Hello!

A response from correspondent John Hall about the S.O.S. Tidal Wave review — it seems that that Republic re-used that Deluge disaster footage more times than I thought — !

      “I read your review on S.O.S. Tidal Wave and really enjoyed your take on it. I just wanted to let you know of another non-serial use of the Deluge footage.

     It’s used in the 1944 Ruth Terry vehicle, Jamboree about a country-western group moving to a farm to learn more about how the country folk live. About fifty minutes into the movie, a storm breaks out and Rufe Davis has a dream/nightmare of inventing a weather machine. He’s showing the machine (in a sequence with no dialog) to a group of investors when it explodes and starts the tidal wave. There’s a well-done montage of the Deluge footage with Davis running on a treadmill in front of the rear screen projection. He wakes up, panics and jumps out the window into a rain barrel … and that’s it. It’s not followed up at all and just seemed to be randomly inserted into the film. Like somebody in the front office said, Remember that flood footage? We haven’t used it since Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.. Stick that in the movie. Weird!

     A year or so, this was one of the Republic films that was available on the Paramount Vault YouTube channel when full-length Paramount and Republic films were briefly available. It was a gorgeous looking print. Just thought you’d be interested in this.    John Hall” (October 31, 2017)

Here’s a positive plug for the Noir City E-Mag, which just brought out its issue #22 . . . I just read an excellent educational feature by Alan K. Rode about noir scribe Frank Fenton. The magazine is a good deal, and all the proceeds go to the restoration efforts of the Film Noir Foundation. Thanks to Daryl Sparks, Foundation’s promotional director.

Some good disc news — Powerhouse Indicator has more Harryhausen coming up soon, and they’ve just announced that they have some Universal titles coming for January: Mike Nichols’ The Fortune and Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar look to be all region, but the desirable The Border (Tony Richardson) and Don Siegel’s excellent Charley Varrick are indicated as Region B locked.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson