Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Kurosawa May Be Cake, But Extra Geniuses Are the Icing

Well, I wasn't expecting this at all.

I knew that Jen's mom, Sande, was clued in on my deep admiration for the films of Akira Kurosawa when she gave me a copy of the Criterion Collection set for Drunken Angel last year for Xmas. But I really did not expect her to toss this set my way for the current holiday season:

The Great Directors, Volume 1

Five discs, five films from some of the greatest directors in film history: Chabrol, Tarkovsky, Antonioni and Schlöndorff! Oh yes... there's also that Kurosawa guy -- you may have heard of him -- represented here by Dersu Uzala, a film which not only fascinates for its incredible cinematography, but is also remarkable for letting Kurosawa film outside of Japan. Also, no samurai (or the Japanese, for that matter) to be seen at all. What you get is a vigorous though touching story set in the early 20th century of a Nanai hunter and guide who heroically leads a Soviet surveying team through the harsh Siberian wilderness, and how he comes to win the respect and admiration of his charges through his bravery and ingenuity, despite the fact that the Soviets seem him at first as a doddering old man. The film then continues years later through glimpses of the ongoing friendship between the Soviet captain and Dersu the hunter, even as Dersu's senses begin to fail him in his advancing age.

I have had a copy of Dersu Uzala for numerous years on VHS, but naturally, I was anticipating its release on DVD, as I do anytime I hear there is a video being released from one of those whom I, and many, many others, consider the Old Masters of Cinema. Recently, I did notice that Kino Video was finally doing just that -- releasing Dersu Uzala -- and I added the film to the (ahem...) short list of films I wanted to purchase in the near future. But then I noticed it was also coming out in The Great Directors, Volume 1 box set, and I suddenly became torn. Yes, it's true that I had only seen one of the other films in the set, Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes, an odd, kind of dirty little thriller from the early days of the French New Wave, but I saw it quite a long time ago, so I didn't have much in the way of memories of it. I had enjoyed it though, but the fact that I had not seen the remaining three films in the set made it somewhat of a longshot that I would actually go out and spend the $70-90 or so that it would cost me to get the set, especially given that there were other box sets out there for which I would instantly dish out such money, such as either of the Douglas Fairbanks sets still lagging around on my To Buy list. (Sorry, but the silents usually win out for me.)

But then wonderful Sande, of whom it must be said, were I actually legally married to her daughter, would make the greatest mother-in-law in history, made the decision for me. While I did miss Christmas with Jen's family this year due to my trip up to see my brother M'otis, waiting for me when I returned were a handful of presents, and amongst the lot was The Great Directors, Volume 1. I found out later from Jen that Sande had guessed that the recent vintage of the set's release made her pretty certain that I did not have it yet. And she was right. So far, DVD-wise, she has always been right, even with my slightly deserved reputation of being one for whom it is difficult to shop.

So, since I have now bypassed my own purchase of the single Kurosawa, what else do I get besides that and the Chabrol film? A 1974 film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, who most would know from the original version of Solaris (which is pretty much what I know him from, that and Stalker) called The Mirror, supposedly (from reading the description) a quite personal WWII drama based on his own experiences in his homeland at that time. From the acclaimed director of The Tin Drum, Volker Schlöndorff, comes a later film called Circle of Deceit (1981), starring Bruno Ganz (a personal favorite) in a story set in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.

And finally, in perfect timing with my own current run of Michelangelo Antonioni viewings over the past few months, there is his 1957 effort Il Grido. The description claims the film as the "missing link" in his career between his earlier "neorealist style" films and what they term his later "more subjectively stylized" films like L'Avventura and Red Desert, certainly two of his most famous films. Me, I'm a Blow-Up guy, and I guess I won't really know how it plays as a "missing link" until I have actually seen his films previous to this one, but I am definitely pleased to have it in the collection, if only because it affords me the chance to get acquainted with it at my leisure.

All told, a decent haul for a set: a couple with which I have history, and a trio waiting for me to discover their hidden secrets. It's nice for once to get a set where I haven't seen everything in it already. And that is how I am going to view it, watching the familiar first, and then taking advantage of what is basically a prepaid excuse to be cinematically adventurous. You should all be so lucky...

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 7: Return of the Best Buy Exclusives!

Once more, a trip to Best Buy caused me to happen upon new discs which I had not seen discussed elsewhere. Warner has released a pair of discs exclusively to Best Buy stores, and one of them (featured below) was a no-brainer purchase for me. Some would contend, such as my girlfriend, that I would have to possess little in the way of gray matter to purchase such a thing in the first place, and this would not be a statement based solely on its content… the deeper truth is that we have little or no more room for such items in our relatively cramped abode, and my predilection for purchasing books, music and movies constantly has her making the odd comment here and there about the situation.

But she should put down the knife -- at least, she can after Halloween -- since I actually did show a small measure of restraint, as I did not purchase the twin disc to this set, a double feature of the Lovecraft feature The Shuttered Room and a Roddy McDowall golem flick called, simply, It! Since I have never seen the former before and it is actually being shown on TCM on Halloween, I decided to delay its possible addition to the collection for the time being. (Shuttered’s potential is the only thing in discussion over such a buy, since It! is really not very good at all.) But if I miss out on buying it, I miss it. That’s the choice I made, and Jen should be momentarily proud over it. Here are the discs:

Warner Horror Double Feature // Best Buy Exclusive
featuring:
Chamber of Horrors
Director: Hy Averback
Warner Bros., 1:39, color
Cinema 4 Rating: waiting to watch this over again, some 25-30 years later

The Brides of Fu Manchu
Director: Don Sharp
Hallam/Anglo-Amalgamated/Seven Arts, 1:34, color
Cinema 4 Rating: waiting to watch this over again, some 20 years later

Two more British horror flicks from the ‘60s that somehow my mind – and I am sure that I am not the only one out there – automatically triggers on as belonging to the long and bloody line of Hammer horror films, even though they, in actuality, are not. I know that somewhere far back in my past I saw Chamber of Horrors, a gimmick-laden (and how!) revenge festival with Patrick O’Neal as a one-armed madman with a variety of stump accessories, a couple of times. But, it was so long ago, I scarcely remember it past O’Neal’s image, being one of the few times I actually watched him act. The second of Harry Allan Towers’ Fu Manchu series I recall a tad bit better, having seen it slightly more recently, though still long enough ago where reading the film’s synopsis on IMDB has me now confusing with the later films in the series that I have caught in the past couple years.

Am I suggesting that all Fu Manchu flicks look alike? Hardly, that would be mildly racist, even when I am merely attempting to be ironic. But when all five films star the great Christopher Lee in the lead role, and all five basically have the same plot – the abduction of hot girls; forcing scientists to bend to his evil whims; trying to take over the world (the same thing he tries to do every night, Pinky…) – then you can understand the confusion. Fu’s megalomania is quizzical, since he can barely control a dozen people in one room – how is he going to control everyone in the world? He’d get no rest at all, and one would certainly beg for some extra leisure time with all the hot girls around. Maybe he should shoot for a smaller goal. Like taking over a movie studio and forcing them to make a halfway decent film. While Lee’s presence, and the attendant gore and torture that follows in his notorious character’s wake, could serve as the sole reasons why the connection to the Hammer series looms so large in my mind, perhaps it is also because these were shown side by side with the Hammer Frankenstein and Dracula films in my teen years, and so that made the true connection for me. Regardless, Hammer or not, The Brides of Fu Manchu will now rest side by side on my DVD shelf with those same films, if only for Mr. Lee.

Paul Naschy Double Feature // Best Buy Exclusive
featuring:
Curse of the Devil [El Retorno de Walpurgis] (1973)
Director: Carlos Aured
Spanish, 1:24, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet in a real version

Werewolf Shadow [La Noche de Walpurgis] (1971)
Director: León Klimovsky
Spanish, 1:35, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet at all

Trick or treat? I really won’t know which until I – and I will consider the opportunity a treat until I learn otherwise – dig into one or both of these Spanish horror films this Halloween weekend and discover the truth for myself. Most people outside of horror circles are probably not all that aware of Paul Naschy, who has as large a legacy in horror films in many countries in the world as Karloff, Lee, Cushing and Lee have in the English-speaking world. If they are aware, they may not know him by name, but possibly have crossed paths with him on Spanish-language channels here and there, generally in very censored and misshapen prints of his films, or even occasionally in badly dubbed versions of a couple of his films, such as Fury of the Wolfman, on UHF and cable access channels. In addition to his appearances in scads of films over his nearly fifty-year career, Naschy has knocked out a dozen films featuring his Hombre Lobo character, a wolfman named Waldemar Daninsky, even appearing as Daninsky as recently as four years ago. I only own copies of two of his films on videotape, both dubbed and truly atrocious in recording quality to view. I was aware that several of his films, including the two released on this combo disc (which I have read elsewhere can only be found at Best Buy), had been released to DVD. I figured now was as good a time as any, with my interest in world cinema, to become truly acquainted with Mr. Naschy (nee Jacinto Molina), and to let my own opinion take over in my mind all of the comments I have read – from disparate sources, mostly negative but coddling, as though they were films proposed by filmmakers with the talents of mere preschoolers, making films for the even more infantile. I doubt this is the truth, and there has to be some level of professionalism involved for such a series to have lasted so long and so popularly.

But then I think about Police Academy, and I worry…

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 6: Hammer Down!

With the near completion of my Universal horror collection over the past few years (there are only a handful of the obscurer titles still outstanding, with all of what would be considered the true "classics" covered), comes the time to pay attention to my Hammer collection.

Almost more influential to me in my youth than the Universal versions of the famous monsters were the Hammer versions of the same. Once I discovered that these films even existed as a near-teen, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (and to a lesser extent, Oliver Reed for his role in Curse of the Werewolf) became my gods for a number of years. I have recounted my devotion to a late night ABC affiliate program called The World's Most Terrible Movies a couple of times before; Lee and Cushing were the chief reasons that I tuned in week after week. With scant few references at hand in my local small town library and an absolute lack of internet in those days, I had little knowledge of Hammer Films except for the fact that I saw their names on many of my then favorite films, most of them starring those twin gods of mine.

And then, over the years, as I discovered more of their films, the immediate assumption was that all of these films were also Hammer Films, an assumption, if one were to judge from board comments on various websites, that many other horror film fans make to this day. When I made some recent purchases in addition to my obtaining the latest Icons of Horror DVD set, this time focusing on a quartet of unreleased as of yet Hammer Films, I grabbed the extra pair of discs continuing that assumption: that the related films featuring either or both of the Lee/Cushing team just had to be Hammer Films, even though I had read before that they weren't. So strong is the connection between that studio, those stars and their eager public, that it matters little when the film does not actually belong to the studio.

The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)

Director: John Gilling

Triad/Regal, 1:37, b/w

TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Skull (1965)

Director: Freddie Francis 

Amicus/Paramount, 1:30, color 

TC4P Rating: 6/9

First, the imposters: one I have never seen, The Flesh and the Fiends, a black and white version of the Burke and Hare story starring Mr. Cushing, and The Skull, an Amicus adaptation of a Robert Bloch short story featuring both members of the famous team. The Skull certainly fits the assumption well, as I have always lumped it into the Hammer camp. Having seen the film numerous times over the years, I suppose that I have seen the Amicus name in the credits over and over again, and it was still not enough to wipe the association with Hammer out of my mind. Never having actually owned a copy of this movie, though, I will be glad to finally get a chance to see it in its true aspect ratio (if indeed it proves to be), rather than the chopped and leaping prints with which I have had to make do over the years.

I always seem to think that I have seen The Flesh and the Fiends, but my memories of Karloff's The Body Snatcher (a favorite, for which I have always supported Danny Peary's notion that perhaps the man could have won an Oscar for his performance if the Academy were smarter) are very strong as regards black-and-white grave-robbing flicks, and I am also probably mixing it up with The Doctor and the Devils, a 1985 Timothy Dalton starrer directed by Freddie Francis (who, coincidentally, also directed The Skull). Judging from what I have read about this one, I am in for a gruesome treat. But only watching it will tell... [Note: And once I did, I liked it well enough, but not as half as much as The Body Snatcher.]

Icons of Horror Collection: Hammer Films
4 Creepy Classics from the Hammer Film Archives featuring:

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Director: Terence Fisher
Hammer/Columbia
TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964) 

Director: Michael Carreras 

Hammer/Columbia

TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Gorgon (1964) 

Director: Terence Fisher 

Hammer/Columbia
TC4P Rating: 7/9

Scream of Fear (1961)

Director: Seth Holt

Hammer/Columbia

TC4P Rating: 7/9

And now for the real deal: the Hammer flicks, two of which I have never had opportunity to see. The Gorgon is a personal favorite, as it was one of the few Hammer films of which I actually own a real copy of on VHS, and yet again, I will be glad to be given a chance to see it in widescreen for the first time. I have never thought much of Hammer's Mummy series beyond the swell first flick, but I am willing to give them all another chance with fresh viewings, so The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb will likely be part of my Halloween program this weekend (though, unlike the other three films on this set, there is no Lee or Cushing).

I did get to watch half an hour of Scream of Fear a few months ago, before my pothead neighbors somehow convinced the cable guy to switch our connection off so they could get the Super Bowl (we have no proof of this, but the circumstantial evidence against them, especially as collected by Jen and I, is astounding). So, this will be another first, as will my viewing, long awaited, of the Hammer version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I think might be the only version which I have not seen. (Believe me, I have seen a lot of them...) All told, it pulls in another chunk of Hammer all at once into my collection, cheaply and effortlessly.

And the other films? Like many a horror fan, I bid them all an eager welcome, whether we can remember if Hammer produced them or not. 

After all, in the end, it's really Pete and Chris that matter...

RTJ

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 5: Elvira

Count Dracula’s Great Love [El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula] (1972)
Director: Javier Aguirre
Spanish, 1:25, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

The Doomsday Machine (1972)
Director: Harry Hope & Lee Sholem
Cine-Find, 1:23, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks [Terror! Il Castello delle Donne Maledette] (1974)
Director: Dick Randall
Boxoffice/Aquarius, 1:29, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven't seen yet

The Werewolf of Washington (1973)
Director: Milton Moses Ginsberg
Diplomat, 1:30, color
Cinema 4 Rating: haven't seen yet

As nostalgic as I seem at times, it is generally only about movies, books and music, and never about anything so ridiculous and abstract as "the good ol' days." And speak to me of my teenage years, outside of some friends I made in my last couple years of high school to whom I have remained more or less loyal in all this intervening time, and you will find that I hold remarkably little regard for that period of extreme failure and deep personal fault. Except for movies, books and music, that steadfast trio of tent-poles holding aloft the shelter of sanity above my head through those times (and onward into the future), I do not wish to be reminded of that period.

My friends from that time do not understand this attitude, and my mother recently ran into my fury over the barest mention of an incident in that time. That it was the lowest point of my existence is something others do not seem to comprehend -- and why should they? Things seem to have gone swimmingly for some of them. Anytime I do look back, I often wonder if, given a second chance at that period, I would have followed through on certain instincts and done the horrible things I considered at the time, both to others and myself. That I was lost in my head is a certainty; that I wanted retribution from both those I loved and hated is something that might surprise more than a few people. To co-opt the words of two of my personal heroes, Milk and Cheese, more so than at any other time in my life, I was a carton of hate and I was a wedge of spite.

Keeping me grounded, though, in those times was Elvira. Yes, the Mistress of the Dark, not the Oak Ridge Boys' song character. Sometime late in my high school days, I discovered Elvira's Movie Macabre, and it made me a happier person. The show was dopey as hell, it showed horrible movies, she had huge bazooms, and I was a randy teenager who needed cheering up. My outward cheerfulness masked a sincere, inner depression of unfathomable limits, and once a week, no matter how bad off I was inside, Elvira helped me climb out of that depression for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon (and sometimes evening).

My biggest regret is that I did not tape more episodes of her show at the time, even though I was taping every damn movie in sight. I only recorded one show in that period, the one featuring the unfortunate south-of-the-border Herbert L. Strock creature flick called Monstroid, and I still have the tape to this day. Luckily, a couple of years ago, Shout Factory started releasing episodes of her old shows onto DVD, amongst them, to my delight, was Monstroid. The beauty of the discs was, just like with the Mystery Science Theatre DVDs, most of the films are released in both their hosted and original versions. This works especially nice for the horror and sci-fi nut, like myself, who wants to both add the original film to his collection, but also get the better, intentionally funny version as well.

As I mentioned the other day, I took advantage of Amazon's Halloween sale a couple weeks back and scoured their cheap, cheap, cheap DVDs to find some films that had slipped through the cracks for me. In there were four Elvira's Movie Macabre discs, each costing $6.49 or less. Like the Midnite Movie Double Features I wrote about last time, I had to jump at the chance to grab some more episodes of her show, as I only owned three of the DVDs thus far. Looking back, though, I could have saved even more money buying two of these movies on the same disc together for around nine bucks and change, but that is what happens when you make knee-jerk buying decisions like I did. Sometimes you miss the better deals. (But they made it so damn easy having all of those delectable discs all on the same page... I had no choice... I had to do it...)

Yet again, all four of these films are ones of which I have little or no experience. If I saw these episodes on the original show, I really don't recall. Some episodes, like The Conqueror Worm, The Blood on Satan's Claw and the incredibly gratuitous Mark of the Devil, I remember very well, but only in cases where the films were especially strong, as seeing these films on her show were my first and often my only experiences with those titles until years later. I suppose as I watch these discs that I might raise up memories of seeing these exact episodes, but truly, from immediate recollection, I can't recall seeing any of these films.

And that will be just fine. For to recall them, would be to recall the period. Better that I leave most of my memories of that time mainly in a sort of uncolored and distasteful mush.

And better that I make most of my memories of Elvira's Movie Macabre memories of today instead. Watch them now, and then date those memories to this year, instead of a past I do not wish to recollect. Elvira only says "Unpleasant Dreams" as a catchphrase of her charmingly titillating character. It's worse to continue to have the same ones for over a quarter century. And for the curious or those that continue to not understand, please let those days rest.

Let me watch Elvira today instead...

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 4: Midnight Matinees

OK, so I treated myself. Halloween rolls around, and I get all crazy with the DVD buying. Specifically, horror and science fiction movie buying. You may have noticed already from the fact that this post is Part 4 of my Halloween Free-For-All, with at least three more posts in sight.

Here's the deal: Amazon often has a big horror movie sale on their site at this time of the year, and for once, I was prepared. Instead of going for the bigger ticket items which are often on some form of sale throughout the year anyway, I decided to jump into their pile of 5.99 or less DVDs, and see what I could roust out of there. The first things that popped out at me were a quartet of discs from MGM's (and occasionally, 20th Century Fox's) ongoing (and seemingly popular, at least with psychotronic freaks like me) Midnight Movies series. A few years back, I grabbed about a dozen of these discs from Wal-Mart for 5 bucks a shot, finishing off my Corman Poe collection in the process. Now, it's a similar situation on Amazon: only about $20, and I have eight more films in my collection, two of which I actively like, another two which are so innocently bad they just cannot be missed, four of which I have never seen, and three of those four never-seens are ones which I have always wanted to watch. So, I can't really lose on any front with these selections, and they are going to make for some interesting viewing over the next week. The discs:

20th Century Fox and MGM Present(s) Midnite Movies Double Features
Disc #1
Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Director: Ray Milland AIP, 1:33, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Director: Ubaldo Ragona & Sidney Salkow
API/AIP, 1:26, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

First, a Ray Milland film of which I have heard a good deal -- some decent, some moderately ill -- but given that I am a huge Milland nut (I will not rest until It Happens Every Spring, my favorite baseball movie, is on disc), I figured that I just have to own a movie that the man himself directed. Post-apocalypse, here we come -- at least, before our government's rapture nuts take us there. Also hanging out in that time after decent civilization has finally gotten out of its own hair is Vincent Price in the first film version of the awesome I Am Legend, The Last Man on Earth. Like all three film versions, this one is not quite the novel, but for a neo-zombie flick with the great Price, it ain't hay. And while I have yet to watch this disc, it just has to hold a better print, coming from a major studio like MGM, than the umpteen versions of this public domain flick bopping about on cheap, fly-by-night video companies (or on the internet for free). I'm hoping to discover that I will like it all the more without all of the pops, crackles and erratic cuts. Then again, it could backfire and ruin the atmosphere.

Disc #2
A Blueprint for Murder (1953)
Director: Andrew L. Stone
20th Century Fox, 1:17, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

Man in the Attic (1953)
Director: Hugo Fregonese
20th Century Fox, 1:22, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

For fans of mysteries or psycho killers or both, Man in the Attic has just got to be seen for a terrific performance by a young but always edgy Jack Palance as a serial killing pathologist named Slade, who rents a room from Andy Griffith's Aunt Bea (no joke) -- ala The Lodger, a relationship noted in the credits -- and then proceeds to murder showgirls all over London. Low-budget but very tense mood, lots of sleazy girls in heels and stockings, and a maniacal Palance -- why would one miss this? I caught up with it recently on TCM, and had a good, gritty time watching it. I have not seen A Blueprint for Murder, which came out the same year as Man in the Attic, but it gives me an opportunity to see Joseph Cotten, always a favorite of mine, working his magic away from Hitchcock and Welles. I don't really know much else about it, but I am looking forward to it all the same.

Disc #3
Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955)
Director: Dan Milner
Milner Bros./ARC, 1:20, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)
Director: David Kramarsky & Lou Price
San Mateo/ARC, 1:15, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: 2

Boy, are these a pair of really crappy films. Bottom of the barrel sludge, both of them, and as far as I know, both floating about in the public domain. I own Phantom on one such disc (one of those "50 movies for 12 bucks" things), and while I really don't need to own it a second time, I do have a thing for mutant sea creatures, so having an actual widescreen print of Phantom made the decision for me. And this monster is such a dopey sad sack that you almost want to cuddle it, even when he is attacking girls in bikinis.

There is no actual creature with a million eyes in Beast, not even a dopey one, and if you go in waiting for such a creature like I did, there will only be sad disappointment. Thank goodness I'm not an ophthalmologist. However, if you are interested in seeing just how absurdly boring a film with such a title can actually turn out to be, this will be your cup of tea. It's like someone fed the Cleavers or the Nelsons downers and then followed them around with cameras, all the while making them believe that aliens are out to get them. Despite the fear factor, everyone still practically walks around in a stupor, making this one just drip, drip, drip along... and yet, I find it fascinating that someone would even release this. And now, because my taste for these things is set extremely low, and because I am a rubbernecker of the old school, I own this slow-motion trainwreck.

Disc #4
The Return of Dracula (1958)
Director: Paul Landres
Gramercy/United Artists, 1:17, b/w (partial color)
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

The Vampire (1957)

Director: Paul Landres Gramercy/United Artists, 1:15, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: haven’t seen yet

OK, I have no doubt that these two are going to end up seeming supremely disappointing to me, but I am looking forward to watching them all the same. A pair of Paul Landres-directed films that I have never run into through all of my video travels, but have read plenty about in numerous horror movie texts. Even the texts lead me to not expect too much, but I can't help but get excited about even the worst or even just plain boring films when they have been so hidden from me all this time. Obscure plays HUGE with me, and ultimately, for me, sometimes the experience means more than the actual outcome of the experience.

So it is with all four films on these discs that I have not seen. It means that instead of watching the same two dozen films on TCM or AMC for the Halloween weekend, I will have a stockpile of undiscovered treasures at my fingertips. Treasures, no matter their quality. As I said, it's the experience. Sometimes you just have to take a cinematic Cleveland Steamer to the chest to get your senses straight and your movie sights re-calibrated.

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 3: Karloff

The Boris Karloff Collection: The Franchise Collection
featuring:
Night Key (1937)
Director: Lloyd Corrigan

Tower of London (1939)
Director: Rowland V. Lee
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

The Climax (1944)
Director: George Waggner

The Strange Door (1951)
Director: Joseph Pevney

The Black Castle (1952)
Director: Nathan Juran

Icons of Horror Collection: Boris Karloff
featuring:
The Black Room (1935)
Director: Roy William Neill
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Director: Nick Grinde
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

Before I Hang (1940)
Director: Nick Grinde
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Director: Lew Landers
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

Sometimes you have to jump on these things before they're gone.

Trying to play catch-up with DVD releases already out of print has left me a little short-winded -- which would prove a surprise for anyone who knows me personally -- and so I decided to take another tack for once. With my interest drawn in other areas, I have been putting off, for quite some time now, the purchase of a couple of sets -- one released by Universal, one by Columbia -- featuring decent handfuls of old Boris Karloff flicks. Not the latter day, mostly-miss efforts in his catalog from his dotage, but films that largely comprised his constantly working but constantly typecast days of the late 30s and early 40s. With the exception of two films from the early 50s, these films all stem from that era.

Naturally, one would assume that I'd have jumped on these sets from the day of their release a couple years back, but as I said, I get distracted. And I only have so much money to spend at one time. That said, with the recent release of a couple more entries in the "Icons of..." series (but all Hammer films this time), I figured it might be only so much longer before what appears to be an excellent slice of Karloff ends up in the hands of evil speculators, and not true fans. As for the Franchise Collection above, I cannot explain why I didn't leap at it since it contains four out of five films (I have seen Tower of London numerous times) that have remained stubbornly out of my reach for double-four years.

And now I have them. To be sure, not even having seen those four films, I can still say with relative assurance that the gem out of these nine flicks is going to be The Black Room, a most entertaining Roy William Neill (director of a majority of the Rathbone/Green Holmes mysteries) venture with Karloff in dazzling form as twins at odds whilst encased in power struggles and murder in a tiny European country. The Icons of Horror Karloff set replaces this film in my VHS collection, as it also does for the other films in the set, which represent three of the so-called "Mad Doctor" series Karloff churned out while under contract with Columbia. The Mad Doctor films might seem like more of the same for good Boris on the surface (and he may have felt that way at the time), but they all good fun, and Nick Grinde, director of the two Hang features, keeps things moving along quite briskly, and may have had something of a rapport with his famous star, judging from how lovingly the films frame Karloff throughout. Somehow, despite their lower origins, they come out oddly engaging to this day.

I wish I could speak with any comfort on the rest of the films, not having seen them, but that is precisely why one dives in to buy sets like this. And, of course, the purpose of getting them in the month of October is to add to the Halloween spirit. So, I don't know what you are going to be watching as the spirits accumulate throughout the month -- hopefully not Saw V -- but I'm going use my spare time to catch up with an old friend. Having four unseen Karloffs ahead of me, I can't think of a better time, no matter the quality.

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Halloween Free-For-All, Pt. 2

Phase IV (1974)
Director: Saul Bass
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Saul Bass' insect politics thriller, Phase IV. I just don't remember the "who" of the story.

It was a Friday night, and there was someone at our house. Was it an uncle, and not one with quotations around it? Was it just a friend of ours from the neighborhood, or my cousin Brad, and was my father actually even around for this? Was it him? I don't fully recall the name of the person who filled in that particular role in this story, but I am fairly certain it was one of her abhorrent dates following my parents' then soul-wrenching but actually perfectly timely divorce.

I only recall that this person who probably ended up banging my mom bet me a dime for every thirty minutes I could shut completely up for the evening. I was still young enough where a thin dime still meant a good deal to me -- 10 cents would still buy me a pack of baseball cards at that time -- but I was already engaged enough verbally where I could drag any sane adult to the dark side in no time flat. Much like today, it seems. And thus, the deal was born. I sat down, shut up, and decided to watch whatever movie was coming on that evening. In the '70s, ABC had an amazing penchant for showing horror and science-fiction movies in prime time on Friday nights, most of them made-for-TV (and that is no knock on their quality, for there were some excellent ones) and some of them theatrical releases. (Click here for the opening to their show.)

This evening, they were showing what appeared to be a really spooky looking film called Phase IV. Anything with bug attacks at that age, I was there. It's what tricked me into actually seeing The Swarm in a theatre. And so, having dragged a sleeping bag into the living room, I crawled inside and shut my trap, counting out how many cards I could buy if I did not squeak a single word for the next three hours. (That would be, for the curious, sixty cards.) And then, over the next two hours, I found myself losing the ability to speak anyway. Thanks to Phase IV, which had me so scared I couldn't even get out of the sleeping bag to go down the hall to the bathroom on commercials, I was cheating whoever it was out of their money.

At first, I remember being bored, but then, as the implications of what was happening in this oddly located film were growing, and as the tension built up, I found myself unable to turn away. I didn't really understand what was happening, but that didn't matter. It was about the moment, and that moment found me not just easily earning the first two hours of that cash, but in the end found an entire dollar being slapped into my hand. Never has silence been so golden. I maintain that if the entire world would just pay me hush money in this same manner, I would leave everyone alone. I wouldn't yell about organized religion and idiot Republicans (and, occasionally, idiot Democrats) and crazy Hollywood cults and everything else that pisses me off.

If only I could get people to listen to me in the first place, this would be a great way of life for me.

I also remember where I was when I first saw The Man Who Could Cheat Death. OK, not the full movie, but I did see it in sixth grade at our graduation prize summer camp. The people running the camp had a series of 8mm ten-minute versions of various monster films -- the kind that I would ogle in the back pages of Famous Monsters magazine but never have the guts (or the cash -- I apparently wasn't being paid to shut up enough) to order them -- and as a gift for winning Capture the Flag earlier that morning on our second day there, our class was treated to a night at the movies, camp 8mm style. Popcorn, hot dogs and condensed versions of Christopher Lee Dracula and Peter Cushing Frankenstein films.

In this mix was the miniaturized version of The Man Who Could Cheat Death, with Anton Diffring as a sculptor who appears to be 40ish, but is in reality an increasingly mad Dorian Gray type who has lived for 104 years by replacing certain glands in his body with those of gullible, much younger victims. Chiefly, I remember the final sequence, which I will not relate here in the interests of those who have yet to see what is actually a middling though handsome Hammer production. Of course, being a Hammer film, most likely all will not work out for the villain in the end, so if I were to say that the sculptor is not just flaming in spirit, you can work it out for yourself. The scene, though, did make quite an impression on me, as did the appearance of Christopher Lee, with whom I was beginning a definite fascination. Within the next year, I would start watching the full versions of these same Hammer horror films.

But I got my Hammer start by watching the 8mm renditions, all truncated and jumpy on an old projector -- also, completely silent, so we had to provide our own soundtrack -- inside a cabin that split the difference between a cafeteria and a congregation room for this camp usually attended by the biblically minded. That I would totally discard any attempt at connecting with established religion within the next couple of years, and then possibly replaced such worship with a devotion to the very films that I saw that night in the camp is perhaps an irony worth far more delving on my part. But, I will save that for another time. For now, and for once, I will just shut up.

After all, it's your dime. And soon it will be mine...

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Growling at Best Buy's Exclusivity...

Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Features
Disc #1
Moon Zero Two (1969)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
Director/Writer: Val Guest
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

Disc #2
Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)
DirectorMontgomery Tully
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
Director/Writer: Robert Clouse
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Disc #3
World Without End (1956)
Director/Writer: Edward Bernds
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Satellite in the Sky (1956)
Director: Paul Dickson
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Quite regularly, I sift through a seemingly endless list of titles which I am hoping will get released onto DVD so I can replace old versions of these same films. Most of these films were taped off of cable television anytime in the past twenty to five years, though a certain number of them were prerecorded version officially released by their respective studios. No matter how I might have them in my collection, it is still my fervent hope that they shall be released onto disc form, and thus save space in our crammed little hovel (it's amazing the space saved when comparing discs versus tapes) and also, the hope remains that the print in which they are burned onto disc will far outweigh my previous versions in overall quality.

One of the films on this list, which I began compiling a full decade ago, was Hammer Films' special effects-heavy follow-up to One Million Years B.C., When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

Every couple of months since I moved down here to Cali, I have gone through most of this list, and one of the first films I always look up is When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Not that it is any great shakes as a film per se, but it is highly sought by fans of stop-motion animation for its exquisite dinosaur footage by Jim Danforth and Roger Dicken. (While I am at it, I should mention that David Allen, amongst others, also worked on the effects as an assistant, though only Danforth and Dicken were actually nominated for an Oscar at the 1972 awards.) It is for this reason alone (OK, the cave girls play a part too) that I embraced the film as a teenager, and made sure to grab a copy on VHS when it came out in the '90s. And this is without knowing that the original story for the film was devised by none other than J.G. Ballard, writer of Crash (the wonderfully twisted and kinky Cronenberg one) and Empire of the Sun.

But I had always heard there was a slightly longer version of the film, one that took the cavegirl stuff even further than when Raquel Welch leaped about in a fur bikini in B.C. Supposedly, the film originally held a handful (more than a handful, as they say, is a waste) of topless shots, both innocent (swimming about in mucky, sea monster-infested waters) and randy (mild cavepeople whoopee, apparently), as well as a scene where lead Playboy bunny/"actress" Victoria Vetri gets stripped down in a cave (appropriately) by her would-be cave beau. Gee, I'm was actually only here for the dinosaurs, but I can you heap some of this, too, on my plate? All the more reason to remain impatient over an official special edition.

And yet, I could never find this one, even while the entire Harryhausen oeuvre and much of the Hammer library had been released already. I felt certain that it was bound to come out sooner or later, because if there is one diehard fanbase out there, it's the one for special effects epics -- dinosaurs, spaceships, aliens, or what have you. But, as I kept checking over the last few years to find news of its arrival on DVD, I found nothing. My searches came up empty, over and over again. And then, the other day, I found out why: I had been primarily looking on Amazon.

Cut to last week, as I decided to take a quick first look at the new neighborhood Best Buy store. There, sitting in plain sight on a shelf in the science-fiction DVD section, was a single copy of a Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Feature disc holding, of course, two movies. The first was of no real consequence to me, though I had seen it years earlier: Moon Zero Two, often described (self-described, really) as the "first space western." But who could care when the other film on the disc was When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth? After the usual shake of the head and pinch of the skin to clear things up for me in as cartoonish a way as possible, I grabbed the copy and refused to let go of it until I arrived home.

I didn't get a chance to watch the film until yesterday, but in the meantime, mostly out of consternation over how I discovered the disc, I went online to research it once more, knowing full well I had been on Amazon just a couple of months prior and had seen nothing on WDRTE. It turns out there is now an entry for it on the site, but it is for an outside party trying to make some cash selling "used/new" copies of the disc. And in the description? The words "Best Buy Exclusive."

This is not the first time I have come at odds with this "Best Buy Exclusive" scenario. I also did this for years looking for Ernest B. Schoedsack's sweet 1940 mad science thriller Dr. Cyclops (the absolute inspiration for The Krofft Supershow's Dr. Shrinker, a crappie but fun show from my youth). I had the Universal VHS release, but was hoping for it on DVD, to accompany the rest of my Cooper and Schoedsack DVD library. Then I found out that Best Buy had been selling it for months as an exclusive set with several other prime golden age horror and sci-fi flicks, including two more on my list, The Land Unknown and The Deadly Mantis. A rush to Best Buy found me a copy all right, but the fact that it said "Volume 2" on it meant that there was an entire first volume of five possible films that I didn't have, and I finally procured a copy off of someone on Amazon for about fifteen bucks over retail in new condition. Which is how I landed The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People and Tarantula in my DVD collection, after years of frustration, and also how my ire was first raised over these exclusive deals with Best Buy.

This wouldn't be a problem with me if they would do a general release a few months later, but from what I can gather from some movie boards is that there is a group of people who rush out and buy up every copy of these exclusives just so they can sell them later to needy, hungry fans once the discs go out of print. It's ticket-scalping without the tickets, I guess -- if you really want to see the movie, you are going to have to pay the price. As proof of this, another "exclusive," a set of generally low-grade horror thrillers thrown into a box called the Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive, is already selling for far above what I would be willing to pay for it (example: click here). Even though the undiscerning horror fan in me (which is the same one that embraces even the truly terrible films on the discs discussed above) would love to add those films to my overall collection, I already own four of them on tape, and none of them are truly essential by any means.

None of the six films in the three discs I did discover at Best Buy as exclusives last week were really essential to me either... except for the Hammer cave girls and dinosaurs epic. Truthfully, I could have saved the money on the other two discs, though I really did love Yul Brynner's The Ultimate Warrior as a kid, and also watched Battle Beneath the Earth lo those many years ago on that beloved after school sci-fi matinee show on KTVA. The upside is that I will be replacing five different tapes in my collection with these three discs (Satellite in the Sky is the only one of the six I did not previously own), and the purchase does give me widescreen versions of all of these films, which is a great addition to the collection too.

And now I have the apparently uncut version of WDRTE. Yes, the disc does say it is rated "G" on the case and shows a running time of 96 minutes. Watching it, you get at least some PG nudity antics and 100 minutes of cave girls tumbling about the animated dinosaur attacks. I found a few entries online talking about Warner recalling this disc from the Best Buy stores, but also some entries offering up different versions of the confusion from various locations. Who knows why it was recalled? My disc works, Vetri doffs her clothes, I couldn't care less about film ratings anyway (I am an adult, can watch anything I damn well please, don't believe in censorship at all, and do not pay attention to ratings or the bluenoses who maintain them), and everything is peachy keen once again in my universe...

...until I remember to ask: Where the hell is Roogie's Bump? Or It Happens Every Spring? Damn it...