BY JOHN M. WHALEN

In the early 1970s best-selling author Alistair MacLean (TheGuns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare) was having a hard time of it, suffering through a rough marriage that eventually ended in divorce and alcoholism. His friend, movie producer Elliot Kastner, who had produced several movies based on MacLean’s books, gave him an office at 20th Century Fox and told him to write his next novel there as therapy. MacLean took the task on and decided to do something a little different from the straight adventure stories he usually wrote. He came up with the idea of mashing up two different genres—a tale of the Old West and an Agatha Christie-type cozy mystery. He basically took the plot from Murder on the Orient Express and set it on a train carrying medical supplies through the Rocky Mountains in 1870 to Fort Humboldt, which was besieged by an epidemic of diphtheria. Instead of Hercule Poirot on board trying to figure out who’s murdering all the passengers one by one, John Deakin, an outlaw with a price on his head, is given the job of figuring out who the culprit is.

No sooner did Breakheart Pass hit the bestseller list than Kastner asked MacLean to write the screenplay for a film based on the book, and Kastner and company began casting the characters. In 1974, Charles Bronson, who was in his fourth year as one of the top 10 box-office moneymakers in Hollywood, was brought on board to play John Deakin. A lot of the other parts went to what might be called “Bronson regulars,” actors that Bronson liked working with. First and foremost among them, of course, was Bronson’s wife, Jill Ireland, who appeared in 15 of his movies. She plays Marica, the fiancé of Nevada Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna), who is on board to make sure the needed medical supplies get to their destination. Ed Lauter, who made four films with Bronson, plays Army Major Clairmont, whose first inclination is to hogtie Deakin and leave him be until they get to the fort. Robert Tessier, who would appear in Bronson’s Hard Times as one of his boxing match opponents, plays Levi Calhoun, the murderous leader of an outlaw gang that has taken over the fort. The strange makeup and costume he wears somehow makes him resemble a member of a way off Broadway production of Cats. There are other familiar faces in the movie that you’ll recognize from other Bronson flicks.

Also in the cast is veteran western actor Ben Johnson as U.S. Marshal Pearce, who shows up to take Deakin into custody, Bill McKinney (Deliverance) as Rev. Peabody, David Huddleston as Dr. Molyneaux, former boxing champion Archie Moore as the train’s cook, and Charles Durning as O’Brien, the conductor.

As the plot progresses we discover that almost none of the passengers is who he says he is, and the medical supplies on board are actually boxes loaded with rifles and dynamite. Deakin eventually solves the mystery but not without the usual amount of violence and mayhem one expects from a Bronson flick. One of the highlights of the film is a sequence in which the last three cars of the train, containing soldiers on their way to Ft. Humboldt, are decoupled and allowed to jump the track, roll downhill and fall off the side of the mountain. Unlike moviemakers today, director Tom Gries (Will Penny) did not have CGI technology to help create the scene. The production spent $800,000 for the purchase of actual box cars and sent them crashing down the mountainside. The sequence is noteworthy for being the last to be done by legendary stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt (Stagecoach, Ben-Hur). Unfortunately, according to the audio commentary provided by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, the dummies dressed in Army uniforms that were supposed to fall out of the cars as they went down the cliff, remained hidden from the cameras. They couldn’t reshoot it so instead they dubbed in the sound of men screaming as the cars plummeted down the mountainside.

Breakheart Pass is an entertaining movie even though the plot literally makes no sense at all, and the characters have about as much depth as you’ll find in any SpongeBob Squarepants cartoon. But the ease and sense of “who cares what it’s all about, I’m just a Pennsylvania coal miner’s son having fun with some friends of mine” that Bronson displays, makes it enjoyable in a weird sort of way. His casual pursuit of clues from corpse to corpse, as they fall off trestles, or are found buried in the locomotive’s wood pile, or catch on fire and leap out of the locomotive in flames, manages to hold your interest—if you try not to think about it too hard.

Gries directs the film with a suitable lack of rigor and manages to keep the action going at a steady pace. He keeps the characters and their shifting identities straight, while giving Bronson a chance to play a Wild West detective without letting the whole show go over the cliff, so to speak. Lucien Ballard’s cinematography captures both the beauty and rugged treachery of the Rocky Mountain locations and the great Jerry Goldsmith provided a spirited, pulsing soundtrack for the film.

Kino Lorber’s 1080p Blu-ray disc transfer of Breakheart Pass is adequate but could be better. The color is good but the print is definitely in need of a good 2K restoration. Audio is 2.0 mono and seems flat, with little dynamic range. Goldsmith’s score deserves better treatment. Among the extras included on the disc are the previously mention audio commentary and trailers for other Bronson films available from KL. There is also reversible sleeve artwork. If you’re a Bronson fan, or just want to see box cars careening down the side of a mountain, you’ll probably want to see this.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "Hunting Monsters is My Business: The Mordecai Slate Stories" . Click here to order the book from Amazon)

BY FRED BLOSSER

In Andrew V. McLaglen’s “One More Train to Rob,” an obscure but modestly entertaining Western from 1971, train robber Harker Fleet (George Peppard) masterminds the armed theft of $40,000 from a Wells Fargo express. Thanks to his careful planning, he and his gang all have airtight alibis when the law comes calling. His partners Tim (John Vernon) and Katy (Diana Muldaur) posed as passengers on the train, and his other henchmen Slim, Red, and Jimmy were presumed asleep in their bunks at a nearby ranch. Checking on Fleet’s whereabouts during the holdup, the sheriff is assured by the town madam Louella that she and Harker were together in her bed all night. Louella is played by Marie Windsor, still plenty hot at fifty-two, if I may be excused a little ageism and sexism. The sheriff is ready to let Fleet off the hook, but the unexpected arrival of the hulking Jones brothers (Merlin Olsen and his real-life brother Eric) throws a wrench into the scheme. The brothers demand that Fleet marry their sister Cora Mae, whom he seduced and abandoned during an earlier layover, so to speak, while he and Tim scoped out the Wells Fargo heist. The prospect of a shotgun wedding doesn’t thrill Harker. “What if I confess to robbing the train and go to jail instead?” he asks the sheriff. No dice. Trying to get away, he slugs a deputy and winds up in prison for assaulting an officer.

Two years later, released early on good behavior, he finds that Tim has married Katy and combined Harker’s share of the loot with his own and Katy’s to start a ranch and a lumber business. Tim and Katy are unsettled by their former partner’s arrival for different reasons, Tim because Harker wants his cut of the money, Katy ostensibly because she enjoys her present lifestyle as a lady of means, but really because she still has a thing for Fleet. Tim’s position is especially shaky. He’s overextended on the ranch, the bank is poised to foreclose, and because of Harker’s accidental intervention, he’s been foiled in an attempt to shore up his credit with gold stolen from a neighboring mine owned by Chinese immigrants. As a hole card, he holds hostage the Chinese elder, Mr. Chang (Richard Loo), and tries to coerce him into turning over the gold. Aware of Tim’s plot, Harker sees a chance to recover his own losses and ruin his former partner in the process.

The tagline for the movie poster — reproduced as the cover art for a new Blu-ray edition of “One More Train to Rob” from Code Red — positions the film as a sweaty, violent story about betrayal and retribution: “He’d been cheated out of his gold . . . and his woman . . . now the only weapon he had left was revenge!” It’s a little misleading. “One More Train to Rob” offers plenty of action to satisfy genre fans, well-staged by McLaglen and stunt coordinator Hal Needham, but it takes a lighter approach to the vengeance theme than the poster implies. Harker’s payback relies more on intimidation and shrewdness than gunplay. The robber enjoys watching Tim and Katy squirm at his reappearance, wearing beat-up clothing and chewing tobacco in their lavish house, while they’re preparing to host a visit by the local minister and his wife — the humor is obvious but still pretty funny. In the meantime, he maneuvers to get on the good side of the Chinese immigrants to outfox Tim. Since Fleet is played by George Peppard, always at his best when cast in this type of role, neither the viewer nor the Chinese miners are quite sure whether he’s to be trusted. But Loo’s character is warily satisfied once he understands the robber’s ulterior motive: “I wondered why a man of your character would wish to befriend us, but now I see,” he concludes. Mr. Chang’s associates are played by France Nuyen and Soon-Tek Oh. It isn’t exactly “Crazy Rich Asians” or “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” in terms of casting Asian actors above the title in respectfully quirky roles, but at least the Chinese characters are depicted with shrewd dignity, and they give as good as they get with the racist white bad guys.

The Code Red Blu-ray presents McLaglen’s film in a sharp, rich transfer at its proper 1.85:1 aspect. Licensed from Universal, it includes the theatrical trailer and subtitles for those of us who didn’t need them in 1971 but welcome them now.

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

“BROSNAN BEFORE BOND”

By Raymond Benson

In 1986, Pierce Brosnan almost became James Bond, nearly a decade before he actually did so. He had been cast to replace Roger Moore as the iconic 007, but at the last minute, NBC waved his contract for the television series Remington Steele at him, exercising the option to make another season. Brosnan was out, and Timothy Dalton was in.

And then… Remington Steele’s new season ended up consisting of only six episodes, finishing its run in early 1987. So, Brosnan had been baited and switched. Nevertheless, in the interim years between then and his appearance in GoldenEye (1995), the actor set about establishing himself as a leading man in feature films.

One of these early starring roles was in the 1988 production, The Deceivers, a British picture made by the elite Merchant Ivory Productions, and it was produced by Ismail Merchant himself. Based on a 1952 novel by John Masters, the film was touted as being based on fact (the screenplay was by Michael Hirst). After a couple of directors, including Stephen Frears, dropped out of the project, Nicholas Meyer signed on. Meyer, known for his work on such titles as Time After Time (1979) and Star Trek II—the Wrath of Khan (1982), seemed to be a viable choice for this action-adventure period piece that the studio hoped would be perceived as something along the lines of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It wasn’t.

The story is set in India in 1825, before the British Raj but when Britain’s East India Company was a heavy influence in the country. The trading company had already come to rule large areas of India, employing military power and administrative functions. Captain William Savage (Brosnan) is a highly regarded employee, and he’s also engaged to the daughter of his boss, Colonel Wilson (Keith Michell). The bride-to-be, Sarah, is played by Michell’s real-life daughter, Helena Michell. After the marriage, all looks rosy for Savage if he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t rock the boat in his job. However, a loosely-organized cult called the Thugee, or Thugs (which, in Indian, means “deceivers”), are terrorizing the countryside. The Thugee brutally murder groups of people in surprise raids. When British citizens and employees of The Company become victims, Savage takes it upon himself to find a way to infiltrate the gang, become a member, and do something to take them down. Of course, to become a member, he must stain his skin color and become an Indian. Against his father-in-law’s wishes, Savage does just that with the help of a repentant Thug, Hussein (Saeed Jaffrey). What follows causes the “dark side” of Savage’s personality to emerge, as he must adopt murderous tendencies to successfully pull off the charade.

The Deceivers has a “literary,” art-house sensibility, as if it were a Masterpiece Theatre episode. At the same time, however, it is brutally violent and deals with a not-so-admirable period of British dominance in a country of people treated as inferior. While the action and battle scenes are well done, the movie might have benefited from a more populist approach. As a result, the film’s lofty attitudes prevent it from being truly gripping or exciting.

There is much to admire, however. For James Bond fans, there is not only the presence of Brosnan, who performs admirably and intensely in the role of Captain Savage, but also production designer Ken Adam, who presents a gorgeous pallet of period landscape and buildings, and main title designer Maurice Binder, whose style of production is easily recognizable in the opening credits.

Cohen Film Group’s new Blu-ray looks fine, if a bit dark (which could be Walter Lassally’s cinematography). It comes with optional English subtitles. There are no supplements other than the original theatrical trailers and an endless array of trailers for other Cohen releases.

The Deceivers may not be an award winner, but it is interesting enough as a period piece, for the pre-Bond performance by Pierce Brosnan, and for its historical milieu that is rarely touched upon in modern cinema.

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BY DARREN ALLISON

The Film Detective continues to thrill us with a couple of excellent cult classics. Frankenstein’s Daughter is a film that had been denied a great deal of exposure to fans of the strange and macabre. For many, it’s a title that has teased us for decades, with a still or a lobby card appearing once in a while by way of a horror book or a specialist periodical, so it is certainly welcome. It is typically what one would expect from this lush 1950s period. An incredibly low-budget affair, these films would often be produced for around $60,000, but the filmmakers certainly knew how to squeeze every ounce out of that budget. If anything, it ignited creativity and provided a lesson in how to make the most of the limited resources that were available to them.

Frankenstein’s Daughter is a fine example of that. Starring Donald Murphy, Sandra Knight, John Ashley and Harold Lloyd Jr (yes, that’s the son of the silent film comedian), the film was directed by Richard E. Cunha. The film is a simple enough story, if a little absurd, and attempts to latch on to the whole horror family spin off notion - film’s such as Universal’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936), Son of Dracula (1943) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) undoubtedly contributed towards the filmmakers line of thought. There was a gap in the market, and it was rich ground for exploiting. Donald Murphy is the real villain here, playing the sleazy and devious lab assistant Oliver Frank (Frank being a thinly disguised identity for the Frankenstein family name), and it’s his intention of creating the first female Frankenstein's monster which drives the narrative.

Like most of these low budget horrors, it’s usually down to the ‘monster make-up’ which determines its overall likeability factor. Frankenstein’s Daughter fits right in. It is very much in the same ballpark as AIP’s cult classics such as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein made a year earlier in 1957, and where the central ‘monster’ seems to be inspired by an automobile accident victim, which of course, in the worst instance, can be something quite grotesque and disturbing. This all works well in the context of Frankenstein’s Daughter and adds a great deal to the overall thrill factor. The acting is quite naturally wooden and stiff, but anyone who knows and loves these films wouldn’t expect anything less, as it’s part of their appeal.

The Film Detective has done a remarkable job on this film. Considering its low budget, the film looks quite beautiful framed at 1.85:1, and with sharp, clean detail in both picture and audio.

I was really impressed with the bonus materials which include a very interesting documentary, Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker of the Unknown - A new retrospective from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, featuring an archival interview with director Richard E. Cunha. There is also a very detailed and enjoyable audio commentary with numerous contributors and a fascinating featurette, John Ashley: Man from the B’s - a new career retrospective featuring film historian C. Courtney Joyner. The Film Detective seals this fine tribute with a nice 12-page booklet featuring an original essay, The Making of Frankenstein’s Daughter written by Tom Weaver. It’s a thoughtful and well -produced Blu-ray release which has to be admired.

The Amazing Mr. X (1948), also known as The Spiritualist, is an American horror thriller made in a film noir style. For a title that sits in the public domain it's perhaps unfairly overlooked or labelled as a ‘lessor’ quality film, and this really isn’t the case. Starring Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, Cathy O'Donnell, and Richard Carlson, the film was directed by Bernard Vorhaus.

Some two years after her husband's death, Christine Faber (Lynn Bari) hears her late husband Paul Faber (Donald Curtis) calling out her name. She walks outside her beachfront home and encounters Alexis (Turhan Bey), a mysterious, charming stranger who seems to know all about her. After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and her younger sister Janet (Cathy O'Donnell) become obsessed with the strange life of Alexis, a spiritualist. But Alexis finds himself in more trouble than he had in mind. After staging a convincing séance involving the deceased Paul, he is surprised by the appearance of Paul Faber himself. And so begins a twisting tale of deceitful plotting.

The Amazing Mr. X moves along very nicely, and is full of wonderfully atmospheric scenes. But it’s also a story of two parts. Once Paul is revealed as being very much alive, the film changes direction and becomes more of a straightforward piece of noir and the supernatural element takes more of a back seat. However, everything is handled exceptionally well, especially the impressive cinematography by John Alton. Alton’s use of shadow and his clever optical effects really helps to elevate the movie and gives it a more polished (and expensive) look that you would expect to see in a RKO or a Universal production from the same period. Large, lush sets and exotic beach locations all add to the general glossy production values.

Once again, The Film Detective has produced a fine addition to their catalogue of titles. The movie’s new 4K transfer, both in visual and audio terms, is superb - perhaps a little soft in certain scenes, but some close-ups, particularly on Bari, appear more as intended soft focus shots. But overall, The Amazing Mr. X, presented in its correct aspect ratio of 1.37:1, punches high above its weight. The bonus material is also very enjoyable and includes a specific audio commentary by Jason A. Ney. There is also a new documentary, Mysteries Exposed: Inside the Cinematic World of Spiritualis, which is an enjoyable and informative reflection of the genre. A nice 12-page booklet is included which features a detailed essay, The Amazing Mr. Bey written by Don Stradley.

Both Frankenstein’s Daughter and The Amazing Mr. X (1948) offer a great deal of enjoyment and fun. It’s nice to see that the wonderful original artwork has been utilised on both releases rather than some badly cut and pasted Photoshop design which always cheapens the overall presentation. It’s a shame that the original trailers were not included, especially for Frankenstein’s Daughter. As an exploitation movie, the accompanying trailers often provided a certain over-the-top sense of salesmanship which was always so unique and memorable.

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(Darren Allison is the movie soundtracks reviewer for Cinema Retro magazine.) 

BY HANK REINEKE

The tales of adventure, fantasy and science-fiction penned by the great French novelist Jules Verne have served as filmmaking source material since the silent era. In the 1950s and early 60s such films as Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), U.A.’s Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Fox’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), and Columbia’s Mysterious Island (1961) had studio cash boxes ringing. Verne’s charming mix of adventurous whimsy and exciting scenarios were big moneymakers. They would all capitalize, in part, by the fact these were “family” films that promised a couple of hours of cross-generational entertainment.

So it was not surprising when James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures thought it might be time to get into the game. “You can get an indication of public taste by observing the pictures that are doing good business at the box office,” Nicholson would tell a writer from the Atlanta Constitution during a May 1961 stopover. “You can also detect growing trends.”

It was obvious that the most recent trend to catch his attention was the success of the big studio Jules Verne pictures. Not to let a money-generating bandwagon pass, AIP would chose Verne’s’ 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror as their next big project. Technically, their film would be a mashup of the latter title with 1904 successor, Master of the World. “Jules Verne is the kind of writer whose stories appeal to the family trade,” Nicholson opined, acknowledging the family trade was good business. But he admitted that the “combining two of [Verne’s] classics into a film represents quite a challenge.”

That may have been so but, as one Los Angles newspaper would note, it was a challenge AIP considered worthy of undertaking. Similarly to their series of celebrated Edgar Allan Poe films, Verne’s Master of the World could be freely adapted as a feature-length film, “without paying a quarter to a half a million” for the rights. Public Domain status was a copyright-free blessing of the Gods to frugal film producers.

As might be expected, Arkoff was typically the less publically diplomatic of the two AIP producers. His occasional press interviews would invariably tilt to the importance of producing a bankable, unapologetically exploitable feature. He wanted the company’s product to ring at the cash register, uninterested in birthing an under-attended critic’s darling type of film. “We make pictures for the young in heart, as well as the young in mind,” Arkoff confessed to Hollywood publicist Joe Hyams. “Neither Jim nor I have any Narcissus love. We don’t make art for art’s sake. To us making movies is a business. Fundamentally, we’re trying to amuse and entertain people, with only one objective – to make money. The way most other Hollywood producers talk they’re ashamed of making money.”

The two men shared one thing in common: they were actually happy to be industry mavericks. Their modest, targeted productions enabled them to not deal often with “temperaments, agents, and Hollywood paraphernalia.” The cigar-chomping Arkoff boasted that as long as there was a topical market ripe for exploitation, “we’ll be in the business. When the trend changes, we change. We make money, we’re happy men.”

The Poe series had put a bit of disposable cash in the studio’s vault, so it was promised that their Master of the World project would be a lavish one, exacting to its creator’s visions – well, within limits. “We had to see that the sets followed the Verne descriptions in meticulous detail,” Nicholson confided. “They had to look ornate, and yet be scientifically correct.” Though AIP favorite Vincent Price would be brought aboard to star as Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, the real star attraction of the film was to be the villain’s magnificent airship, the Albatross.

The producers tapped Richard Matheson to combine the two Verne novels into a single story. Matheson was happy to accept the challenge. The author preferred to cultivate a reputation as an “off-beat” writer or “story-teller,” than one pigeonholed as someone working within a single genre. In the finally summation, and while Matheson was properly defensive of his work on the film’s screenplay, the script is certainly not the best of his storied career.

The film is set in the pre-Wright Bros. age of 1868. It’s no sooner than one disgruntled citizen proclaimed Morgantown, PA, as the “most boring and monotonous town in the U.S.,” that a strange, disembodied voice - reciting scripture - booms mysteriously from the foreboding mountain top of Great Eyrie. Word of the strange event makes its way to Philadelphia, where an agent from the Department of the Interior, John Strock (Charles Bronson), chooses to pay a visit to a balloon society meeting at Independence Hall.

Strock is seeking an experienced team to carry out a ballooning expedition so he can inspect the crater of Mount Eyrie from on high. The team chosen from the Weldon Balloon Society is the cantankerous, arms manufacturer Prudent (Henry Hull), his beautiful daughter Dorothy (Mary Webster) and her fiancé Phillip Evans (David Frankham). Their expedition is cut short when a missile brings down their balloon. They soon are held as temporary prisoners of Robur the Conqueror (Vincent Price), quartered aboard his massive, paper-weight flying machine the Albatross.

The foursome learn that Robur, a self-proclaimed “citizen of the world,” is both bellicose and rabid in his pacifist beliefs and aviation enthusiasms. He ridicules Hull and company, pronouncing ballooning as dead. “The future belongs to the flying machine,” he bellows, noting the military munitions-equipped, 150 MPH Albatross as an example of modern aviation’s progress. From aboard the vessel, it’s Robur’s intention to effectively “war against war… to end for all time the scourge of war.”

Paradoxically, he plans to drop the munitions of warfare on the imperialist capitols of the world. While he does pre-warn his targets to “disarm or perish,” there will be, of course, a pushback. Seeking an end to warfare makes the obsessed Robur, arguably, a somewhat complicated villain. His aim is entirely an unselfish, principled one. Even agent Strock concedes that he’s not necessarily angered by Robur’s “ambition” but only by “his method” of obtaining it. Can Robur be stopped? Should he be stopped?

There was the usual ballyhoo pumping up the film’s release. The gossip columns were reporting that in addition to Price receiving his “regular salary” for his role in Master of the World, the producers had also agreed to toss in a twenty-thousand dollar cityscape painting by the - recently deceased - French artist Maurice Utrillo. The offer would serve as a prized bonus, one the actor could add to his famous personal art collection. Charles Bronson, with whom Price would first appear on screen with in House of Wax, was also cast, not necessarily against type, but in a role not playing to his strength. For reasons known to no one but the gruff actor himself, Bronson was reportedly difficult and aloof on set, skulking around with a chip on his shoulder for some unknown reason.

Matheson would admit he was “a little disappointed” with the finished film. He believed, not unreasonably, the half-million dollars allotted to the production wasn’t adequate to present the scope of its vision. It also thought the “casting was off,” mentioning Bronson in particular as ill-suited for the role as Strock. The actor was described by several of the film’s principals to be more than a bit standoffish while working on Master of the World. Matheson thought Bronson uncomfortable with much of the script’s Victorian era dialogue since delivering such florid lines was clearly not his style. Following a less-than-friendly first encounter with the actor, Matheson recalled Bronson telling him that he preferred to play “the part as a coal miner.” He was more or less was a man of his words in that regard. Vincent Price, who famously could get along with practically anyone and or off set, was also tested by the sulking Bronson, sighing to friends, “I can’t get through to this guy. I cannot make friends with him.”

Curious casting aside, Master of the World has simply never been a favorite film of mine. It’s certainly has never been one my favorite Vincent Price, AIP, nor even Jules Verne film adaptations. It simply doesn’t work. I might have held a bit of nostalgia for the film had I seen it on the big screen as a child, especially watching the glorious panoramic shots of the Albatross exterior in flight. But I didn’t… and truthfully the film tends to meander, seeming much longer than its 102 minute running time. I might also be in agreement with Bronson’s assessment that much of the dialogue is too grand eloquent and over-wordy.

The film should have been a bit more fun than it ever is. Here’s a case where the film’s accompanying fifteen-cent Dell comic-book adaptation might have served the story better. One also might have expected the film’s action sequences to be a bit more exciting than staged. Director William Witney, after all, had made a career since the 1930s of cranking out adventure, super-hero and western serials. But there’s very little edge-of-you-seat excitement on display here.

What we do get is a lot of stock footage. Some of the footage is amusing, if used merely as a bit of running-time padding. The first few minutes of the film features an amusing, monochrome series of clips documenting man’s earliest attempts – and resultant failures - to “touch the stars” through flight. The later battle scenes of Robur’s airborne war against the world’s capitols are mostly humdrum, clipped from bleak wartime stock-footage. Les Baxter’s score is undeniably wonderful, but is terribly over-used, under-pinning nearly every scene to the point of becoming tiresome. It’s better to experience the great score as a standalone on the film’s soundtrack LP (Vee Jay 4000). I’s still say Master of the World is worth a watch, if only on a rainy day.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray edition of Master of the World is presented here in a 1920x1080p with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and dts sound, removable English subtitles and an attractive slipcase cover. The set also includes the extended featurette Richard Matheson: Storyteller originally offered on the MGM “Midnight Movies” DVD of 2001. There are also a number of audio commentary tracks featuring a number of film historians, authors, and actors including Tom Weaver, Lucy Chase Williams, and David Frankham. The release rounds out with the film’s original theatrical trailer as well as a generous sampling of titles from Kino’s expansive catalog of Vincent Price films.

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For a limited time enjoy a commercial-free streaming of the delightful 1967 comedy "Fitzwilly" starring Dick Van Dyke and Barbara Feldon, courtesy of Universal Video. 

(We are running this review from 2016 in commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day.) 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

If ever an epic deserved the Blu-ray deluxe treatment, Fox's 1970 Pearl Harbor spectacular Tora! Tora! Tora! is it. The film was a major money-loser for the studio at the time and replicated the experience of Cleopatra from a decade before in that this single production threatened to bankrupt the studio. Fox had bankrolled a number of costly bombs around this period including Doctor Doolittle, Hello, Dolly and Star! Fortunately, they also had enough hits (Patton, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, the Planet of the Apes series) to stay afloat. However, the Tora! debacle cost both Fox chairman Darryl F. Zanuck and his son, production head Richard Zanuck, their jobs. Ironically, Darryl F. Zanuck had saved the studio a decade before by finally bringing Cleopatra to a costly conclusion and off-setting losses with spectacular grosses from his 1962 D-Day blockbuster The Longest Day. By 1966, Zanuck and that film's producer Elmo Williams decided they could make lightning strike twice by using the same formula to recreate the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The project seemed jinxed from the beginning. Skyrocketing costs and logistical problems delayed filming until 1969. By then, America's outlook about war movies had changed radically due to the burgeoning anti-Vietnam movement. Zanuck and Williams also forgot one important distinction between The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora!: the former was about a major Allied victory while the latter was about a tremendous defeat. Americans generally stay away from military movies that depict anything other than glorious victories and Tora! was no exception. Critics were also lukewarm and the only saving grace was that the film performed spectacularly in Japan, largely because it presented both sides of the conflict on a non-judgmental level.

Bringing the story to the screen strained the relationship between both Zanucks, especially when legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was brought on board to helm the Japan-based sequences. What should have been a tremendous boost to the production became a nightmare when Kurosawa acted irrationally and burned up money while working at a snail's pace. He was ultimately fired in a scandal that was seen as an insult to all of Japan. So much of the budget had been wasted that it left no major funding for big stars. Unlike The Longest Day, which boasted a "Who's Who" of international film favorites, Fox could only hire well-respected character actors with little boxoffice clout. Thus, the spin was put on the production that they were chosen due to their resemblance to the actual people they were playing. That notion was absurd because audiences did not know or care about such nuances, especially since many of the major figures were not known by their physical characteristics. Although fine actors such as Jason Robards, Martin Balsam and James Whitmore gave distinguished performances, the film lacked the pizazz of John Wayne or Lee Marvin in a lead role.

When the film opened, reviews were respectable at best. The film received Oscars for technical aspects but was not nominated in major categories. Yet, Tora's reputation has grown over the years and today it is much more respected than it was in 1970. The film is a thinking man's war movie and 2/3 of the film is dedicated to claustrophobic sequences set in board rooms and conference halls as the antagonists debate where and when war will break out. Nevertheless, this aspect of the movie is quite admirable, especially in this era of dumbed-down, CGI- generated "epics". The screenplay assumes the audience is intelligent and has the patience to endure a gripping story, well-told. By the time the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is depicted, it is quite spectacular, even if the use of miniatures in some scenes is very apparent.  The film is enhanced by the extremely efficient co-direction of Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda. Most refreshingly, the Japanese characters are anything but ethnic stereotypes, which adds immensely to the impact of their side of the story.Special mention should be made of Jerry Goldsmith's innovative, pulse-pounding score that brilliantly heightens suspense as the time line draws nearer to the attack.

Fox's Blu-ray edition looks magnificent and contains a wealth of bonus extras that include numerous original Fox Movietone WWII newsreels, the excellent AMC network documentary about the making of the film as well as an equally impressive History Channel documentary that examines how accurately the film depicted real events, Day of Infamy (another very good documentary), the original trailer, commentary by Fleischer and film historian Stuart Galbraith IV and two still photo galleries. Astonishingly , Fox makes a major faux pas by not even listing on the packaging the fact that the set contains the entire Japanese release version of the movie, which includes ten minutes of footage not seen in the American cut. Not surprisingly, the extra footage is dedicated to the Japanese sequences and contains one bizarre, largely superfluous sequence centering on two cooks aboard one of the war ships. The Blu-ray has a menu that is rather awkward to find certain features through but the disc is attractively packaged in a small hardcover book that has plenty of insights about the film, biographies of cast members and a wealth of rare photos.

Tora! Tora! Tora! has only grown in stature over the decades- and Fox's magnificent Blu-ray release does justice to the type of ambitious epic we simply don't see today.

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BY HANK REINEKE

When Kino Lorber announced in April 2021 that a Blu-ray of Universal’s The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946) was scheduled for issue in autumn I was, to put it mildly, over-joyed. It’s not that The Spider Woman Strikes Back is a great film – it most certainly is not – but it’s long been a missing entry on home video, a film of great interest to collectors of Golden Age horror. The studio has chosen, time and again, to re-master and re-offer the classic and iconic “Universal Monsters” in nearly every conceivable home video format and creative packaging. Too often these releases would be at the expense of the studios less famous genre titles as the still unissued Ghost Catchers (1944), and The Cat Creeps (1946).

In the course of this disc’s ten-minute featurette, Mistress of Menace and Murder: The Making of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, author C. Courtney Joyner notes the film was essentially the “last gasp” of Universal’s low-budget B-unit. Or as one commentator puts it, an opportunity to “burn out the contracts” of actors still on the lot. The studio’s A-list franchise ghouls of the 1930s – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy – had since been reduced to appearances in B programmers during the years 1940-1945.

Seeking to freshen things up, the studio engaged in a “desperate attempt… to create another horror franchise.” Their first attempt came with their Inner Sanctum series, each supernatural mystery featuring Lon Chaney Jr. in a starring role. The studio also cynically brought aboard non-actor Rondo Hatton, a real life victim of acromegaly, as a hulking brute in such productions as The Pearl of Death, The Jungle Captive, House of Horrors and The Brute Man. Uni-contracted actress Gale Sondergaard had made a splash as the icy and sinister nemesis of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes in the studio’s The Spider Woman (1944) and many thought a return of the villainess was worth considering.

In March of 1945, Hollywood newspapers were reporting that Universal had indeed contracted Sondergaard to appear in a proposed series of Spider Woman films. The Los Angeles Times predicted the “Spider Woman is expected to become as much of a fixture as those other horror protagonists, Dracula, the Monster of Frankenstein, and the newly created Creeper.” The Los Angeles Daily News noted one difference: Sondergaard’s Spider Woman “will not resort to grotesque makeup, but will accomplish her diabolical deeds as a charming sophisticate.”

Technically speaking the Spider Woman that Strikes Back is not the same Spider Woman who tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes a year earlier. Sondergaard is no longer playing the role of villainess Adrea Spedding. She’s now Zenobia Dollard, a blind woman of wealth who lives alone in a creepy mansion house with her frightening mute servant Mario (Rondo Hatton). Dollard, we soon learn, appears to have a lot of trouble keeping her string of nursemaids in employ. They all tend to disappear a short time following their hiring.

The latest nursemaid sent to tend to Dollard’s needs is the lovely and charming Jean Kingsley (Brenda Joyce). Kingsley begins to suspect that the strange goings-on at the manor house might not only have something to do with strange goings-on in town but with the mysterious onset of her own illness. This being a Universal horror picture, it isn’t long before Kingsley stumbles upon a secret brick-wall basement laboratory outfitted with a steamy greenhouse. It’s here that Dollard extracts poisonous venom from a vampire-like plant brought “from the jungles of Central America.” One has to assume that Roger Corman’s far more famous and spoofy Little Shop of Horrors was at least, in part, suggested by the scenario of The Spider Woman Strikes Back.

Though early reports suggested Ford Beebe (Night Monster (1942) and The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1943) would serve as associate producer and director of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, his name was soon scrubbed. Arthur Lubin was signed to helm the feature, directing from a script and original story by Eric Taylor (The Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Son of Dracula (1943). Lubin had been knocking about the film industry since the early 30s, having recently scored with a number of successful Abbott and Costello comedies and the recent Claude Rain’s version of the Phantom of the Opera. He had also, not coincidentally, just finished working with Sondergaard on Universal’s Night in Paradise.

Though all the makings of a good chiller are present here, there’s simply something off about The Spider Woman Strikes Back. The film seems longer than its fifty-nine minute running time (never a good sign). The actors and actresses are blameless, doing what they can with the material in this mostly thrill-less thriller. Sondergaard is at her devilish best working and plotting amongst her poisonous botanicals, but there’s evidence that several key sequences that would have enhanced the storyline were clipped from the final print.

The trade ads for the film would ballyhoo the Spider Woman as the “Mistress of Menace” and “Queen of a 1000 Crawling Killers.” One theater owner in Louisiana practically dared patrons to attend: “We cannot accept responsibility for teeth broken from chattering, curls lost when hair stands on end, chilled spines, jitters, nightmares or any other conditions brought about” from seeing The Spider Woman Strikes Back. Sondergaard would later dismiss the film as a lesser effort, appalled that Universal had exploited Rondo Hatton’s tragic disfigurement as a box office draw. When she first encountered Hatton on set, she thought his elongated skull and swollen facial features were the machinations of Jack Pierce’s makeup department.

It’s a tragedy that Sondergaard wouldn’t find much work in Hollywood as the 1940s drew to a close. Her absence from movie screens was not due to performances, but politics. The actress found herself named as a Communist sympathizer in the pages of the career-wrecking Red Channels. Though Sondergaard was a politically active liberal, her biggest “crime” was one of association. Her husband was director Herbert J. Biberman, a progressive writer-director-producer who later was imprisoned as one of the notorious “Hollywood Ten.”

In March of 1951, Sondergaard too found herself in Washington D.C., summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The actress invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to cooperate or disclose or disparage the names of friends and colleagues. She defiantly interrupted one line of Congressional questioning by asking, “May I say something about [this committee’s] branding as subversive every progressive or liberal organization? I find that shocking.”

Sondergaard would pay a price for her unwillingness to cooperate with the inquisitors. She was effectively put her out of work in Hollywood for two decades, with even the Screen Actors Guild cowering and refusing to lend support. In 1956 she returned to Washington, telling the committee that the absence of acting offers post 1949 “has not been accidental. I think rather that it might be construed as blacklisting.” The actress would disappear from film work for a twenty-years following her appearance in the MGM drama East Side, West Side (1949).

She tried to salvage her career with roles in regional theater, but here too Sondergaard found obstacles. No sooner than her appearance in a “Plays-in-the-Park” production would be announced, that a campaign to cancel her participation would follow. Though she would return to work in 1969, mostly on television dramas, Sondergaard, now age seventy, found roles and opportunities scarce. Sondergaard would pass away in 1985, age 86. The Los Angeles Times would note in her obituary Sondergaard was the first actress to be awarded an Academy Award for a supporting role. The paper would also describe the actress, ironically, as “Hollywood’s reigning female villain” of the 1940s.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray edition of The Spider Woman Strikes back is presented here in a 1920x1080p with an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, dts sound, and removable English subtitles. The set also includes the aforementioned featurette Mistress of Menace and Murder: the Making of The Spider Woman Strike Back which features comments and back stories from the like of actor-archivist Bob Burns, cult filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, special effects wiz Rick Baker and writer-documentarian Ted Newsom. The set also features the audio commentaries of film historians Tom Weaver and David Schecter. This release rounds out nicely with the film’s original theatrical trailer as well as a sampling of titles from Kino’s catalog of 1940s horror and mysteries: The Mad Doctor, The Spiral Staircase, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Lodger and The Undying Monster.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Olive Films has released the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy "Who's Minding the Store?" on Blu-ray. The film was made at the peak of Lewis's solo career following the breakup of Martin and Lewis some years before. The movie was directed by Frank Tashlin, who collaborated with Lewis on his best productions. It can be argued that, with the exception of Lewis's inspired "The Nutty Professor" (released the same year as "Store"), his work never reached the heights that he achieved by working with Tashlin, a talented director and screenwriter who never quite got the acclaim he deserved. "Store" is one of Lewis's best movies because it's also one of his funniest. He plays Norman Phiffier, a nerdy manchild who fails at even the most elementary of careers. When we meet him he's trying to make ends meet by running his own dog-walking service, which provides some amusing sight gags as Norman attempts to control about twenty dogs at the same time. Despite being a loser in terms of career, he's landed the right girl: sexy Barbara Tuttle (Jill St. John), an heiress to the famed Tuttle department store chain. Barbara shuns her heritage largely because she is estranged from her overbearing and dominating mother, Phoebe (Agnes Moorhead) and wants to make a career on her own instead of relying on her mother's bribes to live life under her terms. Barbara works at a Tuttles store in the innocuous career of being an elevator operator, working under an assumed last name. Her nice guy father John (John McGiver) plays along with the charade though he, too, suffers from his wife's constant nagging and insults. When Phoebe learns that Barbara is dating a common man with no financial resources, she devises a plan to break up their relationship before they can get married. She instructs her sniveling store manager Quimby (Ray Walston) to hire Norman and then assign him a series of humiliating and seemingly impossible tasks with the intention of having him fail and therefore lose Barbara's respect. However, despite a series of chaotic mishaps, Norman perseveres and frustrates Quimby by using some inventive methods of carrying our his assignments. These scenes are the highlights of the film, with Lewis in top form whether he is inching out on a horizontal flag pole on a skyscraper in order to fulfill a minor paint job or dealing with obnoxious customers who make extravagant demands. (Among them is Nancy Kulp as a legendary female big game hunter whose dictatorial demeanor results in Norman destroying an entire department). In the finale, Norman has to contend with an errant super vacuum cleaner that goes out of control and sucks up everything from women's furs to their pet dogs. It's a marvelously funny and inventive sequence that feature some highly impressive special effects work.

"Who's Minding the Store?" finds Jerry Lewis and Frank Tashlin in top form. The cast of esteemed "second bananas" are all wonderful, especially the great John McGiver who finally gets to find his mojo at the movie's climax. Other familiar faces from the era include Lewis's favorite foil, Kathleen Freeman and Richard Deacon. Francesca Bellini is memorable as Walton's sexpot secretary who is intent on sleeping her way to the top. Most of the comedic scenarios are highly predictable (once you see Lewis handling an appliance, there's no doubt he's going to wreak havoc with it) but predictability is an asset in a Lewis film. Not having seen the movie in many years, I was pleasantly surprised that it still made me laugh out loud.

The Olive Films Blu-ray looks very good indeed but the release continues the company's rather frustrating trend of almost never including any bonus material. C'mon guys, throw in at least a trailer (we'll provide one for you here). Highly recommended.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the positive elements of the Blaxploitation film genre that exploded in the 1970s was the emergence of many hitherto unknown talents. Among them was Bahamian-born actor Calvin Lockhart, who immigrated to New York and immersed himself in theater, studying with the legendary Uta Hagen. Lockhart didn't find immediate success but hop-scotched between the U.S. and Europe, where he found more opportunities on stage and in film. By the time he returned to America, the Blaxploitation rage was in its early stages and Lockhart nailed down a key, scene-stealing role in director Ossie Davis's film version of "Cotton Comes to Harlem" in 1970. He also earned the starring role the same year in "Halls of Anger", playing a besieged inner city teacher who is trying to keep the lid on inter-racial tensions. Lockhart also starred in the crime thriller "Melinda", which- perhaps because of its bland title- is not as well-remembered as lesser entries in the Blaxplotation genre. Thus, it's good news that the film has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive. "Melinda" is impressive on any number of levels. Unlike most Blaxploitation movies, which were actually produced, written and directed by white filmmakers, this one was brought to the screen entirely by African-American talent: director Hugh A. Robertson, producer Pervis Atkins, screenwriter Lonnie Elder III and composers Jerry Butler and Jerry Peters. The movie also has an intense, realistic tone that affords Lockhart to give what is arguably the performance of his career. 

Lockhart plays Frankie J. Parker, the morning drive DJ on a popular L.A. soul music radio station. Frankie is a showman supreme. His combination of unapologetic narcissism combined with his snarky, biting sense of humor sets him apart from the competition- and makes him a local legend among black listeners.  Frankie is living the life. He makes a lot of money, drives a fancy sports car and has a bachelor pad apartment where he entertains a stream of beautiful young women. He's so in love with himself that he has the place adorned with posters and photos of himself and looks in the mirror every morning verbally express how damned good looking he is. One fateful day, however, Frankie's charmed life goes into a tailspin when he meets Melinda Lewis (Vonetta McKee), a sexy new arrival from Chicago who is very much a woman of mystery. When she resists Frankie's standard pick-up lines and shows she is wise to his well-worn methods of seduction, she becomes a challenge for him. He wines and dines her and shows her off at a high profile party aboard a yacht owned by his old friend Tank (Rockne Tarkington), a black athlete who has made good. On board, he has an unexpected encounter with a former lover, Terry Davis (Rosalind Cash), who makes it clear she still carries a grudge against Frankie because of his philandering ways. Later that evening, Frankie and Melinda return to his apartment where they finally get down to business- but she makes it clear that she is in control of the situation. Unbeknownst to either of them, the heated sounds of their love-making are being enjoyed by a shady character who has been following Melinda since she arrived in L.A. and who is know pleasuring himself outside the apartment door! The next morning, Frankie realizes that this time he is genuinely in love- and Melinda seems to reciprocate.

Frankie learns that "Melinda Lewis" is an alias and that his new lover is the former mistress of a ruthless Chicago mob boss, Mitch (Paul Stevens) who is desperate to track her down because she has deposited a cassette tape in a bank safe deposit box that implicates him in a high profile murder. Before long, the mob links Frankie to Melinda and thinks he in cahoots with her. He is framed for a ghastly murder and pummeled and beaten by cops before he finally makes bail. Realizing he has limited time to get to the bottom of what is going on and clear his name, Frankie finds he has to enlist the aid of estranged lover Terry Davis, who becomes the only friend he can trust. The two become amateur detectives trying to get access to the bank vault and the evidence that would give them leverage over Mitch and his gang of murderous goons who are now in L.A. Things go awry, however, when Frankie is framed for yet another sordid murder and Terry is kidnapped by Mitch and held for ransom under threat of death unless Frankie delivers the incriminating evidence against him. Frankie knows that if he does, he and Terry are as good as dead so he enlists some unusual allies- the fellow students of his karate academy. It helps when the Grand Master is real-life martial arts expert and future "Enter the Dragon" star Jim Kelly. In the film's only truly over-the-top sequence, Frankie and the karate students ambush the gangsters, Before you can sing "Everybody Was Kung Fu fighting", everybody is  Kung Fu fighting. The film culminates with Frankie and his allies laying siege to Mitch's mansion, where they find Terry locked in a glass gazebo surrounded by rattle snakes and other dangerous critters. 

Until its rather fanciful finale, "Melinda" is a realistic urban crime movie packed with interesting characters and intriguing mysteries that are revealed slowly. Like a Hitchcock film, it centers on a completely innocent man who is swept up in fantastic and deadly events beyond his comprehension. Lockhart gives an outstanding and commanding performance, turning from a carefree, narcissistic playboy to a man who is willing to do anything necessary simply to survive another few hours. He gets able support from both female leads, gorgeous Vonetta McKee as the mystery woman who affords Frankie an evening of sexual bliss that turns his life into a nightmare and Rosalind Cash, in full tough girl mode as she was the previous year opposite Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man". On the other extreme,  Paul Stevens makes for a suitably slimy villain. The direction by Hugh A. Robertson is quite impressive and he overcomes the relatively modest budget by capitalizing on the street locations which he uses to maximum atmosphere and effect. "Melinda" is a superior entry in the Blaxploitation film genre. Highly recommended.

The Warner Archive DVD includes the original theatrical trailer.  

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