When bad is good

Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman 1958 / Giant Behemoth / Queen of Outer Space), Cult Camp Classics 2 - Women in Peril (The Big Cube / Caged / Trog), Cult Camp Classics 3 - Terrorized Travelers (Hot Rods to Hell / Skyjacked / Zero Hour!), Cult Camp Classics 4 - Historical Epics (The Colossus of Rhodes / Land of the Pharaohs / The Prodigal) (Warner Home Video): Warner Home Video has become the master of the boxed set. They've boxed up their gangster films, film noir, tough guy and legends, among others. Of course, they have a huge and rich catalog to choose from.
Those folks in the marketing department all too often aim these packages toward the serious film fan. It's refreshing to see something different.
That's the case with the four tongue-in-cheek Warner Bros. Cult Camp Classics sets released late last year. Releasing these sets with a serious face is kind of silly when you have titles like "Attack of the 50 Foot Women", "Land of the Pharoahs" and "Hot Rods to Hell."
Of course, they were supposed to be taken very seriously when first released. "Hot Rods to Hell was a diatribe against juvenile delinquents. "Queen of Outer Space" was a sci-fi film to parallel "Forbidden Planet".
Between the four sets, you have 12 high-camp films that are just great leisure viewing. Our favorite is Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers with the legendary "Attack of the 50-Foot Women" and the rarely seen (until now) "Queen of Outer Space".

But all of these have reasons to grab them. Cult Camp Classics 2 - Women in Peril has the wonderfully over-the-top prison film "Caged" and Joan Crawford's ignoble final film, "Trog." Cult Camp Classics 3 - Terrorized Travelers has the overwrought "Hot Rods to Hell" and the drama "Zero Hour", about a passenger asked to take over the controls of an airplane after the crew comes down with food poisoning. Sound familiar? It should. It was spoofed in the Zucker brothers comedy "Airplane!"
Cult Camp Classics 4 - Historical Epics is stocked with two lavish epics, "Land of the Pharoahs" and "The Colossus of Rhodes".
Most have special features in the forms of commentary or trailers, though we wish all of them did. And the quality of the transfers are excellent.
All of the films are available separately, though it's much cheaper to get them in the sets. We suggest you grab them all.

Watching Mr. Wizard

With all of today's matter-of-fact technological advances, it's humbling to remember back when science was a world of ooooo's and aaaaaah's.
The vintage TV "Watch Mr. Wizard," which began on NBC in 1951 and ran 15 years, was a lightning rod for curious kids in the '50s and early '60s. It showed young viewers (and older ones, too) how science was all around them in every day life.
Two new DVDs from Digiview "Watch Mr. Wizard - Everyday Illusions and More" and "Watch Mr. Wizard - Electricity and More" feature three rare episodes each from the vintage series.
Mr. Wizard himself, Don Herbert, was the kind of genial kind of guy everyone wished was his teacher. He had the magical knack of taking the mystery of science.
The first segment on "Watch Mr. Wizard - Electricity and More" has Herbert guiding young Alex to figure out six different methods of ways of producing electricity in a Rube Goldberg type of labyrinth. Among the objects: a slide projector, a balloon, a speaker, a motor, a hinge, a bicycle wheel, a moustrap, a medicine dropper and a measuring cup.
The answers aren't as easy as you might guess.
Herbert shows how electricity can be produced from ordinary objects. Some of the methods he uses are quite ingenious.
In "Everyday Illusions," he shows a wheel that looks like it's turning in different directions, but it really isn't. He takes a paper plate and cuts off around the middle, leaving the edge. Cut two sections out of the edge the same size, then lay them down side by side. The one on top looks smaller than the one on the bottom. Things like this make these shows fascinating. Adults will surely find themselves drawn to them, too.
For a show of this vintage, the quality is exceptionally good. All the shows, three on each DVD, are in black and white.
For anyone who grew up with "Bill Nye the Science Guy," these shows will be a revelation. For those of us who watched Mr. Wizard regularly, it will bring back some great memories.
"Watch Mr. Wizard - Everyday Illusions and More" features "Everyday Illusions," "Musical Instruments" and Puzzles in Geometry." "Watch Mr. Wizard - Electricity and More" features "Six Kinds of Electricity," "How Animals Move" and "Sticks and Stones."

If you're not done Christmas shopping

DVDs make a great and easy gift if you're still trying to decide on things. Here are a few recommendations from us:

The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 2 and The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 2 [HD DVD]: The final set of the series goes out with a whimper and not a bang. This one should have been loaded with special features, but isn't. The series, though, stands on its own merits. It wasn't always even quality, but it was heads above most other shows.

The McCartney Years: A comprehensive history of Paul McCartney videos. Completists complain it doesn't have everything and the live shows on the third disc are excerpted, but for most, this set works nicely.

Perry Mason - Season Two, Vol. 2: The most recent release of this fine series. Raymond Burr was steel jawed and tough as nails. A classic series.

Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman 1958 / Giant Behemoth / Queen of Outer Space): Warner Home Video released four of these sets in 2007. This was just the first. It contains "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Queen of Outer Space". How can you go wrong?

Cult Classics 20 Movie Pack (4 DVD): And speaking of cult classics, this inexpensive little set has a collection of vintage exploitation films, including "Reefer Madness" and the infamous "Child Bride" (with the quick nude glimpse of its young star). They don't make 'em like this any more.
You can still get all of these by Christmas with one-day shipping.

Here's what's coming up ...

11/27/06 - Waitress
11/27/07 - Futurama the Movie: Bender's Big Score
11/30/07 - Heroes of War Collection - Frontline Combat
12/4/08 - Saturday Night Live - The Complete Second Season
12/4/07 - 24 - Season 6
12/4/07 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
12/4/07 Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Collection 3 - Still Laughing
12/4/07 - Battlestar Galactica: Razor
12/11/07 - Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald Volume 3
12/11/07 - Walt Disney Treasures: The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit -
12/11/07 - Walt Disney Treasures: Disneyland: Secrets, Stories and Magic
12/11/07 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
12/11/07 - Frasier - The Complete Tenth Season
12/11/07 - Lost - The Complete Third Season
12/11/07 - Bourne Ultimatum
12/18/07 - Blade Runner - Ultimate Collector's Edition
12/18/07 - Blade Runner - Complete Collector's Edition
12/18/07 - Blade Runner - The Final Cut
12/18/07 - Halloween
12/31/07 - Two-Lane Blacktop
1/1/08 - Naked Prey
1/1/08 - This Sporting Life
1/1/08 - Miss Julie

America's favorite family

By now, it all seems a bit remote. But back in the 1950s, the Nelson family -- Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky (later Rick) -- were the type of family we all wanted to be.
They seemed to have it all -- a nice house in a respectable neighborhood, a husband and head of the household who spent a lot of time at home (and was never was seen going to work), a wife who was a dedicated homemaker and mother, and two sons, well-behaved boys who respected their elders.
They weren't the Ricardos with the crazy redhead. Or the Cleavers with the goofy, mischievous kid. Or the Brady Bunch with the rambunctious family.
They were the cool, calm and collected Nelsons. They were a comfort zone for TV fans of that decade.
That becomes very clear when watching "The Nelson Family Presents The Best of the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (Shout Factory) and "The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection" (Mill Creek Entertainment), two recent releases spotlighting the venerable series.
Fans will want to pick up both, and for different reasons.
"The Nelson Family Presents The Best of the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" from Shout Factory is the first authorized release of shows from the series. The four-disc set features 24 of the show's 435 episodes in chronological order taken from the show's masters. The set includes commentary on a few episodes by David Nelson, the only member of the televised family still living, and Sam Nelson, a member of the Nelsons rock group and the son of the late Rick Nelson. It also includes some Nelson home movies, a trivia quiz and a documentary on the family.

What it doesn't include, though, is the full length versions of the shows with commercials. That's where "The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection" (Mill Creek Entertainment) comes in. This charming set rounds up 100 shows, almost a quarter of the series, on 12 discs. Unlike the Shout Factory set, the shows are complete and many include the original commercials, some of them done by the Nelson family members themselves. (Hearing Harriet rave about Aunt Jemima Pancakes or Kodak now-vintage cameras is wonderfully charming and adds an interesting historic perspective since, in the case of the Kodak cameras, those cameras have long been abandoned by more modern cameras.)
While the Shout Factory release is authorized and is the better quality of the two, the Mill Creek set is very watchable, with only occasional rough glitches. The overall difference in quality between the two overall is minimal.
The dilemmas faced by the Nelsons were never more earth-shaking than Ozzie trying to remember if he had to go bowling that night or trying to hide a present from Harriet.
Still, in the cool, calm and relatively collected '50s, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" reflected what we all wanted to be. That dream would be shattered in the turbulent '60s, but at least while Ozzie and Harriet were on the screen, all was right in the world.
In 2007, it seems like a fairy tale or life in a fantasy land. And maybe that's what keeps the series still enjoyable, even though we know life will never be that simple again. It was once upon a time -- or at least this series made it seem that way.

We're back: We've been away from doing this for a few months. Life intervened, so to speak. But we're back and have several reviews in the works we hope you'll enjoy. We'll try to post something at least every two weeks and maybe more often. We hope you'll keep us in your favorites and add your comments on reviews. We'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Public domain treasures, part 3

We've done three roundups of Mill Creek Entertainment's great public domain collections. They here, here and here. And as we continue to watch them, we find more interesting (and sometimes forgotten) films in them. Here's a run through of a few more:
Western Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and Gunslingers 50 Movie Pack Collection: Yup, it's Westerns featured in these two sets, pardner. All Westerns and nothing but. Between the two of them, films by John Wayne are plentiful, and so are several by singing cowboys Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter and Gene Autry. But that's not all. "Western Classics" features additional films starring Jane Russell, Chill Wills, Buster Crabbe, Burt Lancaster, William Boyd, Will Rogers and Randolph Scott, while "Gunslinger Classics" features Joel McCrea, Leslie Nielsen, Fred Williamson, Dennis Hopper, Dale Robertson, Raymond Burr and Clint Walker. If you have to choose, I guess it would be "Western Classics," which includes Howard Hughes' steamy "The Outlaw," John Wayne's delightful "McLintock" co-starring Maureen O'Hara and the aforementioned "Santa Fe Trail." If you're going to buy them both, get Western Classics 100 Movie Pack, which combines the two sets into one big 100 movie set and saves you a little money in the process.
Tales of Terror 50 Movie Pack Collection: More scary films featuring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. Vincent Price, Lyle Talbot, James Dunn, Dean Stockwell and Jack Pickford. Some of these are more funny than scary, as in Ken Utusi's "Evil Brain From Outer Space."
Dark Crimes Collection: 50 Movie Pack: The title of this one has a double meaning. Not only these all crime-related dramas, but they're all in black-and-white, with the latest one being from 1964 (the only one from that decade), the rest from the '30s to the '50s. It includes Edmund O'Brien's classic "D.O.A." (with more plot twists than a bag of pretzels), "The Last Mile," a downcast drama set on Death Row and the Oscar nominated "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers," starring Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, Van Heflin and Judith Anderson about the mystery behind the death of a rich woman. Those starring in films here include DeForrest Kelley, Lee J. Cobb, Edward G. Robinson, Yul Brynner, Angela Lansbury, Hedy Lamarr, George Raft, Lloyd Bridges, Basil Rathbone, Erich Von Stroheim, Boris Karloff and Loretta Young. Outstanding. This box's a must.
Suspense Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection: An armload of nailbiters with stars such as Robert Vaughn, Cliff Robertson, Johnny Cash ("Five Minutes to Live," in which Cash plays a real cad), John Forsythe, Sondra Locke, Joe Don Baker, Robert DeNiro, Anthony Quinn, Kirk Douglas, Karl Malden, Telly Savalas and Rod Taylor.

Forbidden treasures

Cult Classics 20 Movie Pack (4 DVD) (Mill Creek Entertainment): They carried titles like "Chained For Life," "The Road to Ruin," "Child Bride" and "Reefer Madness." Even with the dramatic titles, they weren't dramas in the strict sense -- they were exploitation films of the '30s and '40s -- each a filmmaker's attempt to scare and sway his audience.
We laugh about them today. But they were no laughing matter back then, as seen in Mill Creek Entertainment's Cult Classics 20 Movie Pack, a fascinating budget-friendly four DVD set collecting 20 of these curios.
The films tackled subjects that were sometimes only whispered about back then. One could argue the films weren't for teaching, but for shock value. There's "Reefer Madness," the overly dramatic 1936 midnight-matinee cult favorite of recent years. The set also includes several other drug-related films: "Marihuana," "She Shoulda Said No," "The Marijuana Menace" and "The Cocaine Fiends," all from the mid-30s.
Other "shocking" subjects seen in the films include Siamese twins ("Chained For Life"), prostitution ("Slaves in Bondage," "Escort Girls") and infertility ("Test Tube Babies").
But maybe the most controversial film in the set is "Child Bride," a 1938 film starring Shirley Mills (who bears a slight resemblance to Shirley Temple) in a film about a teacher who tries to halt the practice of underage girls marrying older men. The film has what for its time -- and even now -- is quite a shocker -- a scene featuring a somewhat distant view of the young Mills swimming naked in a river -- and observed luridly by an older man from her town. It's surprising that such a scene would have been filmed in the '30s and one can only imagine the reaction it might have received from the public.
These films are available individually from other publishers, but this collection rounds up 20 of them in the most economic package we've seen. As with other releases by Mill Creek, the films aren't remastered. And purists may not be too happy about the company logos that pop up very briefly during each film.
But don't let that keep you from getting this set. It's a must for film history buffs, and film fans in general. It's entertainment and weirdness at the same time. We hope Mill Creek can dig up 20 more for a second set. It'll be worth it.
Short takes: Two other sets by Mill Creek are worth a mention. 150 Cartoon Classics is the biggest collection of public domain cartoons we've seen to date. It includes Popeye, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Felix the Cat, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, Mutt and Jeff, Grampy, Little Lulu and many more. The cartoons appear to be grouped somewhat chronologically, with several black-and-white cartoons on the first disc, with color cartoons filling out the collection. Given the age of most of these cartoons, viewers will find a lack of political correctness they may be used to seeing in today's toons. Therefore, not all of these are for kids.
Mill Creek's Very Best of One Step Beyond (4pc) collects 50 episodes of this TV series, hosted by John Newland, which originally ran in the late '50s. Comparisons are often made with "The Twilight Zone," but there's a big difference between the two: While stories on "Zone" often dealt with fictional human stories punctuated with fantasy, "One Step Beyond" stories dealt with the paranormal based on real events like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the sinking of the Titanic. As with the cartoon collection, you'll find many DVDs of this material around, but this 50-episode box is by far the best for the money.


You can order "Cult Classics," "150 Cartoon Classics" or "The Best of 'One Step Beyond'" in our 50 Movie Pack Store in the right.