THE BLACK ROOM 1935 (MILL CREEK)

An interesting Boris Karloff thriller.

Karloff stars as twin brothers in this outing. One is good, the other evil. Gregor is the evil one while Anton is very polite and quiet. In order to marry a woman he desires, Gregor sets up a plan to murder his brother.

The plan works perfectly and Gregor assumes the identity of Anton. Everything is fine for a while, but soon some people start suspecting there is something wrong.

This is a fine melodrama that when I first saw it as a monster crazed kid I hated. But over the years I have come to appreciate it's well written screenplay and Karloff's performances are very goon indeed.

Mill Creek's print from Columbia is beautiful, and this is the first of six Karloff thrillers on a set entitled simply "The Boris Karloff Collection". Highly Recommended!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

David McCallum is 82, Kim Richards is 51, Randolph Mantooth is 70, Adam West is 87, and Victoria Silvstedt is 41.

COMING ATTRACTIONS.....

Kino has announced that on Dec. 8th they will be releasing a classic drive-in film on Blu-ray.

Bobbi Jo and The Outlaw starring Marjoe Gortner and gorgeous Lynda Carter will be released on that day. There will be some pretty interesting special features including an interview with director Mark Lester and co-star Belinda Belaski.

This one is very well worth picking up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Frankie Avalon is 76, and Veronica Carlson is 71.

SOYLENT GREEN 1973 (WARNER) BLU-RAY

A classic sci-fi drama.

Charlton Heston stars as a detective in the year 2022 where the world is very overpopulated and crime is rampant. There are 40 million people living in New York and Heston must investigate the killing of a rich business man who is one of the people running a mysterious business known as The Soylent Corporation.

The investigation leads him down a very dark path with an even darker secret. Joseph Cotton is the millionaire who is killed and Heston falls for his "furniture" played by lovely Leigh Taylor Young.

Heston's last line of the film has gone to movie immortality, and it is no secret as to what it is. The movie itself starts as a detective drama in the future to a sci-fi thriller an the transition is a very smooth one.

Edward G. Robinson is Sol, an old man who lives with Heston's character named Thorn. Sol tells Thorn of how the world used to be before it became an overcrowded hothouse. His character reminds me of myself on many levels. I like this film a lot an recommend it to anyone.

The rest of the cast includes Chuck Conners, Brock Peters, Mike Henry and Paula Kelly.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO....

Cassandra Peterson is 64, Patricia Crowley is 80, and Rosemarie Stack is 83.

LOGAN'S RUN 1976 (WARNER) BLU-RAY

I reviewed this a while back, but decided to re-visit this again on Blu-ray.

In the year 2274 all seems perfect in an underground, domed society where people only live for pleasure and have no cares. The only problem is life must end at 30.

Most accept this, but a few try and escape and are called "runners". The people sent to catch and kill the "runners" are called "sandmen". Michael York stars as Logan, a "sandman". He is ordered to become a 'runner" and infiltrate a group of people living outside the domed world. This is called Sanctuary, and Logan must destroy it.

He is accompanied by a young woman he has met named Jessica (Jenny Agutter). They are pursued by "sandmen" and discover an old man living in a virtually uninhabited world. Then they must convince all those living in the domes that there is really beauty and safety outside.

This has always been a very cool concept in my opinion. I like this film and seeing it on Blu-ray was a revelation. The colors are very bold and crisp. It reminded me of when I first saw this in theaters back in 1976. It was so popular that it spawned a short lived TV series.

The rest of the cast includes Peter Ustinov as the old man and Farrah Fawcett, who looks delicious as only she could. RECOMMENDED!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO....

Jennifer Tilly is 57, Ed Begley, Jr. is 66, Linda Henning is 71, and Bobbi Shaw Chance is 72.

COMING ATTRACTIONS......

As Halloween nears there are several films coming out just in time.

Olive is releasing several titles from Slasher Video including "Death Nurse", "Cemetery Sisters", "Death Nurse 2", "Deadly Prey" and my personal favorite "Boarding House". These are scheduled for an Oct. 13th release date.

Olive is also releasing "A Black Veil For Lisa" which is a top notch crime drama starring John Mills and the ultra sexy Luciana Paluzzi. This will be on both DVD and Blu-ray on Oct. 27th along with another favorite of mine entitled "The One And Only" starring Henry Winkler.

Today sees the release of two great 70's films from Shout Factory......"The Legacy" and "The Sentinel". Both are great films that every horror fan should see.

On Oct. 13th Shout will release "Return Of Count Yorga" to Blu-ray and this just in....Shout has scheduled "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" for a Blu-ray release on Dec. 22nd. That makes for a great stocking stuffer on Christmas.

Plenty of good things ahead, and it will be posted here.

THE LEECH WOMAN 1960 (UNIVERSAL)

I haven't watched this film in some time, and have talked about it before, but I figured it was time to bring this out again.

I consider this to be a rather neglected Universal film simply because it isn't mentioned much and that is too bad because this film really offers a lot.

Coleen Gray stars as a woman married to a doctor who is conducting experiments in order to make people young again. Phillip Terry is Dr. Paul Talbot, an obsessed doctor who wants a divorce from his aging wife, June. The opening confrontation between Gray and Terry sets up the movie perfectly.

Talbot is visited by a very old woman who tells the tale of her African tribe and their youth restoration "magic", so the good doctor cancels his divorce from his wife and takes her with him on the expedition to find the tribe. When they discover the old woman and her people they are shown how the "magic" works as the elderly woman is transformed into a beautiful young woman played by Kim Hamilton.

June finds out why her husband really brought her along and in a rage asks to be granted a night of youthful living. the "magic" the natives use consists of liquid drawn out of the base of the neck of men and June offers her unfaithful husband up as a sacrifice for this night. The natives comply and June is once again young and beautiful. She and the expedition guide (John Van Dreelen) escape to safety.

June starts to turn very old and ugly and kills the guide for his live giving fluid as well. We switch to several months later and June arrives back in the US and seduces her lawyer which makes his girlfriend very jealous. Grant Williams is the lawyer and Gloria Talbott is his girlfriend.

Things get very complicated as the film draws to it's interesting conclusion. I have never been able to figure out why this film is so neglected.

It is available on DVD, so I recommend you see it if you haven't already.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Henry Silva is 87.

SHORT TAKES....

Caught up on some movie watching the other day and here are just a couple of what I viewed.

THE BIG BLUFF 1955 (ALPHA)...excellent film noir from W. Lee Wilder. John Bromfield is a lothario who decides to marry a young woman who is dying in order to get her money. When she isn't going to die fast enough he and his lover plot a murder. Things don't go quite as smooth as our lothario thinks they will.

This has one of the best twist ending I have ever seen, and it actually makes you feel a tad sorry for the Bromfield character. Martha Vickers is the dying woman, Valarie Bancroft, Robert Hutton and Rosemarie Rowe also star. Rowe ended her career and married Robert Stack. Sad because the Butte Montana born beauty was really beautiful before the cameras.

AL CAPONE 1959 (WARNER ARCHIVE)... Rod Steiger stars as Al Capone in this very well made gangster flick which chronicles the rise and fall of one of the most notorious people in modern US history.

Director Richard Wilson makes the most out of his cast and Steiger really steals the show. The film shows Capone's arrival in Chicago just before prohibition and how he became the most ruthless man in the Windy city.\

The rest of the cast includes fay Spain, Martin Balsam, Nehemiah Persoff, Murvyn Vye as "Bugs" Moran, James Gregory as the cop who works many years to finally get Capone, Sandy Kenyon and Raymond Baily.

If you like gangster films and film noir, these two are well worth checking out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO....

Joey Heatherton is 71, and Joyce Taylor is 83.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO....

Jada Fire turned 39 this past September 1st.

Thanks to a reader for bringing this to my attention. I was offline at the time and missed it.

WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS 1965 (DARK SKY)

One of my favorite Italian sci-fi films.

Giacomo Rossi Stuart stars as Cmdr. Rod Jackson, the leader of a team of astronauts who are sent to investigate a rogue planet that is causing many disasters on Earth.

Ombretta Colli is Lt. Terry Sanchez, the love of Jackson's life and also a member of his team. Jackson is an arrogant son of a bitch most of the time, but he does get the job done.

The special effects are ok, but nothing special. The asteroid turns out to be a living organism that kills and devours several crew members and it looks like the earth is doomed until a last minute decision is made to completely explode the asteroid into thousand of pieces.

This movie has always been a favorite of mine for reasons i really don't know. I guess I just saw it at the right time on VHS many years ago. It works for me, and to be honest Ombretta is pretty damn sexy. This was put on a double bill DVD with "Creation Of The Humanoids" which is reviewed below.