The Strange Case of Dr. Jerry and Mr. Gillis (expanded)

As luck would have it, yesterday I happened to get my mitts on a copy of an old DC comic book from the early 1960s, THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS #18. I've been a fan of DC's BOB HOPE and JERRY LEWIS comics for as long as I can remember, but I only recently discovered that their DOBIE GILLIS title (an adaptation of the TV series starring Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty) was written and drawn by the same people. The chief writer of all these comics was Arnold Drake (whom you may remember as the screenwriter of THE FLESH EATERS) and the artist was Bob Oksner, whose style reminds me a lot of MAD's master caricaturist, Mort Drucker. The BOB HOPE and JERRY LEWIS comics were always dependably hilarious, so I thought I'd give DOBIE GILLIS a spin.

I was amazed by what I discovered.

The untitled story in DOBIE's 18th issue begins with Dobie and Maynard in their chemistry class at college, where Dobie is trying very hard to get his gorgeous classmate Lucinda to go out with him on a date. Lucinda feels no chemistry; she says she wouldn't go out with Dobie if he was the last man on earth -- and vines herself around the arm of handsome college letterman Steven. Maynard jokes that maybe Dobie can cook up something in class that will take the starch out of Steven's collar, and Dobie declares his beatnik friend a genius. His eureka: Perhaps he can concoct something like the potion in Robert Louis Stevenson's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE... Since he's already repulsive to Lucinda, maybe he can invent a potion that will make him irresistable to her instead! (You see where this is going?)
The next day in class, Dobie's fevered ingredient mixing causes an explosion in the classroom. When the dust clears, he has indeed become more attractive. He dubs himself "Mr. Handsome" and everyone in class is awestricken by him. Lucinda is ready to fall all over him, but Dobie hasn't just become Mr. Handsome; he's also become something of a... conceited, abrasive jerk! (It's also suddenly the 25th century, because Dobie's explosion actually knocked him out cold and he's only dreaming, but that's beside the point.)
Dobie... er, Mr. Handsome struts away from Lucinda and sets his romantic sites on Delora Delora, who has won the title of Miss Beautiful everywhere in the galaxy. He drops in on her without bothering to call first, reasoning that the two of them just "go together." Delora agrees to receive him because he's "so breathtakingly fabulous" and Mr. Handsome shoots back, in a very Jerry way, "That's a wise decision... it's not every day you receive a visitor like me. I mean, so good-looking and gentlemanly and all!" Press photographers descend on their meeting but are so preoccupied with snapping shots of Mr. Handsome that Delora mopes about being ignored. "I'm too much of a good thing," Mr. Handsome reasons, and he reassures her by promising to send a special 8x10 that she can admire when no one else is around.

In addition to all this, Dobie and Maynard call each other "Buddy" throughout this wacky MANY LOVES story, which ends with a visit to Venus where all the Venusian women are attracted to Maynard instead -- the shock of which causes Dobie to regain consciousness in the wreckage of his 20th century chemistry class.

Reading this comic, I quickly took note of its many parallels to Jerry Lewis' classic movie THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, which the IMDb tells me was first released on June 4, 1963. I assumed that the hit movie had inspired the plotline but was surprised upon checking Page 1 of the comic that it was dated March-April 1963 -- which means that it actually streeted a few months earlier than the film and was scripted and drawn a good deal earlier than that!

Adding further confusion (and interest) to the timeline is a news item that tops the "Inside Hollywood" text feature appearing on Page 19 of the comic. Get this: "Stella Stevens to Star with Jerry Lewis in 'The Nutty Professor.'" The third paragraph of the item reads, "'The Nutty Professor,' a Jerry Lewis production in which Lewis will play a Jekyll and Hyde type of character, is scheduled to go before cameras late in September with Ernest D. Glucksman producing and Lewis directing."

Given its phrasing, this item suggests that Lewis was still casting principal roles at the time the GILLIS comic was in production, so THE NUTTY PROFESSOR was either still in pre-production as the comic was being assembled, or on the earliest stages of shooting. The screenplay that Lewis co-authored with Bill Richmond already existed, of course. Don't misunderstand me; I'm not suggesting that either party ripped the other off, nor am I theorizing that Jerry Lewis got the idea of Buddy Love from a DC comic. What's interesting about this discovery is that Lewis's most notorious plot twist (which was greeted as something of a shocker at the time) -- and other little touches like his film's college milieu and the use of the endearment "Buddy" -- were somehow anticipated in the pages of DC's THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS months before THE NUTTY PROFESSOR reached theater screens... and by whom? By the same people who worked on Lewis's own comic! Did DC have access to an advance script of the film? Was it just a matter of kindred comic spirits pulling the same concept out of the ether at roughly the same time? You just have to wonder if the similarities between the two projects were coincidental... or accidental... or osmosis... or what?

Of course, Jerry Lewis wasn't the first filmmaker to get the idea to reverse the traditional roles of Jekyll and Hyde. In the underrated Hammer Films production THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL (1961), which was released in American theaters as JEKYLL'S INFERNO and HOUSE OF FRIGHT, Canadian actor Paul Massie played a bearded, bookish, bespectacled Jekyll who became a clean-shaven, handsome, pleasure-loving and ultimately sadistic Hyde. The film was scripted by Wolf Mankowitz and directed by the great Terence Fisher, and I personally forgive its few rough edges and place it with Fisher's most important work. That said, if the world's last print of THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL was in a burning building with the last print of Lewis's THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and there was time to save only one of them, the Paul Massie Fan Club would probably cast a stern eye on the choice I'd be forced to make.
A strange footnote to all this is that DC never issued a NUTTY PROFESSOR tie-in issue of their popular ADVENTURES OF JERRY LEWIS comic. It's a peculiar omission considering that DC had used the title to present earlier tie-in editions of DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP (correction: actually an issue of DELL FOUR-COLOR, Devlin Thompson tells me), THE BELLBOY and THE LADIES' MAN (see below), also illustrated by Oksner.

I don't know what to make of this strange coincidence, but it just goes to show you: If you read comics, you might learn something. Or wonder something. Or something.
Speaking of JERRY LEWIS comics, I was pleased to be reminded, while examining some back issues of that beloved title, that he was among the very first "Monster Kids." Or maybe it was his nephew. I'm wary of probing too deeply into such questions, for fear I might end up writing THE BOOK OF RENFREW...

The Horrible THING -- Revealed!!!

Courtesy of Mr. David J. Schow, here's the original production art for "The Horrible THING!," the mysterious billboard that adds an intriguingly eerie layer to his MASTERS OF HORROR episode "Pick Me Up," airing this week on Showtime. The art -- which I received uncredited, but which probably fell within the creative province of production designer David Fischer or art directors Don McCauley and Teresa Weston -- is segmented because the billboard is rickety and a bit broken down. It may add to the effect to imagine Michael Moriarty peeking through one of those openings at you.

In the night. In the dark.

Aware of my ungainly infatuation with "The Horrible THING," David kindly indulged me by rounding up this image (and another, seen below) for me to share with others who might feel similarly affected. He also sends along this doggy-bag of additional insight: "The Horrible Thing was originally my homage to that venerable roadside attraction encountered by virtually anybody driving cross-country through the Southwest..."

"... It wasn't The THING itself," DJS explains as everything starts to go all squiggy, "but the fact that at one time (perhaps not now) these billboards were EVERYWHERE, more prolific than Stuckey's encampments. They had an odd cumulative effect on the imagination as you were pounding those long hard stretches of desolate road, particularly in the high desert, or anywhere in Texas (once you begin driving through Texas it just ... never ... seems ... to end). You could literally mark your progress by waiting to spot the next billboard for The THING in inevitable succession.

"It got even weirder at night. These bright yellow billboards would loom up out of total desert darkness, some of them quite dilapidated, and one could imagine all sorts of unlikely, er, things.

"But the mystery promised by the THING (and indeed by The Horrible Thing) are rooted deep in that mystic primordial brain-jelly that really, truly beckons the imagination," he summarizes. "We should never actually see such THINGS and have the rug pulled by some rude physical artifact."

To which I can add only, "Bingo."

P.S. Be sure to check out David's reunion "Raving and Drooling" column in the current 250th issue of FANGORIA.

Now get out of here with that bump-bump-bump.

Dig It -- Six Digits!

Last night, around 11:19 pm, someone from San Antonio, Texas visited Video WatchBlog and rang up its 100,000th hit, or page visit. I promise to give the bragging about attendance a rest for awhile, but Donna and I are astounded by the blog's popularity and this is the kind of milestone that needs to be acknowledged. If you weren't coming here to visit every day, or nearly every day, this blog couldn't be what it is (or what it's becoming), so it's natural to want to share this news with you. We launched VWb less than four months ago, and our daily averages have been steadily on the rise -- especially lately, thanks to friendly mentions and links on other sites and blogs. I'm enjoying my participation here and your friendly attention, response, and correspondence makes me want to continue being here for you. It may be a little difficult this week because Bava book work is piled high and I'm back to a tight schedule, but I'll do the best I'm able.

In the meantime... Thanks, everybody!

I Saw The Horrible THING... and Survived!

Just a short time before settling down to watch "Pick Me Up" -- the latest installment of MASTERS OF HORROR (this one directed by Larry Cohen and written by my buddy and Rondo Award-nominated VW contributor David J. Schow, based on his own story) -- I received a foreboding e-mail. My friendly correspondent didn't enjoy the episode, it seems, and was asking me how it could have possibly been written by the same discerning DJS who writes those great articles for VW.

This e-mail put me on pins and needles because I've written about all the MOH episodes in detail on this blog; if I didn't like "Pick Me Up," I'd have to find some way of expressing that without being hurtful to David. Mind you, I knew, going in, that it probably wasn't going to be one of my favorite episodes, simply because of its orientation. DJS is Mr. Splatterpunk -- he likes the smell of bacon in the morning, mixed with a little burning hair, and as much gunpowder as you can pack into the skillet. Whereas I tend to gravitate to the genre for its qualities of poetry and stylization, irony and subtlety, its propensities toward surprise and the bizarre.

To my great and unexpected pleasure, the two very different roads we walk find a meeting place in "Pick Me Up," which I found to be one of the most devilish and delicious MOH episodes to date. It's cut from the same general cloth as Don Coscarelli's "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" -- i.e., "There's a killer on the road / his brain is squirmin' like a toad" -- but what it makes out of that cloth is closer to an Armani suit than a deer-skin coat. It had me laughing the way a Tarantino movie makes me laugh: because a) I get the references, b) the smoothness of the ride makes me giddy, and c) I know I'm in the hands of a maniac who has shocked me before, with great glee, and will most assuredly do it again. Here, the maniacs are two... in more ways than one.

When a bus driver spots a rattlesnake in the road ahead, he maliciously swerves to run it over and damages his vehicle in the process, stranding it out in the middle of nowhere. One lone passenger, a bitchy young divorcée (Fairuza Balk), decides to walk to the nearest sign of civilization while the few other passengers, equally bitchy, decide to stay with the bus. A helpful but eccentric trucker (Cohen regular Michael Moriarty) happens along and offers a lift to two passengers, the most he can accomodate. Not long after the truck rumbles away, a lone drifter (Warren Kole) appears from the woods carrying a dead rattlesnake. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the driver, his dark side emerges and two of the three people still with the bus are left dead, the third fleeing the scene screaming. When the story cuts back to the trucker and the passengers he's taken to the nearest restaurant, we learn that he too is a psychopath -- he's hung one of his pick-ups on one of the many meathooks in the refrigerated compartment of his truck. In the first of many deft cat-and-mouse maneuvers on his part, the wily Mr. Schow returns to his bitchy divorcée heroine (if she can be called that) as she reaches a remote motel, where she unwittingly takes a room that sandwiches her between Mr. Trucker and Mr. Rattlesnake. The muffled, carnal sounds she hears emanating from the room next door are not sexual, but the taped-up squeals of a young woman whom Mr. Rattlesnake is skinning alive.

I don't want to spoil the experience by going into too much detail about what follows. Suffice to say, "Pick Me Up" ultimately succeeds in introducing to the splatter genre its most interesting ironic dimension since Mario Bava's TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE [ECOLOGIA DEL DELITTO, 1971] -- a film so steeped in misanthropy that, basically, everybody killed everybody else. Here, again, there's not a single likeable character -- they're all pissy and bridge every other word with the f-one; the two monsters are the most civil, philosophic, and polite of the bunch, at least until you're alone with them. But what is most ingenious about it is that the story becomes a cat-and-mouse game not between killer and prey, but a mutually amused, tongue-in-cheek contest between two "civilized" killers over their "right" to claim the last survivor of a roadside smorgasbord. The penultimate scene of the episode finds the Balk character handcuffed and strapped into the trucker's rig, and Mr. Trucker stopping to pick up a hitchhiker who happens to be Mr. Rattlesnake. After driving back to the motel they've all escaped from for a final showdown, they stop the truck to allow a rattlesnake to pass... and, not long after they are moving again, both killers are pointing their guns at Balk's screaming head. But it's the payoff of the final scene that puts everything that comes before into perspective -- it belongs to the same family of completely unexpected, riotous twist as Bava's TWITCH, which Joe Dante (as a young reviewer for CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN) called "the greatest ending since CITIZEN KANE!" The fates that Mr. Schow has reserved for his characters bring his story to an equally ironic and misanthropic full stop, but one possibly more clever and unexpected.

Nasty and unpleasant, you're damned tootin'. Especially in the skinning scene, the episode crosses a line where even ironic laughter isn't possible. But the performances of the three principals are outstanding, with a strangely bloated, slurry and limping Moriarty giving the sort of performance that will have you thinking of Kinski or Palance or Walken or any other tall glass of I'm-playing-this-however-I-please. He was probably a handful to work with, but I can't imagine any other actor playing the role with his quality and unpredictability quotient. (I love the way he runs his lighter along the length of his cigarettes, warming his tobacco before he smokes it -- Mr. Trucker is a true connoisseur of his vices.) Fairuza Balk, whose work I've enjoyed since RETURN TO OZ, is often hilarious as the eternally put-out damsel-in-effing-distress. ("I think every one of Fairuza's 'asides' is priceless," DJS tells me.) Newcomer Warren Kole is a talent to watch; he plays his wicked "Western gentleman" with such a poker face that took me offguard more than twice. One of the joys of watching this episode is not only not knowing what's going to happen next, but how these two guys are going to play whatever happens. I'm assured that everyone's ad libs were brilliant, but I can't tell where the writing ends and the ad libs begin. The end result is beautifully layered, and that's what counts.

The auteuristes among you are doubtless grumbling that I haven't mentioned director Larry Cohen's contribution to this episode, and rightly so. I've been a fan of Cohen's work since his early days as a teleplaywright (CORONET BLUE, THE INVADERS, THE FUGITIVE) and I've always found his specific talents as a writer intrinsic to his appeal as a director. DJS tells me that he approached the job of directing this episode with the writing and its most accurate representation as his greatest concerns. That he kept everybody reined in and focused is to his credit, and the episode has a number of brilliantly timed and executed moments -- like the hypnotic POV shot of the curving sameness of the road, as one hitcher notes that the scenery around every next bend is so unchanging that it feels like you're not going anywhere. "Maybe you're not," Moriarty offers with a smile. The overhead camera shot that reveals the rooming arrangements of Kole, Balk and Moriarty is also pretty sweet. I actually liked Cohen's direction of this piece -- like I said, "the smoothness of the ride" -- better than much of what he's directed of his own work.

The title of this blog refers to a compelling side-ingredient that floats into view a couple of times in the episode: a broken-down billboard for something called "The Horrible THING," which Moriarty explains is some kind of exhibit in a travelling carnival, the skeleton of a two-headed baby or something like that. The sight of this billboard struck a chord with me, reminding me of all the non-existant horror movies that have invaded my dreams, usually in the form of similar advertising. In an exceedingly clever bit of writing, or directing, or set dressing, we are shown included among the many souvenirs of Mr. Trucker's kills a giveaway button that boasts, "I Saw The Horrible THING... and Survived!" Unfortunately for that person, there was something even more horrible they hadn't seen yet: the next guy to offer them a ride.

I'm not a button collector, but I'd love to have that one.

Gordon Scott's Top 10 Self Defense Tips

1. Watch your diet, keeping sweets to a minimum and avoiding over-eating.

2. Make sure that you sleep at least 7 hours per night to have proper rest.

3. Regular exercise is the key to strength and fitness and a tough, supple body.

4. A quick, alert mind is the key to a quick and alert body.

5. Learn the basic elements of self-defense so that you can take care of yourself in tight situations.

6. Always keep your opponent in front of you, alert to any sign of attack.

7. Don't tip off your defensive actions by word or motion. If you are attacked, defend yourself by actions, not threats or bluster.

8. Self defense is for protection only, not to prove how good a fighter you are.

9. Remember to be ready to defend only. There is always someone a little bigger, a little better than you.

10. The best defense always was, and still is, to walk away from trouble.

-- Reprinted from the "Seat Selling Angles" section of the Warner-Pathé British pressbook for SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES (1961).

Pictured: Gordon Scott defends himself against himself -- his own doppelgänger -- in MACISTE CONTRO IL VAMPIRO [US: GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES, 1961].

14 Or Shop

Does anyone else out there find it ironic that, the week Shelley Winters dies, Target unveils the new theme song for their stores and it's "The Shape of Things to Come" from WILD IN THE STREETS?

The baleful song was attributed to "Max Frost and the Troopers" when it was issued on the movie's soundtrack album back in 1968. In fact, it was performed by vocalist Paul Wybier and a pretty cool backing band that's rumored to be either Davie Allan and the Arrows or the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Wybier's vocal was recorded so carelessly that the issued take has a king-sized faux pas in it: during the line "revolution coming in like a fresh new breeze," he stumbles over the first word and it comes out "resrolution." The kids bought it anyway, like it was a Kool-Aid flavor about to be pulled from the market, and it peaked at #22 on the US BILLBOARD charts. I bought the single myself, as an enterprising 12 year-old.

Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill, who were also cranking out hits for The Monkees around this time, "The Shape of Things to Come" was originally heard in and written for WILD IN THE STREETS, a 1968 shocker starring Christopher Jones, Richard Pryor, and Diane Varsi -- one of American International's more frightening and outspoken movies. It was the brainchild of Robert Thom, who subsequently retreated into milder material -- like THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976), which starred his wife Millie Perkins as a demented barmaid who goes around castrating football players.

Jones played Max Frost, a pony-tailed (like our forefathers -- dig?) rock star who uses his considerable pull with the Baby Boomer generation to lower the voting age to 18... and then to 14... while sending all the untrustworthy old fogies over 30 being sent to concentration camps where they are strung out on LSD. One of the first people President Max sends to camp is his mother, played by... you guessed it... Shelley Winters, in a performance whose Oedipal overtones surely paved the way for her star turn in Roger Corman's BLOODY MAMA (1970).

It never ceases to amaze me how Madison Avenue has managed to convert most of the great revolutionary songs of the Sixties into sell-out anthems: The Beatles' "Revolution", Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers", and now this -- Target stores resurrecting (resrurrecting?) Max Frost as their corporate spokesperson. (I can almost hear him saying, "Give me the sales... give me the stuff... GIVE ME... THE POWER!!!!") Yessiree, it's only a matter of time before we hear David Peel's "Have a Marijuana" used to sell Chevrolets or The Fugs for McDonalds. Say what you will about Yoko Ono: I don't think "Working Class Hero" is going to be heard anytime soon in a Mutual of Omaha spot, or during a feel-good basketball montage in the next Billy Crystal movie.

Since the world has gone this much crazier, I should seize this opportunity to remind people that the frigging essential WILD IN THE STREETS is out on DVD, as half of an MGM "Midnite Movies" double feature with Roger Corman's GAS-S-S-S-S! (1970), a revolutionary picture in its own way.

Hey, they may even sell it at Target.

Pick up a copy today -- especially if you happen to be on Target's Board of Directors. Get to know your spokesperson. It may make you think twice about what's in your water cooler.

In-A-Bava-Da-Vida

The third volume of Digitmovies' "Mario Bava Original Soundtracks Anthology" is now in stock here at VIDEO WATCHDOG: it's a two-disc offering of the original Stelvio Cipriani soundtracks for the films known here in America as TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (or BAY OF BLOOD), BARON BLOOD, and RABID DOGS (or KIDNAPPED). With the exception of a TWITCH cue called "Evelyn Theme," which was released in Italy as the A-side of an extremely rare 45rpm single, none of this music has ever been commercially available before. While the two previous Bava soundtrack anthologies included some material in mono, every track on both CDs in this set are presented in brilliant stereo.

I had the pleasure of listening to the discs yesterday while working on the Bava book. There are cues here from all three movies that will cause that soundtrack lover's idiot smile to spread across your face, as it did mine. At the risk of being redundant, this is the first time a complete album's worth of music from TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE -- arguably the greatest drive-in movie of the 1970s -- has ever been released, and the first time Cipriani's score has ever been heard in stereo... and that includes the la-la-la-la song heard at the end of the movie as the kids run down to the bay after shotgunning their treacherous parents. (It turns out it's called "Teenagers Cha-Cha-Cha" and this disc gives you two different performances of it.) Another case is the opening airliner footage of BARON BLOOD; it sounds kind of inappropriate in the movie, at least as far as setting an ominous mood is concerned, but presented in stereo and finally heard on its own terms, it's a terrific lounge track. With harpsichord in the foreground, the ostinato score of RABID DOGS reminds me of Edwin Astley's music for Patrick McGoohan's DANGER MAN series, only darker and more urgent.

TWITCH (or ECOLOGIA DEL DELITTO) is one of the most suspenseful and tension-inducing scores ever composed for Bava, and it covers a wide range of musical ground, from new classical and samba to sprightly pop and a heavier, tribal rock instrumental that sounds very much like it was written around a temp track of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The presence of a track called "Evelyn Theme" on this soundtrack is mystifying because there is no character named Evelyn in the movie, and the track in question was used by Bava to underscore the last moments of the wheelchair-bound Countess's life. It makes one wonder if Cipriani may have composed and copyrighted this track in the expectation it would be used instead in Emilio Miraglia's THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE, which was made around the same time? (EVELYN was eventually released with a library music score by Bruno Nicolai, recycling his cues from EUGENIE THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION and other pictures, so it's possible the film ran out of money and couldn't afford original music.) This peripheral mystery aside, the TWITCH disc is every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be -- melodious, savage, sensuous. An instant classic -- be sure to look for a shot from the film's unforgettable "coitus interruptus" moment hidden in the casing under Disc 2.

The real surprise is Cipriani's music for BARON BLOOD, which, taken separately from Bava's images, is something of a revelation. In the case of all three scores, being able to hear them in stereo for the first time decompresses them greatly, giving one a better appreciation for their instrumentation and their qualities as stand-alone music. This is especially true of BARON BLOOD, which is very densely orchestrated and full of subtle effect that can only be appreciated when spread across a proper stereophonic field.

I know what you're going to say, and I agree with you: the Les Baxter rescoring of the film, for its AIP release, is the superior accompaniment. But if you compare the two scores as stand-alone listening experiences, I think you'll agree that the Cipriani score wins out. Cipriani's score is too unfocused to support the film's bold imagery -- but it's nevertheless a sensuously textured, atmospheric piece of work, full of slithering smoke and incantation and charred bone; it's lounge music in funereal garb. In a sense, it's exactly what the film called for in terms of color, but it was perhaps too refined for its own good. Some tracks, like "Inseguita" (which accompanies Elke Sommer's first sighting of Otto Von Kleist and the ensuing HOUSE OF WAX-type chase through the night streets), could easily fit into TWITCH with its percussive piano and tribal percussion, and others could almost pass for outtakes from Pink Floyd's MEDDLE album. Large chunks of the score have a surprising progressive rock flavor that occasionally edges into the outer frontiers of Krautrock and space rock, although never completely leaving the orchestral milieu. It's the sort of album that works well as a background to work, but even better as a focus point, with all the lights turned off -- the better to fall under its weird and hazy spell.

The discs are packaged with a nifty 12-page color booklet containing liner notes by Digitmovies producer Claudio Fuiano and also by me, along with lots of rare photos from all three films. You can find more details by clicking here; the link will take you to the CD/DVD page on our website. Copies of the first two volumes are also in stock, but all three are in limited quantity.

Scott the Magnificent

To keep myself "in the zone" during this final phase of working on the Bava book, I've found it helpful to watch movies that aren't by Mario Bava but that reflect the era and industry within which he worked. Therefore, I've been spending a little time each day watching some peplum, or "sword and sandal" movies I haven't seen in awhile. One fact that has particularly been driven home by my little retrospective: while Steve Reeves is certainly the once-and-still-reigning icon of the Italian pepla, almost supernaturally handsome and proportioned and with a wooden style of acting that could almost reflect the otherness of a Greek demigod, the finest actor of all the musclebound myth-makers was Gordon Scott.

Somehow, during a magical period spanning from 1959 to 1963, Scott had the good fortune to always be featured in films that were a cut above the norm -- and he made them better than they would have been without him. A former Las Vegas lifeguard named Gordon Werschkul, he made his screen debut in 1955, replacing Lex Barker in producer Sol Lesser's Tarzan series, bridging the character's swing from black-and-white to color with TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE (Scott married his co-star Vera Miles, whose loveliness here is sufficient reward to watch the picture) and 1957's TARZAN AND THE LOST SAFARI. 1958's TARZAN AND THE TRAPPERS was Scott's only backward step, a return to black-and-white that cut together episodes of a unsold television series. The series was quick to rebound with TARZAN'S FIGHT FOR LIFE, an all-color feature made the same year, but it was the next two films that stood apart from every Tarzan feature that came before -- new series producer Sy Weintraub realizing that this Tarzan was being held back from true greatness by old series trappings like Jane and Boy (who was called Tartu in TARZAN'S FIGHT FOR LIFE) and especially the comedy relief of Cheta.

"You stay here," Scott tells Cheta early on in TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE (1959) and the chimpanzee shenanigans were also wisely left out of TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1960). Both of these films starred Gordon Scott as a solitary, "noble savage" Tarzan in raised-stakes adventures that many Edgar Rice Burroughs devotees regard as the finest films ever made about the character. Under the solid, respective direction of John Guillermin and Robert Day, with strong scripts (Berne Giler is the common name between the two) and handsome photography by the likes of Ted Skaife and Nicolas Roeg, these are the rare Tarzan films that transcend series standards to meet the highest demands of non-series action/adventure entertainment. Scott's robust physique may well look overly trained, the product of weight-resistance reps rather than the result of natural exercise, but he is the only Tarzan who looks at home while more than half-naked on location in the jungle -- and he performs most of his own stunts, as well. Both films also illustrate the credo that a film is only as good as its villain, with GREATEST ADVENTURE opposing Scott with Anthony Quayle and a young Sean Connery (in his second or third picture) and THE MAGNIFICENT with John Carradine and Jock Mahoney. For vague reasons, Scott was subsequently replaced by Mahoney in the Tarzan role; Mahoney was a better-than-able stuntman and a good actor, physically fit without being "pumped-up," but he was ill-suited for the role. Nevertheless, Mahoney's Tarzan films -- TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES and TARZAN GOES TO INDIA -- are even more epic in scope and worth seeing.

Legend has it that Steve Reeves recommended Scott to play his headstrong, ambitious brother in ROMULUS AND REMUS, which became DUEL OF THE TITANS when it was released here in America by Paramount (to whom Scott was still under contract). I was just a kid at the time, but I can vividly remember what a big deal DUEL OF THE TITANS was when it opened: lots of TV advertising, big titan-sized posters and standees, and people were genuinely curious about which of these men's men would triumph. And the movie didn't disappoint the expectations aroused by the ballyhoo; it was directed by Sergio Corbucci, one of the finest Italian action directors, and the many-authored script featured input from none other than Sergio Leone. Even in its somewhat reduced US length, the film had the scope and feel of a genuine historical epic, one of Reeves' better performances, and was made particularly fascinating by Scott's hellbound determination to prove himself as an actor and as Reeves' equal (or better yet, superior) in the genre he launched, and also perhaps to vindicate himself after losing the Tarzan role. The jealousy between two brothers is at the heart of the story, and you can feel Scott's personal investment in the material. It's probably his finest performance and one of the best films of its kind.

Next came MACISTE CONTRO I VAMPIRI, became GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES in the States, where the name Maciste carried no mythic resonance. (Maciste was first introduced on the silent screen in 1914's CABIRIA, as an heroic Nubian slave played by a Caucasian dockworker, Bartolomeo Pagano, who was such a hit that he subsequently continued as an actor, always playing Maciste and always billed as "Maciste," even in modern day adventures that found him fighting for right in a suit and tie.) Co-directed by Corbucci and Giacomo Gentilomo, this is more of a finely styled matinee potboiler than an epic adventure, but Scott is well supported by its supernatural villain Kobruk (a horrible apparition fed by the blood of women abducted by pirates!), villainess Gianna Maria Canale, and its SUSPIRIA-like lighting techniques. Scott is excellent as always and the climax gives him opportunity to actually clash with himself, as Kobruck assumes the human form of Maciste.

Scott returned as Maciste in Riccardo Freda's MACISTE ALLA CORTE DEL GRAN KHAN (1961), which became SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD when released by American International. (In the French version, Maciste/Samson became Hercules!) I was so impressed by my reacquaintence with this movie that I've watched it three times in the past two days. Freda recognized the opportunity to make this film while directing the action scenes for the epic film MARCO POLO, and made hand-me-down use of its lavish period Asian sets and costumes, as well as the shared duties of enchanting lead actress Yoko Tani, who gives arguably the finest female lead performance in any of the pepla. Though he's best remembered for his work in horror films, Freda was most truly in his element in the realm of historic adventure, and this film allowed him to blend this nobler art with the pulpier, commercial interests of the pepla. Scott is absolutely tremendous here, actually picking up one adversary and swinging him around by the ankles to knock over other comers -- something I've never seen done for real, or so effectively, in any other movie. But his best scene takes place in the arena, where (without the benefit of stunt doubles) he commandeers a chariot with bladed wheels before it can reach a row of prisoners buried up to their necks in the ground, waiting to be decapitated. The film lost a couple of reels in its American release, and I imagine the whole "seven miracles" angle was an invention of the people who dubbed the movie, as the fifth miracle is the first to be mentioned... unless the first four were somehow covered in the reels that the movie forfeited under the banner of AIP. SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD is presently available on DVD from Alpha Video and as a DVD-R from other sources like Sinister Cinema, but the movie is ill-served by this 20-minutes-shorter cut and its pan&scanned presentation. (For once, AIP's "Colorscope" fronted a legitimate anamorphic process -- Dyaliscope.)

Scott's work in Italian films remained solid for at least until Giorgio Ferroni's THE CONQUEST OF MYCENAE aka HERCULES VS. MOLOCH (1963), and he also did well in the made-for-TV film HERCULES AND THE PRINCESS OF TROY (1965). He disappeared from films around 1967, but he has made a number of convention appearances in recent years, including one convention show with Steve Reeves before Reeves' untimely death in 2000. People tell me that Scott isn't easily recognizable as himself anymore, wearing a baseball cap and having succumbed to middle-age spread, but that would describe many a man in his 40s or 50s -- and Gordon Scott, born in 1927, is a year or two shy of 80.

I can think of few things I would welcome to DVD more enthusiastically than properly presented versions of TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE, TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, DUEL OF THE TITANS, GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES and SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD. Gordon Scott was a great screen hero and deserves to be remembered. More than half of this job could be put into motion at Paramount; as for the two Maciste pictures, the prospects are dimmer. GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES was a Dino De Laurentiis production, so there's a degree of hope there; but the SAMSON picture was produced by a long-defunct company called Panda and is now pretty much a public domain title. If these ever surface given the respect they deserve, uncut and in widescreen, they will probably have to happen as import discs. My fingers are already crossed for an English subtitles option.

The Rondos Are Coming! The Nominations Are Here!

The much-anticipated ballot for the Fourth Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards -- recognizing outstanding achievement in genre film, video, and journalism during 2005 -- is now posted on the Rondo website. I'm proud to announce that VIDEO WATCHDOG is the recipient of 9 NOMINATIONS this year... including a Best Website nomination for Video Watchblog!

VW's other nominations:

Best Magazine

Best Magazine Cover (2 nominations):

VIDEO WATCHDOG #115 (Harryhausen's Cyclops) and VIDEO WATCHDOG #120 (Larry Blamire as Dr. Paul Armstrong), both by Charlie Largent.

Best Magazine Article (5 nominations):

"They Did Science! Dr. Paul Armstrong's Handy Guide to '50s Sci Fi Heroes,'' by Larry Blamire, VIDEO WATCHDOG #120.

"Universal's Other Monsters: A Legacy Written in Gauze, Claws and Tana Leaves,'' by Bill Cooke, VIDEO WATCHDOG #118.

"24 Monsters Per Second: The DVD Voyage of Ray Harryhausen,'' by Charlie Largent, VIDEO WATCHDOG #115.

"Shades of Renfield: Ten Buzzing Performances,'' by Tim Lucas, VIDEO WATCHDOG #121.

"Triffids on the March: from John Wyndham to the BBC,'' by David J. Schow, VIDEO WATCHDOG #120.

Incidentally, if you haven't read these articles and would like to consider them for your vote, you can get samples of each of them by clicking on the issue numbers above, which will take you to a choice of spreads from inside each issue. Just click on the one you want to read to enlarge the text and you'll get a generous inside peek.

I was additionally nominated (with John Phillip Law) for Best DVD Commentary and VW's own Stephen R. Bissette was recognized in the Best DVD Extra category for his "From Fumetti to Film" featurette -- both on Paramount's DANGER: DIABOLIK DVD.

Set some time aside today to visit www.rondoaward.com and check out the other fine folks and things on the Rondo ballot -- and cast your vote for your favorites! You can also discuss the nominations and suggest possible write-in candidates in the Rondo folder of the Classic Horror Film Boards!

Mist for the Grill

Lucky McKee's "Sick Girl," based on a story by Sean Wood, is one of the easier MASTERS OF HORROR episodes to criticize -- yet one of the more difficult ones to appraise.

Angela Bettis, who starred in McKee's earlier feature MAY (2002), plays Ida Teeter, a gay insectologist who can't hold onto girlfriends because of all the bugs she keeps as pets. She receives an anonymously sent package from Brazil containing an aggressive, undocumented specimen that manages to escape its container and secrete itself somewhere in her domicile -- around the time she summons the courage to arrange a date with an alluring, long-haired stranger named Misty Hills (Erin Brown -- aka "Misty Mundae"). The date turns hot and Ida reluctantly asks Misty back to her apartment, where her date proceeds to outdrink her and pass out. Ida brings a blanket and pillow to the sofa, not realizing that the missing insect is hiding inside the pillowcase. During the night, it enjoys a sticky close encounter with Misty's ear... provoking strange changes in her pixieish behavior which, in turn, anger the landlady and propel a weird situation toward even worse weirdness.

The story is flimsy, shored up with oddball retro touches, some raunchy dialogue, and a certain amount of entomological textbookery. McKee keeps this unstable cocktail watchable by giving us something we don't often see on television: a believably awkward account of two gay women nervously reaching toward one another in hopes of a relationship. Believable, but also exaggerated, overtly stylized. Speaking of style, half of the MOH episodes to date have been photographed by Hungarian cinematographer Attila Szalay, who has shown extraordinary adaptability and resourcefulness in responding to his directors' wildly different needs and tonalities. This episode showcases what may be his most striking work thus far, opening with a fluid and bubbly one-take tour of Ida's apartment (giving us details of her life and circumstances, à la the opening shot of REAR WINDOW albeit with De Palmian effervescence) and settling down to a Bava-like lighting scheme with lots of color gels and scrim-work that underscore the paranoia experienced by the variously cartoonish cast of characters. The episode's choice of music adds to its stimulative quality, all of it off-center and appealing -- much like the characters themselves.

The problem with this episode is that the interest of the characters and their relationship far outweighs the horror angle, and the horror angle is approached in a comic spirit much too long to successfully navigate the sharp turn into more serious territory. One sees where things are going early on, and we hope for a payoff akin to that of NIGHT GALLERY's "The Caterpillar," but what we get is closer to the payoff in New Concorde's remake of THE WASP WOMAN -- a big, clunky transformation effect that not even flashy editing can put across the field goal of belief. An attempt to connect the revulsion one character feels for lesbians with the more universal revulsion of insects isn't successfully achieved either. Had it worked, it might might explain why McKee and Wood chose to make their protagonist a lesbian in the first place, as it's a prominent detail not otherwise supported thematically by their script.

I haven't seen any of Lucky McKee's features, so I can't discuss how well the episode furthers or reinforces (or not) the work he's done for the big screen. Because I didn't know this "Master of Horror" from Joe Blow, I wasn't attuned to an idea of what to expect before watching the show. Consequently, I found its particular way of looking at its world a surprise and a refreshment, perhaps most of all when it underscored a dream related by Misty with a brief animated sequence that's equal parts Ladislas Starevich and YELLOW SUBMARINE.

In categorizing this episode -- pinning and mounting it, so to speak -- I have to take where it goes into account as much as how it gets there. Therefore, as a complete work, I'd have to reluctantly call "Sick Girl" a disappointment. Most people, I imagine, would weigh in on the negative side without too many second thoughts; Donna, who watched it with me, felt it was a complete waste of time, but I can't dismiss it so easily. There is something about the quirky character of this buggy ride that I found, at times, strangely invigorating.

AIP in the Lions Den

For many habitués of this blog, Lions Gate Home Entertainment's impending release of the first DVD double features in their "Samuel Z. Arkoff Collection - Cult Classics" series has been a source of great suspense and speculation. The films paired in the first two sets -- the Herman Cohen productions HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER/BLOOD OF DRACULA, and the Bert I. Gordon productions EARTH VS. THE SPIDER/WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST -- have all been released on DVD previously in England (by Direct Video Distribution Ltd.) as single feature discs (see example). These have all been disappointments, as they stemmed not from 35mm positive or negative elements but from aged one- or half-inch videotape TV syndication masters from a company called Teleworld.

Most of the news about the Lions Gate releases is, alas, bad news. There is no question that they are also sourced from the same old, stale-looking Teleworld masters. Lions Gate had the class (or sneakiness) to omit the Teleworld logo from the end of the films, but you can hear the first note or two of the Teleworld fanfare at the end of HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER, before it crash-fades to black. Furthermore, perhaps owing to the cheap source materials, Lions Gate has not flagged these discs for progressive scan viewing, resulting in blurry still-framing and occasional serrated edges on straight lines during camera pans. Yes, these discs offer two features for a price tag of less than $10 in some outlets, but most fans would have paid more for a job more adequately done.

Since Lions Gate has announced three early Roger Corman widescreen epics among their next offerings -- MACHINE GUN KELLY, DAY THE WORLD ENDED, and VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT -- these first two releases effectively dash all our hopes for proper anamorphic issues of these important titles, as they are almost assuredly bound to be the same pan&scanned Teleworld copies released on DVD in the UK. This is a tragedy because better source materials were certainly available, had Lions Gate taken the trouble to look beyond what was handed to them. All of the films in this initial batch are shown regularly in widescreen high definition on Dish Network's Monsters HD, which has also shown absolutely beautiful, properly scoped versions of DAY THE WORLD ENDED and VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT.

I've recorded all the Monsters HD broadcasts for my own use, and I decided to do some side-by-side comparisons with the Lions Gate transfers. The results were interesting and surprising enough that I felt I should share them here.

Let's start with BLOOD OF DRACULA, starring Sandra Harrison (pictured above). Below is a frame grab featuring Jerry Blaine and friends during his spontaneous performance of "Puppy Love." The top standard ratio grab is from the Lions Gate disc, and the squeezed grab below it is from my Monsters HD copy (recorded when I had VOOM and the signal was received by by DVD Recorder as anamorphically squeezed):

Mind you, I can't present the Monsters HD grab here in high definition, but I think you can see that the squeezed image is smoother, even though the HD resolution is still considerably sharper than it appears here. I think it's also obvious that the two presentations were imported from different elements; the Lions Gate disc is unmatted and exposes more top-and-bottom information, while the Monsters HD version reveals more information on the sides. One could argue that the lamp in the background distracts the eye from the action in the foreground, making the HD framing preferable if less all-encompassing.

The really startling differences come with a comparison of the Lions Gate and Monsters HD versions of HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER, particularly its color ending. Check out these two versions of the climactic moment when "Old Pete" (Robert H. Harris) prepares to dispose of the body of his faithless assistant (Paul Brinegar) -- this time Monsters HD first, followed by the Lions Gate version:

You've probably heard about digital recoloring -- now you've seen it in action! What was once billiard table green is now baby blue! Yes, the Monsters HD version looks cheesier, more yellowy, but that's the way the color in this sequence always was... until now. Brightening the picture is one thing, but tampering with actual colors is something else again. There's another instance of this elsewhere in the sequence, as the color of Gary Conway's shirt completely changes color! Check this out (Gary's the guy in the middle):

As this comparison illustrates, the framing of the two HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER differs as well, with approximately the same amount of information at the bottom of the screen and on the sides, but far less at the top.

You're probably muttering to yourself, "I dunno what Tim's talking about, those Lions Gate grabs are actually prettier..." -- and I'd have to agree, based on these grabs. But you need to take into account that the colors have been changed, and these scenes are supposed to take place in dimly lit rooms, adding to their atmosphere of menace. What you also can't judge properly here is that, of these two presentations, the Lions Gate transfer loses more of its definition on a large, calibrated monitor, while it's in this more demanding arena that the Monsters HD picture really begins to sing.

I haven't yet received my review copy of Retromedia's new ROGER CORMAN PUERTO RICO TRILOGY, but DVD Savant Glenn Erickson had some similar points to make in his review about dodgy preservation/presentation. The legacy of AIP is very important, not only for what it was but for what it lead to... a fact underscored by Roger Corman's THE HOUSE OF USHER being added this year to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry, not to mention the exploitation bent of practically every big movie coming out of Hollywood today. It's saddening to see the works of Roger Corman, Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson suffering signs of neglect in a medium designed to make the movies we love look better than ever.

If Lions Gate plans to release more titles in this Arkoff Collection series, they really need to get in touch with David Sehring of Monsters HD and work out a deal. He's got the gold, and Lions Gate's customers shouldn't be paying... even $10... for anything less.

Holy Anniversary!

Lordy, lordy -- BATMAN's forty.

Of course, Bob Kane's creation The Batman is a lot older than that, but it was 40 years ago tonight that ABC-TV premiered the BATMAN series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. That's when Batman officially became Big Bat Business, one of the greatest pop cultural phenomenons of THE Pop Culture Decade. Holy Batmania!

The world was a lot smaller then -- most television sets could pull in only three or four clear channels and a lot of noise -- and the night of that broadcast is as indelibly etched in my memory as the day John F. Kennedy was shot, or the night The Beatles first appeared on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW. Holy Total Recall! ABC had been leading up to the premiere with some atmospheric promos, which focused on Adam West's mouth, so as not to reveal Batman's face -- so to see the costume was a big incentive to tune in. The incentive certainly wasn't the show's choice of villain, The Riddler, one of the more commonplace-looking of the DC comics' nemeses... but Frank Gorshin brought Edward Nigma (a name was never uttered on the show) magnificently to life with a gleeful laugh that was heard all across America the very next day -- on elementary school playgrounds. Holy Copyright Infringement!

There is an aura about that first episode, "Hi Diddle Riddle," that can't be found in any other BATMAN episode; it's not the best episode -- in retrospect, it's easy to see that West and Ward haven't had time to become fully comfortable in character, and there's a lot of post-sync and dubbing work in this first two-parter, not all of it owing to characters in masks or in disguise -- but it plays by somewhat harder rules than the episodes that followed. Robin gets graphically shot in the arm with a dart, Batman enters an "Adults Only" nightclub (where he performs the Batusi later reprised by Uma Thurman and John Travolta in PULP FICTION -- Holy Trivia Question!) and gets "doped," and Jill St. John as Molly (probably the best of the show's many "moll" characters) actually meets her death in the Batcave, her demise unforgettably eulogized by West: "What a way to go-go!"

Forty years ago tonight, within half an hour of the premiere episode of BATMAN ending, I was still buzzing when our doorbell rang. It was my Uncle Imel -- a cranky guy who never did anything for me except complain that my long hair (long compared to his!) made me look like a girl -- and he was bringing me a present... a Batman sweatshirt! He had been in a department store earlier that day and bought one for his son Greg, who insisted that I get one, too. We were a welfare family -- my mother, half-sister, and I -- and we didn't spend too much time in department stores, so this was the first Batman merchandise I had ever seen. I wore it to school the next day, prouder than I ever was in my clothes until the day I walked to school in my first pair of bell-bottoms. Thanks, Uncle Imel. Holy Unnecessary Autobiographical Aside!

When more familiar villains showed up on BATMAN in the subsequent weeks, it was a thrill to see how well the roles had been cast -- Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker, George Sanders as Mr. Freeze (a character memorably reprised by Otto Preminger, in a "wildly" different way, in Season 2), David Wayne as the Mad Hatter. But the backbone of the show was its regular supporting cast, especially Alan Napier as Alfred, and particularly Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon. Hamilton, a popular silent screen star, managed to play Gordon seriously, as a pompous windbag, and as Batman's unabashed #1 fan, all at the same time. As an impatient kid who couldn't wait for Commissioner Gordon to reach for the the Bat Phone, I didn't realize how much Hamilton brought to the program until the Bookworm (Roddy McDowall) episode, which opened with Bruce and Dick witnessing the apparent death of Commissioner Gordon, as he was shot and fell from a public suspension bridge. Holy Porpoise Song!

My personal favorite of the BATMAN episodes? The first season two-parter featuring Malachi Throne as the master of disguise, Falseface. Throne, who never became a household name actor, was billed as "?" for the first 3/4s of the shows, à la Karloff, his own name appearing only at the end of Part 2... which doubtless provoked an additional "?" in the minds of viewers expecting someone they had actually heard of. Holy anonymity! (Throne worked a lot in those days as a voice actor in cartoons and commercials; you may remember him as the narrator of LANCELOT LINK - SECRET CHIMP.) The Falseface episodes were something of a dropped experiment for the show, in that they allowed the material to be played somewhat more seriously. Falseface brought the spirit of Fantômas to Gotham City; he was seriously malevolent, and the episode's high speed car chases looked ahead to some of the ideas in Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK, as when Falseface's escape vehicle actually changed colors as it turned corners.

The great thing about BATMAN, of course, is that kids could appreciate it on one level, and their parents could get a completely different kick out of it. All this grown-up laughter was easy for sensitive children to misinterpret (Holy condescension!), but it is actually this double-edged appeal that makes the show such a perennial -- much like Warner Bros. cartoons.

I was loyal to BATMAN throughout its three-season run. I turned 12 in the months prior to BATMAN's third and final season, which introduced Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon and her alter ego Batgirl, which came as a welcome complement to the onset of puberty. That's why, despite some singularly crappy latter-day villains -- Holy Louie the Lilac! -- BATMAN was still hot as far as I was concerned when TV GUIDE broke the news that the show had been cancelled.

In total, BATMAN lasted for 120 episodes, ending its bat-run on March 24, 1968. I watched its reruns for years to come, and I still enjoy watching them occasionally, though my pleasure is usually tempered by scenes I remember seeing -- which have been cut to accomodate more commercials. The BATMAN feature film I find especially durable, with the wittiest of all of Lorenzo Semple, Jr.'s writing for the show, not to mention Lee Meriwether's Catwoman -- whom I find the sexiest and most lethal of them all.

And all my days are trances /And all my nightly dreams / Are where thy grey eye glances / And where thy footstep gleams, indeed. (Edgar Allan Poe, Miss Kitka.)

Like many people of my generation, I can't begin to fathom why BATMAN isn't out on DVD, especially to coincide with this anniversary. Whoever owns it must know that the sales would go through the roof, and that the primary audience for the show can only grow smaller with each passing year. Holy Mortality Rate! Warner Home Video, DC Comics, Greenway Productions -- don't make us wait too much longer, huh?

On this special anniversary, I'd like to send a Bat Signal of special thanks to Adam West and Burt Ward, for the important role they played in my second childhood. That would be the childhood that immediately followed my first (toys, Elvis, monster magazines, The Beatles) and preceded my third (James Bond, Top 40 radio, MAD), fourth (FM radio, PLAYBOY), fifth (CINEFANTASTIQUE, foreign films), sixth (Grove Press fiction), seventh (punk), and so on, right up to this very day. Holy iconographic timelines!

Wouldn't it be wonderful to see something like TV's BATMAN grip the world's imagination once again -- something naive rather than cynical, something cool and creative, something colorful and upbeat, something fun? We need it... and we need it now, old chum.

"Hello, is this Video WatchBlog? Young man, I just wanted to say... Truer words were never spoken!"

My Friend Flickhead

Ray Young -- the former publisher/editor of the great fanzine MAGICK THEATRE and the current webmaster of Flickhead, one of the finer film discussion/blog sites around -- wrote me the other day to ask if Video WatchBlog would care to participate in "International SHOWGIRLS Day," a cause he was (to use Joe Eszterhas' word) pimping.

Evidently today is the 10th anniversary of the day when SHOWGIRLS (starring Elizabeth Berkley, pictured above) was released in the Netherlands, director Paul Verhoeven's native country. This is reason to celebrate the film that opted to straddle the bar of bad taste, rather than merely raise it? Well, why not?

I'm lukewarm on the subject actually, and not particularly inspired to get involved beyond the gesture you see here. But for those who care, get yourself some brown rice, vegetables and a bottle of Evian, and follow this link -- and wow to Flickhead's fancy moves.

Monsters HD - Results! Yes!

David Sehring, the Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Monsters HD, has written to let me know that Video WatchBlog's complaints about the VOOM bug have paid off... not completely, but appreciably.

He has succeeded in convincing VOOM management to cut back the number of station ID bugs from once every 10 minutes to once every half-hour. This change officially went into effect yesterday, on January 10. Hey, that's eight fewer watermarks per two-hour slot -- a significant improvement!

Of course, that still leaves four bugs every two hours, so things could still be better -- they could be the way they used to be, with no bugs! But I'm a realist and know that most everything, eventually, changes for the worse. If the bugs have to stay, maybe they can be made transparent and inanimate, like the Showtime bug. The present VOOM bug is not only brightly and distractingly colored, but animated (rotating from the initial VOOM logo to reveal the subsidiary Monsters HD or whatever other channel name). Even if things have to change for the worse, there's still room for compromise and improvement. There must be.

One thing in our favor as VOOM subscribers is that David's one of the good guys. He knows our concerns and he's in there pitching for us. He's still appealing to management for fewer bugs per broadcast, and I would imagine that goes for all the VOOM channels and not only Monsters HD.

Cross your fingers, and stay tuned for further updates.

Fair Thee Well

I'm a few days behind schedule in offering my comments about William Malone's MASTERS OF HORROR episode, "The Fair-Haired Child," so I should explain why.

For some reason, Friday night's premiere broadcast was not shown in HD -- not just in my area, but apparently anywhere, according to reports I've heard. I recorded it just in case, but set my timer to catch the Saturday night replay, which ended up running afoul of a boxing match than ran overtime. So I ultimately had to watch my Friday night standard-def broadcast, which put me into grumble-grumble mode as it detracts a bit of sparkle from the program. My annoyance was further aggravated by the MOH website's not having any gallery images from the episode that I could share with you. I did find some images online, but they were all watermarked exclusives to different horror websites. Therefore, I'll have to leave the pictures up to your imagination -- or just Google them for yourself.

"The Fair-Haired Child," an original script by Matt Greenberg (HALLOWEEN H20, REIGN OF FIRE), is about a teenage girl named Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher) who is deliberately struck by a minivan while bicycling through the woods, abducted, and taken to an isolated mansion. There she is initially fooled into thinking herself a patient at a hospital in another state, but when she wises up, her nurse (Lori Petty) and doctor (William Samples) throw her into an inescapable cellar, covered with ominous graffiti like "Beware the Fair-Haired Child," where she finds herself in the company of a desperate young man (Jesse Hadock) trying to hang himself. Unable to speak, the young man introduces himself as Johnny, communicating with her by finger-writing on the dusty floor. In time, Tara learns that Johnny is his own worst enemy... and, unintentionally, hers, too; he's the son of the couple upstairs, who used occult means to reanimate him following a fatal boating accident, but at the price of using his body as a portal between worlds of a hideous, flesh-eating demon.

As with Mick Garris' earlier episode "Chocolate," the horror here is more emotional and despairing than conceptual, which provokes some strong performances, especially from Pulsipher and Hadock. The characters of Anton and Judith, as played by Samples and Petty, are oddly stylized; for a couple who keep such a messy basement, they seem to have drifted in from Jim Sharman's James Whale-like SUMMER OF SECRETS (1976). You'd expect these two to have some sort of Art Deco pièd-a-terre down there, like Dr. Phibes (another Anton, come to think of it). The story relies a good deal on atmosphere, which is probably Malone's strongest suit as a director. His previous work in the genre (including the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL remake, FEARDOTCOM) has looked good, but his scripts haven't always had the right degree of substance to support his flamboyant technique. Greenberg's story has its points of cliché, but it offers Malone more intriguing material than he's worked with before now, and he makes the most of it. His sometimes literally flashy, pyrotechnic style is given opportunities to create some startlingly creepy imagery that prods the gooseflesh more effectively than his Bava-derived little girl ghost in FEARDOTCOM.

I want to see the episode again in Hi Def before deciding exactly where it falls, but as MOH episodes go, it's certainly in the Top 5.

Touching the Kumi Nerve

Over the weekend, Donna put the next-to-final touches on the next issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG. It still awaits a couple of drop-in items like my "Barks" editorial and Doug Winter's "Audio Watchdog" column, but is otherwise complete. (Yes, it's back to the Bava book now.)

Here's a special WatchBlog preview of its cover, featuring Kumi Mizuno sinking her teeth into unholy temptation in Ishiro Honda's MATANGO (1963, aka ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE), available on DVD from Tokyo Shock/Media Blasters. You can click on it for a bigger look.

As is our usual procedure, Donna sent a preview of the cover to our associate editor John Charles for his feedback, and John responded that she should share it with Bill Cooke, who wrote this issue's Toho coverage. Bill promptly wrote back that he thinks it's our greatest cover ever, and I must admit that it gave me some definite frissons of glee as I saw it coming together on Donna's computer. Even though he didn't provide artwork for this cover, per se, Charlie Largent was responsible for the framing of the photo (which came to me courtesy of John Bender) and the addition of the cute little shrooms up top. I think all the components add up to something pretty exciting.

"I don't know what it is about this cover," Donna mused, "but it seems to be touching a nerve with you guys."

"Yep," I said. "It touches our Kumi nerve."

Which, as you all know, is a real spot on the map of human anatomy.

You can find out more about this upcoming issue of VW on the VW website. Just click on "Coming Soon" and it will take you to a complete overview of the contents. Click on the cover again and you'll be taken to an interior preview, where you can read samples of two articles. Enjoy.

Monsters HD - Incentive to Stay?

VWb correspondent Dave Fredriksen has responded to my previous Monsters HD blog posting by agreeing that the constant station ID's are a drag, but opining that the blow is softened somewhat by the channel's announcement that a large number of new film titles have been recently added to the MHD library and will debut in the coming months. Those titles are as follows:

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (Added 10/28) Tales of Terror (Added 10/28) Thing, The '51 (Added 10/28) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (Added 10/28) Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The (Added 10/28) Bride of Frankenstein (Added 10/28) Creature Walks Among Us, The (Added 10/28) Dracula (Added 10/28) Hellraiser: Bloodline (Added 10/28) Hellraiser: Inferno (Added 10/28) Revenge of the Creature, The (Added 10/28) Frankenstein (Added 10/28) Son of Frankenstein (Added 10/28) Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (Added 10/28) House of Dracula (Added 10/28) House of Frankenstein (Added 10/28) Wolf Man, The (Added 10/28) Dead Heat (Added 10/28) Godzilla (Added 10/28) Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (Added 10/28) House (Added 10/28) House II: The Second Story (Added 10/28) It’s Alive (Added 10/28) It Lives Again (Added 10/28) It’s Alive 3: Island of the Alive (Added 10/28) Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The (Added 10/28) Blob, The '58 (Added 10/28) Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled (Added 10/28) Jaws 3 (Added 10/28) Jaws 4: The Revenge (Added 10/28) Day of the Dead (Added 10/28) Grudge, The (Added 10/28) Poltergeist 3 (Added 10/28) Wishmaster 3: Beyond The Gates of Hell (Added 10/28) Body Snatchers (Added 10/28) Child’s Play (Added 10/28) Cyclops, The (Added 10/28) Fright Night (Added 10/28) Jaws (Added 10/28) Them! (Added 10/28) Jaws 2 (Added 10/28) Blob, The '88 (Added 10/28) Cujo (Added 10/28) Ghoul, The (Added 10/28) Return of the Living Dead Part 3 (Added 10/28) Creep (Added 10/28) Orca (Added 10/28) Candyman (Added 10/28) Friday the 13th Part 3 (Added 10/28) Scream, Blacula, Scream (Added 10/28) Psycho 3 (Added 10/28) Lost Boys, The (Added 10/28) Rage: Carrie 2, The (Added 10/28) Seventh Sign, The (Added 10/28) Wolfen (Added 10/28) Child’s Play 2 (Added 10/28)

A second wave of added titles: Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (added 12/15/05) Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (added 12/15/05) Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (added 12/15/05) Alien Nation (added 12/15/05) Amityville 3D (added 12/15/05) Amazing Transparent Man (added 12/15/05) Friday the 13th-Pt. 2 (12/20/05) Return of the Living Dead-Pt. 2 (12/20/05) Wolf Creek (12/20/05) Frogs (12/21/05) Funhouse (12/21/05) Ghost of Frankenstein (12/21/05) Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (12/21/05) Giant Gila Monster (12/21/05) Gorilla At Large (12/21/05) Graveyard Shift (12/21/05) Halloween 2 (12/21/05) Grizzly (12/21/05) Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (12/21/05) Army of Darkness (12/22/05) Attack of the Puppet People (12/22/05) Birds, The (12/22/05) (12/22/05) Black Cat, The (12/22/05) Black Friday (12/22/05) Brides of Dracula (12/22/05) Cat People (12/27/05) Colossus Forbin Project (12/27/05) Darkman 2 (12/27/05) Deadly Mantis (12/27/05) Dolls (12/27/05) Dracula's Daughter (12/27/05) Dr. Cyclops (12/27/05) Evil of Frankenstein, The (12/27/05) Fantastic Voyage (12/27/05) Fly, The (12/27/05) Horrors of the Black Museum (12/27/05) I Walked With a Zombie (12/27/05) I Married a Monster From Outer Space (12/27/05) Incredible Shrinking Man, The (12/27/05) Invisible Ray, The (12/27/05) Invisible Man Returns, The (12/27/05) Island of Terror (12/28/05) Kiss of Evil aka Kiss of the Vampire (12/28/05) Leech Woman (12/28/05) Leopard Man (12/28/05) Magic (12/28/05) Man in the Attic (12/28/05) Metalstorm (12/28/05) Mole People (12/28/05) Monolith Monsters (12/28/05) Monster On the Campus (12/28/05) Motel Hell (12/28/05) Murders in the Rue Morgue (12/28/05) Nomads (12/28/05) Phantom of the Opera '62 (12/28/05) Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, The (12/28/05) Tobor, the Great (12/28/05) Tarantula (12/28/05) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (12/28/05) Werewolf of London (12/28/05)

Forgive me for not retyping all that in our standard caps, but it was too much work. You get the idea.

In response to this roster, I have to say that the additional titles are very welcome indeed -- it's a treat any time new titles crop up on Monsters HD -- but for me, considering that I already own many of these titles on disc, the stepped-up (every 10 minutes) VOOM/Monsters HD watermarks would still be a deal-breaker for me as a viewer. And certainly, it goes without saying, as a home recorder.

Any station that believes that they are not providing entertainment to be recorded and enjoyed at home, in this day and age especially, is living in a fool's paradise. One watermark per movie should be enough to brand a broadcast against being bootlegged. Twice per movie, once an hour, is pushing it but grudgingly acceptable. Once every ten minutes is offensively excessive. It's like paying someone to do you a favor and have them ask you every ten minutes, "Did you like that favor I did for you? I did that favor for you! I did! Don't forget!" Never mind that we know. Never mind that we paid for it. And we are paying for these broadcasts, don't forget, and the product we are buying to enjoy without commercial interruption are effectively being ruined for us by all this overzealous ID-ing, which amounts to commercial interruption. Indeed, on this scale, it amounts to harassment.

And what if a few people in the viewing audience do try to sell DVD-Rs of these titles on eBay? If some people did this, they might sell a few copies. That's hardly reason to punish the majority who are paying to view this material in good faith. And the fact remains that the majority of the titles listed above are already available on DVD, so what would be the point of trying to sell DVD-R copies online?

Furthermore, to be force-fed thse bugs in such a manner is a shoddy "thank you" to those of us who have loyally stuck with Dish Network, solely to hang onto their VOOM channels, which have added little or no new HD programming since they acquired these channels. I would be surprised if anyone watched Rave HD other than new subscribers, their musical programming is so severely limited. LATER... WITH JOOLS HOLLAND is on every week in the UK, but Rave HD seems to own the rights to air only four or five segments.

Other hope-inducing Dish TV/VOOM news: Two other VOOM HD channels, Guy TV and The Majestic, are no more. They have been replaced by Kung Fu HD and Film Festival HD, with both newly recristened channels now playing daily loops of three films per day rather than the previous two. Also, in February 2006, Dish TV will be adding five more VOOM channels to their current lineup -- Family Room HD, Gameplay HD, Treasure HD, World Cinema HD, and WorldSport HD -- as well as HD locals, Universal HD, and ESPN 2 HD.

If we can just apply some vox populi pressure to get Dish Network to reduce the frequency of those on-screen VOOM bugs, all of this could be good and welcome news.

Monsters HD - To Keep or Not to Keep?

While watching DRAGONSLAYER tonight on Monsters HD, I was infuriated to discover that the channel is now watermarking their HD broadcasts with animated channel ID logos -- not just once per program, not once per hour, and not once per half hour... but once every 10 goddamned minutes! That's ten times in the course of a 108 minute movie!

As you know, I have been an ardent advocate for this channel since I began receiving it a year ago. I went through the trouble of changing from VOOM to Dish Network just to keep it. But if these are the conditions under which I'll have to watch Monsters HD in the future, I'd rather not continue to pay for it. It makes their programming worthless for recording, and too irritating to watch.

I've written to the powers that be at Monsters HD to unburden a most disappointed heart, and unless they can give me some good reason why I shouldn't, I fully intend to cancel my VOOM subscription next week and maybe go back to Time Warner.

More to come.

Smash-Up: The Story of a PC Filing Cabinet

Just a brief note to acknowledge that my Outlook Express filing cabinet experienced a minor disaster within the last few days. In short, while I was preparing to shut down the other night, my OE folders began to automatically compress, and the most recent contents of my mail folders were either compressed, reassigned to the wrong folders, or jettisoned altogether. Beats me. Donna is looking into the problem, but as things now stand, the complete records of my e-mail correspondence covering the last couple of months presently appear to be lost and irretrievable. If you were corresponding with me about anything, are awaiting a reply, and haven't heard back, it may be because I've lost our correspondence and your e-mail address. Don't hesitate to write me if you are expecting a reply about an article submission, or if you and I were conducting any other business that may have gotten wiped out in this mix-up. Donna's computer was NOT affected, so please understand this notice does NOT apply to back issue orders, subscriptions, or any VW-related business other than that which directly concerns me. Oh, well -- another reason why paper still rules! Thanks.

I've Got the Hots for HOTS (revised)

This pretty thing is the cover of a 1964 digest-sized fanzine -- HORRORS OF THE SCREEN -- published out of Brooklyn, New York by one Alexander Soma. I've been in love with this impressionistic cover drawing of Steven Ritch (as he appeared in THE WEREWOLF, 1956) since I first saw it reproduced in the pages of, I think, a survey of fan press ventures in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, probably 40 years ago. Today I finally succeeded in laying hands on a copy of this long-coveted relic and learned that the name of the artist responsible was Charles Johnson.

1964 was a long time ago, of course, and HORRORS OF THE SCREEN (or HOTS for short, as it called itself) has since faded into obscurity from an only slightly more prominent level of obscurity. I don't know how many copies were published, but the scarcity of HOTS has been an unfortunate obstacle in terms of Alexander Soma and company being properly remembered and acknowledged for what they brought to the field of horror movie fan publishing. In brief, HOTS appears to have been the earliest fanzine to insist on the need for more serious writing and reportage about the genre -- something attempted previously only by Calvin T. Beck's one-shot enterprise of 1959 , THE JOURNAL OF FRANKENSTEIN.

In "The Monster Philosophy," the editorial of HOTS #3, the genesis of Soma's brainchild is explained: "In 1961, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND was for the most part a 'phun-filled' monsterzine aimed at the younger set, with little regard for the serious horror-phantasy addict. This was also true of the few 'fanzines' [note the quotes! it was an uncommon term!] available then! Alex Soma gathered several friends in the New York area and discussed the idea of publishing a completely serious fanzine. Thus the first 'crude' issue of HOTS was born."

I have also obtained the first "Collector's Edition" issue of HOTS (pictured here), published in the Spring of 1962, which describes itself as an "experimental" issue and welcomes fine-tuning suggestions from its readers. Though ambitious, it is a bit of a mess, with a cut-and-paste interior look and lots of typographic errors. "Please excuse the price of HORRORS," the publisher/editor pleads on the first page, "due to printing costs, mailing, and limited circulation we are forced to charge fifty cents." A sentence like this brings the artifact into sharper perspective. HOTS #1 was truly a homemade venture, literally typed onto paper and pasted onto boards with photographs from a variety of sources. In those days, when mimeography and ditto-press ruled, for a fanzine to include photographs at all was a big deal. HOTS was actually lithographed, and the first issue had a laminated cover.

In the Spring of 1962, the debut issue of Beck's CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN had only just appeared (in February), and the first issue of the influential French digest MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE was just around the corner, coming out in May/June 1962. So a journal devoted to the serious discussion of horror cinema was extremely novel at the time, in any language. That said, the first issue of HOTS is hardly for intellectuals only; it's pretty basic from a contemporary viewpoint. The contents cover four articles: an overview of silent horror films 1885 - 1927, a biographical sketch of Vincent Price, a short and superficial survey of recent "macabre fiction" (illustrated with the same portrait of Christopher Lee -- in black-and-white, sans overlays -- that soonafter graced the cover of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN's second issue in full color), and an 18-page illustrated story synopsis of Hammer's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

As is noted in HOTS #3, this synopsis article appears to have inspired FAMOUS MONSTERS to follow their example by undertaking their own long-running series of "filmbooks" (which began in earnest circa 1963, around the time of their popular BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN filmbook), making this otherwise unexceptional piece rather a seminal moment in this particular sphere of publishing. Nearly all the photos reproduced inside the debut issue are familiar to us today, though Soma's editorial describes some as "never before published." There is one signed photo of Lon Chaney (Sr.) that I don't remember seeing before.

I don't have the second issue, which sported a not-very-accomplished drawing of Christopher Lee as Dracula on the cover, but compared to the first, the third issue represents something of a quantum leap. Here Alexander Soma is listed only as publisher, with John Eyman recruited as editor. The first issue's typos are a thing of the past, and the interior features a number of different typefaces or fonts, with some articles even presented via the miracle of reverse type (white on black). Very attractive. The unsigned articles (likely by Soma) in #1 here advance to a number of different contributors, including articles on Bela Lugosi and Peter Cushing written by their then-fan club presidents William C. Obbaggy and Annette Florance. (The Cushing Filmography ends with 1962's NIGHT CREATURES!) Short reviews or looks at such films as THE FLY, THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH, THE BIRDS and THE INNOCENTS fill out the issue, but most interesting of all is Edwin Schallert's surprisingly detailed study of how John Fulton created the special effects in James Whale's THE INVISIBLE MAN, probably explained in print for the first time and presented with fascinating procedural illustrations. It's a piece that many fanzines would be proud to publish (or reprint) today.

One of the biggest surprises of HOTS #3 is its letters page, which starts off with a letter from Christopher Lee himself (the likes of which I never saw in the pages of FM or CoF!) and a very sharply observed and thoughtful communiqué about adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe in the cinema from none other than Joe Dante, Jr., of 68 Crestview Drive in Parsippany, NJ!

Looking back at this third issue of HOTS, one feels the stage has been set for something truly wonderful to follow -- but, for whatever reason, it didn't happen. Number 3 was the final issue of HORRORS OF THE SCREEN. I can't find any further information on Alexander Soma or John Eyman, so I have no idea if they couldn't afford to continue, if it was simply too early to make an idea like this succeed, or if the two of them were packed off to Viet Nam. (If anyone within range of this blog knows more, please tell me.) But their pioneering efforts surely inspired other fan publishers to follow their example, and thus we had Fred Clarke's CINEFANTASTIQUE (preceded by his and Dave Keil's GARDEN GHOULS GAZETTE), Gary Svehla's GORE CREATURES (later MIDNIGHT MARQUEE), and countless others who loved FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND but felt the urge to move beyond it.

I'm just seeing these two issues for the first time today, so I could not honestly claim that HORRORS OF THE SCREEN was an influence on me and what I've done with VIDEO WATCHDOG... and yet, in its pages, I can see what must have inspired the people whose work did inspire me. Examining these 40 year-old fanzines has left me feeling more deeply in touch with the world in which I make my living. And I'm grateful.

So Proudly Put On Your WatchBlog Ears

... it's time to meet the Mouseketeers!

Over recent evenings, Donna and I have been spending at least an hour a night watching the Walt Disney Treasures' THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB set, devoted to the show's first week of broadcasts in October 1955. Between these episodes, another that's included in the Walt Disney Treasures SPIN AND MARTY set, and episodes from Universal's LEAVE IT TO BEAVER - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, our household -- which traditionally leans toward the Sixties-centric -- has ventured farther back into the 1950s.

For me, these early hour-long episodes of THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB took a little getting used to, because they predate my own memories of the program. In fact, they predate me! But, by the time we ran out of shows to watch, Donna and I were both feeling fairly hooked. We want more, right away, but I have no idea when the next batch of WDT metal-boxed limited editions are due, or if a second volume is scheduled to be included.

Some world-weary souls might argue that the MMC was as popular as it was because there were only three channels in those days, but I would argue that its popularity was rooted in a spirit that's still there to be enjoyed by those with an open heart. It's a thoroughly engaging production where everything is done in the spirit of creativity, responsibility and constructive encouragement; it's post-war, but a product of the spirit that won the war -- firm, idealistic, and ready to pitch in and make the most of the today and tomorrow of the Baby Boomer generation.

There's an interesting daily feature called "What I Want to Be" that features future GREEN ACRES star Alvy Moore guiding two children through tours of the jobs they aspire to hold one day, as an airline pilot and airline hostess. (The little girl, Pat Morrow, grew up to act on ABC-TV's PEYTON PLACE as Rita, the girlfriend and wife of Christopher Connolly's character, Norman Harrington.) Unfortunately, this segment lasted ten episodes, so we are given only the first half of the entire saga in this initial box set. (Moore also makes a mistake by saying "See you tomorrow!" at the end of the Friday segment, because there were no weekend episodes.) It was an unfortunate bit of strategy that Walt Disney Video chose to issue the show "by the week"; it required a more complete box set -- the first month of broadcasts, at least.

Childhood is always kept in perspective on the show, but so is the idea that the world can be a child's oyster, that it's a wonderful and varied place where all their dreams can come true. The daily change of setting within the program -- "Fun with Music Day", "Guest Star Day", "Anything Can Happen Day", "Circus Day" and "Talent Roundup Day" -- is like a mini-world tour in itself, mixing the regular opportunities for creative expression with opportunities for spontaneity and surprise. The Mickey Mouse Newsreels focus on everyday occurrences and may seem quaint today, but they also helped children to see their own activities as special and may have inspired them to raise the bar for themselves in untold personal ways. We see kids having fun, even raising a little... er, heck, but it's never outside the lines of the law or even propriety. If it's sometimes hokey, at least it's never snide or cynical or some other 21st Century alternative. Most of all, the show is just plain healthy and inspiring, due in no small part to the participation of host and resident songwriter, Jimmie Dodd.

A fellow Cincinnatian and veteran of the THREE MESQUITEERS B-Westerns, Dodd looks like Lampwick from PINOCCHIO... but, like a select breed of folks who made it through the Great Depression, he embodies the very soul of optimism and community. His songs lend sparkle to each episode, their words full of heart and wisdom and wordplay, and his closing remarks (apparently improvised on a set theme) are warmly advisory without conveying any hint of pushiness. He can even quote Scripture without it seeming an inappropriate intrusion into a secular entertainment -- and, in a supplementary profile of Dodd, the Mouseketeers remember him exactly this way, as a devout Christian who allowed people to have their own spiritual "space" and never intruded upon them with his own beliefs. He's the show's lightning conductor and his centrality brings out the very best in all the Mouseketeers who, in these earliest episodes, included not only Annette Funicello but future RIFLEMAN co-star Johnny Crawford (who demonstrates the art of fencing with his older brother Bobby on "Talent Roundup Day"). The first week of shows also gives us a surprise encounter with a surprise Mouseketeer, future DONNA REED SHOW co-star Paul Petersen, who is involved in some heavy-duty acrobatics on "Circus Day" -- but was, I hear, booted out of Mouseketeer camp early on for unruly behavior.

A week or so ago, I added some rhubarbs to another blog's reprimanding of Leonard Maltin's endorsement of some less-than-complete-or-ideal WALT DISNEY TREASURES releases, so let me assert here, once again, that he's the ideal host for these releases, no doubt about it. He does an outstanding job of interviewing a select group of veteran Mouseketeers and also SPIN AND MARTY stars Tim Considine and David Stollery on those respective sets, and he's even named an honorary Mouseketeer.

Initially, I wished that the MMC set had offered personal updates on all the Mouseketeers, but there are places online where you find out about all that -- and, after Googling up tales of the later, unfortunate misadventures of members like Darlene Gillespie (of CORKY AND THE WHITE SHADOW fame), who performs with such enthusiasm here, I can better understand the company's decision to leave well enough alone. Some viewers may wonder why Karen Pendleton, the raspy-voiced pixie Mouseketeer best remembered in tandem with mite-sized drummer Cubby O'Brien, is shown moving about in a wheelchair; WIKIPEDIA reports that she was involved in a car accident in 1983 that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Watching these shows, you do become interested in all this raw talent and what ultimately became of it.

The next batch of MICKEY MOUSE CLUB shows can't reach my doorstep too soon. Till then, I guess it's back to my Jess Franco DVDs...

Introducing Bava Book Update Blog

DVD Savant Glenn Erickson says I'm addicted to writing. It must be true, because how many people have two blogs? Yes, two blogs. This one with the mile-long daily postings is not enough to satisfy my need to peck away at this keyboard, so I'm branching out into a second.

Well, yes and no.

The fact is, today our VIDEO WATCHDOG website (www.videowatchdog.com) launched a special Updates blog as part of our page devoted to my forthcoming book, MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. Just go to the main page, click on the Bava book link in the left-hand column (you may need to slide the guide bar down to find it), and click on the "Click Here for Updates" link under the book cover. That will take you right to the Update blog, where I'll be posting occasional reports on where the book's progress presently stands.

So why not try it now? I'll meet you over there and fill you in on the rest!

The Real McCay

In 1987, John Canemaker -- one of our best writers on the subject of animated film -- published WINSOR McCAY - HIS LIFE AND ART, his long-awaited biography of the world-famous cartoonist who became the father of motion picture animation. That glorious book, published by Abbeville Press, has occupied a proud spot on my handiest bookshelf for all those years, but my curiosity was piqued when I learned that a revised and expanded edition was recently published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Not knowing the nature or the extent of the revisions and expansions, I was hesitant to just go out and buy the new edition, so I did the next best thing. I put it on my Christmas list. And you know what? I got it!

Yesterday I decided to warm up to the new edition by sitting down with both versions and doing a cover-to-cover, side-by-side comparison. Before I get to my findings, I should tell you what the publisher's press release had to say about the new edition. It reports that the new edition is 272 pages, which adds 48 pages to the previous one. Other points of attraction include:

• Never-before published pages from McCay’s private animation production notebook revealing the filmmaker’s ideas for timing and visualizations in "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914), "Lusitania," and "Flip’s Circus" (c. 1921).

• Rare concept art by McCay for a second film starring Gertie the Dinosaur.

• New documentation of McCay’s early career, including the Wonderland and Eden Musée in Detroit, where he sold his first cartoons.

• McCay’s professional relationship and longtime personal friendship with cartoonist Apthorp "Ap" Adams, one of his two assistants on the monumental animated epic "The Sinking of the Lusitania" (1918).

• Full-page reproduction of a 1907 New York Herald showcasing eight top comic strip cartoonists and illustrators including McCay, and their art.

• A complete Winsor McCay Chronology, and extensive additions to the Notes and Bibliography sections.

• Many rarely seen photos and drawings from private collections.

• A new cover, book design and page layout.

What I discovered myself is not always flattering to the new edition, but to go through the two editions simultaneously told me much more than an ordinary sit-down perusal of the new book would have done. One thing that is immediately evident is that, despite the added page count, the new edition is thinner and slighter in stature than the Abbeville incarnation. Upon opening the book, I noticed that the Abrams book is printed on much thinner paper with a slight degree of "see-through" not found in the Abbeville, which subsequently has the richer and more durable feel. The Abrams also opens wider to expose its sewn signatures, while the Abbeville is more sturdily bound. I frankly prefer the cover of the Abbeville edition, which highlights the artist and his creations rather than Abrams' wallpapery detail of one of the "Little Nemo" strips.

The illustrations are comparable in the two editions, but with some interesting distinctions. More than once, a single vintage photo in the Abbeville appears in the Abrams with another similar photo taken during the same session, giving these rare glimpses of McCay's documentary past the fleeting illusion of cinematic reality. Whereas the Abbeville edition was unable to offer color on every page, the Abrams edition does; even when it presents art in black-and-white, it uses color to offer variety of tones, lending enhancing sepia tones to B&W photos and creamier background shades to line art. I was also fascinated to see that almost all of the photos and source art is presented by Abrams with its outer borders intact; both were cropped to present only the art in the Abbeville edition. Therefore, we can now see the tattered outer edges of a gorgeous "Gertie the Dinosaur" poster, and the handwritten notations and surrounding pictures of those photos which reside in McCay family albums. I find this additional textural information fascinating; it demonstrates that our perception of what is important in such documentation has become more exacting since 1987. Context is now regarded as potentially revelatory as content; looking at the same illustration rendered both ways, I found that it really is preferable to see the whole object, warts and all. These "warts" may harbor hidden truths. For example, there is a surviving film cel from McCay's "The Sinking of the Lusitania" that is printed in the two books two different ways. It's flipped the wrong way around in the Abbeville, but presented correctly in the Abrams, as is proved by the newly exposed notation "End" written below the picture line on the uncropped document!

The Abrams book does add quite a bit of newly discovered illustration -- such as the aforementioned Gertie sketches, showing her attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge with disastrous results under the sweet heading "She Meant No Harm" -- but sometimes the shared illustrations are larger or more favorably rendered in the earlier edition. Some "Little Nemo in Slumberland" Sunday strips, in particular, are wrecked in the Abrams version by being presented in the book sideways... what fun to turn a large book sideways!... ostensibly to permit a larger rendering, but it also causes the panel midway down to get creased and sunken in the depths of the spine. Of the two books, I must say that the Abrams edition, despite its many other advantages, is not as well designed or laid-out as the Abbeville.

I noticed in the revised edition several instances of additional and amended text, bringing Canemaker's research fully up-to-date. The instances range from newly uncovered information (like correspondence relating to the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA's acknowledgement of McCay as the father of film animation) to the fine-tuning of nuance. The 1987 John Canemaker pondered whether McCay might have been divining his own imminent death when he placed a death's head in his final editorial drawing, completed three days before his fatal aneurysm, as a personification of the narcotics threat. "Probably not consciously," he hedged, not really knowing but liking the conceit. But the 2005 John Canemaker, perhaps more of a realist or simply more cautious about making such pronouncements, weighs the same evidence and decides, "Probably not."

I love this book, and after comparing the two versions, I've decided that I have to keep them both. If you can only afford one, the Abrams edition -- despite some presentational lapses in judgment -- is clearly the one that represents the subject and its author most accurately. And this Amazon link offers the book at significant savings off the cover price.