Every TV made after 2006 by law has a digital tuner built in. Also, rxfiend, fyi, there's no such thing as an HDTV antenna. The boxes that they're sold in say that now, but there's virtually no difference between the new "digital" antennas and the old "analog" ones. They may be missing a few of the longer aeriels that were used to pick up the vhf bands that are no longer used, but that's about it. The important thing is the digital tuner.
Ah,HONEY WEST,with the lovely Anne Francis,well remembered for FORBIDDEN PLANET and the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode "The After Hours".Very talented lady,passed away fairly recently,Rest In Peace.The series got a nicely reviewed DVD release a few years ago,should you wanna pick it up.
"You're under arrest, sugar!" Pam Grier made the movies. Honey West was like a Pam Grier TV show, without Pam Grier. This was all clearly explained in Reservoir Dogs.
Time-Warner has ME-TV but it's hid in the 900 block of channels, you will not know of it's existence unless you look really hard, I found it by BOUNCE.
Last week, Sven showed The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, a relic of my youth that's never been released on video. Taped it!
Did you literally tape it? Here in Chicago they replay the previous Saturday night's episode the following Saturday afternoon from 11AM-1PM so I always watch Svengoolie replayed during lunch instead of his latest at 9PM. So I just watched it today. BWCWW is a bit of a weird one isn't it? Based on the title alone, and the basic outline, you'd think this is a kid's movie. But as Sven notes several times, it's fairly gruesome and violent; with an unhappy ending. You can't help but get lulled asleep by the child lead, the melodrama of the parent's divorce, and the goofy shih tzu make-up, only to wake up when his dad dismembers a camper or two! Anticipating newly recorded host segments for this one, I'm surprised it's the same old 4x3 SD master. I wonder if he was told it'd be a new 16x9 master, and so he scheduled recording dockets, but for whatever reason they didn't deliver and Sven went through with it anyways. I was also hoping a Blu-ray wouldn't be out of the question then either, but seems just as unlikely now as before. If not more so.
I haven't seen Hammer's The Phantom of the Opera in perhaps 10 years, and it starts off pretty well with some nice murder set pieces, spookiness and follows the general outline of the Phantom movies up to this point. So all well and good if not exemplary. But what's with the deplorable third act? Spoiler The madman is given carte blanche to "train" his victim for a full week (which really only amounted to abuse because he's now batshit crazy), then dies saving the girl because his dwarf knocked down the chandelier? Oh, accidentally of course. And the aristocratic music thief gets off scott free (as far as we know)? Plus he probably didn't kill anyone after all and may not have even known the deaths were transpiring? What the actual fuck? But that's not the weirdest part, the weirdest part is when I looked up my last review I gave it 77/100, which is the same score I gave to the 1925 original! How did I give the 1962 such a high score? And the 1925 such a low score? Why that know nothing kid I could...
It's funny!! When I was younger, I would eaten this up. I love it when I watch it, but I usually don't watch it live and I usually skim through it, since I've seen most of the films and I'd rather watch the films in HD if I have them. I love that this is on, but in this world where there is so much stuff to occupy our time and having stacks of films to watch already, it doesn't get me as excited. That being said, I DVR'd last night's ep and will look through it later.
Cary Grant, the epitome of the charming light comedy star, was a fan of Hammer's horrors and flirted with starring in PHANTOM.As he was a "big get", Hammer custom tuned the role for Grant. The Phantom became more of a victim of circumstance, a tragic romantic, while a henchman character did most of the dirty deeds. In the end Grant's agents talked him out of doing the picture, it was deemed too big of a departure.However, the script remained essentially the same, with a tragic Phantom, essentially guiltless. The director, Terence Fisher, was at heart a romantic and he rather liked this approach. However , audience's passed. The film, Hammer's most expensive up to that time, failed. Fisher was blamed and was briefly on the outs with the studio. During this period he ended up doing such non Hammer fare as ISLAND OF TERROR and NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT. PHANTOM's reputation has improved somewhat over the years, largely due to it's handsome production values and good work by Herbert Lom and Michael Gough.
There's some talk from Hammer interviewees that Cary Grant was being courted for the romantic lead, but judging by the drastic shift in character arch for The Phantom that seems to be the intended role. They may have bounced back and forth a bit between romantic lead and villain, perhaps trying to convince Grant himself to play the hero and the producers may have had differing opinions between themselves, but it's safe to say that Grant would only got so low as Hammer because he could get them to cast him as the villain which no major studio would. Suffice to say any producer would jump at the chance to make him the romantic lead; but even a studio like Hammer would think twice about making him the true villain. So the roll of The Phantom is the only role that makes sense, and the changes in the script to pacify the producers and audience expectations would only make more sense. I almost wonder if Universal threatened to bury it if their star were made the villain, and if they had presumptive US distribution that could be possible. Just take the loss of their license fee (which would be pennies compared to what Hammer stands to lose out on). With the threat of no US box office that might have sealed the deal right there. In fact Svengoolie said it did much better in the US than UK and that was partially because of their extensive ballyhoo ad campaign. I almost wonder then if they wanted to flex their marketing muscle just to show their appreciation to Hammer for passing on Grant. As if to say, "stick with our game plan and even if turns out to be a stinker we'll make it sell in the US." And also to show just how much Hammer needs Universal's marketing. All just back room dealings I suppose. It's all too bad though as I think he could have pulled it off. Between Notorious and Arsenic and Old Lace I think there's enough there to glimpse what might of been. Kinda ironic how someone like Karloff or Lugosi couldn't beg for a leading hero part and a neither could Cary Grant beg for a villain.
I hope everyone tuned in to Svengoolie if you could, because he aired the rarely show Murders at the Zoo (1933). With its unsimulated animal on animal violence this is just isn't shown on TV anymore and because of that (and the fact that it's a Paramount title) Universal has not released it much on home video and for DVD only in an exclusive TCM boxset. I would have liked to mention this weeks prior, but it seems this month he's stopped airing plugs for "TONIGHT!" and so without searching I don't know what's coming week to week. I can't even remember the last time I watched this, but as the movie played out it was vaguely familiar. I didn't realize Kathleen Burke was in this, and probably saw it before I finally saw Island of Lost Souls (also recently aired on Sven). She's really good here and it's perplexing that she didn't have a bigger career with her talent and jaw dropping looks. The opening is perhaps one of the most graphic things I've ever seen on screen in this era and there's just always that extra twistedness to these sequences that modern attempts at shock fail at. Also fun to note Harry Beresford who was a standout even amongst all the hams of Doctor X (although reserved here). It was a beautiful looking print with a nice transfer and so I hope that like Boy Who Cried Wolf this isn't too far away from finding itself on a Blu-ray. And tonight Sven will be showing The Car (1977), also recently released on Blu-ray.
Our cable service just started carrying ME-TV and I finally got to see the show last night. THE CAR is one of those 70's oddball ones that always seems to hold my interest. I enjoyed the SVEN show but noted that they didn't show the actual final reveal on THE CAR, the end credits sequence was cut. Odd.
First time seeing The Car for me. The driving stunts are all excellent. The use of dust to create suspense was well done too. It was a reserved soundtrack with long patches of silence which helped to hold my attention. It's rather oddly played against type by the touchie/feelie characters here going about their perfect lives. It seems like they were intentionally playing that sugar sweet angle over the top if the opening black humor and involvement of Anton LaVey as "Technical Advisor" is any indication. Still there were some rather bizarre actor moments, more than the usual amount for a low budget quickie. Just weird expressions on actor's faces, many of which I felt were at the tail end of a shot and a good editor/director would have trimmed them; just actors trying to follow through after performing the agreed upon portion but then continuing a performance without script or guidance until they hear "cut." If I were one of the actors I'd be very unhappy with that making the final cut. I'm curious what the end credits sequence was, and so I went to Svengoolie's blog to see if he addressed it at all but I don't think he did: http://svengoolie.com/?p=8387 Reading some comments it would seem a fan's favorite quote from the movie was also cut to shoe horn in this whole movie into a 2-hour commercial window. But it's surprising all the credits got cut, as isn't that usually stipulated in broadcast licensing? That's why some channels make it small and play it super fast. Sven also neglected to do his usually parody song (when this film abundant with material to choose from). Apparently he's done his Svensurround previously for The Car too but not this time; kinda disappointed in that. A nice change of pace for Sven and maybe he'll go deeper into this era of Universal's vaults for more. Tonight, more Inner Sanctum films with CALLING DR. DEATH staring Lon Chaney Jr. and J. Carrol Naish (a favorite of mine). I neglected the Inner Sanctum series before because I heard they're mostly thrillers but I've enjoyed them all so far. I never even broke the seal on my boxset and all the ones I've seen uptil now have been on Svengoolie!
I've just learned that Svengoolie and MST3k collided last weekend when Trace and Frank appeared on Sven during She-Wolf of London! Fortunately for those who missed it it's on YouTube: http://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=22720 There is a replay of She-Wolf of London on WCIU/The U this morning at 11AM CST which I will be watching but it just dawned on me that The Mads could have riffed a part of the movie with Rich Koz during a Svensurround segment! And She-Wolf is just bad enough and short enough to do it too! But it sounds like they didn't. Which isn't too surprising but a lost opportunity all the same.
Watch em Every Saturday. There used to be a show called offbeat cinema with a bunch of beatniks in black and white, different channel though I think from upstate new york. Saw fantastic planet on there, its gone (from my area anyway) but it was really cool
For Chicago fans, and maybe other regions as well, Svengoolie will be hosting a pre-game show to the Bears vs. Vikings Monday Night Football at 6:30 on WCIU. Looks like he'll be doing it with the regular WCIU Bears pre-game show guys so it may be him mostly asking pre-scripted questions. Not at all sure what to expect though. But should be fun regardless. As for the game itself... Let's just say I'm glad I've got a Rifftrax to go to. I couldn't help but notice that he won't be doing a post game autopsy.
Tonight SVEN is re-running ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEUN, a fan favorite. If you live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, our own veteran horror host DR. MADBLOOD is airing his annual Halloween special at 10 PM on WHRO Ch. 15.It's the shows 41st anniversary.
