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[profh0011]

The Wrecking Crew is honestly the only Matt Helm that I really liked. I love the books, but the films mostly didn't work for me. One of the interesting aspects of that movie is the stunt team, not only did Bruce Lee work on it (as you pointed out), but the rest of the stunt team reads like a who's who of the martial arts scene at the time. Joe Lewis, Ed Parker, Mike Stone, Chuck Norris, and a whole bunch of others. Most of the big competition champions of the era.

After the first 3, it feels like the whole series was starting over again! Far less stupidity, a believeble plot, a decent villain, decent stunt scenes, a new MacDonald (John Larch replacing James Gregory, the rumor being they wanted to CUT Gregory's salary and he decided not to return), no "Lovey". It's also the only one (at least on my prints) where they actually plaster the name of the NEXT film onscreen at the end... which is ironic, as they never made the next one. Rumors include failing box office and Dean being bored, but apparently it was Sharon Tate's murder that really caused Dean to quit (she was apparently scheduled to come back in the next one).

It's rare indeed that a 4th installment of any film series should turn out to be the BEST one! (Especially when the 3rd one sucked so bad.)

[Menticide]

I think I"m fighting off a bout of old classic horror films.

I've been watching The Vampire Bat (Lionel Atwill & Fay Wray) and thinking about digging out my Carnival of Souls, White Zombie, and the Spanish language version of Dracula.

Since I'm not reading many new comics at the moment, these films are my mind candy.  

I am going to dig out my copies of Nosferatu and Dr. Caligari...and Menticide has me chomp'n to see The Golem.

Back when I was still in film school, I seriously dreamed of making a movie based on Brother Power the Geek, and I thought the best way to do it would be to interpret it like Caligari. I was already obsessed with Caligari, but I thought to properly translate Brother Power to film was to give it a similar treatment.

[boox909]

I dug out White Zombie ... now I'm watching the 1933 version of King Kong on TCM...which reminds me that I own the DVD.

I'll move on to Carnival of Souls later tonight, but I want to catch some of the Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy...the Custer episode is a favor, and I hope I get to see the Confederate Rebel Satanist episode if it runs.

[narfstar]

Thanks for the heads up on the tzone marathon. I just flipped it on and they are running episode 1. I love INFO. Back in the olden days when you watched an old series you never knew from whence it came. I love that they now have episode numbers.

[josemas]

Last night, the Golem (1920), absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure why, but I have a deep love for silent movies, maybe it's because the narrative is almost entirely visual, and that might also explain my love for comics.

Now (quite literally), I'm watching Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. It always gets me thinking and coming up with new ideas, very good material for any would-be writer to contemplate...

One of my Movie Night buddies just recently acquired a 16mm print of The Golem so we'll probably be re-watching it before long.

I've never seen the Campbell doc series (I'll have to see if my library has it on DVD) but am currently working my way through Kenneth's Clark's Civilisation which I haven't seen in its entirety since the 1970s.

The last couple of nights the Lil Missus and I watched Gammera the Invincible (1965), The Invisible Man (1933) and episodes of Zorro (1958), Mad Men (2008), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1957), The Secrets of Isis (1975), The Munsters (1965) and a few Betty Boop cartoons from the 1930s.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

Yesterday:

TONY ROME
LADY IN CEMENT

1st time I watched both of these in the same day!

I've seen the first one 4 or 5 times by now, and the plot is still almost impossible to follow... plus, once the resolution arrives, the film ends almost too abruptly, no sense of satisfaction, despite the hero having actually done a big favor for the married couple who hired him. Jill St. John is by a wide margin the best part of the movie, but other than that, it's too downbeat all the way thru.

The 2nd one is often knocked in comparison to the 1st, but I've always liked it better. Maybe it's because in this one not everyone is miserable all the time. Raquel Welch gets to do some decent acting (no kidding), but despite her presence, the best thing about this one, by a mile, is Dan Blocker! The story comes across as a modern-day variation on FAREWELL MY LOVELY, with a hulking thug hiring the hero to find a missing girlfriend. The difference is, in this case, the guy KNOWS the girl set him up, and, despite himself, gets to be friends with the detective over the course of the story.

A big problem with my prints of the films-- especially the 2nd one-- are, they're from local stations, faded color, and HORRIBLY butchered.  I mean, not only whole scenes appear to be missing, but almost every scene had bits of dialogue missing right in the middle of sentences. Was this thing badly mistreated, or did someone just feel the need to crudely chop out naughty or suggestive words?

The station also ran about a 3-minute "movie about the movie", no words, just loud jazz music, showing behind-the-scenes clips of the making of the film. I'm pretty sure it's not actually part of the movie, more like the kind of thing they used to run in theatres sometimes, or on late-night TV to fill an empty slot at the end of a movie.  (These days, if a film runs short, they usually just ADD MORE COMMERCIALS.)

[boox909]

FIREFLY marathon on Science Channel today!!!  

[profh0011]

Tonight:

MATT HELM  (1975)

Pilot for the short-lived tv series with Tony Franciosa.  In this, Helm has retired from the spy game to become a private eye. The style and tone of the whole thing, apart from radiating pure "70's", is, Matt Helm has become Tony Rome!  (Or, someone suggested, Richard Diamond. But I never saw that show.)  Val Bisoglio plays the obligatory police captain who's constantly threatening to pull his P.I. license, James Shigeta plays a fellow gambler and wealth of obscure information.  (There's another Tony Rome connection-- this version of Helm is constantly puttng down bets on longshots at the race track.) It crossed my mind that a slightly older Shigeta might have been perfect as Charlie Chan. Are they EVER gonna cast an actual Asian in that role again??


This thing was made JUST early enough in the 70's to miss the anti-violence crusade that CASTRATED late-70's action shows, and a car-chase on the freeway that literally erupts in one car EXPLODING in traffic is actually EXCITING.  2 years later, this kind of thing would have been impossible.  All the same, as "COOL" as Franciosa was on SEARCH (he always came across as the agent who was too good to ever follow orders), he seems bored in this.

Patrick Macnee plays a shady international crook. Harry Rhodes plays the agent of an African country who's trying to PREVENT a take-over. John Vernon is an arms dealer. Not a bad cast... Better than I remember, but not as good as I'd have preferred.

[narfstar]

Rebirth of Mothra III no on Encore Action

[paw broon]

I remember going to the pictures to see the Matt Helm movies and I'm sure I enoyed them but I don't know if I could sit through them nowadays. Also, the Tony Rome films were, I thought really good, at the time but if I want to watch classic P.I's I'll go for Big Sleep which is so classy or Farewell my Lovely - the Dick Powell version, Powell makes a great Marlowe.  Gamera and many other monster movies, incl. Quatermass and the other Quatermass style fims, I could watch till my eyes fell out.
Last night the new series of New Tricks started on BBC.  We'd been looking forward to it and the 1st. episode didn't disappoint - a re-opened cold case, dodgy dealings, twists and turns, corporate horribleness, nasty people, humour and a great cast.  Try and catch it if you can.

[profh0011]

Sometime last year I watched every Philip Marlowe in my video collection.  Some good, some okay, some AWFUL. For the longest time, there seemed to be a curse on this character, as far as my video collection was concerned, as so many that I jhad were really bad prints from local stations-- and then of course the 2nd season of the HBO series was when there was so much interference with the cable in my neighborhood, I wound up dropping the channel because I was paying extra for a horrible signal.

TCM helped fill out several of these, including MURDER MY SWEET, THE BIG SLEEP, LADY IN THE LAKE (awful!!), and MARLOWE (a film that seems like it should have been a lot better than it was-- and really, instead of the generic title, should ahve been called THE LITTLE SISTER). Unfortunately, both my Mitchum films are still awful, horrible prints.

I wound up watching 3 different film versions of "Farewell My Lovely". And here's the weird part.  The Robert Mitchum version I found WAY too downbeat and horribly depressing. (This is in contrast with his BIG SLEEP, still one of my all-time fave films.) The Dick Powell version is okay, but has never grabbed me as much as Bogart's BIG SLEEP from the same period. The crazy thing is... my favorite version turned out to be THE FALCON TAKES OVER with George Sanders & Alan Jenkins. It makes about as many changes to the plot as the other 2, but in the end is just a lot more FUN to watch.  Maybe that's not why people watch Marlowe films... but given a choice, I'd rather watch the Sanders version than Powell or Mitchum.  Go figure!

[Menticide]

Since I've been on a silent kick lately, I was going through my collection, and I remembered a movie that I used to have on VHS, but no longer have a copy of it. Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD either. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the 1927 version of Napoleon?

[josemas]

Since I've been on a silent kick lately, I was going through my collection, and I remembered a movie that I used to have on VHS, but no longer have a copy of it. Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD either. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the 1927 version of Napoleon?

To the best of my knowledge Abel Gance's Napoleon has only been released on region 2 & 4 DVDs.  Copies of the old VHS release are available still from Amazon. 
These all are releases of the 1980 restoration.   

The film has been further restored (twice) since then though- adding over a half hour of footage that was still missing from that 1980 restoration.  No sign of any release of these more recent restorations.

Napoleon is a movie that is best experienced with an audience and live musical accompaniment if possible.  The whole triptych sequence at the end gains so much more power that way.

Unfortunately legal squabblings between the British Film Institute, Universal and Francis Ford Coppola (all of whom have some rights in the restorations) have played a part in both limiting live screenings and a wider DVD release of the film.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

I remember going to the pictures to see the Matt Helm movies and I'm sure I enoyed them but I don't know if I could sit through them nowadays. Also, the Tony Rome films were, I thought really good, at the time but if I want to watch classic P.I's I'll go for Big Sleep which is so classy or Farewell my Lovely - the Dick Powell version, Powell makes a great Marlowe.  Gamera and many other monster movies, incl. Quatermass and the other Quatermass style fims, I could watch till my eyes fell out.
Last night the new series of New Tricks started on BBC.  We'd been looking forward to it and the 1st. episode didn't disappoint - a re-opened cold case, dodgy dealings, twists and turns, corporate horribleness, nasty people, humour and a great cast.  Try and catch it if you can.

This talk of the 1960s Matt Helm and Tony Rome movies has me curious to rewatch them.  Not sure if they'd hold up well or not but I did enjoy my recent revisiting of that era's Flint movies with James Coburn.

Not sure if we get New Tricks here in the States.  If so I've never run across it.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Sometime last year I watched every Philip Marlowe in my video collection.  Some good, some okay, some AWFUL.

Henry,  Have you ever seen the Michael Shayne movie Time to Kill (1942) with Lloyd Nolan.  I finally caught it a couple years ago at one of our Movie Nights.   It is actually the first film adaptation of Chandler's Philip Marlowe story The High Window.  We all found it fairly breezy and enjoyable. 

It was remade as The Brasher Doubloon in 1947 with George Montgomery (now as Marlowe) which I last saw in the 1980s but which I remember as more serious and somber than the earlier film.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

Nope, those 2 I haven't seen.  Last year, when I decided to watch my entire Marlowe collection (it seemed a good time,with those recent TCM additions) I did a lot of reading, and found out a lot about Marlowe I didn't know. Like, how GUNSMOKE was created specifically to be a "western" version of Philip Marlowe, dark, serious, and sometimes bad endings.  Or about those movies you mentioned which I've never seen yet.  (I did catch Lloyd Nolan in a McCLOUD movie in the 70's, much older of course.  I think I've also seen him in something else from the 40's, but forget what it was just this moment.)

Then there's Philip Marlowe on radio-- NONE of which I've ever heard (yet). On radio, he's been voiced by Dick Powell (2 different versions of "Murder My Sweet", in 1945 and 1948), Van Hefflin (a series that only ran 3 episodes), Gerald Mohr (at the time considered the MOST POPULAR voice on radio!!! --he did 118 episodes! There were 119, but one of them William Conrad filled in as Marlowe-- how's that for a connection, "Matt Dillon" doing Marlowe?).

There was also Philip Carey on TV (26 episodes), and again on radio, in England, Ed Bishop (5 episodes).

ALL of this is stuff I haven't seen (or heard).

Someone also mentioned the Stacy Keach MIKE HAMMER episode "Harlem Nocturne" was a blatently obvious adaptation of "Farewell My Lovely", although, if it's the episode I'm thinking of, they also included the climax of "I The Jury" in there.  After the "jokey" excesses of season 2, this season 3 episode got my vote for the "sexiest" episode of MIKE HAMMER Keach ever did.

And finally, 2 fairly recent films I haven't seen, RED WIND (an episode of Showtime's "Fallen Angels" series) with Danny Glover, and POODLE SPRINGS (HBO) with James Caan.  Anybody seen any of these?




Of all of the above, the part I can't figure is, WHY didn't they get Gerald Mohr to do the 50's TV series??? I love him in THE LONE WOLF, FANTASTIC FOUR (the voice of Reed Richards) and LOST IN SPACE ("A Visit To Hades"). Like Warren William (the previous Lone Wolf), he died way too young.

[Menticide]

Since I've been on a silent kick lately, I was going through my collection, and I remembered a movie that I used to have on VHS, but no longer have a copy of it. Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD either. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the 1927 version of Napoleon?

To the best of my knowledge Abel Gance's Napoleon has only been released on region 2 & 4 DVDs.  Copies of the old VHS release are available still from Amazon. 
These all are releases of the 1980 restoration.   

The film has been further restored (twice) since then though- adding over a half hour of footage that was still missing from that 1980 restoration.  No sign of any release of these more recent restorations.

Napoleon is a movie that is best experienced with an audience and live musical accompaniment if possible.  The whole triptych sequence at the end gains so much more power that way.

Unfortunately legal squabblings between the British Film Institute, Universal and Francis Ford Coppola (all of whom have some rights in the restorations) have played a part in both limiting live screenings and a wider DVD release of the film.

Best

Joe

The first time I saw the movie there was a full orchestra and multiple screens. I saw it in New York City as a kid. It would have been the early 1980s and I think it was at Radio City Music Hall. I know you can buy it on VHS, but the cheapest you can find it for is around thirty bucks, and I can justify that on blu-ray, or perhaps a Criterion DVD, but on VHS, that seems a bit too pricey.

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

I thought they were only doing Blue-Rays now, not DVDs?
I just bought Robinson Crusoe on Mars the Blue-Ray edition from the Criterion Collection when it came out.
I'm I wrong on this?

Geo

The first time I saw the movie there was a full orchestra and multiple screens. I saw it in New York City as a kid. It would have been the early 1980s and I think it was at Radio City Music Hall. I know you can buy it on VHS, but the cheapest you can find it for is around thirty bucks, and I can justify that on blu-ray, or perhaps a Criterion DVD, but on VHS, that seems a bit too pricey.

[Menticide]

I thought they were only doing Blue-Rays now, not DVDs?
I just bought Robinson Crusoe on Mars the Blue-Ray edition from the Criterion Collection when it came out.
I'm I wrong on this?

Geo

They do appear to still be making both...

[josemas]

Plenty of stuff still coming out on DVD.  Most of the major companies are releasing in both formats but a number of the smaller companies have only taken tentative steps into Blue Ray and are still mainly releasing in DVD.  When I go into stores in the Phoenix area such as Frys Electronics or Best Buy which carry large selections of DVDs and Blue Rays I would say that DVDs still have at least 80% of the shelf space.  The stores, supported by the major companies, advertise Blue Rays a lot but people have been slow to embrace the format.

I suspect that there are a variety of reasons why Blue Ray has yet to catch on with a lot of people.  The fact that it was heavily launched just as the economy was going down the drain is one, another is the fact that a lot of people don't find that big a difference between the two and are sick of the constant format changes every few years so they don't want to invest in this upgrade, and then there are a number of people who are turning more and more toward the download option and not even dealing with such things as CDS, DVDs, or Blue Ray discs.  I suspect that this later will be the way most people will eventually go.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Did anybody else catch the neat in-joke in last Sunday's Leverage episode-"The 10 Lil' Grifters Job"?  Nate and the crew infiltrated a murder mystery party where everyone was disguised as some famous detective.
Timothy Hutton went as Ellery Queen and wore the exact same clothes that his father, Jim Hutton, wore in the fondly remembered 1970s Ellery Queen TV series.   A nice tribute to his old pop!

Best

Joe

[Menticide]

Plenty of stuff still coming out on DVD.  Most of the major companies are releasing in both formats but a number of the smaller companies have only taken tentative steps into Blue Ray and are still mainly releasing in DVD.  When I go into stores in the Phoenix area such as Frys Electronics or Best Buy which carry large selections of DVDs and Blue Rays I would say that DVDs still have at least 80% of the shelf space.  The stores, supported by the major companies, advertise Blue Rays a lot but people have been slow to embrace the format.

I suspect that there are a variety of reasons for Blue Ray to catch on with people.  The fact that it was heavily launched just as the economy was going down the drain is one, another is the fact that a lot of people don't find that big a difference between the two and are sick of the constant format changes every few years so they don't want to invest in this upgrade, and then there are a number of people who are turning more and more toward the download option and not even dealing with such things as CDS, DVDs, or Blue Ray discs.  I suspect that this later will be the way most people will eventually go.

Best

Joe

I probably wouldn't be buying blu-rays yet, but when the TV in my daughter's room broke, my wife and I moved the TV in our room into her's, and bought a new one. We got a special deal, a big screen HDTV, with a free blu-ray player, and now I'm buying blu-ray discs, when I can find them at a good price. I still think a lot of them are pricier than they need to be and some of them really aren't any better than the regular DVD.

Case in point, the Killer, one of my favorite movies. I was so excited to buy the blu-ray, but the picture was grainy, washed out, and I swear that the old laser-disc I had years ago looked a hundred times better than this.

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

I probably wouldn't be buying blu-rays yet, but when the TV in my daughter's room broke, my wife and I moved the TV in our room into her's, and bought a new one. We got a special deal, a big screen HDTV, with a free blu-ray player, and now I'm buying blu-ray discs, when I can find them at a good price. I still think a lot of them are pricier than they need to be and some of them really aren't any better than the regular DVD.

Case in point, the Killer, one of my favorite movies. I was so excited to buy the blu-ray, but the picture was grainy, washed out, and I swear that the old laser-disc I had years ago looked a hundred times better than this.

I have to agree, I was a late change over person too. The time I went to the hospital in 2009 and had to stay home for a while my wife agreed to get a new HDTV we had been talking about for months, just got it a bit sooner. I then later picked up a Blue-Ray player when the DVD/VHS player crapped out on us.
I've only been really impressed with the latest films that have been shot in HD, some directors are still shooting the old way as it covers up a lot of necessary evils like poor backgrounds or makeup for the actors, (HD shows every little flaw in a face, backgrounds etc.).
As to the price, yep they are to high, (they did a survey years ago and found the price point was $19 for a DVD/VHS), so that's why you see brand new releases at $19.95-24.95 range for the first week or so. What gets me is they bump the price up after that and it stays that way for months, (overpriced) and not selling.
Also agree on the poor transfers of older films to Blue-Ray, one comes to mind, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition, very poor grainy picture through out. I was very surprised Spielberg gave his blessing on that release.
But HDTV 1080P is not the problem, the other technologies needs to catch up with it so we can see it as we would looking out a window or looking at a mountain in the distance.
Plus I've heard rumors of a new technology that makes Blue-Ray look like a VHS tape if you can believe that, (nothing lately about it though).

Enough of my rantings for now. 

Geo

[profh0011]

Tonight:

THE DUNWICH HORROR

-or-  "Gidget Goes To HELL"

[Menticide]

I probably wouldn't be buying blu-rays yet, but when the TV in my daughter's room broke, my wife and I moved the TV in our room into her's, and bought a new one. We got a special deal, a big screen HDTV, with a free blu-ray player, and now I'm buying blu-ray discs, when I can find them at a good price. I still think a lot of them are pricier than they need to be and some of them really aren't any better than the regular DVD.

Case in point, the Killer, one of my favorite movies. I was so excited to buy the blu-ray, but the picture was grainy, washed out, and I swear that the old laser-disc I had years ago looked a hundred times better than this.

I have to agree, I was a late change over person too. The time I went to the hospital in 2009 and had to stay home for a while my wife agreed to get a new HDTV we had been talking about for months, just got it a bit sooner. I then later picked up a Blue-Ray player when the DVD/VHS player crapped out on us.
I've only been really impressed with the latest films that have been shot in HD, some directors are still shooting the old way as it covers up a lot of necessary evils like poor backgrounds or makeup for the actors, (HD shows every little flaw in a face, backgrounds etc.).
As to the price, yep they are to high, (they did a survey years ago and found the price point was $19 for a DVD/VHS), so that's why you see brand new releases at $19.95-24.95 range for the first week or so. What gets me is they bump the price up after that and it stays that way for months, (overpriced) and not selling.
Also agree on the poor transfers of older films to Blue-Ray, one comes to mind, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition, very poor grainy picture through out. I was very surprised Spielberg gave his blessing on that release.
But HDTV 1080P is not the problem, the other technologies needs to catch up with it so we can see it as we would looking out a window or looking at a mountain in the distance.
Plus I've heard rumors of a new technology that makes Blue-Ray look like a VHS tape if you can believe that, (nothing lately about it though).

Enough of my rantings for now. 

Geo

Oddly enough, Close Encounters was on the short list of movies I was about to buy on blu-ray. I was trying to think of visually fantastic movies that I like, the ones that would look really good in the format, and on the big screen TV. Thanks for the warning.