If you know any other rabid lovers of cult and crackpot cinema, this is a good month to make their bad dreams come true with a gaggle of bizarre Blu-ray treats. From sordid, pre-Code shockers, to box sets concerning Hollywood teen hookers and a collection of creepy Fly films, December has something for everyone.
Konga (Kino). In this cult favorite, Michael Gough plays a grumpy British botanist who injects a serum (culled from some exotic African plants) into a tiny monkey only to have it grow into a giant rampaging monster. Gough is great at playing arrogant creeps, and it’s satisfying (and hilarious) to see him eventually clutched in the hand of the huge ape screaming, “put me down, you fool!” You get to see Konga rampaging Piccadilly and in front of Big Ben in this well-loved howler. The thrill of seeing the rich colors and clarity in this Blu-ray is beyond belief.
The Story Of Temple Drake (Criterion) This 1933 shocker, (sort of) based on William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, starring Miriam Hopkins was so notorious, many say it helped kick-start the Hays Production Code. Hopkins plays Temple Drake, a free-wheeling, wild daughter of a respectable Mississippi family. A car accident one drunken night fatefully brings her into contact with a pack of bootleggers and the criminal brute Trigger (phenomenal Jack La Rue). She is raped, traumatized, and willingly becomes a prostitute for him. A murder Trigger committed (that Temple witnessed) is mistakenly blamed on another man and Drake is reluctant to testify in court and reveal her sordid fall from grace. I wrote an article about a “wish list” of unattainable films on home media and this was one I dreamed about. The extras shine a light on the movie’s infamy and Miriam Hopkin’s fearless performance.
The Fly Collection (Shout! Factory) It all began in 1958 where a scientist’s (David Hedison) experiment leaves him with a giant fly’s head- and the 1959 sequel starring Vincent Price. I’ll take the famous image from the original film- of Hedison’s head attached to a fly’s body, wailing “help me!” while trapped in a spider-web over the Battleship Potemkin steps sequence any day. This amazing box set also includes Curse Of The Fly with the grandson of the doomed scientist teleporting his father (Brian Donlevy) from London to their lab in Quebec. There are also some mutant misfires of the experiment housed at the estate. (God, I love those black & white Cinemascope movies from the 60s). There’s also the upsetting and fascinating 1986 interpretation by director David Cronenberg, starring Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, whose experiment transforms him horrifically. In 1989- The Fly II starring Eric Stolz and directed by Chris Walas followed and that too is included in this great set.
The Angel Collection (Vinegar Syndrome) “High school honor student by day…Hollywood hooker by night!” screamed the ads for this 1984 grindhouse favorite. Molly Stewart (a.k.a. Angel), created by writer/director Robert Vincent O’Neil, battles killer tricks and befriends kooks on the Hollywood strip. Character actors Rory Calhoun, Susan Tyrrell and Dick Shawn co-star as her alternative family. In the first film “Angel” is played by Donna Wilkes, in Avenging Angel she is played by Betsy Russell and in Angel III: The Final Chapter by Mitzie Kapture.
The Bad And The Beautiful (Warner Archive) In Vincente Minnelli’s masterful, sinfully fun, behind-the-scenes Hollywood tale, a producer (Walter Pidgeon) rounds up a director (Barry Sullivan), a movie star (Lana Turner) and a screenwriter (Dick Powell) to see if they would ever work on a project with a man they all hate- producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas). Their back stories make up core of the film and Kirk Douglas is glorious as the golden boy and ultimate heel. There are so many memorable scenes- including Lana Turner flipping out in a speeding car that is so amazing, Minnelli repeated it with Cyd Charisse is this film’s spiritual sequel Two Weeks In Another Town.
Abominable Snowman Of The Himalayas (Shout! Factory) A terrific 1957 British Hammer Studios horror film with an intelligent script by Nigel Kneale and expertly directed by Val Guest about an English scientist (Peter Cushing) who joins an American expedition (led by Forrest Tucker) into the Himalayas to search for the elusive Yeti monster. It’s smart, surprising and well-done, and has been out-of-print on DVD for years. To experience it now, beautifully restored, is sweet justice for those of us who love this film.
Glorifying The American Girl (Kino) A fabulous rarity- this 1929 pre-Code musical about an ambitious dancer (Mary Eaton) who works her way to a starring role in a Broadway extravaganza. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld and with special performances by Rudy Vallee, torch singer Helen Morgan and Eddie Cantor, it also has amazing early Technicolor sequences (a tableau with a mermaid and musclemen is astounding). The disc also includes an incredible Technicolor short La Cucaracha that is mind melting.
Big Trouble In Little China (Shout! Factory) This John Carpenter spooky, funny, martial arts action film was a flop at the box office but has built cult status. A lot has to be credited to Kurt Russell’s hilariously goofy tough guy performance as trucker Jack Burton who helps his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) rescue Wang’s girlfriend from a supernatural underground beneath Chinatown. Victor Wong plays a sorcerer, and tour bus driver, who aids them in their quest. Kim Cattrall plays a lawyer who gets roped into the action and love interest for Burton. Kurt Russell hilariously channels John Wayne but is a constant bungler in this enjoyably oddball action epic.
The Boys Next Door (Severin) This was the second narrative film for Penelope Spheeris (after her documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization & her feature Suburbia). It’s about two high school losers (Maxwell Caulfield & Charlie Sheen), who head to L.A. for a post-graduation blow-out weekend which devolves into a murder spree. Caulfield was still reeling from the debacle of Grease 2, and infuses his part with the rage and frustration he was feeling at the time. It’s a sensational performance- filled with simmering misogyny and pent-up homosexual confusion. Author Stephen Thrower expounds on the gay subtext of the movie in a fascinating extra. There is also audio commentary with Spheeris and Caulfield and copious extras.
Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (Shout! Factory) In this wonderfully perverse take on the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, scientist Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) is experimenting with an elixir of immortality only to be transformed into an evil woman (Martine Beswick) who murders women in Whitechapel for their female hormones needed to feed the serum. Martine Beswick is deliciously fiendish as she slowly attempts to take full control over her male alter-ego in this entertaining 1971 Hammer horror directed by Roy Ward Baker.
The Magic Sword (Kino) A 1961 fantasy film by Bert I. Gordon with handsome Gary Lockwood as Sir George, who heads out on his white steed and with his magic sword to save a captured princess (Anne Helm) who is about to be fed to a dragon by an evil sorcerer (Basil Rathbone). He has to foil seven curses to get to the castle where the fair damsel is imprisoned. His loving step-mom is a witch (played with wonderful, eccentric charm by Estelle Winwood). A crackpot kiddie movie but an enjoyable one, this looks incredible on Blu-ray.
Anne Bancroft Collection (Shout! Factory) An extraordinary box set highlighting the work of the stunningly talented Anne Bancroft. From her brilliant Oscar-winning performance in The Miracle Worker, to her role as the sexy, predatory MILF in The Graduate, her film debut in Don’t Bother To Knock starring Marilyn Monroe, to her directorial work- Fatso starring Dom DeLuise, or co-starring with husband Mel Brooks in his rollicking remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be. Her later work is included like the controversial Agnes Of God and 84 Charing Cross. For me the thrill is the inclusion of The Pumpkin Eater, a powerful Jack Clayton film with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, where Bancroft plays the emotionally disturbed wife of a screenwriter (Peter Finch) and mother to multiple children. It’s an unforgettable performance- a scene where she (soundlessly) freaks out in a department store is harrowing. 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Olive Films and Criterion all help make this amazing set possible, and the quality of the discs are superb.
Universal Horror Collection Volume 3 (Shout! Factory). Included is a restored version of Tower Of London (1939), Rowland V. Lee’s historical drama starring Basil Rathbone as the fiendish Richard the III and Boris Karloff as the bald, club-footed executioner. Ironically Vincent Price plays a victim in this one (he went on to play Richard the III in Roger Corman’s 1962 remake). In the 1941 Man Made Monster, Lon Chaney Jr. plays a man struck by a power line who miraculously lives and becomes a side-show attraction- “Dynamo Dan, The Electric Man” before he meets a mad scientist (Lionel Atwill) who dreams of creating an army of electro-men and experiments on him. The Black Cat is a 1941 comic/horror/old-dark-house film about a greedy family fighting over an inheritance left to a housekeeper (Gale Sondergaard) and her cats. With Broderick Crawford as an antiques dealer, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi and a young Alan Ladd. Horror Island (1941) stars Dick Foran as a man who leads a charter boat group to a spooky island supposedly containing a treasure. There is a shadowy killer (the “Phantom”) that haunts the island. Be sure to keep your eye on the right-hand side of the screen when the merry band enter the spooky mansion- you can clearly see a lighting man backing out of the frame.
Murders In The Rue Morgue (Shout! Factory) Not much to do with Edgar Allan Poe, but beautifully lensed by Karl Freund, this is an eerie tale of a carnival crackpot (Bela Lugosi) with a trained ape who injects gorilla blood into prostitutes. Yikes. This pre-Code expressionistic shocker was expertly directed by Robert Florey and was not a hit at the time but has emerged as a cult classic over the years thanks to critics and rabid fans.
Silver Bullet (Shout! Factory) “Silver Bullet” is the nickname of the souped-up motorized wheelchair of a 13-year-old boy (Corey Haim) in this adaptation of a novelette by Stephen King. He and his drunken Uncle Red (Gary Busey) and sister (Megan Follows) end up doing battle with a werewolf slashing his way through a small town in 1979. One of the better scenes shows the werewolf’s transformation turning back into a man in this Blu-ray Collector’s Edition.
White Squall (Kino) Great-looking Ridley Scott film with Jeff Bridges as a coach who practices male bonding with 13 high school students on an ill-fated sea voyage. With Scott Wolf, Jeremy Sisto, Ryan Phillippe, Balthazar Getty and plenty of storm-related wet white teeshirts to titillate the closet cases in the audience. They should have retitled this- “Chicken Of the Sea.”
To The Devil A Daughter (Shout! Factory) The last gasp from Hammer Studios, Richard Widmark stars as an expert on the occult who is contacted by a frantic father (Denholm Elliot) who believes his daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) is being groomed by a devil cult led by a sinister Priest- (Christopher Lee, natch). Catherine is a nun who the Satanists want to use her sacrificial blood to revive their demon anti-Christ. Based on a Dennis Wheatley (The Devil Rides Out) novel, and directed by Peter Sykes, Richard Widmark gets to deliver the best line in the film: “98 percent of so-called Satanists are nothing but pathetic creeps who get their kicks out of dancing naked in freezing churchyards, and use the Devil as an excuse for getting some sex….”
Mr. No Legs (Massacre Video) A Florida-shot little-seen oddity directed by the man who wore the monster suit in Creature From The Black Lagoon– Ricou Browning. The film is about a stock, legless hit man with a wheelchair outfitted with machine guns hidden in the arm plates. He earns his living executing marks for a drug lord. There’s a hilarious bar-fight sequence between “Bitchy Bessie” and a white-trash stoolie in a saloon filled with drag queens. There’s also a jaw-dropping scene in which the legless killer kung-fu’s his opponents with his stumps. It has to be seen to be believed!
The Wild, Wild, World Of Jayne Mansfield (Severin) This 1968 “Mondo” film plays like a demented travelogue as we follow movie star Jayne Mansfield around the world, visiting nudist camps, drag balls and topless car washes. We even get to see Jayne do the twist. But the capper is that they actually include her death in the film and follow husband Mickey Hargitay, who walks sadly around their bedroom and pink, heart-shaped swimming pool, gazing longingly at the high-heeled shoes she will never step into again.
Holiday (Criterion) Delightful George Cukor-directed comedy based on a play by Philip Barry (which I confess to liking more that his The Philadelphia Story). Cary Grant plays Johnny, a humble man overwhelmed by his wealthy fiancé Julia’s (Doris Nolan) family. He meets Julia’s alcoholic brother (Lew Ayers) and her older, unconventional, sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn) who shares many of his values. He also is introduced to Linda’s whacky friends (Edward Everett Horton & Jean Dixon). Johnny has decided to take a “holiday” from work for a year to find himself and Linda is sympathetic but is fearful he will be dissuaded by her money-driven family. The movie did not go over at the time with unsympathetic Depression era audiences, but the years have been kind to the comedy. Grant and Hepburn are just heavenly, and I think it’s one of Cukor’s best.