• Feb 9: It Came From Beneath the Sea – Blu-ray
  • Feb 6: Kiss of Death
  • Feb 5: Return of the Vampire, The
  • Feb 3: United Red Army
  • Feb 1: Whale God
  • Jan 30: King Kong Escapes
  • Jan 29: King Kong vs. Godzilla
  • Jan 29: Trancers
  • Jan 27: Alcove, The
  • Jan 25: Tarantula!
  • Jan 22: Hereafter, The
  • Jan 18: Iron Man, The
  • Jan 16: Merciful Buddha, The
  • Jan 15: Old Dark House, The

    • Click here for the full Film and DVD review archive

    It Came From Beneath the Sea – Blu-ray

    February 9th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , ,

    company: Columbia
    year: 1955
    runtime: 79′
    country: United States
    director: Robert Gordon
    cast: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue,
    Donald Curtis, Ian Keith,
    Dean Maddox Jr., Chuck Griffithe,
    Harry Lauter, Richard W. Peterson
    writers: Hal Smith
    and George Worthing Yates
    cinematographer: Henry Freulich
    music: Mischa Bakaleinikoff
    visual effects: Ray Harryhausen
    disc company: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
    release date: October 7th, 2008
    retail price: $107.95
    (Blu-ray only available as part of the
    Ray Harryhausen Collection 4-film set)
    disc details: Region Free / Dual Layer BD50
    video: 1080p HD / 1.85:1 / b/w + colorized
    audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround (English)
    subtitles: English, English SDH, Portuguese,
    Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic
    (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Japanese for extras)
    special features: Audio commentary with
    Ray Harryhausen, Remembering It Came From
    Beneath the Sea featurette, Tim Burton Sits Down
    with Ray Harryhausen featurette, David Schecter
    on Film Music’s Unsung Hero featurette, A Present
    Day Look at Stop Motion Animation featurette,
    theatrical trailers (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,
    20 Million Miles to Earth    , The 7th Voyage of
    Sinbad    ), video image galleries
    order this film from Amazon.com
    2-disc SD DVD | 4-disc Blu-ray Collection

    Plot: A mammoth octopus roused by nuclear testing rises from the Pacific Ocean and attacks San Francisco.

    While its low budget production values may hint otherwise, It Came From Beneath the Sea was a landmark science fiction production, worth noting if only for its pairing of stop motion auteur Ray Harryhausen (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Clash of the Titans) and producer Charles H. Schneer.  It was a relationship that would last through the end of both men’s careers and result in some of the most beloved fantasy and adventure films of the past half century.   Without it many of us would never have experienced the many voyages of Sinbad, the wonders of Captain Nemo’s Mysterious Island, or Jason’s adventure with his Argonauts.

    As with many beginnings, this one was humble.  Schneer was working under contract to legendary schlockmeister Sam Katzman (producer of such anti-classics as The Giant Claw and The Zombies of Mora Tau) at the time he offered Harryhausen his first post-The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms gig.  It Came From Beneath the Sea plays as a reworking of basic ideas from that box office success, sending a giant radioactive menace on a collision course with a thriving American metropolis.  The details may be different, the monster in this case is an octopus and San Francisco the doomed city, but the end result was much the same.  It Came From Beneath the Sea meant big money for Sam Katzman and Columbia, and its success only solidified Schneer’s confidence in the young Harryhausen’s stop motion process.

    Kenneth Tobey (The Thing from Another World, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, The Bigamist) stars as Naval Commander Pete Matthews, who is overseeing the maiden voyage of the latest American nuclear submarine when it has a close encounter with a massive unknown something in the Pacific.  Back in dry dock a piece of fleshy material is discovered on the submarine’s hull, and two marine biologists are called in to classify it.  Between romantic moments and dinner outings (Tobey wastes no time in snagging hotty scientist Faithe Domergue for himself) the scientists discover that the flesh belongs to a gigantic octopus, a finding the Navy begrudgingly accepts after more ships are lost in the Pacific.  With the monster making a bee-line for the American West Coast, it’s up to the scientists and the Commander to come up with a new weapon to stop it.


    The writing, credited to regular Bert I. Gordon writer George Worthing Yates (The Amazing Colossal Man, Earth vs. The Spider) and prolific actor and voice talent Hal Smith (Otis of The Andy Griffith Show, I kid you not), ranks a few solid clicks above the garbage that was to take over the genre by the latter half of the ’50s and certainly serves its purpose.  Dialogue is consistently literate, and even the obligatory goofy science lessons (an embarrassed-looking Don Curtis explaining cephalopod propulsion with a rubber balloon, for instance) are above par.  The narrative falls back on tried-and-true melodrama to provide the majority of the distraction, with ample scenes devoted to the rather cold romance between Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue.  The main cast is a professional lot, though some can’t keep from looking utterly disinterested or even annoyed with the material they’ve signed on to perform.

    Actor-turned-director Robert Gordon plays the material in the semi-documentary neo-realist fashion that was popular for such pictures at the time, and keeps things moving and interesting, if formulaic.  Brief snippets of narration (by voice talent William Woodson) accompany many of the non-romantic scenes, but never becomes so overbearing as in some contemporary efforts (like The Deadly Mantis and The Lost Missile).  Gordon builds good suspense on a several occasions and the opening, with the submarine’s sonar display slowly filling with a writhing black blob of contact, is the stuff classic monster movies are made of.  Mischa Bakaleinikoff’s original monster themes, full of brassy power, are great no matter how often we’ve heard them repeated, and were new at the time It Came From Beneath the Sea was produced.  It’s music that figures prominently into my formative childhood memories.

    The main attraction of the show, and the reason it was as big a success as it was, is without a doubt Harryhausen’s effects work, which still holds up to scrutiny after all these years.  The climactic assault of his six-armed octopus armature on the famous sights of San Francisco is enough to rate It Came From Beneath the Sea a near classic of the genre, and its dismemberment of the Golden Gate Bridge is one of American science fiction’s most iconic images.  There are more than a fair share of flubs to be seen for those on the lookout, but the experience as a whole is quite effective and it’s still mind-boggling to imagine Harryhausen alone in his rented studio space making it all work.  The details of his labor really come alive in the new high def presentation, the almost sentient attitude of the individual tentacles and even the occasional puckering of a suction cup.


    Sony has made a good first effort in committing their extensive science fiction and fantasy library to high definition with their Ray Harryhausen Collection from October, 2008.  The set includes he and Charles H. Schneer’s first four productions under the Columbia banner from this film through Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  While 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad are both available separately, the Blu-ray editions of It Came From Beneath the Sea and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers are at present only available as part of this collection.  2-disc SD DVD editions of both are available for purchase individually, with identical supplemental content, and I’ve linked to the SD release for It Came From Beneath the Sea at the start of this review.

    The dual layered Blu-ray of It Came From Beneath the Sea combines all the contents of the two disc set in one easy-to-use package, one of the major benefits of the new format for those like me who are quickly running out of shelf space for multi-disc editions (apartment living will be the death of me).  The disc comes with two 1080p 1.85:1 editions of the film, the original black and white and the new colorized variant handled by Legend Films.  Having watched both and given the colorized version its fair shake, this reviewer will be sticking with the black and white original.  The color transfer has a rather processed look to these eyes (understandable given the technique) and while colorization practices have certainly improved since the days when King Kong was fighting a T-rex in cool pastels on TNT, they’re still a far cry from perfect.  Skin tones in particular are flat and lifeless, and some of the effects, like the sunset colors in the background of the mid-film romantic dinner, are flat out terrible.

    Both transfers are sharp and very well defined, and have obviously undergone some restorative work to get rid of damage.  The crisp, clean black and white variant is a startling improvement over what I remember seeing on TV as a child, which made the beautiful Faith Domergue appear positively morose.  The experience was like seeing the film for the first time.  The feature is alive with film grain, in understandably higher amounts during the stock footage and effects scenes, and I’m happy to see that no effort was made to smooth it out.  Audio is a powerful Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, which sounds great to these ears (Bakaleinikoff’s themes burst through the opening credits) even if separation is limited.  No original monophonic track is offered.  Subtitle options are extensive (see the full list at the top of this article) for this all-region disc, and even include Portuguese, Spanish, French and Japanese translations for the supplements.

    Supplements are surprisingly stacked compared to the SD edition from 2003.  The feature commentary, featuring Ray Harryhausen and effects artists Randall William Cook and John Bruno, is lively and informative, and Harryhausen’s memories are still pretty clear after all these long years.  Next up are a host of featurettes (totalling 83 minutes), including one devoted to Mischa Bakaleinikoff’s work for Columbia hosted by David Schecter (see the full list of featurettes at the top of this page).  Also included is a digital preview of the comic book continuation of the story, It Came From Beneath The Sea Again.  All supplements appear to be 480p SD with the exception of the trio of trailers for the rest of the films in the set, which are all Mpeg-2 encoded HD.  Oddly, the trailer for It Came From Beneath the Sea itself is omitted.

    It Came From Beneath the Sea comprises 1/4 of the most expensive home video purchase I’ve made in a while, and I dare say it was well worth it.  The fact that the first two titles of the Ray Harryhausen Collection are only available as part of the collection will infuriate some, especially those who already own the Blu-ray releases of 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  That said, my advice is to suck it up, sell your dupes, and pick up the whole set – in my mind, even a sci-fi programmer like this is worth the HD upgrade.  The 2-disc SD package is also available otherwise.  The film itself is a minor classic made at the cusp of that mid-50s genre nose-dive, and comes recommended.


    Showa “Gamera” coming from Shout! Factory in 2010!

    February 7th, 2010 | posted in DVD News | article by Kevin Pyrtle | 4 Comments »
    Tags: , , , ,

    More huge news for cult movie fans from Shout! Factory, who look to be keeping pretty busy this year.

    Word is currently coming down the pipeline that the company has officially licensed the entire Showa Gamera (1965’s Daikaiju Gamera through 1980’s Uchu Kaiju Gamera) series for release domestically on DVD and will reportedly be working from the latest HD transferred elements.  Right now news is slim, though Monster Island News reported roughly two months ago that the company is / was on the lookout for 35mm elements for the American cut of the first Gamera feature.

    At present only the first film is listed for pre-order at Amazon.com, with May 18, 2010 as the scheduled release date  – Gamera: The Giant Monster


    Kiss of Death

    February 6th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

    company: 20th Century Fox
    year: 1947
    runtime: 99′
    country: United States
    director: Henry Hathaway
    cast: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy,
    Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark,
    Taylor Holmes, Howard Smith,
    Karl Malden, Anthony Ross
    writers: Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer
    and Eleazar Lipsky
    cinematographer: Norbert Brodine
    music: David Buttolph
    dvd company: 20th Century Fox
    release date: December 6, 2005
    retail price: $14.98
    disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / dual layer
    video: 1.33:1 / full screen / progressive
    audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 mono (English, Spanish)
    Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (English)
    subtitles: English, Spanish
    special features: Feature commentary by
    Alain Silver and John Ursini, theatrical trailer,
    stills gallery, promotional trailers for other Fox Noir
    (Call Northside 777, House of Bamboo, Laura,
    Panic in the Streets, The Street With No Name)
    order this film from Amazon.com


    Plot: An ex-con back in prison for a jewelry heist squeals on the mob that hired him after learning that his wife has died in his absence.

    What a great film!  Victor Mature last paid visit to this site via Hal Roach Sr. and Jr.’s original cavemen-versus-dinosaurs epic One Million B.C., which cast and typecast Mature as the stoic slab of manhood he would play time and again throughout his career (Samson and Delilah, Demetrius and the Gladiators and so on).  Henry Hathaway’s location-bound neo-realist noir requires far more of Mature as a performer than any of those efforts did or would, and the actor, cast against then and future heavies Brian Donlevy (Beginning or the End, The Quatermass Xperiment) and Richard Widmark (Panic in the Streets, The Bedford Incident), proves time and again that he can pull it off with chops to spare.

    Mature plays Nick Bianco, a decent man forced by unfortunate circumstance into a life of crime.  His past is checkered, his father was shot dead by police when he was just a kid and he spent time in prison as a young adult.  His wrap sheet is enough to keep him from finding a steady job in post-war New York, so Bianco turns to pulling contract heists for the local mob.  On Christmas Eve a jewelry store hold-up goes sour, and Nick finds himself on the street in front of the Chrysler Building with a policeman’s bullet in his leg.  Assistant D.A. D’Angelo (Donlevy) offers Nick is offered a plea deal, but he refuses it, getting 15 years in Sing Sing while his accomplices go free.

    Nick, good guy that he is, is more than happy to serve the time for the crime he knows he committed, and is led by shady (or shyster, as D’Angelo puts it) lawyer Houser into believing that his wife and two young daughters will be taken care of.  He couldn’t be more wrong.  After an affair with Nick’s old cohort Rizzo his wife takes a nosedive into alcoholism and depression, eventually snuffing out her miseries in a gas stove.  Nick doesn’t find out until well after the fact, and concerns over the welfare of his children, now in an orphanage, and a visit from his former babysitter Nettie (Coleen Gray in her first billed role) convince him that helping the assistant D.A. might be the right thing to do after all.

    Ratting on his cohorts in the Christmas Eve jewelry store job is small stuff, and soon Nick is put on the job of squealing on slick mobster Tommy Udo (Widmark in his Academy Award-nominated screen debut), a squirrelly sociopath Nick first met while awaiting trial in the Tombs.  The gig works, and Nick gives D’Angelo all the evidence he thinks he needs to put Udo away on a murder wrap.  Bianco goes on with his life, marrying the much younger Nettie and living with his kids in Queens under an assumed name.  But it isn’t long before D’Angelo is calling again, demanding that Nick shed his secrecy and testify in the Udo case, a guaranteed conviction we already knows is going to swing the other way.

    With the sadistic Udo back on the streets, Nick knows that it’s only a matter of time before he gets an unwanted knock on his door.  Realizing that D’Angelo will be of no help, Bianco puts his family on a train to the country and goes out to find Tommy himself to settle things once and for all.

    Kiss of Death is best remembered, and perhaps rightly so, for the hilariously sadistic breakout performance of Richard Widmark as the demented hood Tommy Udo.  With sunken eyes, a slicked-back hair piece and a constant giggle, Udo is more of a cartoon caricature than a human being, but even caricatures can be dangerous.  Udo is the man Houser calls when there’s dirty work that needs doing, and when the lawyer is led to believe that Nick’s old friend Rizzo is squealing on the mob it’s Udo he sends in to fix things.  And fix them he does, wrapping Rizzo’s wheelchair-bound mother with electrical wire and sending her on a face-first trip down her tenement’s stairs.  Widmark’s performance is absolutely electrifying here, and he imbues Udo’s human weasel (undoubtedly an inspiration for Judge Doom’s henchmen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) with enough raw power to make him a believable threat, even when so obviously physically outmatched by co-star Mature.

    Though he can’t help but be upstaged by Widmark in his gravy role, Mature is no push-over.  At 6 foot 2 inches tall he looks a bit like Gulliver after his landing on Lilliput when decked out in his suit tie (perhaps an intentional move to make the family man look all the more out-of-place as a criminal), but his emotions are spot on and in the final confrontation with Widmark he more than holds his own.  It’s interesting that even in noir Mature can’t escape Biblical associations, and his sinner-turned-martyr is followed by a good deal of Christian symbolism.  Prison bars cast shadows that form crosses in at least two scenes (one of them across Mature’s face) while he is seen centered beneath another (this one in a stained glass window) when he visits a Catholic  orphanage with D’Angelo and his cop assistant.  When it comes time for the cops and robber to take their seats in a waiting room, Mature sits directly below a painting of Christ, and a nun working the orphanage, much to the embarrassment of the assistant D.A. and his friend, has to ask which of them is the ex-con father.

    While much of the symbolism looks to have originated with director Hathaway (Call Northside 777, True Grit), it extends well into the Hecht and Lederer (and possibly the Lipsky source story, though I’ve not read it to check) as well.  The assistant D.A. who saves Mature from prison is named Louis D’Angelo (Louis ‘of Angels’) and Mature himself plays a character named Bianco (white), re-enforcing his overall goodness.  It’s never terribly overbearing and no one will ever confuse Kiss of Death for a Christ allegory, but it’s interesting to point out all the same.


    Veteran director Henry Hathaway plays the early events as realistically as possible for a dramatic film, showing us through the procedure of Mature’s confinement and ushering us through a series of real locations.  The drama will seem dated for anyone happening upon it today, but seeing the Tombs, the D.A.’s office, and Sing Sing and its workshops alive on the big screen helps.  The documentary style on display, with its high-key lighting and straight compositions, stands in for that classic noir aesthetic for the first two acts, not that it hampers the suspense (an early scene of Nick trapped in an elevator is superbly claustrophobic).  The change arrives with a call from D’Angelo informing Nick that Tommy Udo has beaten his murder wrap, and from here on out fans of low-key noir stylings will find themselves in familiar territory.  Hathaway ramps his crime drama into a slick thriller in the third act, and his direction of Mature, crushed by the realization that his work with D’Angelo was for nought and turned paranoid by fear for his family’s well being, is exceptional.

    My only real complaint is with the framing and the ending, which smells of studio tampering, not that either of these things keeps the film from succeeding.  The film is bookended with narration from Nettie, who offers a bit of useful backstory in the beginning and adds a happy high note to the otherwise grim finale.

    Those worried about spoilers should skip this rest of this paragraph. Nick ends them film prostrate on the ground, shot half a dozen times in the gut by the vengeful Udo, with the three-time-loser immediately apprehended by police for the assault and locked away for good.  As Nick is shuffled into an ambulance, obviously on his way out, Nettie’s narration chimes in to let us know that he, in no uncertain terms, survives.  Here we fade to a stock shot of New York seen at the beginning of the film, then the ending title.  There’s ample evidence here to indicate that Nettie was not originally intended to be the framing device, and the Nick did not actually survive.  It seems far more likely that assistant D.A. D’Angelo was set to be the original framework for the piece, particularly given that the source story was based on the experiences of its author Eleazar Lipsky, a former prosecutor.  It’s food for thought certainly, but as I said, not enough to ruin the picture.


    Kiss of Death gets exceptional treatment as part of the Fox Film Noir collection, with the black and white feature and supplements spread over a hefty 7.5 gigs of disc space.  The progressive transfer is excellent for such an old catalog title, with tight 1.33:1 framing and healthy detail.  Contrast looks appropriate if a little boosted and a fine layer of that beloved film grain is present throughout.  Damage is limited but still present, mostly as dust and speckles but occasionally as more obvious chemical imperfections.  It’s never enough to really distract from the viewing and I suspect this is the best the film has looked in a good long time.  Audio is available in three flavors, English in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono and 2.0 stereo, and Spanish in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono.  Recording on all three is crisp, and I didn’t note much difference between the stereo and monophonic tracks.  Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

    Fox offers up a feature commentary track from Alain Silver and John Ursini as the chief supplement for the disc.  While short on background information and high on observations of things that will be pretty obvious (at least I hope so) to most viewers, the pair still offer up some good information – certainly worth a listen and not nearly so pointless as some other tracks I’ve come across (Once Upon A Time In The West, for instance).  The other supplements are pretty standard issue, a theatrical trailer in good shape, a still gallery, and a collection of trailers for other Fox Noir titles (including Panic in the Streets, starring Widmark, and Call Northside 777, directed by Hathaway).

    This is a great disc from Fox, currently on sale at 60% savings (a bargain price of just $5.99) at Amazon.com.  Fans and film buffs in general are encouraged to indulge.  As for the film, what more need be said?  It’s a landmark performance from then-newcomer Widmark and one of the best from the underrated Mature, all wrapped up in a fine crime drama by director Hathaway and writers Hecht, Lederer and Lipsky.  The fine score is so good we’ve heard it thrice, with the opening theme recycled for Elia Kazan’s Gentlemen’s Agreement and the less upstanding 3D attraction Gorilla At Large (insert your own canned ape sound effects here – they did).  Excellent stuff, and highly recommended.


    Return of the Vampire, The

    February 5th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Denis Klotz | 4 Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , ,

    company: Columbia Pictures
    year: 1944
    runtime: 70′
    country:     United States
    director:     Lew Landers
    cast: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort,
    Matt Willis, Nina Foch,
    Roland Varno, Miles Mander
    writers: Griffin Jay, Randall Faye
    and Kurt Neumann
    cinematographers:     L.W. O’Connell, John Stumar
    music: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
    order this film from Amazon.com



    Armand Tesla, (Bela Lugosi) vampire has a grand old time sucking the blood of the British and ordering his mind-controlled, talking werewolf slave Andreas (Matt Willis) around, until the fearless vampire hunting duo of scientist(!) Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) and her mentor, Professor Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery) put a stake through his heart.

    About twenty years later, during World War II, Saunders dies, leaving behind a manuscript describing his and Lady Jane’s legally dubious adventures in staking a man in his sleep. It could really get the good Lady in trouble with her copper friend Sir Frederick Fleet (Miles Mander), who quickly arranges the exhumation of Tesla’s body after reading the manuscript and having a little talk with the scientist. Before that wonderful event can take place, the combined unhappy circumstances of an especially unluckily falling bomb and a gravedigger who likes to pull stakes out of corpses revive Tesla.

    Not surprisingly, the vampire has revenge on his mind. Quickly he has brought Andreas – who is now working as Lady Jane’s servant – under his control again and uses the hypnotized wolfman to acquire a new identity from an unlucky scientist Andreas was supposed to help smuggle into the country. Tesla uses his new name to get close to Saunders’ granddaughter Nicki (Nina Foch) and Lady Jane. It doesn’t take the good lady too long to figure out that the so-called Dr. Bruckner isn’t exactly what he seems, but it will take all her determination to save Nicki and the young woman’s fiancée John (Roland Varno), who just happens to be her own nephew, from Tesla’s revenge.

    After wading through half of the terrible movies which make up the Universal Cult Horror Collection I had nearly given up hope for so-called classic horror beyond the obvious films. Fortunately, The Return of the Vampire has come along to restore my faith. It’s just too bad that it’s a Columbia production and not part of Universal’s crappy horror set, so there’s still nothing in that one worth the money I paid for it.


    Be that as it may, this film is of a whole different calibre than my last expeditions into 30s and 40s filmmaking. While it’s obviously done on the cheap, Return’s director Lew Landers (not usually praised for being all that competent) uses much of what could have been learned from the first and second generation of Universal’s horror films. There’s the shadow play that harkens back to expressionist silent movies, the gothic sets, the (after my last experiences surprising) gliding camera work, the fog – in short all the visual elements one can hope for in a film of this vintage, brought together with not inspired but expert hand.

    Return is also quite pioneering in its use of a very contemporary wartime London as backdrop for its gothic trappings in a time when many horror movies – and especially vampire movies – still tended to take place in the past, as far away from the daily experience of their audience as possible.

    We don’t see that much of the Blitz or of ruined London, but Landers puts in enough of it that the viewer can hardly ignore the subtext of a modern horror taking its part in reawakening an older horror.

    What the contemporary audience of 1944 made of this aspect of the film is anybody’s guess.

    The script doesn’t always fare as well as Landers’ direction. Some of the film’s ideas, especially Andreas the talking wolfman are a bit too silly for their own good and would fit much better into a monster mash than into this comparatively serious film. I also found it hard to swallow that Lady Jane doesn’t recognize Tesla at once. You’d think she has staked so many people in her career that she just forgot this particular one.

    Fortunately, the script also has its good sides, first and foremost casting Lady Jane as a competent and determined chief vampire hunter, as far as I know the first time we witness a middle-aged woman put into that place. Even in this post-Buffy age this kind of female lead is not exactly a matter of course, so it is all the more surprising how normal this much older film treats her and her position. Of course and alas, the film doesn’t keep its surprising brand of feminism up all the time, and Lady Jane and her policeman assistant are relegated to waiting in the sidelines when it comes to actively dispatching the vampire.


    The finale is not worth all that much. There’s too much hand of fate and too little planned action in it. Worse, the actual mechanics of Tesla’s demise are based on a character arc of Andreas the film doesn’t build up believably enough.

    The ending could probably have been saved if only Matt Willis’ acting as Andreas would have been a bit more subtle and/or his wolfman make-up less cuddly and cute. The latter is very much a problem not just of this particular movie, but of the whole cycle of early wolfman films. As it stands, Willis is also the most whiny wolfman around. In his way, he fits perfectly to Nina Foch, who does look very nice indeed but really should have piped down the melodramatics.

    Both Willis and Foch are further hampered by having to play most of their scenes alongside the two dominant actors in the film in form of Lugosi and Inescort.

    Dear Bela must have had a very good week while filming this. Lugosi’s remarkable screen presence is always a given, even in the late phase of his career, but the subtlety he was capable of was often drowned out by his love for grand gestures (and really, the shabbiness of most of the productions he worked in). Somehow, the great man managed to find a very fine middle path between grand theatricality and subtlety for this film, and his performance is all the better for it.

    Frieda Inescort is Lugosi’s perfect adversary here. Where Lugosi is all menace and slimy charm, her Lady Jane radiates the perfect mixture of calmness and steely determination while never overplaying it to become an insufferable blowhard, like so many elder vampire hunters (before Peter Cushing) often became.

    For more bizarre movie goodness, be sure
    to visit Denis’ excellent review blog The Horror!?


    United Red Army

    February 3rd, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , ,

    a.k.a. jitsuroku rengo sekigun: Asama Sanso e no michi
    (literal: United Red Army: Path to Asama Sanso)
    company: Wakamatsu Production
    year: 2007
    runtime: 190′
    country: Japan
    director: Koji Wakamatsu
    cast: Maki Sakai, Arata,
    Akie Namiki, Go Jibiki,
    Maria Abe, Anri Band,
    Kenji Date, Yuki Fujii,
    Yoshio Honda, Len Hisa
    writers: Koji Wakamatsu,
    Masayuki Kakegawa and Asako Otomo
    cinematographers: Yoshihisa Toda
    and Tomohiko Tsuji
    music: Jim O’Rourke
    order this film from Amazon.fr
    (note: no English subtitles
    on the French DVD)
    visit the official site

    Plot: Two radical left-wing paramilitary organizations form and join forces at the height of the Japanese student movement of the ’60s, leading to the infamous Asama-Sanso incident.

    When ferociously independent and controversial director Koji Wakamatsu, (known for his combination of sex, extreme violence, and political subtext), chooses to make a film dramatizing one of the most tumultuous periods of recent Japanese history, it seems like a match made in cult cinema heaven.  Thankfully, it is.  Perhaps the biggest project of his lengthy and prolific career (over 100 directorial credits and counting), Wakamatsu mortgaged his own property and even destroyed his country home¹ to see that United Red Army was made, and while it may seem crude to those who only associate the word with huge Hollywood over-productions, his film is an epic in every way.

    United Red Army is steeped in a history most Westerners will be completely unfamiliar with – that of the rise and self-destruction of the radical leftist Japanese student movement of the 1960s.  Born from the backlash over the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in January of 1961, the movement turned from protests against tuition fee increases, bureaucratic malfeasance, and the Vietnam War into a violent movement devoted to a global revolution along the lines of China’s Cultural Revolution.

    The opening reels of the film play as a documentary of those events, covering the major incidents (like the July 1968 occupation of Yasuda Hall at Tokyo University), their relationship to contemporary world events (the American Civil Rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the massive French labor strikes of May 1968), as well as the rise of the Red Army Faction and the Revolutionary Left Faction, the two breakaway groups of the Japanese Communist Party that would coalesce into the United Red Army in July of 1971.  If it sounds a bit historically thick, that’s because it is.  The sequence plays in a fashion similar to Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor or Humanity, complete with text noting the dates, major players, deaths, and arrest statistics.



    There’s a lot to take in during United Red Army’s first half hour, the news reel footage interspersed with brief dramatic inserts introducing the faction members we are to follow, but it’s all here with good reason.  Wakamatsu makes a concerted effort to ensure that his audience understands the postwar events and worldwide cultural turbulence that led to the chaotic formation and violent collapse of the student movement of the 60s, ensuring that we can sympathize with the revolutionaries as human beings even as the atrocities that fill the remaining two and a half hours of the film unfold.

    As a drama, United Red Army begins with the truce between the RAF and RLF that leads to the formation of the paramilitary group of the title.  Intent on inciting a global communist revolution, the leaders gather their meager forces (there were only 29 members total) at obscure training camps to prepare for an all-out war against the Japanese government.  As the exercise moves forward, the leaders of the group enact a policy of self-critique that culminates in a violent purge of members deemed too weak-willed to contribute to the cause.  Between December 31st of 1971 and February 12th of 1972, 14 members died either directly at the hands of their fellow members or from prolonged exposure to the frigid mountain weather.

    The hour of the picture devoted to the lynchings plays out as a grim tragedy, in which young men and women with high hopes and aspirations (misguided though they may be) are intimidated and eventually slaughtered by their comrades in the name of the cause.  The leadership of the group is seemingly boundless in their capacity to destroy, holding their soldiers to ever more stringent revolutionary guidelines and administering brutal justice to any who don’t comply.  There is no mercy to be found in a place where those sympathetic to the doomed are at risk of being doomed themselves.

    Wakamatsu is as unflinching in his depictions of violence here as ever before, rising above baser exploitation and attaining a level of visceral horror in league with the final act of Pasolini’s Salo.  Most disturbing among them is the death of Toyama (star Maki Sakai), who is made to beat herself until her face is unrecognizable.  Wakamatsu refrains from showing the blows as they fall, allowing the entire grisly spectacle to unfold just beyond our range of sight.  Our first view of Toyama’s face is her own, peering into a mirror held by the leadership.  We see Toyama’s descent into madness as it happens, and the vision of her, swollen and bloody and screaming in a voice all but inhuman, is of the sort that can haunt someone forever.



    Only the threat of discovery by the authorities brings the nightmare to a close, and the leadership orders that the group’s bases be deserted.  The surviving members split up, and while many are captured (including the leadership) five make their way to Mount Asama, taking over the Asama Mountain Lodge (the Asama Sanso of the Japanese title) and holding its manager Yasuko Muta hostage as police forces build outside.  We realize that the stand-off is hopeless from the start, and that the revolutionaries are destined to be captured or worse.  The absurdity of their purpose is extolled in a single line of dialogue, as one of the five members passionately explains that they are fighting against the police to initiate a global revolution.  The youngest of the five, just 16 years old, breaks down, recognizing that all the suffering and death that had come before (including that of his own brother) was meaningless.

    The final act is perhaps the best of the film, a restrained look at the infamous Asama Sanso incident entirely from the perspective of those inside.  Other than a single helicopter watching from high in the sky, we never see the forces surrounding the lodge (Wakamatsu’s own house, destroyed during the process of filming¹), and the director keeps our focus squarely on the remaining militants and their hostage.  Wakamatsu accomplishes something extraordinary here, willing us to sympathize with these lost youths (even after the horrors they’ve wrought) while pulling no punches.  We know the end is inevitable, but as riot police storm the lodge we can’t help but imagine what could have been had their “we can change the world” idealism not become so perverted.

    A brief epilogue brings United Red Army full circle and back into documentary mode, with scrolling text giving us the statistics of the Asama Sanso incident: 1635 riot police, 3126 canisters of tear gas, 326 smoke bombs, and nearly 16 tons of water.  We hear RAF leader Mori’s suicide note (he would die in prison on January 1, 1973 by his own hand²) and see the status of the other participants, most serving life sentences and several on death row.  An interesting side note is Kunio Bando (one of the five involved in the Asama Sanso stand off), released by demand of the Japanese Red Army after their take over of the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in August of 1975².  Writer and director Wakamatsu met Bando during a trip to the Middle East, and used his recollection of events as a basis from which to build his depiction of of the Asama Sanso incident¹.



    Perhaps the most surprising thing about United Red Army is just how unbiased Wakamatsu remains throughout.  His sympathies consistently lie with the minority, the weak against the powerful, from the opening montages of the student revolts against tuition fee increases to the unfortunate fourteen whose lives were ended at the behest of the fascistic high command to the final stand off of five URA against an army of riot police.  The film plays as a respectful eulogy to the many who died and as a stark criticism of those in power, and thankfully refrains from vindicating any one political ideology over another.

    Wakamatsu self-produced United Red Army for around $1 million US (100,000,000 Yen¹), and while the low budget shows at times (it looks to have been filmed digitally and the period aspects are all but lost in the early Tokyo-bound scenes) the picture as a whole is quite an achievement.  Once the URA members first trek to their training bases in Gunma prefecture the period details cease to be an issue, and Wakamatsu’s skills as a director really begin to shine.  The juxtaposition of the increasingly violent nature of the URA against the beauty of the mountain locations is stunning, the claustrophobic scenes of human destruction terrifying.  United Red Army is a haunting film, from the opening history to the final credits scrawl, with a fine score from Jim O’Rourke score and exceptional sound design by Yukio Kubota.

    For the first time in a long time I simply have no complaints, and United Red Army easily ranks as one of the best films that’s come out of Japan in half a decade.  It can also be a very difficult film to watch.  The genuinely troubling violence that dominates the second act will undoubtedly turn many away, and the shear mass of history involved is daunting.  That said, United Red Army is still a great film, and I can’t help but rate it as highly recommended.

    1. Midnight Eye Interview: Koji Wakamatsu
    2. A Chronology of JRA history


    Whale God

    February 1st, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | 2 Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

    a.k.a. Kujira Gami
    company: Daiei Motion Picture Co.
    year: 1962
    runtime: 100′
    country: Japan
    director: Tokuzo Tanaka
    cast: Kojiro Hongo, Shintaro Katsu,
    Shiho Fujimura, Takeshi Shimura,
    Kyoko Enami, Kichijiro Ueda,
    Koji Fujiyama, Bontaro Miake
    producer: Masaichi Nagata
    writer: Kaneto Shindo
    cinematographer: Setsuo Kobayashi
    music: Akira Ifukube
    special effects: Chikara Komatsubara,
    Takesaburo Watanabe and Hiroshi Ishida
    production design: Shigeo Mano
    disc studio: Kadokawa Herald Pictures Inc.
    and Daiei Video
    release date: May 26, 2006
    retail price: 4,725 Yen
    disc details: Region 2 / NTSC / single layer
    video: 2.35:1 / anamorphic / progressive
    audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic Japanese
    subtitles: none
    order this film from Amazon.co.jp

    Plot: A small fishing village is terrorized by a seemingly unkillable whale.  Shaki, whose family has been all but destroyed by the creature’s rampage, becomes obsessed with killing it.  Meanwhile a brutal drunkard comes to the village, intent on killing the whale himself . . .

    This is a classy production from the early ’60s Daiei Motion Picture Co. and perhaps the first excursion by the company into the realm of giant monsters.  Clearly influenced by the John Houston epic 1956 adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, this period production forgoes the rampaging reptilian behemoths so popular in genre cinema around the world at the time.  Instead it focuses on that first great sea monster, which man sought to conquer upon setting out across the open sea – the whale.

    While similarities between screenwriter Kaneto Shindo’s (writer and director, Onibaba, Children of Hiroshima, working from a story by Koichiro Uno) screenplay and Melville’s novel are slim, the basic themes of life, death, obsession and revenge remain, as does the ethereal, almost supernatural constitution of its menace.  The creature has all the outward attributes of a Right Whale, regularly hunted along the coast of Japan at time the film was set, but possesses a uniquely monstrous disposition, and the title of the film, Kujira Gami (literally Whale God), points in no uncertain terms to the nature of its sea-dwelling antagonist.

    Whale God introduces its title beast right out of the gate, as a fleet of fishermen from a small seaside whaling village track their prey against menacing skies, unaware that it is they who are hunted.  In the turmoil of the struggle between man and beast an elderly member of the crew (the grandfather of Shaki, played by Daiei contract star Kojiro Hongo) is drowned – so begins the familial curse of the whale god.  Shaki’s father and, years later, older brother (Koji Fujimura in a very brief appearance) are both killed in their respective attempts at avenging the death of the old man, leaving only Shaki to carry on in their stead as his mother, obsessed with the whale, slowly dies.  The young man is driven into depression and alcoholism, waiting for the day when the whale that destroyed his family returns.

    Meanwhile, the wealthy head of the town’s whaling industry (the legendary Takeshi Shimura in a hefty supporting role) is growing tired of losing men to the beast, and promises his only daughter (the beautiful Kyoko Enami) to whoever can kill it.  Shaki jumps at the opportunity, but so does the ferocious Kishu (Shintaro Katsu), a stranger to the town.  Kishu makes a job of intimidating the townspeople, attacking other fishermen in the local tavern and raping a young women (Shiho Fujimura) who is in love with Shaki.  9 months later the young woman gives birth to Kishu’s child, but it’s Shaki who offers his support, marrying her and acting as father for her child.



    There’s an interesting religious angle to Whale God, something that is difficult to fully explore for someone with such a limited understanding of Japanese (the otherwise exceptional Kadokawa / Daiei DVD of the film is woefully bereft of subtitles).  The majority of the fishermen keep to traditional faiths, joining each other in intricate rituals celebrating the livelihood that bonds them together.  Standing out among the crowd are Shaki, a Christian who worships in the small chapel of the local missionary and is married in a Christian ceremony, and Kishu, who appears to be not so much a-religious as anti-religious.  Kishu’s vendetta against the whale is obviously motivated by his own greed and ego, and it’s no surprise when his effort to kill the creature turns into an exercise in unintended self-sacrifice.

    Nor is it a surprise when Shaki, his nobler goal of killing the beast to honor his dead relatives (whose collective sea-side grave site he visits often) firmly in mind, succeeds where Kishu failed, mercilessly striking out against the whale amidst gushes of black blood and salt water.  After the fight is through Shaki lies prostrate atop the massive harpoon-studded corpse, victorious but physically broken.  Whale God’s ending is unexpectedly surreal, the dying Shaki opting to spend his last few hours alongside the remains of his vanquished foe.  The final image, of the young man lying in a coffin with the massive disembodied head of the whale sitting just beyond, is among the most memorable of the film, though this reviewer will need a translation to decipher what it all means.

    The considerable language barrier isn’t enough to keep one from appreciating the technical aspects of Whale God, a gorgeous production with a strong emotional base that’s evident even without understanding all the words.  Photography by Setsuo Kobayashi (Blind Beast) is stunning.  Captured in all the glory black and white scope has to offer,  I doubt the film would have resonated nearly so well if it had been produced in color.  Director Takuzo Tanaka won’t be a terribly familiar name, best known for directing a handful of the Zatoichi and Sleepy Eyes of Death films, but his handling of the Kaneto Shindo source script is superb.  Akira Ifukube offers up another stunner of a score (one of nine he would compose that year alone), with themes reminiscent of his work on both the earlier Children of Hiroshima and the later Daimajin series.

    The cast is a veritable who’s who of big-name Daiei talent, headlined by Kojiro Hongo (best known in these parts for his frequent work in the Gamera series), Shintaro Katsu (the blind masseur himself, who is a sight to see seeing for a change), Kyoko Enami (of Gambling Woman fame), and Akira Kurosawa favorite Takeshi Shimura (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Gojira).  Of all of them, it’s Katsu’s brutal Kishu makes the most lasting impression, lumbering about town looking for fights and proving nearly as much a monster as the whale.



    More a drama than a special effects film, Whale God still boasts some impressive enactments of Japanese whaling techniques not seen since the end of the 19th century (all simulated, mind you).  The special effects team headed by Chikara Komatsubara and Takesaburo Watanabe appears to have been well funded, and makes good use of a huge wave pool and a full-size mock-up of the monstrous whale’s head.  The final confrontation between it and the human cast is both exciting and disturbing, and I wonder just how many gallons of stage blood were expended in the filming of it.

    Unavailable in the States in any official format (Animeigo, save me!), Whale God receives a fine DVD treatment from Daiei Video and Kadokawa Herald Pictures Inc.  The scope and progressive transfer does justice to the exceptional production design, offering a nice level of detail and a variable amount of visible grain.  Contrast is healthy but, as with a good number of Japanese DVD transfers, a little flat.  Damage is relatively minor, though it’s obvious that no real effort went into cleaning up the image for its digital debut.  The single layer encoding seems a bit slight for a film of 100 minutes, but I noticed no obvious deficiencies.  Audio is well rendered in a Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic track, though I must lament again the lack of subtitles.

    Supplements are pretty routine but welcome all the same.  Relating to the film, we get the original theatrical trailer (non-anamorphic and sourced from an earlier transfer for laserdisc), a gallery of still images, and a healthy collection of cast and crew biographies, all in Japanese of course.  Also included is a brief background and filmography of Daiei’s special effects films, with trailers for several of them (including the early color sci-fi Warning from Space).  Not really an extra but too bizarre not to mention is an optional female voice-over, which soothingly guides you through the menu selections and operations for the disc.  I don’t recall encountering anything quite like it before.

    The Kadokawa / Daiei DVD is going to be a tough sell for stateside film fans given its lack of subtitles, high retail price tag, and regional encoding issue, though its the best option out there until an enterprising English-friendly company makes a move (I suggest emailing these guys with the suggestion).  I’m of the opinion that the film is worth putting up with all of that, though I realize that I’m a little eccentric in that respect.  Whale God comes highly recommended, with high hopes that an English-friendly release may someday become a reality.


    King Kong Escapes

    January 30th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

    part of the Goin’ Bananas B-movie roundtable:

    a.k.a. Kingu Kongu no Gyakushu
    company: Rankin/Bass Productions
    and Toho Co. ltd.
    year: 1967
    runtime: 96′ / 104′
    country: Japan / United States
    director: Ishiro Honda
    cast: Rhodes Reason, Mie Hama,
    Linda Miller, Akira Takarada,
    Eisei Amamoto, Shoichi Hirose,
    Toru Ibuki, Nadao Kirino
    writer: Takeshi Kimura
    cinematographer: Hajime Koizumi
    music: Akira Ifukube
    special effects direction: Eiji Tsuburaya
    dvd company: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
    release date: November 29, 2005
    retail price: $14.98
    details: Region 1 / NTSC / Single Layer
    feature: progressive / 2.31:1 anamorphic
    audio: Dolby Digital English (2.0 Mono)
    subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
    order this film from Amazon.com
    single disc     | double feature with King Kong Escapes


    Plot: The evil Dr. Who conspires to mine the mysterious radioactive Element X using his mechanical King Kong.  It’s up to commander Nelson and the real King Kong to stop them.

    The second and last of Toho Co. ltd.’s King Kong cycle is a real doozy of a motion picture.  Co-produced with Rankin / Bass Productions (of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Last Dinosaur fame) and based on that company’s earlier collaboration with Toei Animation, The King Kong Show, it’s easily one of the sillier things to originate on Toho’s lot.  But that’s okay, as King Kong Escapes is immense fun regardless.

    Baring no relation to the earlier King Kong vs. Godzilla, with the exception of the fact that the character of Kong is in it, King Kong Escapes concerns UN submarine commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason, younger brother of Rex This Island Earth Reason) and his scientific interest in the Kong legend.  When his submarine runs into mechanical trouble near the island where Kong is said to live, Nelson and his friends, Lt. Commander Nomura (Akira Takarada) and Lt. Watson (Linda Miller), decide to take the opportunity to investigate it.  There they find living dinosaurs (rather, a living dinosaur and a giant sea snake), a single elderly native, and the giant ape King Kong, who takes a shining to Lt. Watson after saving her from the jaws-n-claws of of a scaly island inhabitant.

    Meanwhile at the North Pole, the fiendish Dr. Who (Eisei Amamoto), arch nemesis of Commander Nelson, is using his super-machine Mechani-Kong (the plans for which the fiendish Dr. Who fiendishly stole from Commander Nelson) to mine for the rare radioactive Element X.  But Mechani-Kong is no match for the power of the element, its delicate wiring destroyed by Element X’s deadly emanations.  With Mechani-Kong out of commission until repairs can be made and the country backing the project threatening to pull financing, Dr. Who is left with no alternative but to fly to Kong’s island and kidnap the real thing . . .



    Writer Takeshi Kimura (Attack of the Mushroom People, Rodan, Gorath) must have had quite the time trying to craft a half-way serious story around the basic framework of the Rankin / Bass cartoon show (the villain Dr. Who, Mechani-Kong . . .), but the result, even if it is little more than an exercise in high camp (complete with heroes, villains, and a hypnotized giant ape), isn’t half bad.  The past relationship of Commander Nelson and Dr. Who goes largely unexplored, though they certainly behave as stereotypical old enemies that they are, playing chess and chortling about the futility of each other’s plans.  A bit of human interest is a boon to the silly dramatics, and the G-rated romance between Lt. Commander Nomura and Lt. Watson figures well into the climactic Kong / Mechani-Kong battle.

    The focus of proceedings is, as it should be, squarely on the monsters, and there is no development in the full running time that doesn’t somehow involve them.  Even the representative of the unnamed country financing Dr. Who, a beautiful Mie Hama (You Only Live Twice) in her final giant monster film appearance, has a change of heart at their behest, deciding that nuclear domination of the world isn’t worth a few thousand human casualties at the hands of Kong and his mechanical alter ego.  Kimura’s story brings the human cast and their monstrous counterparts together early and often, a fact that’s sure to make genre fans happy.

    There’s a strong sense of humor running throughout the film, and while Kimura and director Ishiro Honda never allow the picture’s self awareness to interfere with the storytelling comedy is still an important part of the proceedings.  Dr. Who’s hard-hatted henchmen are played with a distinctly comic edge, and when introduced to Commander Nelson and his crew his Mechani-Kong (a machine seemingly ready-made to break down at the worst of possible moments) offers up a friendly wave.  Dr. Who himself, full of over-the-top schemes and brimming with ego in spite of his utter lack of success, is the kind of villain you almost hate to see get his just deserves.

    Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects production is on the fantastic and colorful side, appropriate for a film inspired by a cartoon series.  The miniatures still look great after all these years, and even the smallest (a toolbox that drops onto Kong’s face, spilling its contents) are rich with detail.  The best part of the show remains the climactic Tokyo showdown, which sees the dueling Kongs exchanging blows atop a massive reconstruction of Tokyo Tower.  Limits on time and budget rear their ugly heads in a few snippets of stock footage and in the constrained scope of the miniature downtown Tokyo, though the lively action keeps them from being as distracting as they were in films like Monster Zero.



    King Kong Escapes fared well when imported for American distribution in 1968, receiving an English dub well above the norm for the genre and a slight edit that tightens the pace while adding a few shots and angles nowhere to be found in the Japanese release variant (a la War of the Gargantuas).  This 96 minute cut, around 8 minutes shorter than the Japanese, is my favored cut of the film, and the slight editing only really becomes an issue in the few moments where it clips Akira Ifukube’s score (notably during the Tokyo Tower sequence).

    Universal Studios, the American distributor of the film, had been sitting on renewed rights to King Kong Escapes since 1996, only stepping up to release it on home video in 2005.  Like the simultaneously released King Kong vs. Godzilla disc, those hoping for any kind of deluxe release will be disappointed as Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s DVD is about as bare as bare-bones releases get.  That said, the film itself looks better than ever before – a big win for kaiju fans here in the States.

    Universal presents King Kong Escapes in its original scope (actual aspect ratio 2.34:1) for the first time stateside since its original theatrical release.  The detailed progressive transfer is smooth in motion and remarkably void of damage, save some light speckling.  The bright color scheme really pops and contrast looks spot on.  This is a gorgeous transfer with some visible grain and great detail, and one of the best of an older Toho SPFX film that’s been seen in the States.  Audio is presented in a fine Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic English track that sounds quite good, retaining nice punchiness in the low end and doing justice to Ifukube’s excellent score.  Optional English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are available, and there are no supplements.

    For a disc with such horrendous packaging design (from the menus to the disc art to the sleeve, the graphics are consistently awful throughout), it sure does a fine job of presenting the film in question.  I was very late catching up to this (four years, and I call myself a fan!), and have no problem recommending the release or its double-feature pairing with King Kong vs. Godzilla to those who have yet to pick it up (a lot of retailers appear to be dumping the two pack from their stock, and I got my copy at well below the Amazon price – shop around!).  As for the film, it’s one of the more enjoyable of Toho’s late ’60s product and a fixture of my memories of growing up on aging UHF stations. Highly recommended.


    King Kong vs. Godzilla

    January 29th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Kevin Pyrtle | 4 Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

    part of the Goin’ Bananas B-movie roundtable:

    companies: Universal International
    and Toho Company Ltd.
    year: 1963
    runtime: 91′
    countries: United States / Japan
    directors: Ishiro Honda
    and Thomas Montgomery
    cast: Michael Keith, Harry Holcombe,
    James Yagi, Tadao Takashima,
    Kenji Sahara, Ichiro Arishima,
    Yu Fujiki, Jun Tazaki, Akihiko Hirata
    writers: Paul Mason
    and Bruce Howard
    music: Peter Zinner (supervisor)
    dvd company: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
    release date: November 29, 2005
    retail price: $14.98
    details: Region 1 / NTSC / Single Layer
    feature: progressive / 2.31:1 anamorphic
    audio: Dolby Digital English (2.0 Mono)
    subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
    order this film from Amazon.com
    single disc | double feature with King Kong Escapes

    Plot: A television executive has King Kong imported to Japan while Godzilla is simultaneously unleashed from his imprisonment in an iceberg.  The two march inexorably towards each other, leading to an epic final battle atop Mount Fuji.

    Like all the earliest of Toho’s science fiction and fantasy films (Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, Gigantis the Fire Monster, Half Human, Varan the Unbelievable, The H-Man, Gorath, The Human Vapor, and The Last War in particular), King Kong vs. Godzilla was altered considerably for importation into the American market.  In this case co-producer John Beck, working from a treatment by an uncredited and unpaid Willis O’Brien, was given full reign over how Toho’s production would be presented in the States as part of his contract with the company.  The end result is a film almost entirely unique from the Japanese original, and one of the most altered Toho productions outside of Crown International’s treatment of Varan the Unbelievable.

    In its original form King Kong vs. Godzilla is much less science fiction than comedy, a satire of television marketing.  Producer Beck was none too pleased with the light-hearted sensibilities of the picture and sought, with his version, to present audiences with the more traditional monster romp they were undoubtedly expecting.  His success in this regard was minimal, his efforts to improve things rendering King Kong vs. Godzilla an unintentional comedy rather than an overt one.

    Taking a cue from Terry Morse’s financially successful redux of Godzilla: King of the Monsters! a few years earlier, Beck oriented his film around newly-shot sequences featuring news reporters in the United States (Michael Keith, The Worm Eaters) and Japan (James Yagi, of The Outer Limits episode The Hundred Years of the Dragon).  Neither Michael Keith or James Yagi had the star credentials of Raymond Burr, who had appeared as the villainous Lars Thorwald in Hitchcock’s Rear Window just two years before his turn as Steve Martin in Godzilla: King of the Monsters!.  More unfortunately, Beck’s integration of their sequences into the film proper is poor at best.  They play as little more than lengthy info-dumps between the Japanese footage and stop the pacing of the film cold.

    Michael Keith plays UN reporter Eric Carter, who communicates with James Yagi’s Omura via stock inserts of the alien satellite from The Mysterians.  Beck must have been working under considerable financial limitation here, as the two sets the reporters occupy have all the depth and realism of a sub-par grade school shoebox diorama.  Each comes complete with a ‘television’, or rather a piecing together of cardboard slabs upon which crumpled monochrome prints of shots from the film are stuck.  It’s sad stuff, indeed, and a far cry from the comparably lavish production values of the rest of the picture.


    Harry Holcombe (The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, Empire of the Ants), the most accomplished of the American cast by a wide margin, appears as Dr. Arnold Johnson, who is perhaps the worst paleontologist in screen history.  Using a children’s picture book as a visual aid, Johnson explains to reporter Carter that the recently appeared Godzilla may well be a cross between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Stegosaurus while comparing his brain to a marble and recommending that electricity might be a viable offensive measure against him (given that he’s a reptile, as though his being anything else would make him any less susceptible to electrocution).  Yes, it is as dreadful as it sounds, though not entirely without its unintentional comic charm.

    The English overdubbing of the Japanese footage isn’t nearly so bad as it could have been here, besting Columbia’s for the earlier Battle in Outer Space and a marked improvement over the endless narration found in Half Human or Gigantis the Fire Monster, though Beck’s attempts to play the film straight appear to have been lost in translation.  Television executive Mr. Tako (the wonderful Ichiro Arishima) still comes across as a daft madman and Furue (Yu Fujiki) still plays the bumbling sidekick to Sakurai’s (Tadao Takashima) straight man.  Furue provides one of the most memorable parts of the dubbed version, introducing a minor subplot about his corns and how they ache when monsters are afoot.  The dubbing even improves upon the original Japanese in one respect, making the American submarine crew sound less like the amateur actors they are.

    Beck’s King Kong vs. Godzilla runs just 91 minutes, five minutes shy of the original running time, but I’d wager that no more than 75-80% of the original survived the editing process.  Lost is much of the early character development, replaced by Beck’s bricks of exposition.  Perhaps the biggest loss is in the soundtrack department, where Ifukube’s score (one of the very best of his career) is replaced with stock tracks from The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Monster that Challenged the World, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, among others.  The stock tracks aren’t bad by any means, but their unconnected bundle of disparate themes can’t compare with the power of Ifukube’s work.


    Thankfully, the majority of the monster footage remains intact, less a few shots here and there.  Reviews of the film in America more or less ignored the dramatic inadequacy of the film, focusing on the aptitude of the Japanese effects crew instead.  In this respect Beck’s King Kong vs. Godzilla still makes for an entertaining watch, in spite of its disparaging ineptitude in other areas.

    Universal, who released the film domestically as Universal International in 1963, missed a grand opportunity to present a deluxe edition of this film when it chose to bring it to DVD in 2005, but such is the nature of the business.  Those looking for the uncut original will have to rely on Toho’s own expensive home video iterations, as this Universal Studios Home Entertainment DVD caters only to the American release version of the film.

    King Kong vs. Godzilla is in a horrendous state of preservation in its native Japan, and Toho’s recent high definition restoration had to rely, in part, on an awful standard definition video master from the ’90s in order to account for footage in too sad a shape to be transferred.  Universal’s print is in comparatively excellent shape, with much of the footage lost in the Japanese restoration appearing nearly pristine here.  The 2.35:1 progressive and anamorphic widescreen transfer presents the film in its original aspect ratio for the first time on American shores and, save for some damage (dust and scratches), its a beauty.  Beck’s additions to the drama look even cheaper in the original scope, while Eiji Tsuburaya’s effects production shines.  Audio is English only Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic, with optional English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles available.

    The single layer disc boasts absolutely nothing in the way of supplemental material, not even a trailer.  Still, the price is low (at least for the double bill with King Kong Escapes) and the quality of transfer high, making it worth the upgrade from the awful pan-and-scan Goodtimes releases that have been kicking around for the past decade plus.  Fans will certainly want to indulge.


    Trancers

    January 29th, 2010 | posted in Film Reviews | article by Denis Klotz | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , ,

    company: Empire Pictures,
    Altar Productions and Lexyn Productions
    year: 1985
    runtime: 77′
    country: USA
    director: Charles Band
    cast: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt,
    Michael Stefani, Art LaFleur, Anne Seymour
    writers: Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo
    cinematographer: Mac Ahlberg
    music: Phil Davies, Mark Ryder
    order this film from Amazon.com
    single film | 5-film collection

    In what should be the 23rd Century (although the film also calls it the 25th, so who knows), the delightfully subtly named future cop Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) spends all his time mopping up the remnants of the mind-controlled zombie slave troops (so-called “Trancers”) of his dead arch-enemy Whistler (Michael Stefani). His obsession is quite understandable, because Whistler killed Deth’s wife, but still costs the cop his job.

    Deth spends his new-found free time diving in the submarine ruins of Lost Angeles, until the Future’s ruling council has need of him again. That point in time comes sooner than expected. For some reason the film is unwilling to explain, Whistler is still alive and has somehow managed to find his way into the Los Angeles of 1985 to do the Terminator thing. Obviously, Deth is the best man for the job to protect the council’s ancestors and bring Whistler back in.

    It looks like (the film doesn’t bother to explain this point either) you can send dead matter back through time as you wish, but can only transfer the consciousness of people into the bodies of their ancestors. As luck will have it, Deth’s and Whistler’s respective ancestors both look exactly like they do, so Deth can go on a merry hunt through Los Angeles without having to look at a strange face in the mirror.

    Jack ropes his ancestor’s one-night-stand Leena (future Academy Award winner Helen Hunt, not as completely annoying as she would soon become) into working as his native guide – and of course future love interest. To make life a bit more difficult for him, he is only a lowly reporter, while Whistler’s new body is a Police Detective without rank but with considerable influence.


    Once, before his unhealthy obsession with living dolls overwhelmed Charles Band’s complete output as a producer and overrode even the small interest in making watchable movies he might have had, the producer/director/writer/etc was trying to be a small-time Roger Corman, just with less talent and imagination. At least, Band had enough clout to rope in promising talent (see Reanimator). Trancers was made in that still promising phase of Band’s career and is probably his best work as a director.

    Of course, keeping in mind that I am talking about the future director of The Gingerdead Man and Dangerous Worry Dolls here, one has to keep one’s expectations at a realistic level, which is my long-winded way of saying that, while words like “style” or “intelligence” just don’t belong into the man’s vocabulary as a director or producer, Band’s work here at least doesn’t suck completely. He points, he shoots, he doesn’t embarass himself.

    The movie’s script by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, the pair responsible for the rather delightful ”Tim Thomerson is Sergeant Rock and meets aliens” film Zone Troopers, has more logical flaws than my attempts at doing arithmetics. From the wildly inconsistent way time paradoxa work (people whose ancestors are killed and their own children disappear, but everyone still remembers them?) to the fact that the film really should have ended after about 30 minutes – a point where Deth has ample time and opportunity to get rid of Whistler – there is not much that stands up to even the mildest of scrutiny. Worse, the film never explains any of its concepts that need explaining. My remarks about the way time travel works are based only on conjecture, for example. Still, I can’t say that I cared much about logic or needed explanations while actually watching the film, because what the film lacks in artfulness, it makes up for in (sometimes consciously ironic) low budget film charm. Following Deth, we flit from one obvious and silly situation to the next.


    This is the sort of film that doesn’t need to spare the killing of a department store Santa Claus for the grand finale, because it also has a (terrible, of course) punk rock club, little girls with the souls of gruff police chiefs and our hero riding a motor scooter instead of a motorcycle to throw at us. Among other things. But most importantly, Trancers not only shows us those things but does its best to let them be fun, by not taking itself serious. Not taking yourself serious in the good and entertaining way must be a lot more difficult to achieve than it looks like or most films that try for the effect wouldn’t be as bad. The difference between Trancers‘ version of this brand of fluffiness and the bad sort as incorporated in Troma films or Band’s later Full Moon Productions lies in the fact that it still takes its audience serious. Where a Troma film winks at itself in a mirror, this is a film still winking at us sitting in front of it.

    While I usually just can’t stand Helen Hunt, I do approve of the fact that the film doesn’t make her character completely useless and only be there to be rescued by Thomerson and wear troubling fashion. She’s useful, she has moments of being sensible, she’s as much as you can hope for in a cheap SF actioner.

    And she’s next to nothing compared to the film’s true trump card, the utterly awesome Tim Thomerson doing the perfect square-jawed cynical hero with delightfully silly one-liners (personal favorite: “Dry hair is for squids”) while having at least one toe in the territory of a parody of a perfect square-jawed cynical hero, which, let’s be honest, is the only way those guys can ever be made sympathetic. Somehow, Thomerson even makes Deth kinda cool.

    A few years later, Band would go on to turn Trancers into a confused franchise of films that have nothing to do with each other beyond Thomerson, but none of the later films is even vaguely watchable, so this is the one to watch if one wants to see Thomerson doing what Thomerson does best.

    For more bizarre movie goodness, be sure
    to visit Denis’ excellent review blog The Horror!?


    Out now and upcoming . . .

    January 27th, 2010 | posted in DVD News | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,

    This past weekend UK outfit Eureka! released under their Masters of Cinema label what is already one of the most exciting foreign language DVD releases of the year – Nobuhiko Obayashi’s bizarre fantasy horror House / Hausu, arguably the best coming of age story ever to revolve around a house that eats people.  The disc includes a new anamorphic widescreen transfer, a 90-minute collection of interviews about the film featuring the director, cast, and crew, a theatrical trailer, and an extensive booklet.  The disc is highly recommended for stateside fans who just can’t wait for the eventual Criterion Collection offering (as of yet still unannounced), and is currently offered at 39% below retail at Amazon.co.uk.

    Out on the 19th of the month was another fine offering from Shout! Factory, a lavish DVD re-release of Kingdom of the Spiders, previously only available as an expensive German or pathetic Goodtimes release.  The new special edition includes a restored 1.77:1 anamorphic transfer, a commentary featuring director Bud Cardos and many of the crew, a new interview with star William Shatner, and a slew of other featurettes.  The disc is currently available at a savings of 25% from Amazon.com.

    And last but not least among notable new releases is a new multi-film collection from Warner, the 4 Film Favorites: Urban Action Collection, released with absolutely zero fanfare on the 14th of January.  The four film collection includes Three the Hard Way, Hot Potatoe, and Black Samson, but the big news of the packages has to be the DVD debut of Jim Kelly’s Black Belt Jones.  While budget in price the transfers are great, and the package can be had for $14.99 at Amazon.com (note: you may be able to find a better deal at your local retailers, so shop around).

    Upcoming is the just announced Forbidden Planet, slated for Blu-ray release from Warner on September 7th.  No word on extras as of yet, but I imagine that (in line with previous Warner hi-def offerings) that the package will more or less mimic the special edition DVD from 2006.  Even if it was an unlikely bare-bones release, Wtf-Film would still love to add this classic to his high-def collection.


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