Greg brought The Boris Karloff Collection, a 5 disc set from Universal Pictures. We picked The Climax from the bunch. It's Boris Karloff's first color movie. No one had seen it before and it's nice to see something new. Boris is the doctor of an opera company. He's a bit disturbed, the woman he loved disappeared 10 years ago, and he's still obsessed. In a odd optically ringed flashback we see Marcellina. She's an opera diva and the last person to perform The Magic Voice. Turns out Boris killed her when she didn't return his love. He blamed her voice. She didn't want to quit singing to be with him. He couldn't stand sharing. Nice guy. Since the movie is set in the opera world there are a lot of opera scenes. I'm not opera fan. I'm a big whimp, I don't care for singing that makes you feel you've been cut in a knife fight. There is the usual backstage goin's on. We liked Count Seebruck, the head of the opera. He recognizes talent in Angela, a young singer, and puts her on the stage. She sounds so like Marcellina, that the good doctor goes crazy. Oh, did I mention Boris still has the dead Marcellina, somehow preserved, in a coffin, in a locked room, in his mansion. What a nice mansion that is. The rich had more taste in old Europe. At least in their buildings. He put that secret room behind a nice curtain. Turhan Bey, who's last job was the Centauri 
Emperor on Babylon 5, playes the romantic interest to Angela. That Turhan Bey is so cute, with this smiley face, gleaming slicked back hair, and unbridled enthusiasm. He looks like a LEGO minifigure. Boris hynotizes Angela into not singing and there's some drama before the fiery climax when Boris and Macellina burn in his secret room. It's kind of slow the rest of the time and there's a lot of opera. Nice sets though. I wondered if the Opera House set was the same one used in The Phantom Of The Opera and the IMDb says it is. That set, still standing, is the oldest set in the world. I really liked the street scene that takes us from the doctor's door around the corner to the Opera back door. Very nice. Not a great movie but not one I'd probably care to watch again. Unless I want to see Turhan Bey again. He was more interesting to watch than Boris.
There wasn't anyone too interesting to watch in Monster Man. Sperhauk picked it up for 80 cents. It's a screener, every now and again it flashes the video companies logo and goes to black and white. It didn't matter. Two guys, one a whimp and one really annoying, are off to some tramps wedding. The whimpy guy is still in love with her, and the annoying guy is just annoying. He's the kind of guy that gets you in trouble shootin' off his mouth to people who would murder you. I hate those kind of guys. They seem to pop up in movies why too often for my taste. The guys get attacked by a monster truck, who turned out to the be best actor in the movie. There are some ok chase scenes but the rest of the movie has these two guys bugging everyone. There's a girl who shows up in a see through blouse and lots of bare leg. She sleeps with the whimpy guy. There are a series of murders going on and some dead bodies cross the boys path, sometimes rubbing against them. The annoying guy winds up at the end of the movie covered in blood. We didn't find it as funny as some people might. There were a couple of good laughs at the end, but that annoying guy is pretty damn annoying and he doesn't get knocked out nearly as often as he should. I don't think I'd need to get a copy of this to watch again. At least I didn't spend 80 cents.
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