DILLINGER 1973 on Blu

     

     More Warren Oates on Blu-ray (always a good thing !) as Arrow has just unleashed John Milius's bullet spraying 1973 period crime drama DILLINGER on a BD/DVD combo pack. Featuring an outstanding lead performance by the great & god-like Oates (who looks uncannily like the historical Dillinger) along with a cast of character actors that should bring a smile to fans of cinema including Geoffrey Lewis, Harry Dean Stanton, Steve Kanaly, John P. Ryan, John Martino, Roy Jenson & Frank McRae. Michelle Phillips and Cloris Leachman round out the female leads with John Ford & Sam Peckinpah favorite Ben Johnson playing Melvin Purvis and a young Richard Dreyfuss showing up as Baby Face Nelson.

    Shot in Arizona and Oklahoma, Milius (in his directorial debut) shows a wonderful eye for period detail and makes great use of existing locations that evoke the classic FSA photographs of depression era America. Milius stages several brutal and bloody shoot-outs with victims twitching after being riddled with bullets. Unlike BONNIE AND CLYDE (which it sometimes as been compared to) that channeled French New Wave, Milius invokes John Ford's Americana and being a huge firearms aficionado (much like Peckinpah in his films) he strives for realism in the film's gun play as we see the recoil of the guns in the actors hands and the unflinching effect bullets have tearing into a human body.
    Even though it's titled DILLINGER a significant portion of the screenplay (by Milius) revolves around Johnson's Pervis character and his pursuit of various criminals of the same era and although Milius plays very fast and loose with historical fact it all works together beautifully. A natty Geoffrey Lewis is especially wonderful as John Dillinger's right hand man Harry Peirpont.
   Arrow's disc beautifully captures the dusty look of the film which was shot mostly in muted colors that replicate the dust bowl look of rural 1930's America, along with a nice punchy mono soundtrack (wait till you hear those shotguns !). Also included is an informative commentary by author Stephen Prince, interviews with cinematographer Jules Brenner, producer Lawrence Gordon and composer Berry De Vorzon along with a trailer and still gallery.

 All the above screen caps are from the Arrow Blu-Ray      

QUEEN OF BLOOD 1966

    Coming this later this year on blu-ray from Kino is A.I.P's 1966 space vampire classic QUEEN OF BLOOD. Directed by Curtis Harrington, this is one of several films that can looked upon as a precursor to Ridley Scott's ALIEN. Like he had done previously with VOYAGE TO A PREHISTORIC PLANET, Harrington used footage from a pair of Russian sci-fi film that had been purchased by Roger Corman (MECHTE NAVSTRECHO & NEBO ZOVYOT) and integrated the long shots and effects footage from these into his newly shot material.
    Featuring John Saxon, Basil Rathbone and a just before letting his freak flag fly Dennis Hopper along with a creepy performance by the Czech born Florence Marly in the title role. The plot concerns a space crew who picks up a alien life form in the form of Marly and begin a nightmarish voyage home. The film also features a cameo by Forrest Ackerman who as a result heavily promoted the film (along with Marly) in Famous Monsters

    Available previously from MGM through their MOD program this blu ray release is part Kino's (along with Walter Olsen over at Scorpion) ongoing deal with MGM for distribution of their A.I.P. & New World holdings - with hopefully more goodies to follow.

THE OBLONG BOX In HD

   

    For Halloween viewing this Oct., Kino has announced the release of A.I.P.'s THE OBLONG BOX from 1969. This was one of a quartet of intriguing horror films directed by Gordon Hessler that continued A.I.P.'s Poe series after the highly successful Corman films. Along with SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN and CRY OF THE BANSHEE from 1970 and 1971's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE they all suffered cuts and edits by A.I.P in relation to sexual content and/or bloodshed along with running times and in the case of both CRY (at the times of its initial U.S. theatrical release)and SCREAM (upon its home video release) they were re-scored. Luckily (and surprisingly) they were all restored to Hessler's original vision by MGM for their much loved Midnight Movie series of DVD releases.
    Originally to be directed by Michael Revees (WITCHFINDER GENERAL), his tragic death before filming necessitated Hessler being given the directors reins. For that CRY OF THE BANSHEE has always been saddled with "it's not as good as Reeve's could have done". It has its faults with a rather dis-jointed script, but the MGM's DVD release of Hessler's original cut restores approximately 10 minutes of footage exercised (restoring some fleeting nudity and violence) and also puts various sequences back into his preferred running order.
   With only a fleeting reference to Poe's original short story, the plot concerns Victorian colonialism & a disfigured vengeful protagonist and is the first pairing of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price (although the only share one short scene together). Kino's upcoming release will feature a new HD transfer and more then likely will be the full directors cut.

DR. GOLDFOOT Is Coming To HD

    

    In a sure sign that we are truly living in the golden age of catalog releases (or perhaps the coming apocalypse) Kino has announced the release of both DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965) and DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS (1966) on blu for for later this year. Although it can never be argued that these are the high points of Vincent Price's career (or in the case of GIRL BOMBS director Mario Bava), they are however 90 min or so of mindless entertainment -and isn't that one of the reasons why we watch movies.
    Reportedly Vincent and Mario didn't get along too well during production on GIRL BOMBS and its a bit sad that this is their only collaboration, as its by far the lesser of the two films (which isn't really saying a lot for either film). It is however helped immensity by the presence of Laura Antonelli.

Happy (Belated) Birthday Nancy Sinatra ! - THE WILD ANGELS 1966

   

   A belated Happy 75th Birthday to Nancy Sinatra who was born on June 8. Here she is in Roger Corman's THE WILD ANGELS from 1966 co-starring with Peter Fonda, Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern. This is probably my favorite A.I.P. movie and Nancy looks great riding on the back of Peter's hog.

   

COUNT YORGA Is Coming on Blu

  This Oct. 14 sees the return of Count Yorga home video as 1970's COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE is being released by Twilight Time and its sequel from 1971 THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA is coming out via Scream Factory.

 Originally released by A.I.P. and featuring Gothic vampire trappings merged with 1970's Calif. settings (complete with VW buses, new age mysticism and a bit of Charles Manson), both films are anchored by Robert Quarry's mesmerizing performance as the title character.