Raglan, Robert

The One That Got Away

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 11 (Ring of Terror / The Indestructible Man / Tormented / Horrors of Spider Island)

Book your return flight to the Satellite of Love and join Joel, Mike and the 'bots for another fearful foursome of flops in this collection of episodes from the Peabody Award-winning series Mystery Science Theater 3000. First up on Volume 11's menu of muck is Season Two's Ring of Terror, with Joel, Crow and Tom Servo riffing furiously on a half-baked story of fraternity pranks gone wrong; it's partnered with another interminable episode of the Bela Lugosi serial The Phantom Creeps. Next is Season Four's The Indestructible Man, in which Joel performs a frightening imitation of the movie's star, Lon Chaney Jr.; an episode of The Undersea Kingdom is also celebrated with a parade that goes predictably awry. Season Four's Tormented features headless ghosts, a guilt-ridden Richard Carlson, and Joel stuck in a ventilation shaft, plus a day-rescuing round of happy thoughts. And last but not least is Season Ten's Horrors of Spider Island, a German-made monster movie about dancers on a deserted island and a giant spider than transforms their manager into a hideous creature; Mike also undergoes a man-to-spider switcheroo after getting trapped in the 'bots' homemade spider web. For veteran MiSTies and pop culture fanatics, it doesn't get funnier than this.

Extras include theatrical trailers for all of the films save Ring of Terror; a brief interview with Tormented director Bert I. Gordon, his daughter Susan, and star Joseph Turkel, and wrap-arounds from the syndicated Mystery Science Hour, with Mike Nelson as an obsequious Jack Perkins, are also included. However, the best supplement is the second MST3K Jukebox, which compiles some of the show's funniest and most memorable musical numbers, including "Sidehackin',"Joel and the 'bots' garage-rock tribute to The Sidehackers and the incredible "Patrick Swayze Christmas" from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. --Paul Gaita

Tomorrow

Based on the William Faulkner story and featuring one of Robert Duvall's finest performances, Tomorrow was first adapted by Horton Foote for TV's Playhouse 90 in 1960. Eight years later, Foote--whose script for To Kill a Mockingbird provided Duvall's screen debut--presented the same story as an off-Broadway play with Duvall and Olga Bellin in the lead roles, which they reprised in 1971 for this independently produced film.

As with Tender Mercies--which earned Academy Awards for both Foote and Duvall in 1983--Tomorrow tells a simple tale of gentle people, and the sensitive script, direction, and performances offer an enlightening portrait of compassion and unconditional love. Duvall plays Fentry, a Mississippi cotton farmer in the early 1900s who leaves his father's farm to work as the winter watchman of a dormant sawmill. There, he encounters Sarah (Bellin), a pregnant woman abandoned by her husband and suffering from a life-threatening illness. They eventually marry, but inevitably, Fentry (portrayed by Duvall as a kind of holy innocent) alone must raise the woman's child--a good-natured boy whose fate is determined by a heartbreaking claim of familial custody.

The story is framed by a murder trial, the outcome of which leads to the film's resonant and quietly moving conclusion. Like so much of Foote's work, Tomorrow was tailor-made for Duvall, and it has much to say about endurance, integrity, and uncommon decency under difficult circumstances. Directed by Joseph Anthony with an appropriately somber tone, this delicate drama nevertheless offers a wise and uplifting affirmation of the resilient human spirit. For Duvall's many admirers, this is a must-see film. --Jeff Shannon

Starring Robert Duvall in his breakthrough screen role, Tomorrow is a poignant tale based on a short story by William Faulkner, and scripted by Academy Award® winner Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). Duvall is Jackson Fentry, a young man
who leaves his father's farm to work at a local sawmill. Fentry rescues a young pregnant woman, who has been abandoned by her husband and family, and the two fall in love. Shot in black and white to convey the feel of the Depression era, Tomorrow remains the finest screen translation of Faulkner's vision of the South.

Prehistoric Women/The Witches

Horrors of Spider Island

Beat Girl

Before swinging London and the rock & roll explosion took over English youths, Britain's first teen rebel didn't have much of a cause but plenty of attitude. Pouty art-school student Jennifer (teen sex kitten Gillian Hills, looking very much a British Bardot) is the Beat Girl of the title, an alienated teenager who hangs out in coffee shops and underground clubs with beatniks and teddy boys. When her self-absorbed father returns home with a sexy French bride, the picture warps into lurid melodrama as Jennifer tracks a suspicion about her stepmom to a sleazy strip club managed by an even sleazier Christopher Lee, whose salacious desires she realizes too late. Director Edmond T. Greville, a craftsman of the old school, brings an unexpected, edgy grit to the low-budget picture, injecting the callow clichés of lost youth with a nervous energy and a genuine sense of desperation. John Barry's growling score gives the film a rumbling undercurrent, and the cheap, claustrophobic sets (often hiding in darkness) only enhance the sleazy atmosphere. The mix of teenage desperation, rock & roll music, and lurid sensationalism (complete with teasing nudity in the strip club) creates a strange hybrid: a teen exploitation film with a film noir soul. Costar Adam Faith sings a couple of songs and Oliver Reed appears in a few scenes as a drugged-up, funked-out teddy boy. --Sean Axmaker

Prehistoric Women

Deep in the African jungle, great white hunter David Marchant (Michael Latimer) discovers a secret Amazon society where blondes don't have more fun. Captured after trespassing on the sacred grounds of a dangerous tribe of albino-rhino worshippers, he escapes execution by entering a hidden land where women in fur bikinis have enslaved the men, and the brunettes are served by subservient (and quite buxom) blonde slaves. Naturally David falls for cleavage-endowed Saria (Edina Ronay), who believes he is their legendary savior, while the vicious, dark Queen Kari (Martine Beswick) decides to make him her own personal servant to cater to her... every need. Director-producer Michael Carreras (who also wrote the film under the pseudonym "Henry Younger") reused leftover sets from One Million Years B.C. and never leaves the confines of the studio for this campy bit of jungle-woman cheese, which threatens to become overwhelmed by its claustrophobic atmosphere. We get tribal "hoochie-koochie" dances, a Vegas floor show by the blondes, sacrifices to the "devils of the darkness" (with such regularity you have to wonder how they haven't run out of candidates), and Queen Kari takes a milk bath à la Cleopatra. Beswick is the only performer who hits the right note of overheated melodrama; the other cast members seem to be taking this goofy claptrap far more seriously than it deserves. Beware the white rhinoceros! --Sean Axmaker

Horrors Of Spider Island

Eight beautiful women alone with the world's most hideous monster! Eight sexy showgirls and their macho manager survive a plane crash and take refuge on a remote tropical island. As the gals adjust to the heat and humidity by shedding most of their clothes they also meet one of their new neighbors: a dead scientist found caught in a giant web. Ignoring the obvious testosterone-fueled Gary blithely takes a midnight stroll until he's bitten by an overgrown crab-like spider and immediately transforms into a clawed fanged hairy-faced bogeyman who does exactly what monsters in horror films are supposed to do: chase women!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 014381973921 Manufacturer No: ID9739SWDVD

The One That Got Away [Region 2]