(This review pertains to the UK Region 2 DVD release).

By Tim Greaves

I first encountered Lionel Jeffries’ 1973 melodrama Baxter! during the summer of 1978 on what I believe to be its one and only British television airing by the BBC. Its conspicuous absence on video in the UK – and, until 2014, DVD – meant that, for me, some 36 years elapsed between viewings. A small, and in many respects not particularly memorable film, it nevertheless stayed with me over the intervening years for, I think, two reasons. The first was its unexpectedly dark nature, which completely caught me off guard given the family friendly nature of the director’s previous films, The Railway Children and The Amazing Mr Blunden; best remembered for his myriad of on-screen performances, Baxter! was in fact the third of only five projects which positioned Jeffries on the other side of the camera. The second reason that solitary viewing remained lodged in my psyche was a narrative jolt towards the end involving the demise of a key character (which the 16 year-old me found extremely upsetting).

Baxter! tells the tale of the titular character (played by Scott Jacoby), an American boy who arrives in London with his insensitive mother (Lynn Carlin) in the wake of her acrimonious separation from his father (Paul Maxwell). His Christian name is Roger, unfortunate given the fact he suffers from a speech impediment which prevents him from pronouncing his R’s, yet he treats his handicap with good humour. At first Baxter appears to fit in well at school, where he makes easy friends, and quickly ingratiates himself with other residents in the vicinity of his home, among them a chef, also named Roger (Jean-Pierre Cassel), his girlfriend Chris (Britt Ekland) and the irritatingly extrovert teenager ‘Nemo’ (Sally Thomsett). But it gradually becomes apparent that Baxter’s lonely childhood – starved of affection by his bickering, self-occupied parents – has scarred him badly. Can the intervention of school therapist Dr Clemm (Patricia Neal) save the poor lad before calamity descends?

Michel Audiard’s script handles the maudlin subject matter with care ensuring that it steers clear of becoming depressing, though it should be noted that anyone looking for a happy ending is watching the wrong movie. The engaging narrative notwithstanding, the chief appeal of Baxter! for this reviewer is the marvellous assembly of players. Cassel’s amiable chef almost steals the show (the scene in which the two Rogers prepare an evening meal together is a standout) and Carlin is suitably despicable, while Ekland is gorgeousness incarnate; one can’t help falling a little bit in love with her. There’s a nice turn too from Paul Eddington as a sarcastic teacher. Only Neal is a little disappointing with a role she never seems quite comfortable in. But this is really Scott Jacoby’s film; a slightly cocky but innately witty teenager, “Woger” has the audience in his pocket within the first few scenes and the actor’s performance when Baxter succumbs to a severe case of anxiety carries immense emotional heft. (As an aside, it’s sobering to note that Jacoby was 16 when the film was shot – he can now see 60 on his horizon!)

Capped with an infectious Michael J. Lewis score, in summation Baxter! may not exactly be the experience one expects of a Lionel Jeffries film, but it’s a worthwhile one just the same. The film’s patient admirers have finally been rewarded, for after 41 years the film surfaces on DVD in the UK as a constituent of Network Distributing’s ongoing “The British Film” collection. The pleasing transfer is accompanied by an original theatrical trailer and a bountiful gallery of promotional stills.

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By Howard Hughes

(The following review is of the UK release of the film, on Region 2 format)

LOVE IS A LOSING GAME

Network continues to release some unusual examples of retro British cinemabilia. This adaptation of Graham Greene’s ‘Loser Takes All’ was shot at Shepperton Studios and on fabulous locations in the Principality of Monaco. At the big London firm SIFA, assistant accountant Bertrand solves an accounting mistake that impresses his boss Dreuther so much that he insists Bertrand takes up his very generous (and highly implausible) offer. Instead of getting married to his fiancée Cary in Bournemouth as planned, Bertrand can instead get hitched in Monte Carlo, on the company’s chequebook. Oh, for a boss like Dreuther...

Soon Bertrand and Cary are living the highlife in the casino capital of Europe, staying in the royal suite of the hotel and enjoying a lavish holiday. But Dreuther, who’s supposed to meet them there on his yacht, is delayed, and after they are married, their spending money runs out. The pair is reduced to living on coffee and bread rolls, until the hotel manager notes they aren’t spending much money and are avoiding all the hotel staff at every opportunity, so he lends them 250,000 francs. Bertrand is a mathematician who wants to try out his system that he thinks will win him a fortune on the casino tables. After a marathon gambling stint, Bertrand arrives back at their hotel room to tell Cary that he’s won five million francs. With great wealth comes a change in personality for Bertrand and he becomes preoccupied with the acquisition of money and power, even to the point of buying shares in SIFA and becoming a force in opposition to Dreuther. But his single-mindedness drives sweet Cary away, into the arms of pipe-smoking smoothy Philip. Now Bertrand must win back his bride, or it’s Monte Carlo or Bust (up). As the trailer put it: ‘Here’s a honeymoon that isn’t all honey’.

This movie is as wafting a piece of Continental fluff as you can imagine – lovely, old-fashioned cosiness from a bygone age. Italian heartthrob Rossano Brazzi is the impulsive Latino lead, Bertrand, while British actress Glynis Johns is his charming bride. Tony Britton played Philip and Robert Morley plays Robert Morley – as he seemed to do in all his films – as the company’s all-powerful MD Dreuther. Look fast for a young Shirley Anne Field as Bertrand’s date in the casino. At the time of the film’s release, ‘Today’s Cinema’ optimistically noted it ‘Has the zest and zing of a Mediterranean holiday…if the sun never shines again this year, Loser Takes All will make up for it’. And the admen went to town on the taglines for this one too, calling it ‘The warmest, wonderful-est, winning-est romance-of-the-year’ and ‘It’s a spectacular CinemascoPeek inside high society’s swankiest playground’. With dresses by Christian Dior and a light and airy score from Alessandro Cicognini, this movie scores best in its visual and aural depiction of Monaco and especially Monte Carlo. The on-location filming livens up the plot with its breathtaking scenery as a backdrop. There’s a superb sequence of Bertrand and Cary riding a Vespa on mountain roads, which lead up to a rustic, folksy village – a setting in massive contrast to the wealth and splendour of Monte Carlo. In fact it’s to the simplicity of the village that Cary wants to return when they strike it rich, but Bertrand is too enamoured with the highlife. While there’s nothing groundbreaking on display in ‘Loser Takes All’, it’s a pleasant enough scoot, with a bit of romance, a bit of drama, a bit of comedy, stirred into the mix. Johns is the best aspect of the film and is highly watchable as the chirpy, quirky newlywed. Greene’s novel was adapted again in 1990 as ‘Strike it Rich’, with Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald as Bertrand and Cary, and a cast that included John Gielgud (as Dreuther) and comedian Max Wall.

‘Loser Takes All’ is presented in the CinemaScope widescreen format and is ‘a brand-new transfer from the original film elements’. The colours are strong if you boost the colour on the TV, but the image seems a little soft and could do with a sharpen. ‘Loser Takes All’ is another addition to Network’s ‘The British Film’ collection, a five-year project to release over 450 British films via a deal with Studiocanal. It’s a British Lion release and the disc includes the original trailer and a gallery of colourful poster artwork. In 1956, the periodical ‘Daily Film Renter’ deemed it ‘Exhilarating as champagne’. If the lovers’ antics seem a little flat 58 years later, there’s always those gorgeous Eastmancolor Monte Carlo vistas to enjoy.

DVD format: Region 2

Rated: PG

RRP: £9.99

Screen ratio: 2.35:1

85 mins Colour

Text © Howard Hughes/Cinema Retro 2014

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BY MARK MAWSTON

I was an avid cinema goer back in the ‘80s and a normal week could consist of up to four visits to sample the attractions on offer. Luckily I had a cinema 10 minutes from my house as well as several others in my home town of Newcastle. My local, “The Jesey”, would show films about 2-3 weeks after their initial run “in town” at the likes of The Odeon which premiered all the big new releases. However, being a fan of less mainstream films, I would also venture across the river Tyne to places like Gateshead, Low Fell and Byker, because these less salubrious cinemas across the water would show the kind of films you wouldn’t find running in the more mainstream chains. A lot of these were Cannon cinema’s owned by Golan and Globus (subjects of a new documentary) or just so run down that they’d run everything from Lemon Popsicle to Flesh Gordon to lesser known Cannon gems such as Lifeforce and Runaway Train. It never ceases to amaze me that there were still a couple of low budget (but big in America) fan favourites that would and should have been shown at these venues that simply passed me by. Those two films were Night Of The Creeps and Night Of The Comet, both of which I finally got to see this month- the latter 30 years after its initial release, hopefully long enough to be classed as retro enough for Cinema Retro!

As fortune would have it, Night of the Creeps had its first UK TV showing on Film Four recently and I really loved this film (to quote a line from it, it did “Thrill Me”.) It was well worth the wait. At the same time Arrow Video then announced the forthcoming UK Blu-ray and DVD release of Night of the Comet. I couldn’t believe my luck. So did the second cult classic of the ‘80s shape up or disappoint? Well, great films, like comets themselves, only present themselves every now and again and sometimes burn brighter than they did when first they first appeared, which is the case here as Night Of The Comet is easily the most enjoyable film I’ve seen all year.

Synopsis

Eighteen year-old Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart – Weekend at Bernie’s, The Last Starfighter) misses out on the event-of-a-lifetime when she ditches watching the comet in favour of copping off with the projectionist at the cinema where she works. But this turns out to be a wise move when, the next day, she discovers that the entire population has been reduced to piles of red dust – leaving only Reggie, her sister Sam (Kelli Maroney – Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Chopping Mall) and a handful of other survivors to fend off the roving gangs of glassy-eyed zombies.

Taking its cue from classic “doomsday” movies such as The Day of the Triffids and The Omega Man (and with a healthy dose of Dawn of the Dead thrown in for good measure), Night of the Comet is an irresistible slice of Reagan-era B-movie fare which features Cyndi Lauper dance-alongs (these girls just wanna have fun!) as well as some truly gravity-defying bouffant hairstyles and some superb Zombie make-ups. The “Zombie-Cop” is an iconic monster from the 80’s, of that there is no doubt. As always with Arrow, the transfer is top notch, showing off the films amazing colour pallet and the extras are brilliantly done (such as taking a shot of a character writing on a note pad and intercutting it with the name of the documentary, as though the on screen character is actually writing its title on screen. It’s an indication of the time, effort and humour that the Arrow team put into their releases. These extra’s include:

• · High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature, transferred from original film elements by MGM

• · Original 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)

• · Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• · Audio commentary with writer/director Thom Eberhardt

• · Audio commentary with stars Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart

• · Audio commentary with production designer John Muto

• · Valley Girls at the End of the World – Interviews with Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart

• · The Last Man on Earth? – An interview with actor Robert Beltran

• · End of the World Blues – A brand new interview with Star Mary Woronov

• · Curse of the Comet – An Interview with special make-up effects creator David B. Miller

• · Original Theatrical Trailer

• · Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin

• · Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Although the film is very much of its time, it is also timeless as all great cult films should be. The fact that the film constantly refers to and pays homage to other sci-fi classics is fabulous, but it is the little less- than- obvious touches that will make for repeated viewings. My favourite:s one of the survivors of the night of the comet opens a sealed projection room door and the poster taped onto it was the Gable/Lombard camp classic Red Dust, which is exactly what all those outside now are. Touches like that are missing from the “Zombie” (i.e. made and watched by) films of today. So, my advice is to buy this new Arrow release and draw the blinds and watch the magical colours on screen and for once “Don’t watch The Skies”.

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By Fred Blosser

In 1983, a serial killer claims more than a dozen lives in and around Rome, apparently targeting his victims at random, and then disappears. The killer leaves his signature in blood at each crime scene: “Canepazzo,” or “Crazy Dog.” Thirty years later, Marco Costa (Gian Marco Tavani), the son of one of the victims, interviews Raul Chinna (Marco Bonetti), a retired criminologist. Obsessively pursuing Canepazzo’s decades-cold trail, Costa hopes that he can unearth clues from Chinna’s old investigative files. Who was Crazy Dog, why did he murder Costa’s father, and why did he abruptly end his bloody spree? If he’s still alive, can Marco locate him and avenge his father’s death? Revealing that the man who knew the most about the crimes was a young investigative reporter, David Moiraghi (Giuseppe Schisano), Chinna begins to recount a sequence of events based on Moiraghi’s interrogations of witnesses and examinations of the murder scenes.

The back-of-the-case blurb on the One7Movies 2014 DVD release of “Crazy Dog” likens David Petrucci’s 2012 movie to the Italian giallo and polizio thrillers of the Cinema Retro era. Petrucci underscores the homage by casting three 1970s Italian genre icons -- Marco Bonetti, Franco Nero, and Tinto Brass -- in prominent roles. Another influence would seem to be the long-running U.S. TV series “Cold Case” (2003-2010), in Petrucci’s structure of a present-day investigator delving into a decades-old mystery, with period-detail flashbacks to the crime. There’s a trace of Fritz Lang’s “M” (1931) as well, when a Rome crime boss strongarms his way into Moiraghi’s investigation for reasons of his own.

“Crazy Dog” exhibits some of the limitations of a multi-tasking auteur working independently on a limited budget. (Petrucci produced, edited, and directed from a script by Igor Maltagliati.) The cast of primary characters is small, many scenes are driven either by lengthy dialogue or conversely by dialogue-free montage, and some of the actors are more effective than others. A scene centering on Nero as a loquacious, crackpot artist runs on for far too long, but Cinema Retro fans will feel inclined to forgive Petrucci: if you land Nero for a film, and you probably can afford only a limited amount of his time, who wouldn’t make the most of the opportunity? The framing device of the present-day interview with the retired criminologist seems confining at first, but as Maltagliati’s story progresses, the reason for constructing the movie in that way becomes ingeniously clear.

One7Movies’ Region 0 DVD is well executed. Colors are vivid and details are sharp in the movie’s 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The DVD uses the Italian-language print of the film and provides subtitles in English. The disc includes two extras: the film’s original trailer and a photo gallery. The One7Movies Region 0 DVD of “Crazy Dog” can be ordered HERE.

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By Lee Pfeiffer 

It's become a tradition in the United States that, with the onset of summer, the media goes into overdrive trying to scare the pants off people with hyper-inflated warnings about the "shark menace". Forget the fact that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being devoured by a Great White shark- all anyone remembers is that trouble maker Steven Spielberg embellishing in our brains the image of Robert Shaw serving as a human smorgasbord for Bruce, the mechanical shark. This year, the "shark menace" was relatively subdued on TV and on-line thanks to any number of genuine crisis ranging from the rise of Isis to President Putin's obsession to ensuring that Eastern Europe returns to the joyful period of Stalinism. Nevertheless, shark mania was never too far below the surface. The Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" festival features seven days of 24/7 shows about the planet's least-endearing creatures. Jumping on the bandwagon, the Smithsonian Channel has followed suit with "Shark Collection", a DVD comprising of three diverse documentaries. There isn't a "Sharknado" movie to be found, as these programs examine various aspects of the real life plight of various sharks and how they are faring through conservation efforts in recent years.

The first episode is titled "Shark Girl" and offers a fascinating portrait of a fascinating young woman. Madison Stewart is a 19 year old Australian firebrand who has had an obsession with sharks since childhood. With her parent's support, she left school in order to pursue a lifelong career in shark conservation. The film follows her on exotic diving trips to continue her education about the habits of some of the deadliest species. Stewart is consistently engaging and disarmingly charismatic but she is also unstoppable in her determination to bring about stronger conservation laws around the world. The film follows her land-based political efforts that include lobbying Woolworth's (yes, they're still a big chain in Oz) to stop selling shark meat. When the appeal on an emotional level doesn't work, Stewart secures a report from the an internationally respected laboratory proving that the shark meat the stores are selling contains levels of mercury that are far above the recommended allowance. She starts a media campaign warning that people might be putting their health in jeopardy by indulging in this delicacy. The film shows some stomach-turning of magnificent sharks being slaughtered simply to get their fins, which are considered to be a sexual stimulant in Asia.  She travels to Mexico to support the government's bold decision to place an annual moratorium on when sharks can be hunted- a decree that is already baring noticeable results. Stewart acknowledges that sharks can pose a danger, but she seems to be blissfully delusional about how erratic their behavior can be. In a dive with legendary Bahamian shark expert Stuart Cove, she is literally surrounded by deadly sharks as she confidently offers them food. As with all of these nature documentaries, the unsung heroes are the camera people who take the risk of photographing these remarkable scenes, yet never get appropriate credit. 

The second episode is titled "Death Beach" and provides the obligatory balance between sympathizing with the plight of sharks and being scared to death of them. It's also the strongest episode on the DVD. The film follows the efforts of scientists to discover why a popular but remote beach in South Africa was the scene of five deadly shark attacks in as many years, with three of them occurring in one summer. There are well-done recreations of the attacks and interviews with witnesses. The scientists are seen attempting to catch and tag sharks in order to study patterns of travel and behavior. The episode is genuinely disturbing and will make you relieved that you survived stepping into your own bathtub.

The final episode is titled "Great White Code Red", which will be of primary interest to people with a scientific approach to the shark phenomenon. The show features shark experts indulging in a grisly autopsy of a Great White in order to further understand the many mysteries about this creature that have continued to elude us. The filmmakers deserved kudos for not pandering to the more shocking aspects of shark behavior, but at the same time, this restraint undoubtedly makes this the least engaging of the three episodes.

"Shark Collection" is a consistently interesting release that fulfills its main mission, which is to inform even while it entertains. Recommended viewing.  

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Vinegar Syndrome, the DVD label that specializes in rescuing obscure cult movies from oblivion, has released another grindhouse triple feature of 1970s erotica. All three features, contained on two DVDs,  are hardcore and all recall period of time when, in order to see such fare, you had to sheepishly pay to enter a porn theater, hoping that anyone of influence in your life who might see you would be sitting in the audience themselves. Watching these oldies but goodies today, one is impressed by the fact that, even within the limited boundaries of the meager production values, some real attempts were made to tell legitimate stories. In that respect, the X rated feature films differed from the "loops", which merely consisted of ten minute reels in which everyone had to get down to business as quickly as possible.

The first film in this triple feature is "Cry for Cindy", which starred Amber Hunt, a pouty, baby-faced beauty who evidently made a bit of a splash when the film was made in 1976 (it begins with a placard thanking Hustler publisher Larry Flint for bringing his top centerfold to the attention of producers.) Hunt plays Cindy, a young woman who is living the high life in L.A. She drives an expensive car, lives in a luxurious apartment and even gets to fly private planes. However, the down side is that all of this is financed by her career as a high end hooker. The film delves into her psychological dilemma: she's addicted to her lifestyle but is increasingly appalled at how she earns it. She is used and abused by a brutal pimp who reminds her that he can toss her out into the street on a whim. Consequently, she becomes his personal sex slave. Her two best friends are more accepting of their fate as hookers. In a flashback sequence, we see how Cindy started as an innocent hair stylist who was helping to finance her boyfriend's way through medical school. Faced with insurmountable debt, she is lured into the life of a hooker without ever divulging this to her lover, who thinks she is suddenly earning big money by modelling. Cindy never warms to going to bed with unattractive men but learns to be the best in her profession, thus making herself a valuable commodity. As the story progresses, however, she becomes more depressed, leading to a rather somber and unexpected development. "Cry for Cindy" is quite ambitious in many respects: it shows a feminine point of view towards sexual exploitation, admittedly even while the actresses are sexually exploiting themselves. The script is literate and interesting and - dare I say it?- the acting is impressive for this genre. The sex scenes leave nothing to the imagination and are erotically filmed and the production values are fairly high, with numerous location sequences and even an original love song written for the opening credits. The film ranks high among the grindhouse sex flicks of the era. (The DVD set also contains a more mainstream, soft-core cut of the film).  

"Touch Me" is another attempt to combine a literate script with hardcore sex. Filmed in 1971, the low-budget production is set in an institute where various young people have assembled to discuss and try to resolve their sexual issues. The setting is the private home of the doctor who administers the therapies, which seems to be an opening for low-brow comedy. Yet, the script plays it straight, offering fully developed characterizations and a cast that can actually act (even if the "doctor" is of the rather stiff, pre-"Airplane" Leslie Nielsen method school). The characters span such a spectrum of varying personalities with varying problems that you half expect to see Irwin Allen's name as producer. There's the guy who is insecure about his penis size. There's another guy who harbors rape fantasies. There's a bickering couple and a wife who is rather frigid- and of course, the prerequisite lesbian who feels compelled to get "cured" but ends up adding a few numbers  of straight women to her black book.  The sex here is more clinical-both cinematically and in a literal sense- as everyone learns to shed their inhibitions and express and enact their wildest fantasies. As with "Cry for Cindy", "Touch Me" is a very obvious attempt to present an erotic film that might be more appealing to female viewers. The dialogue is intelligent and the cast is talented enough to suspect some of them might have found legitimate success in the profession. 

Rounding out the triple feature is "Act of Confession", a 1972 film that starts out as ambitiously as the other two entries in the set. The film opens with a rather poignant overview of the miserable conditions most people lived in during the Middle Ages. A narrator points out how particularly rough it was for women, who were mostly consigned to a slave-life existence as the wife of a peasant. Consequently, many young women sought refuge in convents, not particularly because of religious conviction, but simply to escape the drudgery of back-breaking daily life on a farm. The premise is fine and one wishes the producers had stuck with simply providing a documentary about the Middle Ages. However, sex is the name of the game here and we are soon introduced to a young nun who develops some nasty habits in the convent, getting it on with the other sisters as well as the most fortunate priest and altar boy in Europe. In what is undoubtedly the most controversial sequence, she is seduced by Jesus Christ, so if you're still griping about that old Scorsese film, here's a new one you can protest. Unlike the other two films in this set, this entry is about as erotic as a catechism class, with a leading lady so lifeless that the sex scenes border on necrophilia.

Although the films credit aliases for their directors, the DVD sleeve indicates they were actually all helmed by one Anthony Spinelli, who apparently was a legend in the industry back in the day- and improbably, was the brother of noted character actor Jack Weston. Spinelli's work is several notches above the norm for this genre and Vinegar Syndrome presents crisp, clean remastered transfers. Whether these types of films appeal to you or not, they do offer an undeniable cinematic time capsule into an era when the industry was shaking off the constraints of repressive censorship that had dominated popular culture for the entire century. I'd call this an impressive package, but given the subject matter, it would sound too much like a stale joke. 

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BY FRED BLOSSER

Many books have been written about Hollywood Westerns.  After 45 years, the late William K. Everson’s “A Pictorial History of the Western Film” (The Citadel Press, 1969) remains one of the best: a coffee-table book with substance. Everson appropriately tips his sombrero to John Ford, John Wayne, Henry Hathaway, and Howard Hawks (with measured praise for “Red River”), and his comments on films spanning the history of the genre up to the end of the 1960s, from “The Great Train Robbery” (1903) to “The Wild Bunch” (1969), are incisive and thought-provoking. As a film scholar and preservationist, Everson was particularly knowledgeable about older and often obscure movies from the silent and early sound eras. Three of the classic titles he highlights are worthy of his approval and deserve to be better known than they are.

King Vidor’s “Billy the Kid” (1930) is slow going at times, particularly if you’re accustomed to the frantic pace of modern action movies. Nevertheless, as the first major Hollywood dramatization of the Billy the Kid story, adapted from Walter Noble Burns’ 1925 book, it’s certainly worth seeing. Everson praises the spare quality of the production:

…Vidor deliberately tried to avoid the traditional MGM gloss; the photography is good, but always naturalistic, the characters drab in their dress, the buildings ramshackle, the streets dusty. It is a long film and a slow one, with its main action sequence placed in the middle of the film, so that it doesn’t even build to a climax as most Westerns do. Its script is frankly untidy, yet the film is quite certainly the best and most convincing of all the Billy the Kid sagas.

Everson is right about Vidor’s strikingly stark style, including Vidor’s use of rugged outdoor scenes in which massive buttes and caves dwarf the actors, but he’s wrong about the movie not building to a climax. Actually it does, although the dramatic climax isn’t the final confrontation between Billy (Johnny Mack Brown) and Pat Garrett (Wallace Beery!), that you might expect from 80 years of Billy the Kid cinema, and maybe as Everson expected. It’s an emotional climax instead of a violent climax: the next-to-last scene in the movie, in which Billy, on the run, tries to keep his sweetheart Claire (Kay Johnson) from sticking with him by telling her that he doesn’t love her, although it’s poignantly clear to the viewer that he does. Vidor, Brown, and Johnson stage the scene with great tenderness.

Spoiler alert: there isn’t much of a resolution between Billy and Garrett. The two never really face off, as you’d expect from other movies like “The Left-Handed Gun” (1958) and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (1973), which remain marginally truer to historical fact. Just after the Kid returns to the heartbroken Claire and confesses that he really does care, Garrett lets the outlaw ride away with her to freedom and a happy future. Beery may seem an unlikely choice to play Pat Garrett (although not the oddest: that would be Thomas Mitchell in “The Outlaw” from 1946) , but the role is crafted to the actor’s usual image as a soft-hearted roughneck, so it isn’t as clumsy a fit as you might think.

From Billy the Kid to the O.K. Corral: Everson called Edward L. Cahn’s “Law and Order” (1932) “[one] of the sound era’s most overlooked Westerns (and one of its finest).” Walter Huston and Harry Carey Sr. are terrific as Frame Johnson -- “the killin’est marshal in the West” -- and shotgun-toting gambler Ed Brandt in this lean, black-and-white movie based on W.R. Burnett’s novel “Saint Johnson,” with John Huston credited for “adaptation and dialogue.” Johnson (a thinly disguised Wyatt Earp), his brother Lute, Brandt (the Doc Holliday of the story), and their pard Deadwood drift into lawless Tombstone, where the rustling Northrup brothers ride roughshod. The town fathers offer Johnson the job of peace officer.

“Nope, I’m done with that,” the flinty Johnson says at first. “All it’s gotten me is a trail of dead men and a heap of enemies.” The locals cagily change his mind by playing on his pride: “Pin Northrup’s bet a thousand dollars that you won’t go up agin’ em.”

The dialogue is hardboiled, almost the only women-folk in sight are the saloon floozies, and the script establishes a bleak, fatalistic tone early on. Drifting, Johnson and his companions match cards on the trail to determine whether to go to Alkali or Tombstone; Brandt offhandedly votes for Tombstone and draws the winning hand -- aces over eights, the cards that Wild Bill Hickok held when he was murdered by Jack McCall. The real-life events of the feud between the Earps and the Ike Clanton gang are rearranged here so that the shootings and shotgun ambushes lead up to rather than follow the showdown inside the “O.K. Barn,” staged by Cahn as a brutal, running gunbattle around hay bales and horse stalls. A gangster movie from the same year, “The Beast of the City,” co-scripted by W.R. Burnett and starring Walter Huston, ended with the same sort of last-ditch, straight-up shootout between cops led by Huston and mobsters led by Jean Hersholt as a gang lord modeled on Al Capone.

Zane Grey’s “Riders of the Purple Sage” (1912) has been filmed at least five times. Everson singled out the 1941 version, directed by James Tinling and starring George Montgomery, as “that rare animal, a remake superior to at least some of its predecessors. In less than an hour, it packed in all of Grey’s complicated plot, managed to prevent the unusually large number of characters from getting in each other’s way, offered plenty of action and good locations and photography.” Montgomery as vengeance-driven gunman Jim Lassiter makes an impressive entrance. Dressed all in black, he prevents a gang of crooked vigilantes from whipping an innocent man by shooting the whip in two. “You’re interferin’ with justice, stranger,” the ringleader snarls. “Takin’ a whip to a man ain’t justice,” Lassiter snaps back.

Grey’s novel villainized Mormons, led by the corrupt Bishop Dyer, but the movie sidesteps religious controversy: in this version, Dyer is a greedy judge (Robert Barrat) who attemps to intimidate Jane (Mary Howard), a young ranch owner, into signing her property over to him. The judge’s main henchman is his son Adam, played by Kane Richmond, whom pulp movie fans may remember better as the Spy Smasher and the Shadow. Montgomery anchors the film with conviction and charisma, and as Everson noted, William Bruckner’s and Robert F. Metzler’s script keeps the gunfights, fistfights, and chases coming at a rapid clip. This is a movie that combines the simplicity and verve of the B-Western with the accomplished acting and outdoor production values of an A-production.

“Law and Order” and “Riders of the Purple Sage” are available in DVD-R editions on the collector’s market, and “Billy the Kid” has been released on DVD-R by the Warner Archive Collection. For their quality and historical value, I think all three films deserve proper restoration on Blu-ray and DVD, and I suspect that William K. Everson would have agreed.

By Howard Hughes

(the following review is of the UK release of the film, on Region 2 format)

Behind the Lace Curtain: Soviet Spies in Suburbia

Robert Tronson’s ‘Ring of Spies’ (aka ‘Ring of Treason’) is the 1964 film version of the true-life Portland Spy Ring case. From the late 1950s until 1961 the five-strong ring passed secrets to the Soviets from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment at Portland in Dorset, ‘the most hush-hush joint in the country’. Bernard Lee – who is best known for his role as James Bond’s M, played Harry Houghton, an ex-naval officer who is shipped back from his post in Warsaw following a drunken incident at an embassy party. Houghton is posted as a clerk at the secret naval base at Portland and is approached by an agent from ‘the other side’ who convinces him to commit treason and steal them ‘a few titbits’. Houghton befriends his co-worker, Elizabeth Gee (played by Margaret Tyzack), whom Harry calls ‘Bunty’. In reality spinster Gee’s first name was Ethel. Pleased with Houghton’s attention and fuss, the two begin courting and Houghton convinces her to take ‘Top Secret’ documents from the safe. Gee thinks she’s helping US intelligence to keep tabs on the Royal Navy, but their contact in London, Gordon Lonsdale, is actually a Soviet agent.

Lonsdale (played by William Sylvester, later of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’), masquerades as a jukebox dealer in London, but in reality he takes the ‘borrowed’ documentation to antiquarian bookseller Peter Kroger (David Kossoff) and his wife Helen. There, behind the lace curtains at their bungalow at 45 Cranley Drive, Ruislip, Middlesex – inconspicuously nestled in suburbia – the pilfered secrets are photographed, documented, then sent behind the Iron Curtain, reduced to diminutive microdots which are hidden as full stops in such collectable books as ‘Songs of Innocence’ by William Blake. Houghton and Gee become wealthy for their sins, buying a bungalow and a new Zodiac car. But their boozing and conspicuous generosity in local pubs attracts attention. The police and secret service calculate that their joint £30-a-week incomes don’t match their extravagant lifestyle. Their home is bugged by an agent posing as a gasman and the spy ring’s full extent begins to be revealed.

Anyone interested in rare 1960s British cinema and low-fi monochrome espionage is in for a treat with this engrossing rendition of a fascinating true story. Told with the minimum of flash and no distracting score (the only music is from record players, or odd atonal data electronica) ‘Ring of Spies’ deserves to be better known. Bernard Lee is well cast as the hard-drinking Houghton, who feels the world owes him something and has no loyalty to ‘Queen and Country’, in sharp contrast to his M character in the 007 films. Tyzack and Sylvester are also ideal for the roles of timid spinster and ice-cold spymaster. The supporting cast is good, with Thorley Walters as Houghton’s cheery commander, Winters, and familiar faces such as Paul Eddington and Geoffrey Palmer present in the background. Edwin Apps plays Blake, ‘a minor cog in the Middle East department’. One of my favourite 1960s actresses, Justine Lord (Sonia in ‘The Girl Who Was Death’ spy spoof episode of ‘The Prisoner’) appears early in the film, as Christina, Harry’s lover in Warsaw. Gillian Lewis played Harry and Bunty’s co-worker Marjorie Shaw, whose beauty has earned her ‘Runner up, Miss Lyme Regis’. The realistic settings and authentic filming locations – Chesil Beach, various London tube stations, the Round Pond in Kensington Palace Gardens, the magnificent roof garden at the top of Derry and Toms department store on Kensington High Street – ensure the story is always interesting and the monochrome cinematography adds docu-realism to the action. Interiors were shot on sets at Shepperton Studios.

Don’t expect 007, nor even Harry Palmer, but the film’s depiction of low-key, cloak and dagger espionage is edgily exciting, as the spies are tailed on English country roads and suburbia by British agents disguised as builders, ‘News of the World’ newspaper van drivers and nuns. This is a must for fans of 1960s Cold War spy cinema. The story proves that fact is often much stranger than fiction. In reality, after being sentenced to 15 years in prison each, Houghton and Gee were released in 1970 and married the following year.

This DVD release is part of Network’s ‘The British Film’ collection, a five-year project to release over 450 British films via a deal with Studiocanal. The project commenced in April 2013. ‘Ring of Spies’ is from British Lion and includes the original trailer (a ‘U’ rated trailer advertising an ‘A’ certificate film) and a gallery of publicity stills. 

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

ROCKPORT, Mass. — Sept.  2, 2014 — For Immediate Release — Long-time film industry veteran Philip Elliott Hopkins announces the launch of The Film Detective, which restores and distributes broadcast-quality, digitally remastered, classic programming for television, DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and other digital platforms.

Hopkins plans to release 10-20 DVDs and Blu-rays each month – as well as syndicate worldwide through broadcast, VOD and all leading movie portals – beginning Sept. 4.

Additionally, the Massachusetts-based company plans to launch a classic movie subscription service on a VOD platform, featuring a veteran movie host, later in the fall (More details coming soon).

The Film Detective’s extensive library of more than 3,000 titles – which includes feature films, television programming, foreign imports, documentaries– are now being re-mastered for today’s new media.  All titles are transferred from original film elements and many will be restored in HD.  With original artwork available for most titles, all releases will be available worldwide with region-free DVD and Blu-ray release.

The initial slate of titles to be released include: A Bucket of Blood (1959), Angel and the Badman (1947), Beat the Devil (1953), Carnival of Souls (1962), D.O.A. (1950), Dementia 13 (1963), Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (1947), Go for Broke (1951), Kansas City Confidential (1952), Love Affair (1939), My Favorite Brunette (1947), My Man Godfrey (1936), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Nothing Sacred (1937), Salt of the Earth (1954), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942), Sherlock Homes: Dressed to Kill (1946), Smash Up: The Story of a Woman (1947), The Big Lift (1950), The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), The Inspector General (1949), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), The Red House (1947), The Stranger (1946) and The Terror (1963).

Hopkins entered home video entertainment in 1999 as vice president of Marango Films, an early home video distributor of classic movies. He co-founded Film Chest in 2002, supplying a broad array of broadcasters including Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics, and home video companies including VCI and Image Entertainment with classic films over the next 11 years.

Commented Hopkins, “I’m thrilled to be launching an exciting new initiative and look forward to bringing new life to many classics that deserve to be restored and remastered. Our goal is to build an extensive resource online for classic film enthusiasts and to develop a social media network to communicate with fans around the world.”

Visit us online at: www.TheFilmDetective.com

BY FRED BLOSSER

Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” (2014) is an interesting but flawed movie, more successful in set-up than pay-off.

The great Cecil B. DeMille established the standard for the old-school Biblical epic: a lot of spectacle, as much titillation as the censors would allow, and a little homespun piety. Aronofsky takes a more ambitious tack, combining Old Testament scripture, Jewish tradition, and Biblical Apocrypha to explore weighty spiritual and philosophical issues. His backdrop is a stark antediluvian world of volcanic crags and dry watercourses, from which the elaborate trappings of classic spectacles like “Samson and Delilah” (1949), “The Ten Commandments” (1956), and “Ben-Hur” (1959) are notably absent.

The descendants of Cain, led by their brutal king Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), have scratched out a primitive industrial civilization from their hardscrabble environment. They rail at the Creator (the script never uses the word “God”) for having exiled Adam and Eve from Eden nine generations before. “He cursed us to struggle by the sweat of our brow to survive,” Tubal-Cain rages. “Damned if I don't do everything it takes to do just that.” In contrast, the descendants of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son, represented by Noah (Russell Crowe), his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connolly), their three sons, and their adopted daughter Ila (Emma Watson), respect “the Creator’s land” and try to conserve its resources: “We only collect what we can use, what we need.”

Noah begins to experience visions of a deluge. Consulting his grandfather, Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), he intuits that the Creator, disappointed with mankind’s cruelty and greed, intends to destroy His experiment with a Great Flood and start over. Noah and his family are to build an ark that will house a male and a female from each animal species. Animals, innocent of sin, will survive and replenish the world after the waters recede. Noah initially believes that he and his family will be allowed to survive too, as reward for having lived righteously. The Creator provides a forest from which Noah and his family can harvest timber for the ark, helped by the Watchers, fallen angels incarnated as stony giants: “We chose to try and help mankind and when we disobeyed the Creator, he punished us. We were encrusted by your world. Rock and mud shackled our fiery glow.”

The first part of the film, in which Aronofsky clearly delights in presenting the visual and thematic details of his lost world, is slow-moving but impressively imaginative. This is not history according to anthropology and geology, but prehistory according to the accounts of the Fall and the first Patriarchs in Genesis, as interpreted by Aronofsky. The only community shown in detail is a makeshift village that looks like a squatters’ camp. Weapons are made of crudely hammered iron. Clothing is rough and stitched-together. Several details, some obvious like the Watchers and others more subtle, reinforce the viewer’s awareness that this is a different Earth pre-dating ours; look closely and see what differences you notice.

Unfortunately, Aronofsky loses his exhilaration and takes several dramatic missteps even before the Deluge arrives in fine CGI scenes. Sneaking through Tubal-Cain’s camp, Noah realizes (or decides) that he and his family are just as guilty of sin in the Creator’s eyes as the despoilers are, and that they are not meant to procreate either. When his son Ham rescues a girl from Tubal-Cain’s followers and tries to flee with her to the ark, Noah leaves her to her death. When he learns that his adopted daughter is pregnant with Shem’s baby, he determines to kill the child after it is born (“it’s not something I want to do, it’s what I have to do”). Much of the latter part of the film sinks into overblown melodrama as Noah and stowaway Tubal-Cain fight in the ark, resentful son Ham simmers, and after Ila gives birth to not one baby but two, Noah glowers and stalks toward them with a knife. His next actions as holds the blade over the infants seem as arbitrarily motivated as his earlier epiphany.

It’s difficult to tell whether Aronofsky tried to load the script with more philosophical freight than the dialogue and the running time could bear, or whether his star simply lacked the range needed to convey the complex emotions that the scenes call for. Crowe is sturdy enough in the sequences that play to his strengths, principally those in which Noah stands down Tubal-Cain and supervises the building of the ark, but those requiring a believable display of spiritual conviction, tenderness, or a sudden transition from one to the other fall flat. Ray Winstone’s Tubal-Cain similarly comes up short of the high benchmark for Biblical movie villainy set by George Sanders in “Samson and Delilah,” Peter Ustinov in “Quo Vadis” (1951), Jay Robinson in “The Robe” (1953), Edward G. Robinson in “The Ten Commandments,” and Herbert Lom in “The Big Fisherman” (1959), but he may have done his best with what Aronofsky handed him. Anthony Hopkins enlivens the scenes that feature Methuselah, who wanders into Noah’s story from a different chapter of Genesis in the way that characters crossed over from one Book of the Old Testament to another in the old DeMille epics.

The Blu-ray disc in Paramount”s Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD combo offers crisp images and strong colors -- to the extent that any colors emerge from the predominantly gray tones of the natural setting and the brown tones of the characters’ clothing. There are three informative special features -- “Iceland: Extreme Beauty” (Iceland provided the movie’s stony landscape),“The Ark Exterior: A Battle for 300 Cubits,” and “The Ark Interior: Animals Two by Two.”

By Tim Greaves

As British noir crime dramas of the Fifties go, The House Across the Lake (1954) is probably as good an example as you could hope to dip into. The tale unfolds in flashback, related by our main protagonist to another character (precisely who is not revealed until the final reel), is embroidered with expositional narration and, though clichéd and not in the least unpredictable, delivers atmosphere by the barrel.

The film is an early entry on the CV of writer-director Ken Hughes (the arguable highpoints of whose career, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Cromwell, remain perennial favourites, whilst his latter-day offerings, Night School and Sextette, are best brushed under the proverbial carpet). Hughes scripted The House Across the Lake from his own source novel, “High Wray”, and also commandeered the director’s chair. Nowadays understandably marketed as a Hammer film, it’s actually the fruit of the company’s earlier incarnation Exclusive Films. Nevertheless, it boasts enough familiar names from the company’s later glory years to set Hammer fans’ pulses racing: Anthony Hinds produced, Jimmy Sangster AD’d, Len Harris and Harry Oakes were among the camera operators, Phil Leakey was on make-up duty and James Needs edited.

At the height of a sultry summer, American author Mark Kendrick (Alex Nicol) has rented a remote lakeside bungalow in which he hopes to overcome a bout of writer’s block. After doing a favour for his neighbours from – you guessed it – the house across the lake, Kendrick befriends the affluent but ailing Beverly Kendrick (Sidney James). It’s transparent from the outset that tensions are running high between Forrest and his younger trophy wife, serial adulteress Carol (Hillary Brooke). With his writing career plummeting, Kendrick is desperately short of money, so when an opportunity presents itself for Carol to dispose of her husband, he is easily coaxed into complicity for a cut of her inheritance. After all, Forrest is a dying man anyway – why not give nature a little chivvy along?

At a short, sharp 66-minutes, The House Across the Lake is an entertaining little film and offers up solid performances from its three leads. Whilst Nicol and Brooke were doubtless drafted in to drum up interest Stateside (where the film was released with the re-titling Heat Wave), the presence of Sid James – yes, the aforementioned Sidney is indeed he in an early straight role – will certainly be the key draw for Brit movie buffs.

It has been issued on DVD in the UK as part of “The British Movie” collection – an arm of Network Distributing – in a new digital transfer. Hammer completists will snap this one up (indeed, due to Sid James’ participation, so will “Carry On” completists), but it deserves to find a home with a broader audience and hopefully with this worthy release it will do. The disc also includes a trailer and a small gallery of poster art and lobby cards.

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By Tim Greaves

For this reviewer, Terry-Thomas’s turn as dastardly Raymond Delauney in the 1960 Brit-com School for Scoundrels remains one of his finest. The actor’s effervescent personality gelled perfectly with the penmanship of Stephen Potter to create an egotistical chauvinist you couldn’t help but take a liking to. Just a year later, in 1961’s His and Hers, his portrayal of a similar cad is one of his weaker turns and rapidly becomes tiresome. It’s all in the writing, folks.

His and Hers was the penultimate film from Brian Desmond Hurst, whose moment in the sun was the sterling 1951 adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”, featuring Alistair Sim in the title role of Scrooge. Hurst, along with writers Jan and Mark Lowell and Stanley Mann, hailed from a background in screen drama, so comely was not the likeliest genre for them to tackle. The lukewarm results are testimony to their folly.

Intrepid adventurer – and author of the hugely successful “I Conquered…” series of books – Reggie Blake (Terry-Thomas) returns from his latest escapade in the Sahara. His past expeditions have all been stage-managed by his canny publisher Charles Dunton (Wilfred Hyde-White); the sharks he fought in the Atlantic were rubber, the igloo he inhabited in the Arctic had central heating. But this time the set-up went wrong and so for his new book Reggie wants to do away with the fiction and tell it as it really was. The problem is it’s boring. When Reggie adopts a pompous stance and threatens to take the manuscript elsewhere, it causes friction with both his wife Fran (Janette Scott) and Dunton. Shrewdly aware that the public is eager for a new “I Conquered…” epic, Dunton conspires with Fran to pretend to write a book exposing her husband’s faux adventures – “I Was Conquered by a Middle-aged Monster” – in the hope it’ll coax Reggie into delivering a book that will actually sell. But Reggie proves more stubborn than either of them expects…

…“And much hilarity ensues”, as they say. Except in the case of His and Hers, it doesn’t. As previously mentioned, Terry-Thomas’s character isn’t very likeable. Unfortunately, rather damningly, neither are Hyde-White’s or Scott’s. They’re all objectionable. Thus the intended humour as husband and wife divide up their house into “his” and “hers” areas falls flat. Their struggles to adapt to their new roles – he on all levels of domesticity, she in her attempts to immerse herself in the business of authorship – seldom elicit more than a tepid smile.

So what are we left with? Not a lot. It there’s any fun to be derived here, it’s in the form of a myriad of cameos from favourites of the big and small screen. Kenneth Connor, Oliver Reed, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Marie Deveraux, Francesca Annis, Joan Hickson – even a youthful William Roach – have all put in appearances by the time the end credits roll. These cameos certainly lend His and Hers curiosity value, but there’s regrettably little else for which one could recommend it.

As a constituent in their “The British Film” collection, Network Distributing in the UK have just released the film on DVD and (incredulously, given its mediocre value) Blu-Ray too, though to be fair the crisp black and white print is pristine. The only supplement offered is a short gallery of original FOH stills.

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By Lee Pfeiffer 

Mel Brooks' 1968 comedy classic The Producers was originally deemed unreleasable because of its tasteless content. It sat on a shelf for two years before finally seeing the light of day. When the movie hit theaters, critics praised it, Brooks won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and helped launch a major career for him in feature films. By 1974, tastelessness was not a barrier for Brooks' cinematic projects. Blazing Saddles, his insane send-up of the Western movie genre, came along at exactly the right time. Ten years earlier, the film would have been impossible to make. However, pop culture had matured light years between the mid-1960s and 1970s and so did audience's tolerance of envelope-pushing humor. Indeed, by the time Brooks brought this movie to the screen Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice had already shown the humorous side of swinging and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H made the Korean War a thinly-veiled, over-the-top comedic roasting of the seemingly endless conflict in Vietnam. Nevertheless, Brooks still had plenty of new ways to bring tasteless comedy to new highs (or lows). The "plot line" of Blazing Saddles is razor-thin. Cleavon Little is Bart, a hip black man who is tired of being used as a beast of burden by racist white employers. Through a plot device (don't ask!), he assumes the identity of a new sheriff of a small town. The reaction of the crowd and politicians when they realize their new law enforcement officer is a black man is still priceless in its hilarity. The sheriff encounters a wide variety of local eccentrics including Jim (Gene Wilder), an amiable gunslinger who assists him in thwarting a stock company of local bad guys.

As Brooks points out in a new interview in the set, Blazing Saddles is timeless. Indeed, it feels as fresh and funny today as it did in 1974. However, no one would ever dare make such a film today. In an industry preoccupied with "safe" concepts such as stupid movies about monsters and aliens, it would be all but impossible to find financing for a film that uses "nigger" as a punch line to every other joke. Forget the fact that it's the white racists who end up getting the short end of every stick and it's the black hero who is the only handsome, intelligent character in the story- the very concept would be deemed far too toxic for public consumption. However, we at least have Blazing Saddles to remind us of an era in which filmmakers and studios dared to gore sacred cows. The result was a period that saw some of the greatest achievements in the history of the medium. In terms of maturity, however, the industry has only regressed over the ensuing decades.

Warner Brothers has put together a Blu-ray that is appropriately packed with extras, most of which have been carried over from previous releases. These include a 2001 documentary in which Brooks and Wilder are interviewed separately about the making of the film and its legacy. Brooks originally wanted Richard Pryor, who co-wrote the script, to star as Bart but the comedian's erratic personal behavior scared the studio bosses. At one point Flip Wilson was considered for the role before Cleavon Little "wowed" Brooks in his audition. John Wayne was even asked to make a cameo appearance but the Duke correctly assumed that his audience wouldn't be very happy about his appearance in a movie laced with obscene jokes. There are also anecdotes about the sterling supporting cast of character actors including the inimitable Slim Pickens. Also interviewed is the late, great Harvey Korman, who comes close to dominating the film with a truly hilarious performance. Writer Andrew Bergman relates how amazed he was when Warner Brothers actually bought his script for the film, which he wrote on "spec".  The set provides a new documentary in which Brooks is interviewed anew (he immodestly calls the film the greatest comedy ever made) and Gene Wilder is seen in recent footage from an interview at New York's 92nd Street "Y". There are also some interesting scenes that were deleted from the final print but which were apparently included in TV broadcasts of the movie. Most interesting is the half hour pilot episode of a proposed TV series from 1975 titled Black Bart with Louis Gossett Jr. playing the Cleavon Little role. Gossett is well-cast but the show is a lame concoction of weak racially-based jokes and cheap production values. It's inclusion here is most appreciated, however, for curiosity's sake alone. Rounding out the bonus extras are the original trailer, an audio commentary by Mel Brooks and a set of postcards with scenes and jokes from the film. 

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