In this drab time when new classic title DVD releases are almost nonexistent, one has to wonder, are the studio DVD people just asleep at the wheel, or--more likely--do they just know nothing about movies made before 1985 that aren't Singing in the Rain or Casablanca? Well, I'm here to shout into the wind: Release these three long lost Roger Corman classics! Originally put out on Allied Artists (?) a forerunner of AIP, the following three gems may be lost in some copyright limbo (as opposed to their AA brethren BUCKET OF BLOOD and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which are in the public domain, so are too available) but wouldn't it be worth it for some intrepid young go-getter to untangle them from the vaults and make some money?
Corman was a fast and cheap director but he was smart enough to get good screenwriters and hip bay area beatnik actors and he kept his films moving with thrills, sex and wit. The following three are classic examples, worth hunting on the gray market if the suits that be insist on letting other people win their dollars (and check out the super sexy posters!): 
THE UNDEAD (1957) - A perfect Halloween treat, this has a great old witch with a putty nose and chin (Dorothy Neumann, superb), a super sexy witch (Allison 50 Foot Woman Hayes, super hot) with an imp (Billy Barty, mugging worse than he did in Gold Diggers of 1933)and Pamela Duncan as a streetwalker whose hypnotized into reliving her previous life as a wrongly condemned witch in the Middle Ages! The coolest aspect is how her hypnotist travels back in time to save her and meets the devil! In sum, this movie has everything, including modern jazz ghost dancing chicks from beyond the grave! And most importantly, lots of black fog.
IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956) - Peter (A&E Biography!) Graves finds an alien intelligence living in a cave who possesses his buddy Lee Van Cleef via giant weird looking rubber bats (or is it the other way around?) I haven't seen this in awhile thanks to the "ahem" powers that be; all I remember is, it's awesome. Best scene is when the alien waddles out of its cave to fight the military and when it dies, it falls over like a kicked trash can. Despite the low budget humor, it's great sexy scary fun.
NOT OF THIS EARTH (1956) - I've never seen this, but I hear it's great. It's never even been shown on cable, as far as I know (though the Traci Lords remake is always around, but something like this demands black and white). You can find gray market copies here and there, and since the suits are snoozing, I may do just that!!!!
So there you have it. I don't know if there's a way to start a petition, but if anyone reads this, remember, as the DA once said in SCARFACE (1931): "You! You're the government!" These films would all be great together on a single DVD set: each is little over an hour long and they all use many of the same actors and props (including a nifty rubber devil bat). Man, Halloween, you will never be complete without them!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Halloween Wish List DVD Set: Roger Corman
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9 comments:
Great wish list. Of particular interest to pop culture fanatics might be your middle choice, as it was noted as an exemplar of the "cheap horror genre" by no less a cult figure than Frank Zappa. The album "Roxy and Elsewhere" is worth picking up for the rap on "It Conquered the World" alone, which heads off the aptly named number "Cheepnis," a paean to melting rubber suits and visible stage hands. He refers to the monster, which can be seen in your picture, as an "inverted ice cream cone".
I actually once had the film taped off a late night broadcast that I found when I was going through the rote Zappa phase in Junior High, but alas, it was lost in the household transition to digital. Criterion Collection, are you listening?
haha! Yeah, I have both Undead and It Conquered the World from old AMC Monsterfest VHS dupes I made back around the turn of the century, but transferred to DVD they look poorly.
What makes that "inverted ice cream cone" monster so hilarious is how short he is... I can imagine Corman having a moment with his special effects guy similar to the one in Spinal Tap with the 11" Stonehenge.
NOT OF THIS EARTH and THE UNDEAD are two of my favorite Corman films (and Corman is one of my favorite directors). IT CONQUERED THE WORLD is swell - though not as awesome as the first two. And you left out the equally essential ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS. If someone is going to put out a DVD set of these films, they should include all four, which - not so incidentally - were all written by the late, great Charles B. Griffith.
Correct! And Crab Monsters is awesome. BUT Attack of the Crab Monsters is already out on DVD, or was, and in an allegedly crappy transfered, over-priced version. That said, it WOULD be great to have all four together, if you are listening o lord of the DVD.
And most importantly, lots of black fog.
Well, when you're shooting in a supermarket you need lots of black fog...to disguise the fact that you're shooting in a supermarket.
But I wholeheartedly agree with your choices and the fact that they should be made available on DVD tuit suite. Free Roger Corman!
What's most insulting about the absence of "It Conquered the World" on DVD is that the cheapo Larry Buchanan remake "Zontar: The Thing from Venus" IS available.
I got to see The Undead a couple of times on TV. For a while in NYC, Corman films seemed to play on Saturday morinings. There was also Roger Corman retrospective at the Kips Bay Theater in NYC in early 1971 that I took advantage of. The Corman films I really want to see are his rock and roll movies.
By the way, Allied Artist evolved out of Monogram.
it's on move share search for it by typing it in backwards with the spaces htrae siht fo ton
sorry thats for not of this earth on movshare
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