News & Reviews

Coming from Sony November 10, The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 7, 1952-1954 ($24.96). This 2-disc set includes 22 chronological short subjects, all of which star Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard, and 19 of which are making their DVD debut. Not only that, but two of the shorts will be included in both 3D version (as originally released) and 2D, and nine of the shorts will be in widescreen. Wow! Grown men slapping each other in 3D and widescreen! What could be more fun?

Available this month from Warner Archives, the Our Gang Collection. These are the 52 one-reel comedies (well, they're SORT of comedies) produced by MGM (1938-1944) after they bought the series from Hal Roach. You know, the ones with Froggy, Mickey, Janet, and sometimes a Spanky who looks as though he's pushin' 17. Now, granted, these short subjects range from terrible to "Gee, that one wasn't quite as terrible as the last one," but 52 short subjects for $34.95? Well, what th' heck. Click on the cover to order it.

Hey, speaking of Warner Archives, one of the titles they released a few weeks ago is near & dear to our black little hearts here in the Balcony, the 1957 favorite From Hell It Came, starring Tod Andrews and a tree that uproots itself and chases down South Sea Islanders who... who... well, pretty much it kills whomever it can catch. Anyway, we're big fans of 1950s monster movies, and this film certainly falls into that category, and is at least as good as such beloved treasures as Robot Monster, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and Plan 9 from Outer Space. Here are a few screen grabs for ya; on the left is the previous DVD release (from Sinister Cinema) and on the right is the Warner Archive DVD.  

Latest DeeVeeDeeviews...

We haven’t had a lot of time to post new DVD reviews lately, so instead of our usual long-winded, pointless coverage of new releases we’re going to post short-winded, to-the-point coverage of whatever we find laying around. Brevity is not only the soul of wit, it’s a pretty darn good way to clear DVDs off your desk so you have room for important stuff, like an ice-cold beer, or your feet.

Icons of Screwball Comedy Vols. 1 & 2

(Sony/Columbia, $24.96 each)

Once the Motion Picture Production Code gained teeth in 1934, s-e-x disappeared from American cinema screens, and one of the things that replaced it was a new genre of sexless sex farce: the screwball comedy. Columbia Pictures was the acknowledged master of this genre (and Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, 1934’s multi-Oscar winner, its greatest film); Sony Pictures’ enjoyable, low-cost “Icons” releases (various collections of vintage films grouped together) continues with two new 2-disc sets, Icons of Screwball Comedy Vols. 1 and 2. Between the two sets are eight mostly minor but nonetheless enjoyable examples of the studio's romantic comedies of the 1930s-40s.

Vol. 1 leads off with the classic of either set, If You Could Only Cook (1935, directed by William Seiter). Jean Arthur, the loveliest of all the screwball female stars, has a job offer as a domestic cook – but needs to find a butler as part of the deal to land the job, and picks up Herbert Marshall on a park bench to pass him off as her husband, the butler. She doesn’t know that Marshall is actually a rich designer of automobiles, and he plays along with her because… well, because she’s the loveliest of all screwball female stars. Pay attention. He’s engaged to somebody else, but is going to fall in love with Miss Arthur, and she with him, because after all this IS a romantic comedy. As with most of the films in this collection, the supporting cast is a gem, filled with beloved character actors of the period. Leo Carrillo is the good-natured gangster that our domestic couple is toiling for, and Lionel Stander is his tough-guy henchman, who suspects that our romantic kids aren’t all that they seem. The scene in which Marshall sneaks home to get buttling lessons from his personal manservant is the laugh-out-loud funniest scene in any of these films.

Miss Arthur is also represented in Vol. 1 with Too Many Husbands (1940, director Wesley Ruggles). This time, she’s a widow who marries Melvyn Douglas, only to have not-quite-dead first husband Fred MacMurray return.

Rosalind Russell takes over the lead for the other two films in the set, and copped an Oscar nomination for My Sister Eileen (1942, directed by Alexander Hall). Roz and daffy sister Janet Blair move from Columbus, Ohio to Greenwich Village and find themselves in a basement apartment that seems to be Cuckoo Neighbors Central. Brian Aherne is the love interest. Director Hall and star Russell were reunited in 1945 for She Wouldn’t Say Yes, with Lee Bowman as the leading man.

Vol. 2 has a stronger overall lineup, but also contains the only out-and-out clunker in the set. Best is Theodora Goes Wild (1936, directed by Richard Boleslawski); the wonderful Irene Dunne (Oscar nominee for this film) is a small-town Sunday School teacher who has anonymously written a smutty novel. Melvyn Douglas discovers her secret and decides to liberate the meek side of Miss Dunne, not knowing what he’s in for once her worldly persona takes over. Thomas Mitchell is superb as the local town newspaperman who also discovers the authoress’ secret.

Miss Dunne and Charles Boyer had been paired twice before (Love Affair, When Tomorrow Comes) and tried their hand at a comedy with Together Again (1944, director Charles Vidor), one of the better films in this collection. She’s a small-town mayor, he’s a sculptor, and cupid moves in with both of ‘em.

Loretta Young is the ingénue of the remaining films; the first, The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940, directed by Alexander Hall) gives us Miss Young as the author of a book extolling the single life for females, and Ray Milland (showing a real flair for romantic comedy) as a stuffy professor. They’re mistaken for a married couple and forced to play along with the error because otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a plot. If they don’t end up falling madly in love, we’ve got a scoop. One of the better films in the collection, full of fun. Finally, in A Night to Remember (1943, directed by Richard Wallace), Loretta moves hubby Brian Aherne to a Greenwich Village basement apartment (what, again?) so that he can stop writing murder mysteries and start writing romances, and on the first night a naked body shows up on their terrace. Not a screwball comedy by any stretch of the definition, and the only truly bad film in either volume; simply painful to sit through. Save it for last, and then skip it entirely.

One of the joys of the Icons sets from Sony has been the bonus short subjects, serial chapters, and rare vintage cartoons sprinkled throughout as bonuses. Two such extras can be found here: Vol. 1 includes Ain’t Love Cuckoo (1946) starring the forgotten comedy team of Schilling & Lane. Well, not forgotten by us (see our Short Subject site). It’s a 2-reel comedy from the folks who gave us The Three Stooges. Vol. 2 has a very funny, very colorful cartoon called The Mad Hatter (1940). Trailers for most of the films are also included, as are a trio of new ads for Sony/Columbia DVDs, including a Three Stooges trailer that surprisingly omits any mention of Joe Besser in its Stooges roster; hopefully, that doesn’t mean Sony intends to cease their Stooges releases before the Bessers are included. (The Stooges make a surprise cameo appearance in one of the films in these volumes, but we're not telling which one, lest somebody at Sony gives us a slap across the face or two fingers in the eyes.)

All eight films in the two Icons of Screwball Comedy sets look fine and are good examples of the kind of “meat and potato” film offerings that Columbia offered to Depression and wartime audiences. It’s encouraging that Sony is continuing to mine the Columbia vaults for respectably entertaining material for value-priced DVD releases. Hopefully, the future will hold collections specifically devoted to the many comedy short subject series Columbia produced (particularly Charley Chase, Shemp Howard, and Andy Clyde) and some of the studio’s cliffhanger serials (it’s amazing that with the success of the Spider-Man films, nobody at Sony is pushing for the release of The Spider’s Web and The Spider Returns, two marvelous chapterplays from James W. Horne, director of classic Laurel & Hardy films).

Other Recent DVD Releases of Note

Rock Around the Hits (Charly, $19.95)

Fun collection of 48 rock 'n' roll performances from the 1950s and early ‘60s, mainly culled from film clips and TV shows. Quality varies; the clips come from 16mm or kinoscopes and are unsharp when shown on a big-screen TV, although the sound has, for the most part, been cleaned up nicely. Favorite clips: Frankie Lymon “Goody Goody”; Johnny Otis Show “Willie & the Hand Jive”; Bobby Vee twistin’ & jiving with “Pretty Girls Everywhere”; and Dion “Ruby Baby”. I love the Exciters and “Tell Him” but I’ve seen this particular clip in better condition elsewhere. Other performers of note include Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and Jerry Lee Lewis, each of perform several songs, and the great Carl Perkins. Frankly, my favorite part of the disc, though, is the bonus section, with 14 pre-rock “soundies” music videos starring the Mills Brothers, Peggy Lee, Big Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Lionel Hampton, and others. Great stuff! There’s also a well-written, colorful 16-page booklet with info on all the artists.

The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 2 (Milton Caniff Estate, $19.95)

This show is really growing on me; Dean Fredericks stars as Milton Caniff’s legendary Air Force pilot in this show originally broadcast in 1958-1959 on NBC. It’s a jet geek’s wet dream, with each half-hour episode seeming to be comprised of at least 50% stock footage of the latest space-age hardware. The other 50% is a bunch of good looking, heavy-smoking men (the show was sponsored by Chesterfield). I'm tellin' ya, this just might be the most testosterone-driven TV show of its time, and the Cold War came to your living room every week with this baby. My favorite episodes are “The Gift”, a Christmas show written by Ray Bradbury, and “Operation Mushroom”, in which Canyon is tasked with the responsibility of saving mankind -- by dropping the first H-bomb! Beautiful prints, commentary on each episode, interesting supporting and guest casts (notably Leonard Nimoy, Elena Verdugo, and Mary Tyler Moore & Jerry Paris two years before they’d find themselves next-door neighbors on The Dick Van Dyke Show) make this show and DVD set a constant delight. Includes 12 episodes on 2 discs and a wealth of original commercials and TV promos; all the promos are for ABC-TV shows, so I assume that network rebroadcast this program at some point. Order at stevecanyondvd.blogspot.com.

Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre (VCI, $39.99)

I’d never seen this show before (the series ran on CBS-TV from 1956-1961), and was impressed by the Hollywood big shots Powell talked into appearing with him. Any show with Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, James Whitmore, Lew Ayres, Jack Palance, Lee J. Cobb, Walter Brennan, Ralph Bellamy, Jack Lemmon, David Nivon, and Mary Astor has to get your attention, not to mention the wonderful character actors and supporting players featured during the show’s run. No less than five network shows were spun off from this one, notably The Rifleman with Chuck Connors (who won’t appear until season 2 of this show).

Repulsion (Criterion, $39.95)

Roman Polanski’s Psycho-inspired shocker about a beautiful young woman (Catherine Deneuve) and her… ummm…. disturbing tendencies when confronted with human sexuality is perhaps the last great B&W horror film (1965). Typical outstanding Criterion treatment (I never get tired of saying that!), including interviews with Polanski and some of the crew that shed a little light on how to produce a high-quality thriller that’s being financed and produced by a soft-core film distributor. Repulsion takes its sweet time getting where it’s going, and with no plot to speak of… but don’t watch it when you’re alone.

Restored Serials Super Restoration Series: Blu-ray

Our pals at Restored Serials have been busy, and have two notable Blu-ray releases that we are still trying to figure out how to deal with (whether to review them on this site, open a new inthebalcony/bluray site, or what) but we DO want to support them by mentioning they’re available. Of highest interest to us is the very first classic cliffhanger to be released on Blu-ray, The Green Archer (1940) with Victor Jory. The other release is The Man from Beyond (1922) starring Harry Houdini. For more information, including all the technical jargon and list of extras, visit their website at restoredserials.com.

Previous DVD Releases We Liked

Stranger on Horseback (VCI, $14.95, to be released 9/16/08) This 1955 Jacques Tourneur film has been all but impossible to see for decades, particularly in its original “AnscoColor” beauty (AnscoColor being to Technicolor what ViewMaster slide projectors are to high-def plasma TVs). VCI and Kit Parker films located a copy in the British Film Institute vault, and here we are. One of a number of similar-themed post-High Noon “Lone Lawman vs. Vicious Killers in A Town Called Apathy” films, but it’s a good one. Joel McCrea is the Lone Lawman, John McIntire and Kevin McCarthy are the Vicious Killers, and John Carradine is the hapless city official in the villains’ pocket. Miroslava is the babe who longs to cross over from the wrong side of the street and get to where handsome Joel is a-standin’. I don’t know who she is, but she’s pretty and she’s the only member of the villainous family that spicks vith a strange assent. The disc, from a 35mm print, is presented in 1.66:1 anamorphic format, and looks wonderful considering the cheap color process that was used. Extras include radio shows with Joel McCrea and audio featurettes by Joel Blumberg, plus the original theatrical trailer.

In the early 1960s director Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face) wanted to remake the classic silent serial Fantomas, but had to settle for remaking the 1913 serial Judex instead. In various interviews, he was harsh in his assessment of his own film, mainly because the “hero” of the piece is really a villain, but he was wrong: his 1963 French feature Judex is a rollicking piece of riveting entertainment, with the equivalent of 12 chapters of thrills crammed into 94 minutes of non-stop excitement and laughs. Judex (Latin for “Judge”) is a mysterious figure who runs an organization that punishes those the law can’t touch. When he orders a crooked banker to give half his fortune to charity, Judex sets in motion a grand scheme of larceny, blackmail, and murder. You’ll find a beautiful damsel in distress, caped villains who look just like the hero of The Spider’s Web, a magician dressed like a giant hawk, bouncy dancing, super-science that brings the dead back to life, stone crypts with secret passageways, and a lovely female acrobat risking death to rescue complete strangers. The perfect Saturday matinee feature; pop plenty of corn and have a great time. Judex, which stars Channing Pollock and Edith Scob, is available on a new DVD in the Masters of Cinema series from England (Region 2, £24.99). It’s paired with Nuits Rouges (a/k/a Shadowman, 1973) from the same director. The DVD is impeccable and includes a thick booklet with interviews and information. One of the best DVD releases of the year.

Our friends at Thunderbean Animation have a new disc out, which is always cause for cinematic celebration. This time, it’s Cartoon Commercials! Vol. 1, featuring nearly 2 hours worth of, well, you know. Compilations like this are usually hit or miss, but Thunderbean’s offering is superb, with clear picture and sound (although occasionally the color has faded). I had forgotten how many classic cartoon characters were brought out of retirement to hawk product, and I wish I had saved some of those Soaky toys from when I was kid (I didn’t have many; I suspect Mr. Bubble was cheaper, ‘cause that’s what Mom usually bought). I would've loved a breakfast cereal with a story book printed right on the box; where was THAT when I needed it? And forget the McCain vs. Obama contest; to this day, I've never been able to decide between Quisp and Quake. DVD extras include a special subtitle feature that gives you background information on each ad, and a couple of industrial shorts on how to make commercials.

Speaking of cartoons, Warners has just released a 2-disc set called, if the packaging is to be believed, The DC Comics Classic Collection Super Heroes The Filmation Adventures ($24.98). I would’ve dropped off at least one of those “The”s in the title, but you know me, I’m pretty frugal when it comes to article use. Anyway, when I was a kid, I watched the Superman-Aquaman Hour of Adventure on TV on Saturday mornings (while I ate cereal in plain ol' non-storybook boxes), a treat because in between trips to Metropolis and Atlantis we got cartoon shorts featuring Hawkman, Superman, the Flash, the Atom, the Teen Titans, and the Justice League. Those bonus shorts (18 in all) comprise this collection, and they’re not too good, although I still like the bombastic narration by Ted Knight (late of WJM TV). I also got a kick out of the menu screen (shown here) which somehow manages to substitute Birdman, a character from another company, for Filmation’s version of Hawkman. Whoops. Somebody needs to don an absorbascon and figure out what went wrong.

Grotesqueries (Blue Mouse Studios, $14.95) is a terrific find, a collection of oddball short subjects and cartoons with a general Halloween-type theme. Highlights include a live-action 1930 version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with Fritz Feld, a remarkable 1928 expressionistic take on The Fall of the House of Usher, a nightmare in which comic Billy Bletcher is pursued by a giant killer lobster, scary cartoons, and much more, a total of about 2½ hours worth of fun. You’ll play this one beginning to end.

Honey West (VCI, $39.99) is an anomaly; it ran only one year, 30 episodes, yet was popular in reruns and is still fondly remembered today, not least of all because it was so damn stylish in that supercool 1960s kinda way. Anne Francis is the gorgeous Beverly Hills P.I. who solves crime with the aid of boy toy Sam Bolt (John Ericson) and her pet ocelot (Bruce). Honey lives up to her name with slinky costumes and a battery of impressive secret agent-type gadgets; in the first episode alone, her handbag of tricks include a 2-way communicator in her compact, a bugging device in a swizzle stick, and of course the one item no woman should leave home without, teargas-filled earrings. Mostly, though, she defends herself through judo, although it’s her pale blue eyes that did me in (well, the show was in B&W, but I have nothing if not a vivid imagination). VCI’s four disc set includes all 30 episodes, including the promos for the following week’s show, and bonus commercials for other ABC shows and fine variety of essential products for home and office, plus a (pretty sparse) episode guide. This show exceeded all expectations, and I want a soundtrack CD!

Hey, we’re doing pretty well so far, eh? Let’s see what else we’ve got here!

The Fox Film Noir series of DVDs continues, but alas they’ve changed the packaging and stopped numbering the darn things, to Fox’s discredit. Three new releases include the previously-postponed Boomerang! (1947) with Dana Andrews, directed by Elia Kazan, Road House (1948), with Ida Lupino, and an earlier Lupino film, Moontide. In this 1942 drama directed by Archie Mayo after Fritz Lang got himself fired, Jean Gabin (in his American debut) is a French sailor who awakes from a drunken blackout wondering if he’s killed a man. Thomas Mitchell and Claude Rains are pals who help him sort it all out, and Miss Lupino is the “waif” who loves him. The film’s darkness and stylishness were probably beyond the ability of Mr. Mayo at that point, who was long time past his 1931 triumph Svengali (a year later he'd be stuck trying to direct Groucho, Chico and Harpo in A Night in Casablanca), so I’m giving a lot of the credit to Lang, who was never happy with a script that had to twist the story into knots to get past the censors. The DVD looks and sounds great, contains feature commentary by Noir expert Foster Hirsch, and a brief featurette on the making of the film, plus several Fox Noir trailers. The Fox Noir discs are $14.98 each.

One wonders if any of the censors ever bothered to complain about grown men slapping themselves around in Columbia Three Stooges shorts; probably not. Sony’s third volume of chronological shorts is now available (SRP $24.96); this one offers 23 beautifully restored shorts covering the calendar years 1940-1942, including the Stooges anti-Hitler classics You Nazty Spy and I’ll Never Heil Again. Congratulations to whoever at Sony decided that in these troubled times, America needs the Three Stooges. Just not in office, please. Check In The Balcony's Short Subjects department (link at top of page) for more info on the Stooges collections.

Facets/All Day Entertainment presents a second American Slapstick collection ($34.95), and Vol. 2 is another pip. Spread across the three discs are a series of comedic shorts starring Harold Lloyd and a bunch of lesser-known entertainers, including Harold’s brother Gaylord, Chaplin’s brother Syd, and Charley Chase’s brother Paul Parrott. There are a couple of delightful obscure talkies from the 1930s, too. Best of all is the complete 1925 feature version of the chestnut Charlie’s Aunt starring Syd Chaplin; the film is delightful and laugh-out-loud funny. Worth th' price of admission all by itself.

I don’t like the team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis very much, but I never remember why until I try watching one of their films again. While they occasionally have their moments, the films are with rare exception simply terrible. Case in point: Money from Home (Legend, $14.95), supposedly based on stories by Damon Runyon. Uh-huh. I couldn’t even finish it. I like Dino well enough, but Jer? No comment. Mostly, though, I think that the team’s strength was the manic ad-libbing and craziness inherent in their live act, none of which is on display in their films. This is painful.

On the other end of the comedy team spectrum stands the greatest of all, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy. After releasing a beautifully restored collection of the entire 1920-1940 output of the dimwitted duo, Kinowelt (Germany, Region 2) finally released the great oddity in the L&H canon, Hal Roach’s 1939 misfire Zenobia. Roach insisted on keeping Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy under separate contract, see, and our heroes finally decided that when Stan’s contract was up he was going to defer signing a new one until his rotund partner could join him, feeling that as a team they could negotiate a better deal. Maybe. In Stan’s absence, Roach paired Oliver Hardy with the way-past-his-prime Harry Langdon in a southern comedy of manners, with elephant. Stepin Fetchit provides what few laughs there are, and there are few indeed. At least the DVD includes three terrific Roach silents, Along Came Auntie (1927), The Nickel-Hopper (1926, with Boris Karloff), and Long Fliv the King (1926, with Charley Chase).

Sony’s Icons of Adventure pairs four obscure Hammer pirate-type movies, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Devil-Ship Pirates, The Pirates of Blood River, and The Terror of the Tongs. I don’t much like Hammer films, and so I skipped right to the one that is s’posed to be the best of the bunch, The Stranglers of Bombay, and sure 'nuff I didn’t much like it. The 2-disc set includes, however, some wonderful bonus material, including a 1936 Scrappy cartoon, The Merry Mutineers, with animated versions of Laurel & Hardy and the Three Stooges, the first episode of the fun 1953 serial The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd, King of the Pirates, and a wonderful Andy Clyde 2-reeler, Hot Paprika. So long as Sony keeps putting bonus shorts on their releases, whatever they are, I’ll keep buyin’ ‘em. Now if we could only get a few more complete serials...

Finally, our buddies at Restored Serial have released a new and improved version of the 1922 silent film The Man from Beyond, a science-fiction oddity starring Harry Houdini. It is indeed much better than Restored’s previous release, and includes, they tell us, scenes missing from other versions, each frame lovingly scrubbed and polished. The disc ($13.95) includes a PDF with more than 320 pages of Houdini scripts and other materials. You can order this  from restoredserials.com.

Hey! I can see my desk again!