Eburne, Maude

To Be or Not to Be

Just as Roberto Benigni found himself on the receiving end of some finger-wagging for making a comedy set during the Holocaust, so the great Ernst Lubitsch caught some heat for this extraordinary 1942 satire set behind enemy lines during World War II. In his best performance on film, Jack Benny stars as Joseph Tura, the lead actor and head of a Polish theater troupe that is suddenly enlisted as a Resistance organization when an American pilot (Robert Stack) requires protection. The twist is that the pilot has been having a series of trysts with Tura's wife (Carole Lombard), the hilarious evidence being the disruptive departure of Stack's character from a theater audience each night as the hammy Tura unknowingly cues the lovers by launching into Hamlet's famous soliloquy. The remarkable script by Edwin Justus Mayer ingeniously folds the tensions of a betrayed marriage into the comic suspense surrounding Tura and company's efforts to pull off a Mission: Impossible-like sting on the local Nazi command. Many unforgettable moments and lines of dialogue adorn this black comedy, and the performances--most memorably Sig Ruman's crisp volleys with Benny--are a dream. Above it all, however, is Lubitsch's unmistakable Continentalism, his accent on Old World manners especially in a dangerous situation, suggesting the Nazis' very vulgarity was a reflection of their profound evil. --Tom Keogh

Icons of Horror - Boris Karloff (The Boogie Man Will Get You/The Black Room/The Man They Could Not Hang/Before I Hang)

Boris Karloff was to the Horror Movie what Fred Astaire was to the Musical: the epitome of class and style. No matter how grisly the circumstances he d rise above them with talent poise and even charm. And here for the first time on DVD are four of his finest chillers from his peak years in the 1930s and 1940s all demonstrating his amazing range. In The Black Room he plays twin brothers one good one evil naturally in a small country where beautiful women seem to turn up missing. The Man They Could Not Hang and Before I Hang present him in his classic Mad Doctor persona as forward-thinking scientists who run afoul of the law and become crazed killers. And in The Boogie Man Will Get You he sends up that image in a delightful farce that also stars Peter Lorre (M) and Larry Parks (The Jolson Story). It s a collection all fervent classic-horror fans have been eagerly waiting for!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 043396162334 Manufacturer No: 16233

Boris Karloff made his fame during the great horror cycle at Universal Pictures in the 1930s, but he also flaunted his iconic status at other studios. At Columbia, Karloff etched a handful of good mad doctor roles (notably The Devil Commands, available on a separate DVD) and other oddities. Four of these mostly low-budget pictures are gathered in this two-disc set--which, if not a collection of classics, is nevertheless a real boon for Karloffians.

Although it is called the Icons of Horror Collection, the "horror" is more macabre mood than monster mash. The best (and best-looking) film in the set, 1935's The Black Room, is a wonderfully lurid costume romp with Karloff in a dual role: twin brothers who inherit a baronage but live under a family curse. One is good, one bad, and happily enough, the bad brother has the upper hand. Karloff is in terrific form, and the film features a secret chamber (complete with torture pit) that provides just the right Gothic oomph. Director Roy William Neill later did Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

The Man They Could Not Hang, from 1939, is a solid mad-scientist picture. Karloff's Dr. Savaard has perfected a re-animation process, but the police arrest him before he can revive a student--and so the doctor is sentenced to death for murder. The hanging isn't a problem, not when the doctor's assistant has the process down pat, and now Karloff can take elaborate revenge. Before I Hang (1940) opens a similar vein, with Karloff once again sentenced to death and this time conducting experiments in prison (aided by Edward Van Sloan, filmdom's original Van Helsing). However, using a murderer's blood in the secret serum proves a fatal mistake.... These cheaply-made films are solid enough programmers of the era, and surprisingly literate--although it would be a stretch to call them scary.

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) goes the comedy route, spoofing Karloff's image as a white-haired gentleman who should not be allowed to run experiments in the basement. An Arsenic and Old Lace vibe prevails (Karloff had been starring in the stage production), and the labored comedy has Karloff and Peter Lorre using boarders at an early-American hotel as subjects for experiments. Larry Parks and "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom co-star. Lorre, who's in his slim Maltese Falcon period, is as sly and peculiar as ever; of course, he and Karloff would team up again for more horror-comedy in the 1960s: The Raven and Comedy of Terrors. --Robert Horton

The Princess and the Pirate

Bob Hope is in top form in this Technicolor parody of pirate pictures, doing his best vaudeville shtick as an inept performer trying to save princess Virginia Mayo from the evil clutches of governor Walter Slezak and pirate Victor McLaglen. It's all ridiculous fun, of course, but if you're a fan of Hope, you never tire of his self-effacing gags and double-entendres. His out-of-place show biz jabs were always clever, and they're all the funnier in this period setting--particularly the Bing Crosby jokes. But Walter Brennan nearly steals the film as a wacky pirate scheming to steal buried treasure, and tattooing the map on Hope's chest. Yet the two best routines are when Hope tries to conceal his chest while taking a bath with Slezak, and when he tries to impersonate McLaglen as "the Hook." --Bill Desowitz

The legendary Bob Hope takes to the high seas in this hilarious, OscarÂ(r)-nominated* romantic comedy co-starring Virginia Mayo, Walter Slezak, Walter Brennan and Victor McLaglen! Sylvester the Great (Hope) is a 17th-century entertainer with an act so atrocious, he's exiled from England. Aboard a ship bound for America, he finds himself falling for the beautiful Princess Margaret(Mayo), a woman uninterested in lovenot to mention his lousy one-liners. But when an evil band of pirates attacks the ship and captures the princess, her only hope is the cowardly comedian. Can Sylvester stop cracking jokes and muster the courage to rescue his royal love? In other words, will heand Margaret end up walking down the aisle or walking the plank? *1944: Art Direction (Color); Nonmusical Score

Bat Whispers

One of the truly oddball artifacts of the early talkie era, either a cockeyed fluke or a surrealist masterpiece. Producer-director Roland West had already done a silent film version of The Bat (1926), Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood's creaky stage melodrama about a fiendish criminal haunting a lonely Long Island mansion. The coming of sound cued a remake--now The Bat could whisper as well as skulk. And in a stroke of genius worthy of his mad mastermind, West added yet another dimension: The Bat Whispers would be one of a handful of 1930 features shot in widescreen, with a compositional emphasis on forced perspective and inky shadow play.

The plot is lunacy, but there are images here that seem to have escaped from the collective unconscious. Some of the miniature work, like a plunge down a skyscraper that then tilts and cuts "subliminally" into a real-life street scene, is easy to spot, yet chances are you'll find yourself enchanted all the same. And there's a chase during which the widescreen angles suddenly drop the floor right out from under one character, and you feel it in the pit of your stomach.

Like 1930's other pre-CinemaScope experiments , The Bat Whispers was shot in two versions--the 65mm Magnifilm production and one in the conventional "square" 35mm format. Deprived of the widescreen's radically unsettling asymmetry, West's movie became just another old-dark-house picture. You can see both on the DVD, and compare the standard version against the lustrous widescreen restoration by the UCLA Film and Television Archive (different cameramen, different setups, and occasionally different rhythm and action). On the other hand, why not just click on the real movie and prepare to go batty? --Richard T. Jameson

The Bat, a master criminal who dares the police to catch him, has been terrifying the city. A bank is robbed, and the home of the bank president becomes the center of mysterious happenings. Amidst thrills, chills and laughs, the stolen money is discovered, and the Bat's secret identity is revealed!

The Vampire Bat

Man From Oklahoma

Dawn on the Great Divide

Horror Classics Triple Feature, Vol. 2 (Dr. Syn / King of the Zombies / The Vampire Bat)

Fay Wray Collection

Melody for Three