ViaVision/Imprint is releasing the superb 1984 film "The Bounty" starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins as a limited edition (1500) Blu-ray. Here are the details:

THEY BEGAN THEIR EPIC VOYAGE AS FRIENDS… IT ENDED IN HATRED AND BLOODSHED

William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) was a real-life sea captain who, in 1787, steered HMS Bounty on a 27,000 mile voyage into danger, chaos and madness. After 31 days battling severe sea squalls and Bligh’s ever-increasing cruelty, the weary crew is relieved to land on the tropical island of Tahiti. But soon their tyrannical captain wants to set sail again and the desperate men turn to first mate Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to help take the ship by force.

Originally, “The Bounty” was a longstanding project of Director David Lean who ultimately left the project in 1981 and was replaced by Australian Director Roger Donaldson.

Starring: Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Laurence Olivier, and Edward Fox.

Strictly Limited Edition Hardbox set with unique artwork & booklet featuring the original press kit. 1500 copies only.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

Disc One:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K scan of the original negative
• Audio Commentary by director Roger Donaldson, producer Bernard Williams, and production designer John Graysmark
• Audio Commentary by historical consultant Stephen Walters
• Making of The Bounty – 1984 documentary narrated by Edward Fox
• 2004 Visual Essay narrated by Stephen Walters
• Isolated Score (in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo)
• Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Original Aspect ratio 2.35:1
• English subtitles

Disc Two: Bonus Disc

• NEW Interview with Director Roger Donaldson
• NEW Featurette on the history of film adaptations of “The Bounty“
• NEW Featurette on the Vangelis film score
• A Fated Ship – 1981 documentary surrounding the construction of “The Bounty” replica ship and the early development of the film
• In Bligh’s Wake – 1984 documentary charting the voyage from New Zealand to Tahiti to deliver “The Bounty” replica for shooting the film
• NEW Interview with Maritime historian & film producer Stephen Walters
• NEW 90 min feature with the cast & crew

Any pre-order titles will be dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special features and artwork are subject to change.

Note: Imprint limited editions tend to sell out quickly. The Blu-ray is Region-Free.

Keep in mind that prices are quoted in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see what the price is in your national currency.

To pre-order, click this link: https://viavision.com.au/shop/the-bounty-1984-imprint-collection-225/

By Hank Reineke

In early December of 1947 Box Office made note that producer Ben Stoloff’s Eagle Lion “film factory” – an American arm of Britain’s Rank Organisation - was to begin production of two new pictures. The first was Brooklyn U.S.A, a dramatic film to recount the Ebbets Field barrier-shattering saga of Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson. The second was Bernard Vorhaus’s The Spiritualist, a mystery to serve as a starring vehicle for Turhan Bey, the suave actor having recently been released from his contract at Universal. December of ’47 had already been a busy period for Eagle Lion, the company having rushed through the noir crime-dramas The Cobra Strikes and Assigned to Danger. Stoloff assured the studio would remain busy following the holidays. Principal photography on The Spiritualist was scheduled to commence in January of 1948.

The primary castings for The Spiritualist were soon being announced in the trades. Lynn Bari was cast in the principal role of Christine Faber, a grieving well-to-do widow who lives in a sprawling mansion on the Pacific cliffs. Her proximity to the ocean is a mixed blessing. Faber hears the ghostly voice of her beloved dead husband Paul (Donald Curtis) – reportedly killed in a fiery automobile accident -rolling in with the evening tide. The role of the lawyer Martin Abbott, the kind current paramour of the widow Faber, was filled on January 10 when it was announced that Richard Carlson had been cast as the “top male” in the feature.

The earliest scenario of The Spiritualist was drafted by Crane Wilbur, a journeyman writer-director-actor-playwright who had been kicking around Hollywood since the silent era. Muriel Roy Bolton was commissioned to write the screenplay from Crane’s treatment. Director Vorhaus thought the ideas behind The Spiritualist intriguing, but was of the opinion Bolton’s script lacked “characterization and humor.” The screenplay’s absence of humor was odd, especially as Bolton was primarily known for her scripting of several “Henry Aldrich” comedies of the 1940s. In any case, Vorhaus belatedly brought Brit Ian McLellan Hunter onto the project. Vorhaus was familiar with Hunter’s work: the two had collaborated on a trio of films in the years 1939-1940. In Vorhaus’s memory, Hunter’s reworking of the script necessitated the drafted scenarist to labor a full week’s time, working both “day and night,” to tidy and tighten things up.

The basic premise of The Spiritualist was Christine’s falling for the con of the flimflamming trickster known simply as “Alexis” (Turhan Bey). Taking advantage of his grieving clients, Alexis – whose calling card advertises his services as “Psychic Consultant” - uses all sorts of supernatural malarkey to convince his clientele that he possesses “secrets of the outer world.” Amongst his subterfuges to gain “insight” into his patsies is a rigged spirit cabinet, a closed-circuit television monitor, wire recorders, room temperature regulators, and projection cameras. He even secrets an earpiece beneath his turban, a hidden confederate slipping him information from a remote location.

The influence of Alexis’s “readings” on the emotionally-distressed Christine raises the concern – and suspicion – of boyfriend Martin and Faber’s younger sister, Janet (Cathy O’Donnell). They hire a private detective (Harry Mendoza) to investigate the background of this alleged “spookchaser.” But there’s a second, and more nefarious, development they miss entirely. They soon learn that the emotional manipulation of Christine is more than a simple money-grabbing swindle. The initial ruse serves only as a prelude to a far darker plan orchestrated by a second mysterious figure in the shadows.

Just as The Spiritualist was starting production, a United Press Hollywood correspondent reported that the office of producer Stoloff was under siege. Hundreds of phone calls and letters were – reportedly – pouring in from enraged members of the National Associations of American Spiritualists as well as from other devout practitioners. It’s hard to separate the reality from the ballyhoo of such reporting, but Stoloff allegedly tried to salve the fears of complainants by assuring his film was only interested in exposing “crooked” mediums, not all. But a secretary at Eagle Lion suggested the angry spiritualists were not easily appeased. She reported that, “Mr. Stoloff’s received countless letters placing a ‘hex’ on him.”

On May Day of 1948, it was announced The Spiritualist was to be released on July 7, the trades trumpeting the Hollywood’s summer schedule of 1948 was shaping up to be a more profitable season than that of the previous year. (In actuality, the film’s release appears to have been pushed back to early August). In any case, the “hex” put on the film seems to have been at least partly successful. Though Variety was impressed, describing the picture as “a whale of a yarn,” “expertly directed” and featuring “topflight performances,” exhibitors and audiences seemed nonplussed as the film rolled out regionally across the U.S. and overseas throughout 1948-1949.

London’s Picturegoer thought the film, a “Poor spiritualistic melodrama, wholly unconvincing, with the artists concerned completely at sea owing to the ineffectiveness of both characterization and direction.” One exhibitor told Box Office sighed that while The Spiritualist had attracted only an “average draw” during screenings, he thought the film deserved better. It was, in his opinion, well done if perhaps reminiscent of that same year’s noir Sleep, My Love featuring Claudette Colbert and Robert Cummings.

The producers of The Spiritualist – mindful of their accounting ledgers - were of the surprised opinion that such superstitious belief in mediums and séances was more deeply entrenched than anyone guessed. So, in February of 1949 with plenty of markets still unvisited, Eagle Lion made a decision to re-title The Spiritualist to The Amazing Mr. X. In the end, the name change did not appear to make much of a difference at the box office. By May of 1949 the film was still on the circuit but still not doing particularly well.

One Kentucky-based exhibitor decried the picture’s walk-up business as “simply awful.” He also opined the film’s lack of dramatic action – as well as “poor” sound and too-dark photography - was to blame. He counseled other “small town exhibitors” to “lay off this one” as it “laid an egg at the box office.” With the film was still making the rounds in August of ‘49, other exhibitors complained the picture, while generally solid, was “too talky in parts and the sound was very low.” It was thought the spiritualism hoax was given up to early in the film, removing any sense of a suspenseful reveal. Both were valid criticisms. It’s true that most of the films on-screen time was consigned to intimate parlour discussions.

The film suffered overseas as well. In England, the Rank Organisation and British Board of Film Censors were also inundated with complaints by spiritualists, though censors ultimately chose to allow the film to be exhibited as issued. This caused an aggrieved “former president of the Spiritualist National Union” to sulk, “I am amazed that such a malicious and offensive statement about spiritualism should be passed for exhibition purposes.”

Though not a lost classic, The Spiritualist/The Amazing Mr. X has a lot going for it. The film is wonderfully shot and the film’s spooky and spectral optical effects are certainly effective. In an interview with the Australian journalist John Baxter, Vorhaus gave all credit to Director of Photography John Alton for the film’s dark and moody visuals. Vorhaus recalled Alton as, “faster and more talented than any other cameraman I’d ever worked with, partly because he used so little lighting… He regarded shadow and darkness as just as important as light. So you never had a fully lit set; you had this mix of highlights and darkness.” The film is also made interesting by Vorhaus’s interesting camera placements. The film is sprinkled with a number of creative attention-getting and undeniably unusual camera angles. The film’s acting troupe are uniformly top-notch in their performances.

The Spiritualist would sadly be among the last few films Vorhaus would direct in America – or anywhere. On April 25, 1951, director Edward Dmytryk – a member of the infamous Hollywood Ten who served a six-month prison sentence for his “uncooperative” testimonials - chose to salvage his career by ingratiating himself with the House Un-American Committee. In new testimony, Dmytryk gave the Committee the names of seven members of the Screen Directors Guild who he alleged were members of the Communist Party in 1945. Vorhaus’s name was among them.

With the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases being reported daily and the war in Korea grabbing headlines, Vorhaus saw little reason to stay in Hollywood. The director chose to live out his life as an American exile, doing a bit of film work in Europe before quitting the movie business altogether. He would later settle in London and be granted British citizenship. There was no reason or benefit of returning to America - at least not at the height of red scare paranoia. It was our loss, as well as his.

This Blu-ray issue of The Amazing Mr. X from the folks at The Film Detective is top-notch, a 4K transfer mastered from restored original 35mm elements and presented in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The B&W film looks wonderful, film grain present and Alton’s exquisite photography bringing out the almost unnaturally soft facial features of the film’s featured players, especially the ladies. Special features include Daniel Griffith’s interesting twenty-minute featurette, Mysteries Exposed. The documentary offers a brief primer on the history of spiritualism and its subsequent exploitation by filmmakers: from the silent short camera trickeries of George Méliès to RKO’s You’ll Find Out (1940) through such Universal features as The Devil Commands (1941) to various entries in their Inner Sanctum series to Paramount’s The Uninvited (1944).

The documentary features some interesting background on spiritualism, séances and mediums – and of the practice’s historical debunkers, many of whom were magicians wise to their slight-of-hand methodologies. The featurette offers commentaries courtesy of Lisa Morton, author of Calling the Spirits: A History of Séance’s, and of film historian C. Courtney Joyner. The set also includes a commentary by film scholar Jason A. Ney and ten-page booklet, mostly recounting the star-crossed career of Turhan Bey, written by Don Stradley. As always, The Film Detective delivers a very nice, lovingly assembled package of a film too often misused due to its public-domain status.

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By Hank Reineke

The scenario of Mad Love was adapted from Maurice Renard’s Grand Guignol thriller of 1920 Les Mains d'Orlac (The Hands of Orlac). Renard (born 1875) was an author of science-fiction and fantasy tales. Not surprisingly, he was an ardent admirer of literary forebears Edgar Allan Poe and H.G. Wells. Both of these authors – similarly to Renard – contributed to the pulp publications of their day. Les Mains d'Orlac was Renard’s third pulp to be published. It was also his most famous.

Renard’s novel tells the story of a world-famous pianist, Stephen Orlac, whose hands are tragically severed in a train wreck outside Paris. A surgeon, Dr. Gogol, grafts a new set of hands on the gifted Orlac, having not advised the pianist his “new” hands once belonged to a notorious – and recently guillotined - murderer. Orlac is, not unreasonably, frightened when he discovers the grafts are seemingly directing him to do evil things, the bidding of the devil.

Upon Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s announcement that esteemed director and cinematographer Karl Freund was planning on shooting the first sound version of The Hands of Orlac – a silent featuring Conrad Veidt had already seen light as early as 1924 – the studio’s publicity department went into full press. They excitingly described Renard’s yarn, as “the weirdest and most novel of all thriller mystery stories.”

Freund very much wanted the Hungarian actor Peter Lorre to play Doctor Gogol, the mad surgeon. Lorre had already established a reputation as an impressive figure in European – and especially German – cinema. But following his international success as the psychotic child murderer of Fritz Lang’s grim M (1931) and in Alfred Hitchcock’s production of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), executives at Columbia were eager to put the exotic Lorre under contract for his first U.S. film assignment.

They were, perhaps, too eager to bring him to Hollywood. Columbia had not yet found a project for him – and the actor’s command of the English language was still in a nascent stage. Though offered a role in one of the studio’s adventure dramas featuring action-star Jack Holt, Lorre demurred: he wasn’t interested in such low-brow fare. He was pressing Columbia to cast him in a more high-minded production, a film for the ages: an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Lorre was also insistent that esteemed director Josef von Sternberg should helm the prospective epic.

There was a problem with this demand. Columbia’s co-founder and president, Harry Cohn, wasn’t interested in such a project – nor was von Sternberg for that matter. This resulted in Lorre sitting in a state of contractual limbo of some “eight months,” at least by the actor’s recollection. So it came as a relief when MGM approached Cohn and Columbia asking for an inter-studio loan of Lorre for Mad Love. Though not particularly a fan of horror movies - then a recent box office rage thanks to Universal’s Frankenstein and Dracula pictures – the actor agreed to the one-off trade.

There was one condition of acceptance: that Columbia put Crime and Punishment on their production schedule of 1935. Cohn agreed, without enthusiasm, to greenlight the project. Though a New York Times interview suggested Lorre’s subsequent relationship with Von Sternberg was a “happy one,” the sentiment may not have been reciprocal. Though Von Sternberg would express admiration that Lorre was the only actor on set who had actually read Crime and Punishment, he felt the actor was completely miscast, “unsuitable” for the role he was awarded.

In any event, on April 23, 1935, Variety reported Metro having secured Lorre’s loan from Columbia. Things moved quickly following that announcement. By May 1^st, MGM had signed Ted Healy, Billy Gilbert and May Beatty to the cast. Screenwriter John L. Balderston was tapped to freshen up the adaptive scenario of Guy Endore and the actual script of P.J. Wolfson. Another source would report that actress Francis Drake, on loan from Paramount, was also to be brought aboard, as Yvonne, a Grand Guignol performer in Paris and the primary target of Gogol’s romantic overtures and obsessions.

The final principal casting announcement was reported on May 2 when Colin Clive – Dr. Henry Frankenstein himself - was conscripted to play Yvonne’s husband, the amputee Stephen Orlac. With their star-studded cast in place, on May 3^rd, Greg Toland was announced as a photographer on the project. Toland would work alongside both Chester Lyons and director Freund. Freund was, of course, the acclaimed cinematographer of such classics as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931).

Freund was certainly taking the Mad Love project seriously. On May 8, Variety reported he and Lorre had visited California’s Lutheran Hospital, sitting quietly through several surgeries “to get atmosphere” for the forthcoming production of Mad Love. A subsequent item in the Los Angeles Times noted the pair attended the gruesome surgeries as the invited guests of Dr. Albert and Francis Alton. It was explained the director and his star were to witness “the performing of several operations… in order to study certain technical details of surgery for the picture.”

Though Lorre was pleased to be in front of cameras again, he made it plain early on that he wasn’t a fan of horror pictures, steadfast in his conviction that he would not be typecast as an actor of the genre. He needn’t have worried as a variety of interesting work offers were coming his way. Just as production on Mad Love was set to roll, the actor was visited by the British producer Michael Balcon. Balcon had been spending a lot of time in Hollywood looking to ingratiate himself with U.S. film executives. On May 6, 1935, Balcon announced he had managed to sign Lorre and reigning boogeyman Boris Karloff for a pair of London-based projects – both of which would come to fruition: Lorre would act a second time for Hitchcock in Secret Agent (1936), Karloff for Robert Stevenson’s The Man Who Changed His Mind (Gaumont-British Film Corporation, 1936).

With some of the film earnings and personal savings he had accrued, it was reported that the savvy, self-starting Lorre had recently purchased no fewer than three stage plays of European origin for development as possible Hollywood films. The scripts, it was noted, would be peddled to producers only “on the condition that he is spotted in if and when made.” But first the famously diminutive, pop-eyed actor, once described by Charlie Chaplin, as “the world’s greatest living character actor,” had to get through the filming of the Mad Love chiller.

Members of the Hollywood press were invited to visit the set on May 8, the first day of shooting. Gossip wag George Lewis who, like Lorre, was no fan of horror movies, arrived just as poor Francis Drake was trussed to a wheel and branded with a hot iron at a grim Grand Guignol staging at Paris’s Théâtre des Horreurs. Lewis made note that Freund appeared “quite cheerful” as the macabre scenario played out before him. Freund trumpeted his picture was to be “the most colossal horror yet presented to the civilized world.” But following the preview screening of Mad Love on July 1, 1935, critic Lewis remained nonplussed, sniffing the film only “capable of scaring to death at least a few timid people.”

A more savvy reporter from the Oakland Tribune, also in attendance at the first-day shoot, saw MGM’s renewed interest in horror pictures as the studio’s attempt to give Universal “a little competition in the matter of fantastic films and regain, if possible, the position it held when Lon Chaney was alive and Tod Browning in his prime.” Both Universal and Paramount had done very well with their recent chillers, and MGM sensibly wanted a little taste.

Nothing if not a method actor, Lorre consented to shave his head for the role of Dr. Gogol. Such a dramatic shorn required the actor to visit the studio barbershop every morning prior to shooting. Resting between takes on set, Lorre needed to apply a wet chamois cloth on his eggshell skull to protect him from the burn of the hot klieg lights hanging overhead.

The consummate cinematographer, Freund expertly executed an eerie monochrome contrasting of “hard lights and shadows” to create a moody and mysterious ambience - one befitting Gogol’s personal gallery of horrors. Continuing to do his part, the roly-poly Lorre, thinking himself too heavy-set to play the mad surgeon convincingly, went on a crash diet. On alternate days, the actor would eat only fruit, then vegetables, then dried meat, then boiled potatoes. He reportedly dropped a total of nine pounds in four days’ time.

One journalist would go on to describe Lorre as “the finest scarer of woman-and-children and even grown up men since Lon Chaney.” Which was high praise indeed. Chaney’s reputation in and around Hollywood was as exalted as ever despite his having passed on August 26, 1930, age 47. Though Lorre graciously acknowledged the compliment, he nevertheless was of the opinion that grotesque make-up appliances often disguised “an excuse for an ability to act… An actor should find his expressions in his naked face.” The one exception to that rule, Lorre then sensibly corrected, was the great Chaney since “He was an artist.” As a recent transplant to Tinseltown it was best not to kick up dust at the expense of one of Hollywood’s most mourned and respected figures.

Despite Lorre’s disdain of make-up appliances, there was a lot of press in the lead-up to the production of Mad Love that the filmmakers planned on using a series of Grand Guignol style masks in their upcoming production. “Intensive experiment went into the perfection of the new masks,” noted the Los Angeles Times, suggesting such ghoulish set decorations were “often suggested in fiction but never before worked out on a practical basis.” Such artful masks are scattered about and used as macabre decoration for the Théâtre des Horreurs sequences near the film’s beginning. Otherwise they play little role in the storyline.

June 15 would mark the final day of shooting, the Hollywood press again invited to attend. It was a less exciting day to be on set, the film crew mostly finishing up on various insert shots, the journalists watching Lorre’s double, “Raspy” Rasputin, menacing Drake’s distressed double. The genuine Lorre was on set as well, pacing about in silence, occasionally breaking a studious concentration to relax and joke with members of the crew with whom he had become friendly.

Following an industry preview of the film at Glendale’s Alexander Theatre, Billboard was certain Mad Love would score at the box office, citing the “masterful performance” of Lorre in his U.S. film debut. The critic did astutely rue, “the significance of this grotesque film is likely to be obscured by its flimsy title. It will take a change of title or heavy promotion to gain for this eerie but well-done production the grosses it warrants.” This title change did, in fact, transpire.

In certain markets the title was changed to The Hands of Orlac in the hope of increasing audience interest and box office revenue. With a production budget of just over $217,000, domestic receipts of Mad Love had totaled a disappointing $164,000. Some blamed the unrepresentative title of Mad Love for the film’s underwhelming performance. It was believed that the audiences who routinely flocked to horror pictures passed on Mad Love due to bad marketing. The title Mad Love suggested the film was merely one-more dreary Hollywood romantic drama.

London’s Picturegoer thought the film a serviceable thriller, but little more. Acknowledging that Lorre’s performance carried the production, the film otherwise “fails to grip to any great extent.” Variety’s opinion was much the same. Suggesting Lorre’s role as the villainous Dr. Gogol was an ideal one for the actor’s American film bow, “the results in screen potency are disappointing. Being a chiller, much will depend on exploitation.” The trade predicted Mad Love would “probably will do fair biz on the whole.”

Subsequent reviews of Mad Love were mostly positive, though some thought the grim subject matter too sadistic and intense for the impressionable young and any patron with a weak constitution. Lorre’s notices were uniformly positive, one critic writing – likely to the actor’s chagrin – that he had managed a spine-chilling performance both “menacing and sinister. Karloff and Lugosi, erstwhile nonpareil bogey-men of the movies, have a doughty rival.” Interestingly, Mad Love was released within weeks of Universal’s faux-Poe thriller, The Raven featuring Messrs. Karloff and Lugosi. Such release date synchronicity might have hurt the box-office receipts of both films. There was, apparently, only so much sadism audiences could sit through in the summer of 1935.

This Warner Bros. Archive Collectionregion-free issue of Mad Love is presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.37:1 and in DTS-HD Master mono audio. The transfer is excellent. As is often the case with these Warner Archive Blu ray issues, there’s no abundance of special features offered outside of the film’s trailer and a highly informative second-life commentary track courtesy of Steve Haberman (screenwriter of Dracula: Dead and Loving It), ported over from the six-film Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection DVD box set of 2006.

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By Hank Reineke

On March 31, 1931 Variety reported that Paramount had secured, for an undisclosed sum, the sound rights to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the estate of Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson’s classic short story of 1886, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, had already been filmed by Paramount as a well-regarded 1920 silent featuring John Barrymore. But it was curious to some industry watchers why Paramount went to the trouble to secure rights: the novella was, after all, already in U.S. public domain status.

Though true, it soon became apparent why Paramount’s legal team wisely chose a formal rights lockdown. One week following the studio’s announcement – to feature actor Fredric March in the titular double-role – a British filmmaker, I.E. Chadwick (described by Variety as “an independent producer inactive three years”), announced he too was planning a sound version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Chadwick’s competing version would not see the light of day. On June 23, the trades reported his production had been summarily derailed by Paramount’s buying out all British rights to the story.

Though Fredric March was touted as Paramount’s new Dr. Jekyll as early as April 1931, a challenger would soon surface. On May 12, Variety picked up on a syndicated Hollywood gossip report that Paramount was interested in having John Barrymore reprise the role. Though a Barrymore reconsideration seemed an unlikely prospect, on May 5, Louela O. Parsons of the Motion Picture Editor Universal Services teased that Paramount was looking to woo Barrymore from Warner Bros. for their new “talkie” version of Hyde.

It’s altogether possible that Parsons, an old friend of Barrymore’s, was sending out a trial balloon on the actor’s behalf. Barrymore’s contract with Warner Bros. had in fact not been renewed following completion of Michael Curtiz’s The Mad Genius in May of 1931. The high- salaried and hard drinking actor was now casting about for new work and a new contract. Warner Bros. was already expressing unhappiness with the dwindling box office appeal of the former matinee idol. In the final tally, Barrymore’s last two pictures for Warner’s, The Mad Genius and its predecessor Svengali (1931), had combined for revenue losses totaling a reported half-million dollars. Following his ousting, Variety was kinder in their assessment of the actor’s continuing public appeal, reporting only that, “Sales reports on Barrymore have been mild.”

There had to be a measure of professional disappointment on Barrymore’s part. While Fredric March’s star was in the ascendant, his own was dimming. March, an equally handsome and talented actor, had even played a thinly-disguised character based on Barrymore in both the stage and film versions of The Royal Family of Broadway. Barrymore was good-naturedly impressed by March’s gift of impersonation and mimicry. Following his attendance at a stage performance of The Royal Family of Broadway, Barrymore conceded March’s performance had captured, “my mannerisms, exaggerated but true to life.”

But by May’s end it was clear that Barrymore would not be returning to the Jekyll/Hyde role. Gossiper Parson sourly rued that while, “never has any actor had more matinee fans flocking to his side than our John, […] the flapper age yearns for Fredric March and Paramount knows it.” In fact, “flapper” appeal aside, March wasn’t the first pick of Paramount co-founder Adolph Zukor or of West coast studio boss B.P. Schulberg. Paramount’s front-office had initially considered either Barrymore or contract actor Irving Pichel considered for the role. But director Rouben Mamoulian insisted that while the naturally sinister-looking Pichel might have made a suitable Mr. Hyde, he simply couldn’t convincingly pull off the handsome, pheromone-inducing romantic that was Dr. Jekyll.

It was a bold if immovable position for Mamoulian to take. The director had only recently signed with Paramount, delivering two Pre-Code pictures of modest success: Applause (1929) and City Streets (1931). He had also boldly demanded – and was granted - a stipulation in his contract that he be given extended leave-of-absences from Paramount so he could continue working on Broadway back in his beloved New York City. Stagecraft aside, Mamoulian did possess an eye for filmmaking. Upon the news that Mamoulian was to direct Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the editors of Film Weekly cheered, calling him, “a wizard with the camera.” They promised the Mamoulian Dr. Jekyll, “promises to outdo even the weirdness of the celebrated “Dr. Caligari.”

March was to return to Hollywood from Astoria, Queens, New York, to begin production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directly following work on George Abbott’s Morals and Marriage (later re-titled as My Sin). Production on Jekyll was originally slated to commence on August 3, though delays seemingly caused a schedule push-back to September 1935.

In August it was announced one of March’s doomed victims, Ivy Pierson, was to be played by the fetching blond ingénue Miriam Hopkins, just off her assignment playing opposite Maurice Chevalier in Ernst Lubitsch’s The Smiling Lieutenant. By late summer nearly all of the film’s principal and auxiliary players had been cast: Rose Hobart, Edgar Norton, and Halliwell Hobbes among them. This was to be a production of major scope. There were reports that Paramount was planning the hire of some six hundred screen extras, with as many as eighty-one to be given speaking parts. Both of those estimates were certainly possible: the film features large crowds attending both prim society dinner parties and déclassé backstreet London music halls.

To successfully mount such an unwieldy production, director Mamoulian desperately wanted a trusted assistant, in this case Robert Lee, to help him out. Though the trades reported Lee had only recently been given “full director” status at Paramount, the budding helmsman agreed to put off this promotion – an opportunity which was, sadly, not offered again. Mamoulian’s direction was – as always - nothing if not inventive, with Karl Strauss’s acrobatic camera roaming restlessly through POV tracking shoots, half-screen swipes and the sorts of extreme close-ups later found in Sergio Leone films.

Though some film historians and fans believe – not unreasonably – that John S. Robertson’s silent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was the more groundbreaking effort, few would argue that Mamoulian’s was the finest of the several sound versions that would follow. Though the various film adaptations were not always true to Stevenson’s original storyline, they were far more cinematic in presentation. Following in the wake of Universal’s horrific caricatures of Dracula and Frankenstein, Paramount chose to eschew the original tale’s Jekyll’s split-psychologic dichotomies and instead highlight Mr. Hyde’s physical appearance as a hideous, feral beast. Mamoulian’s film was also envelope-pushing in its Pre-Code depictions of implied - and sometimes more- than-implied – scenes of on-screen debauchery and salacious sexuality.

The iconic make-up conjured by Wally Westmore for March’s Hyde was certainly top-notch, as great as anything Jack Pierce had conjured for Universal. Newspaper accounts contemporary to the film’s production suggested March withstood nearly two-hundred hours in both Westmore’s make-up chair and on set for the filming of the “eight” mind-blowing transformation sequences expertly rigged by Mamaoulian and Struss. (If eight transformations were photographed as reported, only six would make pass the film’s final cut, the final one a mostly unconvincing time-lapse).

It was later revealed by Strauss that the justifiably famous transformation sequences near the film’s beginnings had been created by a novel use of panchromatic film stock and a blend of colored filters. Strauss was certainly the man for this particular photographic effect. The cinematographer had had already earned a well-deserved Academy Award for his photographic work on F.W. Murnau’s German Expressionism masterpiece Sunrise (1927). Upon completion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s fifty-one shooting days, Mamoulian celebrated in style, throwing a huge party for the film’s cast and crew members at Hollywood’s swanky Russian-American club.

Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was released during Christmas week of 1931. It was off to a good start, though Universal’s Frankenstein (released November 21, 1931) was still holding strong at cinema box-offices. Paramount brass continued to hold their collective breaths through mid-January to see if Jekyll might have the same staying power. The film proved that it had, ultimately bringing in earnings that made it one of studio’s highest grossing successes of 1932. One casualty of the runaway box-office successes of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was, sadly and ironically, Barrymore’s The Mad Genius, released only a couple of weeks previous to the former. It’s interesting to note that both Frankenstein and The Mad Genius featured a struggling, middle-aged actor who would receive absolutely no screen credit for the latter and only back-end credits of the former – Boris Karloff.

Though Paramount would never become the fright-factory that Universal was in the 1930s and 1940s, the studio would follow Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a few genre classics and semi-classics of their own: Island of Lost Souls (1932), Murders in the Zoo (1934) and The Monster and the Girl (1941). No subsequent Paramount horror other than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would earn the prestige of the Academy however. The film would earn no fewer than three Oscar nominations at the 1932 ceremony (Best Actor, Best Cinematography and Best Adaptive Writing). But only March would walk off with the coveted trophy in the first category.

This Warner Bros. Archive Collection issue of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.19:1 and in DTS-HD Master 2.0 mono audio. The film looks brilliant; if there was a single visual on-screen blemish, it escaped my notice. Ported over from the film’s digital DVD issue of 2004 is a commentary by Author/Film Historian Greg Mank and the Friz Freleng/Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes cartoon short Hyde and Hare (1955). New to this Region-free Blu-ray set is a second impressive commentary featuring screenwriter Steve Haberman and filmmaker Constantine Nasr. A very special feature included is a Theatre Guild of America radio play of the tale, first broadcast on November 19, 1950. This radio show is of particular interest since it finds Fredric March reprising his role as Jekyll/Hyde nearly twenty-years on, with Barbara Bel Geddes and Hugh Williams assisting in the principal supporting roles. Essential.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Over the years, Cinema Retro magazine has covered the various WWII films released by Oakmont Productions, the British film company that produced mid-range budget action movies that were released by United Artists. The movies all had a couple of factors in common: aside from their somewhat modest production values, each starred an actor of sufficient popularity to add a bit of luster to the overall marketing campaign. Between 1968-1970, Oakmont produced six feature films. Some were released as the main feature on double bills and sometimes each movie served as the second feature. The Oakmont films and stars were:

• "Attack on the Iron Coast" (Lloyd Bridges)
• "The Thousand Plane Raid" (Christopher George)
• "Mosquito Squadron" (David McCallum)
• "Hell Boats" (James Franciscus)
• "The Last Escape" (Stuart Whitman)
• "Submarine X-1" (James Caan)
  

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video:

All four big-screen adventures featuring fan-favorite Star Trek characters Picard, Riker, Data, LaForge, Worf, Troi, and Dr. Crusher arrive for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD™ with Dolby Vision™* and HDR-10 on April 4, 2023, just in time for First Contact Day (April 5^th, the day Vulcans first made contact with humans).

The journey begins with original cast members Kirk, Scott, and Chekov in a story that spans space and time in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS, continuing with a terrifying face off against the Borg in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT, a dangerous plot against a peaceful planet in STAR TREK: INSURRECTION, and a familiar old foe returning in STAR TREK: NEMESIS. 

All four films will be available together in the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION 4-MOVIE COLLECTION.  The 4-Movie Collection includes each film on 4K Ultra HD, as well as fully remastered on Blu-ray™, plus all legacy bonus content and access to Digital copies of each film.  The Collection is presented in a slipcase beautifully illustrated to complement the STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL 6-MOVIE COLLECTION, making this a must-own set to complete every fan’s collection.

In addition, each film will be available individually on 4K Ultra HD with a bonus Blu-ray featuring the fully remastered film, along with all legacy bonus content and access to a Digital copy of the film. 

Special features are detailed below.

STAR TREK: GENERATIONS Bonus Content

• Commentary by director David Carson and Manny Coto
• Commentary by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
• Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
• Library Computer
• Production
• Uniting Two Legends
• Stellar Cartography: Creating the Illusion
• Strange New Worlds: The Valley of Fire
• Scoring Trek
• Visual Effects
• Inside ILM: Models & Miniatures
• Crashing the Enterprise
• Scene Deconstruction     
• Main Title Sequence
• The Nexus Ribbon
• Saucer Crash Sequence
• The Star Trek Universe
• A Tribute to Matt Jefferies 
• The Enterprise Lineage
• Captain Picard’s Family Album
• Creating 24^th Century Weapons
• Next Generation Designer Flashback Andrew Probert
• Stellar Cartography on Earth
• Brent Spiner - Data and Beyond Part 1
• Trek Roundtable: Generations
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 007: Trilithium
• Deleted Scenes
• Archives
• Trailers

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT Bonus Content

• Commentary by director and actor Jonathan Frakes
• Commentary by screenplay writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore
• Commentary by Damon Lindelof and Anthony Pascale
• Text commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
• Library Computer
• Production
• Making First Contact
• The Art of First Contact
• The Story
• The Missile Silo
• The Deflector Dish
• From “A” to “E”
• Scene Deconstruction
• Borg Queen Assembly
• Escape Pod Launch
• Borg Queen’s Demise
• The Star Trek Universe
• Jerry Goldsmith: A Tribute
• The Legacy of Zefram Cochrane
• First Contact: The Possibilities
• Industrial Light & Magic - The Next Generation
• Greetings from the International Space Station
• SpaceShipOne’s Historic Flight
• Brent Spiner - Data and Beyond Part 2
• Trek Roundtable: First Contact
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 008: Temporal Vortex
• The Borg Collective
• Unimatrix One
• The Queen
• Design Matrix
• Archives
• Trailers

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION Bonus Content

• Commentary by Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis
• Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
• Library Computer
• Production
• It Takes a Village
• Location, Location, Location
• The Art of Insurrection
• Anatomy of a Stunt
• The Story
• Making Star Trek: Insurrection
• Director’s Notebook
• The Star Trek Universe
• Westmore’s Aliens
• Westmore’s Legacy
• Star Trek’s Beautiful Alien Women
• Marina Sirtis - The Counselor Is In
• Brent Spiner - Data and Beyond Part 3
• Trek Roundtable: Insurrection
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 009: The Origins of the Ba’ku and Son’a Conflict
• Creating the Illusion
• Shuttle Chase
• Drones
• Duck Blind
• Deleted Scenes
• Archives
• Advertising

STAR TREK: NEMESIS Bonus Content

• Commentary by director Stuart Baird
• Commentary by producer Rick Berman
• Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
• Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda
• Library Computer
• Production
• Nemesis Revisited
• New Frontiers – Stuart Baird on Directing Nemesis
• Storyboarding the Action
• Red Alert! Shooting the Action of Nemesis
• Build and Rebuild
• Four-Wheeling in the Final Frontier
• Screen Test: Shinzon
• The Star Trek Universe
• A Star Trek Family’s Final Journey
• A Bold Vision of The Final Frontier
• The Enterprise E
• Reunion with The Rikers
• Today’s Tech Tomorrow’s Data
• Robot Hall of Fame
• Brent Spiner - Data and Beyond Part 4
• Trek Roundtable: Nemesis
• Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 010: Thalaron Radiation
• The Romulan Empire
• Romulan Lore
• Shinzon & the Viceroy
• Romulan Design
• The Romulan Senate
• The Scimitar
• Deleted Scenes
• Archives
• Trailers

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release relating to the UK release of "Frankenstein: The True Story":

Presented for the first time in high definition and featuring some incredible bonus material and stunning new artwork by Graham Humphreys, Frankenstein: The True Story is one of the most acclaimed versions of Mary Shelley's masterpiece.

The film features an all-star cast led by James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Michael Sarrazin, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Tom Baker.

Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) inspired author Anne Rice to write Interview with the Vampire, the movie of which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

Having finished The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola and John Boorman, having wrapped up Deliverance were both keen to direct Frankenstein: The True Story as a theatrical release but it was decided to keep it as a made-for-television movie directed by Jack Smight.

Writers Christopher Isherwood (Forever and a Day, The Great Sinner, A Single Man, and author of Goodbye to Berlin, the novel on which the musical Cabaret was based) and Don Bachardy (Isherwood’s longtime lover and chief creative consultant) weren’t happy that Smight played down the homo-eroticism they’d written in to the screenplay and so published it separately.

Leonard Whiting, who stars as Victor Frankenstein, is currently in the process of suing Paramount Studios for ‘forcing them into a nude scene’ in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Zeffirelli chose Whiting for the part of Romeo because he had “a magnificent face, gentle melancholy, sweet, the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be." The role of Frankenstein saw Whiting growing increasingly hideous as the film progresses. The make-up was by Hammer horror veteran artist Roy Ashton.

Synopsis: In 19th Century England, Dr Victor Frankenstein, bitter over his brother's death, voices his wish that men could have power over life and death. Following a chance encounter with Dr Henry Clerval, a surgeon experimenting in this very field, they begin to work together. Victor achieves the impossible, the creation of life, but with it comes unforeseen and unimaginable terror.

Cast: James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Michael Sarrazin, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Tom Baker, Nicola Pagett, Michael Wilding, Clarissa Kaye, Agnes Moorhead and Margaret Leighton.

Extras: Film Introduction from James Mason; Off with Her Head - An Interview with Jane Seymour; Victor's Story- An Interview with Actor Leonard Whiting; Frankenstein's Diary- A Conversation with Writer Don Bachardy; A Double-Sided Fold Out Poster of the All New Graham Humphreys Artwork; Audio commentary with Filmmaker/Film Historian Sam Irvin.

(This Blu-ray is a Region-2 release.) 

Click here to order from Amazon UK (The Blu-ray will be released on 27 March)

Click here to order DVD edition

By  Lee Pfeiffer

"Alvarez Kelly" is a 1966 Civil War adventure that blends in considerable elements of the traditional Western, primarily its emphasis on a cattle drive. William Holden plays the title role of a Mexican national of Mexican-Irish heritage. He's also a hard-nosed businessman who has recently overseen the arduous move of a herd of 2500 cattle from Mexico to Virginia, where he fulfills a contract with Union forces to provide the herd as a source of food for General Grant's troops who have encircled the Confederate capital of Richmond. For his efforts, Kelly is paid the princely sum of $50,000 through his Army liaison, Major Albert Stedman  (Patrick O'Neal), who takes an instant dislike to Kelly. He accurately views him as a financial opportunist who is completely apolitical in terms of the issues associated with the war. Kelly tells Stedman that he would just as easily have sold the herd to the Confederates but their currency is declining in value along with their odds of winning the conflict. Stedman's men park the herd at the stately home of local belle Charity Warwick (Victoria Shaw), who is not happy about Union forces using her land. Still, she uses her good looks and flirtatious tactics to charm both Kelly and Stedman- though both men don't realize that she is feeding any relevant information she obtains to Col. Tom Rossiter (an eye-patching wearing Richard Widmark), a local officer in the Confederate army. Rossiter has been assigned a difficult mission: to help relieve the starving and blockaded citizens of Richmond by stealing the herd and finding a way to get it to the city, despite the overwhelming numbers of Union troops in the area.

Rossiter and a handful of men succeed in kidnapping Kelly and bringing him to the War Department in Richmond where he is asked to provide assistance in enacting the audacious plan to steal the herd. If he agrees to do so, he will get $100,000- though it will be paid in Confederate money, an offer that Kelly can refuse. Rossiter places him in jail and has to finally shoot off one of his fingers to elicit reluctant cooperation from Kelly, whose first job is to train Rossiter's cavalrymen to be effective trail drivers. Kelly finds a way to exact revenge on Rossiter by seducing his girlfriend, Liz Pickering (Janice Rule), a once-wealthy woman who has seen her fortunes and lifestyle diminish as Grant's forces tighten the noose on Richmond. In return for sleeping with Kelly, he pays a Scottish riverboat merchant to take her away from the city without Rossiter's knowledge. This plot point becomes pivotal toward the end of the movie. The film shifts into high gear with the realization of the cattle raid, which Kelly and Rossiter orchestrate successfully. The problem is getting the herd into Richmond, which will require a seemingly impossible cattle drive through a notoriously dangerous swamp and across a rickety bridge- all the while with Major Stedman and his men in hot pursuit.

I had originally seen the film as a kid when it was first released but had no lingering memories of it. Having discovered it on Screenpix, I thought I'd give it try. I almost gave up when I heard the title song, which is played over the opening credits. It's the very definition of "cornball" to the point of being almost laughable. Only my belief that any movie featuring William Holden is worth watching convinced me to hang in there. I'm glad I did because "Alvarez Kelly" is quite a good, off-beat film. The teaming of Holden and Widmark is very effective. Holden was once again playing the type of character that was becoming his trademark, namely, a likable rogue with great courage but seemingly no moral principals. Holden was 48 years-old at the time but looked older, probably due to his well-known penchant for heavy drinking. Thus, the concept of presenting him as a Civil War era Matt Helm or Derek Flint, with gorgeous and willing women being easily beguiled by him seemed a bit of a stretch at this point in his career. Still, he gives a marvelous performance, as does Widmark, who could be problematic and somewhat hammy if not under the proper direction. Fortunately, veteran director Edward Dmytryk is up to the task. The film gains momentum as it moves along and climaxes with a terrific, ambitious action scene that incorporates a major battle and a thrilling cattle stampede.

The production was a troubled one, however. The script by Franklin Coen was deemed to be unsatisfactory and uncredited rewrites were done by Elliott Arnold and Daniel Taradash. There were also delays in filming caused by weather and illness. When the film was released, it was met with mixed reviews, though Holden and Widmark received good notices.

I should point out what some film fans have observed: "Alvarez Kelly" has much in common with John Ford's 1959 production of "The Horse Soldiers" in which Holden co-starred with John Wayne. Namely:

• Both movies were inspired by daring raids conducted in the South during the Civil War. "Alvarez Kelly" is based on what is known as "The Beefsteak Raid" of 1864 in which Confederate raiders successfully stole about 2500 cattle from Union forces and provided them as food for starving Richmond.The raid was so daring that it won reluctant praise from its execution from none other than President Lincoln.
  
• Both movies feature a beautiful blonde southern belle whose property is utilized by Union officers, who she charms even as she spies for the South.
• Both movies were shot in Louisiana.
• Both movies feature a climactic battle at a bridge which has been mined to prevent pursuing forces from catching them.
  
• Both films feature William Holden in a tense relationship with an army officer who both come to respect each other at the film's conclusion.
  

"Alvarez Kelly" isn't a great film but it's a good one. It deserved a better fate in 1966 but, through streaming and home video, hopefully more people can appreciate its merits today.

The Sony DVD from many years ago is the only home video release to date in the U.S.A. The picture quality is good but the film really deserves an upgrade to Blu-ray. However, the only Blu-ray editions have been released outside of the U.S. The only bonus features are fact files about the stars and director and the original trailer along with bonus trailers for "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Silverado".

Click here to order the DVD from Amazon

By Hank Reineke

Attack of the 50ft. Woman is by no measure the finest science-fiction film to emerge from 1950’s Hollywood. It may, however, be one of the most iconic. I suspect the film’s notoriety is partly due to Reynold Brown’s eye-catching one-sheet poster design: a grimacing, gargantuan deep-cleavaged Allison Hayes hovering over a city highway picking off random automobiles. That nothing like this actually happens in the movie is mostly forgivable. If we were to judge any film by its true delivery-of-on-screen mayhem against the false promises of its imaginative publicity campaign, a lot of press agents would be serving time.

Having said that, Brown’s artwork is an inseparable component of the film’s status among fans of Silver Age sci-fi. The poster design has been both parodied and mimicked, plastered on coffee mugs, jewelry, wristwatches, puzzles, t-shirts, model kits, fridge magnets and book covers. Reynold’s empowering image has even seen adoption as a feminist-rallying call-to-arms. Which is a pretty amazing feat for a film dashed off in little more than a week’s time, with less than stellar optical effects and at a budget of some $88,000.

Attack of the 50ft. Woman was directed by Nathan Juran who is credited on this particular film - for no reason I could source or conjure - as “Nathan Hertz.” It’s not as if Juran was a fallen helmsman of high-budget studio “prestige” pictures. He wasn’t a director reflexively protective of a former glory, someone defensive that his once glittering career had somehow descended into directing 50s sci-fi fodder. Juran’s first directorial assignment was, in fact, for Universal’s The Black Castle (1953) a mostly glossed-over gothic B-film featuring Richard Greene and Boris Karloff. From 1953 on, Juran subsequently bounced between directing low-budget feature films and studiously working on early television.

But by 1957 Juran had become semi-typecast as a successful auteur of low-budget sci-fi films, his streak beginning with 1957’s The Deadly Mantis. Over the course of the next several years (1957-1964), Juran directed a number of features and television episodes, many of which could be categorized as falling under the umbrella of sci-fi and fantasy. These would include such offerings as 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and, perhaps most famously, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).

The screenwriter of Attack of the 50ft. Woman was Mark Hanna. Hanna had already displayed a modicum of insight in his crafting of bigger-than-life-size monster movies. The writer had collaborated the previous year with producer/director Bert I. Gordon on A.I.P.’s The Amazing Colossal Man. There’s little arguing that Allied Artist’s decision to back Attack of the 50ft. Woman was simply an opportunity to coat-tail Gordon’s recent string of successful “giant monster” pics. There had been plenty of them, some having already seen issue, others in the can being rush-readied for release: King Dinosaur (1955), Beginning of the End (1957), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and The Spider (1958).

Jacques R. Marquette and Bernard Woolner’s production of Attack of the 50 ft. Woman would start on Wednesday, January 8, 1958, under the working title of The Astounding Giant Woman. It wasn’t a great title, but Allied Artist’s had been bandied a pair of alternates, both of which were also subsequently rejected: The Mammoth Female Monster and The Colossal Female Monster. The film was still being touted in the trades as The Astounding Giant Woman through March of 1958. In April of 1958 the film was finally and permanently re-titled Attack of the 50ft. Woman.

Actress Yvette Vickers, who plays sultry sex-kitten Honey Parker in the film, recalls the entire picture was shot in eight days, with no one under the illusion they were making cinematic history. Allied Artists were interested in quick returns on their investments. By January’s end of 1958, no fewer than ten of their projects were reported as being “in various stages of editing,” including Attack of the 50ft. Woman and Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970. It was also during the last week of January that Ronald Stein was brought onboard to compose the film’s engaging and jazzy soundtrack.

One intriguing aspect of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is that the film’s sci-fi elements would often play second fiddle to the script’s domestic drama. Allison Hays plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy but alcoholic socialite whose marriage is in shambles. The cruel ways of her unfaithful and conniving husband, Harry (William Hudson) has already driven her to a sanatorium. While his wife is away (unsuccessfully) convalescing from her binge-drinking and mental frailties, Harry has taken up with the “red-headed wench” Honey Parker (Vickers). Harry and Honey spend an inordinate amount of time at Tony’s Bar and Grill, drinking, listening to jazz, dancing, and plotting a comfortable future together - a future to be financed by Nancy’ loss of stewardship of the family fortune due to her faltering mental health capacities.

This scenario on paper, of course, appears very film-noir in construction. But Hanna’s script upends the film’s love triangle aspect almost from the very beginning. There have been worldwide news broadcasts describing a “strange red fireball in the sky” hurtling towards earth. Driving back on Route 66 to her tony home upon release from the sanatorium, Nancy unluckily encounters an alien craft somewhere in a remote section of the Californian desert. No saucer-shaped spacecraft, this particular vehicle arrives as a 30-foot high sphere resembling a weather balloon. As if suffering from “mental exhaustion and alcoholism” was not enough, Nancy now finds herself in the clutches of giant hand with hairy knuckles.

Unfortunately, this alien contact has left Nancy with blue-green traces of radiation on her throat which brings about the onset of “giantism.” Though doctors are summoned to try to figure out why the poor and delirious Nancy is increasing in size at an alarming rate, husband Harry and mistress Honey care not one whit, still duplicitously scheming at Tony’s bar and grill. But the two of them – as well as the local sheriff and police department – will soon find themselves no match for a lady scorned: a wrathful woman who now stands 5o ft. tall, is wrapped in an over-sized white bed sheet and appears angry as Hell.

The earliest press screenings for Attack of the 50ft. Woman were held in Los Angeles on May 8, 1958. The film was screened with Roger Corman’s War of the Satellites, a second sci-fi feature that was to be paired with Woman on national release. In the view of the Variety critic, both genre offerings were “on weak side.” The trade cited Mark Hanna’s “corny dialogue” and Hertz’s “routine” direction on Woman as the film’s primary deficiencies, dismissing the film as “a minor offering for the scifi trade where demands aren’t too great.”

Well, maybe I’ve simply just sat through too many Silver Age sci-fi films to be objective, but I didn’t find Hanna’s script necessarily corny – but I did find the screenplay absent of likable characters worth caring about. Although I am a fan of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, I can understand the sulking review given the film upon release by critic Margaret Harford of the Los Angeles Mirror: “Attack of the 50ft. Woman has so few idealists on hand that the survival rate is lamentably low.” She goes on to describe the three romantic-triangle leads as “unregenerative types” possessing souls not worthy of salvation. The unrelenting unwholesomeness of the aforementioned trio ultimately inspires, “a wholesale blood bath that amounts to an extra dividend for scare-traders on the horror market.”

While Attack of the 50ft. Woman would not be the last sci-fi/horror flick in which Hayes would be cast, the actress happily moved over to dramatic work on television. She was enjoying the variety of roles such new castings offered. It wasn’t surprising. Shortly following the release of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, one journalist met with Hayes for a brief interview. The gossip writer thought Hayes “a fugitive from ‘Monster’ pictures,” a talented actress looking to take an extended break from such desultory features. The actress had, in fact, racked up a score of horror credits in recent years, appearing in a quartet of exploitation pictures in 1957 alone: The Undead, The Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, and The Disembodied. In 1958 this former 50 ft. giant was looking for roles more befitting a woman of her stature.

Shortly following her work on Woman, the saucy Yvette Vickers was cast in the feature The Saga of Hemp Brown and an episode of TV’s Dragnet. In the years 1958-1961 most of Vickers’ casting was on various television dramas, though a few feature film roles were mixed in as well. She would also, more infamously, appear as a “bottoms up” “Playmate of the Month” centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine, the photo spread courtesy of Russ Meyer. Of course, I’m just noting the above for the historical record, not to suggest anyone should rush off to eBay to source a back copy. But if you’re looking to add something new to your collection…

This region-free Warner Bros. Archive Collection issue of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.85:1 and in DTS-HD Master mono audio. As is often the case with these Warner Bros. Archive Blu releases, there’s not an abundance of special features offered outside of the film’s trailer and a commentary track. The latter item is particularly special, if not unfamiliar to serious collectors.

The commentary track on this new Blu release has been ported over from Warner’s DVD box set of 2007, Cult Camp Classics, Viol. 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers. On the bright side, the commentaries of film historian Tom Weaver and actress Vickers are certainly worthy of preservation on this second digital go round, the film’s first appearance in HD. Both Weaver, likely the finest author-commentator of vintage Hollywood sci-fi and horror, and Vickers – present on set back in 1958 - offer wonderfully playful and often prescient insights and memories on the making of the film. Vickers’s contributions are now made all more special in 2023 as the actress/pin-up girl with the great sense of humor has since passed.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Before Burt Reynolds became a bankable leading man with the release of "Deliverance" in 1972, he toiled for years through mostly "B" movies, some of which were designed to be secondary films in double features. A rare exception was "100 Rifles", which afforded him a prominent role opposite Jim Brown and Raquel Welch. However, films such as "Navajo Joe", "Sam Whiskey", "Operation C.I.A.", "Shark" and "Skullduggery" may have kept him employed but only as a leading man in minor features. After reaching superstar status, Reynolds would look back on these films with self-deprecating humor. He needn't have. These minor features were generally highly enjoyable and efficiently made. They also allowed him to hone his skills as an actor rather than just another tough guy. The best of this lot of films was "Impasse", a 1969 production that I've only caught up with recently. The plot finds Reynolds well-cast as Pat Morrison, a hunky, lovable rogue who is in the Philippines to enact an audacious heist on the island of Corregidor. For historical context, it was at Corregidor that U.S. forces and their Filippino allies put up a historic and stubborn resistance against overwhelming numbers of Japanese troops in early 1942. Although the island ultimately fell to the Japanese, the starving and weary American and Filipino forces had put what the Japanese felt would be a quick victory far behind schedule. Before the battle began, American forces had moved a substantial amount of gold from Manila banks to Corregidor, where it was stored in the elaborate system of tunnels under the gun batteries. (Presumably, the Japanese took possession of this gold after seizing the island.) In the film, the hidden gold is a big secret and its location has never been found. Morrison rounds up some of the former U.S. and Filipino soldiers who were brought blindfolded to a certain location during the war and instructed to hide a large stash of gold bricks behind a wall and seal it up. He's betting that if they are able to revisit the caverns, they will be able to piece together the approximate location of the gold, which is estimated to weight 6,000 pounds. The disparate group is being advised by a sickly WWII veteran, Trev Jones (Clarke Gordon), who has a strategy for getting everyone into the tunnels despite the fact that the island still maintains a military garrison. 

Morrison's team also consists of Draco (Rodolfo Acosta), a hard-drinking, violent Apache who is inspired to take part in the caper because he wants to return to Manila and track down a woman he had been obsessed with during the war; Hansen (Lyle Betteger), a similarly hot-tempered man with racist tendencies toward Draco and Jesus (Vic Diaz), native Filipino who played a key role in secreting the gold. To add a bit of spice to the testosterone-laden scenario, Anne Francis pops up as Bobby Jones, Trev's daughter, who is a tennis ace participating in a tournament in Manila. Naturally, she meets Morrison and the sparks fly. Morrison is also involved with his married mistress Mariko (Miko Mayama), and the relationship will pose a serious problem later in the film. Complications ensue when Trev is kidnapped by local crime boss Wombat (Jeff Corey), which adds a subplot in which Morrison has to rescue him. This results in Morrison taking on one of Wombat's paid killers in an incredibly complex and exciting chase scene. It begins in a packed cockfight stadium, leads to moving vehicles and an extended foot chase in a high rise apartment. It's quite incredible to watch and the scene is superbly staged by director Richard Benedict, who impresses throughout the film by getting the most from his eclectic cast members. The only flaw in the casting is Vic Diaz as Jesus. He gives a fine performance but he is far too young to have been in the battle for Corregidor. In fact, he was born in 1932, which means he was ten years-old at the time.The always-addictive Anne Francis displays good chemistry with Reynolds and although there are no steamy love scenes depicted, there is a very funny vulgar quip tied in with the couple entering an elevator. Reynolds is in top form throughout and the film benefits from his experience as a stunt man, as he performs most of the hard stuff himself. The caper itself is believably scripted by John C. Higgins right down to the mishaps and unexpected events and Mars B. Rasca's cinematography does justice to the Philippine locations.

"Impasse" has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in a very fine transfer. The only bonus extras are the original trailer and a generous and fun gallery of other Reynolds trailers for films released by KL. The film is also currently streaming on Screenpix.

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By Hank Reineke

Though the Bert I. Gordon’s and William Castle’s of 1950s-1960s Hollywood were successful in grinding out a string of their own low-budget suspense films, it’s clear they both aspired for recognition as auteurs of psychological-thrillers in the Hitchcock tradition. Producer/Director Bert I. Gordon would throw his hat into that particular ring with the redoubtable Picture Mommy Dead. The screenplay for Gordon’s picture was written by Robert Sherman, a television writer with no feature film credits. This was to be Gordon’s second film for Joseph Levine’s Embassy Pictures, his first being the outrageous exploitation/sci-fi flick Village of the Giants (1965) (“Teen-agers Zoom to Supersize and Terrorize a Town!”).

Casting for Picture Mommy Dead began as early as November of 1965, the trades reporting Levine had hopes of reuniting Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews (of Otto Preminger’s classic noir Laura (1944) for Color Mommy Dead (the provisional title of the film). Though Tierney appeared to be interested – she had been working before the camera only intermittently in the mid-60s – on January 12, Gordon announced her part was instead given to actress Martha Hyer, since “the role developed more into a Martha Hyer type of beauty than a Gene Tierney type beauty.”

If Dana Andrews was on Levine’s wish list to take on the role of Edward Shelley in the film, the actor was either already working on another project or simply not interested. The part would go to Don Ameche whose recent roles were also occasional and on television. In a classic example of Hollywood nepotism, actress Susan Gordon – Bert’s daughter – would beat out eighty actresses auditioning for the role of the troubled Susan Shelley. “I solved the second femme lead,” the producer explained, “by giving it to my 16-year-old daughter, Susan, but I’ve got to find still another lady before we start shooting at Paramount on January 24.”

That “lady” still to be cast as the filthy-rich Jessica Flagmore Shelley was the sultry screen-legend Hedy Lamarr. On January 18, a mere six days before that character’s first scheduled shoot was to take place at Beverly Hills Doheny Estate, it was announced the notoriously reclusive and eccentric Lamarr had accepted the role. It was reported her acceptance was mostly due to the coaxing of Marvin Paige, a talent agent and occasional on-the-town paramour of the aging glamour queen.

But if the film’s casting appeared settled, events would soon take a dramatic turn. In the interim of winning this “comeback” gig Lamarr, the Garbo-like fifty-one year-old actress, found herself behind bars at the Sybil Brand Institution for Women. The actress had been caught shoplifting eighty-six dollars’ worth of merchandise from a Wilshire Boulevard department store. Following the posting of a $550 release bond, Lamarr told a throng of reporters the shoplifting accusation was the result of a “misunderstanding.”

It was an odd turn of events but on January 28, 1966, the very same day Lamarr was to be arraigned, Gordon promised the actresses’ casting was safe. “This unfortunate happening will make no difference in our plans,” the director/producer told the press. “I’m behind her 100%.” But in the days between her brief incarceration and her first scheduled on-set date, it was obvious things might not work out. Picture Mommy Dead was already ten-days into its shooting schedule, with another three weeks of work to go. Lamarr, who had yet been called before the cameras, was considered integral to those next three-weeks.

Hollywood gossip maven Dorothy Manners reported Gordon’s optimistic suggestion that “the concentration her role demands” would offer Lamarr a welcome distraction from her recent petty theft indiscretions. But Manners chose to stir the pot further, making a passing reference to Lamarr’s prima donna declaration that she’d work only “between the hours of twelve noon and five in the afternoon.” It was Lamarr’s contention that “Any actress who steps before a camera before noon is indecent.”

The resulting press was making everyone invested in the film a little uneasy. Embassy was quick to remind Gordon the budget of Picture Mommy Dead was a cool one million. The film’s backers were, not surprisingly, concerned over Lamarr’s eccentric behavior and public statements. Though some conceded in Hollywood even bad or sordid publicity might prove beneficial in the long run, Gordon was told if he “couldn’t guarantee” Lamarr’s physical and mental commitment to the project, the actress would need to be replaced.

Gordon chose to ignore the warning signs, determined to push forward with his original plan. On Wednesday morning, February 2, a limousine was sent to pick up the embattled actress at her home. The driver was given instructions to deliver Lamarr to the grounds of the Doheny Estate where her first scenes were to be filmed. But there was a new twist. When the driver arrived as scheduled Lamarr was nowhere to be found: a maid explained the actress wasn’t in residence. She told the driver the actress had been admitted to Westwood hospital only hours earlier.

The maid’s explanation was countenanced by both Lamarr’s doctor and attorney. They offered their client was suffering from “nervous exhaustion,” but would be prepared to go before the cameras two day’s hence on Friday the 4^th. This of course was problematic as a crew was already awaiting her arrival on location. The filmmakers decided to check on the Lamarr’s physical and mental well-being themselves. But when they arrived at the hospital they learned there was no record of the actress having ever been admitted. This news was enough for Embassy to pull the plug on Lamarr’s return to the big screen. A spokesman explained to the press, “We have too much involved in production costs to chance any delay.” Embassy then announced that actress Zsa Zsa Gabor had already been offered and accepted the role of Jessica Flagmore Shelley.

Though Lamarr threatened a legal challenge, her lawyers would not ultimately pursue the case. “Gordon made it clear,” an Embassy spokesman offered, “that his decision was in no way predicated upon Miss Lamarr’s recent arrest on shoplifting charges.” Calling a press conference in the backyard of her home on the very day of her losing her role in the film, Lamarr contested all she really needed “was a good night’s sleep,” defiantly vowing to “never act again.” She held true to her promise. The 1958 noir The Female Animal would remain her final appearance in a feature film.

The firing put Gordon in an awkward position. He tried his best to smooth things over before getting back to his work on the film. “I cannot afford to gamble on anyone’s health, but I do have tremendous respect and admiration for Miss Lamarr as an actress as a woman. And whenever she feels she’s able to work I have a story in which I would star her.”

In truth, the role Lamarr was ousted from likely wouldn’t have brought her anything but the briefest return to glory. As the dearly departed Jessica Flagmore Shelley, Zsa Zsa Gabor really doesn’t have all that much to do. She’s seen in a few brief silent sequences in the first half of the film, later enjoying a slightly more expanded role near the film’s climactic end. The crux of Picture Mommy Dead is the mysterious circumstances surrounding mommy’s death. Was it an unfortunate accident? Or was it murder?

The film offers red herrings aplenty. Shelley’s daughter Susan (Susan Gordon) is convinced she’s solely responsible for her mother’s fiery demise. Such thoughts clouding her “fragile mind” would cause her to spend three years convalescing at a convent. Susan’s father Edward (Don Ameche) arrives at the convent to bring his daughter back home to the estate, bringing along his new wife Francine (Martha Hyer), Susan’s scheming former governess. The kindly nun (Signe Hasso) who has been caring for Susan since Jessica’s death warns the couple the young girl is still not in a good place, traumatized by “phantoms of the past” and “vivid, horrid nightmares.”

Bringing Susan home to the Shelley estate was, to put it mildly, probably not the best of father’s decisions. For starters, there’s plenty of Peyton Place-style intrigue at play in and around the palatial grounds: infidelities, back stabbings and duplicitous folks scheming to get their paws on the sizable inheritance due Susan. The screenplay’s riddling mystery is who – or whom – are behind the cruel plan to drive Susan out of her mind so they can steal away the Shelley fortune.

The film as written is an uneasy pairing of those old-fashioned mansion-dagger-inheritance mysteries of the 1930s made fresh with a dollop of psychological mumbo-jumbo. I’m guessing Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) served as a partial template for Sherman’s scripting. In fact, I kept thinking of Tippi Hedren’s character of Marnie throughout the entirety of Picture Mommy Dead since Martha Hyer’s hairstyle is near-identical. To be fair, the difference ends there. Hedren’s Marnie was simply a troubled gal, Hyer’s Francine is simply trouble.

Though there are a couple of interesting plot twists here and there – and a falconry scene involving Susan running in terror for safety is mildly suspenseful – Picture Mommy Dead is, at best, a workmanlike feature. Neither a great film nor a poor one, it’s a semi-suspenseful time-waster which attempts to hitch a formulaic murder mystery with Jungian psychoanalysis. Not so successfully, in my opinion.

This is no slight on director-producer Bert I. Gordon. We “monster kids” of a certain generation revere the filmmaker for his work on such cult classics as Beginning of the End (giant grasshoppers), The Amazing Colossal Man (giant nuclear blast survivor), The Cyclops (giant mutation), The Spider (giant spider) Food of the Gods (giant rodents) and Empire of the Ants (giant ants) etc. etc. But with Picture Mommy Dead, Gordon found himself deep in the shadow of a cinematic giant of another sort, one more difficult to triumph over: Alfred Hitchcock.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of Picture Mommy Dead is presented in 1920 x 1080p, with a ratio of 1.85:1, dts sound and removable English sub-titles. The film looks brilliant, Kino engineering this new issue from a new 4K restoration. The set rounds off with five theatrical trailers that support other Kino product as well as an audio commentary courtesy of writer-producer-directors Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson.

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By Doug Oswald

Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford and Edward Fox lead “Force 10 from Navarone,” available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Based on the 1968 Alistair MacLean novel of the same name, it was initially announced a movie was to follow. After the huge success of “The Guns of Navarone,” a sequel was a no-brainer. The classic “The Guns of Navarone” is among the greatest adventure movies ever made and serves as the template for every “Men on an Impossible Mission” movie that followed. There were other similar movies that preceded it, but MacLean nailed the formula with a mix of action, adventure, suspense with a dash of spy thriller tossed in for good measure. However, the sequel would wait nearly two decades until its release in 1978.

The plot of the sequel, like the previous movie, involves sabotage behind enemy lines with Mallory, Robert Shaw replacing Gregory Peck, Edward Fox covering for David Niven as Miller and joined by fresh-faced Harrison Ford as Barnsby, who is presumably the stand in for Anthony Quinn’s Andrea Stavrou. Ford leads Force 10 on a mission to Yugoslavia to meet up with local partisans in order to locate a traitor from Navarone. This being a movie based on an Alistair MacLean novel, the story also involves double crosses, blowing up a dam and uncovering a traitor.

As I alluded to earlier, the sequel was going to be made in 1967 with Carl Foreman, MacLean and the three leads from the previous film (Peck, Niven and Quinn) reprising their roles. MacLean completed a screenplay which he adapted into the novel, “Force 10 From Navarone” which was released in 1968. MacLean would do the same thing with “Where Eagles Dare” writing the screenplay and then adapting it as a novel before the movie. Readers of the novel “Force 10 From Navarone” will note this movie has little resemblance to the 1968 novel or the original screenplay written in 1967. This change and the long wait for the sequel probably contributed to a less-than-thrilling box office take.

“Force 10 from Navarone” isn’t a bad film, but it was misguided in the approach taken to bring it to the big screen. While the movie has aged rather well, in hindsight it would have been better had the filmmakers stuck with the original treatment including all the original characters. I remember seeing “Force 10 from Navarone” in the theater on its original release with great anticipation, and while it’s not quite up to the classic status of “The Guns of Navarone,” it was a pretty good effort. The movie opens with some of the climactic footage from “The Guns of Navarone” as a pre-credits scene, but it just reminds viewers of the missed opportunity if the movie would have been made back in 1967.

The film adds great production value with location shooting in Yugoslavia and the bevy of great supporting players. The movie was directed by James Bond veteran veteran Guy Hamilton and boasts a bit of a 007 past and future cast and crew reunion. Shaw, as I’m sure readers recall, was Red Grant in “From Russia with Love.” The film also includes “The Spy Who Loved Me” alumni Barbara Bach and Richard Kiel as partisans, and Edward Fox, who would play “M” in “Never Say Never Again.” The movie also features Carl Weathers as Weaver, an American soldier who joins the Force 10 team, Franco Nero as the leader of the partisans, Philip Latham as Jenson (replacing James Robertson Justice), and Alan Badel as Petrovich. Sharp-eyed viewers will catch Wolf Kahler and Michael Byrne as Nazis a few years prior to appearing again as Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” respectively. “Star Wars” fans should also watch for several actors who appeared in one or more of the original trilogy films, and of course Harrison Ford was Han Solo and Indiana Jones. There’s a great party game here ala, “Spot the connections to Bond, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.”

The movie clocks in at 126 minutes and looks and sounds terrific on this Blu-ray release by Kino Lorber. The music by Ron Goodwin is good, if a bit too jolly at times. The extras include an outstanding audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin as well as the trailers for this and other Alistair MacLean releases. There is also reversible sleeve artwork. I highly recommend this Blu-ray release.

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RETRO-ACTIVE: FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Tony Curtis, like most aspiring screen stars, slogged through bit parts in unmemorable films when he first broke into the industry in the late 1940s. By the mid-1950s, however, he was a major star, even if the films he top-lined were relatively undistinguished. With his boyish good looks and New York wise guy persona, Curtis excelled at playing charismatic rogues and, perhaps improbably for a guy born in the Bronx, cowboys, knights and other exotic men of action. But Curtis was more than just a pretty face and by the late 1950s he was getting challenging roles that allowed him to show off his dramatic acting skills. He was brilliant in "Sweet Smell of Success" and "The Defiant Ones" and gave one of the great comedic performances of all time in Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot". By the late 1960s, however, his star power was fading. He still had enough clout to get the male leads in lightweight comedies like "Sex and the Single Girl" and "Don't Make Waves", but the bloom was off the rose. Ironically, he won fine reviews for his convincing performance in the 1968 film "The Boston Strangler", but most of the good roles would continue to elude him. Like many fading American stars, he turned toward European productions, starring in "Those Daring Young Men in the Jaunty Jalopies" and "You Can't Win 'Em All", the latter with fellow U.S. import Charles Bronson who found major stardom in Europe long before he became a big name in America. One of the least prestigious films that Curtis appeared was titled "On the Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who...", a 1967 sex comedy filmed in Italy and which would not be released in the USA until 1969, when it had limited distribution. Perhaps because theater owners in the UK and USA had pity on the poor souls who had to stand on ladders and put film titles on theater marquees letter-by-letter, the English language version of the film was shortened to the more provocative "The Chastity Belt". Curtis wasn't the only English-speaking actor in the otherwise all-Italian production, as Hugh Griffith and John Richardson were co-starred.

The film opens with Curtis playing against type as Guerrando de Montone, a sniveling, cowardly and bumbling opportunist who finally is granted his wish to be made a knight. As his reward, he is entitled to claim a vast tract of land as his own. Guerrando is quick to abuse his power over the peasants, especially when he discovers that the local game warden and his voluptuous daughter, Boccadoro (Monica Vitti) live on his land. Although Boccadoro is initially attracted to him, Guerrando's misogynistic ways quickly alienate her. Guerrando informs her that he is her lord and master and will use her for sexual pleasure whenever he pleases. Most of the fun in the script, which was co-written by the esteemed Larry Gelbart, centers on the buxom beauty's strategies to avoid going to bed with Guerrando, who becomes increasingly frustrated. To solve the problem, he forces her to marry him but she delays the consummation of the marriage by invoking a rare, ancient ritual that commits them both to spending three days in constant prayer. When that obstacle is removed, Guerrando is ready to make his move only to find that he has been summoned to join the Crusades and leave Italy for a period of years. To ensure that Boccadoro remains chaste, he has her fitted with a chastity belt which causes her to swear vengeance. The film meanders through the couple's misadventures with Boccadoro intent on finding her husband and murdering him. She poses as a knight in armor and infiltrates his camp but both are kidnapped by an evil, horny sultan (Hugh Griffith) who forces Guerrando to convert to Islam while he makes plans to open the chastity belt and have his way with Boccadoro.The whole thing ends in a madcap chase with heroes and villains chasing each other about a castle.

Italian cinema-goers were very enamored of sex farces during this period. "The Chasity Belt" is one of the tamest, as there is no nudity and the most provocative aspects are plentiful shots of Ms. Vitti's ample bosom bouncing around during the many chase scenes. Like most films of the genre, there are plenty of moments of slapstick and narrow escapes. What impresses most about this modest production is director Pasquale Festa Campanile's light touch and the ability to move the action at such a rapid pace that you don't ponder how predictable it all is. While it's still a bit of a shock to see someone of Curtis's stature in this "B" level comedy, he is in good form and provides plenty of laughs by not even attempting to disguise his New Yawk accent. He is matched by the very likable Vitti and Hugh Griffith, who recycles his lovable rascal shtick from "Ben-Hur". What is stands out most are the rather spectacular locations. Most of the action is shot outdoors in ancient ruins and castles that add a good deal of atmosphere to the goings on.

"The Chasity Belt" is the kind of film that Curtis probably did very reluctantly. He would later try his hand in television co-starring with Roger Moore in the sensational action series "The Persuaders", but it lasted only 24 episodes. A later series, "McCoy" lasted only a single season. Curtis would still turn up in a few major films like "The Mirror Crack'd" and "The Last Tycoon" but only in supporting roles. Nevertheless, he remained enjoyable to watch and always gave his best effort. Perhaps for that reason, "The Chastity Belt" is a lot more worthwhile than you might imagine.

The Warner Archive DVD is generally very good with a few blotches and grainy frames, but one suspects there aren't too many archival prints of this long-forgotten film floating around out there. There are no bonus extras.

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By Hank Reineke

The Cinerama Releasing Co. was in its seventh year of film distribution in 1973. The distributor had earned a reputation in the industry for working successfully with producers to distribute independent films. Such business partnerships had proven beneficial to both parties. In 1973 Cinerama scored big with two modest-budget indie hits: Michael Campus’s Blaxploitation pic The Mack (1973) and Phil Karlson’s Walking Tall (1973). Since the horror film genre was a (mostly) dependable box office gamble for low-budget film productions, Cinerama scored handsomely in 1972 with the domestically produced Willard rat-fest and the decidedly more up-scale and colorfully creepy Amicus-import Tales from the Crypt.

Hoping to continue to capitalize on this successful trend, Cinerama was preparing to distribute a slate of new horrors in 1973: the British Amicus production And Now the Screaming Starts, the U.S. produced mystery-horror Terror in the Wax Museum, and indie Freedom Art’s Doctor Death. Box Office reported in September of 1973, that Cinerama had only recently acquired the rights to Doctor Death. It promised the film would showcase “optical effects unseen before on screen... the illusion of souls passing from one body to another.” That was they called ballyhoo. We’d actually seen it all before, as the effects offered in Doctor Death had been present as early as the silent film era. Doctor Death, whose full title is actually Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls, was the brainchild of producer/director Eddie Saeta and associate producer/screenwriter Sal Ponti. It was the latter’s first (and only) produced screenplay. Ponti worked mostly – if infrequently - as a film actor and occasional songwriter. In contrast, director Saeta had a long-running career in Hollywood, working on studio lots and behind the camera from 1937 on. He was second generation Hollywood. Saeta’s dad had worked in the electrical department for Columbia Pictures from the late 1920s on.

It was through his father’s connections that Eddie Saeta worked as a messenger for Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn. He worked his way through the ranks, ultimately serving as an assistant or 2^nd unit director for such studios as Columbia and Monogram. He mostly assisted in churning out such low-budget fares as westerns, East Side Kids films and even The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962). (That latter film explains the curious and brief walk through of septuagenarian Moe Howard in Doctor Death). In his later years, Saeta also worked extensively as an AD on television. Eagle-eyed James Bond fans might also recognize Saeta’s name from his front end credit as co-Location Manager for 1971’s Diamonds are Forever.

Ponti’s original script wasn’t uninteresting in concept. Distraught over the loss of his wife in a deadly automobile accident he blames on himself, Dr. Fred Saunders (Barry Coe) goes to great lengths to see her revived by supernatural means. He visits her corpse daily where she lies in state in a conveniently unlocked crypt. Though his friend Greg (Stewart Moss) presses, “For God sake, let Laura rest in peace!” Fred is unable to do so. He visits any number of charlatans who profess revivification but who are unable to deliver on their promises.

Things change when Fred meets Tana (Florence Marley) who professes the greatness of an ex-magician known as “Doctor Death” (John Considine). She describes the not-so-good Doctor as, “The genius of all ages, the man who has conquered death.” The problem with Doctor Death is that while he’s actually pretty good in his practice of “selective reincarnation,” he also displays many characteristics you’d prefer your resurrectionist to not have: he’s a pompous, selfish, sadistic, pervert with a necrophilic bent.

He’s also a vampire… of a sort. We learn Doctor Death is more than a thousand year’s old. He sustains himself not on the feeding of blood of his victims, but by the absorption of their souls. Dracula, of course, is Dracula. He too may be a thousand or so years old, but he manages to retain his original physical appearance through the centuries. As someone who absorbs the souls of others, Doctor Death conversely takes on the physical appearance of whomever his latest victim might be. Through his soul absorptions, the doctor has appeared over centuries in any number of multi-racial, multi-ethic and transgender forms. The problem facing the grieving Fred is that Doctor Death, the heralded “genius of all ages,” has been unable to rustle up a suitable fresh corpse to transpose its soul to that of the still very dead Linda. Which was sort of the point of Fred’s hiring him.

Doctor Death was released in November of 1973, the film unflatteringly described by one critic as, “one of a handful of year end grotesqueries being dumped into theaters like a movie distributor’s version of a clearance table.” The reviews of Doctor Death were, in fact, mostly poor to middling. A Pittsburgh Press critic offered, the picture looked “like a grainy blow-up of a 16mm film and with the sort of flat soundtrack that usually accompanies porno films, this would-be horror item is horrible in ways not intended.” But I’d say such criticism is a bit unfair. Though the film’s Colorlab visuals are dark and gritty, this is after all an early 1970s production. Some of the film’s exterior’s sequences were photographed in and around Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard. It was intended to appear a bit seedy.

I’d argue the cinematography of Emil Oster and Kent Wakeford – both pros - was at least on par with such contemporary L.A. based horror-themed productions as The Night Stalker, the Count Yorga and Blacula films, and TV’s Night Gallery. In any case, if one’s nostalgic for the 1970s, this film is for you. The first-half of the decade is duly represented by telltale flashes of ‘70s hairstyles and clothing, of gaudy apartment furnishings and oversize gas-guzzling automobiles.

Doctor Death is occasionally defended as a misunderstood horror-comedy. That’s a bit of a stretch though it’s clear that Ponti’s script did try to lace his tale with a sprinkling of graveyard humor. The problem is that the satire, as written, is just too subtle (or perhaps so poorly played throughout) that many critics missed this angle. Variety thought the film too melodramatic and this, they reckoned, is what invoked “unconscious laughs” by those attending. But perhaps some of those chuckles were intentional. The Louisville Courier-Journal, on the other hand, saw no humor in the film at all. They lambasted, “A new horror has been released from the creaky medieval dungeons, and to tell the honest truth, [it] should have stayed there.”

Well, I disagree. Doctor Death, while no classic, does manage to offer ninety-minutes of dark entertainment and a smile or two. The Los Angeles Times was one of the few newspapers to recognize the film’s lighter aspects, describing Doctor Death as a “silly but kinda cute and ultimately entertaining spoof” of the horror-pic biz - with Considine playing the role of an “ersatz John Carradine.” The San Francisco Examiner also noted Doctor Death was, in essence, “a gruesome horror film that tries unsuccessfully to equate merriment with slaughter.” “The film sustains a certain amount of suspense,” its critic conceded. “But its unpleasant theme is quite repellant, especially in sequences that suggest Considine’s necrophilic [sic] persuasion.”

New York’s Independent Film Journal thought Considine’s performance, “rampantly theatrical, and that’s not a help because he isn’t rampantly hammy as well. And it would take an actor as overblown as Vincent Price to get some good fun into the good doctor.” This is a pretty prescient observation. Throughout Doctor Death, I also reflected on how Considine’s cool portrayal of the loathsome magician-turned-resurrectionist was simply off. He was OK when the role tasked him to be manipulative and sinister, but the absence of black-comedy winks are also painfully in evidence. It would have taken someone of Vincent Price’s caliber to pull it off. Price had, managed to successfully mix horror and humor a decade earlier in such earlier productions as Roger Corman’s The Raven (1963) and Jacques Tourneur’s The Comedy of Terrors (1963). And, of course, in the more recent and devilishly tongue-in-cheek horror classic Theatre of Blood.

It’s of some interest to note that Price was about to play a character named “Dr. Death” in the forthcoming Amicus/A.I.P. co- production of Madhouse (1974). It’s likely had Saeta’s flick not beaten Madhouse to the gate, the Price film might even have been released under it’s working title: The Revenge of Dr. Death. It’s almost certain the poor box-office reception of Cinerama’s Doctor Death was part of the decision of the Madhouse team’s intent to re-title and separate their new Vincent Price/Peter Cushing vehicle far from Saeta’s bargain basement production.

It’s also worth noting that even Cinerama and theater-owners thought Doctor Death not strong enough to stand alone. The film wasn’t playing on many upscale first-run screens, the picture almost completely relegated to grindhouses and west-coast drive-ins. Depending on the market, Doctor Death was part of a double or triple feature bill. These combo-bills mixed newish pics (Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) and The Legend of Hell House (1973), with psychological thrillers and mysteries (Scream, Baby, Scream (1969), The Butcher (1970), Bluebeard (1972), The Other (1972) and A Name for Evil (1973). The film was also paired with an assortment of horror pictures on their second and third runs: (Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), Countess Dracula (1971), Lady Frankenstein (1971), The House That Dripped Blood (1971) and Asylum (1972). There were even a few golden oldies sprinkled into the bills when prints were available: (The Pit and the Pendulum (1964) and the incongruous A Long Ride from Hell (1968), a spaghetti western with Steve (Hercules) Reeves.

Even with such support, the box-office of Doctor Death was mostly weak. In its first week of screenings in San Francisco, the film pulled in a mere $4,500. When the film rolled out regionally, it pulled in only $2,500 on its first week Pittsburgh, but did slightly better in Detroit with a take of $4,000. But as Christmas week approached, even the Detroit sank to $2,500. The film did some surprising first week receipts in Chicago with a gross of $30,000. It might have been helpful that in Chicago the film had been paired as a double with the old school mystery Terror in the Wax Museum: a film featuring familiar faces (Ray Milland, Elsa Lanchester, John Carradine and Broderick Crawford). Regardless, the combo’s take in the Windy City dropped to $16,500 on week two and (as per Variety) a “tepid” $10,000 of earnings on week three. Though the film seemed destined to play New York City’s “Deuce” strip on its initial run, by mid-January of 1974, Doctor Death would only made it to screens near the upper regions of New York State before disappearing completely from sight.

In any event, the folks at Scorpion Releasing are making sure that Doctor Death doesn’t disappear from your home video screen. This release, taken from a 2015 High-Definition master from the Original Camera Negative is as good as it likely will ever look. The special features include both an audio commentary and separate interview with actor John Considine, as well the reminiscences of director Eddie’s son, Steve. The set arounds out with the film’s trailer and a “new” light-hearted introduction courtesy of Doctor Death himself. I suggest fans of 1970s fringy horror make their appointment with doctor.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video:

Called “an absolute spectacle of filmmaking from start to finish” (Lauren Huff, Entertainment Weekly) and “extravagant, decadent…phenomenal” (Jazz Tangcay, Variety), writer/director Damien Chazelle’s glittering tale of Hollywood glamour and excess BABYLON arrives for fans to watch at home on Premium Video-On-Demand and to purchase on Digital January 31, 2023 from Paramount Home Entertainment. 

Nominated for three Academy Awards®, including Best Original Score, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design, BABYLON is a must-see spectacle featuring outstanding work from a world-class cast and filmmaking team.  Fans who buy the film on Digital will have access to over 40 minutes of behind-the-scenes interviews and deleted scenes to further illuminate how the cinematic tour-de-force was brought to life.  Bonus content is detailed below:

• A Panoramic Canvas Called Babylon— The cast and crew discuss the inspiration and motivation behind the original story and development of this epic, 15 years in the making.• The Costumes of Babylon— Discover how costume design was fundamental to character development and the challenges that went into creating over 7,000 costumes for the film.• Scoring Babylon— Take a peek into Justin Hurwitz's musical process to understand the artistry behind composing an iconic score that further elevates the film.• Deleted & Extended Scenes

BABYLON follows an ambitious cast of characters -- The Silent Film Superstar (Brad Pitt), the Young Starlet (Margot Robbie), the Production Executive (Diego Calva), the Musical Sensation (Jovan Adepo) and the Alluring Powerhouse Performer (Li Jun Li) -- who are striving to stay on top of the raucous, 1920s Hollywood scene and maintain their relevance at a time when the industry is moving on to the next best thing.

The film will arrive on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™, DVD, and in a Limited-Edition 4K Ultra HD SteelBook® March 21, 2023.

Click here to pre-order Blu-ray from Amazon

Click here to pre-order 4K Ultra HD  with digital code from Amazon

Click here to order limited edition Steelbook 4K Ultra HD from Amazon

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES. 

By Lee Pfeiffer

MGM has made available a region-free DVD of the Oakmont-produced British WWII films from the late 1960s-early 1970s. These modestly-budgeted films were not designed as Oscar-bait. In fact, they seem to be specifically created to fill out the bottom of double bills as the era of that great cinema staple was rapidly coming to a close. Hell Boats was shot in 1970 and bares all the ingredients of an Oakmont production: it's intelligently written, well-acted and directed (by Paul Wendkos) and features some exotic locations, in this case Malta. As with some other Oakmont titles (The Last Escape, Attack on the Iron Coast, The Thousand Plane Raid), this rather unconvincingly shoehorns an American leading man into what is clearly an all-British story line, presumably to give the film some broader boxoffice appeal. In this case, James Franciscus (in full, Chuck Heston clone mode) is Jeffords, the new commander of a British torpedo boat unit. There is a brief explanation as to how an American got a job as Commander in the Royal Navy- something to do with having been born in the UK. With that sore point quickly dispensed of, we get to the main plot line. Jeffords is assigned to blow up a seemingly impregnable German gun bastion carved into a mountainside in Malta. The mission appears suicidal but Jeffords concocts a daring plan that involves scuba divers, commandos and the torpedo boats. He does have other distractions: he and his superior officer, Ashurst (Ronald Allen) despise each other. Ashurst wants to prove himself in combat, but is stuck behind a desk. He envies Jefford's courage and is further emasculated by his knowledge that Jeffords is bedding his frustrated wife Alison (Elizabeth Shepherd), who fortunately has an aversion to clothing. The soap opera elements are actually intelligently woven into the story line, creating genuine tension between the two men. Franciscus is all grit-teethed masculinity, but he makes a rather bland hero. He is humorless and all business, all the time. (He even makes his sexual dalliances look about as desirable as changing a tire.) Allen's character is far more interesting and the dissolution of his marriage before his eyes adds an interesting subplot to the military sequences. 

Like most Oakmont productions, Hell Boats does a lot with very little in terms of budget. The photography is excellent and so are the production values, save for the sea battle sequences that betray the very obvious use of miniatures. Nevertheless, this is a highly entertaining adventure movie throughout- and it refreshingly sidesteps what I thought was going to be a predictable plot device leading to a somewhat unexpected conclusion. 

If MGM is listening, the only Oakmont title not available on DVD is The Last Escape starring Stuart Whitman. C'mon guys, keep up the good work and get this one out there. 

Click here to order from Amazon (The film is currently streaming on Screenpix and Paramount +)

During World War II, Nazi officer Max Radl (Robert Duvall) devises a plan to kidnap or kill the British prime minister. Approved by German Cmdr. Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), the scheme moves forward with Col. Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) leading the mission, aided by Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), an Irishman with a deep hatred of England. As the plan unfolds, it seems to be going well — until certain events threaten the group’s shot at success.

Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall lead a star-studded cast in this World War II classic based on Jack Higgins’ best-selling novel. Directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape).

Starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Jenny Agutter, and Treat Williams.

Limited Edition 2 Disc Hardbox edition. 1500 copies only.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

Disc One – Original Theatrical Version

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray
• NEW Audio commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin
• NEW Film historian Kim Newman on The Eagle Has Landed
• NEW A Magnificent Cinema – A discussion on John Sturges with film historians Daniel Kremer, Michael Schlesinger and Nat Segaloff
• NEW The Making of The Eagle Has Landed: Actors and Action – featurette
• NEW The Making of The Eagle Has Landed: The Sets and the Props – featurette
• Theatrical Trailer
• Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Disc Two – Extended Version

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray
• NEW Audio commentary by author/screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner, television writer/producer Phoef Sutton, and actor Treat Williams
• The Eagle Has Landed Revisited – featurette
• Tom Mankiewicz: Looking Back – interview
• ATV Today on Location – vintage featurette
• Film Night – Location Report
• On Location in Norfolk
• On Location Interviews
• Photo Galleries
• Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

By Lee Pfeiffer

Screenpix is currently streaming the hard-to-find (in America, at least) 1957 version of "Robbery Under Arms", based on the famous novel by Rolf Boldrewood. Written in the late 19th century, the book inspired some early film versions in 1907, 1911 and 1920. The Australian tale was later remade in 1985. The 1957 film is set in 1865 and was filmed in remote areas of Flinders Range and Wilpena Pound in South Australia. The tale follows the exploits of the charismatic, but notorious outlaw known as Captain Starlight (Peter Finch), whose band of henchmen include brothers Dick and Jim Marston (Ronald Lewis and David McCallum), as well as their crusty father Ben (Laurence Naismith). They've just rustled a thousand head of cattle and sell them quickly before the pursuing police can catch them. However, with their new-found riches the men become reckless and begin spending lavishly. Dick and Jim, delighted to be freed of their hardscrabble struggle to survive in the unforgiving Outback, decide to take a cruise to Melbourne. On board they meet teenage sisters Kate and Jean Swanson (Maureen Swanson and Jill Ireland) who are traveling with their elderly aunt. Sparks fly, especially when they find out the girls also reside in an area accessible to where they live. Kate is especially captivated and she and Dick promise to reunite. The men are as good as their word and  promise to give up a life of crime, especially when they learn that Captain Starlight had been arrested as a consequence of his drawing attention to his sudden wealth. However, Starlight bribes his captors. He is freed and tracks down his former gang members and forces them to participate in a stagecoach robbery that nets everyone a good deal of loot. Jim and Dick are now wanted men and hide in the hills in gold-mining country. These use the stolen funds to finance their own operation and find success with it.

The script takes an improbable turn when Dick and Jim unexpectedly encounter Kate and Jean, who they had to spurn when they went into hiding. Both young women are now saloon girls in the raucous boom town. Jim and Jean ultimately marry and it isn't long after that they learn a baby is on the way. Dick, however, doesn't prove to be as reliable as Jim. He meets a local girl he falls for and betrays Jean's trust in him. When Starling and his gang turn up in town and execute a bank robbery that goes terribly wrong, the authorities are in hot pursuit, but also come across Jim, who is accused of being complicit in the murder of an innocent bystander despite the fact he wasn't present at the scene. The climax of the film finds Dick reuniting with Starlight and his remaining gang members as it becomes apparent to them that their only way to survive is to engage the police in a gunfight- even as Jim faces the prospect of being hanged. .The shootout in the final scenes is well-handled and exciting.

The film is very much identical to an American Western with the exception of seeing the odd kangaroo and the fact that the native people are from Aborigine tribes. Jack Lee provides the excellent direction, although he later called the film a disappointment because the script wasn't up to par and that he felt it was too slow and talky. I beg to differ. I found the film to be thoroughly engrossing and benefiting from the impressive cinematography of Harry Waxman. The opening titles claim it is "A British Film" and indeed it is, at least technically. The producers were British, as were most of the cast members and interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios near London. However, this isn't a cheapjack production that incorporates a few minutes of second unit photography to represent Australia. The country's own film industry had yet to really blossom so any films made there during this period are of special interest. The performances as all excellent with David McCallum especially impressive as the more mature and sensitive of the Martson brothers. (He developed a real life romance with Jill Ireland and the two would marry shortly thereafter.) The Screenpix source material is okay but is a bit soft to do justice to the fine camerawork. The film has only been released in the USA on a public domain video label, as far as I can tell. Here's hoping a Blu-ray might appear in the future.

(Screenpix is available for $2.99 extra a month for subscribers to Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)

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By Fred Blosser

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan first appeared in the October 1912 issue of the pulp fiction magazine “All-Story.”  This inaugural novel, “Tarzan of the Apes,” introduced the character as a British peer, Lord Greystoke, who was reared by great apes in Africa as an orphaned infant, and then assimilated into European society in adulthood as a sophisticated adventurer and conservationist.  Burroughs was ingenious in working out the details of the premise (for example, how Tarzan taught himself to read and write), which bordered on science-fiction even by the standards of 1912.   

The story was immediately popular, and a hardcover edition followed in 1914.  It’s important to term the character “Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan,” as he was typically labelled in media credits, because the author shrewdly trademarked the name.  That way, he could control all uses of his creation, reap the profits, and legally stop any attempts by others to hijack it.  As Burroughs realized, the birth of the motion picture industry and the growth of newspaper syndication in the early 1900s offered access to unlimited audiences.  Many middle-class people in small towns might never buy a magazine or a book, but they were sure to be movie-goers and newspaper readers.  Securing Tarzan as his Intellectual Property allowed Burroughs to exploit those opportunities and ensure they didn’t fall into the hands of others.  He incorporated himself as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and wrote twenty-two more Tarzan novels over the next thirty-five years, along with many other science-fiction and adventure series.  Burroughs—and then after his death in 1950, his heirs—licensed Tarzan to numerous other media platforms, including movies, radio, a newspaper comic strip, comic books, toys, and television.  If podcasts, Twitter, YouTube, virtual reality, video games, and streaming video had existed back then, we can be certain he would have utilised them too.  Today, when we think of creators who wisely kept a tight commercial grip on their creations, Walt Disney and George Lucas are likely to come to mind, but Burroughs led the way. 

Over the years, movies’ portrayals of Tarzan have varied from the wily, masculine, powerful, articulate, principled character of Burroughs’ original vision to a muscular but asexual simpleton with the verbal skills of a two-year-old.  The latter version was popularised for one generation by MGM’s Johnny Weissmuller movies in the 1940s, and reinforced for the next by years of reruns on television.  The Weissmuller films began promisingly with the violent, sexy “Tarzan the Ape Man” in 1932 and “Tarzan and His Mate” in 1934, but over time at MGM (and then at RKO, where the series moved in 1943), they became increasingly simplistic.  Under the fierce censorship of Hollywood’s Production Code, MGM tightened down on the semi-nudity and mayhem of the first two films, aiming instead for a juvenile demographic.  The studio reasoned that kids were an easier audience who would laugh at the antics of Tarzan’s chimpanzee and not wonder why Weissmuller’s Tarzan never had intimate relations with Jane.  

The last seven decades have seen a variety of Tarzans.  Some producers adhered to the Weissmuller model, beginning with five features from RKO starring Lex Barker, who inherited the role after Weissmuller retired his loincloth.  Others redesigned the concept to meet changing trends in society.  In the James Bond era of the 1960s, a character closer to the Burroughs prototype appeared in two features starring Jock Mahoney and three with Mike Henry.  This peer of the jungle realm was a suave, jet-setting trouble shooter.  The image of an articulate ape man carried over to a 1966-68 NBC-TV series with Ron Ely in the role.  Where Mahoney’s and Henry’s character travelled to India, Thailand, Mexico, and South America to solve jungle crises, Ely’s remained in Africa, in one episode coming to the aid of three nuns from America played by Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Cindy Birdsong, better known as the Supremes.  Even with those attempts to appeal to a more contemporary audience, popular interest waned.  In part, this was because the Weissmuller image was the one that stuck in the popular memory, lampooned by television comics.  What can you do with a hero once your audience laughs at him?  Even more to the point, enormous cultural changes around racial issues occurred with the advancements of the Civil Rights era.  Many critics now saw Tarzan as a worrisome symbol of white entitlement, despite the prominent casting of Black actors and a more nuanced portrayal of African tribal societies in the Ron Ely series. 

Nevertheless, with a brand name that older viewers still recognised at least, the character continued to appear sporadically.  If you gathered around the VCR with your family as a kid in the Reagan years, the Tarzan you may remember best was Christopher Lambert’s portrayal in 1984’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.”  “Greystoke” had the good fortune to appear as VCRs became standard fixtures in American television rooms; on home video, the movie enjoyed a long life as a VHS rental.  Adapted by Robert Towne from “Tarzan of the Apes” and directed by Hugh Hudson, the film was promoted as a return to Burroughs’ concept of a feral but innately intelligent man who attempts to blend back into polite society.  Some Burroughs fans, primed to embrace a virile Tarzan close to the commanding pulp-fiction character, were disappointed.  In trying to rectify the prevailing Weissmuller image from decades past, Towne and Hudson may have overbalanced in the opposite direction.  Burroughs’ Tarzan dominated whatever environment he chose to be in; Lambert’s was a sad figure, overwhelmed and lost,once he left the jungle.  Nevertheless, lavishly produced, the movie was popular with critics and general audiences.  There were Academy Award nominations for Towne’s screenplay and for Rick Baker’s costuming effects for Tarzan’s adopted ape family.  Another live action movie (“Tarzan and the Lost City,” 1998), two short-lived, syndicated TV series, and Disney’s animated “Tarzan” (1999) were released through the 1990s.  

The latest iteration as a live-action feature, “The Legend of Tarzan” (2016), drew tepid reviews and disappointing box-office.  Although the producers cast Samuel L. Jackson in a prominent role alongside Alexander Skarsgard’s Tarzan above the title, the strategy probably did little to attract younger, hipper, and more diverse ticket-buyers as it was intended to.  Jackson’s American envoy remained little more than a sidekick to Tarzan in an 1885 period setting.  If you hoped to see Jackson’s character shove Tarzan aside to get medieval on somebody’s ass, you were disappointed.  In contrast, Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” with a modern Black jungle hero, a largely Black supporting cast and production team, and James Bond-style action situations, emerged two years later with a whopping $1.3 billion in ticket sales and a place on many critics’ Top Ten lists.  The 2022 sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” performed nearly as well with an $838.1 million return. On a $50 million budget, another 2022 Hollywood production with a prestigious Black cast and exotic action in the Burroughs style, “The Woman King,” nearly doubled its investment with $94.3 million in revenue.

In late 2022, Sony Pictures acquired the latest screen rights to Tarzan and promised a “total reinvention” of the character. What the studio has in mind, and whether it will actually follow through, appears to be up in the air right now. Would anybody be surprised to see Tarzan “reinvented” as a role for a Black actor the next time out, if there is a next time?  Popular culture is already there. Vintage movies (“A League of Their Own”) and TV series (“SWAT”) once cast primarily with white actors are remade now, routinely, with Black stars or all-Black casts. On the hit Netflix series “Bridgerton,” actors of color portray British aristocrats in Jane Austen’s Regency-era England, in reality one of the whitest of white societies ever.   

As we wait to see what the next Tarzan, if any, will look like, The Film Detective has released “The Tarzan Vault Collection,” a three-disc Blu-ray set that includes the first Tarzan movie, “Tarzan of the Apes” (1918); “Adventures of Tarzan” (1921), a re-edited feature version of a 10-chapter serial; and “The New Adventures of Tarzan” (1935), a 12-chapter serial presented in its entirety.  The first two pictures starred Elmo Lincoln, a stocky actor who had appeared in several of D.W. Griffith’s milestone silent films, including the ambitious “Intolerance” (1916) as a Biblical strongman, “the Mighty Man of Valor.”  Although it’s said Burroughs wasn’t particularly fond of Lincoln’s casting after another actor was chosen but had to bow out, the films were relatively faithful to the source novels.   Outdoor filming locations in Louisiana for “Tarzan of the Apes” stand in acceptably for equatorial Africa, at least to the satisfaction of moviegoers in 1918 who had no idea what Africa really looked like, and certainly better than the studio backlots used in the Weissmuller films.  Actors in shaggy anthropoid costumes portrayed Tarzan’s ape friends.  Although primitive in comparison with the modern CGI in “The Legend of Tarzan,” the makeup effects aren’t bad for that early era of cinema. 

“Adventures of Tarzan,” based on Burroughs’ “The Return of Tarzan” (1913), finds Tarzan in pursuit of a villain named Rokoff, who has kidnapped Jane in a plot to find the treasure vaults of the lost city of Opar (an idea later reiterated in “The Legend of Tarzan”).  In “The Return of Tarzan” and subsequent novels, Tarzan blithely removes gold and jewels from Burroughs’ imaginary Opar to help support his African estate, reasoning that otherwise the treasure would just lie there.  In the books, the underground vaults are vast, cavernous, and sinister.  In the movie, where the 1921 budget was too low to keep up with Burroughs’ staggering imagination, they look more like somebody’s root cellar.  Good try anyway.  As an hour-long feature truncated from a much longer serial version, “Adventures of Tarzan” is a succession of chases, rescues, and fights from the final chapters of the serial.  A title card at the beginning brings the viewer up to speed on the action already in progress, much as the “Star Wars” movies do now.   

It may be confusing to watch an old serial after most of its continuity has been removed, but the third movie in the Film Detective set, “The New Adventures of Tarzan,” represents the other side of the coin as a serial presented in its original, multi-chapter format.  The serials were designed to be taken one chapter at a time each week.  That remains the best way to experience one.  Otherwise, watched in a binge, repetition becomes a problem.  It’s difficult to work up much concern when Tarzan falls into a crocodile-infested river in Chapter Seven, if, an hour earlier, he’d already escaped the same danger in Chapter Three.  Still, taken piecemeal or in one long sitting, fans will be happy for the chance to see this original version of “The New Adventures of Tarzan,” which is better known in its truncated feature version, “Tarzan and the Green Goddess,” a one-time television staple.  Co-produced by Burroughs, it introduced Herman Brix, a 1928 Olympics finalist, as the title hero.  Trimly muscular, Brix was offered as an alternative to Johnny Weissmuller’s monosyllabic Tarzan; his version, endorsed by Burroughs, spoke in whole, commanding sentences and looked equally comfortable in a loincloth or a dinner jacket.  The serial was set and filmed on location in Guatemala, where Tarzan and his friends race against the bad guys to find a Mayan statue with a valuable secret.  Fans often rank Brix with Jock Mahoney and Mike Henry as their favourite Tarzan.  He later changed his screen name to Bruce Bennett for a long career in Westerns and crime dramas.  Humphrey Bogart fans will remember him as Cody, the drifter who tries to steal Fred C. Dobbs’ gold mine claim in “The Treasure of Sierra Madre.”  

The back story of the serial is more intriguing than the plot about the Mayan statue.  Burroughs fell in love with the wife of his co-producer, Ashton Dearholt, eventually marrying her after she divorced Dearholt and Burroughs divorced his first wife.  In turn, Dearholt had carried on an extramarital affair with Ula Holt, the lead actress in the serial, and they married after Dearholt’s divorce.  It’s the kind of Hollywood story that TMZ.com would love today. 

"Jerome Miller Lives!"

By John M. Whalen

In 1975 film director Sam Peckinpah was at loose ends. His last film, “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” while an artistic triumph of a certain kind, was a box office failure. He had a script for a movie called “The Insurance Company,” but couldn’t get any backing for it. When United Artists offered him a chance to direct a movie based on Robert Rostand’s novel, “Monkey in the Middle,” he took it. The book was a thriller about security expert Mike Locken, hired to protect an African diplomat traveling through London. He takes the job because one of three elite assassins hired to kill the diplomat was a former colleague who had shot him up on his last job and left him for dead. The new assignment was a way to get revenge.

Peckinpah saw some elements in the story that he felt he could work with. But when UA offered the Mike Locken role to James Caan, he said he didn’t want to work in Europe, where he’d been working the last several years. He’d do it, if they changed the location to the U.S. Marc Norman rewrote the script that Reginald Rose had written based on the novel, but UA and Peckinpah hated it. Top notch screenwriter, Oscar winner Stirling Silliphant (“In the Heat of the Night”) was hired to do a new script. Silliphant, only married a year to Tiana, his 33-years younger Vietnamese actress wife, said he’d do the script but only if they agreed to put her in the picture as Locken’s love interest. Peckinpah tested her and gave the part.

Tiana and Silliphant were both former students of Bruce Lee and Silliphant had always had an interest in Asian culture and philosophy. So he set the story in San Francisco, using Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge and other locations, and brought aboard kung fu and martial arts experts like the legendary Tai Chi master Kuo Lien Ying to play some of the background characters. He created a fictitious security agency named ComTeg, and changed the character of the African diplomat to a Taiwanese politician named Chung (Mako), who was traveling with his daughter Tommy (Tiana). Robert Duvall was brought on board to play George Hansen, Locken’s best buddy, who in the movie’s first act, succumbed to a better offer from the opposition on a previous assignment, and shot Locken in the knee and elbow, “retiring” him from active service. The first 40 minutes of “The Killer Elite” consists mostly of Hansen’s betrayal and Locken’s rehabilitation, rendered in excruciating detail. He learns to use a metal elbow brace and wooden cane as martial arts weapons.

Locken’s bosses at ComTeg, Cap Collis (Arthur Hill), and Lawrence Weybourne (Gig Young), tell him he has to retire with disability. “Let’s face it,” Collis says. “That knee of yours will never be anything but a wet noodle.” When the CIA contracts ComTeg to provide security for Chung and his daughter while they’re in the U.S., they’re not interested until they learn that Hansen is heading up a team to eliminate Chung. Collis and Weybourne offer Locken his old job back—the chance for revenge that Mike has been waiting for.

Locken gets in touch with two members of his old team for two or three days of work. “I don’t think anyone could handle more of what we got.” He meets up with Jerome Miller (Bo Hopkins) on a hillside overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, where he’s practicing his skeet shooting, which is probably not something that happens there every day. Miller tells him he doesn’t think his company would hire him. “They’ve got me classified as a psycho.” Locken tells him: “You’re not a psycho, Jerome. You’re the patron poet of the manic depressives.” A typical Silliphant line.

Next up is Mac (Burt Young), his old driver, who now runs a garage, where he just happens to have a bullet proof taxi available that would be just perfect for the job Locken has in mind. Mac’s wife calls Locken Mr. Davis. When Locken asks why, Mac says: “When you’re around, she calls everybody Mr. Davis.” They don’t know it, but while everybody’s getting reacquainted, a mechanic has attached a bomb to the exhaust manifold.

The trio drive to San Francisco’s Chinatown to pick up Chung and his daughter. Naturally there’s a gun battle with Hansen and another gunman perched on the roof of the building across the street from the place where Chung is staying. They manage to shoot their way out, but Mac hears something rattling under the taxi. It’s bomb disposal time. They pull over on an overpass and get some assistance from a dim-witted motorcycle cop— another scene that is as unrealistic and impossible as the scene with Jerome skeet shooting out in the open by the Golden Gate Bridge.

At this point you begin to suspect there’s something weird going on. This is not your typical action thriller being played out here. As the story moves on absurdity piles on absurdity, all of which culminates in an unlikely battle between assassins equipped with automatic weapons and a team of ghost-like ninjas armed with swords, aboard the deck of an abandoned battleship, part of the Navy’s Mothball Fleet anchored in Suisan Bay. Got all that?

Critic Pauline Kael in a 1976 review for The New Yorker described Peckinpah’s career as a constant battle with studio bosses who consistently tried to take the movies he made away from him, demanding changes more in line with their thinking rather than his. As a result he kept making movies that are more about that battle than any melodramatic plot that may be involved. “There’s no way to make sense of what has been going on in Peckinpah’s recent films,” she wrote, “if one looks only at their surface stories. Whether consciously or, as I think, part unconsciously, he’s been destroying the surface content.” According to Kael, “He’s crowing in The Killer Elite, saying, ‘No matter what you do to me, look at the way I can make a movie.’”

She attributes most of the film’s weirdness to Peckinpah, but it might also be instructive to look at the career of screenwriter Stirling Silliphant for some clues about the subtext both he and Peckinpah present in The Killer Elite. Like Peckinpah, Silliphant started out working in television. Peckinpah wrote episodes of “Gunsmoke,” and created “The Rifleman” and “The Westerner” series. Silliphant wrote for just about every TV series on the air in the mid-fifties, eventually writing 70 hour-long episodes of the classic Route 66 series, before moving to the movies. He left television because of the same problem Peckinpah faced in filmmaking—loss of creative control. He went on to achieve great success in films but when he wrote the script for The Killer Elite, it was a year after having penned The Towering Inferno. It was a successful, well-written movie but he probably realized he had sold out his artistic independence when the hopped on the Irwin Allen Disaster Movie bandwagon, which he began with The Poseidon Adventure. It would be only a few years after “The Killer Elite” that he would nearly destroy his career turning out the script for Allen’s “The Swarm.”

For relief between projects, he would take Tiana aboard his yacht, the Tiana 2, and sail to exotic ports in the South Pacific. It’s no coincidence, I think, that “The Killer Elite” ends with Locken turning down a job offer and a promotion from his old boss Weybourne, and sails away on a sailboat with his pal Mac (Miller is killed in the gunfight on the Mothball Fleet). When Silliphant saw no future for him if he remained in what he publicly called “the eel pit” that was Hollywood he sold everything and moved to Thailand.

Peckinpah held similar sentiments about the Hollywood establishment. He said in a 1972 Playboy interview: “The woods are full of killers, all sizes, all colors. … A director has to deal with a whole world absolutely teeming with mediocrities, jackals, hangers-on, and just plain killers. The attrition is terrific. It can kill you. The saying is that they can kill you but not eat you. That’s nonsense. I’ve had them eating on me while I was still walking around.” I think he identified with Silliphant’s image of a hero sailing away from it all if he could.

Imprint’s two-disc box set is a must have for any Peckinpah fan or anyone who digs action thrillers, Silliphant, martial arts, or the poetry of manic depression. The first disc presents the “original” theatrical version in a 1080p high definition transfer from MGM that runs 2 hours and 3 minutes, and includes a ton of bonus features, most notable of which is a fabulous audio commentary by Peckinpah expert Mike Siegel. He provides some terrific revelations about the film and its production and shows a real appreciation of Peckinpah’s work. Siegel indicates that Sam, at Bo Hopkins’ suggestion, filmed an alternate “absurdist” ending in which Locken and Mac find Miller alive and well aboard the sailboat, after having been seen getting shot to pieces. In an interview with Siegel, Hopkins confirms that bit of info, and even shows some footage of the scene that was finally excised by the bosses at United Artists, who just didn’t get it. In a separate commentary ported over from a previous Twilight Time release, Garner Simmons and Paul Seydor, two film historians whom I lovingly refer to as the Peckinpah Peckerwoods, and the late Nick Redman, make the assertion that the complete film, with the Jerome Miller “resurrection” scene had one showing in Northern California and has never been seen again.

Well, I beg to differ with that statement. Fellow Cinema Retro reviewer Fred Blosser and I saw The Killer Elite the night it opened in December 19, 1975 at a local theater in northern Virginia. The scene in question was definitely included. Fred states that he has also seen it in the occasional TV broadcast of the film. So, despite statements made to the contrary, there probably is at least one copy of the unexpurgated “The Killer Elite” out there somewhere. JEROME MILLER LIVES!

Other extras included in the Imprint release include an alternate, shorter version of the film that mainly cuts scenes from Locken’s painful looking rehab; documentaries taken from Siegel’s The Passion and the Poetry Project on the works of Sam Peckinpah; interviews Siegel conducted with Bo Hopkins, Ernest Borgnine, LQ Jones and others. There is so much here to enjoy. The bad news is that Imprint has sold out of the 1500 copies it made. I obtained one the last two copies Grindhouse Video had left, but now they are sold out. Good luck trying to find a copy. Check your usual sources. (Note: as of this writing, there are still a few copies left at Amazon USA. Although it is listed as a Region 2 set, it is actually region-free. Click here to order. Good luck!)

Universal kindly presents the full uncut, commercial free streamer of director Anthony Mann's 1952 film "Bend of the River" starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy and newcomer Rock Hudson. 

(To watch the film in full screen, click on "Watch on YouTube".)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The only commonal element among the films of director Nicolas Roeg is that there are no common elements. Roeg graduated from being one of the industry's most respected and innovative cinematographers to becoming an esteemed filmmaker in his own right. Among his disparate productions: the London crime film "Performance", the bizarre David Bowie starrer "The Man Who Fell to Earth", the cult favorite "Bad Timing" and his most accomplished film, the adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's supernatural novel "Don't Look Now", which ranks as one of the most atmospheric and terrifying movies ever made. By the early 1990s, however, Roeg's penchant for making avant garde films with limited boxoffice appeal- combined with his insistence on not compromising his artistic visions in the name of commerce- put him at odds with studio executives. His movies were largely appreciated by the art house cinema crowd but that didn't endear him to the studio bosses in the corner offices. One of Roeg's most bizarre, ambitious and expensive films was the little-seen and even less-remembered "Eureka", a 1983 production that was bedeviled by bad luck. First the basics: Roeg initially approached screenwriter Paul Mayersberg to adapt a book titled "Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes?" by Marshall Houts. Sir Harry Oakes may have faded into historical obscurity but in 1943 he was certainly one of the most famous men in the world- and had been for two decades. It all began when Oakes, an American by birth, went north into the wilds of Canada in his quest to prospect for gold. He doggedly pursued this ambition for fifteen years before stumbling upon what became the greatest discovery and claim for gold in North American history. Overnight Oakes became one of the richest men on earth. He later moved to the Bahamas where he lived comfortably on a large estate with his wife and daughter. Enamored by the British gentry he interacted with, Oakes changed his citizenship and became a subject of England. Big money buys impressive friends and Oakes was quite chummy with the Duke of Windsor, who had made a wee bit of a splash himself a few years earlier when he was known as King Edward VIII- yes, that King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne in order to marry the love of his life. Edward was by then relegated to being the Governor-General of the Bahamas, some theorized to get him off the front pages. Between his scandalous  marriage and the fact that he was deemed an appeaser to Hitler in the lead up to the war with Germany, which was now raging, the Duke was not "Flavor of the Month" in his native England. Still, he and Harry Oakes hit it off rather well and before long Harry was knighted, ostensibly because of his sizable contributions to charity, but some theorized the Duke had pulled some strings on his behalf. Sir Harry's bliss was short-lived. In 1943, he was brutally murdered in his own bed. How brutal was the crime? Well, he was bludgeoned, tarred and feathered, burned alive and beheaded.  As you might imagine, the cause of death was not listed as suicide. Clearly, at least one person in his orbit was not very enamored of him and it was decided that the person who liked him least was his son-in-law, who Harry had virtually disowned. A sensational trial took place that resulted in breathless international coverage but the suspect was found to be not guilty on the basis of flimsy evidence. The sensational case remains technically unsolved to this day, though amateur sleuths still debate who the real culprit was and what his motive might have been. 

Nicolas Roeg was understandably intrigued by this story and was delighted when screenwriter Paul Mayersberg had also read the book that Roeg wanted him adapt for the screen. He, too, had longed to make a film of it. With the two men in synch, they set out to make a linear retelling of the remarkable characters and events pertaining to Sir Harry's life. However, they realized that since several of the major players in his life were still alive, the production could be plagued by lawsuits. Thus, they decided to give fictitious names to the characters. This also liberated them in terms of using artistic license when desirable, as they were no longer attempting to present a purely factual study of Sir Harry's life and death. It also liberated Roeg by allowing him to bring more esoteric elements into the production. The central character was now named Jack McCann (Gene Hackman) and our first view of him is indeed striking: he in embroiled in a violent struggle with another man in the midst of a raging blizzard in the Canadian wilderness. An unidentified woman, presumably the other man's wife, pleads for the men to stop fighting and we learn that Jack, who has been enraged by something that is never explained, is splitting up his prospecting partnership with the other man. He eventually storms off into the intimidating landscape to continue to pursue his goal of finding a major strike. Ultimately he does just that by literally falling into a fortune when he slips through a crevice and finds himself in an underground cave that is literally raining gold dust. He rejoices in his triumph but his happiness is short-lived. He returns to the bordello where the love of his life, a local hooker and oracle (Helena Kallianiotes) is literally on her death bed and she dies in his arms. It's the first in a string of unfortunate incidents that will plague Jack's  life. The scene then abruptly switches to twenty years later when we find Jack comfortably residing in his Bahamian estate named, appropriately enough, Eureka. He's a hot-tempered man prone to violent outbursts. The only calming influence in his life is his twenty year-old beautiful daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell), who he clearly adores but who also brings him consternation because of her strong, independent ways. Tracy has married Claude Malliot Van Horn (Rutger Hauer), a handsome, charismatic European gigolo. Jack can immediately see through Claude's motives and calls him out for being an opportunist who is using Tracy to get access to the McCann fortune. The rift results in Tracy becoming estranged from Jack and her mother, Helen (Jane Lapotaire), a weak-willed woman who Jack treats as he would the hired help. A parallel subplot finds Jack being pressured by his friend and business associate Charles Perkins (Ed Lauter) to sell his beloved estate to a group of American gangsters headed by a man named Mayaofsky (Joe Pesci) and his second-in-command Aurello D'Amato (Mickey Rourke). Seems they want to expand their operations to the island Jack resides on and consider his land crucial to their plans. Typically, Jack not only rejects their offer but insults them in the process, leading to the gangsters deciding to take strong-arm tactics against him. In the film's most disturbing scene (and there are several), Jack is murdered in his bed by being bludgeoned, tortured with a blowtorch and (we learn later) beheaded. It's an incredibly gruesome sight to behold, as Roeg holds nothing back from the viewer except the decapitation. (We should be thankful for small favors). The balance of the film concerns the resulting murder trial, which mirrors the real life case in that Jack's son-in-law was arrested and charged with the crime. He had motive and opportunity- but so did many of his enemies including the gangsters. 

"Eureka" may have been an ambitious undertaking but it's also a highly unsatisfying one. The script provides us with a dearth of sympathetic characters. With the exception of Tracy (who is superbly played by Roeg's then-wife Theresa Russell, who made numerous other films with him), there isn't a single other character with any admirable traits. Hackman delivers a powerful performance as McCann but the character is sketchy. We all know money doesn't always buy happiness but we never get to the root cause of his dissatisfaction with life and everyone around him. The supporting cast is equally excellent with Rutger Hauer giving one of the best performances of his career as the vain, almost effeminate pretty boy whose charm makes Tracy blind to his vulgarities. These are demonstrated in a very haunting sequence in which Claude and two female companions secretly attend a voodoo ritual that becomes a pagan-like orgy which leaves everyone involved disgraced and emotionally scarred. Joe Pesci and Mickey Rourke are impressive as the gangsters, with Pesci uncharacteristically underplaying his role, while Ed Lauter does the same as Jack's wimpy friend Charlie. The main problem with "Eureka" is that Roeg values style over substance. The entire first section of the film involving Jack's quest for gold is compromised by Roeg dropping in metaphysical and supernatural aspects, implying that his seer girlfriend is somehow sending him psychic signals to find the gold even though this will inexplicably cost her her own life. Even when the story gets on more traditional footing in Jack's later years, Roeg still toys with the viewer by inserting artistic touches that are visually striking but which distract the audience and make things quite confusing to follow.  At times it's hard to figure out who is who and what everyone's relationships and motivations are. Roeg also can't resist making numerous analogies between the characters of Jack McCann and Charles Foster Kane, though the comparisons seem a bit obvious and heavy handed. Having said that, the movie looks beautiful and Alex Thomson's cinematography is top-notch, as is the lush musical score by Stanley Myers.  

If Jack McCann's fate seemed cursed, so did "Eureka" as a major film production. The movie was financed and was to be distributed by United Artists. However, during production the management team of the long-troubled studio changed and "Eureka" was treated as an orphan project that had been green lit by the previous regime. Not helping matters was the fact that a test screening proved to be very discouraging, with the audience overwhelmingly giving the quirky film a "thumbs down" verdict. UA sat on the movie for two years before giving it a very minor and abbreviated release, after which it fell into obscurity. Twilight Time has released the film as a special edition Blu-ray, limited to only 3,000 units- and kudos for them for doing so. Although the film is a misguided and unsatisfying enterprise, it still has enough impressive aspects to merit a look by any serious movie scholar. "Eureka" is an artistic failure in this writer's opinion but at least it's a fascinating one and certainly worth a look in order to draw your own conclusions.

The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, which is available through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV for $2.99 per month. 

Click here to order DVD from Amazon

By Lee Pfeiffer

A very positive aspect about streaming movies through Amazon Prime is that the service affords retro movie fans a seemingly limitless buffet of films that have never been released on DVD or Blu-ray. Thus, when I came upon a little-remembered 1972 TV movie, "She Waits", I was tempted to tune in. After all, any movie that offers a cast headed by Patty Duke, David McCallum, Dorothy McGuire, Lew Ayres and Beulah Bondi was certain to be worth checking out. I probably saw the movie back in the day but had no recollection of it. The 1970s was the Golden Age of TV movie and mini-series and every week viewers were enticed to check out big stars in original TV productions. The ratio of hits-to-misses was impressive. Some truly memorable productions were broadcast including young Steven Spielberg's classic road rage thriller "Duel". "She Waits" is no "Duel", but it is an interesting entry in the TV movie genre. You might think its premise of otherworldly possession of an innocent person was yet another entry inspired by "The Exorcist", but "She Waits" aired more than a year before "The Exorcist" was released- although a case could be made that it was inspired by the phenomenal success of William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel. 

In addition to the impressive cast, "She Waits" also boasted an impressive director: Delbert Mann, whose feature films included such acclaimed gems as "Marty", "Separate Tables" and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" as well as the Doris Day hits "Lover Come Back" and "That Touch of Mink". By the early 1970s, however, Mann's star had eroded somewhat and he crossed over to television productions where he found constant employment. The script for "She Waits" was written by Art Wallace, who knew a thing or two about supernatural scenarios, having written an abundance of episodes of "Dark Shadows". In short, there's a lot of talent involved with this rather run-of-the-mill production.

McCallum and Duke play Mark and Laura McGuire, a newlywed couple who met in Tokyo, where Mark holds a prestigious executive position for a big company. They have traveled back to the States so that Laura can meet Mark's mother Sarah (Dorothy McGuire), whose precarious health leaves her spending most of her time in bed, cared for by the long-serving nanny Mrs. Medina (Beulah Bondi, reunited with McGuire with whom she appeared in "A Summer Place".) The two women inhabit one of those big Victorian-era homes that generally ensure there are plenty of things that go "bump" in the night. From the moment of their arrival, Mark and Laura find Sarah in a rather disturbed state of mind. She privately encourages Mark to leave the house as soon as possible and stay at a hotel, but Mark will have not consider it. He wants to stay in the house he grew up in. The reason for this sentiment is puzzling because we learn the cause of Sarah's trepidation relates to horrendous memories she and Mark have of his time in the home. It seems that Mark had previously resided there with his first wife, Elaine, who was apparently a nasty, demanding and manipulative woman. After one particularly bad argument with Mark, he stormed out of the house and Elaine was found dead from a gunshot wound which was attributed to suicide. Sarah tries to convince Mark that Elaine's spirit still remains in the house and that she will likely exact revenge on him through endangering Laura. Despite Laura's efforts to win Sarah's affections, she finds the situation in the house to be unnerving, with Mark and his mother keeping her in the dark about how Laura died. (It seems a bit of a stretch that Laura wouldn't have asked Mark about his former spouse prior to marrying him.) Mark summons Sarah's long-time physician, Dr. Carpenter, who seemingly has no other patients, as he virtually moves into the house to care for Sarah through administering numerous sedatives. Before long, Sarah's predictions begin to ring true, as Laura begins to feel a presence in the house and hears ominous voices and other indications that Elaine is still a presence there. Ultimately, Sarah confides in Laura about a shocking secret concerning her death and Mark's involvement. But that's just the beginning of the nightmare scenario, as Elaine's spirit takes possession of Laura.

"She Waits" is hardly a distinguished entry in films of this type, but it is enjoyable on a certain level, primarily due to the cast, who rise above the cliches. The film was obviously done on a low budget, as there are very few exteriors. The production design of the house is impressive, however, and Morton Stevens provides a suitably eerie score, right down to including organ music.

The main problem with watching "She Waits" on Amazon opens up a subject for debate. The source for the streaming version seems to have been derived from a VHS tape, which is the only home video format it has ever been available on. Viewed on today's hi-tech widescreen TVs, the show is barely watchable. The image looks as though it were filmed with a dirty camera lens through a murky pane of glass. Amazon's barely existent standards for what passes as appropriate for its screening service leaves a dilemma for retro movie fans. Is it acceptable to present such an atrocious version of a film if its the only way those interested can see it? Film directors and industry professionals would probably oppose showing their work in such a manner but historians would argue that even a sub-par version can be valuable for research purposes. As is evidenced by this review, I'm in the latter camp, though I certainly sympathize with filmmakers who object to having their carefully-crafted work presented in such a manner. If you have Amazon Prime, watch "She Waits" and decide for yourself.

By Hank Reineke

The folks who might best recall Crane Wilbur as the dashing paramour of Pearl White in the silent chapter serial The Perils of Pauline (1914) are now long gone. Though he continued to accept occasional film and stage roles, by the early 1930s, Wilbur turned to screenwriting and directing. He had already garnered plenty of experience with the former, having produced a score of scenarios for two and four reel silents from 1915-1925. Though he’s likely best remembered for his scripts on such sound “crime and punishment” noirs as He Walked by Night (1948), Wilbur also dabbled in horror-mysteries, turning out scripts for a trio of Vincent Price vehicles (House of Wax (1953), The Mad Magician (1954) and The Bat (1959).

Truth be told, The Bat is not considered one of Crane’s (nor Price’s) best films, but there’s still plenty to like about - assuming creaky manor murder mysteries are your thing. The film setting is a sprawling mansion that houses a secret, and within that familiar scenario all traditional mystery tropes are present. There’s thunder and lightning, shutters battered by ghostly winds, shadowy staircases, secret rooms, suits of armor toppling for unexplained reasons, and – of course – victims dispassionately dispatched by “The Bat,” a mysterious figure cloaked in black. “The Bat,” we learn, is rightfully feared. There are reports he already mercilessly murdered two women, both having their “throats ripped open with steel claws.”

To no cinemagoer’s surprise, Chief of Detectives Lieutenant Andy Anderson (Gavin Gordon) suspects the person masquerading as “The Bat” is the otherwise affable Dr. Malcolm Wells (Vincent Price). His suspicions are not unreasonable: Dr. Wells works with live bats in his humble home laboratory in which he – inexplicably – secrets a neon-lit portraiture of a bat in full wingspread behind a window curtain. We also learn, quite early in the film, that while Price appears malleable he’s nonetheless a man capable of violence.

During a remote cabin visit with his friend John Fleming, a bank president, Wells is asked what ends he might agree to for a half-million dollar reward. “Anything short of murder,” Wells replies. When Fleming – rather stupidly - confesses to embezzling 350,000 bonds of his bank’s negotiable securities, Price is shocked by his friend’s frank admission. Dr. Wells initially appears a man of honor, steadfastly refusing to be a half-partner in the scheme. Disappointed with his friend’s lukewarm response to a criminal partnership, the duplicitous banker has no choice but kill Dr. Wells – who now knows too much. But Price, getting the upper-hand, manages to shoot Fleming dead. He disposes of Fleming’s body in a forest fire set to cover evidence of the struggle and murder.

Though the police are still unaware of Fleming’s murder, they are investigating the reports the bank has been swindled of one million dollars. Both the police and the mysterious “The Bat” appear to have focused their interests in getting their hands on the purloined assets. They are not the only interested parties. John Fleming’s nephew Mark (John Bryant) is set to inherit his Uncle’s riches due to his relative having perished in the “forest fire.” Bryant believes the stolen funds might be secretly stashed somewhere in the Oaks, the old mansion leased by his Uncle to the famed mystery novelist Cornelia van Gorder (Agnes Moorehead). Bryant has access to the builder’s original blueprints to the mansion. He plans to use them to search out a secret room and the stolen assets.

Moorehead’s life as a mystery writer is neither solitary nor contemplative. It’s actually a pretty busy place, with police coming and going and with house guests and intruders’ alike murdered. She shares her home with busy-bee, nervous housekeeper Lizzie Allen (Lenita Lane) and a stone-faced chauffeur-butler Warner (John Sutton). Sutton’s face, if not his name, should be familiar to Vincent Price fans. The two actors shared screen credit in such productions as The Tower of London (1939), The Invisible Man Returns (1940), and The Return of the Fly (1959).

The scenario of The Bat was lifted from Mary Roberts Rinehart’s 1908 novel The Circular Staircase, already made as a five-reel silent film as early as 1915. In 1920 the novel was adapted for a successful and long-running Broadway stage play retitled The Bat. The popularity of the stage play begat three subsequent film versions (a nine-reel silent version (1926) and two sound versions: The Bat Whispers (1930) and The Bat (1959).

Though a redoubtable mystery, if you’re unable to sort out the identity of “The Bat” within the pictures first twenty minutes… Well, I suggest you skip a career in police or detective work. That’s not to say Wilbur’s eighty-minute running time version lags or lacks surprises. But the film is a bit insular: ninety-five percent of the film – which began production on April 27, 1959 – was shot economically and stagey in interior settings. In the final analysis Wilbur delivers a workmanlike, familiar mystery that’s just intriguing enough to hold one’s interest… but, alas, it’s no classic.

There was some effort made to freshen the old property. While the film was in production C.J. Tevlin of Liberty Pictures told the Los Angeles Mirror that Wilbur was determined to bring a “horror” element to the “classic murder mystery.” To that end, the filmmakers were going introduce live bats into the existing scenario: “Two dozen bats have been collected and put into cages at Allied Artists studio for use in the picture. Augie Lohman, head of the special effects department, hired Indian boys to capture the bats from caves near his Tehachapi ranch. The bats have 13-inch wingspreads, with bodies considerably larger than a mouse, and vicious, needle-like teeth.” Sure, it all sounded cool. So it’s disappointing when only two smallish bats appear on screen, one so tightly gripped it’s barely allowed a single flutter.

If nothing else, such early production ballyhoo recognized horror films were hot, inexpensive commercial commodities, its spooky tropes certain to bring in audiences. 1959 was, in a sense, a career-defining year for Vincent Price. He was seen on the big screen in no fewer than five feature films, three of which were horror/sci-fi offerings regarded today as minor cult-classics: House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler and The Return of Fly. In comparison to that celebrated trio, The Bat serves only weak tea, though Price’s role as Dr. Wells further solidified his reputation as the preeminent star of contemporary horror pictures.

Of course for all of its trappings, The Bat is not a horror film. In fact there’s little denying there were more cobwebs in the script than on the walls. Upon the film’s release, critical reaction to the picture was mixed, ranging from muted praise to mild dismissal. One review noted, fairly, “Despite author-director Crane Wilbur’s “modernization” of the screenplay […] “The Bat” creaks with age, and all the ails and aches of its stereotyped plot convolutions are manifold.”

It is what it is. Film Detective has given us what I believe is the nicest transfer of The Bat that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty: the film has long been in public domain status. More often than not, you could find the film on one of those cheaply-produced mystery/horror/suspense budget multi-pack releases relegated to chain-store discount bins. This Film Detective “Special Edition,” is just that – very special. Offering The Bat in a 1.85:1 aspect radio and dts monaural sound, the company has chosen to spruce up their already elegant presentation with a number of intriguing bonus features.

For starters, we’re treated to the twenty-three minute featurette The Case for Crane Wilbur, written and produced by Daniel Griffith for Ballyhoo Pictures, with narration by C. Courtney Joyner. The documentary compactly traces Wilbur’s career on the stage through his debut as a film actor in 1910 and examines his second career as screenwriter and director.

The set also includes an informative audio commentary courtesy of film noir scholar Jason A. Ney. Ney is also the author of the sixteen-page booklet included in the set. His essay, The Case of the Forgotten Author: The Literary Conundrum of Mary Roberts Rinehart, studies the work of this now mostly forgotten but wildly successful mystery novelist whose novel and play inspired the many iterations of The Bat.

One of the most generous additions to this set – and one I’m particularly enthralled with - is the inclusion of no fewer than nine – yes, nine - archival radio broadcasts featuring Vincent Price. These recordings, sourced from such vintage radio programs as Suspense, Escape, Theatre of Romance, Hollywood Star Time and the CBS Radio Workshop, were taken from the original broadcasts 1943 through 1956. This collection of programs alone make this set a required purchase for fans of the actor who might not have yet examined – or dimly recall - Price’s radio work.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

"The Wilby Conspiracy" is primarily notable for the teaming of two big screen legends: Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine. The 1975 film itself aspires to be a bold indictment of South Africa's cruel apartheid regime which saw black residents of the country terrorized and humiliated by the white minority.  Most movies wouldn't go near the topic in the mid-1970s so the script, based on Peter Driscoll's novel, is to be commended for being ahead of the game in terms of raising awareness of the practices that would ultimately bring down the corrupt regime and see the seemingly impossible achievement of having one-time political prisoner Nelson Mandela elected as president. Yet, screenwriters Rod Amateau and Harold Nebenzal were obviously tasked with primarily delivering an action adventure "buddy" pic that starts off resembling Poiter's 1950s classic "The Defiant Ones" (the protagonists are even handcuffed together for a time.) Adding another note of nostalgia is that the film reunited Poitier with director Ralph Nelson, with whom he collaborated on "Lilies of the Field" and "Duel at Diablo".

The film opens with a courtroom scene in which a prisoner, Shack Twala (Poitier) is awaiting what is believed to be a predetermined sentence for political "crimes" that will see him sent back to prison. Twala is a prominent black activist who has gained international attention for his objections to social injustice. Much to the surprise of Twala and his lawyer, Rina Van Niekerk (Prunella Gee), Twala is absolved of the crime and is released as a free man. The good feelings don't last long, however. During the drive home, their car is stopped by police officers who harass Twala, who becomes enraged and fights back with the help of Rina's boyfriend, Jim Keogh (Caine), a mining executive who is largely apolitical. Now wanted by the law, the two men drop off Rina and flee to Johannesburg, a 900 mile journey. There, Twala hopes to unite with a fellow political activist who might be able to sneak them across the border into Botswana. They have plenty of close calls and are aggressively pursued by Major Horn (Nicol Williamson), a dreaded higher up in the nation's nefarious security forces that routinely employed torture. They also learn that there was an ulterior motive in the court case that saw the government drop charges against Twala. The plot gets increasingly burdened with secondary characters and the search for a large cache of stolen diamonds that went missing many years ago. Twala wants to recover them and deliver them to a man named Wilby (Joe de Graft), the head of the black resistance movement who resides freely in Botswana. The plan is to use the diamonds to finance Wilby's attempts to publicize and shame the apartheid regime. Along the way there are double crosses and people who turn out to be dubious allies to the men who are on the lam. Most amusing is Saeed Jaffrey as a timid dentist who nevertheless risks his life for the activists cause. He also employs a fellow conspirator, Persis (Persis Khambatta), who seems to have been primarily written into the film in order to shoehorn in a rather absurd and unconvincing sex scene between her and Twala. Caine is in top form as the meek man who turns into an action hero literally overnight and he has the movie's best one-liners. Poitier, while not wasted, is under-utilized and lacks any scenes of great dramatic power. Prunella Gee provides a fine, spirited performance but the scene stealer is Nicol Williamson, who presents a fascinating villain who is charismatic, yet cruel and totally dedicated to enshrining white supremacy in South Africa by whatever means he needs to employ. (Like his real life counterparts, he naturally considers himself to be a patriot.)

The film abounds with impressive action scenes though a couple come close to "jumping the shark" in terms of credibility. (Ironically, the most suspense was generated off screen when an errant camera crashed through a speeding car with Poitier and Caine in the front seats, almost killing them both.) The movie also has an adequate score by Lalo Schifrin, though the decision to open this action opus with a romantic love song over the credits is bewildering. Because South Africa was obviously not available as a film location, Kenya substituted nicely and director Nelson makes the most of the expansive landscapes. Interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios outside of London. There are quite a few "behind-the-cameras" talents from the James Bond films: Associate Producer Stanley Sopel, Sound Recordist Gordon K. McCallum, legendary stunt coordinator Bob Simmons, First Assistant Editor John Grover and and Stills Photographer George Whitear. Another trivia note: the film was produced by actor/director Helmut Dantine, who has a small role in the movie. So there's a lot of talent both on and off-screen and while the movie is certainly not a classic, it can be recommended as a fun and sometimes poignant action flick.

(Now streaming on Screenpix, available through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV for $2.99 per month.)

CLICK HERE TO ORDER BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON

To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Kino Lorber provides free viewing of the landmark 1970 documentary "King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis".

Constructed from a wealth of archival footage, King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis is a monumental documentary that follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1955 to 1968, in his rise from regional activist to world-renowned leader of the Civil Rights movement. Rare footage of King's speeches, protests, and arrests are interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by heartfelt testimonials by some of Hollywood's biggest stars. King was originally presented as a one-night-only special event on March 20, 1970, at an epic length of more than three hours (plus intermission). Since that time, the film has occasionally been circulated in a version shortened by more than an hour. Newly restored by the Library of Congress, in association with Richard Kaplan, and utilizing film elements provided by The Museum of Modern Art, the original version of King can again be seen in its entirety, mastered in HD from the 35mm preservation negative. Admitted to the National Film Registry in 1999, King is a cinematic national treasure that allows viewers to be first-hand witnesses to Dr. King's crusade, and thereby gain a fuller appreciation of both the personal challenges he endured and the vast cultural legacy he left behind.

(To watch in full screen format, click on "Watch on YouTube".) 

Cinema Retro has received the following announcement from Kino Lorber:

“Marathon Man”

(1976, 125m)

4K UHD + Blu-ray

Street Date: 2/28/2023

Director: John Schlesinger

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Marc Lawrence, Jacques Marin, Richard Bright

Is it safe? From the best-selling novel by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Misery) comes one of the most daring and affecting thrillers ever brought to the screen. Dustin Hoffman (Papillon) plays the likable graduate student and marathon runner of the title, unwillingly trapped in a killing game of intrigue involving a Nazi fugitive, Christian Szell. Laurence Olivier (Sleuth) received an Academy Award nomination for his chilling portrayal of Szell, who turns dental instruments into tools of torture with dispassionate ease. Directed by John Schlesinger (Billy Liar, Midnight Cowboy, The Day of the Locust), Marathon Man moves with nail-biting suspense to its gripping, fever-pitched conclusion. Featuring Roy Scheider (Jaws), William Devane (Rolling Thunder), Marthe Keller (Black Sunday) and the extraordinary cinematography of Conrad Hall (Electra Glide in Blue).

Bonus Features:

DISC 1 (4KUHD): Brand New HDR/Dolby Vision Master – From a 4K Scan of the Original Camera Negative | NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson | 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio | Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc | Optional English Subtitles / DISC 2 (BLU-RAY): Brand New 2022 HD Master – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative | NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson | The Magic of Hollywood: Original Making of Marathon Man | Going the Distance: Remembering Marathon Man | Rehearsal Footage | Theatrical Trailer | 10 TV Spots | 2 Radio Spots | Dual-Layered BD50 Disc | Optional English Subtitles

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The Australian video label ViaVision's Imprint line has released "The Avengers: The Emma Peel Collection (1965-1967) as a Blu-ray special edition set consisting of 16 discs containing every episode featuring Diana Rigg. We just received a review set and haven't even made a dent in the mind-boggling number of bonus extra features but we can say that the quality is outstanding throughout. Best of all, the set is region-free.

Here is the official description:

Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state have to be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such people are John Steed, top professional, and his partner, Emma Peel, talented amateur. Otherwise known as The Avengers. With lethal bowler hat and umbrella, killer fashion and kung fu, the secret agents investigate bizarre and colourful adventures with nonchalant efficiency, sophistication and charm.

Whilst every era of the long-running, enduringly popular and trend-setting British series has its own unique style, charm and wit, it is the Emma Peel years that have become the programme’s most iconic and recognisable, with Diana Rigg’s portrayal of Mrs. Emma Peel ushering in a new era of excitement, fashion and iconology, coupled with Patrick Macnee’s continuing depiction of the urbane and sublime John Steed.

Now, this 16-disc Blu-ray set brings together every episode from the Emma Peel era in stunning high-definition encompassing the complete Series 4 and 5, plus a copious collection of vintage and new Special Features celebrating this peak era of The Avengers.

Special Features and Technical Specs: 

• 1080p high-definition presentation from the original 35mm elements
• Collectable double-sided Hardbox packaging LIMITED to 1500 copies
• 120-page booklet featuring essay by Dick Fiddy of the British Film Institute and Story Information for every episode taken from the original studio files
• Original ‘as broadcast’ mono audio tracks (LPCM)
• Original ‘as broadcast’ “The Avengers in Color” opening slate on Series 5 episodes
• Audio Commentary on “The Town of No Return” by producer / writer Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker
• Audio Commentary on “The Master Minds” by writer Robert Banks Stewart
• Audio Commentary on “Dial A Deadly Number” by writer Roger Marshall
• Audio Commentary on “The Hour That Never Was” by director Gerry O’Hara
• Audio Commentary on “The House That Jack Built” by director Don Leaver
• Audio Commentary on “The Winged Avenger” by writer Richard Harris
• Audio Commentary on “Epic” by guest actor Peter Wyngarde
• NEW Audio Commentary on “The Joker” by filmmakers Sam Clemens and George Clemens (sons of writer/producer Brian Clemens) (2022)
• Audio Commentary on “Return of The Cybernauts” by Diana Rigg’s stunt-double Cyd Child
• Audio Commentary on “Murdersville” by producer / writer Brian Clemens
• Filmed introductions to eight Series 5 episodes by producer / writer Brian Clemens
• Filmed introduction to “The ?50,000 Breakfast” by guest actress Anneke Wills
• Brief audio recollection from guest actor Francis Matthews on filming “The Thirteenth Hole”
• “THE AVENGERS AT 50” – Footage captured from the 50^th anniversary celebration of the series, held at Chichester University in 2011. Includes: video message from Patrick Macnee, interviews with producer / writer Brian Clemens, director Don Leaver (never before released), director Gerry O’Hara (never before released), stunt co-ordinator Raymond Austin, guest actress Carol Cleveland, guest actress Anneke Wills, writer Roger Marshall, and Patrick Macnee’s biographer Marie Cameron
• “Dame Diana Rigg at the BFI” – 2015 on-stage interview and Q&A held at the British Film Institute in London to celebrate 50 years of Emma Peel
• “The Series Of No Return” – audio interview with actress Elizabeth Shepherd, who was originally cast as Emma Peel
• Granada Plus Points featuring actor Patrick Macnee, composer Laurie Johnson, writer Roger Marshall and stunt-double Cyd Child
• Bonus Series 6 episode “The Forget-Me-Knot” – Emma Peel’s final story and the introduction of Tara King
• “K Is For Kill” – excerpt from The New Avengers episode featuring appearances by Emma Peel

ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

• Armchair Theatre episode “The Hothouse” starring Diana Rigg (the performance that led to Rigg’s casting as Emma Peel in The Avengers
• Chessboard Opening Title sequence used on US broadcasts for Series 4
• German and French title sequences
• Series 4 UK Commercial Break Bumper slates
• Alternative titles / credits / end tag of select Series 4 episodes
• Series 4 Commercial Break Bumpers
• Production trims from select Series 5 episodes
• “The Strange Case Of The Missing Corpse” – Series 5 teaser film
• German television interview with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg by Joachim Fuchsberger
• Colourisation test footage for “Death At Bargain Prices” and “A Touch Of Brimstone”
• Reconstructed John Stamp Series 4 trailer
• “They’re Back” Trailers, Series 5 Trailer and Series 5 German Cinema Trailer
• Extensive Photo Galleries from the studio archives
• 1973 Interview with Diana Rigg discussing her US sitcom Diana, and leaving The Avengers
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1, b&w / colour
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• English subtitles for the Hard of Hearing (Series 4 & 5 episodes only)

BONUS DISC 1: ADDITIONAL SPECIAL FEATURES

• More interviews from “THE AVENGERS AT 50” including composer Laurie Johnson, writer and guest actor Jeremy Burnham, stunt-double Cyd Child, and a screenwriters’ panel discussion featuring Brian Clemens, Richard Harris, Richard Bates and Terrance Dicks
• “Brian Clemens In Conversation” – on-stage interview at the British Film Institute in London discussing his early writing career
• Diana Rigg German Super8 films: “Das Diadem”, “Minikillers”, “Der Goldene Schlüssell”
• Extensive Photo Gallery from The Avengers Fashion Show
• Diana Rigg Photo Gallery

BONUS DISC 2: THE ORIGINAL EPISODES FILE

• Featuring the 4 original episodes from the Cathy Gale era of the series which were remade in Series 5: “Death Of A Great Dane”, “Don’t Look Behind You”, “Dressed To Kill” and “The Charmers” (Standard Definition)
• Audio Commentary by writer Roger Marshall on “Death Of A Great Dane”
• Audio Commentary by actress Honor Blackman and UK presenter Paul O’Grady on “Don’t Look Behind You”
• Filmed introduction by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman to “Don’t Look Behind You”
• “Tunnel Of Fear” – a full-length, previously lost episode from Series 1, recovered in 2016
• “THE AVENGERS AT 50” – interview with Honor Blackman by Paul O’Grady

Click here for full details and to order. (Price is in Australian dollars.)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Michael Winner emerged as a promising young director/screenwriter/film editor in the early 1960s and his career gained momentum when the mod movement of the mid-Sixties made London the go-to place for everything and everyone who was hip. Winner fit into that category very neatly. He was wealthy, charismatic, talented and very much a key member of the city's thriving social scene. He made offbeat comedies that appealed to young audiences such as "The Jokers" and "I'll Never Forget What'sis Name". Soon he was making big studio films and was accorded substantial budgets to do so. He was quite diverse in his subject matter. "Hannibal Brooks" was a WWII comedy, "The Games" a drama set at the Olympic, "The Nightcomers", an ambitious prequel to Henry James's classic ghost story "The Turn of the Screw". He made good Westerns such as "Lawman" and "Chato's Land" and his numerous collaborations with Charles Bronson were crucial in finally elevating Bronson to major star status after being regarded as a reliable character actor for many years. Winner's biggest hit starred Bronson: the 1974 urban  thriller "Death Wish" that perfectly reflected the real-life paranoia of America's soaring crime rate. The film was provocative and controversial, much to Winner's delight, and it made a ton of money. But soon after, Winner's fortunes in cinema began to decline. He seemed to have backward momentum and most of his films were poorly received by critics and audiences, even though occasionally a few proved to be underrated including his 1978 remake of "The Big Sleep" that was fittingly as confusing as the classic original.

One of Winner's least-remembered films from this era is "Firepower", released in 1979, which starred James Coburn and Sophia Loren. Like most of Winner's recent movies, it didn't light any fires at the boxoffice, but it has an impressive cast and production values that elevate the film above the embarrassing "Death Wish" sequels Winner would later preside over that gave him a resurgence of relevance. The film literally opens with a bang when a scientist opens a letter bomb and is blown to smithereens. He's the husband of Adele Tasca (Sophia Loren), who suspects the assassination was orchestrated by her husband's employer, the mysterious billionaire Karl Stegner, because he had discovered that Stegner was distributing a drug that could result in patients contracting cancer. Stegner is also wanted by the U.S. government for high-end criminal activities. There's one major problem: Stegner maintains a Howard Hughes-like lifestyle and no one even knows what he looks like. FBI agent Frank Mancuso (Vincent Gardenia) leans on crime figure Sal Hyman (Eli Wallach) to use his connections to locate Stegner in return for having pending criminal charges against him dropped. Hyman, in turn, reaches out to another man of mystery, Jerry Fannon (James Coburn), to get the job done in return for an eye-popping fee. Fannon is the ultimate Mr. Fix-It, having pulled off seemingly impossible tasks for other shady characters. Fannon enlists his trusted right-hand man, Catlett (O.J. Simpson) for the assignment and the two set off to the island of Curacao in the Caribbean, where he has learned Stegner is residing in a seaside mansion protected by an army of bodyguards who report to his top assistant, Leo Gelhorn (George Grizzard, successfully cast against type in an action role.)

Things get complicated when Adele arrives on the scene, ostensibly to find a way to expose and kill Stegner herself. But Fannon soon sees she might actually be in league with her husband's murderer. As with scenarios of this type, Fannon is welcomed into Stegner's hacienda by his prey. In this case, Stegner remains unseen but Fannon is afforded some courtesies by Gelhorn and Stegner's personal physician, Dr. Felix (Tony Franciosa). The Bond-like scenario finds heroes and villains exchanging witticisms and veiled threats very politely over drinks in a luxurious environment. Of course, the detente doesn't last long and the action becomes frequent and explosive. There's a goofy and thankfully brief subplot that finds Coburn face-to-face with his exact double, who he employs as part of his strategy but the screenplay by frequent Michael Winner collaborator Gerald Wilson affords some unexpected plot twists and genuine surprises and Winner handles the action scenes very well indeed, even if they not very original. For example, Coburn employs a bulldozer to demolish a house, which is fun to watch, but Robert Mitchum had already performed the same feat on screen a couple of years before in more spectacular fashion in "The Amsterdam Kill". The gorgeous Caribbean locations add a degree of luster to the production. The cast comes through, with Coburn especially fun to watch. Loren, who was paid $1 million to appear in the film, looks sensational but the role is somewhat underwritten and the inevitable romantic moments between Coburn and Loren's characters are rather dull and perfunctory. Eli Wallach and Vincent Gardenia are relegated to extended cameo roles and the film ends with a strange but welcome brief appearance by Victor Mature that is played for laughs.I should also mention the impressive stunt work performed by Terry Leonard and his crew.

(Warning: the video below contains spoilers!)

"Firepower" was produced by Sir Lew Grade, who originally had Charles Bronson agree to star in the film. At the last minute, Bronson pulled out and Grade considered canceling the production. However, he had already sunk a good deal of money into the project and signed James Coburn as the lead. Coburn would later recall,  "I did it for the money, the locations (the Caribbean islands) and to work with Sophia Loren. The director was Michael Winner. He’s probably one of the weirdest guys I’ve ever met. Yet, I thought he was a good guy when I first met him. But when he got on the set, he was almost like a total dictator. I found it hard to work for that way. The most fun I had was when I got to drive a bulldozer through a house in the islands." For all the effort, the film was greeted with negative reviews and a weak boxoffice take. The movie is available on Blu-ray as a collaboration between Kino Lorber and Scorpion Releasing. The transfer looks great and the disc includes the original trailer.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

The 1969 action flick "The File of the Golden Goose" stars Yul Brynner in a crime thriller that plays more like an espionage movie. Brynner portrays American Treasury agent Peter Novak, who is sent to London to infiltrate and bust a major ring that specializes in spreading counterfeit U.S. currency. Novak is assigned a young Scotland Yard detective, Arthur Thompson (a very effective Edward Woodward) and the two men enact a scenario where they are ultimately taken in as part of the gang by mobster front man George Leeds (always-reliable character actor Walter Gotell). The film is unremarkable on most levels, but the script is intelligently written and there is some genuine suspense when Novak begins to suspect that Thompson is adapting to the mobster lifestyle for real. Brynner makes for one of the most inimitable leading men of his era, constantly bringing a sense of dignity and gravitas to what otherwise might be considered to be a B movie.

There is also a very wry performance by Charles Gray, playing an out-of-the-closet queen who dabbles in counterfeit bills in between hosting orgies. The film was helmed by actor/director Sam Wanamaker, who makes the most of the extensive London locations. However, the movie's climactic shootout sequence involving a helicopter is a bit of a dud and suffers from poor editing. Nevertheless, any Brynner film deserves attention and The File of the Golden Goose is a more than satisfying thriller, though it must be said my opinion is in the minority. The movie was a critical and boxoffice failure but if you share my sometimes irrational love of even low-grade spy movies of this era, you'll find it enjoyable. 

The film is available on Blu-ray through Kino Lorber in a welcome upgrade to MGM's previous DVD release. The only bonus extra is a trailer. 

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By Paul Scrabo

Anne Francis was director John Sturges’ only female actor in 1955’s “Bad Day at Black Rock”, and she repeated her solo act ten years later on “The Satan Bug”. But on that production, she and many cast members felt a preoccupation, a distance, from the man who held together “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape”. Francis was certain “He was thinking about “The Hallelujah Trail”. This was Sturges’ next production, his entry into the world of roadshow presentations; a mammoth production with a huge cast and even huger backdrop: Gallup, New Mexico.

Bill Gulick’s 1963 novel, originally titled “The Hallelujah Train”, seemed a perfect story to upend all western movie conventions, with the cavalry, the Indians, the unions, and the Temperance Movement fighting over the transportation of forty wagons of whiskey. Sturges was comfortable making westerns, but this was a comedy western. He appreciated the Mirisch Corporation’s vision of straight actors trying to make sense of the silliness, but still wanted to persuade James Garner, Lee Marvin and Art Carney for major roles. Sturges knew these actors could handle comedy.

Garner passed. “The premise was too outrageous, not enough truth to be funny”, he said. The rest of Sturges’ dream cast was not available, but what he got seemed attractive: a pair of solid supporting actors, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin, and Lee Remick and Burt Lancaster for the leads. Lancaster had previously worked with Sturges on “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and was impressed how the film turned out. The rest of the supporting cast included Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith, and Martin Landau. They were in for a tough shoot.

The weather was unpredictable (you can spot thunderstorms heading their way in the finished film) and the location had three hundred crew members miles away from the hotels. Scenes contained countless stunts, and fifty tons of Fuller’s earth was blown by several giant fans to create The Battle at Whiskey Hills. Bruce Surtees, son of Sturges’ cinematographer Robert Surtees and focus-puller on the set, recalled “All this and we’re shooting in Ultra-Panavision 70mm, which made life even more difficult!” Despite the difficulties, the director was loving what he saw on set; the film looked as breathtaking as any wide screen western ever could, the stunts were amazing, and thank God he was also laughing all through it.

The hilarity was cut short near the end of the shooting. For the sprawling wagon chase finale, stunt persons Buff Brady and Bill Williams convinced associate producer Robert Relyea to let them delay their jump from inside a catapulted coach. Permission was given, and in the attempt, Williams got tangled somehow during his planned escape. He was killed instantly. Relyea nixed including the footage in the finished film, but was overruled by Mirisch. It’s an incredible shot and it plays in every promotional trailer, probably the most famous footage from the production. Was including it a bad decision or a tribute? There is still a debate over this among retro movie fans.

“We all thought it was going to be a hit picture”, said Sturges, “until we hit an audience.” “The Hallelujah Trail” opened with a 165-minute cut that audiences and critics found “belabored and overlong”. Sturges overheard some patrons wondering if this was a straight western or a deliberate comedy. Screenwriter John Gay blamed much of the response on the performances of Brian Keith and Donald Pleasence. Gay wanted his lines played straight but the actors played it for laughs. The film was soon cut to 156-minutes (the version on this Blu-ray) and the reactions were much more positive; critics noted several inspired sight gags, audiences enjoyed the cartoonish atmosphere of the DePatie-Freleng maps, Variety found the film “beautifully packaged”, and the LA Times proclaimed “The Hallelujah Trail” as “one of the very few funny westerns ever made, and possibly the funniest.”

When the film finished its roadshow run, United Artists cut the film once more, to 145-minutes. It didn’t help. Compared to “Cat Ballou” and even “F Troop”, “The Hallelujah Trail” was unhip.Sturges was done with comedy, but not with roadshow Cinerama, though his future films would have checkered histories. He was set to direct “Grand Prix” but clashed with the original star, Steve McQueen. A year later Gregory Peck turned down Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra’, wary of its weak third act. Rock Hudson, now middle-aged and wanting a strong lead role, came aboard for this Sturges voyage instead. The MGM release still had a confusing third act, but the film sails nicely mostly due to Patrick McGoohan and some clever dialogue.

Decades later, “The Hallelujah Trail” remains a nice memory to those who attended the Cinerama presentation; not much greatness to retain but a great experience at the movies. But that experience was tough to relive because the film remained in legacy format limbo for years: a letterboxed standard definition transfer. So when Olive Films announced a Blu-ray release in 2019, fans of comedy epics sung Hallelujah! Now this film can be viewed in 1080P! Retreat! Unfortunately, the quality of the Olive release resembled an upscaled version of the original standard definition transfer. But two years later “The Hallelujah Trail” was casually spotted on Amazon Prime, and it was a new HD transfer. And a year after that, it’s a new Kino Lorber Blu-ray release.

Any Cinema-Retro reader worth their Cinerama Chops should have this Blu-ray in their collection. “The Hallelujah Trail” is an hour too long, but you get miles of lovely landscape. My favorite portrayal? Donald Pleasence as Oracle, who predicts the future in return for free drinks. And watch for his amazing jump off a roof! Certainly, the most impressive part of the film is the finale: the runaway wagon chase. There are sections where you swear it’s Remick, Keith and Landau handling those coaches but you know it has to be well made-up stunt people, at least for most of it. You’re also realizing that this sequence, and perhaps the entire film, is performed without any process work or rear projection.

There’s a legitimate debate on how the film may have been more successful if James Garner played the role of Colonel Gearhart, though only Lancaster could have pulled off that bathtub smile scene. There’s no disagreement on the music; Elmer Bernstein’s sprawling score contains so many themes that Sturges’ biographer Glenn Lovell qualifies the film as “almost a pre-“Paint Your Wagon” musical." And here’s your tiniest “Trail” trivia: decades ago, during the production of the laserdisc version, MGM/UA discovered that a few reels were mono sound instead of multi-channel, including the main title featuring the chorus. Yours truly was working on a project for the company at the time, and I happily lent them my stereo score LP. so the main title would be in stereo. That audio track mix remains on this new Blu-ray as well. (You’re welcome, America!)

Kino Lorber is kind enough to provide some expert guides to help you along the “Trail”: the perfect pairing of screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and filmmaker/historian Michael Schlesinger. Joyner had already provided his Sturges bonafides with his documentary on the director for the recent Imprint Blu-ray of “Marooned”, and I can verify Schlesinger’s knowledge of film comedy, having been fortunate to join him, along with Mark Evanier, for the commentary track on Criterion’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. Joyner and Schlesinger tackle and acknowledge “The Hallelujah Trail”s social and political incorrectness, but also deflate any virtue signaling by examining how the film is smartly an equal opportunity offender: the Cavalry, the Indians, the Temperance Movement, all up for farce. Thanks to this team, and the picture quality of this Blu-ray, I finally spotted the gag of the Indians circling the wagons as the cavalry is whooping and hollering. Both gents are in a fine fun mood to tackle this type of film, and It’s one of my favorite film commentaries of 2022.

“The Hallelujah Trail” now looks clearer and sharper than any previous home video release, and somehow it makes the comedy and the performances sharper as well. I think you’ll be entertained by this roadshow epic, and with Joyner and Schlesinger as your commentary companions you may indeed learn, as the posters proclaimed, “How the West Was Fun!”

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By Lee Pfeiffer 

By 1963, Vincent Price was generally recognized as the heir apparent to Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as the undisputed king of the horror film genre. Somewhat lost in discussion's of Price's work is the fact that, until he starred in "House of Wax" in the mid-1950s, he had a long career as a popular and respected supporting actor in mainstream Hollywood productions. If there is a sad aspect to his international success as a horror star, it's that his talents were rarely used henceforth in films of other genres. Nonetheless, Price knew a good thing when he saw it. His collaborations with producer Roger Corman on cinematic versions of classic Edgar Allan Poe stories had proven to be wildly successful. Price wasn't overly selective about working with other producers who sought to capitalize on those films by making blatant imitations of Corman's productions. One such title is "Diary of a Madman", released in 1963 and based on a story by French writer Guy de Maupassant.  In some ways, the film is a worthy rival to a Corman/Price collaboration in that it's intelligently scripted, well-cast and has a relatively creative production design that somewhat masks the movie's threadbare budget. As with the Corman flicks, Price is given a meaty role and he makes the most of it. He plays Simon Cordier, a respected French judge in the late 19th century. He has a reputation for fairness and an obsession with studying the criminal mind in the hope of understanding what motivates some men to commit horrendous crimes of violence. The film opens with Cordier receiving a request to meet with a prisoner who he has sentenced to die on the guillotine. The man is a serial killer and Cordier is interested in taking the opportunity to speak to the prisoner, whose behavior has left him baffled. The man was a pillar-of-the-community type with no criminal background a stable profession. Upon meeting the condemned prisoner in his cell, the doomed convict informs Cordier that he welcomes his imminent execution because he has been inexplicably possessed by an invisible being known as the Horla. He relates an incredible story about this creature periodically taking over control of his body and mind and forcing him to commit acts of murder. As the incredulous Cordier tries to absorb this fanciful tale, the man suddenly attacks him. In defending himself, Cordier hurls the prisoner against a wall, killing him instantly. 

Back in his chambers, Cordier is haunted by the experience but doesn't think much more of it- until some strange occurrences leave him disturbed. Seems that Cordier's irresponsible behavior had somehow been responsible for the accidental death of his wife and young son years before. Cordier has tried to block the bad memories from his mind by locking away all mementos relating to them, including a large framed photograph that had been stored in his attic. He is shocked to find it hanging prominently on the wall of his study. His loyal butler (Ian Wolfe) denies having placed it there. Other strange occurrences lead Cordier to question his mental stability. A psychiatrist assures him that he is suffering from fatigue and urges him to delve back into his passion for sculpting, which he has ignored for years. Cordier follows his advice and begins to feel more relaxed. Things only get better when he has a chance encounter with a vivacious and flirtatious young woman named Odette (Nancy Kovack), who agrees to be a paid model for him. She begins a campaign to seduce Cordier, never telling him that she is actually married to a financially-strapped artist, Paul (Chris Warfield). When Paul objects to the amount of time that Odette is spending in Cordier's studio, she assures him she is only trying to earn money that they desperately need. In reality, she is a heartless gold digger who is weighing the option of leaving Paul for the older man. Oblivious to all this, Cordier is happy to have found love once again. His mood, however, is rudely disrupted when he realizes the cause of the strange things that have been going on in his house: it seems that the Horla has chosen to possess him in retribution for killing the prisoner whose body it once inhabited. Although Cordier can not see the Horla, he discovers it is a physical presence who can not only speak to him, but can also utilize a number of cruel witticisms that he uses to mock and humiliate the esteemed  jurist.  From this point on, Cordier's life is a living hell. In rational moments, he tries frantically to figure out how to rid himself of this ghoulish presence, but the Horla retains control of his mind and body at will. This leads to Cordier carrying out a particularly gruesome murder, leaving him desperate to find a way out of his tortured existence. He devises a last-ditch effort to lure the Horla into his study where he hopes to kill him through use of his one vulnerability: fire. The resulting consequences are dramatic but have tragic results even for Cordier. 

"Diary of a Madman" is mid-range Price fare from this period. The entire enterprise rides on the actor shoulders, but they prove to be broad enough to carry it off. Price looks dashing and, as always, puts his best efforts into even a modest enterprise such as this. Nancy Kovack also gives a fine performance as a bad girl who, refreshingly, never learns to redeem herself as she cuckolds both of her lovers in turn. The film is not exceptional on any level, but it is consistently entertaining and reasonably engrossing.

"Diary of a Madman" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The most memorable aspect of "Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" is its title, which still resonates with people of a certain age even though most probably never saw the film itself.  "Harry" was a speed bump in Dustin Hoffman's meteoric rise to success that began with "The Graduate" in 1967 and continued with such diverse hits as "Midnight Cowboy", "Little Big Man" and "Straw Dogs" (which would be released a few months after "Harry"). Directed by Ulu Grosbard, who would direct Hoffman in the acclaimed drama "Straight Time" seven years later, "Harry" is a bizarre comedy with an anti-Establishment social message. Hoffman, almost unrecognizable behind a mustache and curly hair, plays Georgie Soloway, a "Boy Wonder" in the music business for his ability to almost instantly write hit rock and folk songs, along with memorable advertising jingos. He has fame and fortune and resides in luxurious penthouse apartment in Manhattan that is a virtual museum to his own accomplishments. However, the affable Georgie is desperately lacking something in his life: genuine friendships and a loving, significant other. The film doesn't follow a linear path and bounces around between various stages of Georgie's life. We see him growing up in Brooklyn, the only child of two stereotypical, overbearing Jewish parents. As a teenager, Georgie goes through the customary stages of trying to deal with raging hormones. He and a friendly but air-headed girl become lovers but he cruelly ditches her when she becomes pregnant. Later we see he had married when he impregnated another woman who bore him two children. Georgie ended up deserting them as well because he couldn't deal with the adult responsibilities that fatherhood demands. We see present-day Georgie having no problems finding bedmates but he realizes he only attracts women because of his fame and fortune. Every time he seems to enter a promising relationship it is compromised when the woman is contacted by a mysterious man who calls himself Harry Kellerman and who seems to know all the intimate aspects of Georgie's life. Kellerman routinely unveils to these women the sordid ways Georgie has treated previous lovers and inevitably, his new relationships fail. When we first see Georgie, he is a psychological basket case. He fantasizes about suicide as though it will be a charming and pleasant experience. He also desperately tries to forge genuine friendships with those in his life. For years he has been paying a psychiatrist (Jack Warden) to hear his problems and act as a surrogate father figure to him but it becomes clear the man only sees Georgie as another client. Similarly, Georgie's outreach to his business manager (Gabriel Dell) and his harried accountant (Dom DeLuise) fails to result in establishing anything but business relationships. Georgie is the ultimate poor little rich boy. Much of the story line finds Georgie increasingly infuriated by Kellerman's interference in his love life and becoming obsessed with finding out who he is and how he knows so much about him. 

The film was written by Herb Gardner, best known for his play "A Thousand Clowns", which was also about a dysfunctional New York man, who- like Georgie- was superficially charming but not very admirable. Gardner's screenplay drifts back and forth through time at a dizzying pace and sometimes it's hard to know whether we are viewing Georgie in the past or present. He also includes sequences that are genuinely bizarre but are later revealed to be dreams or fantasies. The end result is a rather unsatisfying mix of comedy and pathos despite fine performances by everyone involved. Director Grosbard makes scant use of the New York locations, other than some earlier scenes representing Coney Island in the 1950s and one fantasy scene that finds Georgie inside either the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel, which is totally deserted (trying filming that today).  There are also some wonderful aerial shots of the city as we watch the bored Georgie pilot his personal jet for joy rides. But Grosbard never captures the flavor of New York and film could just have easily been set in any major city. The movie is primarily shot in dark interiors with grim lighting, making for a suitably depressing experience. The message of the movie seems to be that money can't buy happiness and that personal virtues are more important than a large bank account. This may be true but it wasn't exactly a unique theory even in 1971. The film comes alive mostly in its final phase when Georgie meets an untalented aspiring singer (Barbara Harris, superb in an Oscar-nominated performance) who is ditzy but lovable. She brings out the kind of genuine human emotion that Georgie had been suppressing for most of his life- but is it too late to save him from his own demons? The final scene of the movie sees Georgie finally seeming to find happiness as he soars above the boroughs of New York City in a wonderfully-filmed sequence that comes to an unexpected conclusion, even as it provides an answer to the question "Who is Harry Kellerman?" 

Kino Lorber has released the film on Blu-ray sans any special features other than a trailer for Ulu Grosbard's 1981 drama "True Confessions". The transfer is very good indeed but can't overcome the deficiencies in the film itself. "Harry Kellerman" isn't a bad film and it does provide the joy of seeing another fine performance by young Dustin Hoffman. But it is a movie that falls far short of its aspirations and at times comes across as merely pretentious.

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By Hank Reineke

In case you were wondering, the answer is “yes.” That is Christopher Lee’s visage featured on the slipcase of Kino Lorber’s Blu ray issue of Vernon Sewell’s The Blood Beast Terror. Now, ordinarily, displaying Sir Christopher’s image on a Gothic horror film release wouldn’t make for bad marketing. The problem is that Lee doesn’t actually appear in The Blood Beast Terror. The team at Kino curiously chose to use the poster art of Distribuzione Italiana Films Internazionali, the distributor readying the film for European release as the Mostro di Sangue.

The artwork procured by D.I.F.I. for The Blood Beast Terror was, at the very least, familiar: a reverse-image lifted from the Italian poster of 1958’s Horror of Dracula (Dracula il Vampiro). Kino is taking a fair battering on fan sites for their packaging of this 2022 issue. But let’s be fair. Kino’s decision to forego the original British poster art for the imagery of the Italian campaign might be a bit odd but not technically incorrect. Moviegoers in Italy had, in fact, been lured into visiting their local cinema with such eye-catching - if misleading - artwork.

Though Tigon’s The Blood Beast Terror has a core of supporters – perhaps defenders is a better term - I find the film a mild amusement at best. Which is a shame as I really want to like it. In a sense, it’s a film conceived from a time out of mind. Some critics suggest that’s exactly the film’s failing. Upon UK release in the early spring of 1968, stately Gothic horrors were seemingly growing stale amongst horror film fans. Critics argued a new era of more edgy, sadistic and blood-letting horrors was in the ascendant, old costume-drama gothics now too tame to frighten. While that’s not necessarily untrue, there’s no denying The Blood Beast Terror is of middling interest simply due to it not being terribly involving.

While it’s true goth-horror had lost some of its courtly appeal with a large sect of cinemagoers, the sub-genre was hardly dead. A case in point: upon original release The Blood Beast Terror was paired as the undercard to Michael Reeve’s brilliant Witchfinder General, a film set circa 1645. This too was a Tigon release of Tony Tenser’s, a Vincent Price vehicle far superior to The Blood Beast Terror on every conceivable level. I might be wrong, but I suspect if not for the presence of Peter Cushing in The Blood Beast Terror, Sewell’s more modest film would have far fewer champions than it enjoys today.

So what’s wrong with it? I admit to moments of melancholia when watching The Blood Beast Terror. For starters, it’s difficult to watch old pros Cushing and Robert Flemyng (known best to horror film fans as the titular necrophagic M.D. The Horrible Dr. Hichcock) try their best to rise above the mediocre material they’ve been given to work with. The film’s Director of Photography, Stanley Long, recalled Flemyng complaining “how shit the script was, how shit the effects were.” Even director Sewell wasn’t spared the castigations of an unhappy cast member. He recalled the famously gentlemanly Cushing mildly offering only a couple of days into the shoot, “Vernon, I think this is perhaps the worst film I have ever made.” Sadly, in a few years’ time there would be new challengers to Cushing’s lament. Such clunkers as Tendre Dracula (1974) and Blood Suckers (1971) would prove short term contenders to that particular title.

I won’t give away anything important about the film’s flimsy plot – just in case you’ve yet to see the film and still wish to after reading this review. I’ll just say the trail of mutilated bodies scattering the English countryside are – as ever – the result of bad science gone horribly wrong. In this case entomological science. As transformative feminine-insect monsters go, Wanda Ventham’s fetching “Clare” in The Blood Beast Terror is, IMHO, a far less interesting or menacing creature than Susan Cabot’s “Janice Starlin” in Roger Corman’s low-budget The Wasp Woman (1959). But, again, the fault here lies not with Ventham or Cushing or Flemyng, but with a script riddled with excessive verbiage and slow-moving, sluggish plotting.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

"Gun the Man Down" is yet another Poverty Row low-budget Western shot during an era in which seemingly every other feature film released was a horse opera. Supposedly shot in nine days, the film is primarily notable for being the big screen directing debut of Andrew V. McLaglen, who would go on to be a very respected director who specialized in Westerns and action films. The movie also marked the final feature film for James Arness before he took on the role of Marshall Matt Dillon in TV's long-running and iconic "Gunsmoke" series. After failing to achieve stardom on the big screen, Arness found fame and fortune in "Gunsmoke" when John Wayne recommended him for the part. Wayne had been championing Arness for years and provided him with roles in some of his films. Following "Gunsmoke"'s phenomenal run, Arness seemed content to stay with TV and had another successful series, "How the West Was Won".  John Wayne was one of the first actors to successfully launch his own production company, Batjac, which produced this film and Wayne's influence is felt in the project. Andrew V. McLaglen was the son of Wayne's good friend and occasional co-star Victor McLaglen. The screenplay was written by Burt Kennedy, who Wayne would later hire to direct several of his own films. The movie provided young Angie Dickinson with her first role of substance and she would reunite with Wayne years later on Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo". Speaking of which, another Wayne favorite, character actor Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez appears in both films. Also in the cast is Harry Carey Jr. , son of Wayne's idol and and personal friend, Harry Carey. The cinematography is by William Clothier, who would lens many of Wayne's later movies and the film was produced by Duke's brother, Robert Morrison. "Gun the Man Down" is very much a Wayne family affair. 

The film opens with three fleeing bank robbers: Rem Anderson (James Arness), Matt Rankin (Robert J. Wilke) and Ralph Farley (Don MeGowan), who arrive at their hide-a-way cabin with the law in hot pursuit. Rem has been seriously wounded and Rankin makes the decision to leave him behind. Rem's girl, Jan (Angie Dickinson), objects at first but Rankin convinces her to go with them in part because they have $40,000 in loot from the local bank. The law arrives at the cabin and arrests Rem. He is nursed back to health and is offered a deal for a light sentence if he helps track down his confederates. Rem refuses and does his time in prison. Upon release, he begins his mission vengeance and tracks Rankin, Ralph and Jan to a one-horse town where Rankin has used his ill-gotten gains to open a profitable saloon. Upon discovering Rem is in town, Rankin hires a notorious gunslinger, Billy Deal (Michael Emmet), to assassinate him. Jan has a tense reunion with Rem and seeks his forgiveness but her pleas fall on deaf ears. Rem emerges victorious over Billy Deal and Rankin, Ralph and Jan flee town with Rem in pursuit. Their final confrontation takes place in a remote canyon with tragic consequences.  

Given the film's meager production budget, "Gun the Man Down" is a surprisingly mature and engrossing Western with intelligent dialogue and interesting characters. (In addition to those mentioned, there is a fine performance by Emile Meyer as the town sheriff). Arness projects the kind of macho star power that Wayne had and Dickinson acquits herself very well as the stereotypical saloon girl with a heart of gold. The film, ably directed by McLaglen,  runs a scant 76 minutes and was obviously designed for a quick playoff and fast profit. It has largely been lost to time but the film is currently streaming on Screenpix, which is available through Amazon Prime, Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV for an additional monthly fee of $2.99 The movie is also available on Blu-ray through Olive Films.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

A decade before the release of the teenage vampire sensation "Twilight" in 2008, there was another film with the same title that couldn't be more different in tone and style. While the horror flick helped launch the careers of up-and-coming actors, the 1998 film was gently acknowledging that its already legendary stars were coming to the end of theirs. This is evidenced by the title, which has a dual meaning: the time of day as well as the stage of life its central characters find themselves in. "Twilight" was written and directed by Robert Benton and stars Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman and James Garner. Benton and Newman had found considerable acclaim and success with their previous collaboration, "Nobody's Fool", but "Twilight" received mixed reviews and performed poorly at the boxoffice. Therefore, there's probably a good chance you never saw it. The failure of movie is puzzling, given the public's affection for the film noir genre. Purists may argue that true film noir requires that a movie be made on a modest budget and shot in black and white. "Twilight" doesn't apply to either of these rules. It has a high-priced cast and gorgeous color cinematography by Piotr Sobocinski, but in many ways it evokes the very best of the noir genre, in a way that director Dick Richards' 1975 detective flick "Farewell My Lovely" also succeeded in doing. It has all the central elements: the protagonist is a down-and-out  private eye (are there any other kind in noir films?), a deceptive man who sends him out on a mission to make some fast money, a sultry femme fatale and an abundance of supporting characters who are as eccentric as they are threatening. Oh, and most of the action takes place in the dead of night.

The film is set in contemporary L.A. Newman plays Harry Ross, a one-time cop who was fired for alcoholism, an affliction that saw his career as a private dick also fail. In the process, he lost his wife and kids and remains alienated from them. Harry survives due to the generosity of his benefactors, old friend Jack Ames (Gene Hackman) and his wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon), both of whom were once prominent and popular actors whose careers and finances are on a downward trend. Harry is allowed to live rent-free at their lavish home, where he earns a few bucks here and there by acting as a Man Friday for Jack, running errands for him that often involve people of dubious backgrounds. Jack has just learned that his cancer has been determined to be terminal and he's given about six months to live. He takes it in stride but resents having to spend much of his time in bed. Catherine seems to be devoted to him but even Jack knows that she and Harry have long had eyes for each other. Also sharing the residence is Jack and Catherine's precocious teenage daughter Mel (Reese Witherspoon), who Harry had to to fly to Mexico to retrieve from the arms of an older paramour, Jeff Willis (Liev Schrieiber), who accidentally shot Harry in the leg during an altercation. Now Jack has another mission for Harry; a seemingly easy one: deliver an envelope stuffed with money to a man named Lester Ivar (M. Emmett Walsh) with no questions asked. Needless to say, things go awry from the start and Harry finds himself being shot at, beaten up and framed for murder, all due to a blackmail plot against Jack and Catherine, who were long suspected of murdering her first husband so they could be together. As with any noir or noir-like film, it doesn't pay to go into much detail about the plot, as it would compromise all the twists and turns in Robert Benton's screenplay, which, in true genre form, is complex but thoroughly compelling.

"Twilight" is the kind of film that celebrates the kinds of characters that existed in crime movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Everyone speaks the same lingo, dishing out insults and wisecracks with abandon. It's also the kind of film where a cuckolded husband learns his best friend has been sleeping with his wife and deals with it by simply telling him to knock it off. In today's increasingly sanitized world of filmmaking, it's refreshing to revisit an era in which hard-bitten characters are unapologetic about drinking and smoking without restraint. The performances are uniformly excellent, with Newman at age 73 displaying the same cynical wit that made "Harper" such a pleasure to watch. He's also still drop-dead handsome, even though his character acknowledges his advanced years. (A running gag in the film is that Harry is unaware that the rumor mill has it that his "pecker had been shot off" in the incident in Mexico.) Sarandon burns up the screen as the diva-like object of both Harry and Jack's affections and Reese Witherspoon displays the talents that would see her rise to stardom. Hackman is very good, but his screen time is limited, though the dialogue he shares with Newman is terrific. There's also a standout turn in a supporting role by James Garner, as a friend of both men who is a retired cop who serves as a "Mr. Fix-It" on the L.A. crime scene. There is also an excellent performance by Stockard Channing as a tough-as-nails LAPD lieutenant and former flame of Harry's. Liev Schrieber and Margo Martindale fill out the ranks as a team of murderous blackmailers who are as eccentric as any characters to be found in an old John Huston movie and there is an amusing turn by Giancarlo Esposito as an aspiring private eye who idolizes Harry. The film is also complimented by an impressive score by the legendary Elmer Bernstein. The critical and boxoffice failure of "Twilight" shouldn't distract from the fact that this is a first-rate detective film well worth checking out.

After being out-of-print on home video in the U.S. for a number of years, Kino Lorber has released an impressive new Blu-ray edition with a marvelous transfer. Best of all is the commentary track by film noir experts Alain Silver and James Ursini. If you were ignorant about the genre before listening to them, you won't be by the time the track is over. According to them, "Twilight" technically qualifies as a "neo-noir" film because it is set in the modern era. However, Silver argues that the movie possesses so many traditional elements of the genre that it should probably be regarded as an example of classic noir. Indeed, director Benton seems to realize that shooting anything in L.A. at night gives a film a noirish element and Benton doesn't need obvious gimmicks to remind the viewer of this fact. In all, the KL edition is a "must-have" if you appreciate films of this type. As an additional bonus, there are original trailers and TV spots for this movie along with other titles available through KL. Highly recommended. 

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By Lee Pfeiffer

If you asked anyone who is a fan of Sixties spy movies "In what film did Donald Pleasence play a rich, brilliant international criminal mastermind?", the answer would be obvious: "You Only Live Twice", in which Pleasence portrayed the evil Spectre mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld. However, there is another answer that would be equally correct: "Matchless", an unheralded long-forgotten spy spoof made by Italians and shot in such diverse locations as Germany, America and England. Pleasence plays Gregori Andreanu, the main villain of the piece, but he doesn't appear until well into the running time. The film opens with American journalist Perry Liston being creatively tortured by Communist Chinese soldiers who suspect he is a spy. In reality, Liston writes a popular newspaper column under the nom de plume "Matchless", the significance of which is never explained- along with other key plot points. For example, I don't recall if Liston ever does explain to anyone why he is China, but in this fast-moving comedy-adventure, plot points come and go with such rapidity that they may well be regarded as dispensable. While in jail, Liston shows pity on a fellow prisoner, an elderly Chinese man who, before dying, bequeaths to him a magic ring that will allow the wearer to become invisible. There are only two catches: the invisibility only lasts for 20 minutes and can only be utilized once every ten hours. (The team of five screenwriters must have been under the influence of something drinkable to come up with this zany concept.) Much to Liston's surprise, the device works and he escapes from prison, conveniently hiding in a nearby house that happens to belong to a single, gorgeous, horny young woman who even more conveniently happens to be taking a shower. She is startled by Liston's ability to be invisible but not for long. Once he appears in the flesh, it's under the covers for both of them. 

The scene then switches to the United States where high level military personnel are subjecting Liston to the same torture applied by the Chinese, which involves tying the victim to a large canister that revolves at lightning speed in much the same way you get a paint can mixed at Home Depot. Again, I can't recall if it's explained how Liston ended up in the U.S. and why he is being tortured, but he is quickly enlisted by two members of the top Army brass, General Shapiro (Howard St. John) and his fawning sidekick Colonel Coolpepper (Sorel Brooke) to undertake a dangerous mission to Europe where he is to ingratiate himself with Andreanu, secure his confidence and somehow steal of case of chemical vials in his possession (though it's never explained what they are or why they are dangerous to the world.) Liston agrees and sets off to London, where somehow he is stalked for assassination by Hank Norris (Henry Silva), an American who was in the Chinese prison. How did he get out and become an assassin? Who knows. Just go with the flow. From there, the unflappable and capable Liston encounters deceitful, beautiful women and numerous villains in between making a series of narrow escapes thanks to his ability to temporarily become invisible. (One downside to the ability is that his clothes remain visible, so each time he wants to disappear, he has to ditch his clothing and often reemerge naked, a running gag used throughout the film.) When Liston finally meets Andreanu, they both pretend they like each other while following the old spy movie tradition of having each man obviously know that the other is his mortal enemy. 

"Matchless" is an off-the-charts weird movie in every sense but it's also a lot of fun. Patrick O'Neal, who rarely scored a leading role in his career as a popular supporting actor, is well cast here. He seems to be having a ball playing a hero who is more Derek Flint than Bond. He's handsome, debonair and has the ability to toss out bon mots even when staring at deadly threats. Donald Pleasence gets an equally rare chance to show his comedic abilities and he's delightful playing an eccentric and ruthless megalomaniac. As with most of these lower-grade Bond-inspired spy flicks of the era, this one makes up for its shortcomings by supplying an endless bevy scantily clad women including Ira von Furstenberg (a real life princess), Nicoletta Machiavelli and Elisabeth Wu, who between them expose heaving bosoms and plenty of flesh, all the while dolled up in those marvelous mod fashions of the era. There are cheesy attempts to emulate Maurice Binder's trademark James Bond opening credits and an equally cheesy Bond-style title song ( future legend Ennio Morricone was one of the three credited composers). But the production values are better than you might imagine and the stunts and action scenes work quite well. (Liston utilizes an amphibious car a full decade before Bond did in "The Spy Who Loved Me"). Director Alberto Lattuada keeps the action going non-stop and makes the most of the Continental appeal of the European locations. One of the funniest aspects of the film is unintentional: the dubbing is terrible to the point of being of laugh-out-loud caliber. It appears that everyone other than O'Neal and Pleasence has been dubbed, including (inexplicably) Henry Silva, who was an American actor of repute. Silva gives a maniacal and very funny performance and, as with Pleasence, he seems to be relishing the opportunity to play a comedic role. 

It should be noted that the deceitful American marketing campaign disguised the fact that "Matchless" is a comedy and presented it as straight spy thriller. One can only imagine the reaction of the gobsmacked viewers who were expecting a tense Cold War thriller and instead were treated to a film that was more akin to a Jerry Lewis production. I don't want to overstate the attributes of "Matchless" but it is an unexpectedly enjoyable romp. If you're idea of good viewing is "Operation Kid Brother", then this one is for you.

(The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, a subscription service available through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV for $2.99 a month.)

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Those who have a weakness for British spy movies will find plenty to like in "The Whistle Blower", a largely unheralded 1986 production that boasts a fine performance by Michael Caine. He plays Frank Jones, a nondescript middle-aged Brit with a somewhat convoluted background. He was a fighter pilot in the  military but his career came to an end when he struck a superior officer. It's then implied that he went on to work for British Intelligence in some capacity, though in reality his act of military insubordination would probably have excluded him from that position. When we are introduced to Frank he is a widower and owner of a small office supply business who is paying a visit to his 28 year-old son Bob (Nigel Havers, very good) for a low key celebration of his offspring's birthday. It turns out that Bob is employed by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which is a branch of the intelligence community. Frank finds Bob to be dealing with a good deal of pressure, both personally and professionally. He's in a romantic relationship with a woman, Cynthia Goodburn (Felicity Dean), who has a young daughter. Felicity is also currently married, though the film doesn't explore her motivations for carrying on an affair with the love-smitten Bob. Frank likes Cynthia personally but is disapproving of the relationship. But he discovers Bob has even bigger problems. For years he has been a Russian linguist in the agency, providing valuable service in translating information concerning Soviet activities and agents. He tells his father that he has uncovered some disheartening information that ties in with revelations regarding a recent scandal that caused embarrassment for the GCHQ when a Soviet agent had been revealed to have been working in the agency for a decade before being caught. Bob is alarmed by an atmosphere of paranoia at the agency in the wake of the scandal. All employees are being encouraged to keep track of their colleagues' activities and to report any suspicions regarding anyone whose allegiance might be questionable. Bob, an idealist, rejects this and has come to the conclusion that, based on other information he has uncovered, that British Intelligence and their American allies are every bit as brutal as the KGB. Frank dismisses the concerns and encourages Bob to stay on the job rather than resign in protest. 

Things get murky when Bob is reported to have died in a tragic home accident. Frank immediately suspects that Bob was killed by his own agency to prevent him from revealing some information that might compromise the GCHQ's already tarnished reputation. He begins his own investigation and, as these things generally play out in conspiracy-themed movies, finds that he can trust no one, even old colleagues and friends. As Frank doggedly pursues the truth, he finds his own life in danger as well as those of Cynthia and her daughter. Director Simon Langton (his only feature film) keeps Julian Bond's talky but interesting script moving at a brisk pace. Refreshingly, the character of Frank is never miraculously transformed into an action hero. In fact, there is very little action or violence in the entire film. Caine gives a terrific, understated performance. His trademark wit doesn't get much opportunity to be displayed in this somber story but he does provide a healthy dose of his character's Harry Palmer-like cynicism in regard all aspects of the spy game. He gets able support from a fine cast that includes esteemed veteran actors like James Fox, Gordon Jackson (his final film), John Gielgud (in a pivotal cameo) and Barry Foster (superb as an old military service crony of Frank's who may or may not be involved in deception.)

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. There is also a Kino Lorber Blu-ray and the transfer is right up to the company's usual excellent standards. The only bonus feature is a nice gallery of trailers for other KL releases starring Caine, although, curiously, "The Whistle Blower" trailer is not among them.

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By Hank Reineke

In the autumn of 1963 the Macmillan Co. published Rohan O’ Grady’s third suspense novel Let’s Kill Uncle. The book’s appearance was certain to command some critical and public notice: the dust jacket and title page was adorned with the idiosyncratic illustrations of Edward Gorey. The cover blurb offered a small glimpse of what awaited readers: “In an idyllic, peaceful island setting two charming children on summer holiday conspire to execute the perfect murder – and get away with it.” Though a macabre premise, the book was well-received, the Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Press, New York Newsday and Chicago Tribune singing its praises. Toronto’s Globe and Mail crowed Let’s Kill Uncle was “the jolliest thriller of any year.”

One fan of the novel was the producer-director William Castle, the undisputed grifting King of Ballyhoo. Castle optioned the property shortly after its appearance with no immediate plans for production set. After scoring handsomely with his 1959 indie House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price, Castle had signed on with Columbia Pictures for a four-film deal in March of 1959 (later extended beyond the original four pics). Between 1959 and 1964 Castle delivered such popcorn-munching guilty-pleasures as The Tingler, 13 Ghosts, Mr. Sardonicus, and Strait-Jacket, amongst others. Then, in October 1963, Universal Picture’s Vice-President of Production, Edward Muhl, signed Castle to a three-picture deal for a series of “cost-control” films.

Castle’s trio of films for Uni were less celebrated and money-spinning than his earlier efforts. His second and most recent effort for the studio, I Saw What You Did (1965) did little to buffer his reputation as a filmmaker nor cash-cow guarantor. As one critic from the Los Angeles Times sulked, “I Saw What You Did, William Castle, and as usual I am not impressed.” Castle’s final film in his three-pic contract would be Let’s Kill Uncle. By all indicators, the production of Let’s Kill Uncle would be a rushed affair. One Hollywood correspondent – having already visited director Brian G. Hutton rehearsing his cast on the set of The Pad – chose to drop by the adjourning soundstage where first-day shooting of Let’s Kill Uncle was in process. The columnist was quick to note the film’s “rough edges” were already showing. The writer noted the fast and frugal Castle had already shot more film during his brief visit than Hutton would shoot in an entire day.

Castle had reason to work quickly. In October of 1965, Variety reported the director/producer was soon to again jump ship, having just inked a multi-picture deal with Paramount. That contract called for Castle to report to his new bosses on New Year’s Day 1966. Though Castle was scheduled to begin work on Let’s Kill Uncle on December 10, 1965, actual production evidently would not commence until December 20. The clock was ticking.

One reason for the delay was Castle’s decision to wait on the availability of “moppet Mary Badham,” the child actress cast as “Chrissie” in the film. The thirteen-year old was not yet finished completing work on Sydney Pollack’s drama This Property is Condemned with Natalie Wood, Robert Redford and Charles Bronson. Another thirteen-year-old, Pat Cardi, was to join the cast as Barnaby Harrison, the principal target of his black-hearted Uncle, Major Kevin Harrison (Nigel Green). Though Cardi’s name was a mostly unfamiliar one, his face certainly was. The child actor was frequently seen on television screens in a cavalcade of small roles. Linda Lawson, cast to play Chrissie’s aunt Justine, was a virtual novice looking for a break. Castle had met Lawson four years earlier when she delivered mail to him at his Columbia Pictures office.

It’s unclear if Nigel Green was originally sought out by Castle to play the “Uncle” role. There were reports as late as December that Leslie Nielsen “had worked out his shooting schedule on Beau Geste so he can accept a role in Uncle.” If indeed Nelson was Castle’s first choice to play the Major, the resulting film - as it stands - might have benefited from the actor’s gift for light-comedy. Whatever the case, Green – just recently seen as another “Major” in the Len Deighton/Sidney J. Furie production of the spy-thriller The Ipcress File (1965) – was brought on. Green’s comedic skills were not his strong suit, and it wasn’t the best bit of casting. But then everything about Let’s Kill Uncle seems a bit askew.

The shortcomings of this film weighed heavily on the scripting. Castle’s schedule 1963-1965 was a particularly busy one, so it’s not surprising his optioning of Let’s Kill Uncle was not exercised immediately. In April of 1965 things started moving, Variety reporting the playwright Robert L. Joseph had been conscripted to adapt O’ Grady’s book as a film treatment, with tentative plans to start production sometime “next summer.” Whatever the circumstances, Joseph’s treatment – if submitted at all – was found not up-to-snuff. The responsibility of delivering a workable adaptation fell to Mark Rodgers, a writer almost exclusively known for his work on television.

It was, to be fair, a tough work to adapt, as the grim humor and dark whimsy of O’ Grady’s novel was seamlessly embroidered into a textual tapestry – a bit of psychological chess-game plotting not easy to convey visually. Castle chose to dispense and/or modify many of the novels’ original elements. The setting of the novel is an island off of the Canadian Pacific coast, there are Mounties trooping about, the treacherous Uncle” is named “Sylvester,” and there’s even a “soliloquizing” talking cougar named “One-Eye.” The filmmakers of Let’s Kill Uncle chose to move the action to an un-named sub-tropical location of palm trees and bananas, there’s no Mounties or (worse yet!) a talking cougar. The killer Uncle’s moniker was changed from Sylvester to “Kevin Harrison.” (As has “Chrissie’s.” She’s “Christie” in the novel).

While these small name changes don’t really figure in or matter to the final product, the absence of “One-Eye” is unforgivable. As is the lack of suspense one might have expected. The only good thing about moving the locale from the Canadian coast to the tropics is the welcome – if brief - appearance of Nestor Paiva as the Steward of the steamer bringing Barnaby and Chrissie to their new island homes. Paiva, one might recall, was the captain of the Rita, the ship slow-trolling the wilds of the Amazon in search of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s Nestor who informs young Barnaby that the island is cursed, which isn’t too far off the mark, at least for him.

The film never really catches fire. I was hoping to glean Castle’s thoughts on Let’s Kill Uncle in his memoir Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America, but the director/producer makes no mention of the film’s production nor reception in the book. The slight filmography in his book’s back pages gives Let’s Kill Uncle only the briefest of notice: “Technicolor murder movie starring kids and Nigel Green.” (It should be noted Director of Photography Harold Lipstein delivers a film of eye-popping color saturation, the film’s singular saving grace).

The film was mostly dismissed by critics upon its release – but there were a few actually enjoyed it. One critic from Box Office mulled the film’s failure was due to the “scene-chewing and downright brattish character traits” of Cardi and Badham, that the “homicidal plans” of Uncle Kevin might have proved “a blessing in disguise” had they been carried out. I generally like William Castle’s shoestring 1960’s psycho-horrors as much as the next guy (assuming that “next guy” also has lowbrow tastes in cinema), but I found the ninety-two minutes of Let’s Kill Uncle a slow torture. Castle’s fans will at least enjoy the bonus featurette Mr. Castle and Me: An Interview with Actor Pat Cardi, which offer a small peek behind the curtain.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of Let’s Kill Uncle is presented in 1920 x 1080p, with a ratio of 1.85:1, dts sound, and removable English sub-titles. The film looks absolutely brilliant, Kino having struck the print from a “Brand New 2K Master.” The set rounds off with two theatrical trailers of the film as well as the commentaries of film historians Kat Ellinger (Diabolique magazine) and the (now sadly recently deceased) author of Teen Movie Hell, Mike McPadden.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Quite a few years ago, my Cinema Retro publishing partner Dave Worrall, a fellow enthusiast of 1960s spy flicks, warned me to avoid "Danger Route", a 1967 espionage concoction that he deemed to be "awful". Worrall had seen a TV broadcast of the film on British TV.  Complying with his advice wasn't a problem since the film has never been released on home video in America. However, I noticed it was streaming through the Screenpix app, which is available through Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV for a paltry $2.99 additional charge per month. I decided to ignore my esteemed colleague's advice and take the plunge largely because of the impressive cast in "Danger Route": Richard Johnson, Carol Lynley, Harry Andrews, Sylvia Sims, Diana Dors, Sam Wanamaker, Gordon Jackson and the "go-to" girl for low-budget Sixties spy movies, Barbara Bouchet.  

The film was a rare non-horror production for Amicus, the company that was the main rival to the legendary Hammer Films. The movie was based on Andrew York's well-received novel "The Eliminator" and adapted for the screen by Meade Roberts, who had some estimable credits before and after this film. There were two types of spy movies during this period: those that spoofed or imitated the James Bond films and those that sought to provide a more realistic depiction of espionage work, seemingly inspired by the success of director Martin Ritt's brilliant screen version of "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold". "Danger Route" is squarely in the latter camp. Richard Johnson plays Jonas Wilde, a top assassin for British Intelligence, who dispenses his victims through a couple of well-placed karate chops. He is partnered with fellow agent Brian Stern (Gordon Jackson) and the two travel widely through Europe to carry out missions on the guise of being yachtsmen. When we first meet Jonas, he's exhausted from having carried out a recent mission on the continent. He comes back to his girlfriend Jocelyn (Carol Lynley in a small but pivotal role that bookends the story). She's a hipster who associates with the mod crowd, clearly to Jonas's dismay. He tells her that even though he is only 37 years-old, he wants to retire and get out of the spy game. They make plans to travel the world living off their wits and working odd jobs. However, reality comes calling when Jonas's boss Canning (Harry Andrews) browbeats him into accepting one more mission- and we all know what happens when the protagonist decides to take on one more mission. Canning informs Jonas that the Americans have a Soviet scientist in their possession who has defected. MI6 thinks he's a Soviet double agent but the Americans don't agree. Thus, they want Jonas to kill him before he is transported to the U.S. It's at this point that the main plot becomes almost incidental, as quirky characters of dubious allegiances interact with our hero, all to the detriment of of a coherent story.

Richard Johnson told this writer that he took himself out of the running to be the screen's first James Bond because he didn't see the potential in the series. Ironically, like every other working actor of the 1960s, he would find himself playing the role of Bond imitators in several low-budget espionage flicks. Johnson gives a very fine performance and makes Jonas an interesting and complex character: a man with a conscience working as a paid assassin. He's a also a vulnerable hero. Though quick on his feet to extract himself from jams without the aid of gadgets, he makes miscalculations in terms of who to trust, with important consequences. Jonas has another vulnerability: he's a borderline alcoholic who is always pouring from a bottle. He finds himself in bizarre situations and death traps, captured by enemy agents and even the C.I.A. There is an extended scene played for some comical effect in which Jonas uses a ditzy, sex-starved housekeeper as a pawn to gain entrance into a mansion house where the bad guys convene. The object of his deceit is winningly played by Diana Dors and she affords the film the few brief moments of humor seen onscreen. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when Canning disappears, Jonas teams for a while with his glamorous wife played by Sylvia Sims. 

The film is ably directed by Seth Holt, but he is guilty of bungling a couple of shots. In one scene, Jonas has his hands bound behind his back by heavy rope. He gains access to a small razor and - presto!- he is free in a matter of seconds, when, in fact, such a feat would take hours to accomplish even if it were possible. In a climactic scene aboard a yacht that is in the midst of a dangerous pea soup-like fog near some dangerous reefs, Jonas simply dives overboard with no explanation as to how he survived and made it back to some finely-tailored clothing. A bit more judicious editing would have helped in these scenes.

The plot of "Danger Route" becomes almost incomprehensible and the film, which was largely shot at Shepperton Studios, didn't ignite much interest and was a casualty of the spy movie tidal wave of the era. Thus, a planned sequel never materialized. However, with all due respect to Dave Worrall, I found the film to be enjoyable fun largely due to the inspired cast, especially since I can't resist any movie featuring Harry Andrews.

By Fred Blosser

There are two types of people in the world, and I don’t refer to young and old, rich and poor, or me and everybody else. The divide I have in mind is wider and deeper. On one side are those who would rather chew broken glass than watch Hollywood’s old costume dramas about noble knights, evil viziers, and beautiful Tahitian princesses. On the other side are those like me who enjoy such fare in the same way we gravitate to Mac ’n Cheese and other comfort food. It’s a soothing callback to our childhoods when we devoured such movies on TV and the big screen, in less strident and less cynical times—at least, they were less strident and less cynical if you were ten years old. In the 1940s, two of the reigning luminaries of the genre were Maria Montez and Jon Hall, who starred together in six Technicolor productions for Universal Pictures, 1942-45. Three of the films have been released by Kino Lorber Studio Classics on one disc, the “Maria Montez and Jon Hall Collection.” If you haven’t had occasion to discover what movie escapism looked like in the era before today’s Middle Earth, planet Tatooine, and Wakanda, the Montez/Hall triple feature provides a good introduction.

In “White Savage” (1943) directed by Arthur Lubin from an early script by future Academy Award winning writer-director Richard Brooks, commercial fisherman Kaloe (Hall) wants to harvest sharks off mysterious Temple Island. Health enthusiasts will pay well for shark liver, “a great source of Vitamin A,” he says, sounding like today’s late-nite pitchmen for dubious dietary supplements. After a meet-cute scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a 2022 romantic comedy, the island’s ruler, Princess Tahia (Montez), falls for the handsome adventurer and grants him access to the waters, only to turn against him later when she’s duped by Sam Miller (Thomas Gomez), the sleazy owner of a gambling den in nearby Port Coral. Miller has learned that the titular temple on Temple Island includes a golden pool inlaid with jewels. To plunder the treasure, he first has to get Kaloe out of the way. Given Kaloe’s name, we assume that the shark hunter is Polynesian (Hall, born Charles Felix Locher, was said to have had a Tahitian mother in real life), but he wears a generic charter-captain outfit and skipper’s cap, not a sarong. Montez, born Maria Gracia Vidal in a well to do Colombian family, doesn’t look any more Polynesian than Hall. But old movies like this are more notable for oddball charm than authenticity. This becomes even more apparent when you think about a golden, gem-encrusted pool in the South Seas. Where did the gold and the jewels come from? It’s further underlined when Kaloe, framed by Miller for murder, is imprisoned on a platform guarded below by African lions. Why not polar bears? Not that audiences in 1943 would have cared, as long as dad could ogle Maria Montez in vivid Technicolor, mom could dream about Jon Hall, and the kids could identify with third-billed Sabu as Kaloe’s mischievous younger sidekick, Orano.

“Gypsy Wildcat” (1944) shifts locale to medieval Europe, exactly the kind of setting and story parodied by Rob Reiner’s beloved 1987 comedy “The Princess Bride,” minus Billy Crystal and Andre the Giant. When a traveler is murdered near the castle of ruthless Baron Tovar (Douglas Dumbrille), Tovar imprisons a band of Gypsies camped nearby. The Gypsies harbor another stranger, Michael (Hall), who witnessed the murder and holds an important item of evidence sought by the baron. The caravan’s dancing girl, Carla (Montez), an orphan who was adopted by the Gypsies at infancy, falls in love with Michael, to the displeasure of the Gypsy chief’s son, Tonio (Peter Coe), who had hoped to marry her. Tovar, in turn, is smitten with Carla, who looks uncannily like a woman in an old portrait that hangs in his private quarters. Well toward the end of the movie, the characters in the story find out why; you’ll probably put two and two together long before then. Of the three movies on the Blu-ray disc, “Gypsy Wildcat” may be the purest example of Universal’s genius in recycling and repurposing its contract actors, directors, and sets from one film to the next across different genres in its movie-factory heyday. The director, Roy William Neill, was borrowed from the studio’s popular Sherlock Holmes series, as were Nigel Bruce and Gale Sondergaard. Bruce plays Tovar’s bumbling lackey in much the same spirit as he portrayed Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Holmes. Sondergaard, here the wife of the Gypsy king, is better remembered as “The Spider Woman” in Neill’s 1943 Holmes mystery of the same name. Neill and producer George Waggner were also associated with Universal’s iconic Wolf Man horror series, and the wagons driven by the Gypsies were probably the same ones used for Maria Ouspenskaya’s Gypsy caravan in “The Wolf Man.” Leo Carrillo, from Universal’s B-Westerns, plays Anube, the Gypsy chief; he, Sondergaard, Coe, and the rest of the troupe reflect producers’ venerable tradition of choosing ethnic-looking but non-Romani actors to play Gypsies. The script was written by James M. Cain, a surprise if you know Cain strictly as a giant of classic noir fiction with “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “Double Indemnity.” However, it isn’t so startling when you remember that Cain was one of many celebrated novelists who made good money on the side, writing or doctoring Hollywood scripts. I met the late James M. Cain in passing in the early 1970s, when he was guest speaker one night at a public library in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, near where he lived in retirement at the time. At eighty-one, he was formidably tall, burly, bushy-haired, and bespectacled. When he amiably chatted with members of the audience, he answered several questions I asked about his career—none of which dealt with “Gypsy Wildcat,” I should note.

“Sudan” (1945), Montez’s and Hall’s final film together, is set in ancient Egypt, where the benevolent king of Khemis is murdered. The crime appears to be the work of an elusive rebel leader, Herua, who has eluded all attempts to catch him through the usual means. The grieving Princess Naila (Montez) has a better (or worse) idea. She will disguise herself as a commoner, find Herua at a fair in Sudan where he customarily buys horses for his band, and have him arrested. Here, Sudan is a colourful whirl of dancing girls and camels, not the grim wasteland of starving children we now see on the TV news. Naila doesn’t realise that her grand vizier, Horadef, who schemes to seize power, was the actual murderer. That fact is disclosed ten minutes into the story, although most of us will already have caught on, given that a) grand viziers in movies like this are always secretly masterminding palace coups, and b) Horadef is played by the great George Zucco, who filled similar roles in Universal’s horror series about the Mummy. Horadef pays slavers to kidnap Naila when she goes undercover. Two horse thieves, Merat and Nebka, come to her rescue. Merat is played by Hall, and Nebka by Andy Devine. Devine provides the same nasal-voiced comedy relief that he did in countless Westerns, only wearing robes this time instead of suspenders. When a handsome stranger shows up (Turhan Bey), he and Naila fall in love with each other, before the princess discovers that the stranger is Herua. Ably written by Edmund L. Hartmann and directed by John Rawlins, the film could almost serve as a G-rated modern sequel to “Disney’s Aladdin,” except for a scene where Naila is branded on the arm by the slavers, and another where she and Herua retire to his tent for a night of passion. The Egyptian sets were ported over from two earlier Middle Eastern fantasies starring Montez and Hall, “Arabian Nights” (1942) and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (1944). It hardly mattered that the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Baghdad of Ali Baba were two separate historical periods a thousand years apart, since audiences’ apathy to such details “made little practical difference where the story was set,” as critic Ian Cameron noted in his 1973 book, Adventure in the Movies. 1945 was a pivotal moment in Universal Pictures’ history as the year it dropped the Montez and Hall series, along with its B-horror films and Sherlock Holmes pictures. When the studio returned to the genre in the early 1950s as Universal-International, it did so with a new generation of young contract players like Rock Hudson and Yvonne de Carlo. Montez appeared in a few more pictures and died in 1951 at 39. Hall had a long career of Westerns, period adventures, and TV guest appearances through the early 1960s, including baby-boomer fame as television’s “Ramar of the Jungle” in the ‘50s.

Although the Montez and Hall movies ran widely on TV during the same era as “Ramar of the Jungle,” they were broadcast in grainy black-and-white, robbing them of their lustrous big screen Technicolor. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray restores their original sharpness and rich palette, supplemented by engaging audio commentary from Phillipa Berry for “White Savage” and “Sudan,” and David Del Valle for “Gypsy Wildcat.” Theatrical trailers and subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired are also included.

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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

Olive Films has released a Blu-ray edition of the little-remembered and rarely seen 1979 film "The Outsider", a powerful drama directed by Tony Luraschi , who seemingly had a bright career but who, instead seems to have fallen into obscurity.  This seems to be one of only two films he was ever credited with. The reasons for this remain unclear, given the fact that "The Outsider" is a powerful film that has retained its bite over the decades. One can only wonder why a work of such passion could not have inspired its director to continue to direct movies, although perhaps fate prevented him from doing so. (If any readers has any information to share about this, please let us know.)  The film is set in Northern Ireland during the height of "The Troubles", that seemingly endless period of time when nation was torn apart by state of virtual civil was. The IRA routinely battled British forces on the streets of major cities, turning urban centers into  war zones at times. There were also loyalist paramilitary groups that did not want independence for Northern Ireland and who wanted to stay loyal to the Crown. The end result was a series of bombings, gun battles and kidnappings that ultimately took thousands of lives and left the civilian population in grave danger. The Good Friday peace agreement, brokered by Prime Minister Tony Blair with enthusiastic backing of President Bill Clinton, finally brought about an end to most of the violence but this didn't take place until 1998 and until then, the bloody legacy of Irish fighting Irish forever seared the nation's history. 

In "The Outsider", Craig Wasson plays Michael Flaherty, a disillusioned Vietnam War veteran of Irish descent who grew up under the spell of his grandfather (Sterling Hayden), who continues to relate stories about his glory days serving in the IRA and carrying out dangerous missions against the British. Michael decides to make his grandfather proud by leaving the family home in Detroit to join up with the IRA. He manages to make the proper contacts and when he gets to Ireland, he is promptly met by members of an IRA group located in the Catholic dominated Republic of Ireland. Here his new comrades greet him politely but warily and with good reason: traitors are not uncommon in the movement and there is suspicion Michael might be a British plant. Finally convinced he is sincere, they move him from safe house to safe house, much to his frustration. Michael is eager to see action against the British but all he gets are delays. After griping that he feels he is wasting his time, the IRA commander sends him and another agent on a mission that requires them to cross the border into Northern Ireland,  the geographical area where most of the acts of violence are carried out in the quest to have both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland reunited as one country, independent of British rule. When Michael arrives in Belfast, he finds the city resembling a war zone with bombed-out buildings and an occupying force of machine gun-carrying British forces on seemingly every corner. While he awaits his orders for the mission, he meets and strikes up a romantic relationship with Siobahn (Patricia Quinn), a firebrand of a young woman who hates the British for killing her younger brother. Although she is not officially with the IRA, she is trusted by them and provides cover for their actions. As Michael impatiently awaits making himself useful, a cruel deception is under way. The local IRA commander has come to the conclusion that Michael could be more valuable dead than alive. He theorizes that if the IRA murders him and frames the British, the result will outrage Irish American sympathizers in the USA who would then increase their monetary donations to the group. Simultaneously, the local British commander (Geoffrey Palmer) has had Michael under surveillance and has also concluded that he could be quite valuable dead- especially if the blame could be placed on his IRA comrades. Meanwhile, Michael is oblivious to all this and is finally given orders to proceed on a mission- but it's one that is intended to be his last. The film ends with a shocking revelation relating to Michael's family that sets up an emotional last scene. 

"The Outsider" is a highly accomplished work and is superbly directed by the aforementioned Tony Luraschi. It's a pity that, for whatever reason, he never chose or perhaps had the opportunity to continue making films. The movie is also outstanding in terms of casting with even minor roles played so convincingly that at times you would be forgiven for thinking you were watching a documentary. The story does manage to deftly tip-toe through the tulips when it comes to passing judgment on the political implications of the events depicted. Both the British military and the IRA members are presented in an unflattering light. How you react to the film probably depends on your personal view of the politics involved. After all, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. If there is a criticism of the film, it's related to the script, which is unrelentingly downbeat. Surely even IRA members managed to have a laugh and a joke occasionally in a pub but in "The Outsider", everyone is downbeat, depressed and paranoid. Still, the Olive Films Blu-ray is most welcome and very highly recommended. There is only one disappointment: the presentation is bare bones.  With a film associated  with this much controversy, there should have been a commentary track with scholars who can discuss Ireland's infamous "Troubles" so that the script can be discussed in context. Highly Recommended.

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By Hank Reineke

I’m going to begin this review by cribbing a couple of sentences from my review of Blue Underground’s double-feature Blu-ray of The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu: Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels were wildly popular pulps but unapologetically racist in construction, reflective of many western attitudes of the day. His Fu Manchu series, the first novel having been published in 1912, were written as blowback in the decade following the long simmering anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, anti-Christian, and decidedly anti-British Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901. OK, just needed to get that out of the way before moving on… but we’ll return to examine this subject a bit later.

I suppose it’s fitting the fireworks of the Boxer Rebellion serve as the starting point of Paramount’s The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929). The film flashes with scenes of Chinese fighters in Peking battling colonizing Brits (and other western allies) in dramatic style. To make the uprising more authentic in its stage dressing, the trades reported (March 16, 1929) the filmmakers were planning to comb LA’s Chinatown in search of as many as “500 oriental actors and extras.” They apparently fell short of this ambitious goal. Reporting four days later, the Los Angeles Evening Express derided, “Los Angeles’s Chinatown has fallen down on the job,” causing the studio to widen their search to “surrounding cities for reinforcements.”

It was only a few weeks earlier (March 3, 1929) that Paramount announced Rowland V. Lee was chosen to direct The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (the true title of Rohmer’s first novel featuring the fiendish villain). The film’s title was soon amended to the easier-to-market The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, with “rehearsals” set to commence immediately on the first week of March. Lee, who would go on to more famously direct such Universal features as Son of Frankenstein and Tower of London (both 1939), was short-listed having recently helmed two pictures for Paramount in 1929: Wolf of Wall Street and The Women Who Needed Killing. Even as the Boxer Rebellion battle scenes were being staged, it appears full casting for the film was still not finalized: several of film’s players were not brought on until mid-April 1929. The film was given a tight shooting schedule, one wag noting “all night sessions will be the order of things.”

There were other hurdles to surmount. Hollywood was still making its earliest steps in their exploration of sound-filmmaking. In April of 1929, the Los Angeles dailies made note of the challenges of writing for the screen in this new “sound era.” Filmmakers now needed to pointedly write and cast to address the vagaries of “foreign” speech patterns and regional dialects. This challenge fell particularly heavy on the screenwriters. “The dialogue voiced by Fu Manchu and the other Chinese characters had to be “couched in this peculiar, flowery oriental style,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “To once digress from it would have been to possibly ruin the effect of the entire production.”

There were other issues. There’s more than a bit of stilted over-acting present in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu: lots of theatrical over-emoting throughout, several actor’s - understandably - not yet conversant with the new realities of sound-recording. This is most obvious in the performance of actress Jean Arthur cast as the beleaguered Lia Eltham, the mink-lined imprisoned daughter of the man Fu Manchu holds responsible for the death of his wife and child. Arthur is a great actress – she enjoyed a long career lasting from the early 1920s through the mid-1960s – but her exaggerated silent-era gesturing and doleful sways present in this first Fu film are a noticeable throwback to days passed. I suppose Warner Oland’s Fu Manchu fares better than most as his character is of course, written as inscrutable: reserved, reticent, cunning and seemingly less susceptible to theatrical outbursts.

As the title character, Orland of course stands dead center of the ensuing mayhem. The actor, soon to command greater fame as the Chinese sleuth Charlie Chan in the Monogram series, was – famously (or perhaps infamously) - not of Asian descent. He was Swedish. Of course neither the previous of succeeding Fu Manchus were of Chinese heritage. Oland’s predecessor Harry Agar Lyons (in a series of silent-era shorts (1923-1924) was British as were two of Oland’s successors, Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. It’s fair to say Orland was the most convincing non-Asian actor to play the role. Having worked in silent films from 1912 through 1926, Oland’s “exotic” (by early Hollywood standards) appearance allowed him to play an assortment of characters of physical non-western heritage.

Oland wasn’t bothered with such typecasting. The amount of work offered was profitable and playing outside his own culture allowed him the chance to test his abilities. “I like to play the Chinese roles because most of them give me the opportunity to do some real acting,” he told the Scripps New Service. “In fact, I like all the roles that give me a chance for difficult characterizations. I believe character actors are the real backbone of most pictures. They are the ones who give the production its atmosphere. And, incidentally, the character actors are the ones who live the longest in the business.”

Obviously, one can’t look at these Fu Manchu movies in this 21^st Century without groaning at the stereotypes, the insensitive dialogue, and – of course - the casting of a non-Asian in the title role. To be fair, Caucasians are damned and thrown under the bus as well. “The white men are kind and generous,” Fu Manchu soothes his frightened daughter as he finds his home in the crossfire between British snipers and Boxer rebels. But his opinion soon changes when his wife and daughter find themselves collateral damage of Britain’s superior firepower. Now, with the “white men” having failed in their promise to protect his family and home, Fu has an awakening. “I’ve been blind,” Fu Manchu rages. “These whites are barbarians, devils, fiends!” Which sets him off to exact revenge on the offspring of the westerners he holds responsible.

That’s essentially the plot device of both films in this new set from Kino Lorber. The two film’s play out much as movie serials of the 1940s do. Lots of villainy, lots of episodic action, a distressed gal, and a heroic paramour (in this case, the handsome Neil Hamilton, “Commissioner Gordon” of TV’s Batman (1966). It’s not great art, but it was – in its time, no doubt – a suspenseful and fun thrill-ride. Paramount offered previews of The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu in late spring/early summer of ’29 at the Westlake Theatre. Initial critical reaction was muted: the earliest previews of the original cut ran the gamut from “overlong” to “somewhat sketchy.” Regardless, upon national release, the film did well enough that by late January of 1930, the trades announced both director Lee and Oland (and indeed the entire primary cast of the original) were to return for a rousing sequel The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu.

In his promotion of this second coming, Lee – again, tapped to direct - pointed out the sinister Fu Manchu was intriguing as he was no ordinary gangster. He was a super-villain, a worthy adversary to Inspector Nayland Smith (O.P. Heggie). Their rivalry and brinksmanship was much in the tradition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes vs. Moriarty. “Dangerous criminals make fascinating prey,” Lee contended. “Such a man is the fictitious Dr. Fu Manchu. His mentality, although diverted into wrong channels, is as keen as that of those who pursue him. He knows what to expect.”

Oland’s Fu is far more loquacious than inscrutable in this second film. There’s a lot of bantering dialogue and threats tossed. Perhaps too many. As one critic noted in his review of The Return of Fu Manchu, “Where is this oriental laconicism they talk about? Dr. Fu is one of the most garrulous individuals on record.” Though decrying the film’s excessive verbiage, the reviewer conceded the film did possess “the virtues of movement… events tumbling over each other in endless succession from start to finish.” Which sounds, more than a little, of what critics thought of the crazy but entertaining James Bond opus Moonraker a half-century later. Not great art, again. But great fun… for some.

I suspect the audience for this particular Fu Manchu set will be split somewhat evenly between aficionados of early sound-films and Cinema Study students examining Race and Ethnicity Depictions of Early Hollywood. There’s a lot to uncomfortableness to mine through here, no shortage of political and cultural tripwire hazards in this “woke” era. Are the Fu Manchu pulps and films racist? Well, of course they are. The question is whether or not the films are still viable. In his intriguing book Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, Professor Yunte Huang accepts that many will always view Oland’s Chan as a “Yellow Uncle Tom,” his impersonations akin to that of a blackface minstrel. But he also notes that upon Oland’s visit to Shanghai in 1933, local audiences celebrated the actor for “bringing to life the first positive [Chinese] character in American film.”

So it’s all complicated. As an amateur historian, I personally think artifacts of days ancient and not-so-ancient should be preserved for study and education. Such storytelling shines light on our past and the best (and worst) aspects of our world and ourselves. In terms of simple film-collecting, perhaps the appearance of these two rare-ish Fu Manchu films might pique the interest of fans of Oland’s far better known Charlie Chan series. In 2009 20^th Century Fox issued an essential five box DVD collection of the actor’s Chan oeuvre, so there’s evidently interest in Oland’s filmography even some ninety-years on.

It might be somewhat disappointing to those more knowledgeable collectors that Kino chose not to (or perhaps were unable?) to include the third and final film of the Oland Fu Manchu series on this set. In 1931 Paramount released The Daughter of Fu Manchu, the last (and, arguably, least) of the series, but one featuring Anna May Wong as the featured character. To my knowledge The Daughter of Fu Manchu has never been given a proper official release on home video, though copies of the film have long been found on the grey-market. (In 1984 the Video Marquee label issued a clamshell VHS edition of the film as part of their “Joe Franklin’s Collectibles” series – but I’m not certain this release had any official sanction). In any case, a two-disc Blu-ray set of this triumvirate would have surely satiated the desires of the sad Completists amongst us. I’m not complaining, mind you. While some might wish such dated fare be removed from circulation as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities, I’m grateful Kino Lorber continues to shine light on such obscure and mostly forgotten films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu/The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu is presented here in 1920x1080p, dts sound and with an attractive slipcase cover. The film looks very good considering its age, though neither print is pristine: there are occasional flashes of white and black emulsion scratches present throughout, and some shots appear a bit soft. The set rounds off with several theatrical trailers of period films as well as welcome commentaries courtesy of novelist and critic Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog fame.

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