Hello!

Catching up with some Blu-ray titles announced from favorite labels, I saw I was behind in squawking about what’s on the way from the Viavision [Imprint] import line. They’re Australian, but all their product so far is fully compatible with Region A Blu-ray players. At the end of March, [Imprint] gives us Sam Peckinpah’s final picture The Osterman Weekend, Steve McQueen’s last feature The Hunter, Samuel Fuller’s pre-Vietnam war opus China Gate, George Pal’s trip-to-Mars epic Conquest of Space, John Sturges’ orbital embarrassment Marooned, Robert Wise’s superstitious torture-the-kid thriller Audrey Rose, and Dalton Trumbo’s pacifist classic Johnny Got his Gun.

And just announced from [Imprint] for April are seven more desirable titles, especially the ones not available as Blu-rays here: a two-version, three-disc set of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, Ivan Passer’s nearly perfect Cutter’s Way, George Seaton’s espionage thriller The Counterfeit Traitor, the murder mystery Man on a Swing, and three organized crime ‘mellers’ — Kirk Douglas’s Mafia tale The Brotherhood, Barry Shear’s Across 110th Street, and Richard Fleischer’s The Don is Dead (with a Marc Edward Heuck commentary, assisted by me). All will be available individually.

We at CineSavant like to whine and grouse about promised but unannounced discs we can’t want to get our grubby mitts on. This title popped up earlier than we thought it would. It still has no hard street date, but ‘Coming Soon’ from the Warner Archive usually means pretty darn soon.

It’s more George Pal news — a Two-Disc Deluxe Special Edition of Pal’s The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, from MGM in 1962. The quickie details: The 3-panel Cinerama production is being presented just as was How The West Was Won back in 2008. The first version carries a 2.85 Letterbox encoding, and the second is presented in restoration specialist David Strohmaier’s Smilebox™ format, which curves the image to simulate the wraparound effect of 3-panel Cinerama.

It’s the full roadshow cut with the Intermission, etcetera; The Warner Archive graciously credits Strohmaier and his restorationist cohort Tom March in their press release from last Monday. This will be especially poignant for fans and admirers of actress Yvette Mimieux, who passed away just recently. She was the first screen heartthrob for a million little boys way back when. I served her popcorn once when I ushered at a theater in Westwood, and will be excited to go all mushy about the experience should we get to do a Brothers Grimm review.

Good reading about Cinerama and this show is a click away at this page at in70mm.com.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

CineSavant advisor Dick Dinman keeps the podcasts coming — this month he invites Warner Media Library Historian George Feltenstein back to discuss two recent Warner Archive Blu-rays with impressive restorations, both starring Robert Taylor. 1952’s Ivanhoe gives us stunning images of Elizabeth Taylor, and 1958’s Party Girl pairs Taylor in a Nicholas Ray gangster tale with Cyd Charisse.

The Dick Dinman and George Feltenstein ‘salute’ podcast is available at the DVD Classics Corner page.

CineSavant reviews are up at (Ivanhoe) and (Party Girl).

This item comes with an assist and nod from associate Craig Reardon, who responded to my approval of the charming Arlene Francis, an actress-personality who stands out in both the Billy Wilder comedy One, Two, Three and the Arthur Miller tragedy All My Sons, and not a whole lot more. When I wrote in my review that it was fun to spot a very young Ms. Francis in the Bela Lugosi chiller Murders in the Rue Morgue, Craig shot me these quickie frame-grabs from that horror movie, with the following explanation. Craig wrote:

. . . back to Arlene, her bit in Murders in the Rue Morgue is weird and sad indeed, for this poor girl of the streets to wind up being dumped (presumably) into the Seine by a cartoonish madman. There is a priceless medium shot of Bela clasping the terrified Arlene and yanking her toward his waiting carriage. But the editor left in two or three frames too many: at the very end of the shot Ms. Francis is unable to sustain her ‘terror.’  Lugosi wears a big and inappropriate grin on his face, too. It’s hilarious. I cannot believe that no ‘monster movie’ fan has never (that is…to my knowledge!) caught it or remarked upon it.

Actually, Craig and I agreed that the general obsession with old Universal horrors is so intense, many fans must have picked up on this. Craig says he posted these snaps on Instagram in 2017, but inconvenient facts like that never daunt CineSavant . . . I’m pretending we have something of a ‘scoop’ here, just for the fun of it. Truthfully, the real fun of this is knowing that Ms. Francis was having such a good time, even way back in 1932!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

It’s a windy day in Los Angeles. Criterion’s announcements for April contain some hot titles, starting with Vittorio de Sica’s must-see Miracle in Milan, a fantasy neorealist spinoff that may be the director’s most moving, meaningful picture. Equally anticipated are Frank Tashlin’s crazy The Girl Can’t Help It, Alex Cox’s wildly subversive political western Walker and Bertand Tavernier’s ode to Jazz ‘Round Midnight; plus the Nigerian drama Eyimofe and a 4K upgrade of the documentary For All Mankind.

I was knocked out by last year’s TCM debut of Robert Siodmak’s ‘different’ story of labor trouble in a New England plastics factory and talked to the expert that restored it; now Flicker Alley has their Blu-ray special edition ready to go for March 15. My take on the once-obscure The Whistle at Eaton Falls is that it’s a ‘reverse film-noir’: it comes on like a disaffected critique of the free enterprise system, but ends with a well-earned positive message. Lloyd Bridges leads an interesting cast, with early roles for Ernest Borgnine, Murray Hamilton, Arthur O’Connell and Anne Francis. Flicker Alley’s full extra content includes pieces on producer Louis de Rochemont, a booklet and an audio commentary by Alan K. Rode.

And thanks to a steer from correspondent Jonathan Gluckman I made a fun discovery on YouTube, the entire feature 24×36: A Movie About Posters. It’s a documentary about the history of movie advertisements and some of the artists and illustrators that ought to be famous for painting them, as told by artists, collectors and gallery owners. The graphics-oriented show looks great; the title refers to the size of a standard American One-Sheet, 24×36 inches.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

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A great new post at Greenbriar Picture Shows suggested by Correspondent ‘B’ — John McElwee really goes to town on Ted Tetzlaff’s ‘kiddie jeopardy’ epic: The Window Goes Places New To Noir.

John’s marketing & promotion angle always brings out a new appreciation of classic film. And his half-Varietyspeak, half-shorthand writing style is something I look forward to every week. My review of The Window from last November is here.

The news has been out for half a week but it’s still important: the company Deaf Crocodile has announced that it will be releasing remastered Russian fantasy films under a new Russian Fantastika branded line. First up will be 4K restorations of Aleksandr Ptushko’s Ilya Muromets (1956 aka The Sword and the Dragon) and his Sampo (1959 aka The Day the Earth Froze), along with a 2K restoration of Karen Shakhnazarov’s satirical Sci-fi feature Zerograd (1988 aka Zero City).

The Ptushko films are entirely different items from what we remember on flat dubbed TV presentations with terrible color; the art direction and pre- CGI production values often stagger the eye. Zerograd is less well-known here; Deaf Crocodile describes it as ‘half Agatha Christie, half Monty Python.’

The three discs are planned for summer ’22 release. An impressive Trailer for Deaf Crocodile’s Ilya Muromets is online. We certainly hope this arrangement continues — there’s still Ptushko’s Sadko to be hoped for in a definitive presentation, along with several terrific 1950s-1960s Russian science fiction films.

Last week reviewing the immortal The Mighty Peking Man, a reader-comment by ‘Killer Meteor’ showed me how little I knew about Hong Kong cinema, saying that there existed a Shaw Brothers ‘Blob Movie’ and giving it a name: The Oily Maniac.

A reader-comment by John Simpson then took the next step, sending along a link to the Oily Maniac Trailer. It looks terrible . . . how could I have lived without this?

This is the best frame I could find of the Hong Kong monster man … I’m scared already.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello — Happy Ides of January.

The connected folk at Trailers from Hell sent this one along. As reported on the Al Hirschfeld Twitter page, it appears that the great cartoonist and illustrator created art for the original 1939 ad campaign for The Wizard of Oz. Here are a couple of inserts from the poster … let’s hope this isn’t a copyright infringement.

It does make me reflect on the general badness of poster art for many golden-era MGM movies. Although gems did sneak through, the average MGM poster could be really ugly, and Wizard was no exception. It took me about 20 seconds to see a Yellow Brick Road motif here. It looks like Hirschfeld was contracted to produce a stack of classy caricatures, and then somebody decided to throw them into this hodge-podge.

Zooming or opening the images in a new window will reveal more detail. Did Hirschfeld have Vivien Leigh on his mind when drawing Dorothy?  I can see Ray Bolger in the scarecrow, however.

CineSavant’s advisor and accomplice Gary Teetzel is keen on film composers, so thought this arts post by Bryan Erdy on vimeo was noteworthy. For its music bed, a ballet called Belling the Slayer makes use of the Capricorn One soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith.

I haven’t seen Capricorn One more than once or twice; so I’m afraid that for me it sounds like they’re all dancing to Goldsmith’s soundtrack for The Satan Bug!

And we’ve received word that on March 22 Paramount will be releasing a boxed-set 4K UHD Godfather Trilogy as part of its 50th anniversary celebration for Francis Ford Coppola’s mighty trilogy. There will be theatrical screenings as well. The set will present Godfathers I & II plus the recently re-edited version of the final film, The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.

According to Paramount, Coppola oversaw a new 4K remaster, the first since Robert Harris’s 2007 restoration. For Godfathers I & II the 2007 Walter Murch audio will be present, along with original mono tracks. Extras will include a hardcover ‘coffee table’ book and codes for digital versions, plus new bonus extras.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson