PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 868

In Search Of The Castaways 1962 Based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, screenplay by Lowell S Hawley, directed by Robert Stevenson. Lowell and Robert both worked for Disney in the fifties and sixties. Lowell was the story editor and wrote scripts for the Disney Zorro series. That's always been one of my favorite Disney shows of the era. Robert wrote and directed films in the UK before going to Hollywood in 1939, you might have seen F.P.1. or the 1937 King Solomon's Mines.

In 1957 Robert directed his first Disney film Johnny Tremaine, he would direct 18 more films for them, including Darby O'Gill And The Little People, The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. Plenty of pleasurable memories watching those films when they were new, some we saw in the theaters but many were watched on one of the Disney TV programs or another. Sadly I only saw them in B&W, we didn't have color TV until I was into my twenties. The first time I saw Star Trek in color was on 16 film at an SF convention. 

In Search Of The Castaways has the children of a ship's captain appeal to the head of the shipping company to find their father. Hayley Mills and Keith Hamshere are the kids, Jack Gwillim is their father, Maurice Chevalier is the man who finds the father's note in a bottle, Wilfred Hyde White is the head of the company. It takes a while to convince Wilfred to make the trip but he goes and they have a grand adventure in South America, Australia and New Zealand.

There's plenty of action and derring do, the expedition battles nature and man. There's a giant flood, a tidal wave, a lightning storm and a volcano. George Sanders plays the smooth talking baddie who tricks Wilfred in hiring him, only to steal his ship and turn the rescue party into castaways. Some of the effects looks poor by today's standards but the models and matte paintings are still very nice. They get the job done and it's not something I would complain about. The only thing I would complain about are the songs. I started fast forwarding through them. There's a happy ending and it all looks nice and bright. I was happy to see it and will have to watch it again sometime.

The Great Spy Chase 1963 Written by Michel Audiard and Albert Simonin, directed by Georges Lautner. These are the same fellows that wrote and directed Monsieur Gangster which I just watched a short time ago. The French title of The Great Spy Chase is Les Barbouzes, french slang for spies, it was retitled for the US market. Lino Ventura appears in both films and both films are in release in the US from Olive Films. I watched the Blu-ray of The Great Spy Chase and it looks very nice. No extras though.

Bernard Sachs is a massive arms dealer, he's also a massive guy. All the spy agencies keep an eye on him. He's known to have acquired a number of patents for nuclear weapons. When he dies the spy agencies all want to get their hands on those patents, which are now in the hands of his wife.

All the spy agencies send people around to the wife's Bavarian castle to buy or steal the patents. Lino plays the spy from France, he's been assigned to take the body to the wife. Several other spies are on their trail. Things hot up at the castle as the different groups descend on the place. There's plenty of action, a massive body count, plenty of collateral damage, all slathered in barrels of slapstick. Made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Glad I picked it up.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965

Sleepy Eyes Of Death 6: Sword Of Satan 1965 Story by Renzaburô Shibata, screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.

Nemuri Kyoshiro finds himself in the middle of the fall of the Iwashiro Clan. A woman offers herself for some money and he goes along with her. Instead of sleeping with her Nemuri questions her on her choice to raise money. Turns out her son is the heir to the Iwashiro Clan. Trouble is her son's not in the dead Lord's house and an Inspector from the Shogun is coming to see the boy. If there's no heir the clan would be disbanded.

Nemuri is annoyed by her, he leaves her with a gold piece and some harsh words, the next morning he finds out she's killed herself. He vows to help her son, the boy is living with a carpenter and that's what he wants to be. The clan has other ideas and kidnaps the boy with the help of a woman called Orin who's trying to get revenge on Nemuri for killing her brother.

Orin helps the clan against Nemuri but he's way too good for their men, they fall in great heaps on the ground. Orin leads Nemuri into further traps. The one in a temple is quite entertaining.

It's a black mass for Satan with a naked sacrifice. Nemuri slaughters many of the brethren. Nemuri is the son of a Chinese woman and a white missionary. He has a grudge against the missionaries and a general hatred for the rich and powerful.

There's plenty of action as Nemuri is attacked over and over again. He defeats the baddies and kills most of the clan. The boy leaves with Nemuri. Another entertaining entry in the series. Half way through the dozen films.

Friday Night Movies 846

Hercules And The Captive Women 1961 Screenplay by Vittorio Cottafavi, Sandro Continenza and Duccio Tessari, directed by Vittorio Cottafavi. Original title is Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide, in the UK it was released as Hercules Conquers Atlantis, it was also released as Hercules and The Haunted Women. It was released in the US in 1963. The film was made fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the 4th season. They have a nasty pan and scan version that I first saw in 1992, a few years later I picked up the Warriors Multi Movie set. Fifty sword and sandal action films, mostly from Italy. Today we watched the Blu-ray, wide screen and great looking. The Blu-ray also includes a copy of the MST3K episode.

Reg Park plays Hercules, the rest of the cast are unknown Italians to me. He's drugged by a friend, Androcles the King of Thebes, and taken on an adventure by ship. They wind up on an island where he saves a local princess and kills the god Proteus. The island turns out to be Atlantis and the princess turns out to be a sacrifice to the gods to protect their island. The princess is still on the chopping block unless Hercules can bust up enough stuff for them to go free.

It was a nice looking transfer but the movie is still below average to me. I don't think I'll bother with the Blu-ray, not for the number of times I might want to watch it again. I've already got a couple of copies of it on one or another of those Multi movie packs.

Ulysses 1954 Director Mario Camerini co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Brusati. Mario Bava is the cinematographer, he also directed the Polyphemus segment.

Kirk Douglas is Ulysses and he's been gone from Ithaca for ten years. He went off to fight Troy and failed to return after the battle was over. The palace is filled with suitors demanding the hand of his wife Penelope. Why she can't drive them out as Queen I don't know. We spend a lot of time with Penelope seeing what dicks the suitors are, they drink Ulysses wine and eat his food, all the while boasting who's the best suitor. Someone really needs to kick these guy's collective asses.

Princess Nausicaa finds a man washed up  on the shore of her island home of Phaeacia. We know it's Ulysses but he's lost his memory after escaping the clutches of Circe. He's welcomed by the king and given a room in the castle. Nausicaa falls for him but soon as he gets his memory back he knows he has to go home. He arrives on Ithaca just in time to fight for his wife in a contest. He kills all the suitors and he's reunited with his bride.

I thought it was better than the Hercules movie but I'm not sold on getting a copy. We watched the Blu-ray and it looked very nice.

Jerry Warren Collection 4

I made my own 4th collection of Jerry Warren masterpieces, movies that weren't included in the 3 volume series that was issued by VCI. These are all films I found on YouTube for the most part. Some are chopped up foreign films and some are all shot in the US by Warren, except for the stock footage he tosses into everything. It's like his salt, add a bit of flavor, that sort of thing. I'd seen most of them in the past, might have even blogged about them. Now that I've burned them onto a disc I can put it away with the other 3 volumes and forget about them.

Face Of The Screaming Werewolf 1964 Jerry hacks two Mexican movies to death and tries to revive them for the American market by linking their scenes with the poorly written and directed scenes he'd done himself. Consistently Jerry shows that he has no talent as a filmmaker.

Lon Chaney Jr appeared as a werewolf in the 1960 Mexican horror movie La Casa del Terror, his scenes are mostly what survives Jerry clown style editing. The other movie is La Momia Azteca, a 1957 Mexican mummy movie. It was the first of a trilogy of mummy films from Cinematográfica Calderón SA. The other two are The Curse Of The Aztec Mummy and The Robert Vs The Aztec Mummy. They were shot back to back and all three were released in 1957. There's a good DVD set of all three original Mexican films with English subtitles and  decent prints. Jerry had already chopped LMA apart in 1963 and released it in the US with new footage he'd written and directed.

Not surprisingly the movie makes little sense at times. It gets pretty harshly savaged in reviews and rightly so. Jerry is one of those filmmakers that is needing a savage beating with the de-fleshed skull of Paul Naschy. A fantasy of mine.

Frankenstein Island 1981 Jerry Warren wrote and directed. It didn't do well and Jerry though he hadn't made a modern enough picture. He cut it for a TV version and added some explosions. Yeah, that will disguise what shit job you did Jerry.

Some balloonists crash land on an island at sea. The place is under control of the Frankenstein family. Granddaughter Sheila captures the group and plans to turn them into zombies of a sort. One of the group is a doctor and Sheila brainwashes him to helping her keep her 200 year old husband alive. John Carradine plays the long dead, but spiritually alive, Dr Frankenstein. He communicates through Sheila's husband and appears as a floating head in a few scenes. They use the same short shot and change the dialog from scene to scene.

Goofy dialog made me laugh but the film isn't much by way of a comedy, it's just second rate.

Invasion Of The Animal People 1959 I already did a big post about the film's different versions.

Teenage Zombies 1959 Written and directed by Jerry Warren. It was filmed in 1956 and the IMDb Trivia pages says it may have been released briefly in 1957. The title and some of the score was ripped off from Kronos.

Katherine Victor is a mad scientist who's got here very own island. She's got a deal with the local sheriff to send vagrants and hobos as subjects for her experimentation. Some teens stumble on her set up and bring her project to turn Americans into zombies to an end. It's typical of Warren's inability to write dialog and make movies. Another stinker from Jerry.

Terror Of The Blood Hunters 1962 Written and directed by Jerry Warren. One of the lot that I hadn't already seen.

A subversive writer is sent to prison on Devil's Island where he gets to paint the Commandant's daughter. She wants to help him escape and take her with him. They bring his pal from the ship that brought him to the island and trek through the jungle to freedom. Griffith Park in LA stands in for the jungle with the aid of some stock footage. Pretty ambitious a project for Jerry, it's a slight bit better than most of his films, but as usual it comes up below average.

The Incredible Petrified World 1959 Written by John W Steiner and directed by Jerry Warren. It was filmed and completed in 1957 but it took until 1959 and 1960 to get released.

John Carradine is a professor who sends 4 people into the ocean in a diving bell. It gets disconnected and disappears. The crew find themselves still alive in a subterranean cavern. They meet a shipwrecked sailor  who's been there for 14 years. A rescue mission is sent to look for the castaways and eventually they are rescued. It's a dull thing, not enough monsters or terror for my liking.

The Wizard Of Baghdad 1960

The Wizard Of Baghdad 1960 Story by Samuel Newman, screenplay by Jesse Lasky Jr and Pat Silver, directed by George Sherman.

Dick Shawn plays a genie who's a real cock up, in fact, he's so bad they've made him mortal and sent him to Baghdad for a last chance mission. He's got to make a prophecy come true by restoring the son of the slain king to the throne. He was a terrible genie and he's not much better as a man. Lucky for him he's got a smart horse, that critter does most of the heavy lifting, in pulling a cart and thinking.

There's the usual Arabian fantasy stuff going on, costumes, horse riding, sword fighting, palace intrigue, a bit of romance and some jokes. Mostly they fail on the jokes, it's just not that funny a movie. Besides the weak script, I find I found Dick Shawn to be quite unfunny. He hasn't been interesting to me for quite some time. Oh, yeah, he sings the title song while flying on a magic carpet behind the credits. He's got another song a ways into the movie. Not liking either one.

I just barely gave it a 5 on the IMDb, it's slightly better than a 4 to me, 5.1 is it's current score. The IMDb Trivia page says that this was the first film for Billy Mumy, he plays a small boy called Aladdin, Dick talks to him briefly in the market place. I hadn't seen it before, I wasn't missing anything. I doubt I would need to see it again. You can check it out on YouTube, if you are so inclined.

Friday Night Movies 805

Crystalstone 1987 Written and Directed by Antonio Peláez. Pablo is a little boy who's mother dies as we meet them. His mother's sister if going to keep Pablo's sister and send Pablo to work with her relatives in a town far away. Pablo hears her telling the cook and he runs off with his sister Maria in tow. They run through town and wind up on a train. In another city they witness a murder and help rescue the man who was wrongly accused of the crime.

Pablo's mother gave Pablo a cross before she died, it turns out to be one of three that are fairly easy to find, even if they have to do a bit of grave robbing. It leads them to a giant diamond and their long lost father. It was OK but nothing too special. It's part of a two pack with the movie below.

The Boy And The Pirates 1960 Story and direction by Bert I Gordon, screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Jerry Sackheim. Jimmy and his friend Kathy are playing by the beach. Jimmy's really into pirates. He finds a fancy bottle, rubs it and a genie pops out. The genie takes him back to the pirate days and he has an adventure with them until he returns home. It's pretty entertaining, though meant for kids, it's a slaughter fest once they get involved with pirates and buried treasure. It's not overly gory, it's light hearted and there's plenty of yelling and grog. I'd seen it before and I enjoyed it again.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2018 Written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, directed by J A Bayona. A greedy prick wants dino DNA off of Isla Nublar. There's also debate in Washington what to do about the dinosaurs on the island, the volcano is due to erupt anytime. No one wants to save them in the government but that doesn't matter. Remember that greedy prick? He's got a plan to rescue some dinos and sell them to creeps from other governments. He's even got a guy who's made him a nasty ass new dinosaur that likes killing and can be directed. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard get called in to be on the rescue expedition to the island. They are nearly left behind while the volcano erupts and the dinos rampage. It's noisy movie that alternates the exciting times on the island with scenes of that greedy prick setting up his big score. It all goes to hell when the dinosaurs arrive at the lab and the bidding begins. It was alright for the most part. Someone gave me a DVD of it and I'd watch it again. I should have a marathon some day. It's been a while since I watched the first movie.

Science Fiction Sunday 602

The Lost World 1960 Producer Irwin Allen directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Bennett. I'm no big fan of Irwin's work but I have seen a few of his disaster movies over the years. I liked his next film, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, well enough but most of his films don't turn out to be the films I collect. Sometimes I'll wind up with one when it turns up cheap in a compilation set.

I haven't seen the 1960 version of The Lost World in years and years. I noticed a DVD set while searching for something else and ordered it. It's a two disc set with a copy of the 1925 version as a bonus. The 1925 version runs 76 mins, there are two longer restored versions out there, one at 93 mins and the second at 110 mins. I've got a couple of public domain DVD compilations that have 64 min versions. The 76 min version has changing tints instead of a steady single color. The picture looks alright but it's not as nice as the Blu-ray of the 110 version. That version is about 36 bucks on Amazon right now and I'm not buying that.

Irwin's take on the movie puts the story in modern day. Professor Challenger returns from a trip to South America where he saw some dinosaurs on an isolated plateau in the jungle. He lost his proof, now he's looking to go back and get some more. The knuckleheads in the picture are the lot that goes with him on his return trip. Left to right it's Jay Novello, Fernando Lamas, Michael Rennie, Claude Rains, Vitina Marcus, Richard Haydn, Jill St John and David Hedison. Most of their characters adapt poorly to the situation, though not all of them get eaten. Jill St John's character brings a poodle along for the trip and it's one ugly poodle. Her character is made to be a moron, look how she dresses. She's all. "I'm all woman and I can handle myself", but when confronted with dinos she doesn't do so well. To bad they didn't eat the poodle. The script doesn't treat the characters very well at all, poor Jay Novello only has two traits, greedy or scared. It's harder to care for the characters when they aren't so likeable.

Fernando is a helicopter pilot, he takes them to the plateau where they land. Later that evening a dinosaur knocks the helicopter off the cliff. Now they're stranded. Luckily they find a local lady and kidnap her. She leads them to her tribe and they get captured. Eventually they escape but only after a conveniently close volcano starts to erupt. Why a tribe would live next to a volcano is a bit odd but people do lose all common sense when it comes to buying property.

It's got big sets, plenty of nice models, props and the like. They used some sets from the 1959 Journey To The Center Of The Earth. The dinosaurs are less entertaining, mostly lizards and alligators with bits pasted on them. Irwin wanted stop motion but didn't have the budget for it. He was so cheap he even used a bit of dino crashing through the woods 4 times in a short time period. It's kind of embarrassing and the movie suffers for it. I got through to the end and thought I wouldn't need to see this again for a while.

A World Away 2019 I got to the end of this film and thought I wouldn't want to see it again. I really didn't need to see it in the first place but it was free on Amazon Prime and most of the online reviews were positively pooping on it. Who wouldn't want to look at that sort of a train wreck. Director Mark Blanchard is mostly to blame, he wrote the thing with Patrick McEveety. Mark hires his three kids to play the leads, that's the three in the foreground of the poster, they're all rather uninteresting.

The story is about some aliens, the two in the right on the poster, who lose their magical power source, called The Source, on Earth. Their spacecraft is being chased by some other aliens. They are played as bumbling villains who might have appeared on the Power Rangers TV show, if they had been better acted. A young girl has The Source on a rope, around her neck. Her dad takes her and some friends for a plane ride only to crash in another dimension. That dimension has it's won version of Vasquez Rocks. They all survive and eventually meet up with the aliens. The girl returns the device and everyone gets teleported home. The girl is taken away by the aliens to be cured of her disease.

It's poorly made, there's not much money in the budget I'm guessing, but a better director could have worked with that and come out ahead. Not the case here, it's was tedious and tough to watch. Be warned.

The Harry Palmer Quintet

Up until a few weeks ago I wasn't even aware that there were 5 Harry Palmer films with Michael Caine. I had seen the first three some time in the 70s when they played on TV. I'm pretty sure I have read The Ipcress File novel by Len Deighton but I don't believe I read anymore. I wish I had kept records of the books I read as a youth. I can't always remember anymore.

The Ipcress File 1965 I picked up the DVD from the UK, it's part of Network's The British Film series. WH Canaway and James Doran wrote the screenplay and Sidney J Furie is the director. There's a commentary with Sidney and the film's editor Peter Hunt. Not the greatest commentary, they forget to talk a fair bit, but occasionally there's something interesting.

Micheal Caine is Harry Palmer, a British Intelligence officer who's a somewhat reluctant spy. He's mostly working for his boss because he's got Harry in the bag for his shady past. Harry gets transferred to Nigel Green's department after one of their men is killed. The group is investigating the kidnapping of British scientists. Some of them have been returned, brainwashed of all their science info.

Sidney likes putting the camera in odd places. The shot of the dead American agent is just one nice example. The smaller picture is of a scene in a jail with another dead guy. Harry's always talking to someone, when he's not gabbing he puts his trotters to work. We get to follow him around the city of London. Plenty of nice scenery. The spying is rather low key, at times its dull work, very much the opposite of the slick James Bond films. I hadn't seen the movie since the 80s and enjoyed it all over again.

Funeral In Berlin 1966 Evan Jones wrote the screenplay and Guy Hamilton directed. Guy directed Goldfinger a couple of years before this and his next film was the 1969 war epic The Battle Of Britain.

Harry's in Berlin to arrange Colonel Stok's defection, Oscar Homolka plays the Russian officer, he's my favorite character in the series. The defection is to be arranged and carried out by a West German criminal who's been behind several escapes. 

Harry meets up with Eva Renzi, who's playing a Mossad spy, and everything gets more and more complicated. Bodies start turning up and Harry takes a long nap before Colonel Stok, making me laugh once again, fills Harry in on what really was going on. Harry goes home to see his boss. Harry's not always happy about his job. Hey, who is?

Good story, and a nice sense of humor, all made more entertaining by Oscar's Colonel Stok. I enjoyed it and would watch it again in the future.

Billion Dollar Brain 1967 John McGrath wrote the screenplay and Ken Russell directed. Ken had worked mostly in TV before this, one feature and one TV movie under his belt, it might have been too big a project for him. It's clunky and less entertaining than the first two in the series. It didn't do well enough at the Box Office to make the 4th proposed film in the series.

Parts of the movie were fun, we see a return of Colonel Stok, something I was glad to see, but some parts of the movie are kind of dumb. Karl Malden plays a crazy rich anti-communist who has a billion dollar computer that he is using to analyze data in his work to destroy communism. Harry and the Colonel put crimps in Karl's plans.

Ken Russell wasn't a good choice to tell that story. The movie is a big old mess that makes me wish Guy had done this one too. It's got plenty of images that make me laugh. I did like all the large sets, even though they were very much Bond like. I'd still watch it again but mostly because I'd be watching them as a series.

Bullet To Beijing 1995 Harry Alan Towers produced the return of Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in the first of two films shot back to back in St Petersburg Russia. Towers wrote the screenplay as Peter Wellbeck and the director was George Mihalka.

Harry's been forced to retire from MI5 and winds up traveling to St Petersburg to see about a job offer. Jason Connery and Mia Sara meet Harry at the station, save him from attacking criminals, and take him to see Michael Gambon. Michael is Alex, a powerful Russian criminal, he wants Harry to find a stolen biological weapon, he'll pay Harry a quarter of a million smackaroonies.

Harry takes the job and a train, the Bullet to Beijing, where he's been informed the bio weapon will be hidden. He finds the stuff but he and Jason gets tossed off the train in Siberia before they can do anything. They manage to find transport and eventually re-board the train. Micheal Sarrazin turns up as an ex-CIA agent.

There's plenty of other bits of action as the interested parties struggle over the bio goo. Eventually things work out Harry's way but he's stepped on a few toes to get results. It's a dangerous biz, the spy biz.

I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did, there's chases and shoot outs, dirty double dealing, plenty of nice locations, a fairly complicated story and the cast was mostly up to the material. I ordered a Hungarian DVD from Amazon, it looks fine, but you'd need an all region player to play it.

Midnight In St Petersburg 1996 Harry Alan Towers wrote the screenplay under his usual nom de plume, Peter Wellbeck, the director is Douglas Jackson.

Harry now heads a private investigation company in Moscow, Jason Connery works for him, and so does Micheal Sarrazin. Some one hires them to find a stolen container of weapons grade plutonium. Michael Gambon is one of the guys who wants it, to sell, he's not crazy. A gangster called Yuri wants it too.

Jason's girlfriend gets kidnapped by one of Michael's gang, they want to trade her for a favor from the head of the Hermitage Museum. They want some paintings to sell to a rich American. It's part of a way too complicated plan between three groups. Harry poking his nose in makes waves and things go south quickly.

Another entertaining film with a nice sense of humor. Not quite as much action as the previous one,no big deal. Kept me interested to the end. Glad to have seen the series. I'll want to watch them again sometime. This movie was also a Hungarian DVD.

Friday Night Movies 792

First up the remaining movie in the Karel Zeman box set from Criterion. The Fabulous Baron Munchausen came out in 1962 in Czechoslovakia under the title of Baron Prášil. It was released in the US in 1964 under TFBM title. It's quite the thing to look at, a mix of animation and live action with colors that change from vivid to subdued as the scenes play out. The backgrounds are meant to look like Doré engravings. Furniture and props are painted to match the style of the engravings. The attention to detail is remarkable. Karel directed and wrote the screenplay. Jirí Brdecka, Gottfried August Bürger, Josef Kainar and Rudolph Erich Raspe also get writing credits.

An astronaut from Earth named Tonik, Tony in the US dubbed version, lands on the moon only to find the main characters from Jules Verne's From The Earth To The Moon wondering about. Baron Munchausen shows up and he joins the men in mistakenly thinking Tonik is from the Moon. The astronaut has a spacesuit on so he isn't saying much. The Baron decides to take Tonik for a visit to the Earth. They leave in the Baron's flying ship. Once out of the suit Tonik and the Baron have conversations.

The Baron's got 6 horses but they're the flying sort, I can't imagine what their brake horsepower would be. The Baron and Tonik have a series of adventures in the 18th century Ottoman Empire. They rescue a princess from a sultan, they fight his soldiers and escape. Later they get eaten by a whale and beat an armada.

 

It's very colorful and there's plenty of running about, derring do, fantasy and fun. I liked it well enough to want to watch it again someday.

My second film is Streets Of Fire, it's subtitled A Rock & Roll Fable. I picked up the 35th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray to replace a copy from an old laserdisc. Looks much nicer. I went to the theater to see it in 1984, a couple of times, in fact. The movie was written by Walter Hill and Larry Gross, Walter directed. It came out a couple of years after 48 Hrs and 5 years after The Warriors. The latter is still my favorite Walter Hill movie.

Diane Lane is a singer doing a show when Willem Defoe comes along and kidnaps her off the stage. He's called Raven and he's the leader of a scumbag biker gang called the Bombers. Raven wears ludicrous shiny black leather overalls and no shirt. Michael Paré is Diane's ex-boyfriend, Deborah Van Valkenburgh is Michael's sister, Rick Moranis is Diane's manager and current boyfriend, Amy Madigan is a soldier looking for a job and a place to stay.

That's Raven. What a cock! Rick hires Michael to go rescue Diane from that face. The local police aren't up to the task, that's for sure. Michael and Amy rescue Diane but Raven vows revenge. He wants a battle with Michael and he gets it. They slug it out with some sort of goofy long handled picks or hammers.

Larry Gross said he was influenced by the success of Flashdance and they decided to make a musical. I found I didn't care that much to listen to Diane sing anymore so I fast forwarded through those bits. I've always liked the look of the film, it's very 50s like but there's plenty of stuff in the movie that's out of that period. Like some musicals it's set in a bit of fantasy world. The musical numbers are colorful and bright, scenes in other places are often dull and dingy. The neighborhood is in the poor part of town and a bit rundown at best. The streets are a giant set that was built outside and covered with a tarp. It's a great set.

It's entertaining, I liked the characters, I liked the script, I liked the look. I was glad to have picked this Blu-ray up. There's a commentary to listen to and a whole second disc with two documentaries and more. I'll need several hours for that, so who knows when I'll get back to it.

The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh 1963

Back in 1963 Disney aired The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh on Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color. The 3 episodes were edited down to a 98 minute movie that played the theaters in the UK.

In 2008 both versions were issued as part of the Disney Treasures collection. For some reason I missed that one and it sold out immediately. You can find them for all sorts of prices on eBay, if you're lucky you can find one for about $100, beware of  the dozens of bootlegs on eBay. They usually say DVD-r and the dvd case has no metal tin or other bits of paper that were included.

In 2019 Disney released a Blu-ray of the three episodes as part of the Disney Movie Club. The British movie and the documentary were not included. I didn't join the Disney MC, instead buying the Blu-ray from an eBay seller. I purchased it with a second Disney MC Blu-ray, In Search Of The Castaways and the two cost about $27 each delivered. If they had a few more things in the MC's offerings I might be tempted to join and quit after I fulfilled my purchase requirement.

The story is based on the books of Russell Thorndyke but toned down a good bit for Disney TV. They still provide a good entertaining story of smuggling and derring do. Patrick McGoohan plays Dr Syn, the vicar of a small coastal town, secretly he's The Scarecrow, a master smuggler and a thorn in the side of the King's Customs and Excise officers. The military is called out to catch him but he's too clever for that.

The locals are on the side of The Scarecrow, he provides cheap off shore goods without the heavy taxes that drive the prices up, and many of them work the smuggling. It takes a lot of men and horses to move a huge lot of trade goods. French Brandy is a popular good.

The English government in those days was pretty awful, if you were poor, you were fucked. A story thread that runs through the series is The Scarecrow helping people who have been pressed ganged. That's pretty much conscription into the Navy by smacking you down and kidnapping you. Perfectly legal, perfectly hideous. The Scarecrow is a hard master but fair. He helps a lot of people. In the books he's got a much more complicated and bloody history. Well worth the read. I got them all for free for my Kindle from Amazon. They are also available on Project Gutenberg.

The Blu-ray looks great, nice clear picture, great sound. I was perfectly happy watching it. I know I'll be watching these again someday.