Hello!

You might, heh, heh, notice that I have no reviews up today … as I sort of implied might happen at the last CineSavant post. So we took a break, which was so relaxing that, after this gets posted, I’ll need to have a serious think about what’s in the review hopper for Saturday.

←  Meanwhile, there’s nothing that gets my disc radar in a twist faster than an announcement of a new horror or sci-fi disc of some obscure semi-classic. We took on a fairly poor foreign DVD of this one a few years ago, but now a restored Blu-ray (presumed Region B) appears to an imminent reality.

Anolis has let us know about their upcoming release of Die Nackte und Der Satan, a West German medical horror / sci-fi item from 1959 with a well-deserved positive reputation. It’s pretty twisted, it stars Horst Frank and Michel Simon, and it has one of the slickest-designed Mad Labs in all Mad Lab-dom.

It was known as The Head in its American release. I remember seeing a TV spot for it when I was ten, and boy, did it look like Adult Stuff. Even the still above reminds us of awful photos of medical ‘experiments.’ ↑

Anolis says August 20, but Amazon.de is listing it as ‘Temporarily Out of Stock.’ However, I’m told that will change very soon, so I’m watching that page closely . . . and a couple of U.S. importers, too.

But took a detour from explaining what got in the way of doing reviews for today’s CineSavant post. This image of a different city than where CineSavant resides was taken on Sunday; It ought to tell the tale. It involves a 5-hour drive, in which I was astonished at the number of electric Tesla cars on the I-5. I guess they really do have a 400 mile range now . . . ?

The city by the sea is doing fine. I rested up, and I feel recharged. That’s just what I needed.

♫  How Much is That Doggy Implacable Federation Enforcer in the Window? / The One With the Laser Beam Eye? ♬

We’ve enjoyed seeing Space Federation Robot Gort on La Brea Avenue for many years. It was displayed in the storefront window of a fancy framing company, The Grey Goose. It could be a copy of Gort used in scenes where he’s just standing still, frozen in place outside Klaatu’s space ship. Years ago, my kids loved it when the Grey Goose people posed Gort with a Santa hat and the motto: “Peace on Earth — Or Else.”  My daughter fashioned a large-scale banner version of the quote which we put up every year for the holidays.

I took my favorite photos of friend & consultant Wayne Schmidt posing with his best pal Gort. →

Well, I haven’t seen Gort for a while. The framing shop moved across the street, and often the shades were drawn; at the moment I don’t know if it’s still in operation. So my daughter, who can solve almost any problem of this kind, accessed Google Maps and tracked the big metallic lug, which we reproduce here. Not sure how long ago this was.

We know they made several of these dummy Gorts for the movie, and there are likely a number of reproductions out there. Is it possible that this particular Gort is an original, or is he one sold to collectors, like reproduction Robby the Robots?  Perhaps a reader knows.

←  And finally, CineSavant’s trusted and appreciated contributor Edward Sullivan posted a great comment on last week’s CineSavant review for The Long Ships. Ed is one of those people who can find anything on the internet. He found the original LIFE Magazine Photo of Russ Tamblyn upside-down in the middle of a complete body-flip on a sidewalk in Beverly Hills. It’s astonishing.  The photo enlarges substantially.

It would seem obvious that a performer with Tamblyn’s talents just wasn’t used to its best potential. He’s good in everything from Gun Crazy to Twin Peaks. In his musicals he showed a terrific ability to stretch himself, as in West Side Story.

A special treat in the LIFE layout is Tamblyn’s ‘date’ for the photo shoot: actress Venetia Stevenson. They married a year later. She’s the daughter of director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee, and later the star of Day of the Outlaw and The City of the Dead (Horror Hotel).

I hereby nominate Russ Tamblyn and Venetia Stevenson for The Coolest Couple of 1955.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Joe Dante forwarded this appeal for what looks like a worthy cause, a Kickstarter project to restore 100 year-old Mutt & Jeff Cartoons.

Joe notes that now it seems that nobody knows who Mutt & Jeff were; I definitely remember seeing the cartoon when I was a kid. An authority no less prestigious than Wikipedia tells us that Mutt & Jeff was the first daily comic strip ever, and that its popularity in the 1950s was boosted by the approval of President Eisenhower.

And a little bit of nostalgia. In a couple of weeks CineSavant will mark a straight Seven Years with its reviews posted at Trailers From Hell. The first was on August 24, 2015, for Blu-rays of War-Gods of the Deep and Mad Max Fury Road 3-D. I was and remain a TFH guest reviewer.

There have been some slow weeks along the way and one or two skipped days — and another will be coming up. But it’s pretty much been a minimum four reviews per week for the whole seven years. That kind of consistency tells you that I must be a dull person. . . But dependable.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

A nice tip-off from that beacon of graciousness David J. Schow . . . a 1973 public service spot that seems familiar, but that I probably haven’t seen because it’s English in origin. It’s better than many horror movies, and gets a chilling boost from a voiceover by none other than Donald Pleasance — as The Grim Reaper. It’s well directed too. It’s called Lonely Water.

I remember seeing numerous grim, weird PSAs like this in the 1960s — local TV stations would slip them in before they signed off for the night with the U.S. flag spot. One was about the danger of discarded refrigerators. Other religious-themed poetic spots were hardly uplifting, what with silky voices speaking words of Doom for weak humanity. Very weird !

I was writing about a movie that reminded me of the ‘film blanc’ genre, or style, when I realized that I hadn’t checked up lately on Bill Shepard’s essential website Film Blanc – The Cinema of Feel-Good Fantasies. It’s a recommended side destination for CineSavant readers. Film Blanc is the opposite of Film Noir — I defined it back then as “fantasies, whimsical visions of life that deal with the great beyond, the afterlife, heaven and hell. They are usually romances or light morality plays, sometimes satirical, often sentimental.”

I think the website began when Mr. Shepard and I corresponded about my worthy if disorganized ‘MGM Video Savant’ article on Film Blanc, from 1998. In it I praised Fritz Lang’s Liliom, and then had great fun poking holes in things I really didn’t care for in Richard Matheson’s afterlife fantasy What Dreams May Come.

It seemed as if our discussion preceded Shepard starting the website, so perhaps I had a role in inspiring it. I said I had read of the term in a ’70s Film Magazine, and Shepard tracked down the writer who initially coined the phrase ‘film blanc.’ Bill still maintains a database and part-synopsis for hundreds of films blanc. No spoilers, either, unless you wish to see them.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Correspondent Jonathan Gluckman sends in this excerpt from a The Jack Benny Show guest-starring Rod Serling — in which poor Jack ends up catching the business end of weirdness in The Twilight Zone.

The episode appears to be from January 15, 1963. The plot blurb is “Jack hires Rod Serling to improve his show but he winds up trapped in the Twilight Zone himself.” I see that Serling did guest cameo bits on other TV variety shows, but this is an extended skit. They dress him up something like Hugh Hefner.

And associate Gary Teetzel once again shows us that money can’t buy love, but it might possibly buy something infinitely better. Just like you, I’ve often awakened in the morning feeling strangely unfulfilled, as if searching for an indefinable essence that would give my life meaning.

Well, the answer is here — a realistic statue of Our Favorite Horror Film Personality. The website has all the details, but what it doesn’t explain is how this product will enrich your life, make you the envy of your neighborhood, and maybe even be listed in your wife’s eventual divorce complaint. She’ll make special mention of the statue’s tastefully-rendered severed head.

(Actually, as these things go, this isn’t bad. It actually looks like Vinnie.)

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Old friend Dick Dinman knows that a certain anniversary can’t be allowed to slip by unremarked: his latest DVD Classics Corner on the Air podcast is a big discussion piece with author/raconteur John Fricke intended to
Celebrate Judy Garland’s 100th Birthday!.

It ties in with three recently released Warner Archive discs that also commemmorate the Centennial: Ziegfeld Girl, For Me and My Gal, and The Clock.

And the new label Ignite Films just released an image of the final artwork for its upcoming release of Blu-ray, DVD and 4K Ultra HD editions of the remastered Invaders from Mars. The release now has a street date — September 26th !

We basically approve of the painting, although we wonder what the Martian Mutant is doing carrying a district nurse through a swamp. If he steps aside, will we see Bela Lugosi wrestling with an octopus?

We note that Ignite’s box spine reads ’01.’ I think it’s a sign that hard media is here to stay for the time being . . . this special project motivated the formation of an entire new company.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson