fi — it is said that he coined that contraction — and a rabid collector of books and movie memorabilia. His main job was as a literary agent, an activity that included negotiating for authors and illustrators and finding odd jobs for fellow enthusiasts.

Ackerman heavily promoted artist and movie monster fabricator Paul Blaisdell for a number of years. He uses Blaisdell’s ‘Monsters of Distinction’ to also get attention for his ad. The achievements listed come with familiar names — Ib Melchior, Sol Lesser. He touts his representation of solid Sci-fi authors like Porges, von Vogt, Siodmak, but also can be seen promoting a couple of protégés, Martin Varno and Wyott Ordung.

The movie The Projected Man wouldn’t happen for ten years, while The Volcano Monsters is proof that Ib Melchior was indeed working to adapt the Japanese Godzilla Raids Again into an entire new movie. (Agent’s tip, Forry: spell your client’s name correctly.)

As an agent Forry seems to have at least a few irons in the fire. The promotional ads in trade papers like Variety ranged from pretty classy to really tacky, and Forry’s isn’t bad at all.

 

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Contributor-advisor Gary Teetzel comes back with old Trade Paper clippings about a title that caught his interest. We reviewed it a few weeks back: Jack Holt and Fay Wray in  Black Moon.

A trip through the logs of the Motion Picture Herald found the usual publicity mentions, plus notes from exhibitors writing in to say how the title fared with their particular audience. Thus we read about business at the Bijou in places like Preston, Idaho and Redwood Falls, Minnesota.

The movie Black Moon depicts what threatens to become a black revolt on a Caribbean island. Only one article that alluded to the film’s chances in towns ‘sensitive to race issues’ showed up, from Detroit on September 15, 1934:

 

This next piece comes from the same paper, showing off a theater’s ‘front’ advertising. The Gainesville, Georgia illustration is missing, but we do get a photo of a display in Dallas. Theater manager Louis hired ‘a savage black gent’ as part of the voodoo hoodoo sales ballyhoo.

 

Here are four scattered entries in what Gary says was the Herald’s ‘What the Picture Did for Me’ column. Distributors likely pitched titles as if they were spun from gold, but when exhibitors felt cheated they could vent in the trades:

 

 

 

 

Over in Photoplay Gary found this full page item promoting the film with its star Fay Wray. “Aw, it’s King Kong’s friend with a dog and a cuddly puppy. Let’s go see Black Moon, Earl!”

You should be able to read all of these except the last, so here’s what it says: “Fay Wray conned her canine family into posing for this picture. The mother dog didn’t like the idea at all!  She’s heard too much talk among movie people about kidnapping threats and the advisability of protecting one’s children from publicity. But Fay reassured her. On the lot Miss Wray is hard at work now on Columbia’s Black Moon.”

 

Gary found a  Photoplay article that features a couple of the Black Moon costumes, and a  Lux Soap ad that also makes mention of Black Moon.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Here’s to Election Night. No insurrections or Civil Wars, please.

Hello!

Forget so-called ‘scary’ movies … the next day and maybe several days more are going to be nail-biters, depending on the breaks. Let’s hope for a peaceful democratic election and transfer of American political power. That’s my two bits for the day, Amen.

 

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The CineSavant Column items today are good reading. Joe Dante and David J. Show forwarded links to these recent articles, each of which puts forth some big opinions and bold ideas.

The first item is a November 2 posting on Fast Company dot.com, written by filmmaker and actress Justine Bateman.  The title alone says what it’s about and raises our curiosity:

 

Hollywood is dead, according to Justine Bateman.
Here’s what comes next. 

Bateman gets her message across efficiently, explaining how corporate culture has killed movies by turning entertainment into ‘content,’ and embracing technology that will allow marketable ‘content’ to be manufactured by computers. The short article ends not with more cries of doom, but the thought that something new and different will emerge from the entertainment void that will be created.

 

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On a more positive note is an October 23 article on The Ringer by Abe Beame. Movie theaters are crashing everywhere because the corporate movie industry is embracing streaming, choking distributors and movie theaters out of the profit chain.

Rather than bemoan the falling enthusiasm for new product, Beame looks at recent trends and cites the growing popularity of repertory theaters and special screenings. He gives several anecdotal examples of creative ways that film societies, etc., are getting someone other than Marvel-addled teenagers out to the theaters. luring the cinema-literate hipster crowd that everyone thought had gone extinct… even here in too-cool-for-you Los Angeles.

Agree or not, the title has appeal for film enthusiasts, and any encouraging word is good news for us who like to cheer-lead for movies in general. You may not agree with the title of Beame’s article, but we like its positive ring:

 

The Future of Film May Just Be Old Movies. 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

We keep coming back for the Visconti episode, and for the Piero Piccioni music score.

 

Hello!

Just a quick notice today, as we find ourselves in a state of max trepidation over next Tuesday’s election — we have to admit that we feel like Gert Fröbe, just above. Can sanity prevail?  We’re doing our best to be optimistic.

 

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made a disturbing announcement — they’ve laid off a number of specialists in motion picture preservation and library archive work. Although it mostly happens behind the scenes, preserving films is supposed to be one of the Academy’s key functions. Here is the news, as reported at  Variety,  The L.A. Times and  Deadline.

I guess that’s might happen when you sink mega-millions into a museum. It’s the kind of corporate move one expects from a conglomerate-owned movie studio. The Academy’s preservation staff has reportedly been gutted of both its leadership and its most experienced specialists. Photochemical film experts with the knowledge and judgment to do the job right are not expendable. Word is already circulating, calling for an intervention by Scorsese, Spielberg, et. al..

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Have a Hooky Pooky Spooky Halloween!  (thanks Wayne Schmidt!)

 

Hello!

What — where are the monsters?  More Halloween-themed movies will arrive in November. Some simply haven’t gotten here yet and a couple that have — Film Masters’  Creature with the Blue Hand and Powerhouse Indicator’s  El Vampiro: Two Bloodsucking Tales from Mexico — got caught up in the review log jam.

I’m hearing from friends that are dead serious about having new fun titles to watch on and before Halloween. Some write me to talk about their changed reactions to old favorites, as when a rediscovered ’50s picture suddenly plays better for them. If you really get stuck for ideas, the CineSavant Review Index overflows with critical discerning shamelessly enthusiastic coverage of just about every worthy horror / Sci-fi / fantasy picture from years gone by. Co-reviewer Charlie Largent has contributed a ton of these, being a like-minded major booster of good horror. Not only that, Charlie properly proofreads his articles.

In the meantime, we direct readers back to earlier CineSavant articles about the joys we remember from spooky matinees — yes, mostly as kids. Our  Hypnotic Chill!  Monster Thrill!  piece takes in a triple bill of memories, as does  How Much Shock Can You Stand?, Charlie Largent’s personal take on his perfect horror triple bill.

Now maybe we’ve really lost track of what is and what isn’t an interesting link. If you really want to go spelunking in the lost past of CineSavant, you can have a look at what was current in past Octobers at this page…

I’ve indexed CineSavant and DVD Savant back to 2012, so here are some quick links to what we were covering as hot ‘new’ horror and fantasy pix:

2017,   2018,   2019,   2020,   2021,   2022,   2023

 

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And we’re grateful for John McElwee’s Greenbriar Picture Shows for posting something we couldn’t provide this week, a great link for disc collectors interested in 100-year-old silent horror pictures.

Just a few days ago, our Charlie Largent reviewed a new Blu-ray for the 1926 haunted house thriller  The Bat. John’s GB post talks about the ins and outs of that whole subgenre of part-horror part-comedies set in haunted houses, where the supernatural business usually boils down to some con game, money scam or inheritance ruse. The films were once just vague titles that collectors like McElwee thought they’d never see, but individual items (Seven Footprints to Satan, perhaps) keep showing up. You never know, the lost London After Midnight could suddenly pop up somewhere, too.

Anyway, if you’re into a good discussion of vintage horror from a collector’s viewpoint, we don’t have it but Greenbriar does:

Honey of a Horror for Halloween
Happy Halloween! — Glenn Erickson