Hello!

Our announcement of an Invaders from Mars screening at New York’s Bedford Playhouse over the weekend paid off — a couple of CineSavant readers took the cue to see it, and three in all wrote in to describe the screening. Correspondents Ralph Coviello and Christopher Rywalt saw the show in what were described as ideal conditions — “a gorgeously restored theatre with a state-of-the-art projection and sound system, which made for an overwhelming presentation.” Ralph repeated an anecdote related by film restorer-host and Q&A answerer Scott MacQueen:

Jimmy Hunt and his mother visited the set where the crew was setting up a scene with the Martian intelligence. Mrs. Hunt recognized the ‘monster’ in the glass bubble and offered a greeting: “Hello Luce!”  It turned out that Mrs. Hunt and the actress Luce Potter had gone to school together.

Chris Rywalt took some photos. The one above with Scott MacQueen (left) makes the seating in the Bedford Playhouse look pretty cozy. Tom Weaver attended as well, and wrote to add that the Bedford Playhouse has ‘VERY good popcorn, by the way!’

Next up: the ever-searching Gary Teetzel reports on an interesting episode of Playhouse 90 found on the web, entitled Project Immortality.  Quoth Gary:

“I watched the “Project Immortality” episode because the plot has a sci-fi element. Scientists developing a way to replicate a man’s brain and thought patterns work to preserve the mind of a dying genius, Lee J. Cobb. The script doesn’t delve deeply into the sci-fi angles, and is instead more of a character piece on how Cobb chooses to live his life, how he faces death, how his family copes, etc.”

“The cast also includes Michael Landon and Patty McCormick and, in a small role, Joseph Sargent. It’s introduced by our old pal Dr. Frank Baxter and scored by that talented up-and-coming composer Jerry Goldsmith. In terms of the sci-fi content, there is an odd scene where Cobb and McCormick playfully re-enact the movie Frankenstein, although they aren’t especially faithful to it. The teleplay was directed by Fielder Cook.”

And the news over the weekend from correspondent Tom Weaver is that film collector and home video pioneer Wade Williams has passed away. Williams collected rights to various titles and was one of the first to market them on VHS tapes. He was noted for altering some as well, famously revising shots in the 1950 Rocketship X-M, and editing hybrid versions of Invaders from Mars for theatrical reissue. Williams became an associate producer on the Invaders from Mars remake, and produced a remake of his own, a 1992 version of the classic Detour starring actor Tom Neal’s son.

Williams owned or controlled much of the filmic work of Edward D. Wood Jr.. He was a controversial figure to archives and film restorers, closely guarding the rights he claimed to numerous titles. CineSavant friend Bill Shaffer met Williams and attended screenings at his house in Kansas City, and reported that he was a private person but a very enthusiastic film fan, something that struck most people who had even brief contact with him. We hope to learn more about Wade Williams, and the future for his film holdings, in due time.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

You can always count on all-round film expert Jack Theakston for something terrific from his apparently bottomless film collection. Once again, this is a new link only to CineSavant. Want to know what vintage Technicolor really looked like?

Theakston assembled some odds and end remnants from his vault and had them transferred. The little collage of message text cards, animation and short subject clips is quite pretty: 35mm IB Tech Nitrate Clips.

Comedian Chester Conklin (thanks everybody) introduces a line of cowgirls exiting a chuck wagon, from the short subject Fiesta of Santa Barbara. The first to appear is Mary Carlisle; the last is Toby Wing but just before Wing is a very blonde Ida Lupino. (thanks to Irv Lerner for this correction!)

And both Joe Dante and correspondent Jonathan Gluckman have pointed CineSavant to this New York Times article about the now-running Museum of Modern Art series on film restoration: Why Do Some Films Get Restored and Others Languish? — “A MoMA Series Holds Clues.”

It’s a good overview of restoration efforts, although Jonathan notes that the article doesn’t answer the question posed by its title. By the way, I think this link will open the article, even if you’re not a NYT subscriber.

The article mentions the new Invaders from Mars restoration and release, which Scott MacQueen will be talking about later today in conjunction with his restoration of The Devil and Daniel Webster. The lecture-demo is entitled Martians and Devils: Searching for Souls in the Cinema.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello — what column?

No excuses personally, but the rain has had us jumpin’ around here, and I’m cutting the Column Short because time just plain ran out.  We’ve been spared, locally, the flooding that’s hit most of the California coast, and are fortunate that trees falling, etc., hasn’t cut off our power.

Frankly I’m just happy that the roof is solid and the drain pump is working for the back yard — we just aren’t accustomed to having real weather here, I guess.

I’ll save some good Column entries for Saturday.  Charlie Largent says he’s making good progress on his review of The Avengers box — I think he’s watching a majority of the episodes. Now excuse me, I’d better proofread the reviews I’ve already posted one more time.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Both Charlie Largent and correspondent Annelise Purdie reminded me about the Internet Archive’s continued database of Classics Illustrated comics. I hate to admit it, but it’s a good resource to get a peek at famed items I know only by name, like Silas Marner and Lorna Doone.  You know, for information you ought to know in case you get chosen to play on Jeopardy.

I’m still impressed by the artwork, layout and ‘filmic direction’ of the Classics Illustrated The War of the Worlds comic . . . which we read countless times as a kid. It did send me to the book at age 8, encouraging me to start reading on my own. I somehow didn’t know that WOTW had been made into a movie until I caught up with the ’53 version in 1965, co-billed with Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.

And this got me, even though it’s not exactly new either. Ten years ago a certain ‘Quizno’ posted a 3-minute clip of Yojimbo fan-edited with appropriate Morricone cues from A Fistful of Dollars.

Hence the accurate YouTube title Yojimbo re-dubbed with A Fistful of Dollars Score.  Somebody (Christopher Frayling?) wrote that Sergio Leone actually had a Movieola with a print of Yojimbo on the set of his movie. That’s maybe possible. As much as we admire Leone’s talent, that kind of filmic plagiarism is pretty dishonorable. He’s lucky that the Japanese didn’t make the Italian producers burn the negative.

Ethics in the movie business?  In the grand scheme of things, was it just a minor infraction?  It did result in a great movie. A longer comparison with cross-cut music is at a YouTube entry called A Fistful of Yojimbo.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Here’s something we didn’t expect … Kino Lorber has announced an upcoming Blu-ray 3-D of the Universal-International film noir The Glass Web. Associate, advisor and fellow 3-D enthusiast Gary Teetzel was quick to report:

“This comes as a pleasant surprise, as the film was previously said to suffer from music rights issues that blocked any home video release. Starring Edward G. Robinson, the murder thriller will mark the 25th Golden Age 3-D title announced or released, meaning we’ll have precisely half of the 1950s’ extant 3D feature titles on 3D Blu-ray.

Bob Furmanek of The 3-D Film Archive has been posting that they are at present working on seven 3-D titles in addition to the five that have been announced: Bwana Devil, Robot Monster, Prison Girls and the roadshow version of The Bubble. Hopefully some of the seven are Golden Age titles.”

I’m eager to review The Glass Web because it’ll give me an excuse to relate my personal story about meeting Kathleen Hughes, from 2008.

Setting aside the various reasons why each is unlikely to be remastered in 3-D, some of the remaining ‘Golden Age’ titles most desired are: John Wayne in Hondo, Anne Bancroft in Gorilla at Large, Marie Windsor in Cat-Women of the Moon, Karl Malden in Phantom of the Rue Morgue, Jane Russell in The French Line, and Vincent Price in Son of Sinbad. We’re told that Phil Silvers’ Top Banana does not survive in 3-D.

Yet another ‘new’ link that’s actually been around quite a while. Wayne Schmidt forwarded this comparison page that really knocked us out.

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (2019) got a lot of attention for its use of ‘digital de-aging’ software to rejuvenate Robert DeNiro. We were all impressed with the ‘younger’ De Niro seen in the movie’s flashback scenes.

A YouTube poster called ‘Shamook’ put up a page of ‘Deepfake’ improvements on shots from The Irishman, and the results are pretty amazing: De-aging Robert Deniro in The Irishman [DeepFake]

Says Wayne:

“Some improvements are more dramatic than others, but overall they definitely look better. But as one commenter pointed out the Deepfake guy started with footage that already had a lot of the work done, so it’s not fair to dump on ILM too much. That, and the progress of technology might make a difference. It still would be nice to remaster the film and drop in these improvements in.”

I think many of us saw The Irishman and thought the rejuvenation process worked pretty well. Looking at this Deepfake version, my first thought was, “maybe Scorsese didn’t want to go so far, be so obvious. Maybe he was first shown similar younger-looking De Niro shots, and was concerned that viewers would stare at the miracle and forget to watch the movie.”

And then I thought “nah, the Deepfake is just better.”

Thanks Wayne, and Happy New Year — Glenn Erickson