Blu-Ray News #370 UPDATE: The Abbott & Costello Show, Season Two (1953-54).

The Blu-Ray of The Abbott & Costello Show, Season 1 from the 3-D Film Archive and ClassicFlix knocked me out — seriously raising the bar of what old TV can look like on video. Each episode (from the camera negatives) in that set is absolutely stunning.

Well, tomorrow, Season 2 will be available. The same level of restoration, the same types of extras. I’ve always liked Season 2 better than Season 1, so as I see it, this thing’s a must. 

Blu-Ray News #374: Cause For Alarm! (1951).

Directed by Tay Garnett
Starring Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling, Margalo Gillmore, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Don Haggerty, Richard Anderson

Any day now, ClassicFlix’s Blu-Ray of Cause For Alarm! (1951) will hit the streets — and make sure one of them turns up at your place.

It’s a solid suspense picture that I’m not gonna spoil for you here. Loretta Young’s sickly husband suspects that she and his doctor are having an affair, and he really sets her up for a fall. That’s as much as I’m gonna give you. Tay Garnett really keeps things chugging along, building the suspense steadily till the pretty frantic last real. 

On Blu-Ray, with the kind of attention ClassicFlix gives its pictures, Cause For Alarm! should be a cause for celebration. Can’t wait to see this. Highly recommended.

Blu-Ray News #370: The Abbott & Costello Show, Season 2 (1953-54).

The Abbott & Costello Show, Season 1 Blu-Ray set from The 3-D Film Archive and ClassicFlix blew everybody away. Season 2 is coming in January.

The restorations/transfers (from the camera negatives) and extras will be incredible, as we’ve come to expect from these folks. Highly, highly recommended. Essential even!

Blu-Ray Review: Blonde Ice (1948).

Directed by Jack Bernhard
Produced by Martin Mooney
Screenplay by Kenneth Gamet
From the novel Once Too Often by Whitman Chambers
Cinematography: George Robinson
Film Editors: W.L. Bagier & Jason H. Bernie
Music by Irving Gertz

Cast: Leslie Brooks (Claire Cummings Hanneman), Robert Paige (Les Burns), Michael Whalen (Stanley Mason), Russ Vincent (Blackie Talon), James Griffith (Al Herrick), Emory Parnell (Police Capt. Bill Murdock), Walter Sande (Hack Doyle), John Holland (Carl Hanneman), Mildred Coles (June Taylor), Selmer Jackson (District Attorney Ed Chalmers), David Leonard (Dr. Geoffrey Kippinger)

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In a way, Blonde Ice (1948) serves as a model for the crazy/murderous chick movies that came along years later — Black Widow, Fatal Attraction (both 1987), stuff like that. And thanks to the gorgeous new Blu-Ray from ClassicFlix, it also demonstrates how B movies from this period — that most of us know from late-night TV and horrible VHS tapes and DVDs — were often the work of people who really knew their craft. The sets may be minimalistic (as in skimpy and generic), and there may be a one-and-done feel to some of the performances, but the production values are much better than some would expect.

At this point, I should admit a bias: I’d rather watch a cheap picture like this than some big-budget major studio thing any day. I’m more Sam Katzman than Samuel Goldwyn.

Every guy the beautiful gossip columnist Claire Cummings (Leslie Brooks) meets is instantly smitten with her, something she seems to be well aware of — and ready to use to her, and her bank book’s, advantage. While it might work out well for Claire in the short term, it’s not a healthy arrangement for the guy in the long term.

Claire marries a wealthy businessman (John Holland), then he turns up dead on their honeymoon, an apparent suicide. Her old flame Les (Robert Paige) comes to her aid, and seems to be uncomfortably chummy with the new widow. Soon the cops are watching him and questioning the suicide thing. The bodies pile up as Claire’s alibis get lamer and lamer. Then she sets her sights on a hotshot lawyer who’s running for Congress.

There’s a whole lotta fatale in this femme. 

Blonde Ice is one of those terrific B movies with its own Poverty Row sense of logic, playing like a film noir version of the Bela Lugosi’s Monogram Nine. Don’t think too much, just enjoy the ride. And quite a ride it is. (How could all these men not see that this chick is Bad News?) 

Leslie Brooks is terrific. She looks great and plays a scheming, murderous loon really, really well — with her eyebrows doing a lot of heavy lifting. Musician-turned-character-actor James Griffith, one of my favorities, makes his screen debut here as one of the men under her spell (and he’s still alive at the final fade). One of the writers was Kenneth Gamet who wrote several excellent films starring John Wayne (Flying Tigers, Wake Of The Red Witch) and Randolph Scott (The Doolins Of Oklahoma, A Lawless Street), before heading to television. And the cinematography by George Robinson helps conceal how cheap the picture really is.

That cinematography is well served by ClassicFlix on their Blu-Ray. Working with 35mm material from the BFI National Archive, it looks far better than you’d ever think you would see it. I was blown away.

ClassicFlix finds the best stuff that’s out there and makes sure it looks even better when they’re through with it. And that’s all us collectors can really ask for, ain’t it? Highly recommended to fans of noir and Poverty Row. 

Blu-Ray News #342: Blonde Ice (1948).

Directed by Jack Bernhard
Starring Leslie Brooks, Robert Paige, Michael Whalen, James H. Griffith

This still of Leslie Brooks tells you about all you need to know about Blonde Ice (1948). So you’ll understand why I’m excited to hear it’s coming to Blu-Ray in July from ClassicFlix.

She’s the classic femme fatale — and a murderous nut job. From her first frame in the picture, you just know she’s trouble, and over the next 70-something minutes you find out just how right you were. A real solid noir done on a shoestring budget. Highly recommended.

Thanks to John Knight for the tip!

Blu-Ray News #334: Hi Diddle Diddle (1943).

Directed by Andrew L. Stone
Starring Adolphe Menjou, Martha Scott, Pola Negri, Dennis O’Keefe, Billie Burke, June Havoc

Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) is a goofy war-time screwball comedy that is certainly worthy of making the leap to high definition, especially since it features some cool animated bits from Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon unit at Warner Bros. It also shows us a bit more of Dennis O’Keefe’s range, a real contrast to the noirs and crime pictures so many of us know him for.

Coming in May from ClassicFlix. Recommended.

Blu-Rays News #331: The Night Has Eyes (1942).

Directed by Leslie Arliss
Starring James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Mary Clare, Joyce Howard, Tucker McGuire

This British old dark house picture (with an incredible amount of fake fog) was released in the States by PRC as Terror House. Then, Cosmopolitan Pictures got ahold of it and released it in 1949 as Midnight Madness.

It’s a cool picture, no matter what you want to call it, and now it’s in the capable hands of ClassicFlix. They’re bringing it to Blu-Ray. In fact, it might be available now. Recommended.

Blu-Ray News #327: Blondie – The Complete 1957 TV Series.

Arthur Lake was put on this earth to play Dagwood Bumstead from Chip Young’s Blondie comic strip. That’s an absolute fact. And he did it marvelously in 28 features from 1938 to 1950 — and again in a TV series in 1957. And that series is coming to Blu-Ray from ClassicFlix in April, transferred from original 35mm elements of all 26 episodes.

Blondie is played by Pamela Britton, who many of us know from My Favorite Martian. (Penny Singleton played Blondie in the movies.) The show perfectly captures the spirit of the strip, with many episodes directed by Paul Landres. Funny stuff, easy to recommend!

Blu-Ray News #326: The Human Monster (AKA Dark Eyes Of London, 1939).

Directed by Walter Summers
Starring Béla Lugosi, Hugh Williams, Greta Gynt

ClassicFlix is doing us all a big fat favor, bringing another Bela Lugosi picture — 1939’s Dark Eyes Of London (released in the States in 1940 as The Human Monster) to Blu-Ray.

Though distributed in the US by Monogram, this is not one of Lugosi’s infamous “Monogram Nine.” This is a British adaptation of an Edgar Wallace novel. It was the first British film to receive an “H” certificate (for “Horrific”) from the British Board of Censors. Children under 16 weren’t allowed to see it.

Lugosi sailed over on the Queen Mary to do this one, shot in about a week. He has a dual role, as Dr. Feodor Orloff and John Dearborn, in this story of a series of murders traced back to insurance policies with the Dearborn Home For The Blind as the beneficiary.

This is great stuff, and I’m dying to see it in high definition. Coming at the end of February. Highly, highly recommended.

Blu-Ray News #319: The Long Wait (1954).

Directed by Victor Saville
Starring Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans, Peggie Castle, James Millican

Looks like the New Year’s gonna be pretty good — at least when it comes to DVDs and Blu-Rays. ClassicFlix has just announced another Mickey Spillane picture, The Long Wait (1954), with Anthony Quinn and the great Peggie Castle.

It was shot by Franz Planer, who did all kinds of great stuff: The Face Behind The Mask (1941), Criss Cross (1949), The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T (1953), 99 River Street (1953). 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954), The Big Country (1958), The Unforgiven (1960), King Of Kings (1961), Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) and many more. Seeing Planer’s work in high definition is always a treat.

ClassicFlix does great work, so this’ll look wonderful. They’re promising a commentary from Max Allan Collins and an image gallery.  This is one I’ve never seen, and I can’t wait. (The long wait, indeed!) Coming in March.