The Production Code passed this, but discouraged words like ‘pregnant’ and ‘virgin.’

 

Hello!

Today’s lead item, courtesy of David J. Show, is for fans of Sci-fi — from the page Phantom of the Backlots is a photo article from last June by Donnie Norden called Planet of the Apes, 55 Years Later….

There’s a nice text section at the end, but the main content focuses on a long parade of behind-the-scenes production photos, plus location comparison pictures. We also liked the telegram from Joan Crawford to Rod Serling.

 

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From correspondent / contributor Michael McQuarrie comes a link to an excellent encoding of an expensive, British-produced industrial film from 1956 selling the idea that air travel is now for everybody. Filmed in 35mm by ‘The Shell Film Unit,’ the show has a music score by Richard Rodney Bennett.

The main idea seems to be to calm passenger trepidation. A variety of craft are shown, with special scenes of passengers from far-flung nations to interest Southeast Asians, Indians, etc. in the ease of travel. The show includes rare footage of an experimental plane or two. The stately production is called Song of the Clouds.

Also offered is a shorter American sales film promoting both air travel and tourism. Made by ‘Dudley Pictures Corporation’ for Trans-World Airlines, Flight to California 1952 is directed by none other than actor Richard Carlson.

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Oh yes, the photo up top from The Bride and the Beast is a dishonest cheat. For the record, CineSavant has no bias against movie gorillas. We like Jane Goodall’s book Gorillas that I Miss.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Ingmar Bergman wanted to film this exact dream sequence for Persona, but Gale Gordon wasn’t available.

 

Hello!

This first item was circulated a couple of days ago by Joe Dante, who describes it as genuine nightmare material.

From the Meme Dream Machine, it’s a longform TV advertisement in the style of the 1950s. It’s also said to be AI-generated. Haven’t you always wanted to go to a luxurious theme part, and be chased by large, rather disturbing puppets?

Enter, if you dare . . . .

. . . .  Pooky Park.It’s so scary, it can’t even spell its own name.

 

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And correspondent Michael McQuarrie comes through once again with a solid Column link:

The 1966 Batmobile.I’ve seen web pages on the Batmobile before, including one that offered to sell copies (it’s no longer up).  But this AutoAnything page is the most comprehensive we’ve seen so far.

 

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And finally, we prompted contributor / advisor Gary Teetzel to formalize a helpful Mini-Disc Review he sent us last week. It’s a way of getting it onto the record here at CineSavant — when we first mentioned the release last May, potential viewers were curious, and we weren’t able to receive an official review copy.

Gary’s mini-review of

The Whale God:

Watched the new SRS Blu-ray of Tokuzo Tanaka’s The Whale God (Kujira Gami) last night. Based on a novel by Koichiro Uno, the 1962 film tells the Moby-Dick-like story of an enormous whale that terrorizes generations of whalers in a small Japanese village. The village elder (Takashi Shimura) offers a fortune, his title and the hand of his daughter in marriage to the man who can kill the beast. Shaki (Kôjirô Hongô), whose grandfather, father and brother have all been killed by the whale, decides it is his duty to avenge their deaths, but faces competition from the ruthless, mercenary outsider only interested in the reward, Kishu (Shintarô Katsu). As he waits for the whale to return, Shaki must cope with months of hardship and challenges to his sense of ethics and honor.

The Whale God holds one’s interest, but it’s one of those movies that feels like an awkward condensation of a longer, richer work. Abrupt jumps in time make the narrative choppy, and certain supporting characters are underdeveloped (some of them just vanish from the narrative). Ultimately, it doesn’t really come together, but devoted fans of Japanese cinema will find much to appreciate.

The cast is quite good: Hero Kôjirô Hongô is a familiar face from Daiei films of the period, including three Gamera films, one of the Daimajin films and one of the Yokai Monsters films. Viewers who only know Shintarô Katsu from his role as the heroic Zatoichi from the long-running film series will likely be taken aback by his villainous turn as Kishu. Takashi Shimura, so often cast as an ‘elderly sage,’ also brings a sharp edge to his role as the village elder who is revealed to be arrogant and domineering.

The special effects are effective for the period, mixing a full-size whale prop and miniatures; there are times when the blend is more effective than in John Huston’s Moby Dick, thanks to some judicious editing. The three people credited with effects work don’t have many other credits on the IMDB, and none of them are credited with working on Daiei’s 1960 tokusatsu films.

Akira Ifukube’s score for the most part does not resemble his work in the kaiju field; it leans more toward the sad and mournful side of his work.

The transfer is very good, with good contrast and a sharp image free from any significant damge. Extras are limited to a couple of brief text pieces and numerous trailers for other SRS releases. — Gary

 

Gary sends along this purchase link for The Whale God, at the SRS Cinema Store.

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Thanks Gary.    And thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Onward Oliver!  Upward Yvonne!  It’s as hairy & ferocious as classic Hammer got.

 

Hello!

We’ve got nothing but gratitude for associates like Kevin Pyrtle, who helped steer us to PD copies of Abel Gance’s La fin du monde back when any peek at that picture was a rare thing. He may yet reassemble that crazy show, adding montages kept for the goofball American release.

But today I steer readers, especially those interested in arcane Kaiju, to Kevin’s new page “Thrilling Tales of Weltraum★besty,” where he’s beginning to compile some recent thoughts on the subject.

His latest page details a certain hobby ‘restoration’ on which he’s embarked — ‘scanning’ an entire trailer for a Daiei Gamera feature — you know, the franchise about a titanic flying terrapin with rockets in his b___.  The progress made so far shows us Kevin’s raw ‘scan’ with his homemade copying apparatus. Doing something about the faded color comes next. We’re eager to see what he can do, considering how faded is the source trailer print.

The exact article is Film Scanning, Fool’s errands and Flying Turtles.

 

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Japanese monster news keeps coming in — a theatrical reissue of the new Godzilla Minus One is coming up — in Black and White. We’re more keen on knowing when some fab 4K disc release will be announced.

Meanwhile, CineSavant informer-confederate Chuck Shillingford tells us that a 4K Ultra HD disc of the original Gojira ’54 went on sale in Japan back on October ’23.

Don’t jump to buy, as the disc description gives no indication of having English subs.

I’ve never heard a good answer as to why the superb remaster we saw of Gojira ’54 was never released here. We saw samples of it about 15 years ago at Steve Ryfle’s place. The image was far better than anything I’ve seen before or since, including Criterion’s disc releases; Toho has superior transfers of most of its Kaiju and Sci-fi classics that don’t get licensed abroad, including to Criterion. Being a Japanese disc, it also had no English language subtitles.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Sam Fuller didn’t like Milestone’s movie, but what’s wrong with a poetic infantry picture?  Terrence Malick carried the idea forward.

 

Hello!

We’re certainly willing to help promote exceptional disc product. I’m writing this one day before street date for a rather incredible boxed set called Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe.   Arrow Video’s main sales page tells us that it has already it’s sold out. If you want to see a listiing of its full contents, you’ll need to creep stealthily over to the still-up Amazon sales page.

Can I theorize that copies can be had a bit further down the retail food chain?  On the dark web?  Or by selling one’s soul?

Good old Coffin Joe, or “Zé do Caixão” is the horror character of Brazilian filmmaking madman José Mojica Marins. He was one of the international horror stars brought to our attention back in the late ’80s by Phil Hardy’s first Overlook Encyclopedia of the Horror Film, the same tome that clued us into things like Moju and Jigoku, with text that sometimes overstated their shock value — even if we used discretion when deciding who to show them too.

A curious peek at old VHS tapes confirmed Marins’ as a standard bearer for outrageous, anti-social and anti-clerical horror. Visually speaking, his films have the look of something thrown together in the back of a TV station — it’s the numbingly consistent vein of ugly sadism and cruelty that sticks with us. The recurring Coffin Joe character, with his long nails, top hat and nasty sneer is as recognizable as any North American bogeyman. Hardy et horror contributores celebrated Marins’ abandonment of all values to manic delirious insanity; after 10 minutes listening to the average Coffin Joe audio track, we agreed with them. Want to get yourself declared legally insane?  Watching these pictures is a good start.

Wikipedia lists scores of Zé do Caixão titles — including 12 films and 3 TV series — not to mention comic books etc. Arrow’s boxed set has six discs with titles ‘remastered in 4K from the best available elements’. We see 11 titles listed on the gift box, including the carefree lark At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, the spirited snap-your-fingers-and-sing Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, and the side-splitting, fun-loving Hey Hey in the Hayloft The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures.

So start your search for Arrow’s forbidden boxed set — never mind those silly rumors that it’s a cosmic trap, an involuntary short-cut to the Realm of the Damned. Maybe it’s good that it has sold out — Arrow needs the extra $$ to fund the 24-hour psychiatric care required by the team that remastered the release. Here’s a mind-numbing official Trailer for Arrow’s set, not safe for human beings.

24 years ago Senhor Marins came to Los Angeles, to an ordinary fan convention. Tucked in between Something Weird’s Mike Vraney and someone hawking DVD boots, he looked a little alone and tired, a 60ish guy who at the time I though looked old (ha ha, that joke’s on me). I’m not sure he spoke a lot of English, and I certainly couldn’t try Portuguese. I honestly forget if he wore long fingernails . . . but he looked like nobody’s idea of ‘the embodiment of Evil.’ Adeus, estranho!

 

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Responding to the wealth of classic horror currently arrived or anticipated in 4K, CineSavant correspondent Chuck Shillingford informs us about an Italian disc for which we need more information:

“Mario Bava’s La Maschera Del Demonio is making its way to 4K in Italy next month with the original Italian soundtrack and with Italian subtitles. I had pretty much given up on getting a copy of this one on Blu-ray OR 4K with the original Italian track with English subtitles. I’m attaching a photo of the 4K La Maschera from Amazon.it.”

Thanks Chuck — we found the Amazon.it entry for the ‘4Kult Eagle Pictures’ 4K, which appears to come with a second Blu-ray disc. The release date is February 21, ’24. Can anybody confirm the legitimacy of this release?  We used to encounter problems with bootlegs from Spain. There aren’t many details offered — is this really a full 4K remaster?

This discussion board page adds doubt that 4K-Eagle Pictures discs carry English subtitles, so it might pay to remain wary:

La Maschera del Demonio, ‘4Kult’ on Amazon.it

This could very well be a desirable item, but our general rule is never to assume that everything sold on Amazon is legit.

 

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And Joe Dante is helpfully circulating this link to a blog entry in the Public Domain Review tabulating a tall stack of notable books, and artworks that entered The Public Domain on January 1.

The unattributed text begins with a few informative paragraphs about PD. It’s a UK blog: do all PD rules apply internationally?  The article is called

Happy Public Domain Day 2024!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Roger Corman inflicts a grueling workout on a score of actresses, all at once: Abby Dalton, Susan Cabot, June Kenney, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Sally Todd. What a frantic set that had to be . . .

 

Hello!

Correspondent Michael McQuarrie comes through with yet another ‘drive through Los Angeles’ link from a site called Vivid History. The best of these look like 35mm background plates, used for rear-projection in movie scenes of people in taxicabs, etc. Part of this one has three passes on the same street, to make separate side-angle cuts to the driver and passenger.

It’s called Los Angeles 1960s, Hollywood and Downtown … and was possibly filmed in the Spring or Summer of 1961. I confess that I wanted to show it because it features some movie marquees and a stretch of Santa Monica Blvd. just north of CineSavant Central — but a full ten years before I came to ‘the big city.’

Following editorial habit, I made screening notes that may / may not be of interest. Just looking at the cars, the people and the incredible variety of businesses is interest enough for me:

00:00  Hollywood. Heading East on Santa Monica Blvd between Wilton and Van Ness.
00:45  Hollywood Forever Cemetery — before strip malls were added facing Santa Monica Blvd., the cemetery had a grass lawn extending all the way to Gower Street.
01:14  Gower Street — CineSavant Central is about ten blocks to the South.
02:05  Downtown Los Angeles. Heading North on Hill Street at 9th.
02:54  8th Street – William Castle’s Homicidal and Allan Dwan’s Most Dangerous Man Alive are playing at the Hill Street theater. It was demolished in 1965.
03:24  7th Street – Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks playing on the right at the Warner Downtown, at this time called the Warrens Theater.
03:46  6th street on the left, the Paramount theater is closed and boarded up pending demolition. Pershing Square is on the right.
04:10  Elizabeth Taylor’s Butterfield 8 is playing at the Town, with a second feature we can’t make out. In 1966 it became Dan Sonney and Dave Friedman’s first Pussycat Theater.
04:59  New angle Hill Street going North again raking Right, starting at 7th.
05:10  One-Eyed Jacks playing, again; 2nd feature is Young Jesse James.
05:33  Pershing Square begins at 6th.
06:36  New angle Hill Street going North again raking Left, starting at 7th.
07:38  Butterfield 8 playing at the Town.
07:50  Unidentified beach-side boulevard. It looks like Venice, but the roads may all have been redone — could be another beach town, too.

 

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The best literature on Film Noir is readily available in the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine, Noir City.

The latest issue is out, Number 39, and once again the level of writing, research and style is unsurpassed. Editor in Chief Imogen Sara Smith oversees a sharp 60 pages of concentrated film history, for publisher Eddie Muller; we particularly like the layouts designed by Michael Kronenberg, that evoke the heyday of great film magazines of the past, almost all of them extinct.

Featured articles this month focus on Hit Men in movies, (Danilo Castro), a look at the career of Jean Hagen (Steve Kronenberg), the Crime Pictures of director Bob Rafelson (Peter Tonguette) and Nick Gomez (Rachel Walther) and Christmas-themed Noir (Jeremy Arnold). The reliable Sean Axmaker reviews some new Blu-ray releases.

The Noir City news page has the info to subscribe, and to see the new issue’s full contents page.

 

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And Michael McQuarrie sends us yet another link we can’t pass up:

A tourist page touts a terrific stopover destination at the Schilthorn, in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland. A company advertises cablecar rides (four separate lifts?) to the summit of the Schilthorn, at 2,970 meters up.

The James Bond Connection is very much a part of the come-on, with a ‘James Bond Brunch’ and a ‘Piz Gloria afternoon platter.’ Yes, this mountaintop eyrie is the spectacular location for much of the 1969 Danjaq thriller On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring George Lazenby. It doesn’t look like the easiest place to film a one-man documentary, let alone a lavish epic with a big cast and crew.

The showoff web page is called Swiss Skyline.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson