Coming 25 January 2016 is the UK Blu-ray debut of AIPs 1960s spy spoofs Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs from 101 Films.
Both films will also be available separately on DVD and in a Blu-ray or DVD box-set containing both films and a bonus DVD featuring Master of the World.
According to 101 Films, the transfers are from MGM but there are no extras, apart from the bonus film. But if you are not fussed about having an audio commentary (which came with the Kino Lorber releases last year - with the fab David Del Valle and filmmaker David De Coteau), then this is a cost effective alternative. Plus, Zavvi have £5 off at the moment, making the Blu-ray box-set just £19.99.
What do you get when you mix Master of Menace, Vincent Price, some Hammer Glamour screen sirens, Edna Everage and a handful of famous British comedy stars? The 1974 sex comedy Percy’s Progress – that’s what! To celebrate its UK high-definition restoration release (Monday 13 April), here’s a look back at the very 1970s oddity.
WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
With a bounty of Bollinger 1969 stored onboard his yacht, Percy Edward Anthony (Leigh Lawson) takes to the high seas to escape his notoriety as the well-endowed recipient of the world’s first penis transplant.
But when the entire male population becomes impotent after the US-made PX-123 drug accidentally gets into the water supply, Percy becomes the British Government’s secret weapon in reversing the world’s falling birth rate.
After ‘servicing’ the representatives of several countries in the Miss Conception International contest, Percy decides he’s done his patriotic duty and goes back into hiding – which doesn’t go down well with his advisors or the bevy of beautiful birds who only want a favour most men would be happy to oblige…
WHY IT'S WORTH WATCHING - OR NOT?
This 1974 British sex comedy was director Ralph Thomas and producer Betty E Box’s sequel to their box-office hit Percy, based on Raymond Hitchcock’s 1969 debut novel, with Leigh Lawson packing into Hywel Bennett’s briefs as the sexed-up anti-hero with a rather enviable manhood.
Drawing on themes originally exploited in the 1933 sci-fi musical comedy, It’s Great to Be Alive (a remake of the 1924 silent, The Last Man on Earth), and in the 1946 Pat Frank novel, Mr Adam, Percy’s Progress comes off like a poor-man’s Carry On. It should have been a saucy seaside postcard delight, but it’s not. Director Thomas, who was responsible for the ar superior Doctor series of comedy films, and Up Pompeii! writer Sid Colin have merely served up a series of flaccid, vulgar jokes about impotence.
Getting into bed with Lawson (who famously wedded both Hayley Mills and model Twiggy), are some well-known Hammer glamour stars, including Jenny Hanley, Madeline Smith, Julie Edge and Judy Matheson. But it’s the roll call of famous names that’s the real reason to check this oddity out. Among the embarrassed faces on display in the messy farce are Elke Sommer, Milo O’Shea, Denholm Elliott, Bernard Lee, Anthony Andrews, Ronald Fraser, Alan Lake and Anthony Sharp.
As the Aristotle Onassis-styled tycoon Stavos Mammonian, Vincent Price is confined to a wheelchair (the last time he did that was in 1953’s House of Wax); while Harry H Corbett (who wrote some of the dialogue, along with comedy legend Ian La Frenais) gets in an hilarious Harold Wilson impersonation (albeit with a Yorkshire accent) as the British PM.
Following his multiple roles in the crude but entertaining Barry McKenzie movies, Barry Humphries takes on the dual role of scientist Dr Anderson (sporting a great whistling speech pediment) and an ‘Australian TV lady’ who bears an uncanny resemblance to his Moonee Ponds housewife, Edna Everage. Judy Geeson, meanwhile, has a very odd role as Dr Anderson's overly cheery assistant who become instrumental in reversing the drug's sterility factor.
Interestingly, author Raymond Hitchcock ended up publishing a novel based on Sid Colin’s screenplay, while the film’s theme tune ‘God Knows I Miss You’ was co-written by The Seekers’ Keith Potger and Tony Macaulay, who had a string of hits for the likes of Long John Baldry and The Hollies.
EMI Films originally released the film in the UK in August 1974, but it took another two years before a US distribution was announced. Retitled, It’s Not the Size That Counts, trimmed by 90-minutes, and with additional scenes of a penis transplant and a dwarf (played by one-time Ewok, Luis De Jesus) tacked on, the film was eventually released Stateside in November 1978. You can watch a US TV trailer below.
THE UK HD RELEASE
Released as part of Network's British Film collection, Percy’s Progress gets a brand-new high definition transfer from the original film elements, in its original aspect ratio, and in both Blu-ray and DVD formats. The special features include original theatrical trailers, image gallery and promotional material (pdf).
I'm so excited about Arrow Film's forthcoming UK Blu-ray release of The Complete Dr Phibes, that I thought I'd treat you with a look at the cover art. Roll on 9 June...
The Greatest Terror Tale Ever Told!
16th-century Spanish nobleman Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price) is a haunted man: he fears his late wife Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) was prematurely interred and now stalks his gloomy seaside castle as a vengeful spirit. But he’s mistaken. Elizabeth is very much alive and is using a childhood trauma – Nicholas witnessed his mother being entombed alive by his inquisitor father as a child – to drive him insane. But her sick plan works only too well – Nicholas goes over the edge and becomes his own raving mad father, which puts the lives of Elizabeth’s brother Francis (John Kerr) and the rest Medina household in mortal peril…
Bring me my pendulum, kiddies! Roger Corman’s second stab at Edgar Allan Poe, 1961’s Pit and the Pendulum, is a wilder, darker, more violent ride than the previous year’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Aiming to repeat that film’s success, Corman used the same team and stylistic design, even the same story. But he ended up crafting a Gothic masterpiece that’s definitely its own beast and another commercial success in his Poe/Price cycle of films.
Again Richard Matheson was called on to flesh out Poe’s original 1842 tale, which essentially was a monologue about the torments suffered by a prisoner at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. While not pure Poe (you have to watch the great extra on this release for that), the film certainly has a Poe-esque atmosphere about it: all dread and madness draped in mauve cobwebs and rococo furnishings.
Floyd Crosby captures this with some wildly fluid camerawork and rich colour cinematography, while Daniel Haller’s art direction comes to satanic fore in the scenes involving the titular rat-infested pit and blood stained pendulum (which was 18ft-long and weighed over a ton). Les Baxter’s minimal electronic score, meanwhile, lends the film a schizophrenic air – beginning with the film’s lurid liquid sky opening titles, which makes you think you are entering a terrifying acid trip.
While Crosby’s camera has full reign of Haller’s superb castle interiors, Vincent Price really lets loose with a performance that’s become as iconic as the film’s nightmarish set-pieces. Watching him go from morbidly depressed to murderously deranged while spewing Matheson’s fruity dialogue is a hoot. It’s also what made audiences want to come back year after year. If 1960's House of Usher officially launched Price's Master of Menace persona, Pit and the Pendulum most certainly crowned him the new king of Horror. This was what seeing ‘a Vincent Price’ movie was all about.
Price, whose first appearance in the film is ‘like a ghost in an amusement park funhouse’ according to Tim Lucas in his audio commentary, certainly outshines the likes of the stiff John Kerr (who later ditched acting to become a doctor), Luana Anders (who looks lovely, but that’s all) and Antony Carbone (who looks too much like Kerr to bother with), while Barbara Steele shows her mettle as the new horror queen with her sleek feline-like performance as Price’s scheming ‘dead’ wife. While some critics felt Price overdid it, director Corman thought his star was on the mark: ‘He was able to convey the intensity and the madness of the character, bringing it to its fullest extent without going over the top’.
[SPOILER'S AHEAD] The sequences which follow Price being lured down into the crypt to the grisly, heart-stopping finale (Steele gets locked up in an iron maiden, Kerr is almost cut in half by the razor-sharp pendulum, and Price tumbles into the pit) are the film’s visual highlights. And the final shots of Price glaring up out of the pit with his dead eyes open and Steele’s eyes peering helplessly from within the iron maiden have stayed with me for years. They also had a huge impact on other fans, including director John Landis, who said: 'It scared the shit out of me! The ending is amazing… I’ve deliberately never seen that movie again. Not so much because it scared me, but because I know it couldn’t possibly be that good, you know?'
On its original release, the film, which was made in just 15 days on a budget of US$300,000, earned close to US$2million and became a hit with both critics and audiences alike, with the plaudits ranging from ‘a physically stylish, imaginatively photographed horror film’ (Variety) to ‘a thoroughly creepy sequence of horrors’ (New Yorker) and - my favourite - 'Engagingly cornball insanity-in-the-castle hokum, with Vincent Price in fine eyeball-rolling, scenery-chomping form.' (Joe Dante, Castle of Frankenstein). Even American International Pictures chief, Sam Arkoff praised it, saying: ‘I thought it was really good – the best of the Poes’.
THE ARROW BLU-RAY RELEASE Arrow Video's high definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation is transferred from original film elements by MGM, featuring original uncompressed PCM mono audio, optional isolated music and effects track and optional English SDH subtitles. According to the experts over at DVD Beaver, its a robust transfer with a much higher bitrate than the US Shout! Factory edition, smoother and superior, supporting an excellent 1080P image despite some frame-specific damage, while the replication of the original production audio has noticeable depth.
THE EXTRAS
• In Roger Corman’s audio commentary (which is also on the Shout! Factory Blu-ray release), the maverick producer/director looks back at the making of the film, revealing the visual tricks he employed in his ‘Freudian-inspired’ horror. Who knew that doors represent the vagina and the dark corridors are an initiation into sexuality? You’ll certainly read the film differently after listening to this.
• The other audio commentary, by Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas (*), is packed with juicy nuggets (I always wondered why those castle matt shots ended up in The Monkees). And when it comes to the film’s technical minutia, Lucas really knows his stuff. Film buffs will lap this up.
• Behind the Swinging Blade – This new documentary on the making of The Pit and the Pendulum features interviews with Roger Corman, Barbara Steele and Victoria Price, while director Brian Yunza, who is a big fan of the film, also pops up. (43-min)
• Added TV Sequence – Shot in 1968 for the longer TV cut, this scene features star Luana Anders and is set in an asylum. Its a real curio, but for the life of me, I couldn't work out where it would have been placed in the storyline. If you know, please enlighten me. (5-min)
• An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe – This terrific 1970 TV special, shot on video, gave Vincent Price the chance to do Poe unplugged, reciting The Tell-Tale Heart, The Sphinx, The Cask of Amontillado and The Pit and the Pendulum as he always wanted to do. The transfer quality here is on par with the 2003 MGM DVD release. But did you know, the period costumes were all designed by Price's second wife, Mary? (53-min. With optional English SDH)
• Original Trailer
• Limited Edition SteelBook packaging featuring original artwork (SteelBook only)
• Reversible sleeve featuring artwork by Gilles Vranckx (Amaray release only)
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by author Jonathan Rigby, illustrated with original archive stills
(*) Tim Lucas is also co-author of The Man With The Kaleidoscope Eyes: an original screenplay about Roger Corman and the filming of The Trip, which Joe Dante is in line to direct.
Additional sources: The Films of Roger Corman: Shooting My Way Out of Trouble, Alan Frank, 1998
Arrow Film's UK Blu-ray release of The Complete Dr. Phibes, which is due out on 9 June 2014, will come with a 100-page booklet and here's a sneaky peek at what's inside...
Here's an official statement from Arrow regarding the delayed UK Blu-ray release...
It looks like Lionhart has been up to his old tricks again. This
morning we were made aware of an issue with one of the special features
(A Harmony for Horror) which contains some very unfortunate glitches and
errors. These issue were caused by a manufacturing error at the
factory whereby during the mux a glitch was introduced when the data was
prepared for pressing. This occurred after the project had been
thoroughly QCed and signed off by us so we are investigating this
unfortunate error with our suppliers to ensure this does not happen
again.
Due to this incident we are having to push the release date for Theatre of Blood back to the 19th May at the earliest, this will allow us good time to recall all of the affected stock and press new discs.
For those of you that have ordered direct from us and have already
received a copy of the film we will be sending out replacement discs to
you in due course so please do keep checking back for updates on this.
If you have recently ordered this title from our store but it has not
yet shipped, your copy will be sent once we have the corrected stock.
We thank you all in advance for your patience and understanding and we
hope to have this situation rectified as soon as we possibly can.
It was on October 23 1993, 20 years ago today, that we lost a legend - Vincent Price, and what better way to celebrate his life and career than in the timely release of The Vincent Price Collection on Bu-ray. While us in the UK will be waiting for the eventual release this side of the pond, US fans and those lucky enough to own multi-player systems can savour four Corman/Poe films as well two ultimate classics, Witchfinder General and The Abominable Dr Phibes from October 22 2013. Available from Amazon or direct from Shout! Factory. Here's what's also included alongside the pristine HD prints of the films.
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary with Roger Corman
• Vincent Price Retrospective Commentary with author Lucy Chase Williams featuring Pitor Michael as the voice of Vincent Price
• Audio interview with Vincent Price by historian David Del Valle
• Theatrical Trailer
•Still Gallery
THE HAUNTED PALACE
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary by author Lucy Chase Williams and Richard Heft
• Audio Commentary by author Tom Weaver
• A Change of Poe- an interview with director Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary by author Steve Haberman
• Interview with Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Rare Prologue
• Audio Commentary with Roger Corman
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
WITCHFINDER GENERAL
• Vintage and rare Introduction and final words from Vincent Price
• Audio Commentary with producer Philip Waddilove and actor Ian Ogilvy
• Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves’ Horror Classic
• Vintage Interview with Vincent Price conducted by David Del Valle (1987)
• Vincent and Victoria: an Interview with Victoria Price
• Theatrical Trailer
• Additional Vincent Price Theatrical Trailers
• Still Gallery
THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES
• Audio Commentary with director Robert Fuest
• Audio Commentary with author Justin Humphreys
• Introductory Price: Undertaking “The Vincent Price Gothic Horrors”
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the iconic 1958 sci-fi on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday 16 September. To check out my full review, why not head over to my new film review blog, Kultguy's Keep. Just click here to find out more.
THE LOWDOWN
At the end of the 1950s, rubber suit monsters were the mainstay of
American horror films, while over the pond Hammer was packing cinemas
with their full-blooded restaging of the Frankenstein and Dracula
characters. Indie maverick Roger Corman
quickly followed suit, combining America’s answer to the gothic, Edgar
Allen Poe, CinemaScope and his trump card, Vincent Price.
The
result was this minor masterpiece, which stays faithful to Poe as it
tells the story of Roderick Usher (played by Price as a white haired,
ashen faced aesthete, decked in a blood red robe) who longs for an end to
his family’s curse which has impregnated the very walls of his
crumbling mansion and has distorted his psyche and that of his sister -
which is chillingly echoed in the line: 'The slightest touch and we may shatter'.
Price
gives an intentionally concentrated, eerie and sad turn here and lends
the film a mellifluous quality that brings to life Corman's Freudian take on Poes
themes of inner corruption. It was a performance that
would solidify Price’s new status as the crown prince of horror - that
had kicked in while he was working on William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler - and which makes this film so chillingly memorable over half a century on.
Richard Matheson's intelligent script is enhanced by Floyd Crosby's atmospheric widescreen cinematography, whose psychedelic scenes tapped into the counter-culture movement of the day, while Daniel Haller
makes the hired-in Universal sets look even more sumptuous. Coupled
with Corman’s whip-smart direction and quick turnaround (the film was
shot in 15 days), a rousing Les Baxter score and Price’s star quality, the style established here would be carried over in seven more Poe films, ending with The Tomb of Ligeia
in 1964. But they would never have been made had Usher not set the
box-office alight, which it did - earning in excess of $1 million back from its
$250,000 budget ($50,000 of which was Price’s fee) when it premiered in
the US on 18 June 1960.
THE ARROW VIDEO RELEASE
In a world first, Arrow
presents a Region B HD Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the feature,
transferred and restored using the original film elements by MGM and
original uncompressed 2.0 Mono PCM Audio. Optional SDH subtitles.
THE EXTRAS
• The Roger Corman audio commentary is the same as on the previous MGM
DVD release, but the maestro is still a joy to listen to. (79:19)
• Legend to Legend Director Joe Dante gives his thoughts on the film and on working with Corman. (26:47)
• Gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby provides an informative insight
into the history of the film, and on Corman and Price. (32:58)
• Fragments of the House of Usher
This video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns is a super little
film studies analysis. I never knew the original story had gay
overtones or that the film was ‘the perfect marriage of the oneric to
the economic?’ (10:47)
• This French interview with Vincent Price
has popped up on other DVD releases, but the transfer here is the best
yet. It was shot at Price’s Malibu cottage in July 1986, the same year
that he was doing The Great Mouse Detective for Disney, which
was one of his last best performances. Ever the consummate raconteur, he
provides the interviewer with some wonderful quotes, like the
following, about why his horror films have stood the test of time.
(11:26)
‘The
secret of those films and why they have lasted so well is that you
scream at the terror of them, but then you find yourself ridiculous for
having screamed and you laugh at yourself, maybe that’s the clue to
life.’
• Unrestored US trailer with the most hilarious copy writing ever: 'The screen's foremost delineator of the Draculean!' (2:30)
• Reversible sleeve on the standard release, featuring artwork by Graham Humphreys.
• Booklet featuring Tim Lucas essay, Vincent Price autobiography extract, archive stills and posters.
BLU-RAY GRABS
DID YOU KNOW?
The opening shot of Mark Damon riding towards the Usher mansion through
a bleak, blackened wilderness of charred trees, ash and fog was
achieved by Corman filming the sequence in the aftermath of a forest
fire that had torched part of the Hollywood Hills just prior to filming.
On 26 August 2013, Arrow Video releases the UK
Blu-ray debut of Roger Corman’s 1960s American gothic horror classic The Fall of the House of Usher.
The special features included are as follows:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p)
presentation of the feature, transferred and restored using the original film elements by MGM.
- Original uncompressed 2.0 Mono PCM Audio.
- Optional English SDH subtitles for the
deaf and hard of hearing.
- Audio commentary with director and
producer Roger Corman.
- Legend to Legend: An interview with
director and former Corman apprentice Joe Dante.
- Interview with author and Gothic horror
expert Jonathan Rigby.
- Fragments of the House of Usher: A
Specially-commissioned video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns
examining Corman’s film in relation to Poe’s story.
- Archival interview with Vincent Price.
- Original Trailer.
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and
newly commissioned artwork by Graham
Humphreys [Standard Release only].
- Collector’s booklet featuring new writing
on the film by author and critic Tim Lucas and an extract from Vincent Price’s
long out of print autobiography, illustrated with original archive stills and
posters.
To celebrate the release, here's some fantastic stills to savour. Enjoy!
Just received news that Fox has set a September release date for The Fly on Blu-ray (10 September in the US, 16 September in the UK). The last time this 1950's classic was released was back in 2007 on DVD in a box-set that included the two sequels and a bonus disc. This HD upgrade will include most of those bonus features (see below), but just the original 1958 film. Not sure yet what the extras are on the UK version.
BONUS FEATURES:
Audio Commentary with Actor David Hedison and Film Historian David Del Valle
Vincet Price Biography Documentary
Vincent Price Featurette Fly Trap: Catching a Classic
Fox Movietone News
Thanks to Dread Central, here's the print sell sheet for the forthcoming US Blu-ray 3D release of House of Wax which will be priced at US$35.99 and due for release on 1 October. But no news yet whether it will be just NTSC or region free.
Special Features
House of Wax: Unlike Anything You've Ever Seen Before featurette (NEW)
