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Three random disc and screening announcements today. Matthew Rovner, our resident Arch Oboler expert, reminds us that a Blu-ray of Oboler’s movie Bwana Devil is on the way. The 3-D Film Archives’ restoration comes from the original ‘Ansco Color’ camera negatives.

The announcement here is for New Yorkers with an itch to see the movie that ignited the 1950s 3-D craze — on the screen with an audience. It’s at the Film Forum on the evening of May 13 — the premiere of a 4K digital restoration of the show in full 3-D.

Robert Furmanek will handle the presentation; it has a Film Forum info page:

Bwana Devil in 3-D!
One of the earliest ‘MGM Video Savant’ attempts at an article is still up, now dated 1998 instead of ’97.” It was my attempt to sum up what we knew of classic 3-D, based on the sparse Los Angeles screening opportunities up to that time. We had no idea that the 3-D Film Archive people were already busy working to revive the 3-D movie movement. Here’s the link: 3-D: Hollywood’s Most Misunderstood Miracle.

 

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This new disc announcement is of the ‘exotic’ variety, bound to appeal to collectors of the strange. In conjunction with the Something Weird people, the Film Masters disc boutique has packaged what we at one time would call a ‘Hillbilly’ double bill, a Backwoods Double Feature of Common Law Wife (1963) and  Jennie, Wife/Child (1968). The release date is given as June 25.

The announcement text fills in the details. Not long ago we would offhandedly refer to these movies as Hillbilly Exploitation, but it’s good to think a bit now before applying that word.

A year ago I wrote up a French movie that referred to Gypsies, and found that it’s in the same category. Not sure how to handle that when talking about old movies, that come from a different time. One person reminded me of the word Romani, which is surely better, but I still felt as if I had been ticketed by the Vocabulary Police. As for Hillbillies — does that mean one can no longer write about Li’l Abner?

 

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A much more obscure film  is the subject of a New York screening announcement from the company Arbelos. This one qualifies as genuine vintage experimental American film art. It’s the seldom-screened 1961 drama Time of the Heathen, by Peter Kass.

The movie is called a ‘post- A-bomb Thriller’ and ‘a lost marvel of independent filmmaking.’  Director Kass is said to have been primarily known as an acting teacher. The main player John Heffernan has a very familiar face to go with an eclectic variety of credits in little parts. Two films in his IMDB list are The Sting and  God Told Me To.

This little promotional clip makes Time of the Heathen look as if it were shot without sound. The clips of a color sequence with strange superimpositions reminds us that the cameraman is the well-known experimentalist Ed Emshwiller.

The partial synopsis says that the post-apocalyptic context has something to do with ‘the shifting racial politics of the 1960s.’  We are also told that Time of the Heathen “culminates in one of cinema’s most memorable, psychedelic, and unclassifiable endings.”

Yes, we know we are easy prey for exotic movie fare. Jonas Mekas sort-of reviewed Time of the Heathen for The Village Voice, but managed to communicate nothing about it except “you dig it or you don’t dig it.”  Why can’t I put together useful review advice like that?  We’ll be looking to see if Arbelos offers a Blu-ray.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

This text card feels autobiographical … I was an Occupation Baby, born in that country, in that year, in that war.

 

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Those Powerhouse Indicator people have once again proven their dedication to exotic Eurohorror … with two new releases from the French cult figure Jean Rollin. Jean-Luc Godard once boasted that all he needed to make a movie was a girl and a gun. Rollin could have responded that his personal Nouvelle vague d’exploitation just required unclothed women and fake blood.

The Rollin oeuvre is getting a Class-A treatment as it has never received before: later this month arrive both Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD editions of two of the Frenchman’s better-known pictures.

The Demoniacs (Les Démoniaques) from 1973 leads with the expected gruesome sex and violence. Two women raped by pirates make a deal with the devil to take their revenge. The Hardy Encyclopedia describes the film as ‘meandering’ but also ‘cruelly poetic’ and possessed of a finale that’s ‘a genuinely hallucinatory achievement.’

The Nude Vampire (La Vampire Nue) steps back a couple of years. It’s Jean Rollin’s second vampire feature and his first in color. The story boils down to a standard vampire cult, with an emphasis on erotic imagery for its own sake. Rollin doubles down on the wispy non-costumes; these films are really soft-core genre experiments in how to be commercially viable under the guise of film art. But hey, let’s admit that Rollin is quality Eurotrash horror.

As expected PI supplies both titles with ample extras coverage, old and new. Nobody loves these pictures more than UK film critics.

We thought we’d also put in a plug for Powerhouse Indicator’s single-release Blu-ray of Fernando Mendez’s Black Pit of Dr. M, aka Mysterios de Ultratumba, previously available only in a boxed set. Perhaps the most original and genuinely creepy of the late-’50s Mexican horror wave, Ultratumba is the one that CineSavant readers most often praise as a classic, beyond considerations of Camp and nostalgia. IP’s extras yield hard research and key-source information on these Mexican pictures, beyond what we’ve seen from U.S. disc companies.

One can also cruise the general page of Powerhouse Indicator releases.

 

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Here’s some welcome news that’s only a day old: among their other July releases — Le samouraï,  Risky Business, Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days,  Chen Kaige’s My Concubine — Criterion has just announced what impatient Sam Peckinpah fans have been expected for ages.

On July 2 they’re releasing a 4K Ultra-HD / Blu-ray combo disc of Peckinpah’s 1973 MGM western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the one starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. One line in Criterion’s description calls it a 50th Anniversary Release — was it reissued last year and nobody told us?

When Criterion says that all three versions will be here, we assumed they’re talking about the original theatrical cut, the 1988 Jerry Harvey ‘Z’ Channel Preview Cut, and the 2005 ‘Fine Cut’ that reshuffles scenes, adds a couple of really good ones, and then opts for the uninspiring theatrical ending, instead of the Preview Cut’s terrific Flashback Closer.

A CORRECTION: As reported on the Sam Peckinpah facebook page — scroll down to yesterday, April 15 — the ‘Preview Cut’ to be seen on Criterion’s disc is said to be a never-before-shown item from Peckinpah’s own collection, smuggled out of MGM when Peckinpah was locked out by production chief James Aubrey. Thanks to Joe Dante for this link.

In whatever form — Bob Dylan sings, or he doesn’t sing — the fans will go nuts over this. It’s actually only been two years since director Alex Cox mentioned a Criterion disc on the way.  There ya go: Mr. Cox’s parole is as good as gold, no matter who he gives it to.

Criterion’s announcement and specifications page is up for their four-disc set:

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid 4K Ultra-HD. 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

The transfer on the 2022 disc nails the ‘golden-amber’ color of the launch scene.

 

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Advisor Gary Teetzel directed us last Wednesday to the Kino Lorber sales page for their upcoming Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’56 4K release … which lists a very interesting format specification …

I believe the final wisdom on Don Siegel’s movie is that it was actually filmed in standard 1.85:1 widescreen, but that Allied Artists made a last-minute decision to convert it to the 2.00:1 ‘Superscope’ format. The difference between the two ratios is just enough for Superscope to trim chins and foreheads a tad, making those choker close-ups look really tight.

It’s easy to prove that the original cinematography was actually flat — the trailers show acres of head and foot room above and below the Superscope stripe taken out of the middle. Joe Dante remembers the earliest TV prints actually being flat-full frame as well. Later flat TV prints took a 1:33 slice out of the already cropped Superscope image — a 20mm square out of the middle of the frame!  No wonder we were blown away by Criterion’s first widescreen laserdisc in the late 1980s.

Earlier publicity announcements were ambiguous about how the film would be presented in 4K. Kino’s latest says that the new 4K special edition will be present in both ratios, and suggests that the 2:00 we’ve seen was cropped from a flat printing source. The Superscope Blu-rays looked great, but they’re a complete optical print-down. This is potentially very exciting. If the 1:85 version is indeed from a flat element, it may or may not be greatly improved in quality.

The Kino website so far indicates separate format releases, not a 4K / Blu-ray combo. This is of course the kind of show we love to promote here … can’t wait to see what we get.

 

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Here’s an unusually clear, complete vintage film clip of a Hollywood premiere, submitted by advisor Gary Teetzel. From ‘History Comes to Life’ on YouTube, it’s a full reel of news film from the Grauman’s Chinese first-night for the 1934 20th Century picture The House of Rothschild.

The reel is in excellent shape. The angle is from a high position, and not too flattering; the swells certainly dressed up for these things, and we like the parade of big cars, too. We’re especially impressed by the giant marquee spelling out the film’s name, just like what we see at the beginning of Singin’ in the Rain.

It looks like the cameraman snagged almost every celeb coming in. An observer like Michael Schlesinger or George Feltenstein could surely ID almost all of them … I got only one in ten, with a lot of bad guesses.

It’s difficult to miss Darryl F. Zanuck, the film’s producer. He’s there with MGM head Louis b. Mayer (at 7:31), with exhibitor Sid Grauman (at 7:50), with Grauman and the film’s star George Arliss (at 8:41) and with Arliss alone (at 10:00). Most of the attendees that stop to pose are women I don’t recognize. A group that doesn’t stop might include Joan Crawford (?), but I definitely spotted gangster actor Jack La Rue (at 6:36).

Several actors from the movie appear to be present — the ones I can identify are Robert Young (at 9:37) — and of course Boris Karloff, at 8:24. ↑

Original nitrate prints of The House of Rothschild were part of the Fox print library that was donated to the brand-new UCLA Film Archive in the early 1970s. Associate professor Bob Epstein was going through the new holdings, and would sometime screen odd items in UCLA’s state-of-the-art Melnitz Hall auditorium … for instance, they had two prints of the 1950 Night and the City, one on safety film and one on nitrate … and they weren’t identical. A later researcher may have determined that one was the UK version.

Epstein screened for us a reel of Rothschild that had an experimental Technicolor section … we got to see Boris Karloff in 2-color Technicolor. I rememember not being impressed by the pale hues, that (in memory) seemed like blue and pink tints, or a faded color Xerox. It was just a group scene with a lot of actors in period costumes in a fancy sitting room.

 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

As fresh a comic ensemble as could be found — and put to terrific use.

 

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We have some interesting follow-up from correspondent Malcolm Alcala on the unproduced 1967 Dick Tracy TV show — Malcolm has found ‘a’ pilot for the series online.

It doesn’t feature ‘Pruneface’ or ‘Flattop’ in the cast line-up, just Victor Buono as a ‘Batman’- like villain. The rather tepid pilot was produced by Batman’s producer William Dozier, and its main theme is by The Ventures:

Dick Tracy unsold TV pilot 1967. 

→  Meanwhile, correspondent “E.” shows us that the ‘Pruneface’ prosthetic piece for Lon Chaney Jr.’s character makeup job still exists. He found it on display at a Propstore Auction page from 2023, with nice photos:

Lon Chaney Jr. Head Cast with Pruneface Prosthetic. 

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And Christopher Rywalt sends along this amusing, educational look at Zinc Oxide and You — no, no, it’s a look at the famed ‘Sodium Vapor’ automatic matting process used by Walt Disney in the 1960s.

The UCLA film school had a demo reel of the process and others with clips from Mary Poppins and The Brass Bottle, but the 35mm print had faded, and I thought I saw all kinds of matte lines and imperfections. Or maybe I was just an obnoxious film student who liked to point out things like matte lines.

The new video by Corridor crew is a demo-recreation, an attempt to reproduce the matting system with the reputation of being able to work with any color in front of the camera. It’s very detailed, and quite entertaining:

This Invention Made Disney Millions, but Then They Lost It!
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Just terrific he was, take after take … yet another original characterization as bandleader / radio star Raoul Lipschitz!

 

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We can depend on correspondent Michael McQuarrie to send along links of crucial interest:

It seems the Internet Archive has a pretty extensive selection of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines up, and rather well-scanned.

My teenaged collection began with Issue 28 — Bela Lugosi as a manimal, above — but it had to disappear when I went to college in 1970, along with 99% of my childhood possessions. Only a few times since have I sampled old copies of the magazine. Forrest J. Ackerman was no oracle of our times, but he did have fun with terrible puns. I’m advised to jump into early issues and start seeking out ‘reader write-in’ articles, where various fans, friends, superfans and the occasional future celebrity can be found.

The covers are certainly fantastic — for some reason I saved the incredible scarlet cover with Bernard Jukes, when everything else had to go. I recall digging into early issues I never saw, only to be confronted with material I had already read in paperback reprints. Yep, Forry and his publisher didn’t print anything just once, if 4 times would be tolerated.

Anyway, I’m going to refrain from dawdling too long in this archive … it doesn’t seem to be complete, or is it?

Internet Archive: Famous Monsters of Filmland 

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We once again shamelessly ‘adopt’ a link circulated by Joe Dante. This time out the prize is an hourlong TV docu about the legendary silent actress Louise Brooks, from the 1980s BBC arts series Arena.

The show takes excerpts from Brooks’ intense one-on-one 1975 ‘bathrobe’ interview piece with director Richard Leacock called A Conversation with Louise Brooks, that was later also folded into the documentary Lulu in Berlin. Also part of the mix is interview footage shot by Kevin Brownlow, for his solid-gold docu miniseries about silent movies, Hollywood.

Add to that numerous clips from Louise Brooks films and interview material with various spokespeople like critic Kenneth Tynan — he really seems to have been enthralled by the Brooks mystique. The actress was completely frank about sex. This particular docu begins with the oft-quoted bit from the Leacock interview, in which Ms. Brooks says that ‘Hollywood was invented by money men as a way of owning beautiful women.’

The documentary may change your mind about the sex appeal of silent movies:

Arena: Louise Brooks 

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This caught our attention as well. Long-time correspondent Malcom Alcala found these online photos online somewhere — they’re reportedly from an un-aired, possibly un-filmed Dick Tracy TV show sometime about 1967.

Friend Craig Reardon helped with some fantastic effects makeup jobs for the celebrated Warren Beatty film, but I didn’t know that an earlier production attempted to replicate the cartoonish appearance of Chester Gould’s menagerie of underworld villains.

All I can say is that the makeup man is identified as John Chambers … it’s reportedly Lon Chaney Jr. made up as “Pruneface,” and actor Leon Janney in full makeup as “Flattop.”  The Flattop still looks like it’s been touched up a little, maybe. Or maybe a lot. But it certainly matches the comic book look of Pruneface.

Is it just me, or does Pruneface look like a parody of Ronald Reagan?

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s471tracy.html

It’s called using everything you’ve got that the marketplace will allow.