Savant's new reviews today are:

The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Region B (UK) Blu-ray
  One of the best science fiction pictures ever, this tale of apocalypse as an unforeseen result of atom testing was one of the first to come right out and say that governments are dishonest and untrustworthy when it comes to nuclear realities. Reporters Edward Judd and Leo McKern discover that a rash of freakish and destructive weather is a permanent, maybe fatal consequence of monkey business with The Bomb. Judd and a very adult Janet Munro are drawn together as London is enveloped in tropical fog and typhoon storms, and the temperature begins to climb -- to 140°. Terrific extras include disturbing vintage English documentaries about testing bombs and surviving an all-out attack. In a brilliant new restoration, it's a Region B Blu-ray from The British Film Institute (UK).
11/29/14

Five Days, Five Nights
DVD
  It's Cold-War era, East German-Soviet The Monuments Men... a propaganda film from 1960 that seeks to improve relations between the countries by putting a benign face on the wholesale looting of the art of defeated Germany. In this revision of history Russian troops bring hope and comfort to German civilians while searching for caches of hidden art to be shipped to Russia 'for repair and preservation'. The Russians bring hope, security and new ideals; old comrades meet again and a disillusioned artist is reunited with his lost love, a concentration camp survivor. The disc comes with several academic-quality text essays about historical art looting and the crazy mess of scrambled ownership in the wake of WW2. Filmed in color with an original music score by Dimitri Shostakovich. In DVD from The DEFA Film Library.
11/29/14

and

Witness to Murder
Blu-ray
  Barbara Stanwyck saw what George Sanders did, but the cops think she's crazy! This modest suspense thriller puts Babs through the ringer, as her foe succeeds in making it appear as if she's the predator and he's the victim. Watch cops patronize an intelligent woman, while a self-styled genius fools them all. See Stanwyck tossed into a psycho ward when she objects. The show has excellent John Alton cinematography to back up its good acting. Also with Gary Merrill and Jesse White. In Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
11/29/14

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Hello!

    First, Gary Teetzel showed me this year's Godzilla movie last Tuesday. We ended up hashing it over for about two hours... reconsidering our friend/journalist Steve Ryfle's critical remarks last May in his World Cinema Paradise article, Godzilla, Whitewashed: A Special Report. Our main point of agreement with Ryfle is that by altering the creature's origins, the new movie obliterates Godzilla's identity as a manifestation of nuclear terror. It then goes a step further, to reverse the original film's anti- nuclear testing message. All those bomb tests were simply attempts to kill Godzilla, you see. Okay, the counter-argument goes, this is an origin story for the later Godzilla pictures, with a more fanciful monster that exists mainly to fight other giant monsters. But the filmmakers even re-assign (at least in some disc extras) the name 'Lucky Dragon', which will serve to further obscure its important identity. 'Lucky Dragon 5 was the name of an unlucky tuna boat that was irradiated by a U.S. test. It caused a panic in Japan and partly inspired the creation of Godzilla. It's almost as if someone decided that we all need to let bygones be bygones, and rebrand all those negative, pessimistic 'myths' about the nuclear threat.

    By comparison, the 1998 Godzilla now seems relatively honest ... all it does is shift the 'irresponsible' atom testing in the Pacific over to the French. Savant's cure for the erosion of responsible history from our cultural entertainments? The Day the Earth Caught Fire, reviewed at the link just above. Its vintage documentary extra about England's nuclear testing in the Indian Ocean is truly disturbing. Let's go kill a lot of ocean life and irradiate another chunk of our limited global real estate!

    But other news this week doesn't take Big G seriously at all. Gary also found a Grantland article entitled The Batman-Godzilla Movie that Could Have Been. It should make the cartoon pictured seem a little less silly. Gary said he thought the reference to official archived William Dozier papers might be a joke, until he looked them up himself. See page 45.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

It Happened One Night
Blu-ray
  Frank Capra's best picture may be this effortlessly charming runaway heiress story, transposed to a bus. The difference is the winning personalities of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, and the warmly human touch of Capra, who makes every detail an entertainment highlight. It's more than the famous hitchhiking scene or the Walls of Jericho or Gable's not wearing an undershirt -- this is one pre-Code show that is specifically of its time, yet hasn't dated a bit. With a feature-length docu on director Capra, in Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
11/25/14

Bunny Lake is Missing
Blu-ray
  Otto Preminger has fun in London with a top cast playing creepy eccentrics (Noel Coward, Martita Hunt) and working folk (Clive Revill, Anna Massey, Finlay Currie, Lucie Mannheim). They're fringe benefits in a creepy mystery about a missing or kidnapped child named Bunny Lake -- who may or may not exist. Carol Lynley is the distraught mother, Kier Dullea her impatient brother and, holding the movie together like super glue, Laurence Olivier as the policeman trying to cut through the fog. Preminger's direction is flawless and Olivier is terrific. And hey, it's got The Zombies singing on TV! In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
11/25/14

and

Pocketful of Miracles
Blu-ray
  What? More Capra? Wait until I review the universally beloved Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, even my friends won't be speaking to me. Capra's final feature film is a creaking throwback that nevertheless has a lot of good things going for it -- funny jokes, great personalities and Capra's pro direction (although stories of its production sound like a film shoot in Hell). Glenn Ford is in fine form, Bette Davis is appropriately charming, Hope Lange is sassy and Peter Falk's sarcastic performance is a special treat in itself. The enormous cast includes enough vintage talent to make one think this is a lost Panavision and color comedy from 1936. The nostalgia works, the jokes mostly work and if one ignores the critics and doesn't mind overlong movies, it's still quite entertaining. In a sparking new transfer. In Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
11/25/14

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Hello!

I've got a nice bit of news tonight, at least for readers for whom the image just above rings a bell. 3-D impresario Robert Furmanek has reported that his 3-D Film Archives will soon working on a disc release of the Canadian horror shocker of 1961, The Mask. It's the one with the spooky, bizarro 3-D sequences credited to famoust montage maker and design genius Slavko Vorkapich. That pseudo-Aztec horror mask was pretty unnerving when I was a kid, in photos from Famous Monsters; the first time I saw the film in college, the audience was so worked up that people screamed when the horror voice commanded, "PUT ON THE MASK !   PUT ON THE MASK !" Pal Todd Stribich had the old Laserdisc, with which I remember scaring my sons and daughter (well, not really) when their mother wasn't looking. All screenings I've seen used the old, less effective Anaglyph red-cyan system. Knowing that the 3-D Archives is involved, I hope it's safe to assume that the new restoration will be a major improvement.

---

Gary Teetzel points Monty Python fans to a lengthy, funny conversation between Eric Idle and John Cleese, viewable at Live Talks Los Angeles.

---

And if you'll pardon me, my Brit disc of Day the Earth Caught Fire just arrived... too late to make this review cut-off deadline but not so late for me to drop everything to watch it.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

My Name is Pecos
and
Pecos Cleans Up
Blu-ray + DVD
Guest Review by Lee Broughton
  We welcome back UK correspondent Lee Broughton, who returns with a new vintage Italo western review, this time a domestic dual-format release -- Region zero BD and NTSC DVD. It's a pair of oaters by Maurizio Lucidi, starring Robert Woods, who looks a lot like the 'young' version of Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time In the West, or at least he does in one of the stills. Lee has a good nose for these pictures, and we're happy to see the Wild East disc company move up to Blu-ray editions. So yes, it's a Dual-Format edition in Blu-ray and DVD.
11/22/14

Flaming Star
Blu-ray
  What, another western? This is Elvis Presley's claim to sagebrush fame, starring in a grim Don Siegel picture about a ranch family caught in the middle of violent times -- half the household is Anglo and the other half native American. John McIntyre is the patriarch, Dolores Del Rio his Indian wife, and Elvis the (gasp) 'half-breed' that both camps expect to fight on their side, or else. Elvis is great, even without a love interest of his own, and his catchy title tune is a winner. Also with Barbara Eden. The excellent new transfer is in Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
11/22/14

Sands of Iwo Jima
Blu-ray
  The U.S.M.C. had to love this valentine to the Corps. This is the John Wayne from our childhood, the tough Marine sergeant who knocks his recruits out cold when they don't smarten up as fast as he wants 'em to. These rough-tough fighters take everything the enemy can dish out on Tarawa and Iwo Jima, yet are perfect gentlemen with the ladies. Wayne's Sgt. Stryker does have some personal problems: when not getting drunk he's belting Forrest Tucker or depressed because John Agar is giving him grief. With Wally Cassell, Arthur Franz and a Martin Milner so young, he looks like he's in the sixth grade. Semper fi, but for cryin' out loud keep your head down on Iwo Jima. A terrific restored transfer, in Blu-ray from Olive Films.
11/22/14

and

Only Angels Have Wings
Blu-ray
  Howard Hawks man's-man adventure tale lauds a natural fraternity of air mail flyers plying a route through the treacherous Andes Mountains. "They can't send boys up in crates like that'" except that's another movie. No, in this one rugged (but fashionable) Cary Grant teases lovesick air field groupie Jean Arthur, while ex-flame Rita Hayworth (in her breakout role) slinks around the margins. With some genuinely classic scenes and strong acting from Richard Barthelmess, Thomas Mitchell and the usual Howard Hawks gang of daredevil professionals. And don't forget the sing-alongs! Includes a video extra with audio and special effects experts. Sony's restored transfer makes this show seem like a new movie. In Blu-ray from The TCM Vault Collection.
11/22/14

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Hello!

I got a stack of notes asking what the picture was at the top of last Tuesday's column, the one with the cowboy looking at the orange sunset. So I've put the little word 'click' on this week's image to help out. But I did get to exchange emails with several new writers, so it's been a good idea after all. I wanna drop the click word though -- I like the idea of a mystery photo up top. Maybe I'm channeling one of Forry Ackerman's silly old guessing games, but without the bad puns.

I just got a look at the list of extras for the upcoming Twilight Time Yentl, and all of the featurettes I helped put together back in 2009 all seem to be there, which is nice. I'm also happy to see that the upcoming The Quatermass Xperiment Blu will carry the little featurettes I edited for MGM back in 2003 -- with what promises to be even more exciting input from other sources. I have to admit... as Xperiment comes out on December 2, I am watching my mailbox more closely than is normal. My original review for the DVD-R could use some improving, so I'm going to write something new this time.

In other news, VCI has announced a Blu-ray of Joseph Losey's The Prowler for February 15. They're also promising a restored disc of Horrors of the Black Museum sometime next year. That particular picture I did see new, around 1960 or '61 -- in a theater full of screaming children! I couldn't believe anybody could conceive of anything so sadistic, but at that time I hadn't seen much of anything of a disturbing nature. I hope VCI's restoration is good.

I've received and am poring over Arrow Video's Region B Blu box of Vincent Price in Six Gothic Tales. It's a different assortment than Shout! Factory's already-released Region A boxes, and includes one title not in either of them, Tales of Terror. They should have cheated and slipped The Premature Burial in there, then they'd have everything. I'm going to find out if the transfers are improved, and take a look at Arrow's exclusive extras... which have made many a domestic video fan go all-region.

And here's a last-minute reward-addition for people who've read all the way down here .... generously forwarded by Joe Dante. It's self explanatory and hilarious, from SBS: The Hunger Games Sketches: Battle Royale? What's Battle Royale? Enjoy.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Holiday in Spain
Blu-ray
  Perhaps the strangest 70mm Road Show ever produced, this comedy adventure travelogue was originally titled Scent of a Mystery and released in Smell-O-Vision -- then re-cut and re-formatted for 3-panel Cinerama! It follows amateur secret agent Denholm Elliott across Spain to protect a damsel in distress. Jack Cardiff composes great shots for the large screen format. This exceedingly rare item has been rescued from vault oblivion and is presented in Smilebox to give the correct Cinerama feel (but with no panel join lines). Also starring Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas and Diana Dors. With plenty of extras. In Blu-ray from Redwind Productions.
11/18/14

Remember the Night
Blu-ray
  Paramount/Universal's new contender for favorite Christmas movie adds a touch of larceny and urban angst to a powerful romance investigating the charm of small-town life. Petty thief Barbara Stanwyck is so hardboiled that her mother has disowned her, but instead of jail, she spends the holidays with the family of the Assistant D.A., Fred MacMurray. Director Mitchell Leisen's non-condescending view of bucolic life shows a genuine affection for people, and communicates the sudden attraction of traditional values for a woman hardened by the city. It's scripted by the great Preston Sturges! Now in Blu-ray from TCM Vault Collection.
11/18/14

When the Wind Blows
Blu-ray
  One of the top anti-nuke movies, this British animated gem opts for a chilling understated approach, as adapted by Jimmy T. Murakami from the graphic novel by Raymond Briggs. A sweet, dim retired couple (voiced by John Mills and Judy Ashcroft) living in the English countryside finds themselves inadequate to deal with a catastrophic atomic attack. Surviving the initial blast, they meet the aftermath with the optimistic spirit of the Blitz and a certainty that 'those in charge' will come through for them. It's charming, funny and extremely effective Ban-the-Bomb stuff, with no annoying lectures. Yet the fear we feel for this innocent, loving couple puts a human face on the nukes issue. Filmed with innovative pre-CGI depth animation; music by Roger Waters. The disc also features an excellent second feature, a documentary about the interesting life of director-animator Murakami. In Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
11/18/14

and

L'avventura
Blu-ray
  Michelangelo's epic of personal alienation is really lament for the death of romance in a materialist Italy moving toward prosperity. Monica Vitti and Gabrielle Ferzetti desperately search for a missing friend and feel guilty when romance causes their mission to lose steam. Are people capable of committing to anything but their immediate desires? Is spiritual emptiness a personal problem or a societal disease? Criterion's extras amount to a crash course in appreciating Italian art cinema of the '60s, of which this is a central tent pole. A new 4K scan, in Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
11/18/14

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Hello!

Today;s link number one ... at The Hollywood Reporter director Christopher Nolan responds to the issue of iffy audio in his big Sci-Fi hit Interstellar (which I still rather like a lot, warts and all).

Criterion has announced its disc release lineup for next February: Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man for Himself, Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, Federico Fellini's Fellini Satyricon, Martin Rosen's Watership Down and Yasujiro Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon.

And Julie Corman makes a (first?) appearance at Trailers from Hell, commenting on the trailer for Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Conformist
Blu-ray
  Now in HD in Region A, Bernardo Bertolucci's dazzling investigation into the Fascist personality is still an intellectual challenge and visual dazzler. Jean-Louis Trintignant is the cipher who becomes an assassin to find his place in a new order; Dominique Sanda and Stefania Sandrelli are the women in his life. The Vittorio Storaro cinematography is really eye-opening, as are the '30s-era Italian designs. With an hourlong documentary by Aldo Aprá, In the Shade of The Conformist. In Blu-ray from Rarovideo (Kino Lorber).
11/15/14

A Life in Dirty Movies
DVD
  The 'Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street,' adult filmmaker Joe Sarno turns out to be an artist trying to put human sexuality on film. We're not surprised to learn that his career when downhill when adult films went hardcore. Swedish director Wiktor Ericsson's funny and endearing docu observes Sarno in his twilight years; his remarkable story comes mostly from his spouse and partner Peggy, a perfect collaborator and protector. The maker of Sin in the Suburbs, Young Playthings and Abigail Leslie is Back in Town shapes up as a legit auteur. His 'dirty' movies of the '60s are more restrained than today's raunchy comedies. In DVD from Film Movement.
11/15/14

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Blu-ray
  High-toned producer-director Albert Lewin found the perfect horror story for his temperament, Oscar Wilde's creepy parable about a man who takes a dare with a painting and a promise. Hurd Hatfield was typed forever for his role here, while George Sanders found his most unpleasantly appropriate characterization. Angela Lansbury is the standout as a victim of Dorian Gray's calculated cruelty, while Donna Reed wishes an angel's bell would ring to take her away to Bedford Falls. And then there's the gruesome painting itself, twice as creepy now that we see it in beautifully restored Technicolor. In Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
11/15/14

and

Stalingrad
Region B Blu-ray
  In a tall stack of Stalingrad movies this 1993 epic with star Thomas Kretschmann is a winner. The invading Germans meet their match at this key city, and yet another brutal invasion of Russia ends in almost total obliteration. Director Joseph Vilsmaier's epic (pre-CGI) production is graced with locations in Czechoslovakia and Finland; although touched with a bit of 'good German angst', the story is straightforward and honest. Good action and mood, and when the snow falls it looks cold. In Region B Blu-ray from Arrow Films (UK).
11/15/14

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Hello!

I'm pretty much out of time today so this will be short. I think I've figured out what to do with the wider photo I'm putting at the top of the columns now -- today's is the B&W photo of the man igniting the rocket miniature. Every week I stumble upon older reviews and stop to correct typos, egregious mistakes, etc.; When I find something I end up liking better -- and if I have a good visual -- I'll pick it for the column-top. Clicking the image is a link to the older review.

Consider it an invitation to dig through the Savant Review Index. There are now 4600 separate reviews in the DVD Savant archive, and although I keep them polished and indexed, I have no way of knowing if they are visited very much.

Am I safe to assume people know what the links are in the middle of new reviews? I hope so.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Shooting
and
Ride in the Whirlwind
Blu-ray
  It's a remarkable release for a couple of deserving, neglected gems. Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson produced this pairing of western stories in 1966, with Nicholson playing (and he's finally on his acting game) opposite Harry Dean Stanton, Millie Perkins, Cameron Mitchell, Rupert Crosse and Warren Oates. One movie is an outlaw chase film and the other is a beautifully done spacey desert trek with existentialist overtones - yet never pretentious. Nicholson makes a great gunfighter while Warren Oates is the pragmatic everyman trying to save his own skin, and figure out who his captors are chasing in the desert. With excellent interview and commentary extras with the maestro, Monte Hellman. In Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection .
11/11/14

Gorky Park
Blu-ray
  William Hurt blooms in a superior murder thriller (from a best-seller) with a unique setting: he plays a Moscow policemen who must solve a grisly killing that may implicate someone from the KGB. It's career suicide time as Hurt's cop deals with the black market, a friend of the victims who won't talk (Joanna Pacula) and an American businessman with an investment interest in Russian sable furs (Lee Marvin in one of his last roles). Great action and intrigues from topflight director Michael Apted; also starring Brian Dennehy and Ian Bannen and written by Dennis Potter. In Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
11/11/14

The Bubble
Blu-ray + 3-D
  Arch Oboler's improved Space-Vision 3-D system debuted in this 1966 sci-fi curiosity, filmed on a shoestring and taking on an idea previously seen in the can't-afford-a-shoestring monster show The Slime People, but without the monster. The concept has since been given a second go with TV's The Dome. Deborah Walley and Michael Cole star; it's another independently produced 3-D disc by the folks at the 3-D Film Archive, to go with Dragonfly Squadron. Also viewable in 2-D (hope you can find your 2-D glasses!) In Blu-ray + 3-D from Kino Classics.
11/11/14

and

Nasty Habits
DVD-R
  A satiric farce about a crooked conspiracy among nuns to throw an election, with a priceless lineup of talent: Glenda Jackson, Melina Mercouri, Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Anne Jackson, Anne Meara and Susan Penhaligon all don the wimple. It's a transposition of Watergate from the White House to a Philadelphia Abbey, with characters corresponding to everyone from Nixon to Kissinger to John Dean. But Glenn (Savant) is disturbed by what he sees as the film's underlying message, and is asking for opinions. In other words, I'd like corroboration but am expecting corrections! Funny stuff from very funny ladies. In DVD-R from The Warner Archive Collection.
11/11/14

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Hello! Today, a book review...

A great section of the fan public -- well, friends in my circle of social misanthropy -- have been waiting for the promised Tom Weaver book on our old friend The Gill Man, and a few days ago I got my mitts on a copy. Weaver's many film interview books continue to be popular, and I'm still impressed with the research that went into his old book about Universal horror - put together long before the Internet allowed reviewers like myself to pretend that a few mouse-clicks constitutes real research. Just out from McFarland, The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy zeroes in on the three films starring America's favorite aquatic humanoid and clears up many of its most pressing questions. The bulk of the book is production history gleaned from studio records and carefully considered interview testimony -- as this is show biz, no two "creative contributors" agree on certain stories, and Weaver uses good judgment in figuring out who to believe. After reading the book, I readily believe that Tom has tracked down every living soul who ever got near the Gill Man.

There must be eight million stories in the Naked Black Lagoon, and Tom Weaver seems to have found all of them. Our interesting cast of characters includes a producer who was once Orson Welles' whipping boy. We meet mildly talented writers, hacks and credit hogs. The films' actors are either up 'n' coming hopefuls or journeymen plateau-ing into mediocrity. We really get to know how 'old Hollywood' worked. Depending on when they were asked, the makers of the Creature movies at times praised them, but might later call them junk. Producer William Alland accepted compliments for his work, but also said they were "Movies I blew out of my nose." We really learn the ways of 'factory Hollywood' in the chapters devoted to the construction of the brilliantly designed Creature costume. The Universal Makeup Department was a feudal fiefdom ruled by a boss that preferred to take solo credit for the brilliant work of his talented, innovative crew. We learn the full story of one of the designers of the Creature, a lady who lost her job because she attracted too much personal publicity away from the Department Head. I thought only two stunt swimmers donned the Creature costume but Weaver points out several more, including one that couldn't get the knack of swimming while constricted in a rubber suit, nearly blind and with no personal supply of oxygen. If an actor, stand-in, or extra has a story to tell about one of the three Creature movies, it's here.

The Creature Chronicles takes us through every day of production on all three films, interpreting old documentation to figure out who played the Cree-chur on which days and why. We learn about the monster's purposely-missing toe and get the lowdown about a delinquent sea turtle that liked to snack on foam rubber. We learn about the erudite actor who drank too much and the 'auteur' director that abused his authority by sexually harassing every one of his actresses. Weaver sorts out conflicting accounts of Clint Eastwood's appearance in the first sequel. He gives extra-special attention to Julie Adams, Lori Nelson and Leigh Snowden, the Brazilian fish-man's three leading ladies.

Readers attracted by technical details will find the book fascinating. The design, testing, redesign and construction of the Creature costume are covered in fine detail, complete with vintage photos that make us feel we can smell the latex curing in the workshop. The Florida locations for underwater filming are also well covered, from the deal that secured the use of the "Ocean Harbor" aquarium to the fact that viewers can tell which underwater shoot they're looking at by how clear the water is. Weaver compares the final films to the screenplay and the production records, discovering scenes that were dropped or parts of action that were cut out.

Record producer David Schecter contributes exhaustive music notes for each film, with biographies of the composers whether their material was new or cobbled from older scores. The music editors must have been geniuses - newly recorded cues are made to flow with library music over ten years old. You too will learn the name of every cue, and when a cue was repeated. Writer Steve Kronenberg, the editor of the Noir City page, provides a lengthy critical analysis of each show as well.

Writing in an engaging style and seeking out the truth, author Weaver touches on a multitude of topics, sidebars, rumors and rants. He traces the notion that the movies carried a theme about surgically altering people to fly to Outer Space, and names the writer who leaned in that direction. The audience response cards from previews are here to be read, and so are the requests of the Production Code office to tone down the films' excessive violence and raw sexuality (!) -- especially suggestions of inter-species bestiality! We learn about the elaborate home movie made by the locals during one of the shoots, some subsequent monster efforts by Creature alumni and the push in the 1980s when John Landis and Nigel Kneale almost re-made it.

Hardbound and printed on glossy paper, The Creature Chronicles is nearly 400 pages of dense text accompanied by hundreds of photos, many of them never before published. We're given biographies of dozens of interesting stars and stuntmen that touched upon the Creature legend, and even a Weekee-Wachee aquacade swimmer who doubled for underwater scenes. Weaver keeps his prose light -- prepare for some serious puns and an Obamacare joke -- but gives the films and everyone involved in them the proper measure of respect. If an impersonal film factory could turn out fantasy films this entertaining, imagine how good they might have been if the bosses really cared about them!

In the interest of full transparency, I must disclose that I first became aware of The Creature at age 9 or 10 when those wonderful Aurora monster models first came out -- that long green box all but called out to me. I don't think I saw a Gill Man movie for several years, when he was already my favorite movie monster. Yes, it's true.

Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

The Actress
Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD
  This East German winner from 1989 is not Red propaganda but a superior drama about artistic and romantic ambitions during the poisonous 1930s in Munich and Berlin. The outstanding Corinna Harfouch (Downfall) is superb as a Goebbels-approved 'Aryan' actress who falls in love with her Jewish leading man, and finds a daring way to remain with him after new laws forbid contact between them. Very intelligent, very well acted; Meryl Streep would want the part that Harfouch performs so well. Good direction by Siegfried Kühn. In DVD from the DEFA Film Library.
11/8/14

Rabid Dogs
Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD
  This is the 21st century but vital film elements are still being lost... in a complicated chain of events, we've so far been stuck with a reworked version of Mario Bava's unfinished thriller called Kidnapped. For the first time, the closer-to-Bava's last known work print version Cani arrabiati has been reconstituted in HD, unfortunately here and there jumping to and from prime-quality material. It's worth the effort, as Bava's tale of nasty thieves/hostage takers/violent perverts is a very good show, far more engaging than the average Italo police drama of the 1970s. This presentation includes both Rabid dogs and Kidnapped versions, with some good featurettes plus Tim Lucas' fine commentary. A Dual-Format edition in Region B Blu-ray and PAL DVD from Arrow Video (UK).
11/8/14

F for Fake
Blu-ray
  Our favorite host Orson Welles spends about ninety minutes teasing, tricking and flim-flamming the audience with this playful 'documentary' ostensibly about two hoaxters, art forger Elmyr de Hory and literary faker Clifford Irving. Leading us into blind alleys with red herrings, it's mischievous fun for its own sake. For Welles it's also meals consumed, wine drunk and cigars smoked. The disc comes with a real documentary (really! trust us!) as well as an old 60 Minutes episode about one of the despicable frauds charming con men studied in the film. In Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
11/8/14

and

Viva María!
Blu-ray
  Louis Malle beats 1,000 spaghetti westerns to the draw with this French comedy spectacle filmed in Mexico - it's all about revolution, anti-Colonial terrorism and sex! Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau are delightful as the song 'n' dance 'Two Marías' that parade saucy Parisian moves on the theater circuit in a Central American country ruled by despots and dastards. It's funny, the songs are cute and the action scenes big. Our two gorgeous, aggressive ma'amselles take on the Inquisition, too! Music by Georges Delerue. In Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
11/8/14

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Hello!

Well, I took in the Interstellar experience Wednesday night, in 35mm at the Director's Guild, and can report that a fine time was had by all. It's quite an ambitious movie to say the least, and it gets a lot of things right that Sci-Fi pix have been falling down on lately -- it's not a dumb action or conspiracy movie in disguise (well, there's a little of both). It doesn't throw a lot of half-baked Philip K. Dick at us and tell us it's profound (although it goes out on its own limb). Even though it has a main vein theme of "Love across the Cosmos" it doesn't insult our intelligence as did, say, Contact. The emotional story works very well and will probably be the film's saving grace commercially -- it's an excellent date movie.

Those positive qualities may also protect Interstellar against its flaws, gross overlength and a soundtrack so poorly mixed that I could understand only about 20% of the dialogue -- even in a state-of-the-art Guild theater. It doesn't help that Matthew McConaughey cannot read a decipherable dialogue line to save his soul, but his acting is excellent. The movie is an encyclopedia of ideas from earlier Sci-fi movies, almost all of them used in an interesting way. Loved the up-'n'-at-'em helper robot, a 2001-ish monolith that folds itself like a Rubik's Cube. He's a HAL-9000 who's also a gung-ho trouper. The show invents clever narrative solutions for getting the storyline out of the corners it has painted itself into. When things are far-fetched, it's always with a big helping of imagination.

As for the movie's concepts being difficult to understand, phooey. Like I said, I could make out precious little of the dialogue but was able to piece the movie together enough to follow it quite well. Either that, or I was sufficiently entertained not to think about the things I didn't understand -- ! Interstellar is a lo-ong haul picture. People afterwards complained of its length, and the first half hour still leaves knowledge gaps about what's happened to this future world. Will a video version be twice as long? But it's always an engaging, pleasant experience: it's a positive movie rather than dystopian or cynical. It's not about new ways to kill people and its emotions grab you without being obnoxious. Who knows, maybe when I see it on disc later and can read the subtitles, I'll have a different opinion. At the moment this feels like the best Sci-fi show I've seen since Gravity, and before that, Children of Men.

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As some of you know, back at MGM in 1997 I ended up being in a position to propose that an English-language version be produced of the long Italian cut of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. That finally happened about five years later, after I left the company. Last week I got a look at the new 4K transfer of GBU on the June release Blu-ray set called The Man With No Name Trilogy. I won't be reviewing it. But I have some news to report about it that Leone fans might want to hear.

First, some people are blaming disc distributors Fox and MGM for the disc's inexplicable color choices -- it's so yellow that the daytime scenes look like they have been gone over with a yellow highlighter. To be really unkind, maybe it should be called the 'Andres Serrano Edition' of GBU. Please somebody spread the word to the flamers out there that want to storm MGM with an angry mob, and tell them that the restoration, transfer and color choices on the new 4K transfer were all decided by restoration experts in Italy. My old MGM compatriot John Kirk had nothing to do with these new versions, and it's not fun reading denunciations of him in posts from people that don't know better. John has done too much good for film curatorship to deserve this.

The good news is about the audio for GBU. We know that the stereo remix from 2003 introduced a variety of non-doctrinaire revisions -- 'improved' new sound effects, cut 'n' paste music tracks, etc.. At this writing, Sergio Leone fans are also not happy with the audio options for GBU on The Man With No Name Trilogy Blu-ray set, which they quickly discovered still does not include an original monaural audio track, only a mono mixdown of the disputed 5.1 remix, the one with the replacement sound effects. Making things more confusing, the new restoration credits for the 4K remaster specifically list a mono audio restoration by Chace (now called Chace Audio by Deluxe).

When the single disc edition of GBU appeared in October we assumed it would be identical to the disc in the Trilogy box set. NOPE -- two trustworthy and knowledgeable Savant readers have written in to report that a restored original mono choice has been added. The single-disc release is the first time that the original monaural has been available since the 1998 DVD of the short U.S. theatrical version. Fans of the original mix can finally enjoy all those original wheezy Leone gunshot sound effects again.

I hope this makes sense... Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Portrait of Jason
and
Ornette: Made in America
Separate Blu-rays
  Volumes Two and Three (separate purchases) of Milestone's 'Project Shirley' present impressive restorations of two of underground filmmaker Shirley Clarke's major features. Portrait of Jason is the extended interview of Jason Holliday, a black, gay cabaret entertainer. It's acknowledged as an important picture in the study of the documentary form. Ornette: Made in America is Clarke's 'free cinema' approach to a biographical portrait of saxophonist-composer Ornette Coleman, the creator of 'free Jazz'. With plenty of extras. The distributors' explanation of how Jason was rescued from filmic purgatory is truly gratifying. A labor of love in Blu-ray from The Milestone Cinematheque.
11/4/14

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Blu-ray
  Just when we thought this classic silent horror picture would forever be a contrasty, unsteady fossil, the Wilhelm Friedrich Murnau Stiftung comes forth with a sterling restoration, most of it from an original negative source. The expressionist sets and exaggerated makeups now look like they should, purposely theatrical. The effect is like seeing something wholly new, even the film's themes and acting take on new perspectives. The special edition also contains a terrific 52-minute documentary on German Expressionism, explaining its roots and causes better than anything seen before. What's next in the list of miracle restorations, Greed? In Blu-ray from Arte / Kino Classics.
11/4/14

Planet of the Vampires
Blu-ray
  In space, nobody can hear Kendall Schmidt! Mario Bava's solitary signed science fiction opus is an eye-popping visual delight, as worried astronauts in black rubber spacesuits pick their way through the Maestro's eerie hellscape of rocks and colored smoke. Their dead comrades are rising from their graves, while stars Barry Sullivan and Norma Bengell get trapped in a death chamber with the skeleton of hideous alien monster. I think I'm ready to see it again. The capper in the fat list of extras is a full commentary from Bava biographer Tim Lucas. In Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.
11/4/14

and

Young Man with Ideas
DVD-ROM
  This one is for fans of Glenn Ford, Mitchell Leisen and filmic train wrecks, but is fascinating nonetheless. Milquetoast attorney (Ford) struggles to support his family while studying for the California Bar Exam. His uncomprehendingly dense wife (Ruth Roman) gets in trouble with gangsters, while Ford is pursued by the amorous Denise Darcel and Nina Foch. The acting's fine but the characters make no sense at all -- Ford's Clark Kent type unaccountably blooms into a Superman, while poor Ruth Roman plays a Wife From Hell who is also cute and lovable. Will their dreams come true? In DVD-ROM from The Warner Archive Collection.
11/4/14

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Hello!

Another happy, busy week ... looking at the photo of Dr Caligari up top, I'm thinking that if I got a different style of glasses, shaved my beard and stopped smiling so much, I could pass for the mountebank-malefactor. And who would pass up that opportunity? But someone would have to follow me around with a light to throw ominous shadows on blank walls. I'm already prepared in one way -- lots of blank walls in my house.

Where was I?

I heard some news in passing today (while in Beverly Hills, among people much better dressed) ... in addition to Warners upcoming Blu-ray of The Picture of Dorian Gray, next March 3 they will release three top musicals on Blu: a 3-D Blu of the excellent MGM musical Kiss Me Kate, which is certainly one of the top three or four 3-D pictures of the '50s fad years; Calamity Jane, the western-musical starring Doris Day, and The Band Wagon, the MGM title that most wanted a major transfer makeover, and that is posed to challenge Singin' in the Rain as the best of the Freed musicals.

I was sent some keeper links over the weekend. The helpful Edward Sullivan knocked me out with two informative Cliomuse links about the Hammer film I mentioned last week. The Stranglers of Bombay page is directly about the movie and a second article at the same site is titled, Thuggees in Movies. That word Thuggees ... isn't that the name of a disposable diaper?

Wired has an interesting new article by Jake Rossen about the legal snags that have kept the Adam West Batman TV show off of home video since the days of Ronald Reagan: Why We're Just Now Getting the 1960s Batman TV Show on DVD. As Gary Teetzel wrote, "Holy legal entanglements, Batman!"

Finally, I was also notified today by an old editing pal that the old Cannon company that dissolved around 1990 will be having a reunion soon. I hope the news is accurate, as that trailer department was a real wild bunch. If I get to go, it will be fun to collect some more war stories about old Mo and Yo.

Oh, and if the polls are still open here on the West coast, voting would be a good idea... I did! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are:

Cinerama's
Seven Wonders of the World
and
Search for Paradise
Blu-ray + DVD
  Two more amazingly elaborate special editions of Cinerama movies have been rescued from oblivion and restored to something resembling their original luster. The first of these 3-panel super travelogues circles the globe looking for grand sights natural and man-made. The second is a figurative search for Shangri-La high in the mountains of Central Asia, accompanied by a suitably delirious music score by Dimitri Tiomkin. Our phlegmatic host Lowell Thomas travels to Nepal for a regal coronation. WIth amazing flying scenes by Paul Mantz. Fascinating extras, including the new Cinerama short subject produced and directed by David Strohmaier. Separately sold Dual-Format editions in Blu-ray and DVD from Flicker Alley / Cinerama.
11/01/14

Man of the West
Blu-ray
  The legendary adult western by Anthony Mann stars Gary Cooper as a reformed outlaw who must pretend to rejoin his old gang of depraved cutthroats. Lee J. Cobb is the insanely murderous father figure and Julie London the saloon singer desired by all. It's famous for her sadistic near-strip scene, and a pervading sense of violent death. One of the first bitter-end elegiac westerns, this one moves over a desperate landscape, to a showdown in a ghost town. Produced by Walter Mirisch. In Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
11/01/14

The Naked City
Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD
  Jules Dassin's modern masterpiece is a mix of noir bleakness, realistic police procedural and a humanistic view of the city as a living thing unto itself. A beautiful woman is murdered, and detectives Barry Fitzgerald and Don Taylor start by linking up a cheating boyfriend (Howard Duff) and his innocent society fianceé (Dorothy Hart) to a burglary ring that victimizes the 5th Avenue set. Almost completely filmed on the hot, crowded New York streets, the thriller ends in a famous footchase. Ted de Corsia shines as a killer who ends up almost as pitiful as his victim. It's noir gold with a powerful music score by Miklos Rozsa. Includes an original 1950 short film, The Hollywood Ten. A Dual-Format edition in Region B Blu-ray and PAL DVD from Arrow Academy (U.K.).
11/01/14

and

Pete Kelly's Blues
Blu-ray
  Jack Webb's second big screen adventure sees him directing and producing as well as acting, and choosing his favorite subject, Jazz music. A Kansas City bandleader's efforts to be free of a gangster (Edmond O'Brien) lead to violence and tragedy -- and lots of terrific music by Ray Heindorf and excellent singing interludes from Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. In WarnerColor, CinemaScope and highly directional original stereophonic sound. Also with Lee Marvin and Martin Milner. It's a nostalgic '50s favorite. In Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
11/01/14

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Hello!

We survived Halloween and even had a healthy rain overnight -- only the second rainfall this year that's been more than a drizzle. If the drought continues, expect us Southern Californians to start migrating North in the next few years. You know, like the dinosaurs in the desert in Fantasia.

Definitely NOT in drought mode are the lists of discs to be reviewed around here. I spent the better part of two evenings charting all the goodies on the new Flicker Alley Cinerama Blu-rays, Seven Wonders of the World and Search for Paradise. The Kino organization came through with a tall stack of Blu-ray titles that have 'review me' written all over them. Anthony Mann's Man of the West I jumped on immediately. Mario Bava's eerie Planet of the Vampires is produced by Scorpion, and has an excellent new commentary by Tim Lucas. Viva Maria! is a (hopefully uncut, I'll make sure to check) marvelous political western comedy by Frenchman Louis Malle, with a sexy pairing of Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau. The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci will hopefully be as beautiful a Blu-ray as Region B discs I've reviewed; it's from Rarovideo, another label distributed by Kino. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is an incredible German restoration of the 1919 film; I briefly checked the image quality and can only say, "Wow." I'll be looking forward to the extras, as I've read that the basic interpretation of this original Horror Film has undergone yet another critical flip-flop. The Bubble is the newly-restored 3-D Space Vision presentation of Arch Oboler's 1966 science fiction thriller about a community trapped under a massive alien dome. The disc producers and 3-D engineers are our friends from the 3-D Film Archive. I reviewed their Dragonfly Squadron 3-D just a couple of weeks back.

Arrow Video continues to put out desirable product for Region B capable fans, sometimes in parallel with Region A discs by Shout! Factory. As Arrow is opening an arm for American releases, I wonder how all that will shake out. In the meantime their Region B output continues to sport impressive extra features. I'm going to be able to write up their Withnail and I, Stalingrad and what is described as a definitive disc of Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs.

Yet more gotta-cover titles are on the way. Criterion has F For Fake ready to go, and I'm hoping that its Blu combo of Monte Hellman's The Shooting (pictured) and Ride in the Whirlwind will arrive soon. Twilight Time's new batch is said to include Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg, John Frankenheimer's Birdman of Alcatraz, Don Siegel's Elvis western Flaming Star, Otto Preminger's psycho suspenser Bunny Lake is Missing and an animated atomic end-of-the-world movie I've not yet seen, When the Wind Blows. There's also The Twilight Samurai, which I hope isn't a biography of Nick Redman.

The very next item up will be Milestone's Shirley Clarke project restorations, Portrait of Jason and Ornette: Made in America. And also a title from The Warner Archive Collection, either the irreverent comedy Nasty Habits or Mitchell Leisen's Young Man with Ideas. I've been urged to seek out the WAC's "Duo-vision" thriller Wicked, Wicked. The WAC's new disc of Nicholas Ray's The Lusty Men (said to be a pressed disc) is also a must-get -- it's the least known of his better films.

One link today: over at Trailers from Hell Brian Trenchard-Smith provides a commentary for Terence Fisher's historical-horror shocker The Stranglers of Bombay (pictured), a Savant favorite because it's at the center of what may have been a major colonial fraud, the dreaded Cult of Kali. If the TFH trailer raises your curiosity, I attempted to deal with the subject in my older reviews of Fisher's Stranglers and Nicholas Meyer's The Deceivers.

Please note that I'm trying out something to brighten the Savant main page, which has looked exactly the same now for (cough) thirteen years. The new image on top, the wide one, may or may not relate to something being reviewed. But click on it and it will take you to one of my reviews, new or old. Sometimes I re-read something and want to push it at you re-introduce it.

Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson