Paramount has released a 20-movie DVD collection dedicated to the films of Jerry Lewis. Titles include the Martin and Lewis classics and many of Jerry's solo films. Best of all, the set is packed with hours of  bonus materials, including commentary tracks with Lewis on some of the key titles. Here is the official description:

"20 hilarious Jerry Lewis classics for the first time ever in one DVD collection, including The Nutty Professor, Cinderella, The Bellboy, Scared Stiff, The Disorderly Orderly, The Family Jewels, Artists and Models, The Ladies Man, Sailor Beware, Pardners, The Errand Boy, The Patsy, Living it Up, The Stooge, The Caddy, The Delicate Delinquent, You're Never Too Young, Hollywood or Bust, Jumping Jacks, and That's My Boy.

• · The largest collection of Jerry Lewis films ever assembled by Paramount.

• · Contains hours of assorted special features on select titles, including deleted scenes, trailers, and commentary tracks."

It's enough to make you shout "LADDDYYY!"

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The Jurassic Era Ends with a Roar

By Mark Cerulli

Almost 30 years ago, Jurassic Park thundered into theaters, forever changing the cinematic landscape. Steven Spielberg’s iconic film was based on Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel that brilliantly channeled people’s endless fascination with dinosaurs. It was beyond a box office hit, grossing close to a billion dollars during its 1993 release. It also revolutionized visual effects, leaving old-school stop motion dinosaurs in its dust.

Jurassic World: Dominion ain’t your father’s Jurassic Park… This 6^th and “final” instalment in the JP franchise is a huge, loud, expansive spectacle that brings together the original cast (including dinosaurs) and the franchise’s 2^nd generation stars for one last scaly hurrah.

The film opens with a cable news clip that tells us that dinosaurs have escaped from the ruins of Isla Nublar and are now everywhere. Once that has been established, director Colin Trevorrow puts the cinematic pedal down and doesn’t let up for two hours and twenty-seven minutes. The somewhat muddied plot involves Biosyn, the shady corporate heir to John Hammond’s InGen, run by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), a Jeff Bezos type who is using dino DNA to “benefit mankind”. Uh huh. (If Dodgson’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the original bagman who handed Dennis Nedry the infamous can of shaving cream/bio-sample tubes in the original film.)

Luckily, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is onto Biosyn, corralling her reluctant former colleague Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to visit their remote headquarters where the third member of the original Jurassic team, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is a visiting scholar in residence. The Biosyn retreat is also a world sanctuary for… dinosaurs. The OTHER parallel-running plot involves the genetically-engineered child (the wonderful Isabella Sermon) of an original Jurassic Park scientist who is in hiding with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). Her unique genetic makeup makes her a very valuable commodity and a target for kidnappers. The two Jurassic Park worlds - old and new - collide when she is kidnapped and Owen and Claire follow her trail from the Pacific Northwest to the alleyways of Malta and, the futuristic Biosyn complex itself. There are breathtaking man v. dinosaur chases that rival any James Bond or Jason Bourne pursuit. Jurassic World Dominion also drifts into Indiana Jones territory with a knock-down, drag-out fight in a seedy dinosaur smuggler’s market, complete with a dino fighting pit, of course!

Trevorrow, who ably helmed the previous two Jurassic Park movies, really hits his stride with this film – from a dino roundup on horseback in a vast prairie to stunning mountain photography in the Italian Alps and dino-mayhem in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest. The film brings back old favorites like the T-Rex and the raptor “Blue”, and introduces new ones like the Quetzalcoatlus, a huge, feathered dinosaur and the Dreadnoughtus, which resembles a Brontosaurus on steroids – 27 dinosaur species in all. According to the production materials, each creature was grounded in reality under the strict supervision of a leading paleontologist. The film’s visual effects are rivalled only by its audio effects – every crash is bone-jarring and the various dino roars are teeth-rattling.

While Pratt and Howard are great performers and have developed a wonderful onscreen chemistry, it’s the return of the original cast members – Neill, Dern and Goldblum that really got the preview audience clapping. Even original JP scientist Henry Wu (BD Wong) is on hand to try to rectify his mistakes. They all step back into their roles as easily as you’d pull on a favorite shirt; and Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm patois is as wry and quirky as it was in 1993. Time has been kind to them all.

For this epic conclusion to the cinematic Jurassic era, Universal has pulled out all the stops and is seeing their cash cowasaurus off with a bang.

“JULIE, IN SEARCH OF HERSELF”

By Raymond Benson

Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, a film from Norway, was nominated for the Best International Feature at the 2022 Oscar ceremony. It also received an Original Screenplay nomination. It lost the International Feature award to Japan’s Drive My Car, and the Screenplay award to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast.

For this reviewer’s money, Worst Person deserved the Oscar over the (albeit excellent) Drive My Car. It’s such an original, lively take on the concept of “romantic comedy” (with shades of darkness) that it was a joy to view.

Worst Person is the third in director Trier’s so-called “Oslo Trilogy,” which includes Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011). All three films were written by Trier and Eskil Vogt. Filmed in and around Oslo during the pandemic, the picture is a marvelous depiction of how the quality of a production was maintained during Covid-19, and a behind-the-scenes supplement included on the disk emphasizes this achievement.

Julie (Renate Reinsve) is a 29-year-old single woman who at first thinks she wants to be in medical school, but she changes her mind and veers toward psychology. But then she takes a left turn and pursues photography. It soon becomes clear, even after Julie turns 30, that she isn’t sure what she wants in life. She dabbles in writing, works in a bookstore, and becomes involved with a handful of men. Two of these romantic relationship are central to her world—the first, to underground comics writer/artist Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), and then to coffee shop baristo Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). Aksel is a bit older and is keen on solid commitment and having a family—something to which Julie is adamantly opposed. Eivind, who is more her age, is in tune with her free spirit ways. Julie’s parents are divorced, and she gets along well with her mother (who obviously has concerns about Julie’s lack of direction in her life), but not so well with her father (who has remarried a younger woman with a daughter). By the end of the tale, Julie finally settles on what appears to be a path that hopefully will make her happy—but of course this is ambiguous, like life itself.

Renate Reinsve is absolutely radiant in the role of Julie, and she lights up the screen in every shot. She is totally believable as a character that is so deeply nuanced and real that we feel as if we know her. The two leading men are also excellent, especially Anders Danielsen Lie, who must undergo a physical change in the flow of the story.

Trier’s direction is superb. He manages a tightrope act of comedy and drama that recalls some of the best of Woody Allen, Eric Rohmer, and Francois Truffaut, but there are also hints of old Hollywood screwball comedy in the mix. And then there is the influence of intimate Scandinavian angst, as in Ingmar Bergman. The celebrated dream/fantasy sequence, in which Julie “stops time” one morning, runs across town to meet her new lover, spends an entire twenty-four hours with him, and then returns to the flat is simply exhilarating. Extras on the streets of Oslo are “frozen” in movement, along with cars and bicycles, and the only animated humans in the scenes are Julie and Eivind. Shooting the sequence proved to be a challenge because of Covid, as illustrated in the previously-mentioned supplement. The filmmakers had to halt production and resume it during a completely different season of the year.

The Criterion Collection’s new Blu-ray is a 2K digital master with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio. Kasper Tuxen’s gorgeous cinematography is showcased in this exceptional presentation. Supplements include a nearly hour-long “making of” documentary containing interviews with Trier, Vogt, Reinsve, Lie, Nordrum, Tuxen, and sound designer Gisle Tveito. The supplement about the pandemic difficulties and time-freezing sequence is fascinating and is a canny lesson for budding filmmakers. Finally, there are some deleted scenes that are also worthwhile. One involves Julie and Aksel texting each other after their breakup; the time lapse photography is very effective and would have been a nice addition to the final cut.

The Worst Person in the World is funny, sad, and provocative. It is a celebration of what it means to be a Millennial, albeit a European one, in today’s mixed messages society. For fans of romantic comedies with bite, international sensibilities in film, and solid storytelling and acting.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

At first glance, "Voyeur", a 2017 original Netflix documentary, would seem to be as salacious as its title might imply- but it unexpectedly transforms into a fascinating and highly engrossing character study of two men from disparate backgrounds who are brought together by a common interest in sexual practices. In 1980, the famed journalist Gay Talese was contacted by a Colorado man, Gerald Foos, who suggested that he might have a tale worthy of Talese's talents. Foos informed the bestselling author that he was the owner of a nondescript motel, the kind of place people stop at for a night while passing through town. As with many other U.S. motels, a prurient inducement was advertised: the rooms had pornographic movies you could access on the TV, a big deal back in the pre-internet era. Foos told Talese that sex was very much on his mind and was an incentive to buying the motel. He claimed he was a voyeur, but not the average Peeping Tom who might glance in a neighbor's window in hopes of seeing a woman is some stage of undress. Foos was a professional snoop. He had meticulously transformed the crawlspace above one of the motel rooms into an eavesdropping vantage point worthy of an episode of "Mission: Impossible". The vents allowed him to see directly down to the bed but he could not be seen even if a customer were to stare straight up. Foos was an everyday, unassuming guy and was unlike another motel owner with creepy habits - Norman Bates of "Psycho"- in that he was not lonely or desperate for sex. In fact, Foos was married and his wife Anita indulged him the way a wife might for a husband's mainstream hobby. She would even tip-toe to the crawlspace to provide Gerald with refreshments and food if he was putting in some long hours staring down at his oblivious customers. The goal, of course, was to watch couples engage in sexual activities. He was more often than not rewarded for his patience.

This story appealed to Gay Talese, who was no shrinking violet when it came to sex. In fact, for a decade he had been researching his book "Thy Neighbor's Wife", a non-fiction examination of American sexual practices in the post-WWII era. There was plenty to research, as anyone who came of age in the late 1960s-1970s could attest. Before AIDS brought down the curtain on promiscuous activity, sex was everywhere, and largely guilt-free. Talese chronicled all this in his book, which was first published in 1981 and updated in 2009. As part of his research, he actually operated a massage parlor. lived in a nudist colony and engaged in sexual activities, despite the fact that his marriage was already hanging by a thread. When the book was published, it reached bestseller status and Talese revisited the Gerald Foos situation. He traveled to the motel and Foos escorted him to the crawlspace where the two men spied on people engaging in sex. Talese thought the tale was fantastic and over the years and he Foos formed a friendship of sorts. Foos, who has narcissistic tendencies, relished the fact that a New York City dandy with a famous name would be interested in his story. Talese saw the potential for another bestseller. He found Foos to be a guilt-free, jolly guy who was proud of his "accomplishment" and wanted to brag about it, with the prestige of having Talese tell his story. Their relationship continued even after Foos and his wife sold the motel.

Talese, who is an old school journalist who relies on shoe leather, personal interviews and an abundance of yellow paper writing pads, kept meticulous notes of his conversations with Gerald Foos. They formed the basis of the documentary "Voyeur", directed by Myles Kane and Josh Koury, which premiered on Netflix in 2017 but which I only recently discovered. I wasn't the only one in the dark about the documentary. In 2016, Steven Spielberg planned to make a feature film with director Sam Mendes about the Talese/Foos relationship, only to learn of the documentary, which caused him to drop the project. The documentarians spent a good many months (perhaps years) filming candid conversations with Talese and Foos, sometimes together, but mostly as individuals. Talese believed Foos was being honest with him but was haunted by the fact that Foos was his only source for these remarkable tales. It's the first rule of journalism that a writer trusts a single source at their own peril. When Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post unearthed information that indicated the highest levels of the Nixon administration were involved in the Watergate scandal, their editor, Ben Bradlee, refused to print the story unless the reporters could find additional sources. They ultimately did, as recounted in "All the President's Men", but it was a painful, time-consuming process. Nevertheless, they emerged as honored journalists and brought down a corrupt presidency. In the documentary, Talese ponders aloud if he is being too trusting of Foos, but decides that since he had personally witnessed the crawlspace, the rest of his tales must be true. That theory is put to the test when Foos reveals he had inadvertently witnessed a drug dealer murder his girlfriend in the room in 1977 but never reported it. Foos said he thought the woman was only injured. The body was found by the maid the next morning. However, when Talese tries to validate the story, there was no record of it in newspaper archives. However, there was a murder in a nearby motel around that time. Was Foos expropriating that incident to sensationalize his own story? 

The documentary examines journalistic methods and accountability. They are especially relevant today when elected officials with much to hide have convinced large sections of the population that real news is fake news and vice-versa. In fact, the film documents the extent to which seasoned journalists go to in order to insure accuracy. Their reputations are on the line, as Talese finds out after publication of his book about Foos, "The Voyeur's Motel", when a Washington Post reporter notifies him that he has unearthed provable inaccuracies in the tale. We watch Talese go into an emotional tailspin, first denouncing his own book, then attempting damage control. He blames Foos and himself for the scandal. Talese gets testy even with the filmmakers, insulting them on camera at one point and drawing them into the narrative. There is a morbid fascination in watching him melt down on camera. Was he sloppy in his research? Was he snookered by a man he trusted? Was he guilty of ignoring the famous cautionary line from John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance": "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"?

Foos, meanwhile, tries his own damage control and is more concerned about losing his friendship with a world famous author than a string of loose facts he had been feeding him. Foos also gripes that, in a newspaper interview to promote the book, Talese disclosed that Foos had a priceless collection of baseball memorabilia on display in his basement. Foos is outraged because he now fears he will be targeted by crooks, overlooking the fact that he had already willingly given Talese a tour of through the collectibles on film for use in the documentary.

The film will not placate the general population, which is already understandably a bit paranoid about where we are and what we do in the modern era. At one time, tiny cameras and recording devices were employed by the likes of Napoleon Solo. But today, any schmuck can by miniature eavesdropping equipment. No one knows if the room the or house they are renting isn't making their activities the object of someone's obsession.

"Voyeur" is a remarkable achievement, not only as a film, but as a sociological study of sexual perversion and journalistic practices, two subjects that are not often paired. The directors also edited the film and have done a very impressive job, given the countless hours of footage they must have had to sort through. There is also a good, appropriate score by Joel Goodman that captures the mood of the film perfectly. There is a bit of schmaltz in the film, with the directors resorting to recreations of sexual activities to represent what Foos is observing. They are tastefully done and not graphic but one could argue that Ken Burns makes documentaries about subjects pertaining to the eras before the advent of films and never uses recreations. Nevertheless, "Voyeur" is a highly engrossing achievement. Recommended. 

(For the Guardian's article about the credibility scandal relating to Talese's book, "The Voyeur's Motel", click here.)

By Ernie Magnotta

Real-life crime and corruption seemed to grow in the United States during the late 1960s and victims felt that, in certain cases, the law couldn’t always protect them. Thus, by the early 70s, American cinemas saw the rise of the vigilante/revenge film. Amazingly entertaining and hard-hitting classics such as Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack (1971) Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971), Phil Karlson’s Walking Tall (1973) and Jack Hill’s Coffy (1973) blazed across movie screens. These films featured lone, individualistic heroes who, after seeing the innocent people of their communities (and sometimes their loved ones) either robbed, beaten, raped or killed, and the law either powerless to help or itself part of the problem, decide that enough is enough and proceed to take the imperfect law into their own hands. As entertaining as these movies were, they were also an outcry against the real-life crime and corruption that was polluting the streets at the time; not to mention the imperfect legal system. Also, by viewing the tough, but well-meaning heroes of these fantasy films ridding their communities of this dangerous and undesired element, audiences experienced a real catharsis.

Although many more vigilante/revenge movies would hit theater screens throughout the rest of the decade, the genre reached its height with the release of Michael Winner’s masterful, if controversial, Death Wish (1974) which starred the legendary Charles Bronson as a passive architect/family man who, after his wife and daughter are raped by muggers (which also causes his wife’s death), and the authorities are powerless to help, decides to hunt criminals by night on the dangerous urban streets of New York. Death Wish proved to be highly influential and, in the 1980s, the genre showed no signs of slowing down as urban-based vigilante/revenge films such as 1980’s underrated The Exterminator, 1982’s Fighting Back and 1983’s Vigilante exploded into theaters along with, among many others, three entertaining, but inferior Death Wish sequels. Smack dab in the middle of these two decades, a modest, solid little urban vigilante/revenge film called Defiance was released.

Directed by John Flynn (Rolling Thunder), Defiance, which was written by Thomas Michael Donnelly (Quicksilver), produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun) and released by American International Pictures, concerns a merchant seaman named Tommy (Jan-Michael Vincent, The Mechanic, Big Wednesday, Airwolf) who, while waiting for his next ship to sail, takes up residence on New York’s Lower East Side. While there, he romances pretty, young Marsha (Raging Bull’s Theresa Saldana) and befriends a boy (Fernando Lopez from Frankie and Johnny) and an old grocery shop owner named Abe (Academy Award winner (for Harry and Tonto) Art Carney). He also discovers that a violent street gang called the Souls is terrorizing the neighborhood and the entire police force’s hands are tied. After a series of brutal muggings, beatings and murders, Tommy decides to put a stop to the violence by taking on the gang himself. But does Tommy alone have what it takes to put an end to the madness?

Although a very well-done addition to the urban vigilante genre, Defiance differs somewhat from films like Death Wish and The Exterminator in that the main hero doesn’t kill any of the villains. He just fights back and, hopefully, brings them to justice. Director Flynn delivers a well-balanced combo of drama and suspense-thriller while giving the film a gritty, realistic feel which is helped along by the stark cinematography of the talented Ric Waite (48 Hrs.).

Jan-Michael Vincent is extremely convincing as Tommy. He plays the well-written character as quiet, but tough and also isn’t afraid to show that, at times, Tommy is scared. He also shows traits such as humor and heart which further humanizes the character. Overall, it’s an understated and very believable performance. The extremely likeable Theresa Saldana brings a nice touch of humor to her role and the late, great Art Carney is wholly convincing as an aging, kind, but fed up grocery store owner. We also have a terrific performance by Fernando Lopez as the kid; not to mention Rudy Ramos (The Enforcer) exuding icy evil as gang leader Angel Cruz who utters the immortal line, “Now, we’re gonna make the new dude slow bleed.”

The entertaining and engaging film is loaded with even more top-notch acting talent; mostly made up of familiar East Coast/Italian-American faces such as Academy Award nominee Danny Aiello (Do the Right Thing), former AWA Tag Team champion wrestler turned actor Lenny “Luca Brasi” Montana (The Godfather), legendary film and television actor Joseph Campanella (The St. Valentine's Day Massacre), The Sopranos’ Tony “Paulie Walnuts” Sirico and the highly recognizable Frank Pesce (Vigilante). What a freakin’ cast! My only question is where the hell was Joe Spinell? The movie also features well-known faces like Ernie F. Orsatti (The Car), Chino “Fats” Williams (Weird Science) and Santos Morales (Scarface) as well as very brief appearances by Fred Lincoln (The Last House on the Left) and Tony DiBenedetto (The Exterminator), and quite a few others whose faces are more familiar than their names.

Defiance has been released on a region one Blu-ray by Kino Lorber and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. As is usually the case with KL, the beautiful HD transfer boasts sharp, crystal clear and colorful images as well as perfect sound. The disc also contains the original theatrical trailer along with the trailer for the 1976, Jan-Michael Vincent actioner Vigilante Force which is also available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. If you’re looking for a solid entry from the vigilante film heyday, the extremely underrated Defiance won’t disappoint.

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Give Dad the Gift of Adventure in Stunning 4K Ultra HD on June 14, 2022

The epic search for the perfect Father’s Day gift ends on June 14, 2022 when Raiders of the Lost Ark arrives in a Limited-Edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray SteelBook from Lucasfilm Ltd. and Paramount Home Entertainment. 

Relive all the edge-of-your-seat excitement in director Steven Spielberg’s cinematic classic starring Harrison Ford as legendary hero Indiana Jones.  Also starring Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, and Alfred Molina, Raiders of the Lost Ark continues to delight audiences of all ages with its thrilling, globe-trotting adventure. 

Available individually on 4K Ultra HD for the first time, the Raiders of the Lost Ark SteelBook is the first of four planned limited-edition releases of each Indiana Jones movie.  Fans of the franchise can look forward to collecting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on July 12, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on August 16, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on September 20. With exclusive packaging celebrating the iconic original theatrical artwork, these collectible releases are sure to be a hit with fans.  The films are presented in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision® and HDR-10 for ultra-vivid picture quality and state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos® audio*.   Each SteelBook also includes access to a digital copy of the corresponding movie, as well as a mini-poster reproduction.

Synopsis

Get ready for edge-of-your-seat thrills in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy (Harrison Ford) and his feisty ex-flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) dodge booby-traps, fight Nazis and stare down snakes in their incredible worldwide quest for the mystical Ark of the Covenant. Experience one exciting cliffhanger after another when you discover adventure with the one and only Indiana Jones. 

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BY DOUG OSWALD

Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson and Raymond Massey are soldiers at odds with one another in “The Naked and the Dead,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. It’s 1943 and America is island hopping in the Pacific during WWII. The film was directed by Raoul Walsh and based on the best selling novel written by Norman Mailer, who was inspired by his personal experiences in the Pacific front during the war. “The Naked and the Dead” is a sibling of sorts to “Battle Cry,” another film directed by Walsh and based on a best selling novel by Leon Uris. Both movies share a similar melodrama and the use of extended transgressions that take us out of the battle front via flashbacks. Both movies also share several of the same actors in lead and supporting rolls. It’s hard not to draw comparisons, but “The Naked and the Dead” is the weaker of the two movies in terms of story and performances and it feels like there’s less at stake.

Aldo Ray is the nastiest of the bunch as Sergeant Sam Croft, the seasoned platoon sergeant and borderline sociopath who cuts out gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers and carries them in a pouch around his neck. In a flashback we meet his wife Mildred, played by Barbara Nichols, who is caught cheating by Croft. Later in the movie, one of Croft’s men finds a wounded bird which Croft crushes to death in his fist. Ray is perfect for this part and while it’s hard to like Croft, it’s hard not to enjoy Ray’s performance in this movie. He’s the kind of platoon sergeant that would inspire anyone to want to transfer out.

Raymond Massey is Brigadier General Cummings, a man of ambition which may exceed his capabilities. In many ways he’s not much different than Sergeant Croft. Both men are overtly depicted, or at the very least it’s insinuated, as being incapable of pleasing their wives. General Cummings feels soldiers are expendable pawns and if this isn’t clear, he discusses this during a game of chess with his military aide. Cummings is okay with the officers having a few luxuries denied the enlisted men.

Cliff Robertson is Lieutenant Robert Hearn, the personal aide for General Cummings. Hearn comes from a respected and wealthy family and he’s lead the life of a playboy until departing for war. We see him dreaming about a dozen beautiful women catering to his every need, but is he longing for the good old days or a wasted bachelor life? The battle of wills between Hearn and Cummings devolves into pettiness by Cummings resulting in Hearn requesting a transfer. Hearn is reassigned to take command of Croft’s platoon and they are ordered to take a hill controlled by the Japanese ahead of an airstrike being pushed by General Cummings.

Assigning Lieutenant Hearn to command the platoon doesn’t sit well with Sergeant Croft,who sends Lieutenant Hearn through the mountain pass knowing the Japanese are there waiting for them. In what appears to be several days journey through the jungle, across a river and then climbing through a mountain pass, several of the men are killed by various means including a venomous snake, falling from a mountain cliff and enemy fire. When it comes time for the survivors to call in the enemy position and meet up with the Navy transport, they seemingly arrive on the beach in minutes. It’s a small quibble, but the movie is trying to be a“Bridge on the River Kwai” -type epic rather than keeping to small scale melodrama. The movie exteriors are believable and were filmed on location in the Republic of Panama with extensive use of studio interiors and matte paintings.

The film opens at the Jungle Bar in Honolulu where we meet the principal characters including stripper Willa Mae (Lily St. Cyr), the love interest of L.Q. Jones as Woody Wilson, one of several familiar faces in the film. Filling out the platoon is William Campbell as Brown, Richard Jaeckel as Gallagher, Joey Bishop as Roth and Robert Gist as Red. They offer much of the brief comic relief in the otherwise grim movie.

Raoul Walsh’s career was winding down by the time he directed “The Naked and the Dead.” Known for his crime dramas and military themed movies, Walsh created the tough guy personas associated with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn in a wide variety of hit movies throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

The screenplay is by Denis and Terry Sanders. Denis is a two-time Academy Award winning documentarian and is perhaps best known for directing the 1970 documentary “Elvis: That’s the Way it Is” and the 1971 concert movie “Soul to Soul.” Denis also directed the 1962 war drama “War Hunt,” the 1964 drama “Shock Treatment” and the 1973 cult favorite “Invasion of the Bee Girls.” He also worked as a director and writer on several 1950s and 1960s TV series. He would occasionally work with his brother Terry, another two-time Academy Award winner, a writer and also director, mostly for television. He’s probably best known for his military themed documentaries such as 1989s “Return with Honor”, 2008 film “Fighting for Life” and most recently the 2021 documentary “9th Circuit Cowboy.”

“The Naked and the Dead” was a co-production by RKO and Warner Bros. released in August 1958. The movie is presented in widescreen WarnerScope, features a score by the great Bernard Herrmann and clocks in at two hours and 11 minutes. If the movie suffers, it’s because it needs more time to flesh out the characters, especially those played by Cliff Robertson and Raymond Massey, as their parts feel underdeveloped. When we finally get to the climactic action piece, the movie tends to bog down. The Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific with the theatrical trailer as the only supplement on the disc. The movie is a guilty pleasure of mine and, while far from perfect, makes a great weekend double bill with “Battle Cry.” The movie is recommended for fans of gritty military films.

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BY FRED BLOSSER

“Son of Samson,” an Italian production from the wave of sword-and-toga or “peplum” movies in the early 1960s, has been released by Kino Lorber Studio Classics in a Blu-ray edition. When you hit “play,” don’t be alarmed when a different title, “Maciste nella Valle de Re,” appears instead. It’s the same picture. “Maciste nella valle de Re” or “Maciste in the Valley of the Kings” was the original title in Italy, where director Carlo Campogalliani’s production opened on Nov. 24, 1960. There, “Maciste” had a nostalgic fan base among older filmgoers who fondly remembered the super-strong defender of justice and freedom from an iconic series of silent movies (1914-1927). The 75-year-old Campogalliani had directed three of the original Maciste pictures, and rebooting the character had long been his pet project. The recent success of Steve Reeves’ first muscleman epics, “Hercules” (1958) and “Hercules Unchained” (1959), finally provided the go-ahead.

Since “Maciste” carried no brand-name value here, “Son of Samson” became the title for the dubbed, slightly edited version that opened in New York on June 2, 1962. The new title shrewdly reminded ticket-buyers of Cecil B. DeMille’s popular “Samson and Delilah” (1950), from which the script lifted a couple of incidental situations. Also, with its biblical connotation, “Son of Samson” was designed to placate moralist watchdogs in conservative small towns. It was okay to ogle a sexy leading lady in skimpy, navel-baring harem outfits and an oiled-up, nearly naked hero, as long as the Good Book somehow fit into the scenario. DeMille had virtually pioneered the same tactic. Never mind that “Son of Samson” had no narrative connection to the DeMille picture. For that matter, it really had no religious elements at all. With its second-unit visuals of the pyramids and other desert monuments, It might just as easily have been retitled “Samson Meets Cleopatra” to exploit current publicity around Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra,” which was still a year away from release. The “new” Maciste was so popular in Italy that more films followed, in which Mark Forest was followed in the role by Kirk Morris and Gordon Scott, among others. Later, several of the pictures were packaged with other peplums for syndicated TV broadcast in America as “Sons of Hercules” and “Gladiator Theatre.”

In Campogalliani’s movie, Maciste (Mark Forest) wanders through Egypt in the 5th Century B.C. looking for good deeds to perform. When he’s attacked by lions, he kills one with his bare hands (like Victor Mature’s Samson in the DeMille picture) and is saved from the other by an archer who turns out to be Kenamun, the Pharaoh’s son. Kenamun and his father Armiteo try to keep their cruel Persian vizier from oppressing the common folk, but Armiteo’s trophy wife Smedes (Chelo Alonso) secretly throws in with the vizier. They murder the Pharaoh, put Kenamun under a spell, and dispatch their troops to round up unoffending peasants for brutal slave labor. Maciste steps in to rescue the villagers, including pretty sisters Tekaet and Nofret, and break Smedes’ spell over Kenamun. Unlike the heroes in today’s movie franchises, Maciste doesn’t brood over a tortuous back-story involving daddy issues, murdered parents, or remorse over past misdeeds. Asked why he spends his time helping poor people for no personal gain, he simply answers, “It is my destiny.” In that more innocent era of movie entertainment, no further explanation was required. When Maciste and Smedes meet in the palace, she tries to seduce him with a slinky belly dance, and we visit an ingenious execution chamber known as “The Cell of Death.” There, if you somehow escape being crushed between two closeable walls, you’ll fall into a pool of crocodiles. The script by prolific screenwriters Oreste Biancoli and Ennio De Concini faithfully observes Chekhov’s famous dictum. If a Cell of Death appears in the story, someone must perish there before the final credits roll.

The print of “Son of Samson” presented by Kino Lorber is the Italian version with a dubbed English voice track. It includes a fleeting glimpse of a woman’s bare breasts (full disclosure, in case you’re curious . . . not Chelo Alonso’s) that was censored out of the American print. Even here, it speeds by so fast it seems to be optically blurred. Older fans will be glad to see hunky Mark Forest and super-hot Chelo Alonso again in peak trim, although the simplistic plot is a reminder that the Italian sword-and-toga movies (even a better-budgeted one like this, seen in proper Totalscope and Technicolor presentation after years of abysmal “Gladiator Theatre” prints) tend not to live up to our youthful memories when we revisit them many years later. The Marvel Studios generation may squirm at the old-fashioned pace of the script, and wonder why the laconic hero doesn’t brush off various perils with a stream of clever quips.

Nevertheless, if you can get your 12-year-old kid brother, son, nephew, or grandson to sit still long enough, he’ll learn that the basics for luring audiences to the ticket booth haven’t changed all that much since 1960, whether the buffed-up guy in the poster is Mark Forest, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Millennial sword-and-toga dramas like the “300” movies (2006 and 2014) and cable’s “Spartacus” series (2010-13) have more nudity and graphic carnage, but still, at the end of the day, it’s all about the abs.

The Kino Lorber release includes captioning and an excellent, insightful, spirited audio commentary from movie guys David Del Valle and Michael Varrati.

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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

When Trappist Monk Ambrose (Marty Feldman) is told by Brother Thelonious (Alfred Hyde-White), the abbot of the monastery, that he must go out into the world to raise $5,000 to pay off the church’s landlord, he begs him not to make him go. Ambrose was left on the monastery’s doorstep as an infant and has never set foot out in the real world. Universal’s “In God We Trust” (1980) is the story of what happens when a totally innocent character confronts a corrupt world, including and especially those who commercialize and capitalize on religion. In another sense, it’s also the story of Marty Feldman, the British comedian with the bulging eyeballs who believed you could tell the truth and make jokes about society’s sacred cows and not pay a price for it.

Feldman co-wrote (with Chris Allen), starred in and directed “In God We Trust,” (the full title of which is actually, “In God We Trust; Give Me That Prime Time Religion.”) It was the first film of a five-picture deal Feldman made with Universal after having a hit with “The Last Remake of Beau Geste” (1977), and his breakthrough role as Igor, the bug-eyed hunchback in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” “In God We Trust” is a scathing satire on the big business of organized religion as practiced by TV evangelists. The film is prophetic in terms of how it predated the TV evangelist scandals of the mid-80s. Jim and Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and others would go down in infamy soon after the film was released. (Although some infamy lasts longer than others. Jim Bakker is back on TV and Tammy is the subject of an Oscar-nominated film.) It also warned of the dangers of mixing church and state, something that has become part of American politics today.

The first person Brother Ambrose meets after he’s kicked out of the monastery is Reverend Sebastian Melmoth (Peter Boyle), a traveling minister who drives around in a church built on top of a truck. The reverend takes him to Los Angeles and sets up his stand selling Levitating Lazarus Dolls. “Step right up, sinners!” the reverend says. “Take a miracle home with you! Get your own Levitating Lazarus Doll! See him rise from the dead in the privacy of your own home!”

His next encounter is with a hooker with a heart of gold named Mary (Louise Lasser). She is, in fact, the first woman Ambrose ever met and he’s surprised when she tries to hide from cops by climbing up under his robe. When they stop at an outdoor lunch counter they have a fairly hilarious discussion about sex, in which he tells her he notices that girls are different from men. “You have legs and those bumpy bits.” He ends up staying in her apartment, sleeping on the sofa.

Next day he goes out to look for a job and is hired as a carpenter for P. Pilate Wholesale Religious Novelties, nailing little plastic Jesus figurines to wooden crucifixes. It’s not long until he has sex with Mary and goes into a church called The World Wide Church of Psychic Humiliation, and tries to confess his sins. But the priest’s hearing aid malfunctions and turns into a microphone blaring out Ambrose’s detailed confession to anyone in hearing distance. When he comes out of the church a crowd on the sidewalk gives him a big round of applause.

Ambrose next encounters TV evangelist Armageddon T. Thunderbird (Andy Kaufman), head of the Church of Divine Profit (CDP). The legendary Kaufman dressed in a White Elvis suit with a snow white bouffant hairdo piled on top of his head gives an amazing performance as a power mad preacher out to take over the world. He’s headquartered in a high rise office building that has a replica of the Capitol Dome on the roof. His private office is modeled after the White House Oval Office. There’s a side door that opens into a private room where Thunderbird converses with G.O.D., (General Operational Directorevator), a giant computer containing God himself (Richard Pryor).

The script contains some ruefully funny lines. When Ambrose tells world- weary hooker Mary that he thought the meek were supposed to inherit the earth, she tells him: “The meek may inherit the earth but not until the strong are finished with it. By that time, it won’t be worth having.”

Rev. Thunderbird gets to toss off one liners like: “You can fool some of the people all the time.” When he discovers Rev. Melmoth’s idea of a traveling church: “Mobile Churches!” he says. “Let’s run that up the crucifix and see who genuflects!” On the importance of money, he says: “It takes money to buy things. Who’s going to clothe you? J.C. or J.C. Penney?” He guilts his audience with: “God is in intensive care and who put him there? You did!”

Thunderbird builds a fleet of mobile churches, designed with familiar looking Golden Arches and a neon sign on top that keeps track of how many million souls are being saved every day. He dupes Ambrose into fronting the mobile church business by offering to pay off the monastery’s mortgage. Things seem to be going all Thunderbird’s way until Brother Ambrose has a private talk with G.O.D.

It’s hard to believe how critics back in 1980 dismissed “In God We Trust” as a total failure. Even Roger Ebert gave it one and a half stars and accused Feldman, among other things, of thinking that “characters will seem funny if you give them a funny name.” The movie deserved a better reception. That’s not to say it’s not without its flaws. A little more care could have been taken with continuity. Some scenes don’t seem to flow naturally into the next, and some of the comedy seems forced. But overall it’s a highly entertaining film that has something important to say.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray comes with an exceptional audio commentary by Feldman’s close friend, writer Alan Spencer, creator of the “Sledge Hammer” TV series (1986-1988). Spencer provides his explanation for “In God We Trust’s” failure at the box office. In one scene Thunderbird cites numerous three-letter conglomerates, starting with the Holy Trinity, including “ATT, RCA, GMC, ITT, IBM FBI, MCA, KKK . . . .“ Universal demanded that MCA, its parent company, be removed from the soundtrack. Feldman had the right of final cut in his contract and refused. According to Spencer, the studio cut Feldman’s legs out from under him by refusing to promote the film and compromised its distribution when it was released. On top of that they threw his five-movie deal out. Feldman was devastated. His next film, “Slapstick of Another Kind,” (1984) was a Jerry Lewis flop that Siskel and Ebert called the worst film of 1984. Feldman at least was spared hearing that. He died in 1982 of a heart attack in Mexico while on the set of “Yellowbeard” (1983), a pirate comedy starring Graham Chapman and Eric Idle. Mel Brooks took the high road and attributed his death to his habit of smoking five packs of cigarettes a day, drinking gallons of coffee and eating fried eggs every day.

The disc also includes a separate audio commentary by film historian and author Bryan Reesman. Reesman has a mile-a-minute style of delivery that sometimes is hard to keep up with but his commentary contains loads of information. There are a number of trailers included on the disc including a “Trailers from Hell” for “In God We Trust” with Alan Spencer.

This is an important Blu-ray release that hopefully will inspire a reevaluation of “In God We Trust.” Highly recommended.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Last evening, Cinema Retro was invited to attend the one-night only performance of "Broadway by the Year: From The Ziegfeld Follies to Moulin Rouge" at the historic Town Hall Theatre, a stone's throw from Times Square. The show is the brainchild of Scott Siegel, who writes, produces and directs each of these productions, which have extended back over twenty-one years. I was unfamiliar with the shows prior to attending but the official press releases describes them thusly:

"This unique, critically acclaimed series created, written, hosted, and directed by Scott Siegel is peppered with history-making events. Broadway by the Year introduced Stephanie J. Block to the New York City theater audience. And it was Broadway by the Year that starred Jessie Mueller in her first concert appearance in New York after she was first seen on Broadway in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Broadway by the Year pioneered the use of dance in a one-night only concert format and they have and continue to highlight the Broadway voice by introducing unplugged performances, using no microphones." The press release goes on to explain why Siegel has sought to pay homage to jukebox musicals: "In this second concert of the Broadway by the Year season, audience members will get a one-night-only history of jukebox musicals and musical revues. And the truth is, an extraordinary number of hit Broadway shows fit the description of these two kinds of shows. These oftentimes maligned genres have played an important role in the resurrection of songs, and styles from rock ’n’ roll (Jersey Boys, Beautiful, All Shook Up) to classical music (Kismet), and from country (Ring of Fire) to Rhythm & Blues (Black & Blue, After Midnight). And they have highlighted oftentimes forgotten composers, bringing their names back into the limelight, such as Eubie Blake with Eubie! and Fats Waller with Ain’t Misbehavin’."

I confess to being somewhat bewildered by Siegel's concept, which promised to present works associated with the old-time musical revues, some of which date back over a century, alongside the likes of jukebox productions inspired by the songs of Peter Allen, The Beatles and Bob Dylan, to name just a few. Theater purists have long sniffed at jukebox musicals, dismissing them as the low hanging fruit of theatrical productions because they rely on preexisting pop hits rather than original songs. However, audiences who are paying big bucks for a night out on Broadway want uplifting, toe-tapping musicals, critics be damned. Siegel and Musical Director Ross Patterson delivered the goods. The first act largely consisted of the vintage revue musical numbers, with songs from the likes of "The Ziegfeld Follies", "Show Boat", "Sondheim on Sondheim" and "The Band Wagon Revue".  After the intermission, the jukebox numbers were performed. It worked surprisingly well. In fact, this was one of the most impressive nights of live theater I've seen in many years. The audience seemed to agree, responding with thunderous ovations. The eclectic aspects of the production gave the show a lively, unpredictable air and it was all the more enjoyable seeing it presented in the marvelous Town Hall theater. The seasoned Broadway performers and up-and-coming talents were uniformly impressive. There was not a single weak link. Haley Swindal knocked "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Losing My Mind" out of the park as well as provided a rousing rendition of "Cabaret" that gave Liza a run for her money. John Easterlin performed "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" and "The Girl on the Magazine Cover" sans microphone to replicate the way audiences originally experienced the songs. Douglas Ladiner provided a soulful version of The Beatles' "Yesterday" and a magnificent show-closer with "Forever Young". Melissa Errico provided impressive renditions of "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" and "Confession". Tony Danza presented a Frank Sinatra tribute and provided amusing anecdotes about his late mother's obsession with Ol' Blu Eyes and his eventual introduction of his mom to her idol. Baritone Ryan Knowles, who sounds like the voice of God, rendered the most impressive versions I've ever heard of "Sixteen Tons" and the classic Depression era number "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime", as well as a fine version of Judy Collins' "Both Sides Now" . The audience was entranced by 18 year-old Anais Reno, who sang "Stardust" and Duke Ellington's "Caravan" with such passion that I can only say major stardom for her seems to be an inevitability. I must also mention the talents of Choreographer Danny Gardner and the female dance troupe who brought to mind the sheer enjoyment of seeing the Rockettes. It was also a special night for retro movie lovers, as many of these songs are associated with classic film musicals.  

Scott Siegel preceded every performance by addressing the audience and providing some interesting insights into each musical number. He also came across as a considerate and gracious man, personally thanking every member of the cast, along with his longtime Musical Director Michael Lavine, the technical crew and even the house staff and management. He also had spearheaded a fundraising drive that made it possible for 200 theater students to attend the show gratis.

Gotham has suffered mightily since the onset of the pandemic. Business was down, deaths and crime skyrocketed and Broadway was closed for an extended period of time, with some shows destined to never resume or open at all. The city was teeming with people in Times Square last night and it was clear the mojo is coming back. Perhaps that's why the audience appreciated Scott Siegel's latest production of "Broadway by the Year". We all needed an uplifting theatrical experience and Siegel and his collaborators came through triumphantly. I have only one regret about attending the performance: I'm now aware that I missed twenty previous productions that will never be seen again. I suppose when something is this good, however, it's better late than never to discover it.

(There will be two more productions of "Broadway by  the Year" coming to the Town Hall Theatre on June 26 and September 19. For more information about those shows, click here.)

By Hank Reineke

Village of the Damned is the cinematic moniker of John Wyndham’s far less exploitative titled 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos. Wyndham’s writing specialty was science-fiction: he graduated from contributing short stories to such colorful genre magazines as Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories to publishing full-fledged novels. Though his stories were occasionally adapted for such television dramas as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, his cinematic credits were relatively few. Village of the Damned is perhaps his best remembered movie tie-in, but a 1951 novel was also filmed and subsequently released as Day of the Triffids (Allied Artists, 1962).

Village of the Damned was originally conceived to film in Hollywood, and American writer Stirling Silliphant was tapped to compose the screenplay for the movie – which was to be, more or less, a faithful adaptation of Wyndham’s novel. Though Silliphant had accrued a few film credits, he was primarily regarded as a television writer, having contributed a score of 1950s teleplays to a variety of programs ranging from The Mickey Mouse Club to Perry Mason to Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Wolf Rilla, a German-born novelist but long-time a resident of London, was tapped to direct Village of the Damned. Rilla’s background too was mostly in television production, having written or directed a score of TV comedies and dramas over the span of a dozen years. Rilla was approached to direct Village when studio accountants deemed it far more economical to film in England rather than Hollywood. Rilla thought Silliphant’s scenario was workable. But he also thought the Yank’s grasp of contemporary British customs and vernacular was lacking. So Rilla and the film’s British producer Ronald Kinnoch (the latter writing under the pseudonym of “George Barclay”) reworked the original script to better authenticate and Anglicize.

The rewrite was successful in that regard. The atmosphere surrounding Village of the Damned is nothing less than stiff-lipped British in tone. In 2022 looking back, one could easily mistake Village as a Hammer Film Production (ala the Quatermass series).  Several prominent cast members of Village, including Barbara Shelley and Michael Gwynn, would be familiar to Hammer Films devotees, their faces having graced screens in such productions as The Camp on Blood Island, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Quatermass and the Pit, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Rasputin, the Mad Monk, Scars of Dracula and The Gorgon. The venerable British actor George Sanders, the former star of The Saint film series, is fittingly at the center of the mystery. And there’s plenty of mystery about…

The tiny, sleepy hamlet of Midwich is the “village” referenced in the film’s title.  Nothing much ever happened in Midwich until, for an odd four-hour interval, time not only stops but is seemingly lost. The townspeople, for reasons unknown, all fall into unconsciousness.  Initially there doesn’t appear there was any significant fall-out from this strange time-warping aberration, but several months later every village woman of childbearing age - married, courting or celibate - finds themselves pregnant.  This collective simultaneously give birth to children unusual in both manner and appearance. The children, whom some suspect are the product of some strange “impulse from the universe,” are uniformly uber-intelligent, gifted beyond their years. While polite to their parents and other adults, the children also strangely distant, unusually formal and unemotional in manner.

The children are also endowed with several peculiar special gifts – not the least of which is the ability to read the minds of the adults. This ability has unnerved those members of the community who are forced to interact with these mysterious youngsters.  It’s soon revealed these children are, as suspected, the offspring of alien beings. They have been imbedded in the village to study the minds and culture of their earth-bound galactic neighbors. For what purpose? Well, no one is sure, but the worst is feared.  Once the British military gets involved their intelligence agents report the residents of Midwich are not alone.  Reports are coming in of similar alien birth-takeovers amongst rural Eskimo populations as well as countries sitting behind the Iron Curtain. 

Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and his wife Anthea (Barbara Shelley) are the parents of one such “special” child, David (Martin Stephens). David seems to be the spokesman of the children. He also is not shy in demonstrating the bad habit of telepathically coercing those he perceives as enemies to take their own lives.  The situation worsens when the school-age alien brood make the decision to abandon Midwich to imbed more widely among the populace.  The town elders and military realize they can’t allow these aliens, semi- contained in Midwich, to spread further afield.  But how does one plot against those with the ability to read every thought that crosses the minds of those wishing them destruction?

It’s a neat premise and Village of the Damned was a surprising hit for MGM, the B-film’s appeal amongst cinemagoers and critics alike having caught the studio off guard. When studio brass realized they had a commercial steamroller on their hands, the publicity department was free to go full throttle. MGM began to take out full page ads in the trades, boasting that “Village of the Damned Saturation Openings” were rollin-up “Sensational Grosses!” This wasn’t mere ballyhoo, it was the truth. So it wasn’t terribly surprising when MGM announced a follow-up feature was already in consideration.

Anton Leader was chosen to direct this sequel Children of the Damned. Similar to Rilla, Leader was best known for his directorial work on television, not in motion pictures. In fact, following a successful career in the 1940s as a producer of radio dramas, Leader had worked almost exclusively on the small screen. He would subsequently helm an episode or two of practically every iconic television series of the 1950s and 1960s. Leader had left the U.S. for Europe in February 1962, hoping to set up his own production company on the continent. This dream was deferred when Leader was asked to direct Children of the Damned and given a nifty $400,000 budget to do so.

Having worked almost exclusively in the penny-pinching television industry, Leader gladly accepted. He would tell a journalist from Variety that it had been good to get away from TV since a big screen filmmaker was “more respectfully regraded” and given more time and latitude to do a “respectable job.” The problem was Leader envisioned Children of the Damned as an “art picture.” The brass at MGM Britain was less interested in making a profit, not a point. They wanted Children of the Damned be a coattail-riding horror film, which wasn’t the film as delivered.

Variety recorded Leader’s chagrin when the director was first made aware of the “advertising campaign mapped out by MGM […] lurid billing as an exploitation special.” Indeed, the poster art played up only a ghastly sensationalism: “They Come To Conquer the World… So young, so innocent, so utterly deadly!” A second ad mat was no more constrained (nor honest) in its carnival-barking: “Beware the Eyes that Paralyze! All-New Suspense Shocker… even more Eerie and Unearthly than Village of the Damned!”

In truth there’s very little eeriness and only a bit of suspense in the film. Children isn’t a bad film, but it is a curious follow-up, one that wildly detours from the premise of the original. There’s only a smattering of sci-fi elements. The “children” number only six in this sequel and their provenance is multi-national. The children are, again, borne by unwed women “never touched.” All six are brilliant, each possessing “intellect beyond belief.” It’s this reason that makes them of great scientific interest to Dr. Tom Llewellyn (Ian Hendry), a psychologist and Dr. David Neville (Alan Bader), a geneticist. They suggest a UNESCO program should be commissioned to study the children.

The problem is that the children do not wish to be studied. They escape from their respective embassies to gather inside the bowels of an old church. There was no need for them to proactively discuss this decision amongst each other – or, at least, not in the usual oral method. Since they communicate with one another through telepathy, they already share a communal knowledge base. They have no separate nor distinct personalities and mostly, if not exclusively, communicate their wishes to be left alone through an intermediary they control through hypnotism.

A sector of both the scientific establishment and military believe it would be best to “destroy” the children, believing them to be the spearhead of an invasion of aliens. But the army discovers the children are well-equipped to defend themselves against any aggressive action. Unlike the Village children, this new group of moppets choose only to use their telepathic energies towards their own defense. They’re not interested in causing harm to anyone, even as the bowels beneath their church sanctuary are wired with explosives.

Children is, without doubt, a different animal than Village. John Briley, the U.S. born screenwriter would contribute an original screenplay for the sequel, one only loosely based on the premise of the Wyndham novel. Though early in his career, Briley was no hack merely trying to get along by writing B-pictures. In 1983, as the writer of Ghandi, Briley was awarded an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

But the folks going to the cinema to catch Children of the Damned wanted a horror film, and no doubt felt cheated upon exiting. This film was more of a preachy “co-existence not no-existence” exercise. Most reviews of the film were critical of the movie’s high-minded and obvious aspiration as being experienced as a “message film.” One critic thought the concocted scenario was simply too precious. The filmmakers were attempting to endow the film “with moral significance […] heavy-handed, unnecessary and too pretentious an aim for so relatively modest a production venture.”

Although Children of the Damned was Leader’s last feature film of significance, the British trades were reporting the novelist/director had already reworked Christopher Monig’s 1956 mystery novel The Burned Man into a screen treatment, pitching the idea of bringing it to the screen to Hammer’s James Carreras.  That project would not happen, for better or worse, and Leader soon returned to TV directing. Children of the Damned is more of a curio today, but Village of the Damned has enjoyed lasting notoriety, even having been remade by Horror-film maestro John Carpenter in 1995. But while Carpenter’s film easily bests any of the antiquated optical effects of the 1960 version, Rilla’s original remains the more iconic.

Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned are made available as BD-ROMS through the Warner Archive Collection. Village is presented in 1080p High Definition 16 x 9 1:78.1 and in DTS HD Master Audio Mono. Children has been made available in 1080p High Definition 16 x 9 1:85.1 and in DTS HD Master Audio Mono. Both films are relativity sparse with extras, though both offer each film’s theatrical trailer and removable English subs. The only true “special features” is Steve Haberman’s commentary track on Village and screenwriter John Briley’s commentary on Children.

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Click here to order "Children of the Damned" Blu-ray from Amazon

By Hank Reineke

We’re told the expression “Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold” had origin in seventeenth-century France. I’ve no idea if this is accurate, nor convinced it matters. What is unquestionable is that in life, literature and art, the subject of revenge remains constant. Interestingly, the avenging of injustices, real and perceived, is common to both heroes and their adversaries. Sometimes motivations combine so the separation between heroism and evil becomes muddied. As the iconic and deranged fiend Dr. Anton Phibes, the great Vincent Price adroitly manages to move his audience to cheer as his character carries out a series of brutal and theatrical murders.

Price appears as the titular Dr. Phibes in two of what are, inarguably, the actor’s three best recalled films of the 1970s. The cycle was kicked off by Robert Fuest’s The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! (1972), with Douglas Hickox’s Theater of Blood (1973) – a similar film in style to the two-pic Phibes’ franchise – serving as an unofficial third act. Truth be told, only Vincent Price could manage to successfully pull off such sadistic and dark malarkey as presented above. Price’s reputation for playing gloomy, sinister characters with a sense of self-parodying gallows-humor whimsy made him a perfect cast.

The early to mid-1970s may not have completely signaled the end of old-school horror films, but it was the end of an era for those players still carrying the torch. It was primarily the British who kept the familiar tropes alive through the bloody, and often Gothic, productions of Hammer, Amicus, Tigon and late-to-the game Tyburn. Though Hammer was reviled in the 1960s for allowing Technicolor on-screen bloodletting, such crimson exploitation was nothing to what was to follow. American independents had already pushed the envelope to the extreme with such disturbing drive-in fare as Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

Overnight, the performances and films of such polished, academy trained actors as Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were made antiquated and unhip. Empty-headed teenagers were the new principal players, and with the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), old-school horror was relegated to the annals of film studies as a flood of imitations flooded movie screens. While Vincent Price didn’t disappear from movie-house screens, he was seen less often. You were more likely to catch Price on television in a TV-movie, drama, situation comedy or as a guest on Hollywood Squares. Or, perhaps, you might have been fortunate enough to catch the veteran actor trotting the boards in a traveling theatrical production.

Price was, understandably, not a great fan of the so-called “slasher” film genre. Such disgruntlement was, no doubt, partly the result of a loss of big screen offers and opportunities. Price considered the slasher film “with all their blood and violence […] a different genre from the wonderful Edgar Allan Poe films we used to make for Roger Corman.” In interviews from that period Price insisted the recent trend on splashing explicit real-life violence onto the big screen was a worrying trend. “When you have the chain saw at the very beginning of the picture that knocks off about fifteen people, where have you got to go?, he sighed to one journalist. “There’s no humor,” he continued. “They’ve just become too violent for me.”

There’s certainly no absence of humor – dark as it may be - present in The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again!. Price is directly responsible for innumerable murders, most often in devilishly amusing methods. I feel that, in some manner of speaking, the Phibes films had a measure of stylized influence on the slasher film genre. The body counts left in the wake of the subsequent slashers are, generally speaking, no greater nor less than those in the Phibes or Theater of Blood exercises.

In terms of thin plotting the Phibes and early slashers are similar in construction. Both substitute logic and a compelling storyline for a fast flowing series of voyeuristic grim executions. The raison d’etre of both enterprises was to deliver an entertaining, sadistic mix of idiosyncratic killings both inventive and amusing. The big difference is that a slate of seasoned actors are summarily dispatched in the Phibes films. In the slashers we tend to cheer on the fates of the teenage-victims due to their visibly painful absence of acting skills.

In the Phibes films Vincent Price isn’t breaking new ground. He’s merely diligently following the established vengeful tradition of preceding movie ghouls. In the nineteen thirties and forties, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi carried out all sorts of vendettas, nearly all the result of some professional slight. Their targets, deserving or not, were always getting trapped behind locked doors and no-escape rooms. This was usually due to their tormentors having had their scientific research purloined or reputations sullied.

There is one key difference between the old-school and new-school horrors. Karloff and Lugosi were crossed men with personalities - as anti-social and vengeful as those personalities might be. Too many of the slasher films, in my view anyway, featured successions of masked killers who killed in cold, robotic-fashion. Often motivations were not explained (or explained without satisfaction) until a movies’ end. The impersonality of such killings, arguably, might have contributed to the mystery – as in a, “Why is this happening?” But such detachment allowed for too many of the best-remembered slashers to serve as little more than an assembly-line cinematic abattoir. Which brings us back to Dr. Phibes.

In The Abominable Dr. Phibes, the titular character is not a medical doctor at all. A once-celebrated organist, Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) holds a curious combination of PhDs in Musicology and Theology. He uses his knowledge of the latter to unleash a series of murders fashioned from ancient biblical curses. He unleashes his wrath on the medical team he holds responsible for the April 1921 death of his wife Victoria Regina Phibes (Caroline Munro, more or less). Drawing the final curtains on those of he holds responsible, Phibes – with the assistance of the mysterious and beautiful Vulnavia (Virginia North) - methodically executes a series of Old Testament plagues as outlined in the Book of Exodus. He grimly works his way to his most loathed and final target, Chief of Surgeons Dr. Vesalius (Joseph Cotton). Having planned the biblical killing of Vesalius’s son, the firstborn, Phibes and Vesalius clash over the boy’s gurney in a tense, feverish confrontation at an extravagant manor house on London’s Maldine Square.

While the casting of The Abominable Dr. Phibes is perfect, it was an odd gamble that Price, the film’s star player, was essentially given no interactive dialogue: the actor’s voice is only heard as a filtered, somewhat robotic, voiceover throughout and even then only sparingly. Actress North, Phibes accessory-in-crime, admitted to frustration when she read the script and learned her role too was an unspeaking one. In July of 1971, North, a former model, sighed to an Associated Press journalist, “I don’t know why they don’t let me speak.” But she conceded “Not speaking is more sinister I suppose.” It certainly was in Phibes case, allowing Price’s disdain for his victims to be projected through his sneering countenance.

One would have thought it we saw the last of The Abominable Dr. Phibes at that film’s conclusion. But since American International had raked in a not inconsiderable profit on investment, a Phibes resurrection was quickly arranged. The first Phibes film was often paired in cinema’s with A.I.P.’s Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), a modern-day spin on the old legend. Count Yorga was very successful in in own right, spawning a sequel of its own. That series success led to rumors that A.I.P. might be grooming Yorga star Robert Quarry as a potential horror film successor to the aging Price.

What is obvious is that A.I.P. was interested in bringing to the screen a collaboration of Price and Quarry. This was made plain in December of 1971 when Louis M. “Deke” Heyward, A.I.P.’s Head of European Production, told reporters, “Bringing the ‘abominable’ Phibes and the ‘insidious’ Yorga together was something that just had to happen. The chemistry was too good to miss.” Heyward’s remarks were recorded as shooting was getting underway at Elstree, the producer crowing, “It’s no secret that when we were making the first ‘Phibes’ we were so sure we had a hit on our hands that we took the trouble to shoot the opening scenes of the sequel that was bound to come.”

Dr. Phibes Rises Again! reunites several members of the original, though North was out: Valli Kemp now filled the role of Price’s murderous assistant. Peter Jeffrey is back as the frustrated Scotland Yard detective who invariably arrives on the scene too late to save anyone from their gruesome, if amusing, fates. Another horror icon, Peter Cushing, also appears in the film. As the U.S. and Western Europe was in the throes of King Tut fever due to public interest in the touring display of ancient Egyptian artifacts, co-screenwriters Fuest and Robert Blees moved the action and ensuing mayhem from London to Egypt.

If not as satisfying as its predecessor, Dr. Phibes Rises Again!, is still great fun. Yes, the sequel simply delivers more of the same, but this is not necessarily a bad strategy as formula films go. If anything, the film might be even lighter in tone than the original, Price camping up the villainy to preposterous proportions. Though teased that a third film would follow – a script was commissioned – alas, the cinematic run of Dr. Phibes was (excuse me) “Phinished.”

This two disc Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray issue of The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! offers both films in 1.85:1 widescreen and with 1920 x 1080p resolution and DTS-audio. The set offers no fewer than four isolated audio commentary tracks. The primary commentary comes directly from director Robert Fuest who shares his production memories of The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Secondary commentaries on both The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again! come courtesy of film historian Justin Humphreys, the author of The Dr. Phibes Companion (Bear Manor Media, 2018), the definitive work on all things Phibesian. Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas also shares thoughts on Dr. Phibes Rises Again!. The set rounds out with a collection of radio and television spots and theatrical trailers. There’s also a colorful slipcover for collectors and Phibes wonks, like myself, to fawn over.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

Who should we blame for the execrable Tentacles? Samuel Z. Arkoff? The cast? The pazzo Italians who made it? Steven Spielberg, for heaven’s sake? This ridiculous yarn should be retitled with another word beginning with “T” and ending with “s” that is also comprised of nine letters because it takes a huge pair of them to put so many well-known performers into one film and give them nothing to do.

Tentacles, was filmed in 1976 and unleashed on New Yorkers on Wednesday, August 3, 1977 during the Summer of Sam, when Michael Anderson’s Orca: The Killer Whale and Rene Cardona, Jr.’s Tintorera: Killer Shark, among other cinematic indignities were also in theaters, assuaged only by George Lucas’s Star Wars.  The movie commits one of the genre’s gravest sins – it’s boooooring. To boot, it lacks the cheeze factor that makes movies like this fun to watch. Running a full 102 minutes, the exact same running time as William Friedkin’s masterful The French Connection (1971), Tentacles posits an octopus with tentacles (octopi have limbs, not tentacles, as squids do, but no one told the screenwriters) off the coast of Solana Beach in California who is annoyed by the unauthorized use of radio frequencies by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda), a corrupt owner of a construction company and his assistant (Cesare Danova, unrecognizable from his turn as Harvey Keitel’s mafioso uncle in Martin Scorsese’s 1973 film Mean Streets). The angry squid makes its way near people to serve them up as dinner. A sheriff (Claude Akins running through Stanislavski’s Seven Pillars Acting Technique before starring in The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo from 1979 to 1981) is confused as to how people are dying; a reporter (John Houston in a role that makes you wonder if he was financially solvent at the time) pursues leads to “get the story” as another feather in his cap; Bo Hopkins reluctantly comes to the rescue with killer whales that ultimately do in the titular creature; and the always reliable Shelley Winters comes along for the ride but spends most of her time yelling at children. Apparently, Auntie Roo isn’t dead after all.

The movie is completely devoid of interest and suspense except for a clone of the Ben Gardner-inspired head-bobbing death scene from Jaws (1975) and the disappearance of a child from the beach in a visually interesting sequence featuring the winner of the World’s Worst Mother of the Year award. The production’s “inspiration”, if you can call it that, is clearly Mr. Spielberg’s aforementioned suspense masterpiece, however it bears more of a resemblance to Robert Gordon’s 1955 sci-fi film It Came from Beneath the Sea, though that black and white film possessed something that Tentacles lacks – entertainment value.

Tentacles played in my area on a double bill with Bert I. Gordon’s Empire of the Ants (1977) at a theater that went exclusively adult prior to becoming a supermarket (an obscenity of a different kind) and at a drive-in with Michael Campus’s The Mack (1973) with Richard Pryor as the second feature, which put poor Mr. Pryor in the unenviable position of making comatose people laugh.

What Tentacles does have is a series of truly beautiful poster art used in the film’s marketing campaign that, while colorful and exciting to behold, advertise the film as something that it ultimately fails to deliver.

Apparently, Kino Lorber couldn’t find anyone willing to sit down and talk about this monstrosity (pun most definitely intended), as they have either all passed on or are currently in prison after having murdered their agents and managers after appearing in this film.

The only extras to speak of are both the radio spot and theatrical trailer for the film, and trailers for The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), Parasite (1983), Tintorera...Tiger Shark (1977), Zoltan...Hound of Dracula (1977), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Without Warning (1980), Deepstar Six (1989), and Deep Rising (1998).

If you’re going to watch a film about an octopus, I would recommend the highly enlightening My Octopus Teacher (2020) as an alternate, championed by Mr. Friedkin himself when I asked him about new films that he would recommend.

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BY HANK REINEKE

I will admit to a degree of bias up front. I’ve never been particularly enamored of MGM’s 1941 interpret of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famed novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And it occasionally bothers me that I’m not. The so-called “Golden Age” of the Horror film (1931-1948) has long been, and will likely always remain, my favorite cinematic era. Since the start of the home video revolution I dutifully acquired (and subsequently upgraded) practically every monochrome classic – OK, and some not-so-classic – genre films issued from that era to hold in my private collection. It was of little concern to me if a film was the product of a major studio (Universal, Columbia, MGM, Warner Bros. et. al.) or of a low-rent independent (Monogram, Republic or PRC). Practically every U.S and British film – as well as few from the continent – would find its way into my home archive.

So it’s telling that prior to this Blu ray debut of Victor Fleming’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, recently issued as part of the Warner Bros. Archive Collection, the only copy I’ve held in my collection is the old Laserdisc of the title. Published in 1986 as part of MGM’s “Great Books on Video” series. I simply never had the desire to channel any additional discretionary income into an upgrade of the film. So in some way the arrival of this High-Def edition by WAC was welcome. It has allowed me the opportunity to reassess long-held opinions or prejudices.

Similar to Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) monster, Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) stands as the third point of the immortal crown of literary monsters: the trio of select ghouls to have made a seamless transition from written page to the stage to the silver screen. Though the most celebrated earliest cinematic adaptation was the 1920 Paramount silent classic featuring John Barrymore as the titular rogue, even that film version wasn’t the earliest. Stevenson’s novella had been brought to the silent screen on a number of earlier occasions (1908-1914), though several of those earliest efforts are now thought forever lost in time.

Of the sound films, my favorite big screen adaptation of the novella will forever be Rouben Mamaoulian’s 1931 Paramount remake featuring Fredric March. In some manner of speaking, Mamaoulian’s version is a bit more faithful to Stevenson’s original work than MGM’s 1941 version, in other ways not. Stevenson’s conception of Mr. Hyde presents him not as physical monster with deformities, but merely a compassionless, selfish human whose heart has grown cold and actions sadistic. Hyde is described by Jekyll’s lawyer friend, Gabriel John Utterson (a major character of the novella completely missing from the Fleming version), as a sinister fellow with a “displeasing smile,” one who appeared “pale and dwarfish.” Stevenson’s Hyde gave off “an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation.”

But following in the wake of Universal’s box-office success in 1931 with Tod Browning’s Dracula and James Whale’s Frankenstein, it was in Paramount’s interest to portray Fredric March’s Mr. Hyde as a feral beast in a physical as well as psychological sense. The applied iconic make-up conjured by Wally Westmore for March’s Hyde was certainly appealing to the “monster kid” in me. When I was first introduced to images of March’s Mr. Hyde first in the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland and later via the (very) occasional television broadcast, I was left duly impressed. As I was with the imaginative camera-trickery rigged by Mamaoulian and cinematographer Karl Struss. The sight of March’s mirror-reflected transformation from Jekyll into Hyde remains a stunning and impressive optical effect to behold even in 2022. It must have been mind-blowing to audiences some ninety-one years prior.

It’s not entirely clear why MGM chose to move forward with their own version of the Stevenson work, but in November of 1940 the trades were reporting that MGM was planning their own version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to feature actor Spencer Tracy in the lead role. The following month it was announced in Box Office that veteran screenwriter John Lee Mahin (who had earlier adapted Stevenson’s Treasure Island for MGM in 1934) had been assigned scripting duties. In an interesting example of casting against type, the Pin-Up model and screen vixen Lana Turner was contracted to play the role of a good girl done wrong, with Swedish good girl Ingrid Bergman signed to portray a Cockney barmaid. It must be said, both actresses pull off their respective challenges rather admirably. Production on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was to commence on Wednesday, February 5, 1941.

Despite the overall gloss of the MGM remake, Spencer Tracy’s Jekyll and Hyde is not nearly as enigmatic nor tortured a character as March’s was. Tracy’s a great actor of course, no one is contesting that. And I’m certainly not knocking his performance in the film; I’m sure he does all he can in role with the material given him. But as the most essential component of cinema is in its visuals, Tracy’s Hyde falls short - even if his presentation is more aligned with Stevenson’s original descriptions. Tracy’s Hyde is violent and malignant and an unpleasant suitor to both fiancé Beatrix Emery (Turner) and Ivy Peterson (Bergman), the maligned barmaid he uses and abuses. But Tracy’s Hyde remains a decidedly human monster in his appearance. Yes, he’s sadistic and manipulative but his soul conceivably, at least, might still be saved with a bit of religion, a session of drug counselling, or an anger-management class or two.

David Hanna, a drama critic and entertainment writer for the Los Angeles Daily News was hardly the only critic who, upon the film’s release, registered disappointment with Tracy’s physical non-transformation into the villainous Mr. Hyde. There had been a lot of Hollywood press ballyhoo that the sound stage was to be closed to all visitors when Tracy’s Jekyll-to-Hyde scenes were to be lensed. So the eventual ho-hum big reveal of the new “Mr. Hyde” was a crushing disappointment. Hanna sighed, “The first time Tracy changed character the make-up looked as though he just needed a brace on his teeth and a little filling to make him appear a most respected member of society.”

This opinion was shared by London’s Picturegoer magazine. Their critic offered, the “scenes when Tracy assumes a grotesque make-up are included to make one smile, rather than creep.” It’s true that Tracy’s Hyde is an underwhelming sight to behold. No physical personification of evil flashes before us. Tracy looks like someone who merely awoke from a night’s bender: mussed hair, sagging dark bags under crowfeet lined eyes, slightly askew, bushy eyebrows and a leering countenance.

Though Fleming’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was far from a box-office disappointment, it certainly wasn’t the impressive, timeless effort his two most recent pictures, The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, had been – and would forever remain. Most critics seemed to agree Paramount’s 1931 was by far the better film. Though some argued Tracy was so capable an actor that he required “no gargantuan make-up to denote his transformation from the good Dr. Jekyll into the evil Mr. Hyde,” others countered this 1941 remake had problematic issues beyond make-up expectations. Mahin’s script offered a sprinkled layer of Freudian psychoanalysis into the mix, a reinterpret sure to offer cinemagoers a lesser experience. As the critic from Picturegoer noted, “March’s ape man make-up, crude though it was” managed to convey “a stronger sense of horror than Tracy’s milder conception, which comes as sheer anti-climax.”

There is an interesting “art against expectation” side note to all this. With the box-office of Hyde underperforming, Variety reported in September of 1941 that MGM had chosen to “revise its national campaign on the picture.” The original campaign (“A Good Woman – A Bad Woman. He Needed the Love of Both!”) hyped the film’s romantic elements at the expense of its (admittedly minor) horrific elements. A new campaign was struck, the “too prettified” and posh original publicity stills withdrawn. Replacement images were ordered, MGM choosing to “slice into the film for a blowup of Spencer Tracy’s face in the ‘Mr. Hyde’ impersonation.” This tactic and a new accompanying blurb (“It CHILLS you! Half-Man! Half-Monster!”) proved so successful in such markets as Detroit, that subsequent regional exhibitors were requesting use of the same ad mats used in that city’s exploitation campaign.

It’s possible there’s a gaggle of English professors who prefer the 1941 version above all others, but neither this version nor the better 1931 film is faithful to the original source material. Mahin script is interesting as it mines and mixes elements of both Stevenson’s work with ideas conjured by Oscar-nominated ’31 screenwriters Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein. This is an “actor’s film.” There’s lots of long and drowsy oral discourses that take place in tony parlors, but as an adventure of any sort it’s exciting only in the smallest of episodes. Fleming and Mahin’s version might have made for a compelling, intimate stage show, but as a film it’s overlong and not terribly involving.

In its review of July 1941, a scribe from Variety hit the nail on the head: “It may be that Fleming, keeping closer to the literal than spirit of the text, missed some of the more subtle points.” ’31 Director Mamaoulian would likely agree with that assessment. He boasted a few years hence that his version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde remained the “best one ever made.” “Spencer Tracy is a very competent actor,” Mamaoulian mused to the St. Louis Post Democrat. “But the man who plays Jekyll has to be superbly handsome. As Fredric March was. Then the changeover to Hyde is gripping. Tracy was miscast.” ‘Tis true in MGM’s 1941 version the potion brewed by Dr. Jekyll this time out was, at best, a weak tea.

This Warner Archive Collection Blu ray edition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is presented here in a pristine 1080p High Definition 16x9 1.37.1 and DTS-HD Master 2.0 Mono Audio. There’s hardly a visual blemish throughout, and it is doubtful admirers of the film will find any fault with this transfer. This is a bare bones release, the set’s only special features are the film’s original trailer and removable English subtitles.

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“THERE’S A SPEED LIMIT IN THIS TOWN”

By Raymond Benson

If any film can be called the quintessential film noir, it has to be Double Indemnity. Even film noir scholar Eddie Muller, the go-to author and historian who seems to appear in every supplemental feature attached to Blu-ray and DVD disks of film noir titles, agrees.

Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder and released in 1944, contains every cinematic trait that is associated with film noir: cynical characters, a femme fatale, betrayal, voice-over narration, witty dialogue, contrasting light and shadow, German expressionism in the production design and camerawork, smoking, drinking, murder, and an unhappy ending.

Based on James M. Cain’s scandalous 1943 novel (but it was first serialized in Liberty magazine in 1936), the picture was a challenge to the Hays Office censors, for the Production Code was heavily enforced at the time. Several studios had attempted to buy the rights in 1936, but the Hays Office warned producers that the novel was a non-starter as a Hollywood production. Years later, just after the separate publication of the book, Paramount tried again and this time, based on a treatment by Billy Wilder and his writing partner Charles Brackett, they were able to secure the rights.

Apparently, Brackett felt the material was too seedy and left the project, so Wilder sought out a new collaborator to pen the screenplay. Raymond Chandler landed the job, and the resulting alliance was the stuff of Hollywood gossip and legend. The two men couldn’t stand working together, but nevertheless the turmoil was the necessary ingredient. The screenplay, nominated for an Academy Award, is brilliant. What is especially notable is how the writers fooled the Hays Office with it. The dialogue was full of innuendo that spelled out to an audience exactly what was going on, even though no literal words were said that indicated that two people were committing adultery. Wilder and Chandler improved Cain’s dialogue in this manner, and it’s a delight to hear what comes out of the mouths of Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson during the course of the picture. (Phyllis, responding to unsubtle advances: “There’s a speed limit in this town.” Walter: “How fast was I going, officer?”)

Walter Neff (MacMurray) is an insurance salesman who calls on the Dietrichson house to renew an auto policy, but Mr. Dietrichson isn’t home. However, his wife, Phyllis (Stanwyck) is. There is an immediate attraction and flirtation, which leads to you-know-what. Phyllis eventually talks Walter into getting a life insurance policy—with a double indemnity clause (it pays double for accidental death)—for Phyllis’ husband, whom she can’t stand. Once Dietrichson (Tom Powers) is tricked into signing the policy, the naughty couple set out to murder him and make it look like an accident, and they succeed. Even Walter’s canny boss, Barton Keyes (Robinson), who has a “little man” inside of him that senses when something doesn’t add up, believes the story until he starts to closely examine all the angles. Throw in Dietrichson’s grown daughter from a previous marriage, Lola (Jean Heather), and now there’s an additional threat that comes between Walter and Phyllis. Keyes gets closer to the truth, Walter gets paranoid, Phyllis goes a little mad, and things heat up to a boiling point.

The acting, the direction, the script, the cinematography (by John F. Seitz), the editing, and the music score (by Miklós Rózsa), are all superb and were nominated for Oscars in each of these categories (Stanwyck was up for Best Actress). Why MacMurray and Robinson were not also nominated is a mystery worthy of Raymond Chandler! More significantly, Double Indemnity confirmed Billy Wilder’s future in Hollywood as one of the great, classic filmmakers.

The picture has been issued on home video many times in all formats, including Blu-ray. The Criterion Collection has now released two new editions—one in 4K UHD and Blu-ray combo (three disks), and another in just Blu-ray (two disks). The 4K digital restoration is the best this reviewer has ever seen the movie. It’s a flawless presentation with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.

A vintage audio commentary by Richard Schickel, ported over from previous releases, is included. Supplements abound. A port-over vintage feature on film noir (“Shadows of Suspense”) is welcome, but new extras produced by Criterion are especially fun: an interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg (editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment); and a lively conversation between film historians Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith. There are two radio adaptations—from 1945 and 1950—both starring Stanwyck and MacMurray. The entire second disk is a three-hour BBC documentary on Billy Wilder (originally on the Arena program), directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow. The booklet comes with an essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién.

Even if you already own a previous release of Double Indemnity, the Criterion Collection’s new edition is a must-have and worth the upgrade. For fans of film noir, Billy Wilder, the three stars, and solid, edgy filmmaking that raised eyebrows in 1944 and is still potent today. Highly recommended.

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Tony Danza, Tom Wopat, Anais Reno,

Douglas Ladnier, and Danny Gardner

join

BROADWAY BY THE YEAR

FROM THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES TO MOULIN ROUGE

A One-Night-Only History of Jukebox Musicals and Musical Revues

Celebrating Songs From:

The Ziegfeld Follies, George White’s Scandals, The Jersey Boys, Beautiful, All Shook Up, Kismet, After Midnight, Ring of Fire, and more!

CREATED, WRITTEN, DIRECTED, and HOSTED BY

SCOTT SIEGEL

MONDAY, May 23, 2022 at 8PM

THE TOWN HALL

(123 W. 43rd Street)

www.TheTownHall.org

The Town Hall presents Broadway By The Year: From The Ziegfeld Follies To Moulin Rouge on Monday, May 23 at 8pm. Created, written, directed and hosted by Scott Siegel for The Town Hall, the evening will continue Broadway By The Year’s 21st landmark season at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street).

In this second concert of the Broadway by the Year season, audience members will get a one-night-only history of jukebox musicals and musical revues. And the truth is, an extraordinary number of hit Broadway shows fit the description of these two kinds of shows. These oftentimes maligned genres have played an important role in the resurrection of songs, and styles from rock ’n’ roll (Jersey Boys, Beautiful, All Shook Up) to classical music (Kismet), and from country (Ring of Fire) to Rhythm & Blues (Black & Blue, After Midnight). And they have highlighted oftentimes forgotten composers, bringing their names back into the limelight, such as Eubie Blake with Eubie! and Fats Waller with Ain’t Misbehavin’.

The cast of Broadway By The Year: From The Ziegfeld Follies To Moulin Rouge includes: Tony Danza (Honeymoon In Vegas; TV’s Who’s The Boss); Tom Wopat (Annie Get Your Gun; Chicago), Anais Reno (Carnegie Hall, and concerts at Birdland), Douglas Ladnier (Jekyll and Hyde; Sweeney Todd), and Danny Gardner (Flying Over Sunset; Dames At Sea). More performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Broadway By The Year Dance Troupe, choreographed by Danny Gardner, will also be performing.

“Jukebox musicals are a fun and unique way to reimagine songs that we love by giving them a new context or a new storyline,” said Scott Siegel. “This concert will highlight the history of these shows and give audience members the chart-topping songs that we all love.”

We are excited for the second installment of this year’s Broadway By The Year concerts,” said The Town Hall’s Artistic Director Melay Araya. “The Town Hall has always been at the forefront of music and discovery, and we know that this concert will excite and entertain.”

Tickets for Broadway By The Year are $57-$67. For tickets and information, please visit www.thetownhall.org or call 800-982-2787. The Broadway By The Year concert series is part of The Town Hall’s presenting season.

Among the many other stars who may be performing in Broadway By The Year this season include: Marc Kudisch (The Girl From the North Country), Bill Irwin (Tony® Award Winner, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), Emily Skinner (Side Show), Stephanie J. Block (Tony® Award Winner, The Cher Show), Sebastian Arcelus (House of Cards), Lesli Margherita (Matilda), Kerry O'Malley (Into The Woods), Carolee Carmello (Mamma Mia!), Beth Malone (Fun Home), Tonya Pinkins (Caroline Or Change), Christiane Noll (Dear Evan Hansen), Julia Murney (Wicked), Brad Oscar (Something Rotten!), Lilli Cooper (Tootsie), Jarrod Spector (The Cher Show), Patti Murin (Frozen), Karen Ziemba (Chicago), Ethan Slater (Sponge Bob Squarepants The Musical), Bryan Batt (Mad Men), and Noah Racey (Curtains).

Bloomsbury/ BFI

Paperback

217 pages

70 colour illustrations

ISBN: 9781839021466

RRP: £19.99

Of the millions of film books out there, it’s highly likely that horror covers by far the largest percentage in terms of genre. Just what is it about the genre that proves to be so endlessly fascinating to readers and audiences, considering its disreputable reputation? This is something that Barry Keith Grant addresses in his introduction to this excellent collection of essays on 100 classic (and occasionally forgotten) American horror films. As he points out, horror has been with us throughout history, with its roots in Medieval woodcuts, Grand Guignol theatre and the Gothic novel, with the first horror film being produced by Georges Méliès in 1896. We are endlessly fascinated and enthralled by the feelings of terror, fear, suspense, and revulsion that horror inflicts on its willing audience.

The book covers American horror from over 100 years, going back as far as D.W. Griffith’s 1914 adaptation of Poe’s ‘The Raven’, The Avenging Conscience, or ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’, right up to more recent hits such as American Psycho (2000) Get Out (2017). Grant provides a two-page entry for each film with an in-depth discussion of the importance of the film and its place within cinema history, as well as a very useful Further Reading guide for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

Despite the relative brevity of each entry, the book provides insightful analysis and can cause the reader to reassess some of the films under discussion as well as discovering some for the first time: there are classics here, of course, such as Carrie (1976), Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Shining (1980, both technically American films despite being shot in the UK with mostly British crews), but it also covers some that one might not immediately think of when compiling your own list of important American horror films, such as Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), Ganja and Hess (1973), Weird Woman (1944) and John Carpenter’s box office bomb In the Mouth of Madness (1994).

Writing something like this must be a thankless task as there will always be people who disagree with the selection of films, but as it covers such a broad range across the entire history of American cinema, there ought to be plenty of titles here for readers to enjoy discovering more about in this immensely readable and highly recommended collection.

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By Hank Reineke

I confess to having difficulty understanding Corinth’s curious repackaging of three monochrome 1950’s science-fiction films. Pulling together this triad of films – all previously issued as single disc releases from the label’s Wade Williams Collection - seems to make sense on one level. We’ll discuss later on. But for the record this DVD of Drive-In Retro Classics: Science Fiction Triple Feature brings together such disparate Silver Age favorites as Kurt Neumann’s Rocketship X-M (1950), Nathan H. Juran’s The Brain from Planet Arous (1958) and Robert Clarke’s The Hideous Sun Demon (1959).

Though he didn’t have anything to do with the production of any of the films listed above, Wade Williams has served as curator of the analog and digital legacy of many ‘50s sci-fi and horror titles. Though Williams would aspire as a filmmaker himself, the titles appearing in the “Wade Williams Collection” are exactly that – films in his collection. Williams had prudently purchased the rights to a mostly moribund package of ‘50s sci-fi movie and TV shows from estates, from studios, or from producers/others holding ownership. The latter category would include films produced by such names as George Pal, Jack Broder, Harry M. Popkin and Richard Rosenfeld.

This decision to sell off their interests was an understandable (but ultimately bad) business decision on the part of the original rights holders. But it was the early 1970s and television stations – now the only outlet still providing a trickle of revenue for these old films – were abandoning their creaky old black-and-white libraries for color-TV programs. Few in Hollywood could have anticipated the stream of monies to be afforded by the home-video revolution only a few short years down the line.

To be fair, Williams was an enthusiast of these old sci-fi films, not simply a speculator who got lucky. Burgeoning consumer interest in home video product allowed opportunity for Williams to capitalize on his prudent purchases. The first of the “Wade Williams Collection” VHS videocassettes were issued as early as the late 1970s, mostly through such companies as Nostalgia Merchant and Starlog Video. In the 1999 Williams partnered with Image Entertainment, the latter dressing the new DVDs in bright-color slipcovers. These sleeves partly disguised the fact the movies contained within were black-and-white oldies. Sci-fi newbies unfamiliar with the histories of atomic age sci-fi films might have felt shortchanged by this creative - if somewhat duplicitous – bit of marketing.

But for those of us in the know, the Williams releases were a Godsend. We were the aficionados of old-school sci-fi, semi-aging folks who first caught the films during theatrical matinees in the 50’s or through fuzzy late-night TV broadcasts in the ‘60s. We no longer had to order wonky prints sourced from aged television screenings peddled by bootleg vendors advertising in the back pages of cult film magazines. When Laserdisc and DVD releases would supersede VHS cassettes in quality of presentation, Williams’ catalog was similarly trotted out in new formats.

It must be noted that Williams has also been, somewhat ungraciously, a target of criticism – often painted as a proverbial villain - over the last two decades by some collectors. As the rights holder to so many treasured classic – and not so classic – vintage sci-fi films, the just shy of eighty Williams has been reluctant in recent years to issue the films on Blu-ray. His reasoning for not doing, while disappointing, is sound. Answering critics of the handling of his catalog, Williams offered to contributors on the on-line Home Theater Forum while physical media sales remained important, “streaming, downloading, Amazon Prime, Netflix and TCM are the remaining outlets from classic films.”

He would also note that restorations were expensive undertakings. Factoring in public domain issues, the problem of outright bootlegging and copy-and-paste YouTube piracy, there was no longer any chance to break-even - much less garner a profit - from such an enterprise. It was a practical and understandable real-world estimate – but a response disappointing for those who preferred to stock their home video libraries with physical media.

Which brings us back, in a roundabout manner, to Drive-In Retro Classics: Science Fiction Triple Feature. Taking the series’ format history into account, the natural progression would have been to see these films released on Blu ray; to revisit them in spruced-up remasters with a dollop of bonus special materials tagged on. But, alas, this isn’t the case. Instead Drive-In Retro Classics: Science Fiction Triple Feature offers up a total of three films, running 222 minutes collectively, all crushed on a single disc. There are no special features, no new scans from better elements, no new bells or whistles of any sort. So buyer beware.

OK, with all this history out of the way I offer, for the uninitiated at least, a brief overview of the films in the Corinth set:

In The Brain from Planet Arous, Steve Marsh (John Agar), a technician of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, becomes the unwilling host of alien being named Gor. Gor is an evil levitating cerebellum with half-moon eyes who desires rule as “Master of the Universe.” He aspires to make all the people of the earth his slaves. The alternative is “death by intense radiation.” The earth is merely one stop on this quest… and he makes the most of the visit. Through his manipulation of his hypnotized subjugate Marsh, Gor unleashes a rash of attacks on military-bases and martial aircrafts.

Gor convinces the cowered American Generals to convene a summit with the earth’s six other nuclear powers, demanding all nations submit to his terms… or else. All seems lost until Vol, a second and far friendlier levitating brain from Arous, arrives at Indian Springs to offer advice. Vol explains the only way to stop the renegade Gor is by attacking the creature’s one weak spot, striking at the brain’s fissure of Rolando. But can Marsh’s girlfriend Sally (Joyce Randolph) and George the dog get this important info to Marsh in time?

The Hideous Sun Demon is the tour de force brainchild of actor/writer/producer Robert Clarke. Clarke plays Dr. Gilbert McKenna, an “obscure scientist” exposed to a type of radiation “far more dangerous than cosmic rays.” This turns out to be an unwelcome turn of events as such exposure has triggered a reverse evolution of his DNA, turning him into the Hideous Sun Demon, a half-human half-reptile biped. The movie is sort of a reversal of werewolfism. Clarke’s transformation is not triggered by the rising of the full moon but by exposure to the sun’s rays. When not lurching about Los Angeles and Santa Monica at night, McKenna sulks, drinks a lot of whiskey and hangs out a dingy nightclub where he listens to a buxom blond tickle the ivories and sing such moody jazz numbers as “Strange Desire.” Perhaps Little Orphan Annie desires for the sun to come out tomorrow, but its bad news for McKenna.

In Rocketship X-M, America is readying a sleek spacecraft for blast-off. The rocket is to carry a team of scientists – including a thirty-year old Lloyd Bridges – on a mission to the moon. Unfortunately, a combination of bad scientific calculations and an untimely meteor shower forces the craft off course. The space travelers instead land on Mars where, to their surprise, discover the ruins of an ancient civilization. They are received unwelcomingly, made targets by a gaggle of rock throwing Martian Neanderthals. Though they quickly and wisely abandon the Red Planet for a trip back home, they encounter yet another problem. Is there enough fuel left in the craft’s supply tanks to get them home safely?

Of the three films in this set, only Rocketship X-M aspires to loftier visions and high production values. Theobold Holsopple’s production designs are imaginative and iconic. The special-effects work of Don Stewart, I.A. Block and Jack Rabin is of similar high-caliber, especially when considering the era in which the film was produced.

To wrap up: the best thing I can say about this new DVD release is that it brings these films back into print, making them more easily available to new consumers. No more scouring through second hand shops or paying fifty dollar “collector” prices for the now rare original single-disc DVDs released twenty-odd years ago. But when one learns the MSRP of the Corinth release is $29.95… well, that price seems a bit stiff. But I’m confident the MSRP will likely not be the actual asking price when the disc hits online outlets.

I’d be remiss without at least mentioning one title, The Brain from Planet Arous, is reportedly being readied for Blu-ray release by another home video company, one known for bring loving attention to neglected films. This prospective Blu issue, slated for release in summer of 2022, promises a new restoration, an audio commentary, a booklet, and a special-features documentary as bonuses. So some may choose a wait-and-see approach before gambling on Drive-in Retro Classics.

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BY HANK REINEKE

Following the success of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1960-61, there was – forgive me – a “mad” rush to cash in on that film’s coattails. On one side of the pond, U.S. based pastiches of Psycho would come courtesy of Shlock-horror maestro William Castle. The gimmicky producer would rush out the psychological-thriller Homicidal in 1961 and, a bit later - and more famously - with Joan Crawford in Straiht- Jacket (1964). In England, Hammer Film Productions, riding high due to their reimagining of the classic “Universal” monsters, would likewise bring to the screen four psych-thrillers of similar temperament: Paranoiac and Maniac in 1963, Hysteria and Nightmare in 1965.

One of the connecting threads of this quartet of Hammer efforts were that all scenarios had been dutifully scribed by their “house writer” of sorts, Jimmy Sangster. In his entertaining autobiography Do You Want it Good or Tuesday? From Hammer Films to Hollywood: A Life in the Movies (Midnight Marquee Press, 2009), Sangster doesn’t dwell too long on any reminiscences of Nightmare, but offers he found making the film “as being all fun.” Which, I suppose, is a fair self-assessment.

Sangster’s film (which he also produced) begins with a nightmare sequence, a young woman walking frightened and apprehensive through the empty corridors of an insane asylum. That woman, Janet (Jennie Linden) enters the cell of a deranged woman who cackles and taunts menacingly. The girl awakens from her dream with a tortured scream, scaring the living daylights out of her roommates at Hatcher’s School for Young Ladies. One of her teachers at the school, Miss Mary Lewis (Brenda Bruce) realizes this privileged girl is suffering from some sort of nervous condition. She accompanies her anxious student to Hightower, the tony mansion Janet is to inherit when she comes of age.

The staff at Hightower, particularly John (George A. Cooper) and Mrs. Gibbs (Irene Richmond), seem fond of Janet, sympathetic and protective. In contrast, her guardian and executor of the property Henry Baxter (David Knight) - as well as a new face at the mansion, Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond) appear outwardly friendly… but there’s something about the two that arouses one’s suspicions. We soon learn the disturbed mental patient Janet encounters in her nightmares is her very own mother. It’s revealed that on the day of her eleventh birthday, Janet witnessed the brutal stabbing death of her father by the hand of her mother.

Though mom would be subsequently sent to the local madhouse, the brutal memories of the event have left Janet teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The girl is haunted by the thought that her mother’s insanity might prove to be an inherited trait. It’s not helpful to Janet’s mental condition that each night at Hightower she’s visited by a ghostly figure with a scarred face and white dressing gown. The ghost-woman roams the hallways, her appearances always preceding an act of staged violence. It’s enough to drive a young girl crazy… which is exactly what happens in due course.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the film’s narrative structure takes an unwelcome turn in its second half. Just as Janet Leigh’s embezzling character disappears – surprisingly - from Psycho a mere twenty-minutes into the film, so does Janet from Nightmare. Unfortunately, while Robert Bloch and Hitchcock’s shocking twist works perfectly in Psycho, Sangster’s cinematic mimic simply does not. Once Janet is out of the picture Nightmare is unable to sustain its tension or dramatic momentum.

With beleaguered Janet out of the film, the movie loses not only its principal character but its heart. The mystery of the ghostly figure and subsequent deterioration of Janet’s mental state – the film’s two most compelling elements – are simply abandoned midway through. There are really no surprises in what follows. The two characters we suspect from the beginning as being ne’er-do-wells are, of course, the two who actually are. The only mystery left is whether or not the pair will get away with their devious scheming. And that’s simply not all that exciting.

That’s not to say there’s no value to Nightmare. As one might expect, director Freddie Francis does a proper if workman-like job on the film. The movie offers many of the requisite elements expected of a thriller: twisting doorknobs, tentative walks through long, shadowy corridors, eerie bedside visitations from a mute, ghostly figure and frightened peeks from beneath the shield of a folded blanket.

In a 2013 memoir Francis recalled he was, for the most part, pleased with his work on Nightmare, believing he successfully managed “to sustain the drama and the shock elements.” He would write Sangster’s “excellent script […] was a genuinely scary mystery with of course a sting in the tail.” Author and Hammer historian Jonathan Rigby seems to agree in part, rightfully pointing out that many of Sangster’s psych-thrillers were thinly disguised “Gothic horror films in modern dress.”

Though Francis was well-schooled in the art of cinematic horror, he would admit he was not terribly enthused with the work of his detached cameraman Johnny Wilcox. But the director suggested the atmospherics of the film’s interior photography were buoyed by his keeping “the edges and corners dark thus giving the overall picture a claustrophobic and menacing feel.” Released in April of 1964 as the under-card of a double bill topped by Hammer’s The Evil of Frankenstein (also directed by Francis), Nightmare was met with mixed critical reviews – a considered view shared by many fans of Hammer thrillers ‘til this very day.

Scream Factory promotes their release of Nightmare as a “Collector’s Edition,” and one must say it certainly is that. There are a bevy of featurettes examining this 83 minute film from every conceivable angle. Kim Newman shares his thoughts during the near seventeen-minute study “Sleepless Nights – Reflecting on a Nightmare of a Movie.” Jonathan Rigby clocks a nearly twenty-five minute rumination during his episode “Slice and Fright. If that’s not enough, there’s also “Reliving the Nightmare: Interviews with Actress Julie Samuel and More,” “Nightmare in the Making,” “Jennie Linden Remembers,” and “Madhouse: Inside Hammer’s Nightmare.” If this bounty of extra-features still leaves you dissatisfied – and I can’t imagine why it ever would – there’s also an audio commentary supplied courtesy of film historian Bruce Hallenbeck. To round things off, we’re also gifted with the now expected theatrical trailer and a generous stills gallery.

In some respects, there’s perhaps too many featurettes complimenting a medium-range film that runs less than an hour-and-a-half. The general nuts and bolts background stories regarding the conception and making of Nightmare are shared with repetition by the usual gang of learned subjects – the trainspotting film scholars of British horror. The inclusion of commentaries by those who actually worked on the film partly offer a measure of balance, sharing time-worn memories and occasionally intriguing glimpses of behind-the-scenes moments. If the historians are somewhat guilty of bombarding us with factoids and ruminations of context, footnotes and filmographies, it’s all good, really. Let’s face it, this is the sort of minutiae we Hammer horror wonks live for and have now come to expect.

It’s fair to say that by the time you make it through all of this set’s special features you will know more about Nightmare than you ever thought possible. There are discussions on the influence that such films as Psycho and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955) had on Sangster’s work. It’s also suggested that the writer’s inspiration in scripting films in the psyche-thriller genre went back even further than 1955, with nods to such predecessors as Gaslight (1944) and The Spiral Staircase (1946).

The commentaries aren’t necessarily dry and academic. Hearing a bit of gossip is always fun. It’s interesting to learn of Sangster’s anguished reaction when discovering his original script for Nightmare had been critically red penciled in its pre-production margins by Hammer producer James Carreras. Then again, Sangster’s screenplay for Nightmare might have seemed a tad familiar to Carreras. It was in many ways reminiscent of the writer’s own scenario for an earlier Hammer effort Scream of Fear (1961). In any event, Sangster’s work would prove to have long legs. The screenwriter would later sell the storyline – and yet another reworking of the script - to producer Aaron Spelling for the ABC-TV film A Taste of Evil (1971) featuring Barbara Stanwyck.

Anyway, if you’ve read this review this far in, you already know you want this. Aficionados of the horror, mystery, and thrillers of Hammer Films Productions will properly celebrate this U.S. Blu-ray release of Nightmare – and well they should. Scream Factory offers a brand new 2K Scan from an interpositive of the B&W film and the image is stunning, with only the slightest and most unobtrusive white emulsion scratches slipping by now and again. The film is offered here in 1080p High-Definition Widescreen (2.35:1) with English DTS-HD master Audio and removable English subtitles. This is an essential film purchase for collectors of Hammer’s legacy films as well as for fans of intelligently crafted psychological-thrillers in the Psycho and Les Diaboliques vein. But make no mistake about it, Nightmare is, at best, a middle-range Hammer film. It’s neither a classic, nor an embarrassment nor a cheap knock-off. It’s simply a passingly engaging thriller that sadly derails due to unsatisfying and curious scripting issues.

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BY FRED BLOSSER

Although released in February 1942, Warner Brothers’ wartime drama “Captains of the Clouds” was filmed several months earlier, when America’s official stance toward the crisis in Europe, prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, remained one of isolationism. As the thinking went, the United States was better off conserving its own human and industrial resources as it continued to stagger back from the Great Depression. Let the combatants overseas fight it out between themselves.

Aware of the movies’ enormous power to sway public opinion, watchdogs in Congress — and in the industry itself — threatened severe action should any studio question the prevailing wisdom. Of a different mind and appalled by Nazi fascism, Harry and Jack Warner produced several movies that shrewdly challenged the restrictions by circumventing them. Thus the villains in Warners’ “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” (1939) were Nazi agents subverting freedom not in faraway Europe, but right here on American soil, where they could be exposed and thwarted by a vigilant FBI. “The Fighting 69th” (1940) and “Sergeant York” (1941) reminded audiences that America had crushed Germany’s war machine in World War I. Not only could we do so again, we should do so again as a spiritual and moral duty, they implied. In “Captains of the Clouds,” directed by Michael Curtiz, the surrogates for American intercession are five veteran Canadian bush pilots who join the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940 to defend England against the Luftwaffe.

The first part of the picture establishes one of the aviators, Brian MacLean, as a cocky, unscrupulous loner who consistently undercuts his rivals Jimmy (Dennis Morgan), Tiny (Alan Hale), Blimp (George Tobias), and Scrounger (Reginald Gardiner) in their business of flying passengers and cargo from one remote outpost to another in the Ontario back country. James Cagney portrays Brian in fine Cagney style. Nominally, MacLean is the protagonist of the story, but he’s only marginally more sympathetic than Cagney’s ruthless gangsters in “The Public Enemy” and “White Heat.” I suspect that many moviegoers who had barely survived the worst of the Depression secretly envied Cagney’s characters in their determination to stay one jump ahead of everybody else, whatever it took. MacLean gives Dennis Morgan’s earnest Jimmy one more reason to resent him when he puts the moves on Jimmy’s restless sweetheart Emily (Brenda Marshall), and she throws the good boy aside for the bad boy.

Then the war comes into play when the pilots hear Churchill’s inspirational “we shall fight them on the beaches” speech on the radio after the evacuation at Dunkirk. “Now there’s a man who knows how to word an invitation,” Brian marvels. The fliers join up to see active service overseas, not knowing they’re all above the ceiling age of 26 for combat pilots. Instead, disappointed but game, they’re commissioned as flight instructors at Canada’s training bases. Fans of WWII aviation movies may be equally disappointed since the development severely limits the opportunity for dogfights. The picture’s aerial combat is confined to a tense sequence in the final ten minutes, as the pilots become sitting ducks for a Messerschmitt’s machine guns while on emergency assignment to transport Lockheed bombers from Canada to England.

On the other hand, aside from the occasional use of models and back projection, the flight scenes in Canada are the real deal in vivid Technicolor. And thanks to the cooperation of the RCAF, the episodes at Canada’s real-life training fields have a convincing documentarian feel, including an appearance by Air Marshal Billy Bishop, still revered in 1942 for his exploits as a flying ace in World War I. Bishop plays himself in a low-key but ingratiating way as he awards wings to the cadets at their graduation ceremony. Fans may also be comforted that the latter half of the film satisfies the formula they’ve come to expect from a hundred war movies up to and beyond “Top Gun,” dogfights or no. The self-centered hero butts heads with military discipline, suffers a fall from grace with tragic consequences due to his impulsive nature, and then unexpectedly rallies with a final act of redemption.

A new Blu-ray edition of “Captains of the Clouds” from the Warner Archive Collection does full justice to the movie’s Technicolor palette, especially in several outdoor scenes in Canada’s spectacular North Bay wilderness. To simulate a night out at the movies in 1942, special features include a newsreel, a short, two cartoons, and the theatrical trailer. SDH captions are provided for those of us not old enough to remember World War II but well-served by subtitles anyway. Coincidentally, the Blu-ray was released as leaders from the U.S. and its NATO partners continued to debate and tune their response to Putin’s ongoing attack on Ukraine. The parallels with 1942 aren’t exact — for one thing, Hitler didn’t have a nuclear option in his back pocket — but it’s a reminder anyway that the worst facets of history have an unfortunate tendency to repeat themselves.

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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

BY DARREN ALLISON

It’s certainly great to see Chris' Soundtrack Corner back on the pages of Cinema Retro. It’s been a little while, but rest assured, Christian Riedrich and his team have been hard at work and it’s always worth the wait.

CSC has released no less than three brand new soundtracks, all of which are essentially their world premiere debuts. Sure, if you deep long and hard enough you may discover an odd track or a popular main title that has previously surfaced here and there or perhaps on some obscure library compilation – but hey, good luck with that search, should you wish to undertake it.

Across these three releases you will certainly unearth a delightful range of styles and moods as well as sampling various flavours of the exotic Mediterranean.

Daniele Patucchi’s Il Sorriso Del Ragno (1971) (CSC 031) sets us on our way rather nicely.

This rarely seen 1971 Italian film (translated as, The Spider's Smile) was recognised more by its international title, Web of Deception. It was the only film directed by Massimo Castellani, a more established second unit director who had enjoyed greater success as a script supervisor. Based on a script written by Italo Gasperini and Armando Morandi, with dialogue by Fabio Piccioni, Il Sorriso Del Ragno, this is a crime thriller disguised as a roaming travelogue. With locales ranging from France to multiple regions of Greece, all of which was captured beautifully by cinematographer Giorgio Tonti,– it was pretty much guaranteed that both cast and crew would enjoy their opportunity in the sun- soaked regions.

The story involves private investigator Tony Driscoll; a ladies' man perhaps, but he also has a good reputation when it involves recovering stolen goods. So when thieves make off with $5 million in jewels from a French bank, Driscoll is hired to get them back. However, certain questions point fingers at Driscoll and the film’s plot makes the most of this twist up until its conclusion.

A self-taught musician, composer Daniele Patucchi was born in 1945 in Turin. By the time he began writing and performing music professionally, he was adept in a wide range of styles, from jazz and rock to classical and displayed a certain amount of flair when it came to digital synthesizers – all of which served him well over 35 movie soundtrack scores. His music for Il Sorriso Del Ragno is based around five central musical styles. Three of them- Main, Suspense and Action themes- occupy the majority of the score's structure and serve to enhance the adventure, tension, and intrigue as the story unfolds. Additional musical motifs signify more regional themes and local instrumentation. Acoustic guitar and Greek mandolin in particular feature prominently and work to wonderful effect throughout.

Il Sorriso Del Ragno is really enjoyable little score. There’s plenty of variation, but never too much. It never spills over into a heavy clash of styles, and retains a comforting, common thread. Christian Riedrich’s pin sharp production and remastering by Stefan Betke is what we have come to expect. Only three tracks have been previously released. Additionally, five tracks that were not used in the movie have been added as bonus tracks: alternate or varied versions composed for the movie or re-edited for inclusion on one of CAM's promotional library music albums. The CD includes a 12-page illustrated booklet by Aletta Heinsohn and features detailed, exclusive notes on the film and its score by film music journalist Randall D. Larson.

Chris' Soundtrack Corner’s second score release is another by Daniele Patucchi, Sans Sommation (1973) (CSC 032). This was a much harder hitting German-French-Italian co-production (released in the UK as Without Appeal and Internationally as Without Warning). Made by French director Bruno Gantillon, Sans Sommation was a tougher, straight-shooting thriller which again presented composer Daniele Patucchi the opportunity to demonstrate his diverse range of talents.

Maurice Ronet stars as Raoul Maury, a former Police inspector who made a seriously bad career move when he attempted to take down the son of a prominent politician on drug charges. As a result, Maury finds himself demoted to the role of archivist in the police records department. When it is discovered that Maury bears a striking resemblance to Lt. Kieffer, an associate of wanted mercenary Pierre Capra, he is reinstated in order to impersonate Kieffer in order to get close to Capra and assassinate him. However, conflicting acts of suspicion and trust will all head for collision and loyalties will become strained and tested to the full.

Patucchi's film compositions were plentiful throughout the 1970s and '80s. Sans Sommation is one of more than 35 European movie soundtracks he composed throughout the 1970s and '80s. His gift for tuneful melodies served him well in this score. Its opening theme in particular offers a dusty, smooth Jazz trumpet and for the first couple of tracks the ride seems distinctly mellow and easy-going. But don’t get fooled, by the time ‘Elikiller’ kicks in we are on much tougher, off road territory and the bold, brassy action cues are allowed to take full flight. There’s a good degree of suspenseful tracks, too, that really build nicely along with some very cool Hammond organ playing on display. The single central theme is a brisk, high-energy, driving motif that continuously helps the score race forward.

The album is produced again by Christian Riedrich and mastered this time by Manmade Mastering – all of which results in a big, fully rounded sound. The main score consists of 12 tracks with 3 bonus tracks included. The CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet designed by Aletta Heinsohn and featuring detailed, exclusive notes on the film and its score by film music journalist Randall D. Larson, who deconstructs the score's elements in deeper detail.

Finally, Ingrid Sulla Strada (1973) (CSC 036 rounds up this excellent trilogy of scores and sees a welcome release from composer Carlo Savina. Ingrid Sulla Strada is an Italian psychological drama written and directed by Brunello Rondi. Rondi was arguably better known as a script-writer and script consultant, a reputation which had lead him to several collaborations with Federico Fellini. Rondi's directorial debut came more than a decade earlier in 1961 with the film Una vita violenta (aka Violent Life). Rondi went on to make a number of psychological/sexual dramas of which Ingrid Sulla Strada was one of the last.

Ingrid Sulla Strada is a drama in which young Ingrid (Swedish model and actress Janet Agren) leaves her home after being raped by her father. After her arrival in Rome, Ingrid, with little option, slips into prostitution. Life is not easy for Ingrid and soon her life begins to spiral out of control and eventually leads to her suicide. Ingrid Sulla Strada is not an easy film to find, and the limited amount of footage revealed within the trailer tends to suggest a rather bleak narrative and a Fellini- influenced style of filmmaking.

Ingrid Sulla Strada is without doubt an eclectic score. At its heart, Savina provides a light, delicate melody which is quite charming. And yet, the score’s overall soundscape doesn’t naturally provide a standardised form or perhaps an obvious sense of continuity. There’s certainly nothing wrong with Savina’s music, but the styles are so varied, one could almost be excused for thinking certain cues could had been taken from entirely different scores. As a collective it’s incredibly diverse and perhaps reflects the up-and-down nature and psychological aspect of the story. Regardless of its random style, it remains a fascinating listening experience.

Chris' Soundtrack Corner has completed an excellent challenge in making this obscure title available for the first time. Only the main theme and the pop organ track, ‘Walking through the falling leaves’, have been previously released. Christian Riedrich has beautifully produced the release, which certainly must have been a challenge. The result is the release of an entirely engaging score. Consisting of 15 tracks and 2 additional bonus tracks, the CD comes with a 12-page illustrated booklet designed by Tobias Kohlhaas and featuring detailed, exclusive notes by Randall D. Larson.

A fine collection of European scores for which everyone involved should be congratulated.

To order go to:

http://www.soundtrackcorner.de/

(Darren Allison is the Soundtracks Editor for Cinema Retro.)

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released a new DVD edition of John Wayne's late-career detective flick "Brannigan". The 1975 film takes Wayne out of the saddle and deposits him squarely in central London ("The Duke's in London. God Save the Queen!" read the tag line on the film poster.). The "fish-out--of-water" crime thriller concept began with Don Siegel's outstanding "Coogan's Bluff" (1968), which inspired Dennis Weaver's hit rip-off TV series "McCloud". Still, the premise works well with Wayne's tough Chicago Irish cop Jim Brannigan sent to London to extradite a top crime figure, much as Clint Eastwood's Coogan was shipped to New York to bring a criminal back to Arizona. Wayne had gone the detective route the year before in "McQ". He had originally been offered the role of Dirty Harry but correctly assumed his fans would not stand for him playing such an anti-Establishment character. Still, the phenomenal success of that movie made him realize that the Western genre was in decline and that he'd better switch gears occasionally to keep his loyal fans on board. Wayne was said to loathe "McQ". It was a downbeat, cynical look at corruption in the police force. Ironically, for many of his fans, it is regarded as one of the best films from the latter part of his career. Teaming Wayne with an ace director, John Sturges, the film provided the Duke with an intelligent script, surprising plot turns and a less-than-larger-than-life character to portray. The movie did fairly well despite Wayne's reservations so perhaps that is why he immediately returned to the crime film genre with "Brannigan". In reality, Wayne had planned to do a detective film with this title for at least a decade. A 1964 trade industry story announced he would begin filming it in "the near East". The project never happened. When it was dusted off a decade later, it was temporarily titled "Joe Battle" before mercifully assuming its original title. 

Like "McQ", "Brannigan" is a crime thriller but the two films are far apart in terms of style. "Brannigan" is directed by the underrated Douglas Hickox ("Theatre of Blood", "Zulu Dawn") with emphasis on humor, as we see Wayne immediately learn that the crime kingpin he is to escort home (John Vernon) has been allowed to escape. His counterpart is Scotland Yard Inspector Swan, played by Richard Attenborough. This "Odd Couple"-like teaming of two radically different acting styles is one of the true delights of the film. Both Wayne and Attenborough are clearly enjoying each other's company and their good natured "one-upmanship" provides plenty of genuine laughs. As the two detectives relentlessly track down their man, there are plenty of memorable action highlights including a well-staged car chase that includes a jump over the rising Tower Bridge. There's also a major, well-staged pub brawl that's right out of the John Ford playbook.  Director Hickox makes the most of London's fabulous sites, which adds immeasurably to the film's pleasures. (This is only one of two movies to be shot in London's ultra-exclusive private Garrick Club and Hickox makes the most of it, showing off the elegant facility for a sequence in which Brannigan and Swan debate police tactics over lunch.) There is also a spirited, lively performance by Judy Geeson as a young Scotland Yard detective who enjoys a playful but platonic relationship with Brannigan. The supporting cast is a strong one with John Vernon and Mel Ferrer providing the villainy.  Ralph Meeker gets relatively prominent billing but his on-screen appearance lasts little more than a minute, indicating some of his footage may have been left on the cutting room floor. The film climaxes with an assassin trying to gun down Brannigan from a speeding car at the old Beckton Gasworks, a ghastly-looking industrial facility that was memorably used for the pre-credits sequence of the 1981 James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only". All of this is set to a zippy jazz score by Dominic Frontiere that is off-beat for a film in this genre. "Brannigan" is not a late-career Wayne classic in the way that "The Cowboys" and "The Shootist" can be regarded. But it is a hell of a lot of fun and provides Wayne with a role that fit him like a glove. Nearing seventy years old, he could still at this point carry off the action sequences credibly.  

The Kino Lorber transfer is excellent with a crisp, clean image that does justice to the London scenery. Sadly, no commentary track but Kino Lorber does provide the original trailer along with a gallery of trailers for other action flicks available from the company. The sleeve also eschews the standard U.S. artwork of Wayne in a pub brawl in favor of more offbeat artwork from the European campaign showing the Duke firing a pistol. Recommended. 

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WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES THE BELOVED CLASSIC

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN TO BE RELEASED ON 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY™

Acclaimed as one of the greatest MUSICAL films of all time,

will BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

BURBANK, CA, – To celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the 1952 acclaimed and beloved film, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today that Singin’ In The Rain will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack and Digital on April 26.

Singin’ In The Rain is widely considered to be one of the greatest musical films in cinematic history. The musical romantic comedy was directed by choreographed by Gene Kelly (On the Town) and Stanley Donen (On the Town) and stars Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchel and Cyd Charisse.

The film was written by Adolph Green and Betty Comden and produced by Arthur Freed. The music is by Nacio Herb Brown and the lyrics are by Arthur Freed.

O'Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for their screenplay, while Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1989, Singin' in the Rain was one of the first 25 films selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film ranked 10th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list, 16th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list, 16th on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Passions list, “Singin’ In The Rain” was 3rd on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs list, and the film was number 1 on AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals list.

Ultra HD* showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before.  

In addition, the remastered film will screen at the TCM Film Festival on April 24**. For more information, please visit https://filmfestival.tcm.com.

TCM Big Screen Classics will also present the 70th anniversary of Singin' In The Rain in theaters this April in the US. Tickets are on sale now, go to www.FathomEvents.com for more details.

Singin’ In The Rain will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack for $24.99 SRP and features an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Blu-ray disc of Singin’ In The Rain. Fans can also own Singin’ In The Rain in 4K Ultra HD via purchase from select digital retailers beginning on April 26th.

Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray Elements

Singin’ In The Rain Blu-ray contains the following previously released special features:

Commentary by Debbie Reynold, Donald O’Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Stanley Donen, Betty Camden, Adolph Green, Bad Lurhmann and Rudy Behlmer.

Singin’ in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation Documentary

Theatrical Trailer

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION ELEMENTS

On April 26, Singing In The Rain 4K UHD will be available to own for streaming and download to watch anywhere in high definition and standard definition on favorite devices from select digital retailers including GooglePlay, Vudu, Xbox and others, and will be made available digitally on Video On Demand services from cable and satellite providers, and on select gaming consoles.

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“DOUBLE W. C. FIELDS”

By Raymond Benson

Kino Lorber has been releasing the W. C. Fields catalog in high definition, upgraded from previous releases on DVD, and two more have come to the fore—You’re Telling Me! and Man on the Flying Trapeze, two titles that don’t immediately come to mind when one thinks of top tier, classic Fields pictures, but never fear—they’re hilarious and worth a look.

You’re Telling Me! preceded The Old Fashioned Way and the brilliant It’s a Gift (both previously reviewed here at Cinema Retro), all three of which appeared in 1934, while Fields (real name—William Claude Dukenfield) still had a working contract with Paramount Pictures. Man on the Flying Trapeze was released in 1935, a return to a “Fields comedy” after the actor took a sidetrack sojourn, courtesy of Paramount, into more high-brow fare (David Copperfield, an Oscar Best Picture nominee, and Mississippi, a musical starring Bing Crosby).

In Telling Me, Fields is Sam Bisbee, an optometrist and amateur inventor (one of his inventions is a “nose-holder-upper,” which pulls one’s nose up to open the nasal passages when in bed). As usual, he’s married to a shrew of a wife (Louise Carter), who is embarrassed by the family’s social status of living “on the wrong side of the tracks.” Their daughter, Pauline (Joan Marsh), is sweet on Bob Murchison (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), who comes from a wealthy, upper class family. Bob’s snobby mother (Kathleen Howard) will not allow her son to marry Pauline, mainly because of her contempt for “low life” Sam. However, Sam by chance meets Princess Lescaboura (Adrienne Ames) on a train. The princess is a visiting dignitary, and she is impressed by Sam’s woeful story of his troubles. Sam is under the mistaken impression that the princess (“Call me Marie”) was about to commit suicide when he meets her, and she plays along to earn his friendship. Marie can see there’s a good man there, so she takes it upon herself to visit his town and make things right between him and his family and the community. Click here to order from Amazon.

Man on the Flying Trapeze has no flying trapezes, but the title possibly suggests the precarious tightrope act that is the life of Ambrose Wolfinger (Fields). He, too, is married to a shrew (Kathleen Howard again, something of the “Margaret Dumont” of W. C. Fields films). Fields has a daughter, Hope (Mary Brian), from a previous marriage, but the second Mrs. Wolfinger’s uptight mother (Vera Lewis) and lazy brother (Grady Sutton) live with them, too. No one in the household can stand Ambrose—in fact, they make his life hell—except for Hope, who adores him. Ambrose loses his job as a “memory expert” because he takes a day off to attend a wrestling match, and it’s one of many things that goes wrong in Ambrose’s world. Luckily, Hope is on hand to steer luck his way.

There are some classic comedic bits in both films. Telling Me has a wonderful golfing sequence toward the end, in which Fields shares the screen with longtime foil Tammany Young (here as a caddy). Flying Trapeze is packed with funny bits. The opening involves two burglars (one being Tammany Young, again, plus a young Walter Brennan!) who get drunk in Fields’ cellar and start singing. Later, the chase of a runaway tire after getting a flat takes Fields onto the railroad tracks provides some laughs, along with the wrestling sequence (featuring a young Tor Johnson as a heavily bearded “Russian” wrestler).

Throughout it all in both films, W. C. Fields maintains a command of the material. The camera loves him, and he obviously loves the camera. This is a period when Fields’ popularity was at its highest, with excellent examples of his impeccable comic timing, slow burns, drunken confusion, and outrageous dialogue.

Both Kino Lorber disks, sold separately, are 2K masters that are indeed an improvement over previous DVD releases. Oddly, both Blu-ray editions feature the same bonus supplement—an episode of the old “Wayne and Shuster” TV show (Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, comics of the 40s and beyond, who had some success on television in the 50s and early 60s). The segment focuses on the life of Fields. This same supplement also appeared on the Never Give a Sucker an Even Break Blu-ray disk from the same label. One might have thought that Kino could have found some different supplements to spread around the various Fields titles on release, but that is not the case. Theatrical trailers for both films, and other Kino products, fill out the packages.

You’re Telling Me! and Man on the Flying Trapeze are both worthwhile additions to your W. C. Fields library. They are snapshots of a comic genius in his prime. Click here to order from Amazon.

Lexington Books

222 pages

Illustrated

Hardback

January 2022

ISBN: 978-1-4985-7072-5

RRP: £73.00

BY ADRIAN SMITH

British author Edgar Wallace, aside from the London pub bearing his name, is now largely forgotten in his home country, and is perhaps best remembered, if at all, for his contribution to RKO’s King Kong (1933), although he sadly died before the film was completed. During his immensely prolific career as a journalist, author, poet, playwright, historian, film producer and director, screenwriter and chairman of the British Lion Film Corporation, he published around two hundred novels, almost a thousand short stories and twenty stage plays. It was said that at one point around a quarter of all books being read in the UK were written by Wallace. He was best known for his crime novels, particularly ‘The Four Just Men’ series and the amateur detective J.G. Reeder, but he also created the colonial adventurer ‘Sanders of the River’ and wrote science fiction and comedy stories. His non-fiction often focused on his experiences in South Africa during the Boer War or on his passion for horse racing (the latter of which kept him mostly in debt and helped fuel his need to keep writing).

Many of his stories and plays were adapted by Hollywood and British filmmakers during the 1930s and 1940s, and in the 1960s the tiny Merton Park Studios produced a whopping forty-seven second-feature films under the title The Edgar Wallace Mysteries. These films were so successful that The Shadows scored a chart hit with their cover of the theme music ‘Man of Mystery’.

And yet Edgar Wallace’s work has now mostly fallen out of print in the UK. Perhaps it is because, as he himself once admitted, “I do not write good books, I write bestsellers.” In Germany, however, it was a different story; paperback publisher Goldmanns issued dozens of Wallace novels (and those of his son Bryan Edgar Wallace) in the 1940s and 1950s under the cheap imprint Taschen-Krimi (krimi meaning crime), and these novels were very popular in a post-war country still coming to terms with the relationship it now had with the UK, it’s former enemy in two world wars. Wallace’s stories, often set in a fog-bound London, were a fantasy world of terror and crime where the good guys always prevailed.

In 1959 Danish film company Rialto tried their hand at an adaptation and produced The Mask of the Frog, shot in German language but set in London, and made with a comedic tone which was often found in the original novels. It was such a huge success that it launched a series which ran for over a decade and resulted in thirty-two films, mostly shot in Hamburg or Berlin (with second unit photography in London) and helped launch the careers of such film stars as Klaus Kinski, Karin Dor and Joachim Fuchsberger, as well as attracting stars such as Christopher Lee – he spoke perfect German – who appeared in The Devil’s Daffodil and Secret of the Red Orchid. Each film would begin with the message “Hallo, hier spricht Edgar Wallace.” Other popular films in the series, many of which were dubbed into English and distributed in the UK and the USA, included The Dead Eyes of London, The Ringer and The Hunchback of Soho. Towards the end of the cycle, Rialto joined forces with Italian filmmakers to make Double Face, What Have You Done to Solange? and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, generally thought of as giallo films but released in Germany as part of the Krimi series.

Although Rialto’s Krimi production ended in the early 1970s, the films lived on through regular television screenings, and thus the popularity of Edgar Wallace has endured, and German translations of his novels have remained in print ever since. And whilst several German volumes have also been published dedicated to this series of films, until now the main English-language writing on the Krimi phenomenon was in the magazine Video Watchdog back in the 1990s. Nicholas G. Schlegel’s new book German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon: Dark Eyes of London is therefore a very welcome and much- needed addition for anyone interested in exploring these films in more detail. With an insightful analysis of each of the films and their reception, alongside a history of the post-war German film industry and where these films sit within that context, reading this book will have you eagerly seeking out copies of all of them. Fortunately, a great deal of the Rialto Krimis are now available on DVD and Blu-ray with English subtitles, and occasionally with the original English dubs (sometimes the films were shot in both languages, with different actors), although some are still only available in German. Perhaps the films are considered to only be of commercial interest to German-speaking audiences. It can be hoped that the renewed interest this book will spark amongst English-speaking film fans will encourage the rights holders to eventually make all these films available.

Although the idea of 1960s German film adaptations of Edgar Wallace may not be everyone’s cup of tea (something which is drunk with great regularity in the films themselves), I would strongly encourage you to at least seek one out. They are great fun, balancing humour with tales of outlandish criminal masterminds (the tone often recalls episodes of The Avengers), and the novelty of seeing people in English police uniforms talking in German about Scotland Yard adds an additional element of charm to the whole thing. This new book from Schlegel is an essential read, taking in the films, the industry, their enduring legacy, and global influence. The hardback is admittedly something of an eye-watering price, but well worth it for the serious Krimi fan. For the curious, perhaps wait patiently for the paperback.

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“YOU’LL TAKE IT AND LIKE IT”

By Raymond Benson

The late Peter Bogdanovich called it “the first great detective movie.” That statement is possibly arguable, but there is no question that the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon was the beginning of something new. Film historians will forever debate what the first film noir might have been, but Falcon is one of the contenders. The film presented a cynical, hard boiled detective in Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), utilized German expressionism in its cinematography and design (low camera angles, high contrasting black and white photography, shadows, and angular architecture), and a pessimistic tone. Falcon also truly launched Bogart into the A-list. Prior to this (and, some say, High Sierra, released the same year), Bogart usually played villains in crime pictures, third billed or ever further down the line.

The Maltese Falcon is of course based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel, originally serialized in 1929. Warner Brothers immediately bought the film rights, and an initial adaptation was made and released in 1931 (also called The Maltese Falcon). This version starred Ricardo Cortez as Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly. The picture definitely can be termed “pre-Code,” as it is rather risqué and isn’t a very faithful adaptation of the novel. Warners remade the material five years later as Satan Met a Lady, starring Warren William as “Ted Shane” and none other than Bette Davis as “Valerie Purvis.” This version is played mostly for laughs and is even less faithful than the first.

Enter John Huston, who had been working in Hollywood in the late 1930s as a respected screenwriter. He wrote the script for High Sierra (1941, directed by Raoul Walsh), which starred Bogart. The two men became friends. Huston made it known that he wanted to write and direct. Legend has it that Orson Welles suggested that Huston try a faithful adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, since the material was crying out to be done properly. Huston apparently wrote the script and left it on Jack Warner’s desk. Then, on condition that no “stars” were cast and the budget remain ridiculously low, Huston got the job to make the film. At the time, Bogart was not a star. Co-star Mary Astor had been a big star in the silent era and early 30s, but some personal scandals had stymied her career by the 40s—so casting her was not expensive. The two other (now) big names in the movie, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, were also considered low risks. Lorre had been making cheap horror films and mysteries, Greenstreet, a stage actor, had never made a movie. The picture also brought us Elisha Cook, Jr., Gladys George, and Lee Patrick.

The story is typically complex with many twists and turns, and it is always surprising. It is about one of cinema’s greatest “MacGuffins,” a statue of a falcon that is allegedly made out of gold and covered in rare jewels—but to disguise it, someone covered it in black enamel. It seems everyone in the tale wants the thing, except for private investigator Sam Spade (Bogart). He gets involved in the hunt for the trophy when his partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) is murdered at a rendezvous set up by a new client, “Ruth Wonderly” (Astor). It turns out Wonderly’s real name is Brigid O’Shaughnessy (maybe), and she’s in league with some sinister characters to buy—or steal—the statue. The “fat man,” Kasper Gutman (Greenstreet) is the top villain here, and his sidekick, Joel Cairo (Lorre), provides icky support. All Spade really wants to do is find out who killed his partner and deliver that person to the police, but in doing so must become embroiled in the intrigue and puzzles surrounding the coveted Maltese Falcon.

Besides the acting and direction, Huston’s script contains memorable lines of dialogue. “When I slap you, you’ll take it and like it.” “Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be.” And of course, “The stuff that dreams are made of.” The film received three Academy Award nominations—Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Greenstreet), but failed to win any of them.

The Warner Home Video Blu-ray edition of The Maltese Falcon was released over ten years ago, but its timeless appeal makes it appropriate to review. It is a marked improvement over the 2000 DVD release, which was bare bones. A further 2006 3-disk DVD release contained all of the extras ported over to this Blu-ray edition. The high definition transfer looks great and is without blemishes. The movie comes with an audio commentary (by Bogart biographer Eric Lax).

Supplements abound: There’s an interesting, nearly half-hour featurette on the history of the film; a collection of Bogart trailers narrated by the late Robert Osborne of TCM; a blooper reel of Warners pictures; makeup tests; a 1941 newsreel; an Oscar-nominated short (“The Gay Parisian”); two of the greatest Looney Tunes cartoons (Bugs Bunny in “Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt” and Porky Pig in “Meet John Doughboy”); trailers for Falcon and other Warners films of the era; and three audio-only radio adaptations, two of which feature the movie’s original stars and one with Edward G. Robinson). The only thing missing from the Blu-ray edition is the inclusion of the previous two Falcon feature adaptations, which were included in the 3-disk DVD set.

The Maltese Falcon is fabulous entertainment, a spectacular example of film noir, a showcase for Humphrey Bogart’s star power, and one of the great Hollywood films of the 1940s. Highly recommended.

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“OUR TOWN WITH UNIONS”

By Raymond Benson

This is a little-known gem of a film from producer Louis de Rochemont, the man best known for introducing The March of Time documentary newsreels to cinemas that ran from the 1930s until the early 1950s. He also produced several mainstream pictures, and one of these from 1951, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, is an underdog-battles-severe-odds tale of the highest caliber.

Directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Whistle might be described as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, only with unions. Yes, this is a union drama along the lines of On the Waterfront or, much later, Norma Rae.

In a tight 96 minutes, Siodmak brings us a riveting story—the kind that gets an audience riled up against the injustices thrown at a protagonist. The suspense builds to a breaking point as we wonder how it’s all going to play out.

The writing credits are a bit complicated. J. Sterling Livingston wrote the original story, but then a story treatment was developed by Lawrence Dugan and Laurence Heath. This was next turned into a screenplay by Lemist Esler and Virginia Shaler (de Rochemont’s wife), with additional dialogue by Leo Rosten! Whatever it took, the movie is well-written and engaging.

Supporting Lloyd Bridges in the cast is a host of young, future character actors such as Murray Hamilton, Ernest Borgnine, Arthur O’Connell, James Westerfield, Parker Fennelly, and Anne Francis. Second billed, though, is Dorothy Gish (actually in a small role). Carleton Carpenter, a crooner/actor of the period, has a showy role as a younger union member who sings a number with Francis (“Ev’ry Other Day”). Each cast member displays a down-home small town persona that works very well with the location filming in New Hampshire, where the story takes place.

In the hamlet of Eaton Falls, a whistle signals the beginning and end of the work day. But there’s trouble. A shoe factory had to close down, laying off its workers. Now, the Doubleday Plastic Factory is losing money and must cut costs to stay in business. Brad Adams (Bridges) is the head of the union, and he is determined to make sure no one gets laid off; and yet, Mr. Doubleday may be forced to cut some workers as more modern machinery is purchased to pave the way for the future. When Doubleday dies in an accident, his wife and now-owner of the plant (Gish), appoints Brad the new president. This doesn’t sit well with some of the crankier union members, like Al Webster (Hamilton, in one of his typical “hothead” roles). To make things worse, the slimy production manager, Hawkins (Russell Hardie) and his cohort, the company’s treasurer (Helen Shields), plot to ruin Brad and convince Mrs. Doubleday to sell the company. This would, of course, be a disaster for the town. Brad soon finds himself at odds with his loyalties to the union and his responsibility as “management.” Eventually, the plant must temporarily close while Brad and his few allies scramble to find solutions to keep the company running while the malcontents threaten upheaval and violence.

This is potent stuff and while it doesn’t have the depth and grit that On the Waterfront brought to the subject three years later, Whistle is still a serious and tension-inducing winner. The cast is marvelous and the black and white cinematography by Joseph C. Brun is striking.

Flicker Alley/Flicker Fusion presents an impressive product. Great care was made to restore the little-seen film to a 2K master, undertaken by the de Rochemont estate and spearheaded by Tom H. March and David Strohmaier, the same team that brought us the Flicker releases of the Cinerama and Cinemiracle films. There is an audio commentary by author and film historian Alan K. Rode.

Supplements include a short remembrance of de Rochemont from his grandson, L. Pierre de Rochemont; a featurette on the restoration of the picture; an isolated score track (music by Louis Applebaum); archival single recordings of Carleton Carpenter’s “Ev’ry Other Day” and (presumably) the B-side, “It’s a Million to One You’re in Love,” and the theatrical trailer. A nice insert contains an essay excerpt from Richard Koszarski’s Keep ‘em in the East—Kazan, Kubrick and the Post-War New York Film Renaissance.

The Whistle at Eaton Falls is a surprise treasure from Flicker. For fans of Hollywood post-war social problem dramas, and of the spectacular cast. Recommended.

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“IS YOU IN THERE, ZOMBIE?”

By Raymond Benson

There are a handful of Hollywood movies out there that successfully combined comedy with the horror genre. Surprisingly, truly good ones are few and far between. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is perhaps the quintessential example of the genre mashup. It provided genuine thrills and some frights mixed in with hilarious comedic bits. A more recent one that comes to mind is of course the 1984 megahit, Ghostbusters. There is no question that this Bill Murray vehicle owes a great deal to the 1940 romp, The Ghost Breakers, considered one of Bob Hope’s most beloved early pictures.

Based on the 1909 stage play, The Ghost Breaker, by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, the 1940 movie is actually a remake of previous adaptations. Both Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred E. Green made silent films of the play in 1914 and 1922, respectively, and both of these versions are considered lost. In turn, the 1940 The Ghost Breakers was remade by the same director, George Marshall, as Scared Stiff (1953), which starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and it is arguable that Marshall also helmed a very similar picture in 1945 entitled Murder, He Says, which starred Fred MacMurray.

After the success of The Cat and the Canary (1939), yet another good example of a Hollywood horror-comedy that starred Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, the pair was brought back a year later for The Ghost Breakers. Also starring Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas, a young Anthony Quinn, and African-American comic actor Willie Best, The Ghost Breakers was a popular hit that solidified Hope’s place as one of the coming decade’s great talents.

Mary Carter (Goddard) has inherited a spooky old mansion on an island off of Cuba, and she plans to sail from New York to the island to inspect the place. Other sinister forces—a foreigner named Parada (Lukas), the twin Mederos brothers (Quinn, in both roles), and others not named here for the sake of spoilers, also want the mansion because of a secret hidden within. Apparently it is also full of ghosts, or so the legends say. During a classic situational and comedic mix-up of mistaken identities, radio star Larry Lawrence (Hope) finds himself trapped in Mary’s steamer trunk that has been loaded onto the ship to Cuba. Larry’s loyal valet and friend, Alex (Best) stowaways to keep track of his boss. Once on the island, Larry assumes the role of a “ghost buster,” since he’s obviously fallen for Mary and wants to protect her from the bad guys. Throw in a handsome historian, Geoff (Carlson), and the cinematic stew has enough complications and plot twists to keep one entertained for the film’s brief 83 minutes.

Hope is terrific, and one can easily see the development of his coward-with-bravado character that he adapted for himself in pretty much all screen appearances, including the “Road” pictures with Bing Crosby. Goddard is also winning, a perfect comic and gorgeous foil for the tale. While the rest of the cast is admirable, one must single out the great Willie Best, an actor who unfortunately was misused by Hollywood—very typical in those days—to display a stereotype of the comic black man with bulging eyes and slow dialogue delivery. (“Is you in there, zombie?” he asks, knocking on a door.) That said, it is apparent that Best is brilliant in comic timing, handling the demeaning characterization with utmost professionalism. If The Ghost Breakers has a flaw, it is this. In today’s climate, Best’s Alex is wince-inducing, but one can still appreciate the man’s talent and competence.

Director Marshall keeps the picture moving at a brisk pace, and the creepy aspects—while certainly not scary today—are effective enough. Noble Johnson’s zombie is an interesting take on that relatively rare creature (for the time), three years prior to the Val Lewton masterpiece, I Walked with a Zombie.

Kino Lorber’s new 2K master looks quite good in high definition, despite the age of the material. There is an audio commentary by author and film historian Lee Gambin that fills in listeners on all the trivia behind the movie. The only supplement is a “Trailers from Hell” piece on the title by Larry Karaszewski, and the theatrical trailer for this and other Kino releases.

The Ghost Breakers is for fans of Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Hollywood horror-comedy, and those distinctive pre-war pictures that provided solid enjoyment in less than ninety minutes.

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American Cinematographer magazine is providing plenty of catnip for James Bond fans by publishing on-line reprints of its coverage of the series from over the decades. In this article, Second Unit Director (and future Bond Director) John Glen provides a first-hand report on the filming of the 1969 classic "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" starring George Lazenby in his one, memorable turn as 007. Click here to access the article. 

BY TODD GARBARINI

The major question that I have about Douglas Heyes’s Kitten with a Whip, which opened in New York on Wednesday, November 4, 1964 on a double bill with Lance Comfort’s Sing and Swing (1963) with David Hemmings at some theaters, is this: where is the titular whip? We have the kitten, as embodied by the overly beautiful Ann-Margret as “bad girl” Jody Dvorak, but there is no whip to be found. Perhaps the “whip” is her personality? There certainly is an argument to be made for that. Jody has just made a break from a juvenile detention center but not before seriously wounding the head of the place who becomes hospitalized. Outwitting the police, she breaks into the semi-upscale home of David Stratton (John Forsyth), a stuffy, by-the-book political candidate hopeful twenty-three years her senior whose wife and daughter are conveniently away in a scenario determined to make him look very creepy. David discovers Jody asleep in his daughter’s bedroom and many questions ensue along with his disdain for her presence. He knows full well that people will talk should they find out he is harboring a fugitive dripping with sex appeal. Desperate to get rid of Jody, he appears to be uneasy about his own unchecked desire for her which she readily picks up on. A series of embarrassing situations that could reveal Jody’s presence in David’s house to his friends and family bring out David’s true nature, especially when Jody’s three friends (a 1960’s “tough girl” and cinema’s two cleanest male “goons”) force their way in to crash his homelife in a chain of events that lead them all to Mexico and a tragic ending.

Ann-Margret had already made a name for herself appearing in Frank Capra’s Pocket Full of Miracles (1961), José Ferrer’s State Fair (1962), and George Sidney’s Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and his Viva Las Vegas (1964) by the time she filmed this black-and-white outing. She sheds her ingenue persona with sex kitten ferocity in a tale (or tail) that was based upon the 1959 novel of the same name. Kitten is a showcase for her considerable talents in a performance that goes from sublime and demur to that of a fighting and snarling hellcat. The dialog dances around the issues of promiscuity and infidelity the way that it had to at that time, coming on the heels of Elia Kazan’s 1958 Baby Doll and Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita (in the novel Jody and David have sex, however that would have been a big screen no-no in 1964 something that Alfred Hitchcock knew all too well). Kitten comes just a little later than it probably should have, but it allows its star to alternate emotions in a performance that fluctuates from naïve innocence to verbally threatening David should he call the police on her. While we are not talking about anything so overtly sexual as the onscreen coupling of Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Bernardo Bertolucci’s infamous Last Tango in Paris (1972), the film no doubt raised some eyebrows at the time.

The movie is now available as a Region-Free Blu-ray from ViaVision Entertainment’s fine Imprint video label, with a brand new and beautiful high definition transfer.. The extras are as follows:

A very informative and entertaining audio commentary by film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of the 2021 book The Giallo Canvas: Art, Excess and Horror Cinema, and Josh Nelson. They discuss how Baltimore filmmaker John Waters considers Kitten to be a failed art film, and there is a discussion of how the movie was seen as the low point of Ann-Margret’s career and how she struggled and came back gloriously in Carnal Knowledge (1971), earning her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1972 (losing out to Cloris Leachman in The Last Picture Show). Her second nomination was for Best Actress in Tommy (1975) in 1976 (losing out to Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is the aptly titled piece narrated by Kat Ellinger that runs about 29 minutes and is a commentary on how teenagers were not a force to be reckoned with until they possessed their own spending power. Juvenile delinquency was looked upon as an epidemic that required a response. Rock ‘n Roll and comic books were considered catalysts for juvenile delinquency, along with trashy movies at the drive-in that were filled with violence, sex and songs. Think the Beach Party films, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and The Wild One (1957) as the type of fare desired by this new dollar-toting demographic. The Blackboard Jungle (1955) dealt with inner city school bullies and authority, while other films presented stories of redemption and salvation – themes that permeate much of the later cinema of Martin Scorsese. Ms. Ellinger also discusses Roger Corman’s 1957 outing Teenage Doll, a film devoted to girls which was released during an era of exploitation films featuring unknown actresses. Jack Hill’s Switchblade Sisters (1973) is also discussed as a film wherein the women use their sexuality as a weapon of aggression. She also mentions the Sukeban films of Japan, loosely translated to “girl boss”, a sub-genre of cinema wherein women weaponize their sexuality to get what they want. While this piece is very interesting, the music overshadows the narrator at times. I wish that this was addressed prior to pressing of the disc. There is also a look at the paperback books of the era, and Jody was at one time going to be played by Brigitte Bardot. The film falls into the “Bad Girl” subgenre of Juvenile Delinquent stories.

She Reached for Evil: Dissecting Kitten with a Whip is a video essay that runs about 18 minutes on pulp author Wade Miller by author and film historian Andrew Nette (2021).

There is also a photo gallery of black and white stills from the film.

MST3000 rips on the film as a parody in 1994 and is a hoot to listen to.

Click Here to order from Amazon USA and ignore Amazon’s caveat about regional encoding. This disc will play an any Blu-ray player. Non-U.S. readers can order the film directly from Imprint by clicking here.

By Hank Reineke

Just following Christmas of 1940, Box Office reported Paramount’s new thriller The Mad Doctor would hit cinemas on Valentine’s Day of 1941. The actual sneak-preview – and accompanying publicity push - of the film would take place ten days prior, February 4, at Los Angeles’s Paramount Theater. Then, on Saturday night, February 6, the studio would pull out all the stops, offering a proper premiere for their “blood-chilling drama.” The studio would celebrate the double-bill of The Mad Doctor and The Monster and the Girl as central to a “Spook Week” celebration. Saturday’s “hair-raising” program would not only feature the films but also a magician and Andy Kirk and his Harlem Orchestra… the latter performing their swinging “Spooks and Boogie Woogie” stage show.

The general release of The Mad Doctor, more fittingly described a “drama” than a horror film in industry trades, was pushed to February 20. Perhaps issuing a blood-letting, wife-offing film on Valentine’s Day was considered poor taste, or maybe not. In any event, The Mad Doctor opened to mixed reviews, ranging from “pretty good” to “poor entertainment.” There were certainly no raves, most critics finding the film lackluster and derivative. The scenario was a basic one, they reminded, mildly reminiscent of Charles Perrault’s 1697 fabled folktale Bluebeard. (PRC’s Bluebeard (1944), starring John Carradine as the titular murderer, was still more than years away from hitting screens). There were also suggestions The Mad Doctor was very similar to Rowland V. Lee’s 1937 British chiller Love from a Stranger.” The comparison to this latter film was not unfair. That film, partly based on an Agatha Christie mystery, also featured Basil Rathbone as a charming womanizer who murders paramours for their dowries.

In the first few minutes of director Tim Whelan’s The Mad Doctor, Basil Rathbone’s Dr. George Sebastien, an eminent psychiatrist, has already left a trail of formerly betrothed bodies behind in Vienna, Savannah, and in the village of Midbury, NY. He has been abetted in his scheming by murderous accomplice Maurice (Martin Kosleck). Maurice may, or may not, have sexual feelings for Sebastien. This inference of a homosexual relationship between these two ne’er-do-wells hangs awkwardly in subtle dialogue parries and glancing looks between the two. But, this being 1941, one can only assume why this element is not explored further.

Shortly following his bumping off of wife number three, Sebastien decides to moves his head-shrinking practice to midtown Manhattan. It’s there that he’s asked by Louise Watkins (Barbara Jo Allen), the wife of a wealthy newspaper publisher Lawrence Watkins (Hugh O’Connell), to address the melancholic behavior of a sister Linda Boothe (Ellen Drew). Though she’s beautiful and lacks for nothing, the grim but glamorous Linda routinely suffers dreams where she stands at the “edge of the grave looking down.” Her morbid visions drives her to suicidal attempts. We watch as she prepares to jump from the parapet of a high-rise skyscraper. But the girl’s plunge is foiled by the quick intervention of would-be suitor Gil Sawyer (John Howard).

The girl clearly is in need of mental health counseling. Though concerned about Linda’s “suicide complex,” Sawyer more selfishly, if correctly, sizes up handsome psycho-therapist Sebastien as a romantic rival. He disparages Sebastien as a “half-baked soul meddler,” assuring Linda (in ignorance) she suffers from nothing greater than “ordinary hypochondria.” Sawyer cunningly uses his platform as a newspaperman to publish a series of unflattering articles on the practice of psychotherapy in the New York Sun. He hopes to expose Sebastien as the biggest quack of the profession. But his research into the doctor’s past leads him to suspect the therapist might very well be a homicidal maniac. So when a half-hypnotized Linda agrees to accept Dr. Sebastien’s proposal of marriage, there’s reason to worry.

Though eight decades have passed since The Mad Doctor hit theaters, it’s hard not to agree with the original critical assessments published upon release. Personally, I’m a soft touch for old, creaky and gloomy celluloid mysteries of the 1930s and 1940s, but what critics moaned as true eighty years ago remains true today. The cast is good, the New York City penthouse atmosphere elegant and classy, but the film, alas, is a slow drag. Technically, the film is not even a mystery. It’s no spoiler to reveal Rathbone’s character as the de facto serial wife-killer and misogynist. This revelation is made plain in the film’s first few minutes. The only mystery here is how and when this will be revealed to fellow cast members.

Box Office dismissed The Mad Doctor as” not good enough to grace the upper half of the bill save in the most unimportant program arrangements.” Variety was in agreement sighing, “Pictures are supposed to move, but ‘Mad Doctor’ has a difficult time getting anywhere.” The review continued, “This cumbersome film, running 90 minutes could have been cut to 60 and still there would have been little meat.” It’s unfortunate but true. The Mad Doctor is, at best, a middling B picture masquerading as a something better. There’s very little suspense, hardly any action nor mystery present to keep moviegoers on the edge of their seat. A full-page Paramount in-production announcement published in June 1940 promised, “Basil plays a ‘Jekyll’ and ‘Hyde’ role in the heart chiller!” But the resulting film is unable to deliver any of the promised thrills.

The Mad Doctor is neither a great film nor, to be fair, a terribly poor one.  Despite its elegant trappings, it’s merely another B programmer, the sort of thing Monogram or PRC might have knocked out with less polish or window dressing.  The film is mostly doomed by its ninety-minute running time.  There’s enough on screen to suggest The Mad Doctor might have been a more exciting offering if condensed by a modicum of judicious editing.  But, truthfully, there are other dooming issues aside from the film’s length. Howard J. Green’s screenplay is odd in construction; so much so that his paint-by-numbers scenario offers cinemagoers few moments of audience engagement. 

To be fair, Green was brought on to rework an already troubled script (The Monster) that had been knocking about the Paramount lot for years. Screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur had been trying to get their script of The Monster into production as early as 1935. Variety reported in January 1936 the pair was even bringing aboard Charles Lederer, visiting Hollywood from New York, to assist in the film’s scripting. The problem was Paramount was simply not interested in it.

This caused the writers to - unsuccessfully - try and finagle a deal for The Monster with the British arm of the Gaumont Film Company in the summer of 1936. Gaumont too would pass, the project remaining in limbo until September 1939 when Paramount finally opted to purchase story rights. On October 28, 1939, Box Office reported the studio had engaged Green to write the script, with neither Hecht, MacArthur nor Lederer receiving screen credit for their contributions. Perhaps this was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth: the resulting patchwork script is demonstrably less the sum of its parts.  

The original supporting feature of this double-bill from Paramount was Stuart Heisler’s The Monster and the Girl, another B film that also would feature Ellen Drew as the damsel-in -distress.  Though not a classic by any stretch, at least that film (working title, The Avenging Brain) is a bit of fun: Drew fights off a gorilla whose simian cerebellum has been replaced by that of a vengeful gangster. At least The Monster and the Girl half-delivers on what it promises. Something that, sadly, cannot be said of The Mad Doctor.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray of The Mad Doctor is presented here in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 in 1920p x 1080p with removable English subs and DTS monaural sound. The set also features an audio commentary track supplied by film historian David Del Valle, as well as the film’s theatrical trailer. Visually, I suspect this film is going to look as good as it ever will. It’s doubtful this title will ever receive a meticulous and expensive restoration; that would be an effort this film would arguably not merit.  The print used for transfer is not immaculate, but only God - and a few film techs - would know the condition of the surviving elements used.  Medium shots tend to appear a bit soft-focused, but close-up photography appears sharp with clarity.  There are passing sprinkles of visual debris and evidence of minor base and emulsion scratches, but these are minor issues that do not distract.      

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We've been addicted to Joe Dante's "Trailers from Hell" website for many years. If you haven't experienced its retro-related treasures, it's time you did. What is "Trailers from Hell"? Well, who better to ask than the esteemed director himself. Here's Joe's description:

"Around 2007 I was in a quandry as to what to do with my 35mm trailer collection. Opportunities to screen this kind of material were pretty rare, even in Hollywood. So I thought, why not put them up on the internet? But that seemed underwhelming by itself, so I decided to add some voiceover commentaries on my own. I think the first ones I tackled were The Terror, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman  and The Unearthly. At first the idea was to mainly cover sci-fi and horror titles, but when a few of my friends got wind of the idea they asked to broaden the sphere and talk about their own choices. So anything we could find a trailer for was fair game. It took awhile, but soon our roster of commentators (we call them Grindhouse Gurus) started to swell. The only rule was they had to be film professionals, not critics or academics. Today we proudly feature commentaries by over 75 contributors, running the gamut from early adopters like John Landis and Edgar Wright to the likes of Guillermo del Toro, John Sayles, Illeana Douglas and Roger and Julie Corman. We have writers, directors, producers and craftspeople of all kinds, each with their own unique takes on movies they think other people should know about.

Part of the impetus for all this was the fact that younger audiences tend to be unfamiliar with the treasures of the past, even the recent past. There are just so many other attractions competing for their eyeballs. With almost two thousand entries, TFH hopes to make a dent in the miasma of "stuff" that's cluttering all our lives and alert people to movies and artists they may not have encountered anywhere else. It's kind of a mission for us. And it's fun! And now, having added our podcast The Movies That Made Me, we're finally gaining some traction. We certainly feel it's something that would appeal to readers of Cinema Retro, and thanks for your support in the past."- Joe Dante

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BY EVE GOLDBERG

Ronnie’s, a 2020 documentary, tells the story of Ronnie Scott and his legendary London jazz club.

From the opening sequence in which virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson and his band perform in an exuberant split screen montage, the film announces itself as a vehicle where style reflects content, and the filmmakers really know how to present their material in a compelling way.

The documentary recounts how Ronnie Scott, a poor Jewish kid from London’s East End, becomes a top British jazz saxophonist in the 1940s and 50s. Eventually tiring of big band swing, and inspired by the new music of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Scott forms his own Bebop ensemble. In 1959, Scott and his fellow musician and business partner, Pete King, open their own nightclub—Ronnie Scott’s. It doesn’t take long for their club to become the premiere jazz spot in London, and a must-visit venue for jazz musicians and jazz lovers from around the world.

The documentary includes performance clips, some extended, by Miles Davis, Buddy Rich, Nina Simone, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ben Webster, Sarah Vaughn, Sonny Rollins, Ella Fitzgerald, and others. Much of the performance footage comes from a filmed concert at Ronnie’s in 1969. There’s also a strange, almost cringe-worthy performance by Van Morrison doing “Send in the Clowns,” accompanied by Chet Baker on trumpet.

Besides chronicling the club’s history, the film also tells the story of Scott himself, who was plagued by depression throughout his life. His depression was at times debilitating. Music was his savior—until it wasn’t. Interviewees include Scott, his two significant others, his daughter, business associates, and music luminaries such as Quincy Jones.

Writer/director Oliver Murray and editor Paul Trewartha bring the music, history, and personal tale to life through inspired editorial choices such as presenting almost all the interviews as voice over—leaving more room for the captivating archival and performance footage.

If the film follows the now-clichéd story arc of humble beginnings, to rise-to-the-top success, to fall, to redemption (in this case, the revitalization of Scott’s club after his death), then so be it. Within that familiar trajectory is emotional depth, fascinating cultural history, and, of course, the music.

Ronnie’s is available on DVD from Greenwich Entertainment. It’s also currently streaming on several platforms. 102 minutes. Bonus features: trailers.

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BY TIM GREAVES 

In the early 1980s, Israeli cousins and co-producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus – the men behind then-thriving outfit The Cannon Group – decided that they would like to add an old-fashioned style horror film to their burgeoning library of titles. They approached director Peter Walker, renowned for a slew of successful exploitation pictures throughout the 1970s, suggesting he create something for the likes of Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, blissfully unaware the three actors were dead. Regardless, Walker took the baton and ran with it, the result being 1983’s rather splendid House of the Long Shadows.

Probably best remembered for assembling icons of horror cinema Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and John Carradine under one roof, House of the Long Shadows didn’t wow critics at the time and with hindsight it’s easy to see why. Times had moved on since the relatively harmless monster flicks of the 1930s and 40s and audiences were becoming accustomed to seeing grisly fare such as Friday the 13^th, Halloween and the nerve-shredding remake of The Thing. Nevertheless, Cannon had requested a throwback to those old movies and that’s what Walker delivered, being sure to tick all the requisite clichéd boxes; an imposing house, creaking floorboards, lightning storms, hidden tunnels, furtive sideways glances, locked doors to attic rooms, and a series of murders that wouldn’t be out of place in And Then There Were None were all present and correct.

After he was initially approach by Golan and Globus, Walker had tried unsuccessfully to acquire the rights to restage The Old Dark House. He then turned to screenwriter Michael Armstrong, who conjured up a story based upon the 1913 novel “Seven Keys to Baldpate” by Earl Derr Biggers, playwright and creator of Charlie Chan. Shooting took place on location at Rotherfield Park in East Tisted (near Alton) in Hampshire.

The plot is a simple one. An American novelist (Desi Arnaz, Jr) accepts a $20,000 bet from his publisher (Richard Todd) that challenges him to write a classic chiller in one night. He travels to Wales and pitches up in a long-unoccupied manor house at Bllyddpaetwr – pronounced Baldpate – convinced that the surroundings will furnish him with the all the inspiration he needs. Unfortunately,his attempts to get started are hindered by the arrival of an assortment of mysterious visitors who, as the night progresses, are revealed to have more in common first apparent.

The aforementioned titans of terror aside, joining them on screen are Walker regular Sheila Keith (who only ever got to play unpleasant characters, yet by all accounts was the sweetest woman you could hope to meet), Julie Peasgood, Richard Hunter, Louise English and (fleetingly) Norman Rossington. What a fantastic cast, eh?

But naturally enough the big draw is the four main stars. Lee is his usual reliably imposing presence, commanding your attention every time he’s on screen. Cushing turns in a particularly memorable performance; hobbled by an endearing speech impediment – he can’t pronounce his Rs – his character also gets to deliver one of the film’s best bits of dialogue as he melancholically explains why he’s such a timid man. Price meanwhile gets the cream pf the blackly pithy lines (upon discovering the body of a character who’s been strangled with piano wire he remarks, deadpan, “They must have heard her singing.”). Carradine appears to struggle a tad, occasionally not looking too sure where he is (he was in his late 70s at the time this was made), but his performance is nothing to be ashamed of and somehow that adds to the quirky charm of the piece.

With a runtime of 121-minutes, it’s a bloated affair and could certainly have lost several scenes in which characters wander around lost in the maze of tunnels; it doesn’t make for tedious viewing as such, but they fail to move the story along. All the same, as the climax approaches there are some nifty little twists and at the end of the day it’s a pleasure to watch, if only to bask in the fun that Cushing, Lee and Price evidently had making it.

Neglected for years, House of the Long Shadows finally got to see a belated release to DVD ten years ago and Region A Blu-ray from Kino Lorber a few years back. Fans can now rejoice; it has been spruced up for a Region 2 Blu-Ray release from Fabulous Films, including a host of worthy supplements. The film itself has always suffered from a slight murkiness, but here it looks better than ever it has and is accompanied by an optional commentary track from Peter Walker and Derek Pykett. The standout among the bonus inclusions is a feature-length documentary, “Return to House of the Long Shadows”, originally shot and directed by Pykett – who clearly holds the film in great esteem – in 2012. Running only 15-minues less than the movie itself, much like that it might have benefited from a little judicious editing, but it’s nonetheless an invaluable treasure trove of information and reminiscences. Built around a revisit to Rotherfield Park by Walker, actress Julie Peasgood (who barely seems to have aged a day) and cinematographer Norman Langley, it boasts an impressive collection of additional interviews with actors Desi Arnaz, Jr, Richard Hunter and Louise English, production designer Michael Pickwoad, production manager Jeanne Ferber, writer Michael Armstrong, camera operator John Simmons, costume designer Alan Flyng and composer Richard Harvey. Additionally, there’s a separate 15-minute interview with Walker, a short step-through gallery of stills and a trailer.

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“JUST THE DRIVER”

By Raymond Benson

Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has always managed to push the envelope with nearly every one of his striking pieces of work since he appeared on the scene in the mid-1970s. Known at first as primarily a director of unique “body-horror” films (The Brood, 1979, or The Fly; 1986), Cronenberg spread his wings in the 1990s and moved away from the genre to tackle more dramatic and varied subjects. His 2007 crime picture about the Russian mafia operating in London, Eastern Promises, stands as a milestone title in the director’s filmography.

Kino Lorber Classics has released a superb 2-disk (4K Ultra and Blu-ray) package of the film, and the results are impressive. The picture quality is so sharp and clear that it could be used as a demonstration product for high definition televisions.

Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) is a British-Russian who lives with her parents, Helen and Stepan (Sinéad Cusack, and filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowsky in an acting role). Stepan is an ex-KGB officer, and the family emigrated to the U.K. some years ago. Anna works as a midwife in a London hospital, where she treats a teenage Russian girl who dies in childbirth. The girl has a diary, written in Russian, as well as a business card for a well-known Russian restaurant. Anna is determined to find the girl’s family so that the baby can have a proper home. She visits the restaurant and meets the manager, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), but he is really an elderly but powerful Russian mafia chief. Semyon has a brash and reckless son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), who runs brothels in London stocked with women trafficked from Russia. The family’s bodyguard/chauffeur is Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). He is a formidable killer who insists he’s “just the driver,” and yet there is something good inside Nikolai that transcends his menace. As Anna digs deeper into the mystery, she discovers the truth about the organized crime going on in her city, and she also develops a dangerous mutual attraction with Nikolai. When Kirill authorizes a hit on a rival Chechen gangster without Semyon’s approval, a war between the two groups ensues, and Anna and her parents are caught in the middle.

Eastern Promises, written by Steven Knight, is one of the better organized crime pictures ever made. Cronenberg and Knight seriously did a deep-dive into the realism of the piece, and star Mortensen went so far as to hang out with real Russian mafia soldiers to learn the lingo and especially study the all-important tattoos that adorn the men’s bodies.

Viggo Mortensen is fabulous in his portrayal and he was Oscar-nominated for his efforts. For this reviewer’s money, he should have won (Daniel Day-Lewis scored the trophy for There Will Be Blood). For the fight scene in the bath house alone, in which an entirely nude Mortensen fights two clothed men armed with knives, the actor deserved every accolade on the planet. The sequence is the centerpiece of the film, and it’s one of the best directed and choreographed fight scenes of the last twenty years.

Watts is terrific, as always, and Mueller-Stahl delivers a chilling turn, too. However, the movie belongs to Mortensen and to director Cronenberg.

For Kino Lorber’s HDR Dolby Vision Master of the movie, Peter Suschitzky approved and color graded his own cinematography. It looks simply marvelous. There are several short vintage featurettes included as supplements, also in HD: interviews with writer Knight and director Cronenberg; a piece on the tattoos and their significance; and looks at the bath house scene and Naomi Watts’ motorcycle riding, plus two theatrical trailers and other Kino Lorber trailers.

Eastern Promises is for fans of riveting crime dramas, the films of David Cronenberg, actor Viggo Mortensen, and actress Naomi Watts. Highly recommended.

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“W. C. FIELDS AND THE TERMITE’S FLOPHOUSE”

By Raymond Benson

By 1939, comic superstar W. C. Fields (real name William Claude Dukenfield) had a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. While he was still something of a box office draw and enjoyed immense popularity, Fields’ relationship with the bottle was causing more problems for the actor, and he had lost his contract with Paramount, the home of his earlier talkies. After a resurgence in admiration due to radio broadcasts with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (and his dummy partner, Charlie McCarthy), Fields signed a new contract with Universal. The first picture out of the gate was a team-up with Fields and Bergen/McCarthy.

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man can’t be counted among Fields’ best pictures, but it’s entertaining and funny enough. It is arguable that Bergen and McCarthy steal the show based on Bergen’s charm and good looks, and Bergen’s is the most likable character in the story. While Fields has some great signature lines in the picture, Bergen and McCarthy have a great deal of funny dialogue.

The movie’s story is by Fields (using the pseudonym Charles Bogle), with a screenplay by Everett Freeman, Richard Mack, and George Marion, Jr. George Marshall received screen credit as director, although historians have claimed that Marshall and Fields did not get along. Hence, Edward F. Cline was brought in to exclusively work with Fields on his scenes; Cline was then hired to direct Fields’ next films with Universal. Furthermore, second unit director B. Reeves Eason did more than his share of action and chase sequences. Remarkably, the film, with three directors, came out all right.

Fields is Larsen E. Whipsnade (Larsen E.? Get it?), a traveling circus proprietor who cheats his own staff by not paying them. The law is after him, too, and the circus is one step away from bankruptcy. He has grown children not involved in the circus—Vicky (Constance Moore) and Phineas (John Arledge). Phineas wants Vicky to marry wealthy but boring socialite Roger Bel-Goodie (James Bush) so that Phineas can get a job in Roger’s company, but Vicky isn’t keen. When she visits her father at the circus, Vicky meets Edgar Bergen (playing himself, as one of the circus acts), who is never without his dummy, Charlie. Edgar immediately falls for Vicky, and while Whipsnade has no problem with Edgar, he can’t stand Charlie (a “termite’s flophouse!”). Vicky eventually agrees to marry Roger in order to become wealthy enough to save her father’s circus. During the final half hour of the film, Vicky and Roger’s engagement party at the posh Bel-Goodie mansion becomes a chaotic disruption as Whipsnade manages to insult and frighten the elder Bel-Goodies, while Edgar/Charlie have been cast adrift in a weather balloon. Will Vicky and Edgar get together? Will the circus be saved? Who cares, it’s all just a vehicle for the brilliance of W. C. Fields’ comedic antics and Edgar Bergen’s talent at ventriloquism.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray 2K master looks and sounds fine, certainly an upgrade from previous DVD releases. There is an informative and humorous audio commentary by film historian Michael Schlesinger, plus the theatrical trailers for this and other Kino Lorber releases.

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man is for fans of W. C. Fields, Edgar Bergen, and late 1930s Hollywood comedy. As Larsen E. Whipsnade’s grandfather Litvak used to say, “You can’t cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.”

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“

BY HANK REINEKE

It reaches from the grave to re-live the horror, the terror! More destructive! More terrifying!” (1958 ad campaign for Frankenstein’s Daughter.)-

Promises, promises. Even the most forgiving fans of low-budget 1950s horror concede Richard E. Cunha’s Frankenstein’s Daughter is a mess. It’s the sort of film where everything seems off-kilter: the script, the acting, the monster, the directing and flat lighting… well, everything, really. Ironically, this reality is also, perversely, the film’s single saving grace. If you go into Frankenstein’s Daughter with such knowledge aforethought and low-expectations, the resulting film – brought in on a budget of $60,000 - is actually pretty entertaining, if only in a manner of speaking.

In 1958 one New York tabloid chastised Manhattan’s Mayfair Theater for plummeting “to an all-time low in booking not one, but two, of the year’s worst films.” Describing the double-bill of Frankenstein’s Daughter and its co-bill Missile to the Moon as nothing less than “pathetic,” the critic opined producer Marc Frederic and Cunha might have be better suited as “shoemakers” than filmmakers. I would say that assessment is an unfair one… with the caveat that my tolerance for bad movies is pretty high.

Director Cunha’s previous double-bill of low budget horrors Giant of the Unknown and She Demons had performed reasonably at the box office. Well enough that in April of 1958 the Hollywood Reporter noted Fred Ballin, the President of Astor Pictures, had brokered a deal with Marc Frederick’s [sic] Layton Productions to deliver no fewer than ten feature films in a twenty-four month period. The first two films of this partnership were to be Frankenstein’s Daughter and a sci-fi epic provisionally titled Satellite (later changed to Missile to the Moon). Cunha was tapped to direct both films, the former title to begin shooting on April 30.

I would only catch Frankenstein’s Daughter some fourteen years on. The film was featured on New York City’s WPIX-TV’s Chiller Theatre in the early winter of 1972. I can’t remember with any accuracy now, but I’m sure I sort of enjoyed the movie back then, at least in a more or less manner. The film’s primary monster (this film generously sports two) was sort of cool looking: ping-pong ball sized eyes, a fright wig, acid scarred skin and a set of eyebrows befitting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The face of the film’s secondary creature, also a creation of the picture’s mad doctor, seems less Frankenstein’s monster and more Mrs. Hyde in appearance, but that’s nit-picking. To Cunha’s credit there’s no suspenseful long drag as we await the ghastly reveal of the first monster. “Trudy” (Sandra Knight), the film’s secondary fiend, appears on screen within a minute or so into the movie during a nightmare sequence.

Frankenstein’s Daughter centers around the experimentations of Dr. Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) whom, we learn, is actually the grandson of the original Dr. Frankenstein. Frank, in all truth, is a pretty awful guy, cynical, intense, lecherous and high-strung.  He’s working with the doddering Carter Morton (Felix Locher) who, quite frankly, is no prize himself.  Though dismissed from his former position at Rockwell Laboratories, Morton occasionally manages to break into and steal from the office of his former employer whenever he’s in need of additional materials. 

Dr. Frank also has an assistant, Elsu (Wolfe Barzell), a creepy old colleague of his grandfather’s. Interestingly, Elsu seems far less weird than the two egghead scientists he assists in the secreted basement laboratory of the Frank home. But then again - and given his history - Elsu has seen it all, I imagine.  But even with the help of two his assistants, Dr. Frank’s recent experiments have brought about a disappointing a combination of mixed results and outright failures. 

The mad doctor ascertains his two most recent misfires were caused by his having created strong-willed male monsters.  So he’s chosen to re-jigger his experiments by turning female candidates into full-fledged monsters. This, he reasons, is sure to correct past mistakes since a woman’s brain is more “responsive to command.” To this end he’s already turned Morton’s lovely niece Trudy, into a drug-addled half-monster. 

But his most frightening monster is his newest creation, a huge, skulking and violent creature whose feminine features are all but indiscernible. (It was only after reading Tom Weaver’s old interview with Cunha that I discovered make-up artist Harry Thomas was simply unaware he was to craft a female monster for the film. So, due to time constraints, the filmmakers simply went with the androgynous monster supplied).

Regardless, Trudy and boyfriend Johnny (John Ashley) eventually come to suspect there’s something odd going on in the basement and decide to have a look.  When the two teens manage to thwart Dr. Frank’s evil schemes, the mad doctor scornfully bellows, in classic Scooby Doo fashion, “Are you satisfied now, you meddling kids?”        

Yes, this is a bad movie, but not an unentertaining one. H.E. Barrie’s (the nom de plume of a writer who understandably asked for anonymity) script is chock full of head-scratching improbable turns and purple prose passages. As low budget 1950s sci-fi goes, I guess some of the dialogue and plot contrivances might have been tempered, if not salvaged, by the delivery a more capable ensemble. But as so much of Barrie’s dialogue is delivered in wooden fashion, many of the scripted exchanges invoke only laughter and head shakes.

Moving the traditional Frankenstein setting from a gloomy old European castle to a modern suburban American home (the establishing shot is actually the home of producer Frederic), was one way for the production team to shave a few dollars from the budget.  It is also allowed for the inevitable ‘50s teenage dance party to be dropped into the picture’s middle without much fuss.  One bit of curious casting is that of Harold Lloyd Jr. as “Don.” Lloyd, the son of the legendary silent film actor-comedian, had also tried his hand at acting and singing prior to his untimely death at age 40. The Page Cavanaugh Trio, a well-scrubbed electric jazz combo, backs Don on his scat-singing solos on “Special Date” and their own “Daddy-Bird.”

So that’s the honest criticism. But this movie (shot in six ten-hour days according to Weaver) is actually a fun popcorn-munching effort if you’re in the right mood and tend to wallow in B-movie nostalgia. This “Special Edition” Blu-ray from Film Detective offers Frankenstein’s Daughter in all of its 85 minute B &W glory in a 1.85: 1 aspect ratio and DTS monaural sound. It looks as good as it likely ever will.

Film Detective also, much to their credit, pulls out all the stops on this set. There are two separate commentary tracks, one by Weaver, one by filmmaker Larry Blamire, as well as two featurettes: Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker of the Unknown and John Ashley: Man from the B’s. There’s also a twelve-page booklet written by Weaver, with accompanying photos. The booklet neatly condenses and distills much of the info offered in the expansive commentaries. Final verdict: this release is worth a shot, just as long as you know what you’re getting into.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Like many boys who grew up in the 1960s, I was addicted to Mad magazine. It's sarcastic satires of politicians and pop culture figures were all the rage and the magazine was a showcase for some truly impressive writers and artists. Mad pushed the envelope in some regards but publisher William Gaines still maintained a family-friendly facade. In 1970 (I assure, that is A.D.), I entered high school a few months after another satire magazine, National Lampoon, published its premiere issue. The first issue I saw featured a striking cover by artist Frank Frazetta that spoofed those old jungle movies. It depicted a courageous white guy saving a scantily clad white woman from a hoard of African natives. It was titled "White Man's Wet Dream". I was hooked before I opened the magazine. National Lampoon became a "must-read" for young people of the era. Unlike Mad, there were no holds barred when it came to off-limits subjects. Anyone and anything was fair game for the team of talented writers and artists, many of whom would go on to notable careers. The sexual content was presented in a humorous manner but it broke barriers in terms of what was depicted. Even the official line of National Lampoon souvenirs were hawked by topless young women. The success of the Lampoon was such that, by 1978, the company entered the movie business. The first release, "National Lampoon's Animal House" made John Belushi into a big screen star and elevated John Landis from obscurity into one of the industry's hottest directors. The film was a sensation so it seemed inevitable that more Lampoon films would emerge- and they did, though none of them were related to the original movie. Chevy Chase starred in some of the popular "Vacation" movies that bore the banner of the Lampoon, but most of the other attempts to blend the magazine concepts to the big screen resulted in rather nondescript productions that had little theatrical exposure before going to home video. By 1998, the magazine itself had run out of steam and ceased publication after a glorious and influential run, although the company name is still actively linked to various TV, video and big screen projects.  

One of the more obscure feature films is "National Lampoon's Movie Madness", a 1982 collection of unrelated comedies stories linked by nothing other than the Lampoon name. As the old joke goes, "the movie wasn't released- it escaped!", as indicated on IMDB, which lists the film's theatrical gross as $63,000, which was probably due to tickets sold to just the people involved in making it. The movie marked the debut of director Bob Giraldi, who promptly left feature films to become one of the top music video directors in the industry. One segment of the film was directed by Henry Jaglom..yes, that Henry Jaglom, the acclaimed director of indie films who has developed a loyal international fan base. It's telling that while Jaglom continued making feature films, he has never worked for a major studio again. The mess of a feature film consists of three separate stories. In "Growing Yourself", Peter Riegert is Jason Cooper, a rich New York Yuppie with a wife (Candy Clark) and two small kids. One day, on a whim, he tells his wife that they should leave each other in order for both them to find the space to "grow". Without batting an eye, she promptly leaves. Jason adopts an increasingly bizarre lifestyle that includes turning his apartment into a jungle of sorts. He pursues unsuccessful relationships with women, including a 14 year-old temptress played by young Diane Lane. At one point, he gives away custody of one of his children to a stranger without batting an eye. When his wife returns later, she informs him that she has gone from housewife to running Union Carbide. The entire scenario is weird but occasionally amusing because the characters simply accept mind-boggling developments with barely a shrug - and Peter Riegert plays the smarmy, self-absorbed Jason with just the right touch.

The second tale is "Success Wanters" and features Ann Dusenberry as an aspiring stripper, Dominique, who makes the ill-fated decision to appear at a convention of executives for the butter industry. Within minutes, the horny, tuxedo-clad, cigar smoking middle-aged execs decide to gang rape her--- and use some handy sticks of butter as useful novelties. This was the early 1980s and group sexual abuse could still be shown to comedic effect, although fortunately, we aren't treated to seeing the dirty deed itself. Instead of going after the rapists legally, she decides to bring down the entire butter industry by making Americans more addicted to margarine (I'm not making this up, folks.) This she achieves by becoming the mistress of a margarine magnate (such people must exist) played by Robert Culp. While he's on his death bed, she gets him to sign his empire over to her and she wields her new powers to mortally wound the butter industry, a strategy that sees her seducing the President of the United States (Fred Willard) and the First Lady. Despite the outrageous scenario, the entire segment is more absurd than funny.

The last, and least, of the segments is "Municipalians",which finds young Robby Benson as a rookie L.A. cop partnered with a season veteran played by Richard Widmark. The entire scenario centers on us watching the hopelessly innocent, naive and perpetually smiling Benson become corrupted by the system and the dehumanizing crimes he's forced to deal with, all unfolding as Widmark sits in the squad car ignoring the violence around him as he counts the days until his retirement. Eventually, Benson becomes a raging lunatic himself. The segment had possibilities in terms of satirizing the cliched scenario of the young cop teamed with the grumpy veteran, but the result is awful in a mind-boggling way. Benson is game to try anything under Jaglom's misdirection but we can assume he was happy that virtually no one saw the film. Only Widmark emerges with his dignity intact. Jaglom later blamed the studio for compromising his segment but if they cut any footage, it was probably considered to be a humanitarian gesture.

Code Red has released "National Lampoon's Movie Madness" on Blu-ray to the joy of bad movie fans and the probable disgust of anyone still alive who was involved in it. The Zucker brothers had the right touch for these types of theatre of the absurd premises but directors Giraldi and Jaglom have heavy hands and are working with pretty awful scripts. The only saving grace is the abundance of veteran actors and up-and-comers who make appearances. They include Elisha Cook, Jr, Rhea Perlman,Tito Vandis (a rare performance that clicks), Joe Spinell, Olympia Dukakis, Dick Miller, Christopher Lloyd, Julie Kavner and even porn superstar Harry Reems. The only one who makes an impression is Henny Youngman, whose 30 seconds of rapid-fire old jokes makes you wish they would have simply used his stand-up act to close out the latter part of the film. From a sociological view, however, it's interesting how audience's tastes have changed over the ensuing years. At times it appears the primary reason for the film's existence was to exploit each of the actresses who appear topless at length in the first two segments, despite the fact that it certainly wasn't essential to the script. Giraldi's cameras linger on the undraped actresses who engage in small talk to justify the exploitation. For those viewers of a certain age, there may be pangs of nostalgia for an era in which no one was overly-concerned about such practices, but judged by today's industry standards, it would be largely unthinkable to film segments such as these.

The Code Red video looks reasonably good and the only bonus feature is a trailer. In viewing it, I came to the conclusion that the studio should have released only the trailer and called it a day. The movie poster artwork depicted on the sleeve seems to be an homage (or rip-off) of Jack Davis's iconic campaign for "Its' a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Sadly, the comedic analogies end there.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Scholars have long debated whether it was Mark Twain or newspaper editor Charles Dudley Warner who came up with the oft-quoted quip "Everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Regardless, the sentiments of the quotation can easily be applied to the annual Academy Awards ceremony. Dwindling ratings, lack of enthusiasm among young movie-goers, an industry bereft of the legendary personalities audiences used to tune in to see- all of these factors have put the Oscars on pop culture life support in recent years. Who knew all it would take was one superstar in meltdown mode to make last night's ceremonies "must-see" TV? Unfortunately, the entire ceremony will always be remembered for Will Smith's act of inexcusable violence against presenter Chris Rock, who remained cool and dignified under very strained circumstances. There's no point in going into details because by now you know what happened. Smith's temper tantrum marginalized everything that followed as the attendees and viewers around the world tried to make sense of what they just saw. Forty minutes later, Smith received the Best Actor Oscar in front of an audience of boot lickers who couldn't resist giving him a standing ovation. In a bizarre speech, Smith did apologize to the Academy and the nominees, but not the man he assaulted. He then delivered a seemingly endless, self-pitying and self-indulgent, teary-eyed acceptance speech in which he insinuated that his actions were in defense of his wife, much as the character he played in the film was defensive of his family. Talk about taking Method Acting to an extreme...Somewhere along the line, Smith became almost incoherent and began to sound like Brando's Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. The Academy considered having him escorted from the auditorium, as they certainly would have if he were a mere mortal. However, they balked and allowed him to stay and enjoy the moment of his Oscar win. Tonight, top brass are meeting to consider ejecting him from the Academy because he clearly violated their ethics policies. More realistically, they are probably meeting to discuss how to justify not ejecting him from the Academy. Perhaps not coincidentally, Smith has issued a formal written statement of apology to all concerned, including Chris Rock. It reads:

“Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.

I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.

I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.

I am a work in progress.

Sincerely,

Will”

Well, better late than never. Believe it or not, there was a lot more to the evening than this surrealistic incident. Here are some random observations:

• I thought the premise of having a trio hosting the show-Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes- sounded like a fairly ill-conceived idea. I was wrong. It was very ill-conceived.Their entire shtick could have been eliminated without much loss to the ceremonies. Keep in mind, ABC-TV demanded that numerous category of awards be presented prior to the show in a separate ceremony, thus setting off a firestorm by insulting and marginalizing those who were affected. They ended up deceiving the audience by using clever editing techniques to imply the acceptance speeches of these winners were taking place live. Why was all this necessary? Because the network had plunked down $100 million for broadcast rights and wanted to ensure there was plenty of time for the hosts to display their comedic talents. Aside from a few good one-liners, the most impressive aspect of their contributions was the ability of potty-mouthed Amy Schumer to keep things relatively clean throughout the show.
  
• There were erratic elements to the program. Beyonce performed one of the nominated songs but she wasn't in the building, as the Academy had her in an elaborate musical extravaganza that had been pre-taped outside of the auditorium. Isn't it traditional to have the songs all performed in front of the audience? She might just as well have been in London. Then there was the pathetic pandering to youth in the quixotic hope that young people will once again make tuning into the Oscars a tradition. Good luck. Many of the people they are trying to reach don't even feel obliged to own a television. Nevertheless, there were bizarre attempts to appeal to youth including the introduction of a celebrity DJ (!) who made a brief appearance before thankfully seeming to fade into oblivion. 
  
• I usually gripe about the annual tribute to artists and industry types who passed away in the last year because inevitably they leave out plenty of notable people who deserved inclusion. This year, I didn't even attempt to make a list of the omissions, preferring to use Turner Classic Movies' annual memorial video as the gold standard of remembering the dearly departed. The Academy obviously left out a number of people because they provided a web site address you can visit to find tributes to the folks they intentionally snubbed. Oh, and keep in mind that the only reason they refuse to extend this segment is because they feel it's more important to have more jokes and comedy skits during the broadcast. I should point out that even the memorial presentation was strange. It was shown on a big screen in front of a large group of people singing and dancing as though we were in a Busby Berkeley musical. Then, Jamie Lee Curtis stopped the proceedings to pay special tribute to Betty White and later Billy Murray did the same to remember his friend, director Ivan Reitman. Two observations: I respect Betty White as much as anyone, but she was not known for her work in feature films, as she was a television icon. Also, selecting two people out of all those who passed away to receive special treatment made everyone else being honored look like chopped liver.
• As for fashion, elegance was happily in style and so was cleavage. Many of the ladies were clad in outfits with plunging necklines that would have looked at home on the cover of one of those bodice-ripper romance novels, but no problem in this corner because it provided some old style high fashion. However, it came as a surprise that the most cleavage to be revealed was courtesy of Timothee Chalamet, who was wearing a glittery woman's jacket by Louis Vuitton- minus anything under it. At least he could rest easy that no other guy was going to show up in the same outfit.
• There were the usual unwelcome political jokes but they were thankfully in short supply. Schumer, Sykes and Hall decided to stage a comedy bit involving people testing positive for Covid-19. Considering we're losing 800 people a day in America (the equivalent of a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor attack every three days), it's understandable why the premise fell as flat as a pancake.
  
• The Academy chose to use the telecast to promote it's new $400 million museum in L.A., which has been widely panned for favoring politically correct exhibitions over those that would have mainstream appeal for movie lovers. So how did they use this precious telecast time to induce people to visit the museum? By having Wanda Sykes engage in a comedic tour of the premises that was so poorly done that the segment probably persuaded anyone who intended to visit the place to reconsider their plans.
  
• Reunions were the order of the day:  Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman and a bald and bearded John Travolta from Pulp Fiction, Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and Rosie Perez from "White Men Can't Jump" and Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to honor "The Godfather". Coppola, newly trimmed-down, looked very healthy and happy but he was the only one who spoke in the brief segment, that also included an uninspired film clip compilation that for some reason was set to a hip-hop song! Coppola made some sentimental remarks but Pacino and De Niro said nothing at all...so what was the point of bringing them to the ceremony only to have them stand there silently? Also, Coppola should have explained that De Niro was there because of his contributions to the franchise through his Oscar-winning performance in "The Godfather Part II", as he did not appear in the original film.
  
• James Bond got plenty of  justifiable attention for the series' 60th anniversary, even if the Academy shattered fans' hopes that "No Time to Die" would land a Best Picture nomination and Daniel Craig would be nominated for Best Actor in his swansong appearance as 007. Instead, there was a nice but rather perfunctory film clip segment of highlights from the series. In a weird decision, the segment was introduced by three hunky guys who didn't even look vaguely familiar to me. They apparently are "extreme athletes", whatever that means. Presumably, internet "influencers" were not available.) Surely, given the number of illustrious people associated with the Bond series, someone of some stature could have introduced the segment. Also, the trio of "extreme athletes" name-checked each of the Bond actors- except George Lazenby, who at least was seen in the video compilation. (Can this guy ever catch a break?) Billy Eilish and her brother Finneas gave a fine live performance of their haunting title theme to "No Time to Die", which was the best of the songs nominated. It won, too, thus making this the third Bond song to win in a row. At least the Academy is atoning for not nominating so many great ones from the past.
  
• Troy Kotsur's win for Supporting Actor in "Coda" made for a moving segment, as he is only the second deaf actor to be honored with an award.
  
• Kudos to Kevin Costner who recalled the splendor of seeing "How the West Was Won" in Cinerama at age seven and extolled the majesty of the presentation and impact it had on him.
• The inclusion of "fan favorite" films was a pathetic attempt to put salve on the wounds of younger movie fans who constantly gripe about their favorite films (i.e superhero flicks) not being nominated in the major categories. Instead of explaining that the nominees are decided by industry professionals in the respective trades and that the ceremony is not a popularity contest, AMPAS decided to allow fans to vote for their favorite films and scenes from movie history. If the winners were any indication of prevailing taste, we'll be giving Pauly Shore a lifetime achievement Oscar in a few years. For the record, the "winners" of these polls were mostly of relatively recent vintage. If you expected to see the likes of "Schindler's List" or "Citizen Kane", you had to settle for "Army of the Dead". Meanwhile, more precious minutes of air time were wasted on showing meaningless clips from these action movies.
  
• Years ago, the Academy decided to stop telecasting the honorary awards to distinguished industry veterans. Fans were outraged. These were often the highlights of the ceremony, but the Academy wanted more time for dumb comedy bits and the network wanted more time for overpriced sponsor advertisements. There was a time they would at least air snippets of the honorees accepting their awards at a separate ceremony, but even that was asking too much. Thus, we got to see this years honorees: Liv Ullmann, Elaine May and Samuel L. Jackson sitting like mannequins as they were acknowledged for a few seconds. If you wonder why some of us pine away for these awards to be an integral part of the ceremonies once again, just watch this segment from the 1972 telecast when Charles Chaplin returned to America from exile in Europe after he had been blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s. We're never likely to see anything like this again because the Academy and ABC simply need to have more kitsch.

The show wrapped up with announcement for Best Picture but things went awry. In an admirable sentimental gesture, Lady Gaga accompanied a wheelchair-bound Liza Minnelli to the stage to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "Cabaret" and to have Minnelli read the title of the winning film. Unfortunately, Minnelli was not up to the task. She was clearly feeble and disoriented. Seeing her in such an undignified light was a painful experience, despite Lady Gaga's good intentions.

Believe it or not, I do not enjoy trashing the Oscars. It's a thankless task to bring this lumbering giant to TV every year and countless talented people work endless hours to achieve that task. Even the worst Oscar ceremonies have plenty of entertainment value and this one was no exception. The worst aspect of it- Will Smith's behavior- was beyond the producer's control as it occurred spontaneously. Although in some bizarre fashion, Smith might well have provided a reason for the Oscars to become "must-see" TV once again.

“UNDER THE VENEER”

By Raymond Benson

Finally, a high definition Blu-ray disk of Robert Redford’s 1980 masterpiece, Ordinary People, has been released. To date, the film has existed on home video only on VHS and DVD, and the new Paramount Presents edition is most welcome.

People was Redford’s directorial debut, and at the time audiences and critics expected it to be good, but they didn’t count on it being that good. It took the Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards, along with a trophy for Redford for Direction, one for Alvin Sargent’s Adapted Screenplay (based on Judith Guest’s wonderful novel), and a most deserved Supporting Actor Oscar for Timothy Hutton. Granted, Hutton’s character, Conrad Jarrett, is really the protagonist, i.e., the lead in the movie, so it’s one of those infuriating cases in which an actor is nominated in the wrong category. (That said, there’s no way Hutton would have won over Robert De Niro’s blistering once-in-a-lifetime performance in Raging Bull, so the studio was smart to offer up Hutton in the Supporting category, where he’d have a better than fighting chance.)

Mary Tyler Moore also received a nomination for Best Actress, and Judd Hirsch a nod for Supporting Actor (competing with Hutton). They are both brilliant, too. Moore plays against type, portraying a woman with a cold heart who has forgotten—or never knew—how to love, and Hirsch is the psychiatrist with whom we all would want to spend two sessions a week. Missing from the Oscar awards tally was Donald Sutherland, who, for this reviewer’s money, provides the performance of his career. In many ways, he’s the center of the picture. We slowly see that his stable assuredness is also cracking from the pretense going in his family. Why Sutherland wasn’t at least nominated is a head-scratcher.

The story is about a mid-to-upper class family living in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Everything should be as Beth Jarrett (Moore) believes it is—that their family is happy and their world is perfect. “Neat and easy,” as her husband, Calvin (Sutherland), describes how she keeps their lives. But under the polished veneer, all is not well. Not one bit. The Jarretts recently experienced a tragedy. The oldest son, Buck, drowned in a boating accident while out on the water with his younger brother, Conrad (Hutton). Not long afterwards, Conrad attempted suicide and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for four months. Now he’s home, and Conrad is having a very difficult time adjusting. He can’t relate the way he once did to his high school buddies. He can’t feel as if he’s part of the school swim team, the way he could prior to the incident. Worst of all, his relationship with his mother has deteriorated. Calvin can see the conflict between them and does his best to play referee and understanding father, but this only begins to drive a wedge between him and Beth. It’s only after Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Hirsch), that the teenager embarks on an excruciating but necessary emotional journey toward wellness.

The script is an honest and canny depiction of how families bury truths and put up facades. Redford’s direction is sensitively nuanced, and the acting all around is impeccable. This is powerful stuff. Ordinary People also provides one of the better positive depictions of psychiatry ever put on celluloid, and this reviewer challenges anyone viewing the film not to have welling eyes during the scene in which Dr. Berger tells Conrad, “I’m your friend.”

Beyond the quartet of principle stars, Elizabeth McGovern is striking as a high school romantic interest for Conrad, a young Adam Baldwin is effective as one of the teen swim team pals, M. Emmet Walsh has a turn as the clueless swimming coach, and Dinah Manoff has a short but significant scene as a fellow hospital patient, now out in the real world like Conrad.

But the movie belongs to Timothy Hutton. Ordinary People was his first feature film (he had made only one television movie earlier in the year, and appeared uncredited, briefly, as a child in a picture in the 1960s.) His Conrad is a virtuoso piece of acting.

The Paramount Presents feature is remastered from a new 4K film transfer overseen by Redford, and it looks crisp and colorful. The only supplements are two new, short featurettes with interviews with Hutton and author Judith Guest, plus the theatrical trailer.

Ordinary People merited every honor it received. It is an emotional roller-coaster that elevates the Hollywood family drama to an unprecedented high. Enthusiastically recommended.

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Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull

Some personal observations and opinions here. There have been critics over the years (Siskel and Ebert, for example) who have claimed that Ordinary People “stole” the Oscar from Raging Bull, which is often cited not only as the “best” movie of 1980, but of the entire 1980s decade.

I love Raging Bull and consider it a magnificent example of bravura filmmaking from Martin Scorsese. It’s slick, gorgeously shot in black and white, brilliantly edited (by Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker), and it contains not only powerhouse performances by Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty in supporting roles, but the crowning screen appearance of Robert De Niro’s career. There is no question that De Niro’s Jake LaMotta is one of the most accomplished acting displays ever.

Yes, Raging Bull is a great film… and I also find it unpleasant as hell. The brutality is visceral, and of course, that’s the point. It’s about a man who can’t control his rage. I may love the film, but I can’t say I enjoy it, if that makes any sense.

Ordinary People is not a happy story, either—that’s true. While it’s without physical violence, it is an emotionally violent tale; but it is so elegantly rendered with intelligence and, yes, beauty, that I, personally, am always moved by it. For me, it tugs at the heartstrings and the tear ducts. And while the fate of the tale’s family is a tragedy, there is the hint of hope at the end that all will be well for young Conrad Jarrett. I adore Ordinary People more every time I see it.

Ordinary People deserved the Oscar for Best Picture in 1980.

“A RISE AND A FALL IN TECHNICOLOR”

By Raymond Benson

A Star is Born has been made many times—as four Hollywood feature films, one television movie, and one Bollywood picture. The 1937 original, produced by David O. Selznick, directed by William A. Wellman, is often forgotten amongst the more recent versions, such as the celebrated 2018 remake starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

For this reviewer’s money, the 1937 A Star is Born is superior to them all. Granted, it is obviously dated and one must place oneself within the context of the period in which the movie was released. It is also not a musical, as all the others are. The first version also deals exclusively with the motion picture industry. The second one, released in 1954 and starring Judy Garland and James Mason, did as well… but following adaptations went more into the music professions of the characters and incorporated Grammy Awards rather than Oscars. If you want A Star is Born without musical numbers, and there is ample support that the piece works more realistically without them, then the 1937 version is for you.

The Oscar winning story, by William A. Wellman and Robert Carson, was the basis of all the remakes, but here it was the origin, turned into a screenplay by Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. The tale is by now familiar ground—a young woman becomes a star overnight while simultaneously her husband experiences ruin. A rise and a fall, all in lovely Technicolor!

Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is an innocent but bright-eyed farmgirl who is intent on making her way to Hollywood to become an actress. Against her father and aunt’s wishes, but encouraged by her grandmother, Esther leaves the nest and goes to Tinsel Town. She quickly learns that things are not so easy. With the help of a neighbor, Danny (Andy Devine), who happens to be an assistant director, she is placed in positions where she can “meet” people. Sure enough, she encounters a big star, Norman Maine (Fredric March). Unfortunately, Norman’s glory days seem to be behind him as the bottle has dictated a gradual descent in popularity. Nevertheless, Norman is struck by Esther and finagles a screen test for her with his producer, Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou). Oliver immediately sees Esther’s potential, gives her the more marketable name of “Vicki Lester,” and she is off and running. Promising to quit drinking, Norman asks Esther to marry him, and she accepts. But as Esther/Vicki becomes more successful, Norman falls off the wagon and their relationship goes off the rails.

There is one scene that exists in all the versions of A Star is Born, and that is when the husband embarrasses his wife during her moment of triumph at an awards ceremony—here the event is the Oscars, as it is in the 1954 edition. The moment is powerful and excruciating, and it is one of the reasons both Gaynor and March were nominated for Best Actor and Actress for the film.

Producer Selznick was known for overseeing lavish, gorgeous productions, and A Star is Born fits the bill. Beautifully photographed in that distinctive, vivid 1930s Technicolor by W. Howard Greene (who received an Honorary Oscar for his achievement), the picture displays the glitz and glamour of that bygone, mythical Hollywood era. Director Wellman was nominated for his efforts, and the movie was up for Best Picture (the category was called Best Production then).

Gaynor is especially good, and March is always brilliant. The supporting cast—Menjou, Devine, May Robson, Lionel Stander, and Edgar Kennedy—is stellar.

The picture, while assuredly a drama that takes a hard look at the alcoholism destroying Maine, is also striking for the amount of humor it contains. There are many Hollywood in-jokes, such as when Gaynor impersonates several leading actresses of the day when she is waitressing at a star-studded party. Stander, Devine, and Kennedy, known for their comedic turns, also provide much of the levity.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray is a new, meticulous 4K restoration from the original nitrate Technicolor camera negative, and it looks absolutely fantastic. In keeping with Warner disks that employ “A Night at the Movies” supplements, this one contains a treasure trove of extras. The 1938 cartoon, “A Star is Hatched,” is one of those Looney Tunes that features Hollywood star caricatures, and it’s hilarious. A 1937 comic short featuring Joe Palooka and Shemp Howard, “Taking the Count,” is amusing, and two other vintage shorts—“Mal Hallett and His Orchestra” and “Alibi Mark”—are also entertaining and indicative of the type of fare one would see at the theater in those days. The disk also incudes two different Lux Radio Theater broadcasts of the story—one from 1937 featuring Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery, and one from 1952 starring Judy Garland and Walter Pidgeon. The theatrical trailer rounds out the package.

This new region-free Blu-ray edition from Warner Archive is a must for fans of any version of A Star is Born. The 1937 original, though, is and will always be grand entertainment. Highly recommended.

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“YOU GOTTA GET A GET”

By Raymond Benson

(NOTE: Much of this review is repeated from an earlier Cinema Retro review of a previous Blu-ray release.)

In the world of the Jewish Conservative Orthodox community, a divorce is truly final only when the husband presents his wife with a “get”—a document in Hebrew that grants the woman her freedom to be with other men. Likewise, the wife must accept the get before the man can re-marry, too.

This is the crux of the story behind Hester Street, an independent art-house film that appeared in 1975, written and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Starring Carol Kane, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Gitl, a newly arrived immigrant to New York City in 1896, and Steven Keats as her husband Yankl, who, in an attempt to assimilate, in public goes by the name “Jake.” Jake has been in America for a while and isn’t looking forward to the arrival of his wife and son from Europe, for he has begun an affair with a wealthy, assimilated actress in the Yiddish theatre named Mamie. When the very traditional Gitl arrives with her son, the marriage disintegrates.

Luckily, Gitl meets Bernstein, an Orthodox man who is much more suited for her requirements, seeing that Jake has become something of a capitalist cad. Therefore, she needs a “get” from Jake so that both husband and wife can divorce and go their separate ways. That’s when Mamie’s money comes into play.

Silver beautifully rendered this period drama on a miniscule budget. Location shooting took place in and around New York’s lower east side, where much of the flavor of the late 19th Century Jewish Orthodox community is still pretty much the same. Replace the cars with horses and buggies, get the correct vintage costumes, and you’re more than halfway there. The dialogue is mostly in Yiddish (with English subtitles), thus making it an American foreign language film—an oddity in 1975, to be sure (although Coppola’s The Godfather Part II appeared a year earlier with a great amount of its dialogue spoken in Sicilian).

Keats plays Jake as a rake and a rascal, but our perception of him is not that of a villain. In many ways, he is the generic immigrant who came to America and sincerely tried to assimilate, become “American,” and leave the Old Country traditions behind. His fault is that he dreams of making big money in the States and this becomes his all-consuming desire, forgetting that he has a wife and son. Kane’s character and spot-on portrayal not only illustrates the role of females in the Orthodox community, but in many ways is a commentary on the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s.

Hester Street is a terrific little film that went out of print on DVD years ago and became a collector’s item on the resale market until a Blu-ray release appeared in 2015. With that also now out of print, Cohen Media Group has issued a welcome new edition in a 4K restoration. Filmed in black and white by Kenneth Van Sickle, the picture is grainy and flat—much like the early silent cinema of the that era!—which actually is quite appropriate for the movie’s setting. That said, the new restoration considerably sharpens the images and the display is the best seen since the movie’s 1975 theatrical release. The feature comes with an archival audio commentary with director Silver and producer Raphael D. Silver.

Also new to this release is supplementary material not present on the previous Blu-ray. Approximately eight minutes of an alternate opening sequence, with commentary by Daniel Kremer (author of an upcoming book about Silver and her work), is an interesting find. There are two relatively recent video conversations with director Silver and film historian Shonni Enelow about the making of Hester Street and Silver’s career as a filmmaker (Silver died in 2020). There are also vintage interviews with Carol Kane, Doris Roberts, and both Joan and Raphael Silver, likely ported over from the old DVD release. The restoration trailer rounds out the package.

Hester Street is an excellent synagogue discussion-group item for American Jews who want to explore the immigration scene and the topics of tradition and assimilation; but it is also a good educational piece for non-Jews who want to learn a little bit about New York history and the Jewish Orthodox religion. Recommended.

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BY CHRIS WADE

Of all the actors to emerge in the 1970s, there are few, if any, as captivating, unpredictable and exciting as James Woods. He began the decade, and his on screen career for that matter, for legendary director Elia Kazan in The Visitors (1972), and in the next few years established himself as one of American film's most promising young performers. He turned up as villains in such classic TV shows as Kojak and Streets of San Francisco, but he also appeared in some major 70s movies too, such as 1973's The Way We Were, Arthur Penn's Night Movies (1975) and The Gambler (1975). But it was his performance in The Onion Field (1979) which really signalled his arrival, as the sociopathic cop killer Greg Powell. The film, based on Joseph Wambaugh's best-selling non-fiction book, was a critical smash and earned Woods his first wave of acclaim. It was a stunning performance, equally charismatic and frightening, and it brought in a new face for cinema, an actor so convincing in his intensity that you would have been scared of him had you met him in the street.

Of course, it was really only the beginning. Into the next decade he proved himself to be one of American cinema's most reliable, quirky, and appealing character actors, appearing in such classics as Eyewitness (1981), David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Against All Odds (1984), Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, Best Seller (1987), Cop (1988) and True Believer (1989). It was one of the most remarkable runs for any actor of the era.

Woods went on to appear in more than his fair share of stand outs in the following decades, in such films as Chaplin (1991), The Hard Way (1992), The Specialist (1994), Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), for Oliver Stone again in both Nixon (1995) and Any Given Sunday (1999), in Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides (1999) and John Carpenter's Vampires (1998). His filmography reveals an almost faultless body of work.

I first had the idea to write a book about Woods' filmography in May 2021. I had interviewed James in 2020 for a book I had written about Once Upon a Time in America and, somewhat unexpectedly, we had stayed in touch. After I put together a retrospective article for a vintage film magazine I sometimes put out (Scenes), I presented the idea of a full book. He said he was OK with that, but I presumed I would just write it and that would be it. No, he was happy to do interviews- and we certainly did. For months in fact, we would speak every week for hours on end, going over his many classics, from his early career days in the 1970s, through his iconic films, right up to the most recent work. I got the chance to interview the likes of Sharon Stone, Debbie Harry, Oliver Stone and Jim Belushi, not to mention having Dolly Parton herself write the foreword (she and Woods made a film together, Straight Talk). However, for the most part the book is a journey through the career of James Woods, with Woods himself acting as a sort of tour guide through his canon, and in the process, a part of film history itself; beginning in the early Seventies with his experiences with such directors as Sydney Pollack, Kazan, Harold Becker and others, through his turbulent but rewarding work with Oliver Stone and numerous other legendary filmmakers.

Woods said to me at one point that the book was turning into a conversation between two film lovers, one of whom just happened to be James Woods. And that, I believe, sums it up rather well. This is a film lover's book, and it has the distinction of having its subject as a kind of co-author. The resulting book, The Films of James Woods, is a journey through a film career, yes, but it is also a relaxed, freewheeling chat between two men, one in the UK, one in America, and one who just happens to be a cinema legend. There is no gossip in the book, no tell-all tattle, but a lot of movie talk. A hell of a lot, in fact.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

First 4K Ultra HD in the Paramount Presents Line Debuts May 17, 2022
with New and Legacy Bonus Content

One of the greatest Westerns in cinematic history arrives for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD with High Dynamic Range (HDR) as part of the Paramount Presents line when THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE debuts May 17, 2022 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Four-time Academy Award®-winning^* director John Ford brought together an all-star cast for what is considered by many critics to be a quintessential—and yet pioneering—Western late in his storied career.  Starring James Stewart and John Wayne (together for the first time), alongside Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, John Carradine and Lee Van Cleef, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE tells the engrossing story of a senator (Stewart), his old friend (Wayne), and a despicable outlaw called Liberty Valance (Marvin). 

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE was selected in 2007 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  Adapted from a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson, the screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck gave us the often-quoted line “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Meticulously remastered in stunning 4K Ultra HD for its 60^th anniversary this year, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE is presented in collectible packaging featuring a foldout image of the film’s original theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments.  The release also includes access to a Digital copy of the film and a Blu-ray Disc™ with a new Filmmaker Focus featuring film historian Leonard Maltin discussing John Ford, the film, and its legacy.  The Blu-ray™ also includes legacy bonus content as detailed below:

· Filmmaker Focus - Leonard Maltin on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance—NEW!

• Feature commentary by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, along with his archival recordings with John Ford and James Stewart                                  
• Selected scene commentary with introduction by Dan Ford, along with his archival recordings with John Ford, James Stewart and Lee Marvin                                  
• The Size Of Legends, The Soul Of Myth                                 
• Chapter 1: Changing Of The Guard                                           
• Chapter 2: The Irascible Poet                                     
• Chapter 3: The Hero Doesn't Win, The Winner Isn't Heroic                                            
• Chapter 4: Most Things Happen By Accident                                       
• Chapter 5: The Great Protector                                 
• Chapter 6: Spotlight - Lee Marvin                                             
• Chapter 7: Print The Legend                                       
• Original Theatrical Trailer           

About Paramount Presents

This collectible line spans celebrated classics to film-lover favorites, each from the studio’s renowned library.  Every Paramount Presents release features never-before-seen bonus content and exclusive collectible packaging.  Additional titles available in the Paramount Presents collection on Blu-ray include: Fatal Attraction, King Creole, To Catch a Thief, Flashdance, Days of Thunder, Pretty In Pink, Airplane!, Ghost, Roman Holiday, The Haunting, The Golden Child, Trading Places, The Court Jester, Love Story, Elizabethtown, The Greatest Show on Earth, Mommie Dearest, Last Train From Gun Hill, 48 HRS., Another 48 HRS., Almost Famous, A Place in the Sun, Nashville, Bugsy Malone, Breakdown, The Sheik, Vanilla Sky, Ragtime, Harold and Maude and Ordinary People.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount:

Paramount Pictures Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Francis Ford Coppala's Cinematic Masterpiece

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – March 1, 2022 — In celebration of the 50^th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s Academy Award^®-winning^* masterwork The Godfather, Paramount Pictures will be releasing all three films in the epic trilogy on 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever on March 22, 2022, with all the films having been meticulously restored under the direction of Coppola.

“I am very proud of The Godfather, which certainly defined the first third of my creative life,” said Francis Ford Coppola.  “With this 50th anniversary tribute, I’m especially proud Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is included, as it captures Mario and my original vision in definitively concluding our epic trilogy. It’s also gratifying to celebrate this milestone with Paramount alongside the wonderful fans who’ve loved it for decades, younger generations who still find it relevant today, and those who will discover it for the first time.”

Coppola’s masterful film adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel chronicles the rise and fall of the Corleone family and the film trilogy is rightfully viewed as one of the greatest in cinematic history.  In preparation for the 50^th anniversary of the first film’s original release on March 24, 1972, Paramount and Coppola’s production company American Zoetrope undertook a painstaking restoration of all three films over the course of three years.  Every effort was made to create the finest possible presentation for today’s audiences who can watch the films using technology that has advanced dramatically since 2007 when the last restoration was completed by eminent film historian and preservationist Robert Harris.  Using that work as a blueprint, the team spent thousands of hours to ensure that every frame was evaluated to create the most pristine presentation while remaining true to the original look and feel of the films.

The monumental effort included the following:

• Over 300 cartons of film were scrutinized to find the best possible resolution for every frame of all three films.
• Over 4,000 hours were spent repairing film stains, tears, and other anomalies in the negatives.
• Over 1,000 hours were spent on rigorous color correction to ensure the high dynamic range tools were respectful of the original vision of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis.
• In addition to the 5.1 audio approved by Walter Murch in 2007, the original mono tracks on
  The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II have been restored.
• All work was overseen by Coppola.

“We felt privileged to restore these films and a little in awe every day we worked on them,” said Andrea Kalas, senior vice president, Paramount Archives.  “We were able to witness first-hand how the brilliant cinematography, score, production design, costume design, editing, performances, and, of course, screenwriting and direction became famously more than the sum of their parts.  It was our commitment to honor all of the filmmakers’ exceptional work.”

Newly restored and remastered in Dolby Vision, all three films in the landmark trilogy will be released together with HDR-10 on 4K Ultra HD Digital and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray^™ for the first time ever.  The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray set will include The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and Coppola’s recently re-edited version of the final film, Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.  The disc set includes legacy commentaries by Coppola, as well as access to Digital copies of The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.

In addition to the widely available 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray set, a 4K Ultra HD Limited Collector’s Edition will also be released in deluxe packaging and includes a hardcover coffee table book featuring stunning photographs, as well as portrait art prints on archival paper.  Both 4K Ultra HD sets include new bonus content including an introduction to The Godfather by Coppola, a featurette about the preservation process, photos by acclaimed photographer Steve Schapiro, home movie footage, and comparisons of the new restoration to earlier versions of the films.  A full list of new and legacy bonus content follows:

NEW BONUS CONTENT:

·         Introduction to The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola

·         Full Circle: Preserving The Godfather—Paramount Pictures archivists detail the incredible restoration process with archival footage showing the evolution of the film through various home entertainment incarnations as picture and audio technologies make quantum leaps over the decades.

·         Capturing the Corleones: Through the Lens of Photographer Steve Schapiro— In this reflective and frank discussion, special photographer Steve Schapiro shares his unique perspective and cherished memories as a witness to the making of this seminal film.  Commentary on curated archival images makes for a fascinating, never-before-seen addition to the production’s history.

·         The Godfather: Home Movies— An assortment of 8mm home movie footage shot in 1971 offers a candid glimpse into the production of The Godfather.  Shot on location at the Norton family estate on Staten Island’s Emerson Hill, this is the first time it’s been made available to the public.

·         Restoration Comparisons— Before and after highlights showcase extensive picture quality improvements to The Godfather.

LEGACY BONUS CONTENT:

• The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn’t
• Godfather World
• Emulsional Rescue—Revealing The Godfather
• …when the shooting stopped
• The Godfather on the Red Carpet
• Four Short Films on The Godfather

o The Godfather vs. The Godfather: Part II

o Cannoli

o Riffing on the Riffing

o Clemenza

· The Family Tree

· Crime Organization Chart

· Connie and Carlo’s Wedding Album

· 2008 Credits

· Behind the Scenes

o A Look Inside

o On Location

o Francis Ford Coppola’s Notebook

o Music of The Godfather

§ Nino Rota

§ Carmine Coppola            

o Coppola & Puzo on Screenwriting

o Gordon Willis on Cinematography

o Storyboards – The Godfather: Part II

o Storyboards – The Godfather: Part III

o The Godfather Behind the Scenes 1971

· Additional Scenes

· Galleries

· Trailers

· Acclaim & Response

· Additional Material

· The Filmmakers

· The Godfather: Part III—newly remastered and restored versions of the original theatrical cut and Coppola’s 1991 cut (note: these are exclusive to the 4K Ultra HD Collections)

Newly restored and remastered versions of The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone will also be available together on Blu-ray^™ with access to Digital copies and the new and legacy bonus content detailed above.

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Cinema Retro continues covering films that are not currently available on home video in the U.S. or U.K. 

BY BRIAN HANNAN

"Sanctuary" is an overheated melodrama that stands as a classic example of Hollywood’s offensive attitudes to women. Nobel prize-winning author William Faulkner could hardly blame the movies for sensationalising his misogynistic source material since, if anything, the movie took a softer line. The story is told primarily in flashback as headstrong southern belle Temple Drake (Lee Remick) attempts to mitigate the death sentence passed on her maid Nancy (Odetta). Given that such appeals are directed at Drake’s Governor father (Howard St John), and that the maid has been condemned for murdering Drake’s infant child, that’s a whole lot of story to swallow.

Worse is to follow. Drake takes up with Prohibition bootlegger Candy Man (Yves Montand) after being raped by him and thereafter appears happy to live with him in a New Orleans brothel - the “sanctuary,” no irony intended, of the title - despite him slapping her around. The film steers clear of turning her into the prostitute of the original book, but pretty much sets up the notion that high class women will fall for a low-class tough guy whose virility is demonstrated by his brutality. In other words a “real man” rather than the dilettantes she has previously rejected.

After the Candy Man dies, Drake returns home and marries wealthy suitor Gowan Stevens (Bradford Dillman) who blames himself, rightly, for Drake falling into the clutches of the gangster in the first place. But a past threatening to engulf her precipitates the infanticide.

Faulkner was a Hollywood insider, adapting Sanctuary for The Story of Temple Drake (1933) and earning high praise for his work on Bogart vehicle To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946). The success of The Tarnished Angels (1957) starring Rock Hudson, The Long, Hot Summer (1958) with Paul Newman and The Sound and the Fury (1959) headlined by Yul Brynner had sent his cachet rocketing. But all three were directed by Americans – Douglas Sirk and Martin Ritt – who had a distinctive visual style and an ear for what made melodrama work.

Sanctuary had been handed to British director Tony Richardson (Look Back in Anger, 1959) and he didn’t quite understand how to make the best of the difficult project. So while Lee Remick manages to suggest both strength and fragility, and makes her character’s wanton despair believable, Yves Montand is miscast and Bradford Dillman fails to convince even though portraying a weak character. Too many of the smaller roles appear as cliches. And it’s hard to believe the maid’s motivation in turning murderer.

What was acceptable steamy melodrama in the 1930s fails to click three decades on. Faulkner’s thesis that high-falutin’ women want a man to master them and furthermore will fall in love with their rapist seems to lack any understanding of the female mind and will not appeal to the modern sensibility any more than it did on release. Lee Remick is what holds the picture together, in part because she plays so well the role of a woman embracing degradation, and refusing – no matter how insane the idea appears – to let go of the man she believes is the love of her life. It’s not Fifty Shades of Grey, but it’s not that far off that kind of fantasy figure, and given the success of that book, it’s entirely possible there is a market for what Faulkner has to peddle.

Despite my criticisms of "Sanctuary", it still deserves to be available on home video for retro movie lovers to form their own opinions.

(Although "Sanctuary" is not available on home video, it can be streamed as a public domain title on YouTube.) 

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

Peter Cushing, André Morell, Yvonne Mitchell, Donald Pleasence in a new restoration of

Nigel Kneale’s 1954 adaptation of the George Orwell classic

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the BFI:

BFI Blu-ray/DVD, iTunes and Amazon Prime release on 11 April 2022

George Orwell’s enduring dystopian masterpiece is brought vividly to life in this celebrated BBC production. Adapted by Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Experiment), NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (directed by Rudolf Cartier) broke new ground for television drama when first broadcast in 1954. On 11 April, tying in with a Nigel Kneale season at BFI Southbank, the BFI brings this classic production to Blu-ray and DVD in a Dual Format Edition, and to DTO via iTunes and Amazon Prime. Experience Orwell’s haunting vision of a society dominated by relentless tyranny and the subversion of truth – a world in which Big Brother is always watching you.

Featuring a stunning central performance from Peter Cushing (The Curse of Frankenstein, Star Wars) as the doomed Winston Smith, this small-screen landmark has been newly restored by the BFI using original film materials from the BBC Archive and the BFI National Archive. Numerous extras include a newly recorded audio commentary by television historian Jon Dear, host of Nigel Kneale podcast Bergcast, with Toby Hadoke and Andy Murray, and a newly filmed conversation between the BFI’s Dick Fiddy and historian Oliver Wake, on the myths that have grown up around the production in the last 60-odd years.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR is released alongside the BFI Southbank centenary celebration of screenwriter Nigel Kneale. A season, NIGHTMARES AND DAYDREAMS, runs throughout April in partnership with Picturehouse to commemorate Kneale’s contribution to British television. His adult drama and tense thrillers with a sci-fi or horror slant went on to influence the likes of John Carpenter, Stephen King and Ben Wheatley. Often enthralling and terrifying, Kneale’s visionary work showing on the big screen includes the restored version of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. The screening, on Monday 4 April at 6.30pm in NFT1 will be followed by a panel discussion. Other titles screening in the season include FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, QUARTERMASS AND THE PIT, THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS and THE WOMAN IN BLACK and there will be a special table reading of OUT OF THE UNKNOWN: THE CHOPPER, as part of the BFI’s Missing Believed Wiped programme.

Picturehouse Crouch End will be hosting a day-long event on Saturday 23 April featuring expert panellists and members of cast and crew looking at Kneale’s film and TV work and his influence and legacy. Events include a live reading of ‘lost’ 1942 radio play YOU MUST LISTEN, and screenings of several of Kneale classics, including THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT: CONTACT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, THE STONE TAPE, AGAINST THE CROWD: MURRAIN and LATE NIGHT STORY: THE PHOTOGRAPH.

Special features

• Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
• Newly recorded audio commentary on Nineteen Eighty-Four by television historian Jon Dear, host of Nigel Kneale podcast Bergcast, with Toby Hadoke and Andy Murray
• Late Night Line-Up (BBC, 1965, 23 mins): members of the cast and crew look back on the controversies surrounding this adaptation of Orwell’s classic
• The Ministry of Truth (2022, 24 mins): in conversation with the BFI’s Dick Fiddy, television historian Oliver Wake dispels some of the myths that have grown up around the groundbreaking drama over the course of the past half century
• Nigel Kneale: Into the Unknown (2022, 72 mins): writer, actor and stand-up comedian Toby Hadoke and Nigel Kneale biographer and programmer Andy Murray try to unpick who Kneale was, what he did and why his work still matters today
• Gallery of rare images from the BBC Archives
• Original script (downloadable PDF)
• Newly commissioned sleeve artwork by Matt Needle

·         ** First pressing only** Illustrated booklet with essays by Oliver Wake and David Ryan; credits and notes on the special features.

Product details

RRP: £19.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1445 / 12

UK / 1954 / black and white / 113 mins / English language, with optional subtitles for the Deaf and partial hearing / original aspect ratio 1.33:1 // BD50: 1080p/50i, 25fps, mono audio (48kHz/24-bit) / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio (24kHz/16-bit)

Order from the BFI Shop here:

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/nineteen-eighty-four-dual-format-edition.html

BFI DVD/Blu-ray releases can be ordered from home entertainment online retailers or from the BFI Shop at https://shop.bfi.org.uk/

REVIEW: MARTIN SCORSESE'S "THE LAST WALTZ" (1978); CRITERION SPECIAL EDITION

"MAGNUM P.I. : THE COMPLETE SERIES" COMING TO BLU-RAY FROM MILL CREEK ENTERTAINMENT