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Dick Dinman of DVD Classics Corner On The Air has a new podcast out, promoting and celebrating two post-MGM films by star Esther Williams. To help discuss them, he’s rounded up publicist and disc commentator David Del Valle.

The movies in question are The Unguarded Moment and Raw Wind in Eden; in one Esther is menaced by John Saxon and in the other romanced by Jeff Chandler. Both original posters depicted on the disc jackets might suggest swimming scenes — in one she’s in a suit and in the other the background is green-blue, as if she’s kissing George Nader underwater. Dinman’s promo text assures us that ‘controversial aspects of Williams’ life and career’ are on the agenda.

And Paramount Home Entertainment says it’s bringing out a 4K Ultra HD disc of Mimi Leder’s 1998 ‘astral collision’ science fiction epic Deep Impact, starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Leelee Sobieski, Blair Underwood, Maximilian Schell, and Morgan Freeman.

This is doubly good news because I’ve never reviewed the picture and always wanted to — to date it’s the most successful adaptation/permutation/re-imagining of the classic When Worlds Collide. I’ve only seen the competing 1998 picture Armageddon once, which was enough for me. Writers Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin successfully orchestrate the human aspect of the story to balance out the pyrotechnics. The first-generation CGI effects are mostly good too — the inundation of Manhattan shows the World Trade Center to be in harm’s way.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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There was a regular announcement furor two days ago, with some fancy / pricey collectors’ boxes trumpeted online. I’ll just dig through the goodies without delay.

But first some news from Left Field: attention all Crawling Eyes!  Those in the know will be pleased to hear that Anolis Entertainment of Heibach Germany says that a Blu-ray of the uncut The Trollenberg Terror  is in the works. It’s of course the vintage alien invasion thriller from 1958, known here as The Crawling Eye. It stars Forrest Tucker and an excellent Janet Munro.

It’s under the German title Die Teufelswolke von Monteville or ‘The Devil’s Cloud of Monteville.’ Should we assume that ‘Monteville’ is the Alpine burg down the hill from the Trollenberg?  No answers here, but we do have the ancient ‘DVD Savant’ The Crawling Eye DVD review, from 22 years ago.

The other announcements are for discs with hard release dates. Viavision [Imprint] has announced its offerings for May, a list with a couple of surprises: the old Republic The Catman of Paris, Jules Dassin’s Up Tight, the John Ford / John Wayne classic The Long Voyage Home, Ann-Margret in Bus Riley’s Back in Town, Robert Mulligan’s The Spiral Road . . .

. . . and the home video debut of the long-missing 1949 Paramount version of The Great Gatsby starring Alan Ladd and Betty Field. It was never lost, just tied up in a nagging rights issue or two. Imprint’s full info is Here.

Then, Severin Films continues to ride its wave of innovative video restorations with an announcement of a deluxe horror boxed set. Danza Macabra Vol. One: The Italian Gothic Collection boasts four vintage corridor-wandering creepshows that are definitely off the beaten path: The Monster of the Opera (Il mostro dell’opera, 1964), The Seventh Grave (La settima tomba, 1965), Scream of the Demon Lover (Il castello dalle porte di fuoco, 1971) and Lady Frankenstein (La figlia di Frankenstein, 1971).

They’re said to be all newly scanned, and augmented with hours of extras. As usual, Severin’s box art is arresting in itself.

The capper is from Powerhouse Indicator, which checks in with two boxed sets primed for May. The grabber is Mexico Macabre: Four Sinister Tales from the Alameda Films Vault, 1959-1963. Making their Blu-ray premieres will be Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de ultratumba), The Witch’s Mirror (El espejo de la bruja), The Brainiac (El Barón del terror) and The Curse of the Crying Woman (La maldición de la Llorona).

Besides PI’s usual extras abundantes, a 100-page book will be included. I think we’ll be getting a lot more information than what we saw in Forry Ackerman’s old ‘Mexi-monsters’ articles.

Powerhouse Indicator’s second boxed set is more arcane — From Hollywood to Heaven: The Lost and Saved Films of the Ormond Family. I can’t say it any more clearly than PI’s own copy: “charts the extraordinary filmmaking careers of June, Ron and Tim Ormond, a Nashville mother-father-son trio that started out making wild drive-in movies — including Lash LaRue westerns and the stripper-gore-musical outrage The Exotic Ones — but who, after a near-death experience, turned their backs on secular show business to produce a series of shocking, surreal religious pictures.”

It’s accompanied by a hundred-page book, too . . . whatever it is, it sounds wild.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Ah, but gentlemanly David J. Schow is the ideal source for link items to purloin … last weekend he hit us with a real winner, an established website of core interest. Written in 2007, The Reader’s Guide to The Day of the Triffids offers a concise overview of Mondo Triffidus. The book was our introduction to post-apocalyptic fiction.

Other pages offer flashier artwork and catalog the myriad pocketbook editions of John Wyndham’s triffidic terrific sci-fi thriller, but the unnamed author of this Guide clearly lays out basic info about the book and its various film and TV versions — the facts, just the facts.

The Guide’s big surprise is the news that the Day of the Triffids I’ve been re-reading for 60 years is an American abridged version!  The original is 11,000 words longer. Now I must find a complete original copy. The Guide shows us the covers of copies known to be full length.

We of course still await a Blu-ray (why not a 4K?) of the famed 1962 film version. It has been completely restored, but is still withheld from home media distribution. Of course, the book really ought to be in print too, in hardcover, original length. In 1972, the first book I ever ordered from a bookstore was John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. It had to be sent from England. It was a treasure that only lasted a year — a college roommate swiped it, along with my full collection of National Lampoon magazines. The swine.

Although it’s non-rare and easily accessed, I appreciate this link from associate advisor Gary Teetzel: a CBS Sunday Morning video item about some composers and performers gathering to do a special recording, as A Tribute to Composer Henry Mancini. We see and hear Arturo Sandoval, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and John Williams. Back in 1958, as ‘Johnny Williams,’ he played piano on the original recording of Mancini’s Peter Gunn Theme.

The news host is Tracy Smith. She interviews Mancini’s daughters and gets her facts straight about the composer’s career — which bloomed as soon as Universal laid him off. As for the prowling, insistent Peter Gunn Theme, editor Steve Nielson long ago admitted that it remains the greatest modern action hero theme ever — even the James Bond Theme is tame by comparison. It’s too bad that Blake Edwards’ 1967 feature film Gunn isn’t that great — its extra-hyped orchestrations of the original Mancini themes are great.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Two links purloined from Joe Dante today. This first is an animation comparison piece just long enough to make its point — it’s called Disney déjà view.

It’s a Twitter post by Marshall Julius, about recycled animation in Disney animated features. Much like a studio accessing stock shots to cut costs, conventional cel animators weren’t above re-referencing older animation work to shorten the long development process.

The minute or so of comparisons jumps between Winnie the Pooh, The Jungle Book and a couple of others. At first glance one thinks, ‘how can this save time if the actual ink and paint animation is all new?’ but that’s not how it works.

I don’t think I would notice any of this borrowing on my own. The only re-used Disney animation I’ve spied is in Winnie the Pooh — as I remember, they reworked imagery from the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence in Dumbo.

Trailers from Hell chieftain Joe Dante also steers us to a podcast site that honors composer Jerry Goldsmith, The Goldsmith Odyssey. The subject for this new (February 14) production is Dante’s The ‘Burbs, and the lengthy track is loaded with rich soundtrack cues, from multiple Goldsmith scores. If you wish to turn yourself into a devotee of great film music, this is a good place to start.

Guests for the podcast are professionals involved with the record album, editor Marshall Harvey, recording engineer Bruce Botnick, album co-producer Neil S. Bulk, and album art designer Dan Goldwasser. Joe Dante is there as well. Some of the story of the making of The ‘Burbs is told as well.

Their main index has a lot of cool Goldsmith soundtracks under discussion — but I didn’t see Our Man Flint among them. The Twilight Time disc for that movie has an isolated music score — just look what it’s selling for on Amazon.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Last December 3 David J. Schow alerted us to the good news for Leslie Stevens’ 1966 fantasy Incubus: a new and better film source will make possible a vastly improved video remaster.

If you recall from the old, not-so-good DVD, the original film elements for Incubus were lost long ago. When a remaster was desired all that could be found was a 16mm print with burned-in French subtitles, which required boxy overlays to add English subtitles. All viewers needed subs, as the movie was performed in Esperanto.

Writer-director Stevens was looking for an artful, distanced approach, not a way to exploit the untapped Esperanto market.  Filmed by Conrad Hall and Bill Fraker, the show continues the light, filtered visual look those famed cameramen applied to Stevens’ Outer Limits TV show. The Dominic Frontiere music adds even more Outer-Limitsy deja-vu. The cast toplines William Shatner, one good reason that the movie has received exceptional attention.

David J. Schow says that the surviving 35mm print is being scanned in 4K. The production company in charge, Le Chat Qui Fume, reports that the image quality is excellent. Their Stéphane Bouyer forwarded some frame grab samples. ↑

Here’s a real treat: an excellent restored and upscaled remastering of a 1944 WB musical short, posted by Andy Lewis at Vimeo. It’s Jammin’ the Blues, an filmic jazz jam session featuring Lester Young. The director is Gjon Mili, whose status as a noted still photographer becomes immediately apparent.

Mili’s photographic skills really come to the fore — the short is given a progressive style that looks like something an experimental filmmaker might have filmed a decade later. The B&W visuals are terrific — it’s the first Hollywood cinematography credit for Alfred Hitchcock’s future collaborator, Robert Burks. He immediately graduated to feature work.

A special treat are two name performers. Marie Bryant gets a wonderful singing showcase; we know her from her performance of ‘Your Red Wagon’ in Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night. Dancing with Bryant is favorite Archie Savage, an actor in Vera Cruz and South Pacific, choreographer for Cabin in the Sky and Sodom and Gomorrah, and one of film’s first black astronauts, in the Italian Assignment: Outer Space.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson