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 #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 #361: Blood Of The Vampire (1958).

Directed by Henry Cass
Starring Donald Wolfit, Barbara Shelley, Vincent Ball, Victor Maddern

Blood Of The Vampire (1958) is often mistaken for a Hammer film, with its subject matter, use of color, Barbary Shelley in the cast and a script from Jimmy Sangster.

But it was produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman, who’d give us Jack The Ripper a year later. Of course, they were clearly inspired by the success of Hammer’s Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror Of Dracula (1958) — and they serve up lots of Eastmancolor blood.

What’s interesting about the picture is that despite its Transylvania setting, Sangster goes for a more science-fiction approach to the whole blood-drinking thing, and this doesn’t play much like a vampire movie at all. Paul Landres’ The Vampire had taken a similar approach a year earlier — and Fred F. Sears’ The Werewolf went a similar route in ’56.

Nucleus Films in the UK is bringing Blood Of The Vampire to Blu-Ray, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with. I’ve always wanted a nice clean copy of this, with all its lurid color lovingly preserved. Here’s hoping that’s what we get!

Blu-Ray News #94: The Vampire (1957).

Directed by Paul Landres
Starring John Beal, Coleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Lydia Reed, Dabbs Greer, James H. Griffith

The Vampire (1957) is a cheap, solid 50s monster movie from Paul Landres, a director I’ve been trying to champion over the last few months. (I just recently reviewed the old DVD release.)

To me, this is a criminally overlooked little picture — the script, cast and direction take this way beyond its budget — and I’m so glad to learn that Scream Factory has it listed for a 2017 Blu-Ray release. It’s also great to see the work of someone like Landres get such high-quality treatment on video.

Happy Halloween.

Halloween in Wisconsin in 1960 looks like it was a lot of fun, especially the Paul Landres double feature at the Neenah.

Here’s hoping your Halloween is every bit as terrific.

Blu-Ray Review: The Return Of Dracula (1958).

Directed by Paul Landres
Story and Screenplay by Pat Fielder
Music by Gerald Fried
Director Of Photography: Jack MacKenzie, ASC
Film Editor: Sherman A. Rose, ACE

Cast: Francis Lederer (Count Dracula/Bellac Gordal), Norma Eberhardt (Rachel Mayberry), Greta Granstedt (Cora Mayberry), Gage Clark (Doctor/Reverend Whitfield), Ray Stricklyn (Tim Hansen), John Wengraf (Merriman), Virginia Vincent (Jenny Blake), Jimmie Baird (Mickey Mayberry), John McNamara (Sheriff Bicknell)

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The late 50s were a good time for movie vampires, thanks largely to the first of Hammer’s Dracula films, Horror Of Dracula (US title, 1958). But there was also The Vampire and Blood Of Dracula in 1957 and Blood Of The Vampire and The Return Of Dracula in 1958. Oh, and let’s not forget the vampire Western, Curse Of The Undead (1959).

What’s interesting about all these blood-guzzling movies is how each took a different approach to the traditional vampire lore. Hammer, with Christopher Lee in Dracula (1958), dialed up the sex and blood — all of it in alluring Technicolor. The Vampire made vampirism a medical condition. Blood Of Dracula fits right in with AIP’s I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), with a teenage vampire created by hypnotism, not a bite on the neck. The Return Of Dracula, which Olive Films has just released on DVD and Blu-Ray, goes in a different direction entirely — following in the steps of many of the Dracula movies that came before it, while moving the Lugosi-ish proceedings to modern-day California.

The Return Of Dracula comes from director Paul Landres and writer Pat Fielder. So did The Vampire. Landres worked mostly in TV, but his low-budget features from the 50s (Westerns and monster movies) are well worth seeking out. Pat Fielder also wrote the excellent The Monster That Challenged The World (1957) — and a number of episodes of The Rifleman.

Fleeing Transylvania, Count Dracula (Francis Lederer) kills an artist and assumes his identity. Arriving in California, he moves in with the victim’s family, who only know him from letters. They eventually notice that their guest sleeps all day, goes out at night and doesn’t like mirrors or the local priest. Teenage Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) also becomes concerned when her friend Jenny (Virginia Vincent) starts wasting away.

Lederer makes a pretty good Dracula, aided by his Hungarian accent. Norma Eberhardt tries hard to convince us she’s a teenager, and almost pulls it off. And Jenny Blake has a great part as Rachel’s friend turned Dracula’s minion.

But it’s the assured, creative direction of Paul Landres that keeps things interesting, and the cinematography of Jack MacKenzie that adds the atmosphere these movies rely on — both to create the right mood and conceal how cheap the sets are. MacKenzie shot Isle Of The Dead (1945) for producer Val Lewton, which should tell you something.

Olive Films has The Return Of Dracula polished up and shining like a brand new chrome-covered 1958 Impala. It’s a beautiful Blu-Ray, with contrast levels and aspect ratio (1.85) right where they need to be — and a cool color effect toward the end. Revisiting films like this, in this kind of quality, has been a real joy the last few years, and a number of them have come from Olive.

For fans of these things, or of the people who made them (I’m a big admirer of Landres’ work from this period), The Return Of Dracula comes highly recommended. And I’m hoping Olive gives The Vampire the same treatment.

Blu-ray News #67: The Return Of Dracula (1958).

Directed by Paul Landres
Starring Francis Lederer, Norman Eberhardt, Ray Strickland

Paul Landres directed three cool little horror pictures for Gramercy Pictures in 1957-58: The Vampire, The Return Of Dracula and The Flame Barrier. Each was done in week on a shoestring budget.

Olive Films has announced an October Blu-ray release for The Return Of Dracula (1958). Jack MacKenzie’s moody photography will be a real treat in high definition.

DVD Review: The Vampire (1957).

Directed by Paul Landres
Screenplay by Pat Fielder
Director Of Photography: Jack MacKenzie
Film Editor: John Faure
Music: Gerald Fried

Cast: John Beal (Dr. Paul Beecher), Coleen Gray (Carol Butler), Kenneth Tobey (Sheriff Buck Donnelly), Lydia Reed (Betsy Beecher), Dabbs Greer (Dr. Will Beaumont), Herb Vigran (George Ryan), James H. Griffith (Henry Wilson)

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Made in six days for just $150,000, The Vampire (1957) shows the kind of miracles director Paul Landres could perform with no time and no money. The fact that it made it to the screen to begin with is quite a feat — then consider that it’s a pretty solid little monster movie.

Dr. Paul Beecher (John Beal) is a small-town physician who becomes a bloodthirsty monster after he mistakenly takes an experimental drug extracted from the blood of vampire bats. That the vampire here is the product of science, not the undead, is an interesting twist — and so 1950s. What’s more, it serves up a pretty good, and certainly early, depiction of the perils of drug addiction.

Landres began as an editor, cutting series Westerns and serials at Universal, and made the move to director in the very early 50s — both in features and TV. He retired after a 1972 episode of Adam-12. The late 50s were a particularly interesting period for Landres. He directed a few Regalscope pictures (including the terrific Frontier Gun in 1958) and a handful of cheap horror/sci-fi movies that transcend their budgets — The Vampire being one of them.

Along with Landres’ direction, what helps elevate The Vampire are its thoughtful script by Pat Fielder — who wrote a number of good science fiction pictures, including this film’s co-feature, The Monster That Challenged The World (1957) — and the solid character actors who make up its cast. John Beal does a superb job of keeping Dr. Beecher sympathetic, even as he’s killing an old lady. Coleen Gray and Kenneth Tobey are always a treat. And Dabbs Greer and James H. Griffith steal the show was two guys from the university that sponsored the drug research. Then there’s Jack MacKenzie’s moody photography. He worked with Val Lewton at RKO on Isle Of The Dead (1945), so he’s no stranger to shadows and atmospherics, and he puts them to good use here.

With a cast and crew like this, how could The Vampire go wrong?

The scene where John Beal stuffs James Griffith into the incinerator is one of those monster movie moments that has stuck with me since I was a kid. Part of a genre, and an era, I adore, this one comes highly recommended.

The Vampire is available on DVD as part of one of the old MGM Midnite Movies collection, paired with The Return Of Dracula (1958), another little gem from Paul Landres. The version I watched this week was the Movies 4 You: Horror set from Timeless Media Group — which also includes a pretty good transfer of The Screaming Skull (1958). The widescreen transfer of The Vampire is excellent, allowing for some artifacts coming from cramming four features onto one disc, and a real bargain at five or six bucks.