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CineSavant’s redoubtable (I had to look up that word) Charlie Largent now has possession of the new The Film Detective disc of The Brain from Planet Arous and is presumably drafting a Pulitzer-quality review even as we read these words.

The 1957 sci-fi ‘shocker’ has always been a favorite. Charlie will have to be on his toes to best the incisive reporting of my old DVD review, from 21 years ago:

“Other movies of this ilk occasionally depicted teenagers necking. Brain takes the cake, with a possessed John Agar so hot for poor Joyce Meadows he’s tearing her clothes. This no doubt hastened a lot of happy copycat behavior in drive-in back seats. Lots of monster movies talk about space aliens planning to mate with Earth women, but Arous dares to show us the real thing!”

And an impressively high portion of my review is correctly spelled, too.

CineSavant correspondent (and silent movie fan) Jonathan Gluckman sent over a hot link that couold easily interfere with my work. The page Never Was is divided into a blog, a magazine and a busy discussion board called ‘Lounge.’

The link is to the Magazine, which I have to say really held my attention — acres of beautiful art, discussion and articles around the related topics of Alternate Histories, Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and odd categories with names like ‘Unbuilt Cities’ and ‘Genre Tropes.’ The illustrations are marvelous, with work sorted by artist, and segregated into pulp magazine covers, cartoons and comics, etc. I recommend setting an alarm to limit reading, if you don’t want to be locked into this page for three hours straight. The only possible caveat is that some of the alternate histories involve Nazi themes (not pro-Nazi) with associated visuals.

Formerly The Gatehouse, the beautifully organized Never Was page is, in its own words, ‘an online, non-commercial alternate-history magazine, edited by Nick Ottens.’   I’ll be taking a deeper look very soon.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Here’s something we found online via the Facebook feed of film collector and 3-D authority Hillary Hess: ever since we bought our first James Bond LPs in the 1960s we wondered why The James Bond Theme is listed as composed by Monty Norman when most everything else in the classic 007 musicsphere is the work of John Barry. We were told that Norman put the basic music theme together and that Barry added elements and/or changed the orchestration. For whatever reason, Norman retained sole composing credit.

Is that the whole truth?  Could this ‘musical comedy’ track really be the ‘Original’ James Bond Theme? It’s a novelty song by Monty Norman called Good Sign, Bad Sign. Hard to believe, but here it is … a perfectly awful comedic piece with a very familiar line of notes, played by a sitar, no less. Reportedly composed for an unproduced 1950s musical, the song is about an (Indian?) man born with an ‘unlucky sneeze.’

It does remind me of a different situation, a similarity between unrelated songs that could very well be wholly unintentional. The first two measures or so of the title song for the musical The Night They Raided Minsky’s are more or less identical to the main instrumental riff for, believe it or not, Dimitri Tiomkin’s 55 Days at Peking (you first must get through 30 seconds of furious preamble). Compare!  The correlation is a little more obvious against an instrumental of Minsky’s, which I didn’t find online.

To cover the recent 4K disc of Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, DVD Classics Corner on the Air has put together a special podcast called Dick Dinman salutes Some Like it Hot.

The show sources a multi-hour interview that Dick conducted a number of years ago with none other than actor Tony Curtis. Some of this has been heard before, but much is new, as Dick has re-edited segments pertaining to Curtis’s filming of the famous comedy with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon.

Kino just announced its release schedule for July. Notable titles include a Blu-ray triple bill et of Maria Montez & Jon Hall’s White Savage, Gypsy Wildcat and Sudan. Also up is Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 4K, and the collection Film Noir The Dark Side of Cinema VIII, which includes a show I’ve wanted to see forever, Street of Chance.

The titles I’d grab at first begin with Delbert Mann’s Marty with Ernest Borgnine, finally in 1:85. Where the Lilies Bloom starring Jan Smithers and Harry Dean Stanton is something I’ve wanted to catch up with as well. A multi-disc set of the second season of Night Gallery is as crowded with extras as was the first.

Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires is back again in a new remastering job; I’ll be curious to see what’s different. I’ve never heard of the drama Time out of Mind but it’s by Robert Siodmak, which makes it a must-see for this viewer. And a 4K disc of Kubrick’s The Killing promises to be something special as well.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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I received a number of notes about my inclusion of a note about Christian Marclay’s art installation The Clock at the end of my review for Vincente Minnelli’s The Clock. It’s the 24-hour video that keeps time with real time, and synchronizes hundreds (thousands?) of movie clips that show characters looking at or referring to, real clocks.

As a thoughtful follow-up, CineSavant correspondent Steve Wilkinson sent along a link to an unattributed crowdsourced “ClockClock” web page, which spells out the busy 24-hour schedule of realtime metadata for Christian Marclay’s The Clock.

I guess the list could be called a spoiler, although some of the contributors don’t know the titles of each show they list in their time-stamped entries. Minnelli’s The Clock doesn’t seem to be there. But I thought the list worth a good scan. Marclay’s work reportedly needs to be seen in person to understand its charm — the important difference is the way he edits the clips together to make them seem one giant unending movie experience.

What, you haven’t already jetted off to Bologna, Italy for the Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival?  It’s the next opportunity to see the new Ignite restoration of the classic sci-fi Invaders from Mars.

Restoration producer Scott MacQueen will be there to help present the movie. Later on in a specially scheduled seminar he’ll talk about Invaders’ Cinecolor resurrection: Case Study: Restoring William Cameron Menzies’ Invaders from Mars.

I’m sad to say that I’ll be attending personally only in my alternate-dimension jet-setting fantasy life. I’m told that the Italians really do film festivals right. I would like to see this again in a theater some day, after the Great Plague passes.  Seriously, no movies or festivals for Glenn ’til the Bronze Sphinx sounds the All-Clear.

I was able to talk with Mr. MacQueen a few weeks back, and will continue to trawl for any and all bits of news about the upcoming Invaders disc release. It’s a pretty bold move for the startup disc company Ignite, simultaneously releasing in three formats. MacQueen’s involvement pretty much erases worries about the restoration quality. The project seems an all-star effort from the Gee Whiz Get-Go.

We got a really gratifying response to last Tuesday’s Raiders of the Lost Ark 4K review, which is good because I have a habit of alienating fans when reviewing really popular pix. Correspondent “B” reminded us last weekend that an acknowledged prime influence on the Lucas – Spielberg blockbuster was not an old movie serial, but a story by the comic book genius Carl Barks.

A 1954 Uncle Scrooge comic book story called The Seven Cities of Cebola sets Scrooge, Donald and his nephews on a search for a fabled treasure in the American Southwest, a desert Odyssey that incorporates a number of realistic details. They’re pursued by those scurvy Beagle Boys, who else?  You know, I’ve yet to see a single piece of serious legislation to curb the terrorist Beagle Boy cult.

Sure enough, the final comic panels take place in an enormous cavern with the fabled seven cities, and a very familiar booby trap to trip up would-be treasure raiders. Scrooge spells out the trap’s domino effect in the panels above. Before we see that, one of the nephews points out a mechanical shaft connected to the priceless idol, which will set loose the giant ‘pinball’ suspended high above. It’s a pretty good gag, we have to admit.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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An interesting disc arrived from Shout! Factory to review. That quality disc boutique hasn’t provided us with review product for quite a while, just odd marginal titles of the kind we don’t normally cover. We do our utmost not to take this personally. Now out of the blue comes this very good disc, which is also far outside CineSavant’s normal purview. Interesting subject matter . . . is someone at Shout! Factory trying to tell me something?

No paranoia here — the disc was surely sent in good faith. And here’s a mini-review, just to be cooperative. I’ve yet to see a Sesame Street disc that wasn’t quality goods, such as this item from 2019 that has signifcant nostalgia appeal.

On June 7 arrives the fabulous kiddie disc Elmo Potty Time Plus!, a two-hour musical primer in which the beloved red muppet Elmo preps little kids on the Wide & Wonderful World of personal hygiene, and what those porcelain artworks in the bathroom are all about. It has subtitles in both Spanish and English, so if your toddler doesn’t like to listen to your instructions, maybe he’ll be happy reading them in a foreign language.

Actually, parents of babies and tiny tots have extra issues to worry about this year — masks — vaccines — baby formula. I will watch the whole thing, just to make sure I’ve nothing new to learn. Does the show need a scene in which Elmo hoards toilet paper?

This was a curious sight.

Correspondent and CineSavant contributor “B” was searching through old issues of Variety. Like most magazines Variety carried occasional movie star endorsement ads, for everything from cigarettes to motor oil. Mad Magazine had a field day pointing out the absurdity of this mercantile persuasion strategy, with spoof ads lampooning the patronizing assumptions Madison Avenue made about American consumers.

This endorsement ad is a real head-scratcher. (It’s fully readable if you zoom in or open it in a new window.) Dolled up and dressed as if they were Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, actors John Dall and Peggy Cummins look like a million bucks posing for Lux Soap. The surprise is that the ad is a movie tie-in with the very non-glamorous rural bandit noir Gun Crazy. Admiring ‘lovely’ Peggy Cummins, we wonder how the photo would look if she were brandishing Annie Laurie Starr’s murderous six-gun.

In 1950, were Dall and Cummins front-page Hollywood personalities?  They were not exactly career skyrockets (Ms. Cummins was cheated, of course). They’re leading players and she’s certainly ‘Lux-worthy’ beautiful, so I guess it’s no shock that they might be solicited for endorsements. Perhaps they had a clever agent who neglected to tell the Lux people that Gun Crazy is a perverse crime picture about mad dog killers begging to be shot down like Bonnie & Clyde. When John and Peggy are cornered in a swamp and covered with sweat and mud, the cops don’t offer them a chance to wash up.

We doubt that the copywriter really asked Peggy for her thoughts about Lux. Just the same, the ad includes a quote from the actress:

“It’s wonderful the way Lux Soap facials leave skin softer, smoother. I work the rich fragrant lather well in, rinse, and then pat gently with a soft towel to dry.”

It sounds like Ms. Cummins could have been a shoo-in to narrate the queasier sections of Elmo Potty Time Plus.

We’re thinking that the Ad agency could have studied “Gun Crazy” and come up with a much better quote. They could even re-dub some of the film’s dialogue, for TV spots:

Annie Laurie Starr:   “Bart, I’ve been kicked around all my life, and from now on, I’m gonna start kicking back — with Lux Soap!”  “I want a lot of things – big things! soapy things!”

“You’ll never make big money. You’re a two-bit guy. Lux Soap is on sale today at four bits, in the generous new bath size cake.”

Bart Tare:   “We go together, Annie. I don’t know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition and Lux Soap go together.”

Annie Laurie Starr:   “Come on, Bart, let’s finish it the way we started it: on the level. I’ll start the bath, you get the Lux Soap.”

The Lux tie-in might explain why the bandit-lovers in Gun Crazy keep falling down and dropping things when escaping: they must be slipping on bars of soap.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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Interesting — we’re not expecting anything that’s even watchable, but Kaiju fans are curious to learn that a legendary un-see-able giant monster picture may be on its way to home video. Gary Teetzel turns our attention to the Scifi Japan website, for Avery Guerra’s short article  SRS Cinema Acquires North American Rights to Long Lost Korean Monster Movie.

The movie is called “Space Monster Wangmagwi”, it’s from 1967, and it’s described as ‘the Golden Fleece of obscure unreleased Kaiju films.’ Who knows, what if we find out it’s an unauthorized remake of Citizen Kane?

Since we just got finished reading Charlie Largent’s review of the Disney classic Darby O’Gill and the Little People, I don’t mind forwarding this found-on-the-web quality comparison of the new widescreen disc and a 2004 HD Master, that’s flat (and apparently not on disc).

If it’s accurate, it’s quite an eye-opener:  Darby O’Gill HD Video Comparison.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson