BY LEE PFEIFFER

Love and Bullets is a 1979 Charles Bronson starrer that Roger Ebert appropriately described at the time as "an assemblyline potboiler". The film initially showed promise. Originally titled Love and Bullets, Charlie, the movie had John Huston as its director. However, Huston left after "creative differences" about the concept of the story and its execution on screen. The absurdity of losing a director as esteemed as Huston might have been understandable if the resulting flick wasn't such a mess. However, one suspects that, whatever the conceptual vision Huston had for the movie may have been, it must have been superior to what ultimately emerged. Stuart Rosenberg, the competent director of Cool Hand Luke took over but was unable to create anything more than a sub-par action movie. The plot finds Bronson as a Phoenix cop who is reluctantly sent to Switzerland on an undercover assignment. The local prosecutor has been doggedly trying to convict a local mob kingpin (Rod Steiger) for years. Now it appears that his moll girlfriend (Jill Ireland) might be a viable witness in terms of spilling the beans about his operations.  Thus, Steiger has stashed her abroad and is keeping her under constant watch. Bronson's job is to pretend he is also a mob guy and convince Ireland to return with him to Phoenix to testify against her lover. The movie seems to exist for one reason only: the main participants desired a paid working vacation in Switzerland. This concept is nothing new. The Rat Pack squeezed in filming Oceans Eleven almost as an afterthought while they were performing nightly in Las Vegas at the Sands casino. In the twilight of his years, John Ford famously got his stock company together for a jaunt to Hawaii and released the result as a big boxoffice hit called Donovan's Reef, which still must retain the status of being the most expensive home movie ever made. 

Love and Bullets is such a lazy effort you have to believe it must have taken a great deal of effort for the cast to meander to the set every day. The film also illustrates the danger of love-struck leading men force-feeding the lady in their lives into virtually every movie they make. Clint Eastwood shoe-horned Sondra Locke into a string of his films in the 1970s and 1980s and while some of them were artistic and commercial successes, I always greeted their next teamING with a sense of bored inevitability. (Locke was also a prime perpetrator in the creation of the worst movie of Eastwood's career, The Gauntlet.) In this case, Ireland had been Mrs. Bronson for over a decade following her divorce from David McCallum. She was always a competent enough actress but the couple obviously envisioned themselves as a new William Powell/Myrna Loy teaming. Not quite. Bronson is on full automatic pilot, registering almost no emotion. Ireland overplays the role of bubble-headed moll to an embarrassing level, as though she is a character in a sitcom sketch. She is saddled with intentionally laughable fright wigs but the real joke comes when she decides to discard them for her natural hair style, which proves to be even less flattering. Absurdity piles upon absurdity as the film becomes one long, extended chase sequence with Bronson and Ireland squabbling like Ralph and Alice Kramden, if you can imagine The Honeymooners being pursued by assassins. Steiger is in full scenery-chewing mode and an impressive array of supporting actors (Val Avery, Michael V. Gazzo, Henry Silva and Strother Martin) are pretty much wasted along the way. I'm generally undemanding when it comes to the pleasures of watching an unpretentious Charles Bronson action movie but Love and Bullets represents the latter period of his career where he rarely even tried to elevate his films beyond being vehicles for an easy pay check.

(The film is currently streaming on Shout! Factory TV and the app and subscription are also available through Amazon Prime Video.) 

BY FRED BLOSSER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Liberty Hall Video:

ROBOCOP: THE SERIES

Release date: May 10

FORMATS:

Blu-ray box set - 5 discs, $59.95 (LIB-4028 / 089353402822)

TV series runtime: Approximately 17 hours

DVD box set - 5 discs, $49.95 (LIB-4024 / 089353402426)

TV series runtime: Approximately 17 hours

SYNOPSIS:

In 1994, after three films in the franchise, the popular sci-fi action character RoboCop debuted in his own television series. Produced by Canada's Skyvision Entertainment, RoboCop: The Series starred Richard Eden in the title role. An 89-minute pilot aired in two parts in March,followed by 21 one-hour episodes. Aimed at a younger audience, the series dialed back the graphic violence of the first two movies and displayed a tone similar in feel to RoboCop 3. Many of the events and plotlines seen in the films were discarded, with RoboCop: The Series acting as a reset for the once human, now cyborg police officer. The series' theme song, "A Future to This Life," was performed by rock legends Joe Walsh and Lita Ford. Additionally, the series included songs by the Band, Dave Edmunds, Nicky Hopkins, Iron Butterfly, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Todd Rundgren, among others.

DETAILS:

Both the Blu-ray and DVD box sets feature the pilot film, all 21 original episodes, and bonus features. For the DVD, audio is Dolby Digital stereo and the aspect ratio is 16:9 pillarboxed 4:3 (1.33:1) which matches the original broadcast aspect ratio. For the Blu-ray, audio is LPCM stereo and the aspect ratio is 16:9 (1.77:1). The picture has been modified from its original broadcast aspect ratio to fill a 16:9 aspect ratio. | Color | 1994 | Region Free

BONUS FEATURES:

'Behind the Scenes' featurette | Toy commercial | Photo gallery | Cast profiles for actors Richard Eden, Lisa Madigan, Andrea Roth, Sarah Campbell & David Gardner | 'From Cinema to the Small Screen' featurette | 'The Future of Law Enforcement: The History of RoboCop' featurette | 'Put Down Your Weapon: The Auto 9 Gun' featurette | 'The Car' featurette | 'The Suit' featurette

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released the 1975 Charles Bronson crime thriller "Breakout" as a Blu-ray special edition. Bronson was riding high at the time, coming off the sensational success of "Death Wish". The film was originally supposed to star Kris Kristofferson under the direction of Michael Ritchie but those plans soon fell apart. Bronson took over the lead role with veteran director Tom Gries at the helm. The film finds Bronson well-cast as Nick Colton, a shady businessman/con man/grifter who operates a variety of small time business ventures on the Mexican border with his partner Hawk Hawkins (pre-kooky Randy Quaid.) Nick is living hand-to-mouth when he is approached by Ann Wagner (Jill Ireland) with a proposition to help her husband, equally shady rich guy Jay (Robert Duvall), escape from a Mexican prison where he has been sentenced after being framed for a murder. Time is of the essence because Jay is in declining health and may well be too weak to help effect his own escape. Colton and Hawk's first attempt to spring him ends disastrously and they barely escape back to America. Colton concocts an audacious plan for a second escape attempt that involves split-second timing. He will arrange for a helicopter to land in the courtyard of the prison and in the inevitable confusion, Jay is to make his way on board and presumably fly away to freedom. In order to pull off the caper, Nick enlists the help of a professional helicopter pilot as well as Myrna (Sheree North), a married ex-call girl who will be used to distract some of the guards when the copter lands inside the prison. When the pilot gets cold feet, Nick is forced to fly the chopper himself despite the fact that he only has minimum experience doing so. Another complication ensues when Jay is confined to the prison hospital and doubts he will be able to be in the courtyard at the precise moment Colton lands. 

"Breakout" was inspired by an incredible 1971 real life escape in which an American was indeed rescued by helicopter from a Mexican prison.  The screenplay has some other sub-plots that are poorly developed and quite confusing, but some of which are obviously related to the actual escape including some rumored involvement by the CIA. In the film, Jay Wagner's frame-up takes place at the behest of his evil tycoon grandfather, Harris Wagner (John Huston) for reasons that never become clear. Apparently, Harris is concerned that Jay may inherit some control over the company Harris runs with an iron fist, though these plot points remain murky as does the involvement of some CIA characters.  Another potential plot device, which finds Nick and Ann obviously attracted to each other, also goes nowhere. The film has a rushed look to it and there are some unsatisfying aspects caused by the movie's rather abrupt ending. The movie studio, Columbia, apparently felt the film was a rather weak production and thus gambled on a massive ad campaign that probably cost more than the film's modest budget. Ads for "Breakout" were everywhere: in newspapers, on TV and on radio. Additionally, the film opened wide in 1,000 American theaters, which was a big number in 1975. The movie was dismissed by critics with Variety calling it a "cheap exploitation pic", and indeed the main poster artwork (different from the Blu-ray sleeve artwork) and graphics looked surprisingly amateurish considering this was a golden age for film poster designs. Nevertheless, Bronson's appeal seemed to override these negative factors. "Breakout" proved to be a major hit and helped cement his status as a top boxoffice attraction , though his clout would gradually diminish henceforth. 

Scene stealer: Sheree North in posed cheesecake publicity photo for the film.

Like a lot of older movies, "Breakout" probably plays better today than it did at the time of its initial release. Bronson is in top form and gives an unusually energetic performance that allows him to stress his rarely-used talent for light comedy. The only other standout member of the cast is Sheree North, as the epitome of the sexy cougar. She's a fast-talking, tough cookie who parades about in sexy lingerie in an attempt to seduce Bronson. (Surprisingly, Bronson's character does not engage in any sexual action throughout the movie.) Robert Duvall is largely underutilized in a low-key role and performance that could have been credibly played by almost any other competent actor.  Huston's presence in the movie is disappointing, also. His role is confined to a few scattered cameo appearances that probably don't last more than two minutes. Some other familiar faces include Paul Mantee, Alejandro Rey, Roy Jenson and the Mexican cinema's favorite bad guy, Emilio Fernandez. As for Bronson teaming for the umpteenth time with real life wife Jill Ireland, the gimmick was wearing thin. Some screen couples could team without wearing out their welcome. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made many films together but they were always playing entirely different characters in entirely different scenarios. Bronson and Ireland, despite being competent actors, were no Liz and Dick. It became clear that their films together were largely made possible by Bronson's clout with the studios. Although Ireland always gave credible performances, she never lit up the screen. After a while the sheer predictability of their on-screen teamings probably undermined Bronson's popularity because it constrained him from interacting with other actresses. It was a trap Clint Eastwood also fell into for a period of time when he cast Sondra Locke in the female lead in six of his movies over a period of only seven years. Despite these gripes, it must be said that director Tom Gries keeps the pace moving briskly and there isn't a dull moment. He also knows how to milk some genuine suspense out of the helicopter escape scene, which is exceptionally well photographed by the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard. Jerry Goldsmith also contributes a typically fine score. The movie was shot in a wide number of locations including California, Mexico, Spain and France, where the impressive edifice that serves as the prison is located.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks great and features a very informative commentary track by Paul Talbot, author of the excellent "Bronson's Loose" books, which analyze his action movies. There is also a trailer, TV spot and radio spot. In all, an impressive package for a fun '70s adventure flick. Recommended.

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https://www.thefilmdetective.com/ 

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(Check out John M. Whalen's blog)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The Warner Archive offers the 1961 low-budget Allied Artists production of Operation Eichmann on DVD. The film was clearly rushed into production in order to capitalize on the recent capture of the infamous Nazi war criminal who enthusiastically took up the assignment of how to orchestra the logistics of carrying out the Holocaust as part of Hitler's evil scheme to rid occupied Europe of Jews and others deemed undesirable by the Third Reich. The film opens with a chilling (but fictitious) statement by Eichmann, who threatens to oversee a revival of world Naziism. The movie's cheap production design undermines the emotional impact of the story. (The scenes in Auschwitz are no more expansive than those seen in contemporary TV dramas at the time.) The B&W cinematography, however, is suitably stark and provides an appropriate downbeat atmosphere. The film strays so far from the facts regarding Eichmann's life on the run that you wonder how producers felt it could be sold to contemporary audiences who were mesmerized by Eichmann's capture by the Israeli Mossad in Argentina. The movie skips over such controversies as Eichmann having been placed in custody of American forces in the aftermath of the war, only to be released due to a blunder about his identity. There is no mention of the cover-ups American intelligence engaged in so that Eichmann would never be found or arrested. (The fear was that Eichmann's arrest might reveal the fact that the American government had willingly hired prominent Nazis for intelligence purposes during the Cold War era.) Nor is there a nod to the fact that Eichmann successfully lived undisturbed in Argentina thanks to an assist from a Catholic bishop who sympathized with the plight of Nazis on the run. Although Eichmann lived in Argentina with his wife and children, the movie presents him as a bachelor who is accompanied by a ditzy and greedy girlfriend, a fictional character named Anna (Ruta Lee). The cinematic Eichmann has a tempestuous relationship with his paramour, but can't seem to leave her. He routinely offers her bribes to stay with him during his life on the run. Finally, the film embellishes Eichmann's daring capture on an Argentinian street by adding a sub-plot about other ex-Nazis who are planning to kill him for making his plans to revive the Third Reich too blatant.

Where the film, directed by R. G. Springsteen, deserves some admiration is in its determination not to sugar coat the atrocities that Eichmann and his cohorts engaged in. Nazis were not the wild-eyed monsters often depicted in propaganda films. Rather, most were distinguished by their sheer banality. Eichmann considered himself simply a bureaucrat who cited the usual defense that he was "just following orders." Likely, he believed that to be the case. Countless bankers, lawyers and accountants eagerly put their talents to use for Hitler with nary a distinction about the larger consequences of their actions. It was Eichmann, however, who rose to the challenge of orchestrating the logistics of transporting millions of poor souls to their deaths. He had not a shred of compassion and treated human beings as he might cattle. The film features Werner Klemperer in a rare starring role as the titular fiend. He delivers an outstanding performance that never sinks into parody or over-acting. Curiously, one of his co-stars is John Banner, who would play Sgt. Schultz opposite Klemperer's Emmy-winning portrayal of Col. Klink on Hogan's Heroes several years later. It is morbidly fascinating to see these two future icons of TV comedy on screen in such a somber tale. Banner plays the commandant of Auschwitz and wines and dines Eichmann at his family dinners even as the ovens are being constructed and the gas chambers are running at full capacity. It serves as a reminder that both Klemperer and Banner were well-regarded as dramatic actors prior to their comedic achievements on television.

Operation Eichmann is a flawed, but compelling look at a Nazi technocrat who personally caused the demise of millions of innocent people. With the world presently in the grip of genocidal practices being implemented in the war for the fate of the Ukraine, the movie does provide a cautionary tale for some in the Western democracies who have veered toward authoritarian figures. The film could have been so much more impressive, had the story not been relegated to a factually-flawed script and a routine director. Nevertheless, the fascinating performance by Werner Klemperer is reason enough to recommend this release.

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By Hank Reineke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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By Hank Reineke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BY HANK REINEKE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert De Niro Star in the Must-See Crime-Drama,
Debuting on 4K Ultra HD May 31, 2022

Directed by Brian De Palma and nominated^* for four Academy Awards®, the acclaimed drama THE UNTOUCHABLES makes its 4K Ultra HD debut on May 31, 2022 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Originally released on June 3, 1987, THE UNTOUCHABLES celebrates its 35^th anniversary this year and remains a must-see masterpiece featuring visionary filmmaking and exceptional performances from an outstanding cast.  Robert De Niro as mob warlord Al Capone and Kevin Costner as law enforcer Eliot Ness are unforgettable in a glorious, fierce, larger-than-life depiction of good versus evil on the streets of Prohibition-era Chicago. 

Sean Connery won his only Oscar® for his portrayal of veteran officer Jimmy Malone in the blockbuster hit that was the fourth highest grossing film of 1987.  Written by David Mamet, THE UNTOUCHABLES also boasts a Grammy Award-winning score by the legendary Ennio Morricone and an excellent supporting cast including Patricia Clarkson, Andy Garcia, and Charles Martin Smith.

THE UNTOUCHABLES will be available on 4K Ultra HD and in a 4K Ultra HD 35^th Anniversary SteelBook® with a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack^** and access to a Digital copy of the film.  The discs also include over an hour of legacy bonus content in high definition as detailed below:

• The Script, The Cast
• Production Stories
• Re-Inventing the Genre
• The Classic
• Original Featurette: “The Men”
• Theatrical Trailer

By Hank Reineke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

When it was announced that producer Elliott Kastner had succeeded in signing both Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson for the 1976 Western, "The Missouri Breaks", the project was viewed as a "can't miss" at the international box-office. This would be Brando's first film since his back-to-back triumphs in "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris" and Nicholson had just won the Best Actor Oscar for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The two Hollywood icons were actually neighbors who lived next door to each other, but they had never previously teamed for a film project. Kastner, whose prowess as a street-wise guy who used unorthodox methods to get films off the ground, had used a clever tactic to sign up both superstars: he told each man that the other had already committed to the project, when, in fact, neither had. With Brando and Nicholson aboard, Kastner hired a respected director, Arthur Penn, who had worked with Brando ten years before on "The Chase". He then chose an acclaimed novelist, Thomas McGuane, who had recently made his directorial debut with "92 in the Shade", to write the screenplay. What emerged from all these negotiations was seemingly a boxoffice blockbuster in the making. Alas, it was not to be. Upon its release, critics emphasized the "Miss" aspect "Can't Miss" of the "The Missouri Breaks", with most reviewers citing the opinion that the film was a long, slow slog interrupted up a hammy, over-the-top comic performance from Brando, who Penn apparently exercised little control over when it came to the actor's penchant for improvisation. 

The film opens with cattle baron David Braxton (John McLiam) "hosting" a lynching for a rapt audience of his ranch hands. Seems the intended victim has rustled some of his cattle and McLiam is determined to put an end to the thievery, which has reduced his overall business income by 7% per year- a statistic he never tires of griping about. McLiam's hardball tactics against the rustlers don't sit well with his otherwise adoring daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd), an independent-thinking young woman who has acted as her father's most trusted companion since her mother left him for another man years ago. The victim of the lynching was a member of a rustling gang headed by Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), who befriends Braxton on the pretense that he wants to purchase a plot of land on his property to establish a small farm. In reality, he wants to utilize the land to temporarily house stolen horses which his gang has gone to Canada to obtain in a daring operation against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's stables. Meanwhile, Jane- who lives a life of relative isolation on her father's estate-is immediately smitten by the charismatic Tom Logan and when she insists that he become her first lover, he finds it impossible to resist. Thus, Logan is now in a romantic relationship with a girl who is the daughter of a man he is deceiving and stealing from. David Braxton goes all-out in his obsession with thwarting the rustlers. He hires Lee Clayton, a renowned "regulator", which is a polite term for bounty hunter. Clayton is an eccentric man with a bizarre personality who speaks in a heavy Irish brogue, but also at times utilizes other accents. He is at times charming and amusing and at other times fiery-tempered and unpredictable. Upon being introduced to Tom Logan by Braxton, Clayton immediately suspects he is not a farmer, but a rustler. The two men play a cat-and-mouse game, each one employing double-entendres in their conversations. When Logan's men return from Canada empty-handed after being thwarted by the Mounties, Clayton becomes an omnipresent figure, observing their every move from afar through binoculars. One by one, he systematically murders the members of the rustling gang, always preceding their horrendous deaths by chatting with the doomed men in disarmingly friendly tones. Clayton becomes so frightening a figure that even Braxton becomes intimidated by him and attempts to fire him, but Clayton says the money is irrelevant and that once he commits to a job, he sees it through. The stage is set for a mano-a-mano confrontation between Logan and Clayton that both men realize will see only one emerge alive.

Ad for London opening.

It's easy to see why "The Missouri Breaks" didn't catch on with audiences. Much of the film moves at a glacial pace, but McGuane's script is intelligent and the dialogue often witty. Brando's outrageous antics easily overshadow anyone else in the film, even though his appearances are fleeting and the lion's share of the screen time is dominated by Nicholson. Brando seems to be having a field day and there seems to be no limit to his improvisations. (At one point he is dressed as a Chinese peasant and in another he is inexplicably attired as a woman, complete with apron and bonnet.) He also has a penchant for making some uncomfortably romantic overtures to his horse. Thus, the character of Clayton proves to be a distraction from the otherwise somber, realistic tone of the film. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Brando's appearances are both amusing and somewhat mesmerizing, even if out of place. The movie boasts a first rate supporting cast that includes Harry Dean Stanton, Frederic Forrest and a young and slim Randy Quaid. Kathleen Lloyd holds her own against the considerable star power of Brando and Nicholson, which could not have been an easy feat. Alas, stardom was not to follow for her, though she still occasionally appears as a guest star in popular TV series. Where the movie disappoints the most is in its climax. The audience has been led to expect a memorable confrontation between Logan and Clayton, but when one of them gets the upper hand on the other, it's done very abruptly and rather unimaginatively, leaving the viewer feeling cheated. The movie boasts a low-key but appropriately atmospheric score by John Williams and impressive cinematography by Michael Butler. 

After "The Missouri Breaks", Brando seemed uninspired and went on automatic pilot in terms of his film roles. He was paid a relative fortune for what amounted to extended cameos in "Superman" and "Apocalypse Now", and while he was a significant physical presence in both films, no one made the case that he exerted himself dramatically. He would find occasional enthusiasm in certain roles (an Oscar-nominated turn in the little-seen  "A Dry White Season" and a hilarious performance recreating his Don Corleone role for "The Freshman"), but his enthusiasm seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his increase in weight. Sadly, he would never totally recapture the mojo he once enjoyed as a screen icon. Yet, time has been kind to "The Missouri Breaks". The film's literate script and direction are a reminder of an era in which such projects would be green-lit by major studios who appealed to the intellect of movie audiences. Today, the project would never have seen fruition no matter who starred in it.  

"The Missouri Breaks" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Kanopy.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released the 1964 comedy "The Brass Bottle" on Blu-ray. The film appears to have been the inspiration for the hit TV series "I Dream of Jeannie" which starred Barbara Eden as the sultry title character. Some cinephiles argue that the film and TV series have nothing to do with one another, but it seems to me that if you make a movie with Barbara Eden and a genie from a brass bottle, than it's more than a coincidence that a TV series starring Eden featuring a genie and a brass bottle soon appears. It is true that Eden does appear as the female lead in the feature film, but in a very down-to-earth role as Sylvia, the fiancee of aspiring-but-unsuccessful architect Harold Ventimore (Tony Randall). Sorry, guys, no navel-gazing to be had here.The premise of the plot is as old as the pyramids: Harold comes into possession of a large, ancient urn through which he unwittingly frees an ancient genie named Fakrash (Burl Ives, who far less a feast for the eyes than Eden was in the TV series), who had been imprisoned in there for 3,000 years after offending a nobleman who had magical powers. Fakrash is so delighted to be free that he uses all his efforts to make improvements in Harold's life starting with magically persuading a top real estate developer to hire the unknown architect to design an entire suburban housing development. Harold is initially delighted but soon discovers that every time Fakrash makes an improvement to his life, there is a corresponding disaster to offset it. This extends to his love life, as well. In an attempt to win over Sylvia's grumpy parents who disapprove of him, Harold plans a dinner party at his house. Thanks to Fakrash, however, when the fuddy-duddy parents and Sylvia arrive, the place has been transformed into a bachelor pad, complete with dancing harem girls and a group of Arabic musicians. Also on hand is a "gift" from Fakrash, a sexually aggressive, beautiful slave girl named Tezra (Kamala Devri).  Appalled by the hedonistic atmosphere, Sylvia and her parents storm out. The remainder of the film involves Harold's desperate efforts to undo the "improvements" that Fakrash continues to enact on his behalf. Before long, Fakrash has turned his future father-in-law into a mule and also wreaked havoc on Harold's career. 

"The Brass Bottle", directed with workmanlike efficiency by Harry Keller, is a modestly-budgeted affair that was shot primarily on the Universal back lot. The few exterior sequences include some very obvious rear screen projection, thus giving the feature film the look of a standard sitcom from the era. The primary attribute of the production is the inspired cast. Tony Randall, who by this point in his career had carved a niche as one of Hollywood's leading supporting players, gets a rare opportunity to get first billing. Barbara Eden is largely relegated to window dressing as his long-suffering fiancee. The film clearly belongs to Burl Ives, who is genuinely amusing as the genie who tries to accustom himself to life in the 20th century. He begins the film wearing traditional ancient garb and ends clad in designer suits. Ives dominates every scene he is in as this marvelous character. The film also features two of the 1960's most popular on-screen grouches, the great Edward Andrews as Harold's would-be father-in-law and Parley Baer as Harold's prospective employer. Another reliable "grouch", Philip Ober appears as Harold's ill-tempered boss.  (Harold has nothing but ill-tempered people surrounding him.)  

The movie affords some mildly amusing moments and the "risque" elements are downright quaint by today's standards. When presented with a live-in, gorgeous mistress who will do anything he commands, Harold can only think of how to get rid of her- a premise that is slightly less believable than that of a genie appearing from a brass bottle. Then again, even as a pre-teen in the 1960s, I couldn't buy the notion that a beautiful female genie could live with a handsome, single man who she calls "Master" without any sexual scenarios arising.  Randall is always a delight and this rare showcase for him as a leading man, along with Ives' delightful performance, are the primary reason to watch this otherwise pleasant but undistinguished comedy.  

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray is a considerable upgrade from the previous release, a bare-bones DVD from Universal. The Blu-ray features a very good commentary track by Australian film historian Lee Gambin, who manages to have Barbara Eden join him via phone. She's a delight to listen to and has nothing but good things to say about working with Randall and Ives. Gambin also wisely has her recall her experiences filming "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao" and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm". As a sign of the times, it's the first commentary track I've heard in which Covid factors into the conversation. The release includes the original trailer and a gallery of other comedy trailers for films available from KL.

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BY HANK REINEKE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

The Warner Archive has released the 1972 MGM thriller The Carey Treatment on Blu-ray.  James Coburn has one of his best roles as Dr. Peter Carey, a rebellious but esteemed pathologist who moves to Boston to take a prominent position at one of the city's most highly regarded hospitals. The charismatic Carey loses no time in gaining friends, alienating top brass and bedding the comely chief dietician (Jennifer O'Neill). However, he soon finds himself embroiled in a politically volatile investigation when a fellow surgeon is arrested for performing an illegal abortion on the 15 year-old daughter of the hospital's crusty administrator (Dan O'Herlihy). (The movie was released a year before the landmark Roe V. Wade decision that legalized abortion in America and now appears to be on the verge of being reversed.) Coburn believes his friend's protestations of innocence and decides to launch his own investigation into the matter. The case soon unveils a lot of skeletons that some prominent people would prefer to be kept in their closets and Carey finds himself subjected to blackmail and physically assaulted as he comes closer to discovering the shocking truth behind the young girl's death.

The film was a rather low-key affair for director Blake Edwards and there is nothing particularly exceptional about the screenplay, which resembles a rather well-done Columbo episode. However, Coburn has a field day in the role of Carey. He's all teeth and smiles on the exterior but internally he harbors a healthy suspicion of authority figures. Carey can turn on the charm one minute and pummel a thug the next. Refreshingly, he's no superman. He makes mistakes and misjudgments that almost cost him his life. Edwards tries a bit to hard to sandwich some action into what is essentially a methodical mystery story and his instincts betray him in one silly sequence in which Carey virtually kidnaps a teenage girl and subjects her to a death-defying high speed car ride to induce her to reveal information. Nevertheless, the film remains engrossing throughout and Coburn benefits from his chemistry with some fine supporting actors including O'Herlihy, Pat Hingle and Skye Aubrey. He also generates some genuine sparks with O'Neill, who is largely inserted into the screenplay for pure sex appeal.  There's also a fine score by the great film composer Roy Budd.

The movie takes on a rather sobering social relevance when viewed today. With abortion rights dominating the news once again, the film reflects a period when the nation was initially torn apart by the debate- an occurrence that is happening again today. It's doubtful this film won't bring back some disturbing memories of a particularly contentious period in America's social consciousness that has been reawakened.

The film was not a critical or boxoffice success. Blake Edwards accused MGM of butchering his cut of the movie and leaving out vitally important scenes, a scenario that had occurred to director Brian G. Hutton a couple of years before when MGM devastated his vision of Kelly's Heroes. As with that film, the missing footage has never surfaced and is presumed lost forever.

The Carey Treatment is not high art, nor does it pretend to be. However the film reconfirms why Coburn was one of the most charismatic leading men of his day. The fact that he had such a long and distinguished career is something all movie fans can be grateful for. 

The new Blu-ray looks very good indeed and contains the original trailer.

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BY FRED BLOSSER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

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