Jayne Mansfield on Blu-ray! What more can one say about the glittering array of Blu-ray treats out this month? Frank Tashlin’s hilarious The Girl Can’t Help (starring Jayne) gets the special Criterion treatment. Two of Vincent Price’s best- the Dr. Phibes movies- arrives in a tantalizing double feature. A remarkable German film Fabian: Going to the Dogs that you shouldn’t miss it. Some more great W. C. Fields films are also on Blu-ray. And the film that inspired Quentin Tarantino (and many others) Thriller: A Cruel Story out now in a 4K restoration. So, who’s the April fool now?
The Girl Can’t Help It (Criterion) Frank Tashlin’s 1956 comic masterpiece now restored so the cartoonish colors pop on your television. Tom Ewell plays a press agent, still haunted by the loss of his big client Julie London (who appears in ghostly visions in his home in fabulous outfits). He is contacted by an aging gangster (Edmond O’Brien) to make a star of his girlfriend- the busomy, beautiful Jerri Jordon (Jayne Mansfield). Filled with an incredible array of rock and soul luminaries like the incredible Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, The Chuckles, Abbey Lincoln and the scary, fabulous rockabilly great- Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps. Why is it in the 50s movies starred Tom Ewell as love interest to stars like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield? To make every man think they had a chance with women that staggering? But it’s the comic genius of Jayne Mansfield that makes this movie soar. Buxom, with an hour-glass figure and hilarious squeal, just walking up a staircase makes a tenant’s eyeglasses crack. And milk bottles explode. What is so wonderful about Mansfield is that she’s in on the joke. Her dumb blonde is so bigger-than-life and cartoonish it’s hilarious. Just watch her strategic walks to the powder room in nightclubs to be amazed at her brilliant comic timing. And the scene where she cuts her hit rock & roll record is one of the funniest things ever. The extras include great tributes to Jayne Mansfield and John Waters’ funny and astute observations on how great this movie is.
Fabian: Going to the Dogs (Kino Lorber) Epic, in more ways than the three-hour running time, tale of young, aspiring writer Jacob Fabian (the astounding Tom Schilling) living in Berlin in 1931 as the tides of Nazism rise. Jacob works writing ad copy for a cigarette company and carouses with his wealthy decadent friend Labude (Albrecht Schuch). He meets the beautiful Cornelia (Saskia Rosendahl) and they fall passionately in love. But life has cruel fates in store for them. Cornelia becomes a movie star and moves in with a wealthy producer. Labude, distressed that his thesis is dismissed sinks into a dissolute lifestyle of drugs, drinks and women. Jacob loses his job and spends his days smoking, wandering and writing into his notebook as the brown shirts roam the streets. Director Dominik Graf inventively films this story with great style, and Tom Schilling is just riveting in the lead role. A moving, really incredible film.
Dr. Phibes Double Feature (Kino Lorber) Two great British black comedy/horror films with a gleefully sardonic Vincent Price in the lead, having the time of his life in this juicy role. In The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) he plays Dr. Anton Phibes, famous organist thought to have been killed in a car accident but left facially scarred and hellbent on revenge against the doctors who botched an operation to save his beloved wife Victoria. He uses the 10 Plagues of Egypt as template for his villainous schemes along with his silent and deadly assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North). Filled with sumptuous Art Decco sets and memorably twisted murders this is a blast from beginning to end. In the sequel: Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), he returns from suspended animation (he put himself under to evade capture by the police) to take his wife’s corpse to Egypt and raise her from the dead. He also cleverly murders anyone that gets in his path. Vulnavia is now played by Valli Kemp. For years on home video this was missing the fabulous ending with Vincent Price singing “Over the Rainbow” but happily that is restored in this handsome looking Blu-ray set.
New Year’s Evil (Kino Lorber) Roz Kelly (“Pinky” Tuscadero of Happy Days fame) plays a famous rock queen hosting a New Year’s live TV show on the top floor of a L. A. hotel with bad New Wave bands and punks (from central casting) pogoing in the audience. A psychopath calls her during the show (using a voice distortion gadget) and threatens to kill people at midnight in different time zones. It may the first killer to break into a psychiatric hospital to kill someone. With cute Grant Cramer (Killer Klowns From Outer Space) as the rock legend’s disturbed son. The killer has plenty of costume changes- even dressing like a priest and getting chased by bikers into a drive-in showing horror films. This is not very gory and pretty stupid but it makes me laugh a lot.
Beware! Children at Play (Vinegar Syndrome) This mind-boggling 1989 cult classic comes restored from the film negative and will offer a new audience the chance to have their jaws unhinge during the blood-splattered finale. Trust me, very few endings in movie history are as hilariously wrong and deranged as in this film directed by Mik Cribben. A father and son are out camping the woods when the dad gets his foot irreparably caught in a bear trap. The son watches him die and, traumatized and crazed, survives on his own in the woods kidnapping other children from the nearby town to evolve into a murderous pack of killers. (Think pint-sized Manson Family). Anyone who ever watched a piss-poor old DVD of this will be amazed at how good it looks (the director was a cinematographer first and this is his only feature, unfortunately). But the ending really is why everyone remembers this film and it truly goes off a cliff in such outrageous ways that it will leave you (and the friends you invite over to watch this) shrieking in disbelief.
You’re Telling Me! (Kino Lorber) A foreign princess (Adrienne Ames), traveling incognito in America, meets a tipsy inventor Sam Bisbee (W. C. Fields) on a train and attempts to turn him into the darling of the country club set in this eccentric Pre-Code comedy. This is also in order to appease the snooty mother (the always wonderful Kathleen Howard) of the son (Buster Crabbe) Bisbee’s daughter (Joan Marsh) is in love with. A golfing sequence gives Fields the opportunity to show his impeccable comic timing in this very funny film. It’s also a recap of the bit he used in his short The Golf Specialist.
Man on the Flying Trapeze (Kino Lorber) In this rollicking 1935 comedy starring W. C. Fields, once again he is the henpecked patriarch whose desperation to attend a wrestling match causes him to lie to his boss that he is taking the day off to attend his mother-in-law’s (Vera Lewis) funeral. Speculation about her dying from drinking from the still in his basement runs rampant. So many misadventures await him on the way to the wrestling match but that’s nothing compared to the hell rained down on him when he gets home and the mother-in-law’s obituary has hit the paper. Grady Sutton is just wonderful as the obnoxious free-loading brother-in-law.
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (Kino Lorber) A 2k transfer of a hilarious 1939 W. C. Fields film where he plays Larson E. Whipsnade, irascible ringmaster of a run-down traveling circus. Edgar Bergen and ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy perform and spar with Fields. “Shut up or I’ll throw a woodpecker on you,” he threatens the dummy. One of my favorite bizarre bits is a crying girl who cheats Fields out of money accusing him of killing her dog. A ping pong sequence at a wealthy soiree near the end is comic brilliance.
Night Creatures (Shout! Factory) Peter Cushing is glorious as a vicar in a small England coastal town in the 18thcentury beset by marsh phantoms- skeletal riders on skeleton horses- that terrorize the night. A Royal Naval Captain and his men invade the town searching for evidence of smuggling but the town conspires to hide the untaxed liquor from the soldiers. This is also where the notorious pirate Captain Clegg is buried after being hanged. But is he really dead? Part gothic horror part swashbuckler, this 1962 Hammer film is great fun thanks to a witty performance by Peter Cushing and a scene-stealing Michael Ripper as his loyal henchman. Oliver Reed plays the handsome Squire’s son romancing barmaid Yvonne Romain (who played his mother in The Curse of the Werewolf). This is a gorgeous 2k scan from the interpositive and comes with terrific extras. Critic Kim Newman discusses the Dr. Syn books by Russell Thorndike this was based on and the thorny rights issue with Disney. There’s also a lengthy extra on Peter Cushing who wanted to shift away from horror films and was disappointed when he was unable to turn the Thorndike books into a film franchise. The making-of-the-film Is another fascinating extra.
Terror Express (Dark Force Entertainment/Code Red) A nasty I980 Italian shocker in the Night Train Murders/Last House on the Left mode. I have to admit my love/hate relationship with these kind of grindingly unpleasant shockers, and yet I have to own every one of them. And this is a rare one indeed and the Blu-ray is cobbled together from as many prints available to make this the longest cut. It’s unfortunately dubbed in English which is always annoyingly shrill and hollow-sounding. A group of disreputable characters on a train are held hostage by three violent perverts who torture the travelers and sexually assault a pretty prostitute and another defenseless younger woman. Typical of these type of exploitation films the three misogynist creeps get theirs in spectacular revenge fashion. But for the most part the film is made up of the abuse and terror they inflict on the poor passengers.
Dementia (Cohen Film Collection) This bizarre 1955 oddity directed by John J. Parker follows Adrienne Barrett as she scurries through dark alleys, struggles with a lecherous man (Bruno VeSota) who falls to his death. She uses a knife to saw off his hand clutching her necklace and awakes in a hotel room with the hand in the dresser. This expressionistic nightmare was made completely without dialogue and was banned by the New York Censor Board (which ironically included my own grandfather!). Remastered from a 35mm negative original this also includes Daughter of Horror which was the same film re-released two years later with narration by none other than Ed McMahon.
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (Vinegar Syndrome) This highly-influential 1973 Swedish shocker stars Christina Lindberg as a young woman who is kidnapped, forced into prostitution by a pimp who also addicts her to heroin and gouges out one of her eyes. Wearing a patch and carrying a sawed-off shotgun she goes looking for blood retribution. Quentin Tarantino and other directors have riffed off this film for years. You have to get through the whole “cruel” part in the beginning to get to the revenge but it’s really satisfying and Lindberg in her duster coat, eye-patch and sawed-off shotgun makes a legendary impression on screen. This 4K restoration 2-disc set includes the uncut festival version Thriller and the original English language film They Call Her One Eye. It includes a 43-minute documentary about the making-of-the-film, an interview with Christina Lindberg, and multiple theatrical trailers.