BY LEE PFEIFFER

It's been said that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes classic "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is the most-filmed literary adaptation of all time. You might be forgiven for thinking that status might belong to Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", which was originally published in the UK in 1939 under a title that was so racist that the mind boggles over the fact it could ever have been socially acceptable. It was later changed to "Ten Little Indians". The original U.S. publication was titled "And Then There Were None" out of racial sensitivity. The book was an immediate sensation and in 1945 and Christie adapted it to a hit stage production. A well-received film version was made by director Rene Clair in 1945 under the title "And Then There Were None". Officially, there have only been four English language feature films based on the book as well as one British mini-series. However, the novel has influenced so many thrillers over the decades that the well-worn central scenario has become a main staple of films and TV programs ranging from any number of crime thrillers to Vincent Price's delightfully campy horror flick "House on Haunted Hill". A common link between three of the film versions was Harry Alan Towers, who produced feature film adaptations of the novel in 1965, 1974 and 1989. Towers had a long career of churning out profitable schlock ranging from low-grade James Bond ripoffs to sexploitation and horror films that were definitely of the "guilty pleasure" variety. The fact that he produced three of the four major adaptations of Christie's novel is quite remarkable.The 1965 and 1974 film versions received major international distribution but the 1989 version is largely unknown by most movie fans, as it only received very limited distribution. (It's entire gross in North America is reported as $43,000 over a two-day period.).

Kino Lorber has released the 1989 version of the film on Blu-ray. The film, directed by Alan Birkinshaw, deviates from the other versions in terms of location. The main plot premise is still followed. In the novel and previous movie versions, a disparate group of strangers turn up at an isolated mansion house at the invitation of a mysterious, wealthy stranger named Mr. Owen, who promises them a lavish holiday. Upon arriving and making each other's acquaintance, the ten guests are bewildered that there host is not present to greet them. Instead, they are instructed to listen to a phonograph record on which Mr. Owen announces the truth behind his invitations. He accuses each of the attendees of having been responsible for the death of an innocent person or persons and has managed to escape justice. Owen promises that he will ensure that the victims are avenged and very soon thereafter the participants are knocked off one-by-one through ingenious and sometimes gory methods. As each murder occurs, the guests realize that one figure from a corresponding set of ten Indian dolls also inexplicably disappears to mark the demise of the latest victim. The 1989 version opens in an unnamed African nation, which in fact is South Africa. The country was by then an international pariah and bleeding red ink in terms of its solvency. This was due to the government's stubborn insistence upon trying to prop up its atrocious system of apartheid. To raise funds, South Africa solicited for film production companies to shoot there in return for attractive tax breaks and other financial incentives. It is undoubtedly for this reason that the end credits of the movie don't mention where it was filmed. The movie was distributed by the famed (or infamous) Canon Films, which was itself a schlock factory that nevertheless proved to be the toast of the film industry in the 1980s for its ability to churn out modestly-budgeted movies that more often than not proved to be hits with undiscriminating movie-goers.

As with previous film versions of the novel, this one boasts a cast of eclectic actors but only a few with name recognition, most notably Donald Pleasence, Herbert Lom (both of whom appeared in the 1974 version), Brenda Vaccaro (an Oscar nominee for "Midnight Cowboy" twenty years earlier) and Frank Stallone. Under Alan Birkinshaw's direction, they are all adequate but some chew the South African scenery a bit too often. With Lom seen in an abbreviated role, only Pleasence makes much of an impression, giving one of his reliably understated performances. Producer Towers was said to have approached Oliver Reed, (another veteran of the 1974 version), along with Peter Cushing, Klaus Kinski and Robert Vaughn to appear in this production. The mind reels at how beneficial their presence might have been. In previous versions, the male and female leads form a romantic attachment. Those roles are played here by Sarah Maur Thorp and Frank Stallone, but aside from some mild flirting, there are no sparks between them. Thorp fares better in terms of character and performance because Stallone has nothing interesting to say or do other than parade about in jungle attire that makes him look like someone attending a Halloween party dressed as Indiana Jones.

BY DOUG OSWALD

Rock Hudson and George Peppard are WWII commandos in “Tobruk,” available on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Hudson is Major Donald Craig, a Canadian prisoner of war on board a German transport ship anchored off an Italian controlled port in North Africa sometime in late 1942. A group of frogmen surface near the ship and sneak on board with silencers fixed to their guns in order to kidnap Craig. The frogmen are led by Captain Bergman (George Peppard) who is part of a team of German commandos. They take Craig to a German airfield and fly him to a desert landing strip. They’re unexpectedly greeted by a group of British soldiers led by Colonel Harker (Nigel Green). It turns out Bergman is the leader of German Jews who fled Nazi Germany for obvious reasons and are now part of a British commando unit operating in North Africa. Craig has an expertise in map making which they need to navigate a mine field, gain access to the German occupied port at Tobruk, Libya, and destroy it in time for a British sea invasion.

The movie is based on an actual, although unsuccessful, attack on Tobruk in September of 1942 which did include German-Jewish soldiers and fake British POWs. Just like the actual events, the British commandos in the movie pretend to be POWs in order to get to their ultimate destination undetected. During the journey through the Sahara desert, the group encounters the German and Italian Army as well as Arab horseman seeking money for captured British hostages, an aerial strafing from a British fighter plane and a mine field crossing.

Directed by Arthur Hiller, the movie appears to be an unusual choice for the director best known for dramas and comedies such as “Love Story,” “The Hospital” and “Silver Streak;” but he did previously direct “The Americanization of Emily” which features a Normandy invasion sequence and his comedy “Silver Streak” is interspersed with action sequences. Mingled between the action and military battle scenes in this film, the British and German-Jewish commando team deal with serious issues like bigotry and anti-Semitism with Hudson caught between the two camps as the outsider as they make their way across the desert.

Hudson is very good in “Tobruk” and broke away from being stereotyped as a leading man of several very popular romantic comedies to star in thrillers and heroic military parts in “Battle Hymm,” “A Gathering of Eagles,” “Ice Station Zebra,” “The Undefeated” and “Hornet’s Nest.” In the 1970s he had continued success as a San Francisco police commissioner in the popular television series “McMillan & Wife” which ran from 1971 to 1977. He continued to work, mostly in television, in such high profile productions as “The Martian Chronicles,” the Agatha Christie thriller, “The Mirrror Crack’d” and made brief returns to series television in “The Devlin Connection” and “Dynasty.” His final feature film was “The Ambassador” released a year before his death in 1985 at age 59.

Peppard, no stranger to tough guy roles, plays a German soldier for the second time following his performance as aviator Bruno Stachel in the WWI classic “The Blue Max.” Interestingly, he didn’t attempt an accent for “The Blue Max,” but did for “Tobruk.” Prior to this he appeared in the WWII adventure “Operation Crossbow” which was preceded by a string of high profile big budget movies like “How the West Was Won,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “The Carpetbaggers.” Like Hudson, Peppard found success in a hit television series, “Banacek,” which ran from 1972-1974. He also starred in the popular television series, “The A-Team,” which ran from 1983-1987. Another series, “Doctor’s Hospital,” ran for one season from 1975-76. Peppard remained busy on television and film featuring in a couple the cult classics, “Damnation Alley” and “Battle Beyond the Stars" until his death in 1994 at age 65.

Nigel Green is a standout as Colonel Harker, the leader of the commando unit. One of the great character actors of British cinema, Green is memorable in just about everything he appeared in. “Jason and the Argonauts,” “Zulu,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Ipcress File,” “The Face of Fu Manchu,” “The Skull,” “Khartoum,” the underrated “Let’s Kill Uncle,” “Deadlier Than the Male,” “The Wrecking Crew,” and “Countess Dracula” to name just a few of his memorable appearances in movies. He also appeared in numerous television series throughout is career. He played a similar character to Colonel Harker as the head of a commando unit in another WWII movie set in North Africa, the underrated “Play Dirty.” His career was cut short by an accidental overdose of sleeping pills in 1972 at age 47.

Guy Stockwell rounds out the featured cast as the German-Jewish second in command, Lt. Mohnfeld. The older brother of actor Dean Stockwell, Guy may be best remembered for this movie and his role as Draco in “The War Lord” from 1965. Stockwell remained busy acting in movies and television until retiring in 1990. “Tobruk” also features a cast filled with many familiar British character actors including Jack Watson, Percy Herbert, Norman Rossington and Irishman Liam Redmond. Leo Gordon does double duty as the screenwriter and playing a rare good guy role as Sergeant Krug.

“Tobruk” is overshadowed by the popularity of “The Dirty Dozen” which was released a few months later and both films are part of the “Men on an Impossible Mission” genre. “Tobruk” doesn’t pack quite the same punch as movies like “The Dirty Dozen” and “Where Eagles Dare,” but in hindsight, it is a very entertaining WWII adventure with a satisfying plot, terrific performances and plenty of action. The Arizona Desert stands in for most of North Africa with a few scenes shot in Spain. Imperial Beach, California stands in for the final battle scenes at the gun emplacement and the California Army National Guard provided technical assistance. The movie features an abundance of graphic deaths via flame thrower which may have served as an inspiration to Quentin Tarantino for “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”

Released by Universal in March 1967, “Tobruk” has a run time of 110 minutes and looks and sounds terrific, preserving the Techniscope widescreen image. This Kino Lorber Blu-ray release is a worthy upgrade of the previously released Universal Vault Series DVD. The Blu-ray includes an audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin which is as entertaining as it is informative. The disc also includes optional subtitles and the trailer for this and other Kino Lorber titles. The movie is a welcome addition for fans of 60s WWII movies.

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BY DOUG OSWALD

An all star cast features in the adaptation of Leon Uris’ “Battle Cry,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. The granddaddy of contemporary WWII melodramas like “The Winds of War” and “Band of Brothers,” “Battle Cry” was one of the first big dramatic war stories which followed multiple characters through boot camp, romance, heartbreak, the battlefield, death and homecoming. One of my favorite movies in this genre is Otto Preminger’s “In Harms Way” from 1965 which teamed John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. “Battle Cry” was first a best selling novel released in 1953 and quickly adapted to the big screen. Some people criticize these types of military themed melodramas as being light on action and heavy on romance, but there’s certainly a place for both.

“Battle Cry” begins with the narrator setting the stage. It’s January 1942 and several young men and their families say their goodbye’s from East Coast to West Coast picking up more guys along the way to San Diego where they will start their 10 weeks of training at the Marine Corps Base in California. The narrator of the story is their senior NCO, Master Sergeant Mac, played by James Whitmore in one of my favorite of his many great performances. He portrayed a similar character a few years earlier in the gritty story of the Battle of Bastogne, “Battleground.” He also served in the Marine Corps during WWII and his portrayal in both films is convincing and natural.

We meet all the central characters on the train and we get the basic set up for their stories. They’re a mixed lot, ranging from intellectuals and the street wise to hot heads, country boys, a lumberjack and tough guys. We follow them from boot camp to radio school and then off to the war in the Pacific with stops in New Zealand and Hawaii in between landings on Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Saipan. In between they find time for romance and infidelity.

Danny Forrester (Tab Hunter) is engaged to his high school sweetheart, Kathy (Mona Freeman). While in San Diego he meets USO volunteer Elaine Yarborough (Dorothy Malone), the wife of a deployed naval officer who, as she says, has everything she needs. They have a brief affair until Danny breaks it off.

Andy Hookins (Aldo Ray) is the confirmed bachelor of the group who sees “dames” as playthings. He reminds his pals their problem is falling for one dame. While in New Zealand, he meets and falls for widow Pat Rogers (Nancy Olson). She’s not like the other women he has met and apologizes to her for his behavior. He meets her family and later, they get married. He even contemplates desertion to avoid the risk of leaving her and dying in the war.

Marion “Sister Mary” Hotchkiss (John Lupton) is a reader, a thinker and an aspiring writer who rides the Coronado Ferry while on liberty during radio school. There he meets Rae (Anne Francis), who enjoys their relationship talking on the boat. He wants more, but she likes things as they are. Later, while at a local bar with his classmates, she walks in with several other girls brought in by “Spanish Joe” Gomez (Perry Lopez) to liven things up for his fellow Marines. Naturally, Marion is devastated and leaves.

“Ski” Wronski (William Campbell) also has a girl back home, Susan (Susan Morrow) who sends him a “Dear John” letter. He’s never the same after that. The guys rescue him and his nest egg which a bar girl tries to steal while he’s drunk. He never does quite bounce back from his girl dumping him and marrying someone else.

Van Heflin is Major Sam Huxley, the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion 6th Marine Regiment. He works his men hard in order to prepare them for fighting the enemy. He has a wife back home we never meet, but we know he cares for his men and sometimes crosses the line in identifying too closely with their personal problems.

Raymond Massey has a cameo as Major General Snipes, Huxley’s commanding officer during their island hopping in the Pacific. L.Q. Jones provides comic relief as L.Q. Jones. The actor changed his professional name from Justus E. McQueen to his screen namesake in his film debut which was probably good as there may have been room for only one McQueen in Hollywood. Perry Lopez is the afore mentioned “Spanish Joe” Gomez, the con man of the outfit and Fess Parker is the good natured, guitar playing country boy, Speedy.

The Marines finally depart San Diego and in November 1942 they arrive in New Zealand for more training and to prepare for their first island invasion. After celebrating Christmas services, the Marines ship out to Guadalcanal and then Tarawa. In both cases they are held in reserve and perform mop up duty. It isn’t until June 14th, 1944, the Marines take a lead role as part of the first wave in the invasion of Japanese held Saipan. In between they take leave back in New Zealand and Hawaii. This final third of the movie depicts the men at war. For those of us used to contemporary watching recent films which have more realistic depictions of combat, “Battle Cry” may appear unrealistic and dated. If you’re looking for a war movie filled with battlefield action, this may not be the one for you. It’s nearly 90 minutes until the first bomb is dropped and the battle action takes center stage.

Leon Uris adapted the screenplay from his own novel. He based the story on his own experiences as a radio operator in the Marine Corps and served in combat during the battles depicted in the story and fictionalized those experiences to great effect. Uris would go on to write many more best selling novels which is where his greatest success remains. He did write first drafts for adaptations of “The Angry Hills,” “Exodus,” “Topaz,” and “QB VII” as well as the original screenplay for “The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” I think it’s safe to say Uris was not happy in Hollywood as a couple of his first draft screenplays went unused.

“Battle Cry” was directed by Raoul Walsh, whose career began in silent movies and continued into the mid 1960s. Known for his crime dramas and military themed movies, Walsh first introduced John Wayne in the 1930 release, “The Big Trail.” He helped create the tough guy personas associated with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn in movies like “They Drive By Night,” “High Sierra,” “They Died with Their Boots On” and “White Heat.” He also directed the antithesis of “Battle Cry,” the gritty and cynical military drama, “The Naked and the Dead” which features no home front romance or melodrama of any kind.

“Battle Cry” is indeed a statement on war and the human toll during war at home and on the field of battle. If I were to pick a favorite performance, I’d have to say it’s a tie between James Whitmore and Aldo Ray. Whitmore because he’s spot on in his thoughtful portrayal as a career senior NCO who empathizes with his men and successfully turns them into Marines without being a tyrant. Aldo Ray because his portrayal is the most transformative going from essentially a cad and a womanizer who falls for the right woman and considers deserting in order to preserve the new man he has become.

Released by Warner Bros. in February 1955, the movie clocks in at a hefty 148 minutes. Filmed in CinemaScope, the “Battle Cry” benefits greatly from the widescreen aspect ratio. The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray looks better than it ever has on home video and sounds just as good. There are no extras on the disc other than the trailer and subtitles. Highly recommended for fans of high drama military movies.

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The BFI has released Sidney Lumet's 1977 film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's acclaimed theatre production of "Equus". The film stars Richard Burton and Peter Firth in Oscar-nominated performances. Here is the official press release:

This Oscar^® nominated* adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s Tony Award-winning play, released by the BFI on Limited Edition Blu-ray with a raft of extras including a new interview with Peter Firth, erupts on the screen with the same power and passion as the stage original. Richard Burton gives one of his best performances in this elegant and provocative tale of myth and mental turmoil.

What would drive Alan Strang (Peter Firth), a troubled adolescent stable boy, to blind the horses in his care? Psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) investigates this unspeakable act and delves deep into Alan’s mind, confronting the mysteries of sexual passion and psychological pain – as well as the demons buried within his own soul.

*1978 (50th) ACTOR – Richard Burton, SUPPORTING ACTOR – Peter Firth, WRITING (Screenplay – based on material from another medium) – Peter Shaffer

Special features (NB. Some extras are on DVD)

• Feature presented in High Definition
• Audio commentary by Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman (2014)
• Isolated score
• Sidney Lumet Guardian Lecture (1981, 89 mins, audio only): director Sidney Lumet talks to Derek Malcolm in this interview recorded at the National Film Theatre
• Peter Firth in conversation with Leigh Singer (2020, 39 mins, audio over stills gallery)
• The Watchers (1969, 26 mins): BFI-produced short film directed by Richard Foster
• In From the Cold? A Portrait of Richard Burton (1988, 121 mins): Tony Palmer’s award-winning feature-length documentary profile
• Religion and the People (1940, 14 mins): documentary by Andrew Buchanan illustrating a time when faith lay at the heart of the British experience
• The Farmer’s Horse (1951, 18 mins): in a time of increasing mechanisation, this public information film makes the case for the sturdy farm horse
• Trailer
• Illustrated booklet with new writing by Sidney Lumet’s biographer Maura Spiegel and arts filmmaker John Wyver; notes on the extras and full credits

Product details

RRP: £22.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1399 / 15

USA / 1977 / colour / 138 mins / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.85:1 // Disc 1: BD50, 1080p, 24fps, PCM 2.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit) / Disc 2: DVD9, PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital mono audio (320kbps)

(This is a Region 2 Blu-ray format release. Click here to order.) 

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Shout! Factory's Scream Factory unit:

Los Angeles, CA – Scream Factory™ has announced the release of more classic horror films, with the August 25 drop of Volume 6 of the incredibly popular Universal Horror Collection. The set contains 4 films on Blu-ray™, and is packed with new bonus features and new 2K scans of the films.

Universal Horror Collection Vol. 6 includes four tales of terror from the archives of Universal Pictures, the true home of classic horror. Boris Karloff stars as a doctor who risks his own life to save the captives of a mad count in The Black Castle. Vengeance is sworn against six men who witness a ceremony where beautiful women turn into serpents in Cult Of The Cobra. In The Thing That Couldn’t Die, when a young psychic discovers a box that contains the living head of an executed devil worshiper … heads will roll! A cat witnesses the murder of her owner ... and this cat is hell-bent on revenge in The Shadow Of The Cat.

UNIVERSAL HORROR COLLECTION VOL. 6 contains:

THE BLACK CASTLE

1080p High Definition (1.37:1)/DTS Master Audio Mono/1952/B&W/Not Rated/+/- 82 Minutes

Special Features:

·        NEW 2K scan from a fine grain film element

·        NEW Audio Commentary with author/film historian Tom Weaver

·        NEW Universal Horror Strikes Back! - a look at Universal Horror in the 40s

·        Still Gallery

CULT OF THE COBRA

1080p High-Definition Widescreen (1.85:1)/DTS Master Audio Mono/1955/B&W/Not Rated/+/- 82 Minutes

Special Features:

·        NEW 2K scan from a fine grain film element

·        NEW Audio Commentary with film historians Tom Weaver, Steve Kronenberg, David Schecter and Robert J. Kiss

·        Theatrical Trailer

·        TV Spots for the double feature of REVENGE OF THE CREATURE/CULT OF THE COBRA

·        Still Gallery

THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE       

1080p High-Definition Widescreen (1.85:1)/DTS Master Audio Mono/1958/B&W/Not Rated/+/- 69 Minutes

Special Features:

·        NEW 2K scan from a fine grain film element

·        NEW Audio Commentary by authors/film historians Tom Weaver and C. Courtney Joyner

·        Theatrical Trailer

THE SHADOW OF THE CAT

1080p High-Definition Widescreen (1.66:1)/DTS Master Audio Mono/1961/B&W/Not Rated/+/- 79 Minutes

Special Features:

·        NEW 2K scan from a fine grain film element

·        NEW Audio Commentary by author/film historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck

·        NEW In the Shadow of Shelley - an interview with Barbara Shelley

·        TV Spot for the double feature of THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF/THE SHADOW OF THE CAT

·        Still Gallery

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

When 23 year-old genius and enfant terrible Orson Welles broadcast his Halloween eve radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" in 1938, as we all know, it resulted in scandal and panic. There have been plenty of urban legends and misconceptions relating the broadcast including beliefs that many people committed suicide but this is just one exaggeration relating to one of the most infamous radio broadcasts in history. Welles, who was the director of the acclaimed Mercury Theatre weekly radio program that he founded with John Houseman, had eschewed the highbrow fare in favor of playfully presenting a modern spin on H.G. Wells's novel that had been written and set in the Victorian era. His reluctant script writer Howard Koch randomly chose an innocuous small town, Grover's Mill, New Jersey, to replace the London setting of the book. Welles listened to the finished recording of the program and made a last minute decision to liven it up by presenting it in the format of what today would be called a "breaking news" story. Cleverly presenting the show as a standard musical program, Welles had intermittent bulletins about large explosions on Mars taking place. Ultimately, the bulletins announced that Martians had landed in New Jersey and were decimating local military forces, using high powered ray guns as weapons. This 2013 PBS broadcast of "American Experience" looks at the unintended consequences of the broadcast, separating fact from fiction. For example, Welles did have an introduction stating that the program was a fictional radio play. However, many listeners were tuned into another program to hear the popular ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his legendary "partner", Charlie McCarthy. When Bergen's act ended, listeners started to engage in channel-surfing and came upon the sensational broadcast, having missed the introduction. Before long, many people did indeed panic. Police stations were flooded with calls from locals all across the nation. Some people packed their belongings and fled to isolated areas, while others sought ways to enlist in the battle against the Martians. (The program uses actors to verbalize actual interviews of everyday people who spoke to the press about their own personal experiences.)

What the "American Experience" episode clarifies is that not everyone was snookered. People who were aware of the joke wrote and called the network to praise Welles, but others were outraged about being made to look foolish. While the show was on the air, Welles was forced to interrupt the program with a reminder that it was all a work of fiction, but by then many people had tuned out and run for the hills. Some filed lawsuits against Welles and CBS, the network that broadcast the show. As the program points out, Welles pretended to be contrite and made a public apology, even though he privately delighted in having gained international recognition that he correctly assumed would boost his career. (Indeed, Hollywood soon beckoned.) One commentator says that Welles's apology was, in fact, the greatest performance of his career. In the end, none of the lawsuits against Welles or CBS succeeded and the government only issued a rule that prohibited any future broadcast from simulating an actual news bulletin.Welles was catapulted to international fame and even got his first sponsor for future broadcasts.The rest, as they say, is history- and Welles would continue to antagonize benefactors who employed him throughout his life.

The excellent 53-miinute "American Experience" episode provides excerpts from the broadcasts, comments from media historians and a wealth of fascinating photos consisting of Welles at work in the studio and front pages from the national newspapers that covered the scandal with predictable prominence. 

It's easy in the modern era to smirk at what influential columnist Dorothy Thompson called the "incredible stupidity" of the American people in her column that defended Welles and his artistic vision. However, the show puts in context the fact that in those dark days of the late 1930s, the radio was a virtual god in most households, dispensing reliable and accurate information. The news was often grim but it was honest. An American public had been through almost  decade of financial devastation from the Great Depression. Many millions were still out of work, life savings were lost and life for many seemed hopeless. In the midst of all this, Americans looked with great concern on alarming world events: Hitler's ever-expanding territorial ambitions and the correct suspicion that the accommodation of the Allies wouldn't satiate him for long; the rise of fascist Italy and the war-mongering gains of a militaristic Japan, all of which pointed to the seeming inevitability of second world war. Before modern day America judges the gullibility of a previous generation, consider that as you are reading this, the nation is reeling from thousands of deaths a week from the worst pandemic in a hundred years. Yet, there are substantial numbers of people who continue to insist that it's all a hoax. Now that is "incredible stupidity".

The program is available for streaming on Amazon and can be viewed for free by Amazon Prime members.

Kino Lorber has released three Barbara Stanwyck films in a boxed set collection. Here is the official announcement:

This collection feature three classic films starring screen legend Barbara Stanwyck:

INTERNES CAN’T TAKE MONEY (1937) – Young Dr. James Kildare (Joel McCrea, Four Faces West), interning at a clinic, falls for his patient Janet Haley (Barbara Stanwyck, Witness to Murder). The feeling is mutual, but Janet has a secret she will not divulge: She’s the widow of a bank robber who hid their daughter before he died and she is desperately trying to find the little girl. She will use anyone—including Dr. Kildare—to get her child back. The doctor’s association with gangster Hanlon (Lloyd Nolan, The House on 92nd Street), whose injuries Kildare secretly patched up, and Janet’s connection with gangster Innes (Stanley Ridges, Black Friday), who’s helping her find her daughter, bring it all to a rousing head filled with action, suspense and the unexpected! Stylishly directed by Alfred Santell (Breakfast for Two), Internes Can’t Take Money was the third of six films co-starring Stanwyck and McCrea and the only Dr. Kildare film produced by Paramount. The Max Brand-created character was picked up by MGM for a series of successful movies from 1938 to 1942 starring Lew Ayres as Kildare.

THE GREAT MAN’S LADY (1942) – From William A. Wellman, the legendary director of Wings, Beau Geste, Nothing Sacred, The Ox-Bow Incident, Yellow Sky and The High and the Mighty, comes this romantic western-drama starring screen icons Barbara Stanwyck (All I Desire) and Joel McCrea (The Virginian). After Hoyt City dedicates a statue to its founder Ethan Hoyt (McCrea), the woman who inspired his achievement, the 109-year-old Hannah Sempler (Stanwyck), tells their story to a young biographer. She begins with their elopement in 1848 when she was a headstrong Philadelphia girl of 16 and Ethan was an idealist yearning to build a city in the West. Their future was fraught with difficulties, from life in a prairie shack to a fruitless search for gold and, ultimately, to Ethan’s jealousy over Hannah’s friendship with gambler Steely Edwards (Brian Donlevy, Canyon Passage). Through it all, she remained what she is today: the woman who sacrificed everything for her husband’s sake. Filled with action and humor, this moving film was vigorously directed by Wellman and beautifully shot by the great William C. Mellor (A Place in the Sun).

THE BRIDE WORE BOOTS (1946) – From Irving Pichel, the acclaimed director of Tomorrow Is Forever, O.S.S., Something in the Wind, The Miracle of the Bells, Quicksand and Destination Moon, comes this comedy of errors about a bookish husband trying to win back the affections of his horse-breeding wife. Screen legend Barbara Stanwyck (There’s Always Tomorrow) stars as southern heiress Sally Warren, who loves everything to do with horseracing. Her studious husband, Jeff (Robert Cummings, The Chase), cannot stand the creatures and would rather spend his time writing. When their incompatibilities land them in divorce court, it will take a little imagination and a lot of luck to restore the love in their hilariously mismatched relationship. The Bride Wore Boots features a stellar cast that includes a young Natalie Wood (Driftwood), Diana Lynn (The Kentuckian) and the great Robert Benchley (Road to Utopia).

Bonus Features: NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Dr. Eloise Ross (Internes Can't Take Money | NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Dr. Eloise Ross (The Great Man's Lady) | Optional English Subtitles | The Great Man's Lady (Theatrical Trailer) | The Bride Wore Boots (Theatrical Trailer)

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

Some movie directors achieve greatness by steadily working at their craft over a lifetime, building their reputation movie by movie, until they develop a following, creating a catalogue of films that they become known for. It’s a steady process of craftsmanship. And then there are some few directors who seem to come out of the egg fully hatched, so to speak. Their particular vision, their attraction to certain themes, their own peculiar style is evident even from their earliest work. Orson Welles was one such film maker. So were Howard Hawks and Sam Peckinpah. If you watch the episodes of the half-hour “Gunsmoke” TV series that Peckinpah wrote in the 1950’s, or The Westerner TV series in 1960, you will be surprised to see how many of the themes and obsessions that Peckinpah put into films like “The Wild Bunch” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” were on display even back then.

John Ford is another one of those “fully-hatched” directors. His movies are immediately identifiable, infused with a vision that Ford and only Ford possessed, and he had it from the beginning. If you want a demonstration of what I’m talking about get a copy of Kino Lorber Studio Classics new Blu-ray release of “Straight Shooting” (1917), Ford’s very first silent feature film, which he directed under the name Jack Ford. Starring the legendary Harry Carey, it’s a story set against the backdrop of the changing frontier. Like “Shane” (1953) it’s about the conflict between the cattlemen who conquered the frontier and the sod busters who wanted to tame it. But it’s more complex than “Shane.” Even though Ford is on the side of the farmers and sees the necessity of civilization, he also mourns for the passing of the frontier.

Carey plays a hired gunslinger named “Cheyenne” Harry, a man who sells his gun to the highest bidder. He’s an outsider in every sense of the word—a man not unlike Ethan Edwards, the central character John Wayne played 40 years later in Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956). In “Straight Shooting” Cheyenne comes face to face for the first time with everything that’s lacking in his own life. He’s changed when he sees how desperately the family of a young boy grieves after being shot by Placer Fremont (Vester Pegg), another killer hired by the ranchers. He feels compassion, especially for Joan Sims (Molly Malone), the dead boy’s sister, and quits the ranchers, saying there are some jobs too low even for him. He’s then faced with the dilemma of either riding away, as he always has, or siding with the farmers.

Ford repeated that same inner conflict in “The Searchers” by making Edwards face the choice of either remaining an outcast by killing his own niece because she had been raised by Indians, or rejoining society by letting go of his passionate hatred of them. What is really fascinating when you compare the two films, is that the resemblance between Cheyenne and Edwards is not merely thematic, it’s physical. Film historian Joseph McBride, author of “Searching for John Ford: A Life,” explains in the audio commentary accompanying the movie, that later in his career when he worked with Wayne, Ford told him to study Carey. “Duke, take a look over at Harry Carey and watch him work,” Ford said. “Stand like he does, if you can, and play your roles so that people can look upon you as a friend.” Wayne even imitated the way Carey held his right arm with his left hand, a gesture Ford taught him to indicate his aloneness.

Both films end with the same shot of the hero standing in the open door way of the sod buster’s house, which Ford used as a symbolic boundary line between a settled life and the wilderness. In “The Searchers,” Edwards is left standing outside as the door closes on him. In Cheyenne’s case, Ford couldn’t seem to decide which way to conclude the story, with the gunman struggling internally until almost the last frame which way he wants to go.

There are some great action scenes in “Straight Shooting,” especially an assault on the farmer’s house by the ranchers’ army of gunmen, which Ford modeled on a similar scene in D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” Also in the cast, as one of Cheyenne’s pals, is Hoot Gibson, a rodeo rider who went on to become a cowboy star in his own right.

In addition to McBride’s audio commentary, Kino Lorber provides a 12-page booklet with an informative essay by film critic Tag Gallagher. According to Gallagher the sole surviving print of “Straight Shooting” is in the Czech Film Archive, under the title “Facing Cowboy’s Guns,” 35 mm, and tinted. In 2016 Universal made a color digital restoration from a Czech print, 4^th generation, given to the Library of Congress. Gallagher notes the Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray restoration is in black and white and correctly mastered at 18 fps. The picture is remarkably sharp and clear, displaying Ford’s California location photography around Beale’s Cut in Newhall in all its glory. Other bonus features include a video essay by Gallagher, and a 10-minute fragment of “Hitchin’ Post” (1920) preserved by the Library of Congress.

For anyone interested in the history of movies or John Ford’s career this Blu-ray is a must have. Recommended.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon of Ramura". Click here to order from Amazon.

BY HANK REINEKE

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray edition of Calvin Floyd’s documentary In Search of Dracula is the third hard copy to find its way into my collection. I no longer own a copy of that first edition, a VHS tape of dubious origin and purchased at a convention. That was jettisoned when an authorized copy on DVD was issued by Wellspring Media in 2003. Truth be told, I’m not sure a manufacture of a Blu-ray for this particular film is necessarily merited. But it’s here now and will likely displace the DVD sitting on my home video shelf. The circle of life, I suppose.

This quirky and occasionally interesting documentary would make its debut on the small screen, initially produced for exclusive broadcast on Swedish television. But it was a popular and professional enough effort to be later telecast in Great Britain on the B.B.C. The film would make the transition as a genuine cinematic property in 1975 when Samuel M. Sherman’s Independent International Pictures Corporation bought the U.S. distribution rights. The producer would pad the program’s running time to feature-length with a sprinkling of non-essential bits and pieces here and there.

The film was released theatrically in the U.S., playing the New York City metropolitan area in May 1975. This NYC-area engagement lasted little more than a week, mostly playing drive-ins and second-run cinemas throughout the city’s outer boroughs, Long Island and the wilds of New Jersey. Sherman’s ballyhoo newspaper advertising was purposefully misleading. It highlighted Christopher Lee’s participation in the production and referenced “An Open Letter to the Descendants of Count Dracula.” Subsequent ad copy coyly disguised that the film was actually an historical documentary rather than a new Dracula feature.

In any event, the film was not strong enough to stand alone as a potential draw, so it was paired with an appropriate co-feature, albeit movies of previous-release and exhibiting some mileage and history. These co-features would include the like of Hammer’s The Mummy (1959) with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and Al Adamson’s bargain-basement cheapie Blood of Ghastly Horror (1967) with John Carradine. (This second feature made some strategic sense as Sherman was co-producer of the latter film). Sherman is listed here in the revised opening credits of In Search of Dracula as “production consultant.” With all due respect to Mr. Sherman, Floyd’s original documentary was inspired by consulting Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu’s best-selling tome of the same title (New York Graphic Society, 1972). The film, to the best of its ability, attempts to touch on many of the same subjects more thoroughly detailed in that book.

Unfortunately, it does so with only mixed success as director Floyd’s somber narrative tends to meander. The film certainly starts promisingly enough, advising viewers that it was photographed not only “on location” in Transylvania itself (we’re told “Transylvania” translates to the “land beyond the forest”), but also in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. “All film locations are authentic and historically accurate” a title credit promisingly brags. Indeed, the travelogue snippets of green fields, the Carpathian Mountains, broke-down castles, and small-village folkways are amongst the film’s strongest assets. We’re also treated to somewhat tangential footage documenting a colorful performance by the Romanian Folklore Dance Company and the so-called “mysticism” of a Greek Orthodox Church ceremony.

The real masterstroke of producer/director/composer Floyd was his ability to bring in a favorite cinematic Dracula, Christopher Lee, to narrate and guide viewers through this fractured history lesson. The fact that he was able to convince Lee to do so is surprising in itself. Lee had walked away, somewhat disgruntled, from the Dracula character following his appearance in seven mostly beloved – and mostly profitable - films for Hammer Studios… and an eighth, if less celebrated Dracula movie, for Spanish director Jess Franco (1970). Lee proudly boasts here near the film’s end that his Horror of Dracula (1958) made “eight times its production costs!” for Hammer. For the record, Lee hadn’t totally abandoned his cloaked on-screen vampirism, having also appeared as an ersatz Dracula in such mostly forgotten continental productions as Italy’s Tempi duri per i vampiri (1959) and France’s Dracula Père et Fils (1976). Lee provides narration throughout but also appears on screen - surprisingly “in character” - in several brief vignettes. He’s seen here, in silent footage, as both the (Stoker-described) mustachioed Count Dracula as well as the character’s presumed historical forebear Vlad Tepes (aka “Vlad the Impaler”), the one-time Prince of Wallachia.

It’s unfair to expect an eighty-two minute film to adequately convey the contents of a 300 page book, and director Floyd (along with writer Yvonne Floyd) tries their best to condense and impart information in an educational and entertaining manner. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough running time to discuss any item to satisfaction. We are offered some teachable, if rushed along, informational tidbits along the way. We learn that Bram Stoker, who would first publish his novel Dracula in 1897, never actually visited Transylvania prior to writing. Despite this, Lee ensures, the novelist was “remarkably accurate” in his descriptions as he had studied period maps and guidebooks in careful preparation. There’s a discussion of the origin of vampire legends which, we’re told, originated in Asia before migrating westward to other far-flung places. Stories of vampires eventually traveled to Eastern Europe where they seamlessly filtered into and intertwined with local folklore beliefs. It was in Eastern Europe that tales of vampirism and “the undead” would appear most common.

The film also treats us to tangential, thumbnail case studies and psychological profiles of other infamous - and terribly real - “vampires.” These include Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary (aka Countess Dracula) who, legend has it, bathed in the blood of virgins in an attempt to stay youthful. Then there was the awful Peter Kürten, the “Vampire of Düsseldorf,” a sexual deviant and serial killer who reportedly cannibalized and drank the blood of several of his victims. Another addition to this unpleasant rogue’s gallery was John Haigh, the so-called “Vampire of London.” The delightful Mister Haigh treated his victim’s to acid baths and claimed to have drunk their blood as well.

It’s almost a relief when, somewhere around the sixty-minute mark, Floyd – in a head-scratching manner - segues into an odd sidebar regarding the origins of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein. Its inclusion here is almost totally out of place in this particular documentary but, in hindsight, it did foreshadow Floyd’s next and more ambitious project. This would be the director’s attempt at a dramatic telling of the authentic and original Shelley text “as written.” This feature would subsequently be released to European cinemas in 1977 as the Terror of Frankenstein.

Though no classic, Floyd’s take on Frankenstein – unseen by many until the home video boom made the film more available – is often lauded as the first faithful attempt to follow the novels genuine and more complex storyline. This declaration wasn’t entirely true. In 1973, NBC-TV would broadcast their three and a half hour television drama Frankenstein: The True Story in two parts. So that television production had gotten their first and, quite frankly, did a better job of it. In any event, Calvin Floyd’s Terror of Frankenstein is certainly worth seeking out by film scholars, if only for its oddity.

Unfortunately, Floyd’s In Search of Dracula begins to fall apart near the end as we pass through brief mentions of the nineteenth century literary legacies of such “undead” figures as Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Polidori’s Vampyre. As we enter the age of cinema, we’re treated to an over-long, but time-chewing, excerpt of the public-domain silent classic Nosferatu. Since clips from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr and Tod Browning’s Dracula (the latter featuring the iconic 1931 performance of Bela Lugosi), were under copyright protection, we’re treated only to a few production stills and a lengthy, and not terribly relevant, excerpt from Lugosi’s appearance in the non-protected 1925 silent drama The Midnight Girl.

In any event, I’m guessing that fans of Sir Christopher Lee and students of the Dracula legend will be compelled to add this film to their collections: as someone who has triple-dipped on this title I completely understand. Others less-obsessed might find the film an outdated celluloid relic, best forgotten. While I’m certainly glad that the film has been made available once again for those interested, I would be dishonest to deem it as an essential study.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray of In Search of Dracula has been transferred from a new 2K master, in a ratio of 1.37:1 and in 1920p x 1080p with DTS monaural sound. The set also features an audio commentary track supplied by film historians Lee Gambin and John Harrison. The set includes a few bonus trailers for other Christopher Lee films available from the Kino Lorber library: The Crimson Cult, The Oblong Box, Scream and Scream Again, Arabian Adventure, and House of Long Shadows.

BY HANK REINEKE

Val Guest’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) is one of the better science-fiction films to come out of the Cold War decades of the 1950’s and 1960s. While it’s no metaphorical masterpiece as Don Siegel’s more celebrated Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the screenplay for this British production was co-penned by Guest and the novelist/playwright/screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. The two would collaborate on other projects as well, but it’s the thoughtful, literate script co-written for The Day the Earth Caught Fire that would justifiably garner them the award for the Best British Screenplay from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. This superb new Blu-ray from Kino Lorber is absolutely beautiful, having been digitally re-mastered from a print held in the National Archive of British Film Institute in association with StudioCanal.

Partly inspired by the worldwide early anti-nuclear weapon sentiments and protests of the late ‘50s/early 60s – and in particular by the demonstrations of England’s annual Easter Aldermaston Marches (partly commemorated here via actual newsreel footage) – the foreboding screenplay warns of the cost-to-be -paid due to the escalating tension and muscle-flexing of the world’s two superpowers. The film’s critics on the right would dismiss the 1961 production as an example of sobbing leftist propaganda. Interestingly - and almost a half-century following the film’s release - London’s Guardian newspaper was among many British journals giving this charge some measure of credence. It was reported in August 2010, upon the recent declassification of security documents, that Mankowitz – who passed in 1998 – had once been suspected by members of MI5 to be a possible agent of the Soviet Union. This was a delicious bit of ironic tattle since Mankowitz had long been celebrated as the figure that brought Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman together to produce the films of the world’s favorite “imperialist thug” spy, James Bond.

If not a bona fide, card-carrying Marxist – and there’s no proof that I know of that he was, nor would such a personal political leaning been criminal unless engaged in espionage - Mankowitz was, at the very least, a gifted seer. The advertising for the film promised a “picture that gives you a front seat to the most jolting events of tomorrow!” When news of the real-life Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in October 1962, cinemagoers who caught The Day the Earth Caught Fire on its release in the late autumn of 1961 through the spring of 1962, were no doubt understandably chilled by the catastrophic preview they’d already witnessed. The film depicts, in uncompromising seriousness and sobriety, the dire consequences of unbridled nuclear weapons testing by the world’s two reigning super-powers. This is a science-fiction film where the monster created was completely of human design. Unless one wishes to extrapolate on the possible symbolism of film’s final image and audio, director Guest stubbornly refused to guarantee the requisite happy ending.

The film is a very much a science-fiction movie for thinking adults. The original British censor card tacked onto the film’s front end informs that no one under the age of sixteen would be permitted admission. I imagine only the most worldly and erudite middle and early high school age teens would have even cared about such disbarment, as there’s no space-age “monster” to be found in this sci-fi classic. Instead the film crackles with reasonable, thoughtful, snappy dialogue and thinly-disguised homilies on the subject of cold war insanities.

It’s interesting that the film’s attention relies not on the cataclysmic events accidentally wrought by the United States and the Soviet Union. It dwells almost entirely on the fallout of such a disaster. In brief, the Soviets and the Americans have conducted – unbeknownst to one another - almost simultaneous thermo-nuclear tests at the Earth’s poles in Siberia and Antarctica, respectively. The resulting explosions are described by one journalist at London’s Daily Express newspaper as “the biggest jolt the earth has sustained since the ice age.” One result of these simultaneous explosions is a seismological shift, one that unleashes a succession of worldwide environmental disasters.

Things quickly go from bad to worse. Sunspots are initially blamed for causing all sorts of electrical interference in aero and navigational systems. This is soon followed by an unexplained early solar eclipse appearing in the sky above, and suddenly countries of the world are fighting off such ravaging natural disasters as tsunamis, floods, fires, and droughts. Temperatures reach as high as one hundred and forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in Texas and Mexico. In London, where most of this story plays out, a pea-soup thick mist rises from the Channel and blankets the city with a blinding fog reaching four stories high.

The story primarily unfolds - and twists - in the offices of London’s Daily Express newspaper where coverage is assigned to reporter Peter Stenning (Edward Judd). Stenning, on one level, is the usual cynical, jaded and hard-drinking journalist. He has been made so as the result of a failed marriage and an estranged relationship with his own son, whom he adores. He is soon smitten by pool secretary Jeannie (Janet Munro) and the two squabble as they try to get beyond the official and feeble government responses regarding the crisis. Something more dramatic and threatening is going on, and the reporter is determined to cobble together the story of what is actually happening. Both Judd and Munro are wonderful in their respective roles, as is Leo McKern’s “Bill Maguire,” a veteran reporter who remains Stenning’s one true friend throughout. The lovely Munro, who had only graduated from dopey, dream-teen roles in a trio of mid-1950s Disney productions to being menaced by The Trollenberg Terror (aka The Crawling Eye), is finally given a role with some gravitas. It’s one she handles skillfully, imbuing her character with professional nuance.

The screenplay pulls no punches, practically ensuring that unless a lasting détente between the two superpowers is worked out, a nuclear crisis will surely occur the future. Things actually get more desperate as the film spools on, the reporters learning that the duo nuclear-blast has caused a nutation – that is, a warbling of the earth’s poles. The earth’s axis has shifted a full eleven degrees – and this has caused the planet to hurtle into a doomsday trajectory towards the sun. Scientists estimate that the planet has four months to survive until everything and everyone on earth faces incineration. (Interestingly, this premise of the earth hurtling disastrously toward the sun was simultaneously featured in Rod Serling’s teleplay “The Midnight Sun,” an episode of The Twilight Zone, broadcast November 1961).

As The Day the Earth Caught Fire is as much a “disaster” flick as a science-fiction film, the production expenses to lens such catastrophes would have ballooned the budget to an unmanageable level. Guest wisely saves on the production budget by relying almost entirely on actual newsreel footage to document the onslaught of such natural disasters. Such newsreel realism contrasts somewhat with the film’s opening sequences, the frames artificially tinted in yellow to suggest the presence of the searing heat beating down upon London. Though Guest must rely on an unconvincing matte painting of a dry river bed that was once the mighty Thames, Harry Waxman’s photography of the eerily deserted thoroughfares surrounding Piccadilly Circus and Fleet Street more than make up for this image.

In 2020, the threat of nuclear annihilation is not as prevalent on one’s mind as it once had been during the unfortunate chessboard that was the cold war era. That doesn’t mean Guest’s film is not as relevant today. His film documents the sad - and not unexpected - doomsday mentalities of those who plan on irresponsibly partying and acting uncivilly to their own demise. In this age of Covid-19 and the viruses exposing of the existence of a legion of scientific naysayers, it’s easy to understand the mournful observation of one Daily Express reporter in the film who sighs, “People don’t care about the news until it becomes personal.”

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Day the Earth Caught Fire is presented here in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and 1920x1080p with a monaural DTS sound and removable English sub-titles. The set also includes a generous set of bonus features which includes not one but two separate audio commentaries: one by the film’s original Co-Writer/Producer/Director Val Guest, the second by film historian Richard Harland Smith. The set also features no fewer than four original television spots and four radio spots originally used in promotion as well as the film’s theatrical trailer. Additional trailers include those for The Quatermass Xperiment and The Earth Dies Screaming.

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BY DARREN ALLISON

Cineploit continue to help feed the healthy appetite for European cult film classics with their two latest Region-Free Blu-ray media book releases, Mark Colpisce Ancora aka The .44 Specialist aka Mark Strikes Again (Italy 1976) (CP 05) and Brothers in Blood aka Savage Attack (Italy 1987) (CP 06).

Police Inspector Mark Terzi (Franco Gasparri) works undercover as Mark Patti. He is assigned to apprehend a hardened group of terrorists. Terzi has already narrowly escaped a murderous attack at a location where he was meant to be in Vienna, which leads to suspicions. Soon after, clues lead Terzi to begin thinking that his own superiors may also be involved in the plot.

This was the final film in director Stelvio Massis’s ‘Mark trilogy’ and is considered by many commentators to be the best. Massis appears to have accumulated his collective skills, experiences and shooting techniques from the previous two films and put them to very good use for the final entry. Whist the plot and narrative are pretty straight forward, there is plenty of action to enjoy. Crashes, car chases, an air escape and plenty of bullets litter the screen, and given that this was probably something of a low-budgeted affair, it all comes off as both exciting and hugely enjoyable. The film looks good. too, making the most of its locations based mainly in and around Milan and Vienna. As with a great deal other Poliziotteschi films, Mark Colpisce Ancora also boasts an American actor in its cast. It’s usually no more than an extended cameo, but worked well, especially in reaching out to the American market. John Saxon appears here, Saxon had an uncanny knack of choosing and turning up in so many cult films. It would have been great to have seen him appear longer, but more often than not these Western world, star contracts arguably stipulated a week or so scheduling, and in the process Saxon no doubt collected a healthy fistful of Lira (and probably a return ticket to Europe for his troubles). The film marks its worldwide 2K Blu-ray premiere, and looks incredibly clean (the disc includes a restoration comparison) and free of any major defects. Euro film favourite, composer Stelvio Cipriani also keeps the suspense thumping along nicely with another memorable score.

As to be expected from Cineploit, their package is again highly impressive. Their media book style (as with their previous four releases) is beautifully produced with 28 pages of detailed information. The company also offer the media book in a choice of three different cover variations, (two Italian and one German) in numbered and limited editions of 400/300/300. Cineploit’s continued use of partial UV spotting also adds an edge to the covers overall presentation. Leading the bonus material is Part 2 of Cineploit’s exclusively produced career interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani. Cineploit teasingly split this excellent interview (part 1 was included on their debut release, La Polizia Ha Le Mani Legrate). There’s another 41 minutes here, which, with part one, totals some 92 minutes and makes it something of a defining overview on the composer. There’s also two further exclusive featurettes with son and assistant Danilo Massi and cameraman Roberto Girometti (20 and 16 minutes). Also included is an international picture gallery lasting some 8 minutes. Cineploit fashionably round the whole package off by including a reproduction double-sided poster with the Italian locandina and Manifesto. Wonderful stuff!

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Only diehard movie lovers of a certain age might be familiar with "Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood", a 1976 comedy from Paramount that came and went in the blink of an eye.The titular animal is a German shepherd whose "real name" was, rather amusingly, Augustus Von Schumacher. The film was the brainchild of David V. Picker, the mogul who ran several studios over the course of his career and who, as head of production of United Artists from the late 1950s through mid-1970s, brought the company to its most illustrious period. Picker developed "Won Ton Ton" while he was at Warner Bros., then brought the project with him when he moved to Paramount. Armed with a script by Arnold Schulman, based on a story idea by Cy Howard, Picker enlisted Michael Winner to direct the satire of the film industry during the silent movie era. Winner might have seemed like a strange choice at the time, given he was coming off a string of successful, but often very violent crime thrillers and westerns. He had recently scored the biggest success of his career with the controversial "Death Wish". However, he had made his mark in the British film industry a decade earlier by directing some well-received counter-culture comedies that perfectly tapped into the emerging mod scene.

The movie may be about a pooch but it's an odd duck of a film. It centers on Estie Del Ruth (Madeline Kahn), one of many wanna-be movie stars who has gravitated to Hollywood during the early days of the industry. She has a chance encounter with a stray German shepherd and can't find a way of losing him. Ultimately, they bond and she comes to realize that the dog is highly intelligent and capable of carrying out remarkably complex tasks. She meets Grayson Potchuck (Bruce Dern), an opportunistic aspiring director who has the ear of grumpy studio boss J.J. Fromberg (Art Carney). As Grayson forms a romantic relationship with Estie, he observes her dog's abilities and pitches an idea to Fromberg to allow him to direct a film starring the canine, who will be renamed Won Ton Ton. The movie turns out to be a hit, spawns a franchise and the dog becomes a national sensation. However, Estie's career is still in limbo and she uses her control over Won Ton Ton to persuade Fromberg into allowing her to star as the leading lady in heartthrob Rudy Montague's (Ron Liebman) next film. Ultimately, she, Grayson and even Won Ton Ton learn that loyalty and security in Hollywood are transient things as they all fall from fame and fortune into virtual obscurity.

It's hard to imagine just why David Picker thought this film would be a hit. Full disclosure: I was a friend of his and now regret not having ever discussed the movie with him, especially since Picker was not adverse to discussing his career failures as well as his triumphs (he gives the film only one incidental mention in his memoirs). In any event, "Won Ton Ton" was a bomb. Critics savaged the film, correctly pointing out that Michael Winner's direction was erratic. Screenwriter Arnold Schulman accused Picker of having the script largely rewritten without his knowledge and he publicly disassociated himself from the final cut of the movie. He said it was directed with all the charm and wit of a chain-saw massacre. The story is erratic and never very funny. However, Madeline Kahn shines in the lead role (after Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin turned it down). She had remarkable comedic timing and one can only wonder why her career never soared the way many had predicted. Bruce Dern is fine as the male lead but the funniest bits belong to Art Carney as the sex-crazed studio mogul who "interviews" prospective starlets without even bothering to put on his trousers to greet them. Ron Liebman is also very amusing as a legendary Valentino clone who privately lives as a flamboyantly gay man with a passion for cross-dressing.  There are some other saving graces. The production design is very impressive and it's fun to watch the sights and sounds of 1970s L.A., which at the time could still be convincingly transformed into the Hollywood of the silent film era. As for ol' Won Ton Ton, he's adequate as a trained dog but never quite achieves the kind of miraculous feats that would have made him a nationwide sensation. (The dog's screen name was clearly inspired by Rin-Tin-Tin, whose copyright holders sued Paramount for infringement.) The film was harshly criticized for its cynical view of the silent era, although one would have to be very naive to believe that Harvey Weinstein-like practices didn't exist from the very beginning of the movie industry.

The one notable aspect of the movie is the glorious assemblage of old-time movie stars in cameos, some of them appearing on film for the final time. But Winner was accused of mishandling this opportunity. While a few have parts with some meat on the bone, most appear in blink-and-you'll-miss-'em pop-ups that are not very creatively staged. Some are just extras in a crowd scene while others have a few innocuous lines. Nevertheless, it's great to play spot-the-star, especially since the film itself isn't very engaging. Among the remarkable cast of cameo players: Stepin Fetchit, Yvonne De Carlo, Rudy Vallee, Dorothy Lamour, Tab Hunter, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Johnny Weismuller, Ethel Merman, Billy Barty, Broderick Crawford, Rory Calhoun, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Arlen, Ann Miller, Jackie Coogan, Robert Alda, Henry Wilcoxon, Edgar Bergen and countless others. Generally speaking, the inclusion of gimmicky cameos usually distracts from a movie's merits. However, since "Won Ton Ton" is so lacking in said merits, the cameos provide the primary reason for staying through the end credits. 

The Olive Films Blu-ray has a nice transfer but no bonus extras. That's a pity because a critical analysis of the movie by film historians would make for a compelling commentary track.

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