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TALES
OF FRANKENSTEIN
Director:
Curt Siodmak
Starring:
Anton Diffring, Helen Westcott, Don Megowan
THE
HORROR OF HAMMER
Starring:
Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley
VINCENT
PRICE - THE SINISTER IMAGE
Starring:
Vincent Price, Marian Seldes, Harry Bartell
The delightfully quirky All Day Entertainment is
releasing a series of discs that will have fans of classic horror movies
drooling (All Day is also the company that resurrected
The
Asphyx).
The Horror of Hammer
celebrates the Hammer studio by compiling more than fifty original
theatrical trailers. A similar disc was previously released by Anchor Bay
(originally as a promotional item, and later as a bonus disc with the
first pressing of Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb), but All Day's new
disc is much more comprehensive. It also contains an optional running
commentary from a group of Hammer enthusiasts, and so forms an altogether
more cohesive offering. The trailers are in wildly variable condition
(most are pretty rough, as might be expected), but – although a pristine
presentation would be preferable - this adds somewhat to the period charm.
The disc features trailers for some very rarely seen movies, including Stranglers
of Bombay and Night Creatures, as well as two terrific short
promotional featurettes, for Dracula AD ’72 and When Dinosaurs
Ruled the Earth.
Tales of Frankenstein is a
fabulous video scrapbook containing more than twenty trailers, covering
the original Universal films as well as later offerings like I Was A
Teenage Frankenstein and Lady Frankenstein. The core of the
disc is the complete 1958 half-hour TV pilot Tales of Frankenstein,
an intriguing, disastrous collaboration between Screen Gems, Columbia,
Universal and Hammer. This is supported by an audio commentary, which
provides ample background information for those unfamiliar with the
production. Other highlights include a couple of clips from the infamous
1952 Lon Chaney TV show Tales of Tomorrow (Chaney was apparently
drunk, and thought that the recording was a rehearsal), and lengthy audio
interviews with Boris Karloff and Glenn Strange.
All Day's disc Vincent Price –
The Sinister Image features
a couple of lengthy interviews with the actor (a previously unseen 1987
video interview hosted by David Del Valle, lasting just over an hour, and
an audio interview lasting forty-two minutes) at its core. Bonus material
includes the pilot episode for a 1958 drama anthology series that Price
would have hosted, and occasionally starred in: Half Hour To Kill -
Freedom To Get Lost, a 1950 radio play (Escape! - Three Skeleton Key) and Shindig! - The
Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot (a
half hour 1965 TV show promoting the release of Dr Goldfoot and the
Bikini Machine, which features versions
of some of the musical material that was cut from the finished film). The
Sinister Image is a fine collection of
materials that provides Price fans with an opportunity to see some very
rare material, and offers some genuine insight into the man, his broad
career and his craft. Unsurprisingly, the quality of the source materials
is somewhat variable, but most of it is pretty good, and, apart from the
audio interview (which was not intended for public presentation), never
too distracting. A gallery of more than 200 stills is also offered.
Although the discs have minor
presentation glitches, genre fans will doubtless be thrilled and
fascinated by this material, much of which would be almost impossible for
the casual collector to find for themselves. |