RWBY: VOLUME 3 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 5/2/16

 

I was a bit lost at first, coming in after two seasons as I did, but it doesn't take long to get caught up in what's going on in Rooster Teeth's American anime epic RWBY: VOLUME 3 (2016), a 2-disc Blu-Ray+DVD Combo Pack from Cinedigm. 

Once I picked up the threads of this sweeping tale of a futuristic world called "Remnant" in which super-powered teens train at academies to become hunters and huntresses in order to protect the world from evil, it was easy to get addicted and begin to dread the inevitable cliffhanger ending to the season (the bane of so many season DVD sets). 

The main team of wannabe huntresses is known as RWBY (pronounced "ruby") whose color-coded members consist of Ruby Red (red), Weiss Schnee (white), Blake Belladonna (black), and Yang Xiao Long (yellow).  At first they seem to be the usual girly-girls we find in such series as "K-On"--they're funny and sometimes a little ditzy in addition to being great athlete-warriors--but as the events of the story progress they and others around them reveal many levels of depth to their characters.

The script features a good mix of comedy and drama with very appealing character interplay.  This includes scenes of both the teens and their teachers, older siblings and relatives, guardians, etc. with plotlines growing increasingly complex with each episode until at last the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. 

The initial focus of the season is on a grand tournament involving teams from all academies, one which symbolizes the lasting peace achieved among the once-warring continents.  Team RWBY competes against other groups with acronyms such as SSSN ("sun"), JNPR ("juniper"), and CRDL ("cardinal").  Whenever the story gets a little slow, it's back to the arena for more adrenaline-fueled game play.

These sequences are loaded with frenetic fight action that's creatively directed and animated, with editing that is lightning quick but easy to follow.  The various characters and their individual powers and backstories come together in interesting ways during this segment as they either band together to face their foes or team up in different combinations.

By now we've come to like and identify with several of the good guys while the bad ones reveal hidden machinations that will set the stage for the season's spectacular final battle, which takes up much of the story's running time. 

When this begins, we get to see all those fighting skills we've been watching in the arena get put to practical use, and the result is a lengthy series of spectacular encounters between the teen heroes and an attacking army of deadly beast-creatures known as the Grimms.  In addition to them, one team of teen warriors will emerge as the villains and their leader will acquire a power that threatens massive death and destruction.

This entire sequence is enormously entertaining and pays off in all sorts of satisfying ways for anyone who likes PROJECT A-KO or similar types of anime.  Just when you think things couldn't get any more intense, we're assailed by still more visual wonders and wicked plot twists.

 

The creative people at Rooster's Teeth, headed by the late Monty Oum who was the show's creator and lead animator, have stocked this series with beautifully-designed settings and characters brought to life using 3D Poser technology and motion capture. 

This, along with great voice talent (and some really catchy songs) creates an eye-pleasing hybrid of old-school cel animation and computer generated cartoons which allows the characters considerable expression while freeing the writers to let their imaginations run wild.

The 2-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Rooster Teeth and Cinedigm contains two commentary tracks (directors and cast) and trailers along with five featurettes detailing the creative process behind the series ("Legacy of RWBY") and the World of Remnant itself ("The Tournament", "Huntsmen", "The CCT (Cross-Continental Transmit System)", "The Four Maidens").  The latter is especially moving and supplies backstory for one of the season's major plotlines. 

I don't often see a story escalate from colorful action-filled fun to catastrophic disaster epic the way RWBY: VOLUME 3 effortlessly does in its fast-moving and involving 176 minutes.  This is great anime entertainment that left me wanting more.

RWBY: VOLUME 3 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

RED VS. BLUE: SEASON 14 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/15/16

 

If geek heaven is a place on Earth, then I'd guess that place is Rooster Teeth Studios in Austin, Texas. That's where a gaggle of creative young fans of anime, videogames, and other fun stuff get together and actually make a living indulging in all the things they love.

One of the creations to come out of all this (besides the beautiful "RWBY") is the web series "Red vs. Blue", which takes the characters and visuals from the HALO videogames and uses them in conjunction with outstanding new voice work and storylines to come up with wildly funny and exciting variations on the game's original premise.  (Sort of like a high-tech version of Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lily?")

Seasons 11-13 of the series were covered in our previous review of the 3-disc steelbook Blu-ray set "Red vs. Blue: The Chorus Trilogy", a sprawling saga that combines the series' almost non-stop wacky humor with an exciting, suspenseful story which built to a spectacular climax.

But the gang at Rooster Teeth are anything but predictable, so RED VS. BLUE: SEASON 14 turns out to be pretty much the exact opposite: an episodic collection of short films that not only lean more heavily on our funny bones but are unrelated storywise.  And since each one is done in a different way, using different media, the variety seems endless.

(Just to recap the premise: two opposing military factions, the Reds and the Blues, are stuck on a desert planet together in a place known as "Blood Gulch."  War is constant in this "1984 meets Starship Troopers"-type future although the power-suited warriors have no idea why the Reds and Blues are at odds.  In fact, they often make friends and join forces, with their common stupidity serving as a unifying factor.)

A "Twilight Zone" theme runs through the season with artificial intelligence entity "V.I.C." introducing each segment as a window floats through space.  "Room Zero" starts things off right in the middle of a frantic mission.  The next couple of segments show us some early basic training tomfoolery highlighted by an overly gung-ho Sarge proudly killing off his fellow trainees.

We get a grainy black-and-white recruitment film, a musical sequence, and even a rap battle.  Rejects from Project Freelancer (which predated the Red and Blue teams) are exiled into the desert and end up at war with each other. 

Agents are sent on a mission so top secret that even they don't know what it is.  Private Caboose tells a story in coloring-book pictures, in what resembles a sci-fi episode of "Elmo's World.  "And two groups of warriors all happen to be colorblind, making it impossible for them to tell who's on which team.

A three-part epic about present-day urban mercenaries/bounty hunters vs. a crime kingpin whose son they've kidnapped for ransom departs wildly from the formula with some choice computer cartoon animation.  There's also a delightful segment consisting of honest-to-goodness stop-motion with the main characters as Lego figures being manipulated by a geeky kid.  Old school animation fans will plotz.

 

To top it all off, the Rooster Teeth crew actually pull off some impressive live-action stuff with explosions and gun battles and some really cool power-suit costumes.  One live-action segment involves a desert battle, and the other one has the Reds and Blues accidentally transported into the Rooster Teeth studio building itself. 

All our favorite characters are here--Sarge, Tucker, Church, Grif, Carolina, Epsilon, Locus, Felix, and of course, the ever-moronic Caboose--my favorite--who reminds me of Space Ghost's former nemesis Brak. All of the various editions of HALO are represented, from the most primitive early ones to some really advanced stuff that yields really eye-pleasing visuals. 

Dialogue is rapid-fire and way off-the-wall--between bursts of action these characters stand around yakking at each other a mile a minute (sometimes I have to go back and play the captions in slow motion just to keep up) and the ridiculousness of these power-suited warriors pitting their severely limited intellects against each other is a giddy delight.

The 2-disc set from Rooster Teeth consists of a Blu-ray disc with extras and a DVD disc with creator credits only.  Feature is in widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and English subtitles.  Extras consist of the entertaining featurettes "Deus Ex Machinima", "The Building Blocks of RvB", "Making a Mercenary", "Immersion", and "Rocket Jump BTS", which cover several of the more fascinating creative aspects of the making of these short segments.  Trailers are also included. 

The keepcase contains four cool playing cards from the mercenary story and a "Blood Gulch Activity Book" in which it appears Private Caboose has already done all the puzzles.

I'll look forward to more of the standard long-form action adventure along with the comedy in future "Red vs. Blue" stories, but until then, the sheer variety and creativity of RED VS. BLUE: SEASON 14 make it a constant delight for "machinima" fans and anyone else who enjoys a colorful futuristic romp in a ditzy dystopia.

RED VS. BLUE: SEASON 14 -- Blu-ray/DVD Review by Porfle

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/2/16

 

This time several decades ago, you might have found me sitting crosslegged in front of the family TV watching one of my favorite shows, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", which ran for four seasons back in 1964-1968. 

Back then I never could've imagined that someday I'd be able to own entire seasons of the show on magical discs that I could watch whenever I felt like it, as with the new 10-DVD set THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

These second-season episodes are much more fun and, surprisingly, a bit less tacky-looking than I remember from when they originally aired.  There's a breeziness to the action and character interplay that skirts the edges of self-parody while occasionally stepping right in it. (Which, as I recall, became a much bigger problem in season three.)

Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, as top U.N.C.L.E. agent Napoleon Solo and his Russian partner Illya Kuryakin, even seem to be having more fun here than in the previous season.  Everything's lighter and there's a sense of fun about the whole thing that makes even the most outlandish and/or least substantial plots not only bearable but rather amusing in their own way.

Speaking of plots, they're fairly paper-thin and not all that important anyway except as vehicles for the raucous action scenes and tongue-in-cheek character interplay complete with willfully clunky dialogue--which is one big reason I liked the show so much as a kid. 

U.N.C.L.E. (which stands for "United Network Command for Law Enforcement", a multi-national organization that polices the world) must remain forever vigilant against the evil forces of their main adversary, THRUSH (I can't remember what that stands for, but it's bad), a global gang of bad guys who use advanced technology, biological weaponry, etc. to terrorize the world.






In the episode "The Birds and the Bees Affair", they actually wipe out an entire European branch of U.N.C.L.E. using tiny poisonous bees introduced into their headquarters through the ventilation system.  (John McGiver guests as the sinister THRUSH boss "Mr. Mozart.") In "The Ultimate Computer", Charlie Ruggles and Roger C. Carmel have developed a 1960s version of a super-computer that will threaten to rule the world with its superior brain power. 

Other nefarious THRUSH schemes include a machine that reads people's thoughts ("The Foxes and Hounds Affair"), a highly corrosive new substance which resembles soap suds and dissolves human flesh ("The Arabian Affair"), and a boys' academy where Jeanne Cooper as "Mother Fear" trains the impressionable lads to be junior assassins ("The Children's Day Affair").  

One of the more noteworthy guest appearances is by Martin Landau as Zark, a cape-wearing Transylvanian villain with a Bela Lugosi accent, in "The Bat Cave Affair."  Not only does Landau get to chew the scenery as only he can while his character plans to attack the entire continent of Europe with bloodthirsty vampire bats, but he gives us a preview of his Oscar-winning performance as Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 film ED WOOD.

As in the first season, these episodes whisk us off to various exotic hot spots all over the world, each of which is represented by the same familiar backlot locations, fake city streets, and grainy stock footage with intertitles to let us know where we are.  These fake locales are invariably populated by caricatures with really bad accents, which becomes part of the show's charm after awhile.

Technically, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." is no better or worse than the usual low-budget TV comedy-drama from the mid-60s. Direction, camerawork, and editing range from workmanlike to downright slapdash at times, with frenetic fight sequences that are hardly more realistic  or well-choreographed than those in Adam West's "Batman."  Missing here is the talent of director Richard Donner from season one.    

Most of the semblance of seriousness that ran through the first season has begun to fade away in favor of a decidedly tongue-in-cheek atmosphere.  This is reflected in Vaughn's performance, which is casual to say the least.  McCallum's Kuryakin maintains a bit more Russian reserve although he's often the butt of comedic misfortune.

I like the way the two avoid the usual sentimentality by keeping their interplay light and sometimes caustic.  Often a story will end with one of them cock-blocking the other as he tries to make time with their current leading lady.  Even the dignified Mr. Waverly gets in on the act in some cases.  But Leo G. Carroll (NORTH BY NORTHWEST) is such a distinguished actor that he manages to lend needed class and believability even when things border on the farcical.

A large part of the show's charm is the fact that our heroes tend to recruit a different civilian woman in each episode to help them in some way against THRUSH.  (This happened often in season one but has become a standard feature in season two.)  Some of the more likable actresses to fill this role include "Laugh-In" star Judy Carne, Joyce Jameson, Julie Sommers, Dorothy Provine, Juliet Mills, Jocelyn Lane, France Nuyen, Sharon Farrell, Joan Freeman, and, notably, McCallum's wife at the time, Jill Ireland in her second guest appearance.

In addition, the show is a cornucopia of notable guest stars for viewers who enjoy spotting familiar faces.  Among those in season two are Rip Torn, James Hong, Madge Blake, Vincent Price, Patricia Medina, Ray Danton, Joy Harmon, Harvey Lembeck, Eric Braeden, George Macready, Theo Marcuse, Vic Tayback, "Three Stooges" regular Gene Roth, Michael Ansara, Phyllis Newman, Mala Powers, Lawrence Montaigne, George Sanders, Claude Akins, Jessie Royce Landis, Sig Ruman, Warren Stevens, Victor Buono, Maurice Evans, Gil Perkins, Angela Lansbury, John Hoyt, Jay North, Arnold Moss, Diane McBain, Lee Bergere, Florence Marly, Vera Miles, James "Scotty" Doohan, Michael Pate, Norman Fell, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Kovack, Ricardo Montalban, Jack Weston, Bruce Gordon, Whit Bissell, Eve Arden, Paul Winfield, and Victoria Vetri (aka Angela Dorian).

Bad sci-fi fans should be especially pleased to spot King Moody of TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE in the episode "The Minus-X Affair."  Of special interest as well is "The Moonglow Affair", which serves as a pilot for the later spin-off series "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." with Mary Ann Mobley and Norman Fell in the roles of agents April Dancer and Mark Slate (played in the series by Stephanie Powers and Noel Harrison).

The 10-disc DVD set from Warner Brothers Home Entertainment is in full screen with Dolby English mono sound.  Subtitles are in English.  Aside from a paper episode guide insert, there are no extras.

One of the nicer surprises I got from watching THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON is that not only is season two better than I remembered from its original airing, but a lot more fun as well.  If you're into 60s television that doesn't take itself too seriously, the adventures of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are a real hoot.

Read our review of Season One

Stills are not taken from DVD

Episode Titles:

The Alexander the Greater Affair, Part I
The Alexander the Greater Affair, Part II
The Ultimate Computer Affair
The Foxes and Hounds Affair
The Discotheque Affair
The Re-Collector's Affair
The Arabian Affair
The Tigers are Coming Affair
The Deadly Toys Affair
The Cherry Blossom Affair
The Virtue Affair
The Children's Day Affair
The Adriatic Express Affair
The Yukon Affair
The Very Important Zombie Affair
The Dippy Blonde Affair
The Deadly Goddess Affair
The Birds and the Bees Affair
The Waverly Ring Affair
The Bridge of Lions Affair , Part I
The Bridge of Lions Affair , Part II
The Foreign Legion Affair
The Moonglow Affair
The Nowhere Affair
The King of Diamonds Affair
The Project Deephole Affair
The Round Table Affair
The Bat Cave Affair
The Minus-X Affair
The Indian Affairs Affair

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/26/15

 

Before the original "Star Trek", before "The Avengers" with John Steed and Emma Peel, the hour-long adult dramatic TV series that stoked my kid-blood in the flames of fanaticism was "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."  How intense was my devotion to it?  I'll put it this way--it was 1964, and this show gave me roughly the same kind of supercharged excitement as Beatlemania.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, a 10-disc DVD set from Warner Home Video, features all 29 of the original black-and-white episodes that had all of us "Unckies" (a nickname given to fans of the show which I made up just now) glued to our sets week after week. 

For that brief, exciting period of time, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum ("N.C.I.S.") seemed like just about the coolest guys on TV.  To me, anyway.  Vaughn was in his best shape ever and could actually act--his "Napoleon Solo" isn't only cool, tough, quick with the one-liners, and irresistible to women, but he's a nice guy who shows real emotion and even gets noticeably scared when he's in a tight situation. 

McCallum's blond, somewhat more reserved Russian agent, "Illya Kuryakin", was the perfect foil for Solo.  I could never quite decide which one of them I wanted to be the most.  I think female fans at the time leaned toward the cuter, more sensitive Illya, although both Vaughn and McCallum hosted the teen music show "Hullabaloo" on separate occasions. 

(A beaming Vaughn crooned the more traditional "I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad" as his opening number, surrounded by Vegas-type dancing girls, while a pensive, black-turtlenecked McCallum talk-sang his way through "Agent Double-O-Soul.")

The show itself was a wildly popular international hit and one of the first spy series on television, spawning several imitators and one classic spoof, "Get Smart!" 

At that age I wasn't allowed to watch James Bond movies yet.  Heck, there were only three of them anyway--the third, GOLDFINGER, came out shortly after "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." premiered.  So this was my mainline to the world of cool secret agent stuff, which was all the rage at the time.  It was even conceived with some input from Bond creator Ian Fleming, who featured a character named "Solo" in GOLDFINGER.  (U.N.C.L.E.'s main nemesis, "THRUSH", is inspired by SPECTRE of the Bond universe.)

As enforcement agents of U.N.C.L.E. ("United Network Command for Law and Enforcement"), a secret multinational good-guy organization, Solo and Kuryakin solve "political and legal" problems around the globe--ones which are appropriately scaled down to television size just as their thrilling exploits and action-packed adventures are small-screen facsimiles of 007's.

Even their headquarters, hidden behind a tailor shop in New York City, is cool, with all the modern technology (modern then, anyway, but now charmingly retro), I.D. badges, and gorgeous female agents who all seem to have something going on the side with Napoleon Solo. 

As the droll and unflappable U.N.C.L.E. chief Mr. Waverly, Leo G. Carroll pretty much carries over his similar role from Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST and plays it just as well.  (I love the scene where Mr. Waverly orders Solo to report any attempts on his life--"unless," he adds dryly, "they're successful.")

The stories vary wildly from relatively mundane, meat-and-potatoes domestic spy stuff, as in the premiere episode "The Vulcan Affair" with Fritz Weaver and Patricia Crowley, to tales with elements of the lurid sci-fi flicks of the 50s--"The Deadly Games Affair", for example, is about no less than the resurrection of Adolph Hitler by mad scientist Dr. Volp (Alexander Scourby) in his basement laboratory, with the help of a complete blood transfusion from the bound Napoleon Solo!

"The Girls of Nazarone Affair", one of my favorites from season one, features a secret formula designed to instantly heal gunshot wounds and other injuries, which is sought after by enigmatic THRUSH agent Dr. Egret (Marian McCargo) and her deadly blondes (including an up-and-coming Sharon Tate).    

At other times, our heroes engage in Bond-like "invade the impregnable fortress" efforts which, as in "The Iowa-Scuba Affair", are economically achieved with the deft use of very limited sets.  The agents' globetrotting adventures ("The King of Knaves Affair", "The Terbuf Affair", et al.) are similarly confined to the studio backlot and augmented by stock footage. 

The many gadgets which seemed so cutting edge in 1964 are still retro fun, such as the clunky transistor-radio-sized communicators (into which Solo intones the familiar "Open channel D"), a cigarette-case insta-camera, room-sized computers with data cards, and some sleek-looking weaponry that the luckier kids got toy versions of for Christmas.  (I had a camera that turned into a German Luger.)

One charming aspect of these plots is how often Solo and Kuryakin engage the help of civilians who serve as our vicarious surrogates, including the delightful Sue Ane Langdon in "The Shark Affair", the aforementioned Patricia Crowley as an adventurous housewife, and McCallum's then-wife Jill Ireland (the future Mrs. Charles Bronson) reluctantly joining in the action in "The Quadripartite Affair." 

The first season features a wonderful array of other guest stars and character actors: Tura Satana, James Doohan, Kurt Russell, Luciana Paluzzi, Susan Oliver, Slim Pickens, William Marshall, Ivan Dixon, Anne Francis, Richard Anderson, Robert Culp, Brooke Bundy, Carroll O'Connor, Joan O'Brien, Sharon Farrell, Senta Berger, Jennifer Billingsley, Harold Gould, Michelle Carey, Peggy Ann Garner, Sheila MacRae, Woodrow Parfrey, Narda Onyx, Bill Hickman, Gene Roth, Henry Jones, Jeremy Slate, Marta Kristen, and Ricardo Montalban.

Also appearing: June Lockhart, Arlene Martel, Madlyn Rhue, Michael Forest, Rex Holman, Joanna Moore, Ken Murray, Madge Blake, Richard Haydn, Peter Haskell, Lee Meriwether, Pat Harrington Jr., Reggie Nalder, Antoinette Bower, Malachi Throne, Lloyd Bochner, Alfred Ryder,  Elsa Lanchester, Yvonne Craig, Nancy Kovack, Glenn Corbett, Gavin MacLeod, Richard Kiel, Karen Sharpe, Lilyan Chauvin, Barbara Feldon, Caesar Romero, Eddie Albert, Antony Carbone, George Sanders, Jeanette Nolan, Bonnie Franklin, Martin Balsam, and Barbara Shelley.

"Star Trek" stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both appear in "The Project Strigas Affair." Meg Wyllie, who was one of the large-domed, effeminate aliens in the Trek pilot "The Cage", plays a comical landlady in "The Shark Affair."

Another favorite episode, "The Double Affair", in which a Thrush agent is transformed through plastic surgery into a dead ringer for Solo, was one of several episodes pasted together into makeshift movies (with new footage added) for theatrical release--in this case resulting in the movie-length adventure THE SPY WITH MY FACE.  Some of the directors involved with the series include Richard Donner, Marc Daniels, Vincent McEveety, Joseph Sargent, and John Newland.

I quit watching the show when it switched to color as most TV shows were doing in the mid-60s, because those garish pastels suddenly made it look cheap and chintzy rather than sleek and noirish.  The scripts gradually seemed to follow suit after the colorful campiness of the Adam West "Batman" series became so popular.  (To make things worse, the original opening titles sequence was dropped and the theme music badly altered to resemble that of "Mission: Impossible.")

But THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON contains everything I loved about the show in pure, undiluted form--from that classic opening (a shadowy figure in a corridor fires his pistol at Solo as he stands behind a web-cracking pane of bulletproof glass), to that brassy Jerry Goldsmith theme that always got my heart racing, to all the little production flourishes (swish pans, freeze-frame/dissolve transitions) and modern sensibilities that made the show seem fresh and hip for its time.


Buy it at the WBShop.com
Street date: Aug. 4, 2015
While stills are in color, DVD episodes are in black-and-white

(Original full screen format, Dolby English mono sound, English subtitles, paper episode guide insert, no extras)

Episodes:

DISC ONE
The Vulcan Affair
The Iowa-Scuba Affair
The Quadripartite Affair

DISC TWO
The Shark Affair
The Deadly Games Affair
The Green Opal Affair

DISC THREE
The Giuoco Piano Affair
The Double Affair
The Project Strigas Affair

DISC FOUR
The Finny Foot Affair
The Neptune Affair
The Dove Affair

DISC FIVE
The King of Knaves Affair
The Terbuf Affair
The Deadly Decoy Affair

DISC SIX
The Fiddlesticks Affair
The Yellow Scarf Affair
The Mad, Mad Tea Party Affair

DISC SEVEN
The Secret Sceptre Affair
The Bow-Wow Affair
The Four-Steps Affair

DISC EIGHT
The See-Paris-And-Die Affair
The Brain-Killer Affair
The Hong Kong Shilling Affair

DISC NINE
The Never-Never Affair
The Love Affair
The Gazebo in the Maze Affair

DISC TEN
The Girls of Nazarone Affair
The Odd Man Affair

Read our review of Season Two

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON -- DVD Review by Porfle

ROGER CORMAN'S HORROR CLASSICS VOL. 1 -- DVD review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/30/13

 

Every once in awhile something comes along that gives me that dancing-around giddy feeling and makes me glad that DVD players were born.  Today, that thing is the 3-disc DVD set ROGER CORMAN'S HORROR CLASSICS VOL. 1 from Film Chest and HD Cinema Classics.

This is just the sort of thing that would've had me flying around the room back in the pre-home-video days when you could only catch movies like this on the rare occasions when they showed up on TV (or, even rarer, at the Bijou), and you'd scour the pages of "Famous Monsters" just for pics and info on them.

But thanks to the wonders of modern science, you can now have three of legendary independent filmmaker Roger Corman's most celebrated horror films--THE TERROR, DEMENTIA 13,  and BUCKET OF BLOOD--nicely restored and right at your pulsatin' pinky-tips to indulge in anytime you feel like it. Woo-hoo!  And now that I've sufficiently contained myself, let's discuss them, shall we?

THE TERROR (1963)

This picturesque mood piece moves about as fast as the hands of a clock, so you might as well just gear down and settle in if you want to get anything out of it.  "The French Connection" it ain't.  That said, it's a pretty rewarding experience for the patient Gothic horror fan, especially one who appreciates aesthetically-pleasing filmmaking on a tight budget.

One thing about it, THE TERROR looks great--probably better than it has a right to considering its hasty schedule and slapdash origins.  Roger Corman had some sets left over from THE RAVEN which were due to be demolished in a matter of days, so he hired actor/screenwriter Leo Gordon and Jack Hill to knock out a script around them, managed to snag RAVEN leftover Boris Karloff for three more days' work, and was off and running.  

Aside from Corman's own efforts as director, parts of the picture were co-helmed by Francis Coppola, Monte Hellman (TWO-LANE BLACKTOP), Jack Hill, and co-star Jack Nicholson himself in his fourth film for Corman. 

The young Nicholson's acting chops hardly dazzle us here as he portrays Andre Duvalier, a French soldier separated from his regiment circa 1800 and drawn into a ghostly mystery involving reclusive Baron Victor Frederick von Leppe (Karloff) in his isolated seaside castle (with location footage shot at Big Sur).  Still, just watching this seemingly unprepossessing young actor with the knowledge that he will someday be widely regarded as a "national treasure" is interesting in itself.

The meandering plot is rather negligible and is mainly an excuse to let us observe the historic pairing of Karloff and Nicholson as they wander around the impressive castle sets and agonize over whether or not  the ghost of the late Baroness, whom Karloff's character killed in a fit of jealous rage years earlier, still stalks the dark hallways and surrounding forest.

Nicholson's wife at the time, Sandra Knight (already immortalized in the trash classic FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER), plays the elusive Helene, who may or may not be the Baroness' ghost, while Corman fave Dick Miller (billed here as "Richard" to give the film more class) is the Baron's faithful servant Stefan. 

Dorothy Neumann plays a local witch with a intensely personal interest in the affair, and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS alumnus Jonathan "Seymour Krelboyne" Haze is also on hand as Gustaf.  Most of the acting is stilted, thanks mainly to some unwieldy dialogue, although Karloff comes through with his usual unfailing professionalism and the real-life Nicholsons are a passable onscreen couple. 

Colorful cinematography, some nice stock shots of the castle and churning sea, and a typically robust musical score by the great Ronald Stein (the main titles theme and artwork are a highlight) contribute to THE TERROR's modest but rewarding appeal.  The DVD is in 16:9 widescreen with 5.1 surround sound and Spanish subtitles.  Extras consist of a trailer and a "before and after" restoration demo.

Things heat up (finally!) in the excitingly staged finale when the Baron's darkest secret is revealed at last and the entire surviving cast face death by flood, fire, bird attack, or melting into an oozing mass of putridity.  The ending,  I must say, is enough of a shock to put a satisfying cap on the whole thing, making THE TERROR a pleasantly chilling way to pass some time. 

DEMENTIA 13 (1963)

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of accompanying my older brother to a Saturday screening of a new horror movie with the puzzling title, DEMENTIA 13 (1963).  The stark black-and-white photography and dreary Irish castle setting were spooky enough, but it was this film which would introduce me,  for the first time, to genuine, grueling screen terror.

The credit "Directed by Francis Coppola" meant nothing to me or anyone else at time--the future creative genius behind the GODFATHER films was merely an aspiring Roger Corman protege' helming his first "real" movie--and neither did the rather mundane plot about an eccentric Irish family, the Halorans, who were obsessed with the drowning death of the clan's youngest child Kathleen several years earlier. 

I wasn't yet a fan of the wonderful Luana Anders (EASY RIDER,  THE LAST DETAIL) as Louise, John Halloran's scheming wife.  In the opening scenes, we see John die of a heart attack and Louise dump his body into a lake lest his death be discovered and she lose her share of the family fortune. 

Nor did I know that William Campbell, playing oldest Haloran son Richard, would later guest star in two of my favorite episodes of "Star Trek: The Original Series" (he was Trelane in "The Squire of Gothos" and Koloth in "The Trouble With Tribbles"), or that Patrick Magee as family doctor Caleb would feature so prominently in Stanley Kubrick's  sci-fi classic A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

All I knew at the time was that part of Louise's inheritance scheme involved stripping down to her bra and panties and taking a creepy late-night swim in the same murky pond in which little Kathleen had drowned.  What happens when she resurfaces--and the spoilers are right there in the poster and trailer themselves--is one of the homages to the likes of PSYCHO that Corman instructed Coppola to include in his script.  (Corman also got Jack Hill to write and direct additional scenes to pad the running time and gore content, to Coppola's dismay.)  It's also the first-ever movie scene that really and truly scared the ever-livin' crap outta me.

But DEMENTIA 13 isn't done yet, because later there's a beheading (also a first for me) and other creepy goings-on thanks to an axe-wielding maniac who seems to be stalking the Halorans.  Unfortunately, much of these doings have lost their edge over the years--the leisurely-paced story is dishwater dull at times and most of the scares no longer chill the blood quite like they used to.  But the film still has a strong Monster Kid watchability factor and (thanks largely to the authentic Irish locations) eerie, Gothic atmosphere to burn.

Hearing music maestro Ronald Stein's creepy, harpsichord-based theme music kick in during those pleasantly-morbid opening titles always makes me want the soundtrack CD.  Come to think of it, I feel that way about all of his film scores.  The DVD is in 16:9 widescreen and 5.1 surround sound with Spanish subtitles.  Extras include a trailer and a "before and after" restoration demo. 

After seeing DEMENTIA 13 that first time back in '63, I found its double-bill companion (Ray Milland's colorful PREMATURE BURIAL) a relief for my jangled nerves much the same way DR. WHO AND THE DALEKS would help me recover from the traumatic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD some years later.  Modern viewers may find this hard to imagine since the film now plays as a slow but satisfying murder mystery with some mildly effective scares.  But it was my PSYCHO, and lovely Luana Anders' midnight swim was my shower scene. 

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959)

This is the title that I was the least familiar with since I bought the dollar DVD years ago at Wal-Mart,  watched it once, and then sold it in a garage sale.  I probably only got 50 cents for it,  maybe even a quarter, but I was glad to get it because that's the kind of year I was having. 

Corman regular Dick Miller plays a guy named Walter Paisley, who's also having a bad year (how's that for a segue?)  He's an insecure milquetoast who buses tables in a coffee bar where beatniks hang out, but dreams of being a creative artist like pretentious poet Maxwell (Julian Burton) in order to impress his heartthrob Carla (THE WASP WOMAN's Barboura Morris).  Another Corman fave, the great Antony Carbone of THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, and PIT AND THE PENDULUM, is Walter's overbearing boss Leonard.

When Walter accidentally kills his landlady's cat, he covers the evidence with modeling clay and then shows off the result as his own artistic creation, garnering instant fame as a brilliant new talent.  But a hunger for greater recognition leads to murder when he whacks a gun-waving narc (future game-show host Bert Convy) over the head,  killing him, and then turns him into a highly-praised clay sculpture as well.  With more money and fame rolling in, Walter's trail of  victims grows longer, eventually leading to Carla herself. 

If you liked 1960's THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS you should really be interested in this amusingly morbid tale which amounts to pretty much a dry run for the later film.  Besides also being helmed by Corman,  both were penned by Charles B. Griffith, whose sense of humor seemed to play into the then-current appetite for beatnik culture and "sick" humor (the film's tagline is "You'll be sick, sick, sick--from laughing!") 

Both feature typical be-bop musical scores by Fred Katz and similar production values (moody black-and-white photography, modest stage-like sets, a "skid row" ambience).   Carbone's bullying boss Leonard, just like flower shop owner Gravis Mushnik, first sees dollar signs from his employee's creative efforts but grows increasingly squeamish when he discovers the truth behind them. 

Walter could be a first cousin of Jonathan Haze's Seymour Krelboyne,  another mousey shlub stuck in a dead-end job with an oppressive boss, who yearns to break out of his rut by doing something creative which will lead to murder.  We almost expect him to have a clinging, overbearing mother when he shleps back to his cheap apartment, and indeed his landlady is played by Myrtle Damerel, who was Seymour's hypochondriac mom in LITTLE SHOP.  

Barboura Morris, however, grounds the film by playing her role straight, and Griffith's script for BUCKET isn't nearly as whimsically farcical as the later story.  Carbone maintains a delicious deadpan even when Leonard's dazed reactions to Walter's bloodthirsty activities threaten to incapacitate him.  Other familiar faces include Ed Nelson as Bert Convy's undercover vice-cop partner,  Lynn Storey of LITTLE SHOP (she played "Mrs. Hortense Fishtwanger") as a curious square, and, as an art patron interested in Walter's work, the ubiquitous Bruno Ve Soto. 

In the lead role that would define his career as a cult actor, Dick Miller wrings every nuance of nebbishness out of his pitifully desperate character and manages to remain likable even as his murderous tendencies spin out of control.  Corman's camera explores Miller's manic expressions with his own artistic eye and the collaboration results in a truly memorable performance.  A BUCKET OF BLOOD itself stands as a minor classic and a model of efficient, creative low-budget filmmaking as well as simply being a real kick to watch.

The DVD is in 16:9 widescreen with mono sound.  No subtitles.  A trailer is the sole extra.  All three films in this set are restored in HD from the original 35mm prints.

Considering the depth and breadth of the man's career as a whole,  ROGER CORMAN'S HORROR CLASSICS VOL. 1 may not stand as a comprehensive overview.  But as a trio of spooky fright flicks to delight the old-school Monster Kid down to the very marrow of his or her rattling bones, it's a three-course feast in a keepcase. 

ROGER CORMAN'S HORROR CLASSICS VOL. 1 -- DVD review by Porfle

When Old Rose Was Young Rose: TITANIC's Gloria Stuart (1910-2010) (video)

When Old Rose Was Young Rose: TITANIC's Gloria Stuart (1910-2010)

"The Old Dark House" (1932)

("The reflection's changed a bit...")

"The Invisible Man" (1933)

("Wasn't I a dish?")

Originally posted on 6/24/18
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

When Old Rose Was Young Rose: TITANIC's Gloria Stuart (1910-2010) (video)

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES -- DVD review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/23/11

 

I must admit I had low hopes for director Rupert Wyatt's RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011), especially when I found that the excellent ape makeups which were such a key factor in the original series' appeal would be totally replaced by digital creatures.  Not that I hate all CGI, of course, but these days it's just not all that impressive anymore, is it?  And when it's bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

But once you get accustomed to its extensive use here, it's actually quite remarkably good.  Not 100% convincing, but then again, no special effect could be.  And as nostalgic as I am for the older flicks, there's no way men in suits would suffice for this story no matter how good the makeup might be. 

This is especially true with the main character, Caesar, a chimp whose intelligence has been artificially enhanced during a failed experiment to cure Alzheimer's.  We get used to Caesar as a character even though we're always aware that he's a CGI creation, and he effortlessly carries the majority of the film upon his digital shoulders with the authority of a real actor thanks in large part to the dazzling motion-capture performance of Andy Serkis.



Adopted by the head research scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), Caesar is seen cavorting around the house in an amazing sequence which follows him from room to room as though the whole place were a jungle gym.  Raised like a child, Caesar is happy until he begins to question who and what he is, eventually chafing at his restricted existence.  After an unfortunate incident involving a hostile neighbor (David Hewlitt), Caesar is placed into an animal shelter and gets a rude awakening when accosted by others of his kind. 

Their poor treatment by the humans in charge inspires Caesar to lead his brethren in revolt after dosing them with the same chemical that has increased his own brain power, becoming a wise, courageous, and inspiring revolutionary figure in the process.  This is a fresh approach to the original saga that pays homage to the old films in ways big and small (a reprise of Charlton Heston's "damn, dirty ape" line is a bit of a show-stopper, immediately topped by the shock of Caesar's first spoken word) but avoids comparisons by giving us something we've never seen before. 

I kept wondering what the background subplot involving a lost manned Mars expedition had to do with anything until it finally hit me and I thought, "Oh, yeah..."  The film's main spiritual kin would be CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, yet it's easy to imagine it as the beginning of a brand new franchise that's highly promising if it continues to be as scintillating as this.  The ominous beginnings of a widespread biological disaster of global proportions add to the open-ended setup for the story's continuation. 

As Will, James Franco is back in familiar "Harry Osbourne" mode (watching a potentially lucrative scientific breakthrough go south before his eyes) but without the burgeoning psychosis.  His affectionate relationship with Caesar is handled very nicely.  Our shared affection for John Lithgow as an actor gives us instant empathy for his character of Will's Alzheimer-stricken father, to whom Will administers the untested serum.  As Will's love interest Carolina, a zoo vet who treats Caesar after an injury, Freida Pinto ably fulfills the limited requirements of her character.
 


The awesome Brian Cox, cinema's first Hannibal Lecter, is pretty much wasted in his small, unchallenging role as the animal shelter supervisor, but it's still good to have him around, with HARRY POTTER's Tom Felton sufficiently slimy as his sadistic son Dodge.  Tyler Labine of TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL plays another likable lug as Will's lab assistant, Franklin.  In the role of Will's hostile neighbor Hunsiker, whose full importance to the story isn't revealed until the very end, is the excellent David Hewlett of "Stargate: Atlantis."  Another familiar sci-fi vet, Ty Olsson, turns up as a CHP officer in charge of containing the rampaging apes. 

The thrilling humans-vs.-apes finale on the Golden Gate Bridge is impressively handled, a suspenseful and action-packed setpiece in which the individual personalities of Caesar's ape friends are highlighted to their fullest advantage.  As in the rest of the film, this is lean, flashy, high-adrenaline filmmaking that sweeps the viewer into a headlong sprint to the finish, with the intense performances of both the human and digital characters selling it all.  This unusual and exciting sequence alone would make the film worth watching. 

The DVD from 20th-Century Fox Home Entertainment is in widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound (English, English descriptive) and Dolby surround (Spanish, French).  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a couple of brief deleted scenes, three trailers, and the featurettes "Mythology of the Apes" and "The Genius of Andy Serkis."  (Also available as a Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack with a bunch more extras.)

I can't imagine anyone being bored by RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, although with a whole generation growing up watching the breakneck-paced offspring of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and becoming increasingly jaded by it, you never know.  As for me, I not only found it a riveting action flick with moving emotional scenes, but simply a really cool movie in general.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES -- DVD review by Porfle

THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 3/11/17

(CAUTION: Contains Spoilers.)

 

Continuity flies out the window faster than a Mummy-propelled John Carradine in 1944's THE MUMMY'S CURSE, the final film in Universal's "Kharis" series.

Timeline? While this one takes place twenty-five years after the events of the last film, THE MUMMY'S GHOST, it's still the forties. Mapleton? Never heard of it. Now, the Mummy and Amina are buried beneath a bayou in Louisiana that's being drained by land developers.

Don't look at me--I don't know how they got there. But the workers start dying, and a Mummy-shaped hole is discovered by Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore), who's investigating on behalf of the museum against the wishes of the gruff foreman, Pat Walsh (Addison Richards).

Halsey's assistant is the delightfully-named Dr. Ilzor Zandaab (Peter Coe, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN), and it doesn't take long to find out that Zandaab is the new High Priest of Whatever, sent to finish the job that all the other idiots so overwhelmingly screwed up.

This guy's different, though--he's hardcore, and nothing, not even Walsh's beautiful daughter Betty (Kay Harding), can sway him from his task. His eyes gleam with purpose as he narrates the extensive flashbacks (they're back!) for us, and if anybody has a chance of getting this long-standing Mummy business straightened out once and for all, it's this guy. He is my hero.

One catch, though...he has a shifty-eyed henchman, Ragheb (Martin Kosleck), and sure enough, the henchman falls for Betty and screws everything up in the end. Somehow, I think Amon-Ra has a sick sense of humor and is just messing with these guys.

Comedy relief returns to the series--sorta--in the form of Cajun Joe (Kurt Katch) and a stereotypically-black swamp worker named Goobie (Napoleon Simpson), who exclaims at one point, "De Debbil's on de loose and he's dancin' wiff de Mummy!" Later, after some reconsideration, he amends this to observe, "De Mummy's on de loose and he's dancin' wiff de Debbil!" (Well, I did say "sorta.")

Cajun Joe meets his end in a shot that graced the cover of at least one monster mag back in the 60s, while another likable character, Tante Berthe (Ann Codee), a beloved singer who owns the local bar where everyone hangs out, gets hers while valiantly trying to keep the Mummy from grabbing a young girl found wandering around earlier in the swamp.

Played by Virginia Christine, who was "Mrs. Olson" in the old Folger's coffee commercials ("It's mountain grown!"), she turns out to be Amina herself. Her resurrection from the drained swamp is one of the most impressive, and downright odd, sequences in the entire series.

Caked in dried clay, she struggles to break loose from her burial place and then staggers blindly through the woods, her head turned upward to the blazing sun as it glows through her closed eyelids, until finally she descends slowly into the water to cleanse herself.

This is such a strangely beautiful, almost surreal sequence, it almost doesn't even fit into a relatively ordinary film like THE MUMMY'S CURSE, and is without a doubt the most memorable thing about it.

The Mummy has a lot more screen time in this film than in any of the others as he keeps trying to apprehend the fleeing Amina, who doesn't quite remember who she is, and killing anyone who gets in his way.

He finally catches her and takes her to the abandoned monastery where he and Zandaab have been hiding out (and yes, it has about a hundred-and-fifty freakin' steps for him to schlepp up and down), where he discovers that Ragheb has kidnapped Betty and has her tied up and ready for the old tana-leaf treatment.

Ragheb has already killed Zandaab, who remained faithful to the cause to the bitter end (my hero!) and is duking it out with Dr. Halsey when the Mummy steps in and makes him sorry he ever went off-mission.

Ragheb flees into a cell and locks the door, and the Mummy goes into a rage, ripping the bars out of the wall and bringing the roof down on both of them in a hair-raising scene that serves as a worthy end to this lively series.

Once again, Lon Chaney, Jr. is an intimidating presence as Kharis (who racks up quite a body count), while Virginia Christine proves a most interesting actress in one of her best roles.  The inexplicable change in location serves this fast-moving story well, as does an energetic supporting cast.

While discounted by some monster fans as the weakest "Mummy" film, I find THE MUMMY'S CURSE to be one of the most entertaining and unusual entries of all.


Read our overview of the entire original Universal Mummy series

THE MUMMY review
THE MUMMY'S HAND review
THE MUMMY'S TOMB review
THE MUMMY'S GHOST review

THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944) -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 3/9/17

 

(CAUTION: Contains Spoilers!)

Not long after the events of THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942), in which Kharis the living mummy first stalked the streets of Mapleton, USA, comes THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944).

This third semi-sequel to the 1932 Karloff original (the first being 1940's THE MUMMY'S HAND) opens with George Zucco's now-ancient high priest Andoheb breaking in yet another successor and hoping for the best. (They're the High Priests of Arkam instead of Karnak now, for some reason--new management, maybe?)

This time it's John Carradine, who made movies like this mainly to support his theater habit, as Yousef Bey. When Andoheb asks him, "You are Yousef Bey?" it sounds like he says "Useless" instead of "Yousef", which turns out to be pretty accurate.

 

With the infidel Bannings and Babe all out of the way (except for Steve's surviving son John Banning, who is inexplicably given a free pass), Yousef is charged with a new mission: go to America, where the Mummy is still running loose in Mapleton, and bring him and the Princess Ananka's body back home to their resting place in Egypt.

Instead of brewing tana leaves to keep the Mummy alive, since he apparently doesn't need them for that purpose anymore, they're to be used now to lure him in the same way the wafting aroma of a Brontosaurus steak used to lure Fred Flintstone.

The usual flashbacks are dispensed with this time as Andoheb gives Yousef a quick verbal rundown of the story thus far, which he hands off to the previous film's Dr. Norman (Frank Reicher of 1933's KING KONG) to finish in a lecture to his skeptical Egyptology students back in Mapleton.

 

Unfortunately, Dr. Norman brews up a batch of tana leaves himself during a home experiment that night and the Mummy (Lon Chaney, Jr. again in another cool Mummy mask by Jack Pierce) shows up to kill off yet another familiar character before chugging the concoction like a frat rat at a keg party.

His presence somehow attracts a sweet young Egyptian college student named Amina (Ramsay Ames), who sleepwalks to the scene of the murder and passes out on Dr. Norman's lawn, then becomes a suspect when she's discovered there the next morning.

Her stuffy boyfriend Tom (Robert Lowery, who played a dour Batman in the 1949 serial BATMAN AND ROBIN) whines to the local sheriff about this to no avail, then thoughtfully leaves his dog Peanuts with Amina to help cheer her up. (Tom's stiff-arsed character is made more bearable by the fact that it sounds like he's calling his dog "Penis" throughout the movie.)

 

Yousef Bey's seemingly simple task is made more difficult when he and the Mummy reach the museum where Ananka's body is kept. For just as Kharis reaches out to touch it (he actually cops a feel--really!), it crumbles to dust as her spirit flees to another body.

Whose body, you ask? That's right--Amina, who is the physical reincarnation of Princess Ananka, and now serves as the vessel of her living soul as well. So the Mummy kidnaps her and brings her to the abandoned tower where he and Yousef are hiding out. (For some reason, they pick the one place in town with the most steps for the slow-moving Mummy to have to walk up and down.)

Yousef, of course, takes one gander at the lovely, bound Amina and goes ga-ga, his priestly vows flying out the window as he grabs for the tana fluid and professes his eternal love to her. The Mummy overhears this sacrilege, however, and, having learned his lesson in the previous film, turns Yousef into a priest-Frisbee.

 

Meanwhile, Penis--I mean, Peanuts has managed to lead Tom and the usual mob of townsfolk (sans torches this time since it's broad daylight) to their hideout, and while making his escape with the now rapidly-aging Amina, the Mummy wanders into a swamp filled with quicksand as the horrified Tom and Peanuts look on.

A lengthy subplot about Inspector Walgreen (Barton McClane, THE MALTESE FALCON) investigating Dr. Norman's murder and setting a trap for the Mummy at Norman's house goes absolutely nowhere, since the Mummy never shows up there again. (It was a dumb idea, anyway--dig a big hole in Norman's yard, cover it with leaves, and hope the Mummy falls in. "Duh.")

But the Mummy's angry rampage at the museum after Ananka's body crumbles to dust and his killing of the museum guard are memorable, as are some good, spookily-lit closeups of him during the movie.  The murder of Dr. Norman and the downbeat ending continue the unsentimental, anyone-can-die attitude of the series.

Despite the fact that he hated playing the mute, heavily-wrapped character, Lon Chaney Jr.'s performance is energetic and effective.  And at 61 minutes, THE MUMMY'S GHOST is a pretty eventful little film with some good Mummy action.

Read our overview of the entire original Universal Mummy series

 THE MUMMY (1932)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummy-1932-movie-review-by-porfle.html

THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-hand-1940-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-tomb-1942-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-ghost-1944-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-curse-1944-movie-review-by.html

Here's the poster in parallel-view 3D (click for larger version):

Here's a lobby card from the film in parallel-view 3D (click for larger version):

THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944) -- Movie Review by Porfle