Hello!

We’ve got yet another bit of informative insight from advisor “B”, who must have checked out my review of the Warner Archive Collection’s Mister Roberts Blu-ray. Of such observations are the finest film criticism made:

Dear Glenn: Nearly two years ago, you wrote a review of Mister Roberts. In the piece, you posed a question…

“As a gift to readers that may actually know nothing of the movie, I’ve not mentioned a major non-human character in the film, that plays a part in the last scene and is the subject of Ensign Pulver’s highly quotable final dialogue line:

“Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinkin’ palm tree overboard! Now what’s all this crud about no movie tonight?”

My only question is this: in the original play what word did Pulver shout at the the Captain in place of crud?”

I can now answer that.

Here’s how the Thomas Heggen book ends.

And here’s how the Heggen / Joshua Logan play ends.

I would guess that Logan may have said to Heggen that the play needed a stronger curtain line than in the book to further define Pulver’s character. So they concocted this final line and added it as a kicker… — B.

That’s news. In both book and play the Captain coddles a whole row of palm trees, giving Mr. Roberts and Ensign Pulver more stage business to do when they destroy them. Maybe the orchestra in the pit Mickey-Moused some music accents for the plants going over, one by one . . .

Kino Lorber’s January releases got announced a couple of days back, and the lineup has some good Blu-rays, like The David Jannsen Warning Shot which I reviewed as an import a few weeks ago. There’s also the Lee Marvin picture Sergeant Ryker, which I’ve never seen. I edited TV spots for the third Chuck Norris Missing in Action film, and don’t want to go near that series again . . .

Kino is releasing two separate 4K Ultra HD titles in January. We just got their 4K of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which we might have to revisit again, even though it feels like I review it every year or so.

The two January 4Ks are the Charles Bronson movie Death Wish, which I want to reassess — it can’t be as pernicious as I remember it. The second offering is a real favorite, Peter Collinson’s original The Italian Job. I saw it new in 1969, and then at a late night screening at the TCM Fest about ten years ago … where it looked sensational. It’s a great candidate for straight-to-4K treatment!

Also on tap are Blu-rays of Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai and Peter Newbrook’s The Asphyx (which now seems less pleasant — who wants to see Jane Lapotaire suffer so?)  I’ll have to see if they’re substantially improved — The Asphyx is said to be a new remaster.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Well knock me down. I got a really nice surprise Saturday night, on TCM’s Noir Alley show. In his introduction for the 1946 Monogram noir Decoy, the dapper Eddie Muller paid me an unexpected compliment. After explaining Decoy’s status as an entirely off-the-wall noir oddity — its plot includes some preposterous fantasy science — Eddie chose to finish his remarks with a quote from my old DVD review.

Who can argue with such generosity? — when Eddie Muller reads it, any quote becomes clever. Writing not only helps me stay sane, it has occasional pleasant rewards.

I really wish Warners would restore their copy of Decoy, as it’s missing an outrageous bit of violence that was in the print we all but died laughing with at Noir City back around 2003. I explain in the review. If they can recall a disc to fix a missing shot in The Cyclops, why not this entertaining film noir?

Joe Dante circulated this link yesterday: CBS Morning’s nifty video piece on ‘the last of the great movie poster artists, Renato Casaro.

Well into his ‘eighties, Casaro’s career was re-ignited by a phone call from Quentin Tarantino, for whom Casaro whipped up a series of fabulous spaghetti western posters starring ‘Rick Dalton’ for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

As is being reported on a web posts originating from a French website, on the Classic Horror Film Board and through Facebook posts by David J. Schow, it looks as if an improved print source for the ‘semi-lost’ film Incubus has been found. The feature has lingered in something of a gray area because all that had previously been located was a 16mm print with burned-in French subtitles. About 24 hours after the announcement, all-things-Leslie Stevens expert David Schow is already on the case. He says that the Le Chat qui Fume people are already ‘busy’ doing a 4K scan.

Yes, this is the famed oddball production directed by Leslie Stevens and photographed by Conrad Hall and Bill Fraker up in Big Sur, with the style of both visuals and music lifted directly from The Outer Limits. Even more strange is Stevens’ choice of filming the show in the Esperanto language.

We wonder if this new print sourse is the same one that Wayne Schmidt was being offered on Ebay not long ago. The new possessors are investigating the rights, yet already talk as if a ‘restoration’ is underway.

Should we presume that this 35mm print has no burned-in subtitles?  The image does look invitingly good in the sample images.

And the dependable Gary Teetzel found this ‘oopsie’ promotional graphic, which looks intended to identify a screening at a film festival. (It enlarges.)

It’s of course for the always-welcome Don Siegel thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except we didn’t know that our favorite old wheezy-voiced cuss Andy Devine had a major supporting role.

Hey, maybe Devine was meant to play Santa Mira’s phone operator. When Miles Bennell is trying to contact the FBI, you need to imagine Devine’s distinctive voice whining away on the other end of the line: “No, I – I – I, I’m sorry but all those lines are still DOWN at this time.”  Andy does look appropriately concerned — will the extraterrestrial takeover mean the end of Devine’s TV show Andy’s Gang?

We know that this first version of Invasion had several potential titles, none of which seems 100% adequate. But you’d think that the French distributor would have found something that’s less of a mouthful than “L’invasion des profanateurs de sépultures.”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

We wanted to take a moment to talk about an MGM colleague who passed away just a few days ago. James Owsley held different jobs at more than one studio, but Gary Teetzel and I knew him 20+ years ago at MGM, when we were located in Santa Monica. Owsley was a Director in the MGM Technical Services department, charged with mastering or remastering MGM’s film library on film and video, to fill orders for the various markets — home video, TV and cable, repertory theaters etc.

For some films it was just a matter of pulling out the printing elements and writing up lab instructions, but the Directors that handled ‘problem’ movies were also involved in film restoration. Writing my first online column at ‘MGM Video Savant’ I had a good excuse to poke my nose into what the film department was doing. I would find ways to praise these Technical Service Directors whenever I could: John Kirk was always working on interesting projects, restoring Truffaut pictures to their full length, etc..

I got to know James Owsley a little bit better when MGM acquired the Orion Pictures company and its film holdings. We knew that Orion held the bulk of the American-International film library, and we soon found that James was actively working on many of our favorite horror and sci-fi pictures. To our surprise James took a personal interest in the films. He seized the opportunity to remaster cut versions to their original lengths, uncover alternate versions and restore censor cuts. The work required special patience. A.I.P. had produced many pictures in England, and full documentation of all the variant releases just didn’t exist.

At this time I was introduced to James and found him to be a motivated professional, practical but painstaking. Extra censored bits for a Hammer/A.I.P. horror picture had been seen in outtake reels and video documentaries. When a search of film vaults turned up nothing, we’d learn that James had taken the initiative to approach Hammer Films, and was reconstituting uncut sequences from 35mm separations. The late 1990s was a good time at MGM — for most titles the Technical Services Department had the budget approval to simply go ahead and ‘do the right thing.’ That’s not always the case.

Of this period, Gary Teetzel recalls: “I was working in another department at the time and had no official role in the film restorations. But when James discovered I was an enthusiastic horror and sci-fi fan he would tell me about titles he was working on and would listen when I would share what I knew about alternate cuts. He was always receptive, and in general was the warmest and friendliest colleague I had at MGM. When I later moved into film remastering, I tried to emulate James’ dedication to the job.”

I got to talk with James Owsley for a couple of hours later on, when I edited featurettes about the restoration of the James Bond films for HD. He sat for interviews with producer Michael Arick. All this was quite a while ago, so I asked Gary Teetzel for more information. Gary recalled some of James’s more notable accomplishments at MGM, in addition to working on the 007 franchise:

•  James Owsley worked with producer Philip Waddilove to restore the definitive Michael Reeves cut of Witchfinder General.

•  He fully restored The Vampire Lovers.

•  He found the unrated trims for Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond and worked with Gordon on creating the unrated version.

•  He discovered and restored Gordon Hessler’s director’s original alternate cut of Murders in the Rue Morgue.

(All three linked reviews call out James Owsley’s restoration work for special praise.)

When Keith Aiken and ‘Loomis’ (Kim Song-ho) wrote an article for the Scifi Japan website about the release of the Korean fantasy film Yongary as an ‘MGM Midnite Movies’ DVD, Gary helped them obtain an interview with James Owsley. His restoration allowed fans to see the show for the first time in anamorphic widescreen. This nice quote summarizes James’s approach to remastering:

“Personally, I always try to go at the end of the day, ‘Well, we tried as much as we can,’  because I really do feel that every film is important to somebody. There was a lot of time and effort put into making Yongary and it means something to — not just one person, but a group of people. No matter how obscure or unknown a film is, it’s worth going to the mat for because it’s not easy to make a film.”

The outside CineSavant link today is to the latest DVD Classics Corner On the Air podcast: Dick Dinman brings back Warner’s George Feltenstein to dish the details on two recent releases from The Warner Archive and Criterion: They can’t ‘Hyde’ from ‘Arsenic and Old Lace.’

Both discs have attracted comments and emails to CineSavant — our reviews are up and readable: Arsenic and Old Lace (Charlie Largent) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Glenn Erickson).

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Happy post-turkey day!  First up is an impressive YouTube link from Peckinpah advisor and collector Christopher A. Howard, who is announcing an upcoming book with, quote, ‘1,000 pages, 2,000 stills from The Deadly Companions,  Ride the High Country,  Major Dundee and The Wild Bunch.’

Chris’s video presentation, titled The Wild Bunch Behind the Scenes 1968  is a full fifteen-minute montage of great still photos from the sets on location in Mexico.

The text continues: ‘They appear in my upcoming book called The Life and Films of Sam Peckinpah, An Illustrated Journey Volume 1 Part 1. The 1960s, due 21st February 2023.’ I’ve asked Mr. Howard to send me links when the book goes on sale.

Good old David J. Schow has come through with a link to a curious mini-museum dedicated to vintage U.K. Sci-Fi . . . and interesting photos.

At The Museum of Classic Sci-Fi we learn about Neil Cole’s collection, which apparently contains a great many props, etc., from the Dr. Who TV show.

Soon to go on display, the text says, is a restored Triffid from the 1981 BBC miniseries, John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids. It’s pretty much as described in the novel … complete with the detail that Triffids grow in the ground, and then uproot themselves when they become ambulatory and start stinging people. There follows a shocking apocalyptic storyline about everybody going blind, the bitcoin crash, etc. ↓

The images makes the colorful Triffid look big, but we can see a hand in the frame, and note that Mr. Cole describes the Triffid as a miniature, used in the show. It was donated by production manager Margot Hayhoe. We note what also looks like a full-sized Dalek, over by the refreshment counter.

I didn’t see exactly where this museum might be … ‘The North Pennines’ as described online looks like a place where Normans ought to be fighting Saxons. UK readers will surely not be as confused. Here for reference is Neil Cole’s Facebook page.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson