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.

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.

RIP, Monte Hellman.

Monte Hellman (Monte Jay Himmelman)
(July 12, 1929 – April 20, 2021)

When I was a kid, my gear-head cousin used to talk about this movie about a ’55 Chevy and a GTO racing cross-country for pinks. It was called Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was several years later before I finally saw it, but he was right — it’s about the coolest thing ever.

Monte Hellman directed that movie, and he has passed away at 91.

Hellman certainly had a weird career. He was one of the Roger Corman kids, who learned by doing, making Roger’s cheap movies. Of course, that’s probably the best way to learn anything. There were a few of those. He directed a couple of terrific Westerns with Jack Nicholson in 1966, Ride The Whirlwind and The Shooting. They’re called things like Acid Westerns, Revisionist Westerns and Weird Westerns. Call ’em what you want, but they’re just Westerns — different, sure, and very good.

Then came Two-Lane Blacktop. It absolutely nails the car culture — which is why folks like my cousin hold it in such high esteem — and contains one of the greatest film performances you’ll ever see, from Mr. Warren Oates. In the photo up top, there’s (L-R) Hellman, Warren Oates and James Taylor on location.

One of the picture’s final scenes was shot on near the North Carolina-Tennessee line. I pay homage every time I pass by.

There were other movies — some he directed (Cockfighter is incredible), others he worked on (often without credit) as a director/editor/fixer. I wish he’d made more movies because he sure knew what he was doing, and he put his stamp on everything he touched. And it was one helluva stamp.

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

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: The Shooting And Ride In The Whirlwind (Both 1966).

This was a post I really wanted to get right. There were two previous attempts, which I hated and discarded (to say too much about these movies, in a way, takes away from them). Hope the third time’s the charm.

The backstory. Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson did a couple of pictures in the Philippines for Roger Corman (Back Door To Hell and Flight To Fury, both 1964). When there was talk of doing something else, Corman asked them to make a Western. That became two Westerns to be shot back-to-back — similar to their Filipino arrangement. The budgets were $75,000 apiece, with  three weeks scheduled for each.

Nicholson wrote Ride In The Whirlwind and The Shooting came from Carole Eastman (as Adrian Joyce). Both films were shot in Utah by Gregory Sandor, with Nicholson serving as producer. They share the same tiny crew and Nicholson and Millie Perkins in the casts. The Shooting was done first, with a period of about a week before Ride In The Whirlwind started. The finished films played a few festivals (Montreal, Cannes) and some foreign bookings, but were sold straight to TV in the States (though Variety reviewed Ride In The Whirlwind back in ’66).

There were plenty of ugly VHS releases before VCI brought them to DVD. That was a great day indeed, and these terrific little Westerns started to find an audience. They’ve been given the red-carpet treatment by The Criterion Collection, with an incredible batch of extras. It took quite a while, but they’re finally getting their due.

The Shooting
Directed by Monte Hellman
Written by Adrian Joyce (Carole Eastman)
Director Of Photography: Gregory Sandor

Cast: Warren Oates (Willett Gashade), Will Hutchins (Coley), Millie Perkins (The Woman), Jack Nicholson (Billy Spear)

The Shooting was shot first (and I saw it first), so we’ll begin with it. Warren Oates returns to his mining camp to learn that his brother killed a boy in town and fled. Then a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) appears and pays Oates to lead her to the town of Kingsley, for reasons she won’t share. They begin their trip through the desert, trailed by a lone gunman dressed in black (Nicholson).

Ride In The Whirlwind
Directed by Monte Hellman
Written by Jack Nicholson
Director Of Photography: Gregory Sandor

Cast: Cameron Mitchell (Vern), Millie Perkins (Abigail), Jack Nicholson (Wes), Harry Dean Stanton (Blind Dick), Katherine Squire (Catherine), George Mitchell (Evan), Rupert Crosse (Indian Joe), Tom Filer (Otis)

A group of cowboys (Cameron Mitchell, Jack Nicholson and Tom Filer) stumble upon a cabin where Blind Dick (Harry Dean Stanton) and his gang invite them in. The next morning, the cabin’s surrounded by a posse — and the three innocents are instantly wanted men.

The idea in The Shooting of the gunman after someone, we don’t know who, is the backbone of Jack Arnold’s No Name On The Bullet (1959) with Audie Murphy. When it comes to Ride In The Whirlwind, there are plenty of innocent men on the run movies. There’s a fatalist, noir-ish feel to some of both films’ dialogue, but that comparison falls apart, too. These were unlike any Western that came before them — or after them, for that matter.

While most of Roger Corman’s young directors showed promise under his leadership, then went on to do great things, Monte Hellman managed to make two great films while still in the Corman camp. These seem to share the same basic approach as his Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) — a deceptively simple, and purposefully vague, situation is established, and for the rest of the picture, we watch the characters react to that situation. In The Shooting, like Oates, we don’t know what the hell is going on, but we’re pretty sure it’s not going to be good. Ride In The Whirlwind lets us share the desperation of Mitchell and Nicholson. And we don’t get to know the characters of Two-Lane Blacktop because there really isn’t anything to know — they just keep going.

There have been complaints over the years that some of the performances in these Westerns are wooden. The leads seem pitch-perfect to me. Millie Perkins and Jack Nicholson are fine in both. Cameron Mitchell was always dependable, no matter what kind of junk he was in. Will Hutchins is terrific. And Warren Oates was simply one of the best film actors ever, incapable of being less than stellar (and Hellman seemed to draw his best work out of him).

The camerawork from Gregory Sandor is stunning. There was no time or money or crew for lights, so everything was done with natural light. The frame of Oates with the coffee cup, above, from a long take in the first few minutes of The Shooting, sums up these movies for me. The lighting seems real, not Hollywood, and the oddball composition is perfectly imperfect. For some reason, that image has stuck with me for over 20 years.

The new 4K masters done for the Criterion release are some of the best I’ve ever seen, for any movie. Both The Shooting and Ride In The Whirlwind really look like film here, and the color seems rich even though everything is brown and dusty. Just as there was no time or money for lights, there wasn’t much for makeup, either. Millie Perkins didn’t feel she was presented very well in either film, though I disagree. She looks exactly how she ought to look.

While the merits of every film on video should hinge on the film itself, Criterion put together a series of extras that really add to your appreciation of these gems. The commentaries by Monte Hellman, Blake Lucas and Bill Krohn are some of the best I’ve ever heard. They cover everything you’d ever want to know about how these pictures came to be. Even if the films were terrible, their combined production history would be fascinating stuff. The fact that they’re absolutely brilliant makes it all the more special. Adding the package are interviews and short documentaries.

Back when these Westerns looked awful on VHS, they were something to be tracked down and studied, especially for those with a thing for Monte Hellman. This Criterion set, presenting both in stunning quality and with a serious stack of extras, is nothing short of essential. My highest recommendation.

A big thanks to Blake Lucas.