Blu-Ray Review: The Terror (1963) & Little Shop Of Horrors (1960).

Film Masters continues their Filmgroup releases with a stunning Blu-Ray of The Terror — with The Little Shop Of Horrors along for the high-definition ride. Both get a Cadillac 4K scan from nice 35mm material.

The Terror (1963)
Produced & Directed by Roger Corman (& Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill)
Starring Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight, Dick Miller, Dorothy Neumann, Jonathan Haze

Roger Corman’s The Terror is a patchwork quilt of a Gothic horror movie, done in bits and pieces — beginning with Boris Karloff walking around the sets for AIP’s The Raven as they were being torn down. A busload of writers and directors messed around with it for about a year. As you’d expect, the results don’t make a whole lot of sense (Leo Gordon’s original script was altered each time it was passed from one director to another), but there’s something oddly fascinating about the whole thing.

Jack Nicholson is a French officer who winds up at the castle of Baron von Leppe (Boris Karloff) after trying to locate a mysterious young woman he met on the beach (Sandra Knight). Things get convoluted and confusing from there, with a witch and her son, a deal with the devil, a ghost and a flooded crypt added to the mix. It was not based on a Poe story, but if someone thought it was part of Corman’s successful Poe Cycle, that was fine!

Footage from The Terror turns up in Peter Bagdanovich’s Targets

I once had a fairly-decent 16mm dupe print of The Terror, and have tried out several of its previous video releases, so I’m very familiar with the movie and what it looks like. NEVER thought it would look at good as it does here. The color is vivid and consistent, and the picture is surprisingly sharp — with allowances for the crazy way it was shot. The framing is perfect (Vistascope is just the standard 1.85.) and the sound is crystal clear. Film Masters has done a terrific job with The Terror.

The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)
Produced & Directed by Roger Corman
Starring Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail, Jack Nicholson

Everybody knows the backstory on The Little Shop Of Horrors — another Corman movie shot on leftover sets (this time, from Corman’s own A Bucket Of Blood). Interiors were shot in a couple days (after a few days of rehearsal) with a budget of just $28,000. To keep things moving quickly, multiple cameras and fixed lighting were used, sitcom style.

Seymour Krelboined (Jonathan Haze) develops a man-eating plant he names Audrey, after a coworker he’s sweet on (Jackie Joseph). The plant becomes an attraction at the little flower shop where Seymour works, so his boss looks the other way when Seymour feeds it a bum who was hit by a train. Things escalate from there. Oh, and it’s all played for laughs. The picture is known for Jack Nicholson’s scene, but Mel Welles is terrific as Haze’s boss. (Of course, it spawned a musical play and a film based on that play.) 

The Little Shop Of Horrors went out in a double feature with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, then again with Corman’s Last Woman On Earth (both 1960). Then it became a staple on the late show and cheap VHS tapes. Again, Film Masters has come through with a small miracle — though it doesn’t glow quite like The Terror, this is the best I’ve ever seen The Little Shop Of Horrors look. It’s clean and sharp with nice, solid blacks. I saw things I’ve never noticed before, giving new life to a film I’ve seen a couple dozens times. And the proper framing makes a huge difference.

Film Masters has given us some nice extras, with the prize going to the second part of Ballyhoo’s documentary on Corman’s Filmgroup, his independent production company he operated while he was doing the Poe pictures for AIP. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’ve written this a thousand times: an upgraded transfer can transform an old film. Film Masters proves that here, twice, showing that The Terror and The Little Shop Of Horrors weren’t as raggedy-looking as we once thought. I was blown away. This two-disc set comes highly, highly recommended.

The Olive Films, The Non-Westerns Checklist.

A few days ago, over on 50 Westerns From The 50s, I posted a list of the Westerns released on DVD and Blu-Rays by Olive Films. Turns out a number of us are looking to fill some gaps in our collections — before they’re either gone or going for crazy collectors’ prices. And now, here’s a list of some of their other titles. This is by no means everything — just the stuff that falls within the scope of this blog.

Some of these titles have already been re-issued (or are on the way) by other companies. But some may never see the light of day again, given the current state of physical media. From a couple of Republic serials to a handful of Regalscope pictures, there are some real jewels here.

As very special thanks (again) to Laura from Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, who was a HUGE help with bringing this together. 

Betty Boop, Vols. 1-4
Sabotage (1939)
S.O.S. Tidal Wave (1939)
Lady From Louisiana (1941)
A Man Betrayed (1941)
One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
Flying Tigers (1942)
Lady For A Night (1942)
Johnny Come Lately (1943)
Strangers In The Night (1944)
Voodoo Man (1944)
Fighting Seabees (1944)

The Return Of The Ape Man (1944)
The Strange Affair Of Uncle Harry (1945)
Flame Of Barbary Coast (1945)
The Vampire’s Ghost (1945)
The Dark Mirror (1946)
The Private Affairs Of Bel Ami (1946)
Appointment With Crime (1946)
Copacabana (1947)
Ruthless (1948)
So This Is New York (1948)
Force Of Evil (1948)
Mr. Peabody And The Mermaid (1948)
Wake Of The Red Witch (1948)
Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949)
The Red Menace (1949)
The Kid From Cleveland (1949)
Love Happy (1949)
The File On Thelma Jordon (1950)
Appointment With Danger (1950)
No Man of Her Own (1950)
The Lawless (1950)
Captain Carey U.S.A. (1950)
Union Station (1950)
Three Secrets (1950)
Dark City (1950)

Flying Disc Man From Mars (1950, serial)
The Invisible Monster (1950)
Cry Danger (1951)
My Favorite Spy (1951)
Flat Top (1952)
Hoodlum Empire (1952)
The Atomic City (1952)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Retreat, Hell! (1952)
City That Never Sleeps (1953)
Commando Cody: Sky Marshal Of The Universe (1953, serial)
The Sun Shines Bright (1953)
Hell’s Half Acre (1954)
Private Hell 36 (1954)
Panther Girl Of The Kongo (1954, serial)
The Shanghai Story (1954)
Cry Vengeance (1954)
Dragonfly Squadron (1954)
Young At Heart (1955)
The Big Combo (1955)
Shack Out On 101 (1955)
The Eternal Sea (1955)
No Man’s Woman (1955)
The Americano (1955)
Strategic Air Command (1955)
The Weapon (1956)
Fire Maidens Of Outer Space (1956)
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)
China Gate (1957)
Plunder Road (1957)
She Devil (1957)

High School Confidential! (1958)
Indiscreet (1958)
Hell’s Five Hours (1958)
The Colossus Of New York (1958)
The Space Children (1958)
It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
The Return Of Dracula (1958)
The Beat Generation (1959)
Operation Petticoat (1959)
Pork Chop Hill (1959)
The Big Operator (1959)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
The Monster Of Piedras Blancas (1959)
A Bucket Of Blood (1959)

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962)
That Touch Of Mink (1962)
Father Goose (1964)
Muscle Beach Party (1964)
Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
How To Stuff A Wild Bikini (1965)
Crack In The World (1965)
Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965)
The Wild Angels (1966)
The Trip (1967)
Cauldron Of Blood (1967)
The Spirit Is Willing (1967)
Project X (1968)
Little Fauss And Big Halsey (1970)
Badge 373 (1973)

Take a glance at this list. Olive Films put some terrific movies in our hot little hands. It’s a shame they didn’t make it. This proves the point that’s been made over and over on this blog — if we don’t support the companies that put these things out, they won’t be putting them out anymore. Okay, now I’ll climb down from my soapbox and put The Return Of Dracula back on.

Blu-Ray News #357: The Terror (1963).

Directed by Roger Corman (& Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill)
Starring Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight, Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze

Roger Corman’s The Terror (1963) is a patchwork quilt of a Gothic horror movie, done in bits and pieces — beginning with Boris Karloff walking around the sets for AIP’s The Raven as they were being torn down — by a busload of writers and directors over about a year. The results don’t make a lot of sense (Leo Gordon’s original script was altered each time it was passed from one director to another), but there’s something oddly fascinating about the whole thing. And with it coming to Blu-Ray from Film Masters in December, we can count on it looking terrific.

Film Masters is promising a dungeon full of extras, including another Corman/Nicholson/Haze feature, The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960). This is gonna be a great package. Can’t wait.

Blu-Ray News #314: Attack Of The 50 Ft. Woman (1958).

Directed by Nathan H. Juran (as Nathan Hertz)
Starring Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers

Warner Archive has announced Nathan Juran’s Attack Of The 50 Ft. Woman (1958) as one of their December releases. I’m sure there are some folks out there asking, “Why?” If you don’t get it, I don’t think I could ever explain.

No one has ever accused this of being a good movie. The director Nathan Juran even decided to use a pseudonym, Nathan Hertz, the same name he used for Brain From Planet Arous. And like Arous, 50 Ft. Woman is a hoot, its entertainment value is in no way related to its budget (just $88,000, they say) or its quality as a film. Me, I’ll watch anything with Allison Hayes in it, from Chicago Syndicate (1955) and Gunslinger (1956) to Zombies Of Mora Tau (1957) and The High Powered Rifle (1960). Oh, and Tickle Me (1965) with Elvis.

Attack Of The 50 Ft. Woman was originally released as half of an Allied Artists twin bill with Roger Corman’s War Of The Satellites (1958) starring Dick Miller. Must’ve been a fun afternoon at the movies. By the way, this was remade in 1993, starring Darryl Hannah.

Haven’t seen any specs for the Blu-Ray, but I’m sure it’ll be widescreen and will look terrific. Hope they keep the commentary by Yvette Vickers and Tom Weaver that was on the old DVD. It was cool to listen to Ms. Vickers.

A Night At The Movies: Halloween – Illinois, 1967.

Blu-Ray News #276: X – The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963).

Directed by Roger Corman
Starring Ray Milland, Diana Van Der Vlis, Harold J. Stone, John Hoyt, Don Rickles, Morris Ankrum, Dick Miller

Bring on the AIP and Corman! Second Sight out of the UK has announced a Blu-Ray release of Roger Corman’s X – The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963). It’s a terrific movie that does wonders with its small budget (you could say that about most Corman movies, I guess).

Ray Milland is researching ways to boost man’s eyesight, who in typical horror movie fashion, tries his serum out on himself — with the usual results.

One of Corman’s best, with outstanding camerawork from the great Floyd Crosby. And Milland is really, really good. Highly recommended.

Happy Birthday, Boris Karloff.

Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt)
(23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969)

Here’s a perfect way to celebrate the great Boris Karloff — stay up all night watching a slew of his movies.

Blu-Ray Review: A Bucket Of Blood (1959).

Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Charles B. Griffith
Cinematography: Jacques R. Marquette
Music by Fred Katz
Film Editor: Anthony Carras

Cast: Dick Miller (Walter Paisley), Barboura Morris (Carla), Antony Carbone (Leonard de Santis), Julian Burton (Maxwell H. Brock), Ed Nelson (Art Lacroix), John Brinkley (Will), John Herman Shaner (Oscar), Judy Bamber (Alice), Myrtle Vail (Mrs. Swickert), Bert Convy (Detective Lou Raby), Jhean Burton (Naolia)

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This is the kind of blog, read by the kind of people, where A Bucket Of Blood (1959) doesn’t require a lot of set-up. It was written by Charles B. Griffith, directed by Roger Corman for AIP, shot in five days for $50,000 (on sets left over from Diary Of A High School Bride), with the great Dick Miller in the lead. The end result is wonderful.

So, 60 years later, we get A Bucket Of Blood on Blu-Ray from Olive Films, part of their Signature series, and it’s incredible. You probably never thought you’d see this movie look like this. I certainly didn’t.

Sure, it’s still a $50,000 movie about a guy that kills people to make statues. But now we get a chance to really appreciate all that’s going on. We see Corman showing some real confidence as a director, displaying some real chops here and there — and turning out one of the better Horror Comedies, a very-hard-to-pull-off sub-genre. Dick Miller makes Walter Paisley both a lovable chump and a creepy killer. And everyone seems to be in on the fun when it comes to showing us how pretentious, cynical and hypocritical the whole Beatnik scene could be. The dime-store set design is really effective and fun to study in high definition.

Olive Films has given A Bucket Of Blood the attention I think it deserves. We’ve seen it looking so bad for so long — from muddy 16mm dupes to crappy PD VHS tapes and DVDs, it’s a bit of a shock to see it so crisp and clean. I found myself pausing it repeatedly to study things.

Along with the movie looking like a million bucks, a big leap from its $50K origins, we get a bucket-load of terrific extras, most courtesy of Elijah Drenner, whose documentary That Guy Dick Miller is a treasure. Drenner provides a new interview with Corman, an audio commentary and a wonderful visit with Dick Miller and his wife Lanie. This package is a joy from one end to the other, and a great way to revisit an old favorite. Highly, highly recommended.

Blu-Ray Review: White Line Fever (1975).

Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
Written by Ken Freidman & Jonathan Kaplan
Director Of Photography: Fred Koenekamp
Film Editor: O. Nicholas Brown
Music by David Nichtern

Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent (Carrol Jo Hummer), Kay Lenz (Jerri Hummer), Slim Pickens (Duane Haller), Sam Laws (Pops Dinwiddie), L.Q. Jones (Buck Wessle), Don Porter (Cutler), R.G. Armstrong (Prosecutor), Leigh French (Lucy), Dick Miller (Birdie Corman), Martin Kove (Clem)

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Jonathan Kaplan directed a cool Isaac Hayes movie called Truck Turner (1974) and followed it with a movie that’s really about trucks, White Line Fever (1975). It’s a modern day Western, pretty much, with some good stunt work and a terrific cast. Kaplan did exactly what I would’ve done if I had a shot at making a movie in the mid-70s — load it up with all my favorite character actors (his love of Sam Peckinpah is quite obvious here).

Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan Michael Vincent) is a young Air Force vet who gets married (to Kay Lenz), gets a truck and gets out on the road to make a life for his new family. Unfortunately, Carrol Jo soon discovers the high cost of being an honest man in a very corrupt world. But, lucky for us, that sets in motion a lot of action scenes involving all sorts of trucks and Carrol Jo’s Remington pump shotgun.

Growing up in the South in the 70s, White Line Fever was the talk of the playground in the sixth grade — everybody’d seen it over the summer break. It took me years to finally catch up with it (Jaws dominated that summer for me), and when I did, here were all these guys I knew from other movies — Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Dick Miller. That remains its chief appeal for me today. Another thing — movies like this, which were sorta dismissed when they came out, sure seem good compared to what came later. I’d watch this 10 times before I’d watch something made in the last 10 years.

White Line Fever is now available from Mill Creek on Blu-Ray with a special sleeve that recycles the old VHS packaging. I worked my way through college at video stores (anybody remember Philadelphia’s Video Village?) and this box — complete with “Action,” PG rating and “Please Rewind” stickers — really took me back. But it’s what’s inside that counts, and this is a near-perfect transfer of a typical mid-70s action movie. You probably have a pretty good idea of what that looks like. There are no extras, just a pretty cool movie looking really good. And that’s plenty good enough for me.

Blu-Ray News #252: A Bucket Of Blood Signature Edition (1959).

Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Charles B. Griffith
Starring Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Bert Convy, Julian Burton

Olive Films has announced their September release of their Signature Edition release of Roger Corman’s A Bucket Of Blood (1959).

Short in five days for something like $50,000, A Bucket Of Blood is an ink-black comedy starring Dick Miller as Walter Paisley. Paisley’s a bonehead who becomes a respected artist among all the hipsters with his piece “Dead Cat,” which happens to be, well, a dead cat. As his fame grows, so does his need for more art — and the bodies his creations require.

Olive is offering up a bucket-load of extras, beginning with a new 4K scan, a commentary, a few interviews, trailers and other goodies. This one’s essential, folks!