Bernds, Edward

The Fly Collection (The Fly [1958] / Return Of The Fly / The Curse Of The Fly)

A bonafide must-have for classic science fiction fans, The Fly Collection brings together the original 1958 chiller with Return of the Fly and Curse of the Fly, its 1959 and 1965 sequels, respectively, and treats fans to a wealth of terrific supplemental features and improved image quality. Kurt Neumann's The Fly has lost little of its punch in the 50 years since its release; though it lacks the visceral shock of David Cronenberg's 1986 remake, James Clavell's script expands upon the original source material by author George Langelaan with a maturity and depth that was rarely seen in movie science fiction from the period, and the performances by Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, and David Hedison (billed as Al Hedison) as the ill-fated scientist whose experiments with matter transferal leave him with the human-sized head of a fly (one of the indelible images of '50s sci-fi) are tightly reined and believable. Quickly generated to cash in on The Fly's box office windfall, Return of the Fly is decidedly less solid than its predecessor--it's a basic retread of the original, with Brett Halsey as Hedison's son making the same mistake as his father--but as pure B-movie entertainment, it delivers the goods, and the returning Vincent Price lends his usual air of credibility. The final entry in the Fly franchise, the little-seen Curse of the Fly, makes its U.S. DVD debut with this set; it's pulpy fun at best, but genre veteran Don (Hammer's Kiss of the Vampire) Sharp brings some surprising moments of surrealism to the proceedings, most notably in the hallucinatory opening sequence (Carole Gray flees the grounds of a dark estate clad only in her white undergarments) and its parade of horrific failed genetic experiments.

The Fly Collection offers all three films in single discs (each featuring reproductions of the films' original poster art), as well as a fourth disc, The Disc of Horrors, which provides a barrage of related extras. Image-wise, the look of the films is top-notch; The Fly is a marked improvement over the 2000 DVD release, with the rich DeLuxe colors and vivid detail of the original CinemaScope presentation receiving a marvelous showcase. Even the lesser quality of Return and Curse's black-and-white lensing looks crisp and largely spot-free. Sound is also superior (Fly is Dolby Digital 4.0, and Return and Curse have Dolby Digital monaural and Dolby Digital Stereo options), and Hedison is featured in a commentary on Fly that's filled with production reminiscences. The Disc of Horrors is the real treat in the set; not only is Price's 1997 profile from A&E's Biography series included, but there's also Fly Trap: Catching a Classic, a solid overview of all three films featuring Hedison and Halsey, as well as film historians David Del Valle and Donald F. Glut, among others (some of the pertinent details are also covered in the set's insert booklet). Theatrical trailers for each film (and TV spots for Return and Curse), reproductions of the original pressbooks (which can be viewed in detail), domestic and international lobby cards, promotional photos (the best of which is a shot of Hedison in full fly makeup listening patiently to co-star Patricia Owens), and a 1958 newsreel that covered the first Fly's premiere in San Francisco. -Paul Gaita

Includes:Disc 1: THE FLY 1958Disc 2: THE RETURN OF THE FLY 1959Disc 3: THE CURSE OF THE FLY 1965Disc 4: BONUS DISCFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY/FANTASY UPC: 024543462026 Manufacturer No: 2246202

The Three Stooges Meet Hercules

Very much in the tradition of such Columbia Three Stooges period shorts as "Back to the Woods," the 1962 costume epic The Three Stooges Meet Hercules is 100% pure Moe-Larry-Curly Joe comedy, with the barest of a ho- hum love interest to detract from the nonsense at hand. Working at the pharmacy of an ill-tempered boss (George N. Neise) and friends of a budding time-machine inventor named Schuyler (Quinn Redeker), the Stooges and Schuyler, along with the obligatory attractive female, Diana (Vicki Trickett), are transported back to the time of Hercules. Here the legendary hero (Samson Burke) is the enforcer for King Odius (Neise in a double role), and anachronisms are rampant in an English-speaking ancient Greece.

Twice condemned as galley slaves, the Stooges see that Schuyler now has the muscles but not the self-confidence to rescue Diana and the rest of Greece from the odious Odius. Schuyler is tricked into thinking himself all-powerful and performs many Herculean labors (with many a stuffed animal and some decent backscreen projection).

Although Curly Joe seems a few notches above his namesake in the brains department (which is not saying all that much), his reactions at times of real and supposed danger are quite ordinary compared with the old Curly. In fact, it is Moe who takes on the Curly bark at a recalcitrant prop. But the old sound effects are there to punctuate blows to belly and head, although eye pokes are out, due to parental objections to the influence of the trio, newly popular on television. --Frank Behrens

The Three Stooges hop in a time machine and are transported to the era of the Roman Legion in Greece. Dressed in sandals and togas they are trapped on a galley ship battle cyclops and wind up in a madcap chariot chase. Former professional football players and real-life twins Mike and Marlin McKeever are along for the ride playing a Siamese-twin cyclops.System Requirements:Running Time: 89 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396114456 Manufacturer No: 11445

The Three Stooges DVD Collection (Curly Classics / Spook Louder / All the World's a Stooge)

Includes 3 Classic Stooges DVDs:

Curly Classics : Fun with The Three Stooges in six zany episodes: "A Plumbing We Will Go", "Men In Black", "Micro-Phonies", "Punch Drunks", "Three Little Pigskins" and "Woman Haters."

All the World's a Stooge: Includes these hilarious episodes: "Grips, Grunts and Groans", "All the World's a Stooge," "3 Dumb Clucks," "Three Little Pirates," "Uncivil War Birds," "Back to the Woods" and "Violent is the Word for Curly."

Spook Louder: Digital mayhem ensues in this spooktacular selection of the trio's six funniest fear fests: "Spook Louder", "Mummy's Dummies", "Shivering Sherlocks", "The Ghost Talks", "Hokus Pokus", and "Fright Night."

Queen of Outer Space

"A must for all B-movie fanatics" (Video Movie Guide) Male astronauts crash-land on an all-female planet Venus. Zsa Zsa Gabor's most famous movie role. Year: 1958 Director: Edward Bernds Starring: Zsa Zsa Gabor Eric Fleming Dave WillockRunning Time: 80 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 085391145103 Manufacturer No: 114510

Cult Camp Classics 1 - Sci-Fi Thrillers (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman 1958 / Giant Behemoth / Queen of Outer Space)

One woman - 25 pairs of shoes?!? It's impossible not to have fun with this all-time kitsch classic which as fans know is actually about a very big woman with a very bad attitude. The woman is wealthy Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes) fresh from the looney bin and ticked off. Her rat of a husband (William Hudson) has been at play while the feline's away putting the moves on Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers Playboy's Miss July 1959) and scheming about the day when Nancy's fortune will be theirs. That day will never come - not after Nancy has an alien encounter that zaps her metabollism into overdrive. Soon Nancy's size matches her rage. She'll prove big girls don't cry they get even.Running Time: 236 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 085391145219 Manufacturer No: 114521

Featuring three enjoyably "awful" movies from 1958-59, Cult Camp Classics, Vol. 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers turns nuclear radiation into cause for celebration, especially if you enjoy movies with extra cheese. With the Cold War in full swing and society's worries blamed on the threat of nuclear annihilation, sci-fi buffs (like future filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and John Landis) could see a new monster movie almost every week. Many of them came from Allied Artists, the low-budget B-movie production company (formerly Monogram) that rose from the ghetto of "poverty row" distribution to produce countless exploitation thrillers between 1946 and 1979. The '50s saw the rise of nuclear monster thrillers, and Allied popularized the trend with its own menagerie of giant, irradiated creatures. The key to Allied's success was its crowd-pleasing combination of exploitable ingredients, and what better way to combine sci-fi, sex, and horror than to unleash a towering babe with an attitude problem? That's exactly what Allied did with Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, a now-classic campfest in which a spurned wife (Allison Hayes) is irradiated by a glowing alien space-ball, grows to a height of (you guessed it), and exacts revenge upon her cheating husband (William Hudson). A year before she bared her shapely backside as Playboy's Playmate of the Month for July 1959, Yvette Vickers costars as Hudson's scheming mistress, giving the film an extra boost of sex appeal. With bargain-priced effects including a giant floppy-fingered hand, hilarious process shots, and cheesy models destroyed by the world's biggest bitch (for whom it is still possible to feel some sympathetic compassion), the movie's not as good as its celebrated poster (which now adorns movie-geek T-shirts around the world), but it's still a lot of fun.

The Giant Behemoth was director Eugene Lourie's obvious attempt to capitalize on his 1953 hit The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, starring a gigantic paleosaurus rising from the Atlantic with a bad case of atomic radiation. London is the monster's eventual stomping ground, but the lumbering lizard is camera-shy for nearly an hour; you can imagine Beaver Cleaver and his pals groaning through seemingly endless scenes of talky exposition, anxiously awaiting the climactic stop-motion creature effects supervised by the legendary Willis (King Kong) O'Brien. Scoring much higher on the camp-o-meter, and far more entertaining, is the cult classic Queen of Outer Space, which borrows props and costumes from Forbidden Planet, Flight to Mars and World Without End for its outrageously kitschy plot about manly astronauts who crash-land on Venus and discover an underground society of mini-skirted space-babes. Unfortunately the disfigured Venusian queen (Laurie Mitchell) is a man-hater supreme, so the spectacularly costumed Zsa Zsa Gabor (as a Venusian scientist, no less) leads a revolution against her. With a screenplay by Twilight Zone veteran Charles Beaumont and a story credited (almost incredibly) to legendary playwright/screenwriter Ben Hecht (who surely never suspected his idea would eventually yield this movie), Queen of Outer Space is exactly what you'd expect it to be: So bad it's good, and more than worthy of inclusion in this irresistibly priced triple-feature set. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVDs
Three feature-length commentaries accompany the sci-fi thrillers in Cult Camp Classics, Vol. 1. Two of the commentaries are hosted by Tom Weaver, a noted authority on sci-fi and horror films whose historical acumen is more casual than academic: While sharing the commentary on Queen of Outer Space with the film's titular star Laurie Mitchell (who became a mainstay at fan conventions at Weaver's invitation), Weaver fails to explain how the production came to use props and costumes from the classic Forbidden Planet, and that's a glaring oversight. He compensates as an amiable interviewer with the equally good-natured Mitchell, and it's a treat to hear them enthusiastically reading unfilmed scenes from the film's original screenplay. For the commentary on Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, Weaver is joined by the film's comely costar Yvette Vickers (another regular at sci-fi conventions), and their combined anecdotes provide an adequate oral history of this camp-classic production. Star Wars veterans and special-effects masters Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett provide the loose-and-lazy commentary on The Giant Behemoth, which consists mostly of Muren making sarcastic jokes about the film's glacial pacing. It's hardly the authoritative commentary that some fans might've hoped for, but Muren and Tippett are well-versed in special-effects history (Muren even owns the original stop-motion Behemoth creature model), and they share an infectious enthusiasm for the films that inspired them to excel in their profession. --Jeff Shannon

The Three Stooges - Spook Louder

Spook Louder(1943)Traveling salesmen The Three Stooges meet their toughest customers when an inventor hires them to guard his spooky home while he is away. Things get really grim when three spies disguised as monsters show up.Mummy s Dummies(1948)The Smiling Egyptian is a used-chariot lot run by the Stooges in ancient Egypt. Business is booming until they make the mistake of selling a lemon to the chief of the palace guard which lands them in hot water with the king.Shivering Sherlocks (1947)When an armored car robber strikes the Stooges are rounded up for interrogation. A café owner vouches for them and they are freed but it isn t long before they come face-to-face with the bloodthirsty robber and his hatchet man.The Ghost Talks(1949 Portuguese audio not available)The Stooges have a job to do but it isn t going to be easy. Their job is to remove a suit of armor from the Smorgasbord Castle. The problem? The armor doesn t want to leave until the ghost of Lady Godiva are turns for their rendezvous!Hokus Pokus(1949)A beautiful con artist uses Moe Larry and Shemp as character references in her scheme to defraud an insurance company. But when a famed hypnotist casts a spell on the Stooges no one can insure what happens next.Fright Night(1947)In Shemp s first short as a member of the Stooges the three are trainers at Muscle Manor a macho gym for boxers. When a gangster threatens them they use cream puffs including a live one! to soften their champ up for losing.System Requirements:Starring: Moe Howard Larry Fine Curly Howard and Shemp Howard. Running Time: 104 Min. B&W. This film is presented in "Standard" format. Copyright 2000 Columbia TriStar Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396054271 Manufacturer No: 05427

The Three Stooges: The Three Stooges in Orbit

Moe Larry and Joe star as the Three Stooges in this science-fiction farce that has a pair of Martians trying to steal an all-powerful submarine-tank-rocket military weapon. As the Martians are flying away with it the Stooges hang on and force it to crash-land in a television studio.System Requirements:Running Time: 87 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396018709 Manufacturer No: 01870

The Three Stooges in Orbit has the team playing not only themselves but themselves trying to make it big on a television show. Since they keep breaking leases by cooking in their apartments, they rent a room in a spooky castle that houses not only a wacky professor (played by "the fourth Stooge," Emil Sitka, veteran of many a Stooge short) and his pretty daughter, but a pair of Martians who are waiting for him to perfect his latest invention and use it to conquer the Earth. After an old situation-device in which the craft is too large to leave the workroom, the Stooges make a trip into space that adds nothing to the plot, and finally defeat the invaders by hoisting them on their own petard. The usual chase routine is replaced here by a fairly well done sequence in which the team is outside the craft trying to thwart the two Martians locked inside the craft, while a death ray is wiping out most of California. (The use of stock footage from other monster-invasion films is unintentionally hilarious.)

The love interest, deemed so necessary in films aimed at young audiences, is brief and tinged with mild comedy. The Martian make-up is obviously based on the original Frankenstein head shape, and it is a relief to hear them speak in some babble other than English as subtitles "translate" for us. In fact, the cleverest bit in this film is Moe's reading a subtitle to learn of the proposed destruction of this planet--a gag worthy of Mel Brooks. The film reveals its age when the chief Martian bangs his boot on the table in the manner of Khrushchev and his shoe at the United Nations. But the only real weaknesses are Curly Joe's fright reactions, so much funnier when done by Curly or Shemp in the past. --Frank Behrens

The Three Stooges - Three Stooges in History

Five shorts starring "The Three Stooges":

Squareheads of the Round Table (1948) Moe, Larry and Shemp are three royal troubadours who are enlisted by Cedric the Blacksmith to win the heart of Princess Elaine who is set to marry the Black Prince with a serenade. But their plan hits a sour note when the Stooges and Cedric are arrested and sentenced to death.

I'm a Monkey's Uncle (1948) Cavemen Larry, Moe and Shemp find themselves in an un-bear-able situation when they steal the girlfriends of nearby cavemen, who declare war in retaliation. The Stooges fight back with an arsenal of inventive weapons, proving the animals aren't the only things that are wild around there.

Restless Knights (1935) Almost immediately after the queen hires Larry, Moe and Curly to be her bodyguards, she is abducted, which provides Prince Boris with the perfect opportunity to be rid of them once and for all. Facing execution, the Stooges fight for their lives and wind up en garde for a regal victory.

Matri-phony (1942) It's a bad case of Stoogeus Interruptus when potters Mohicus, Larrycus and Curlycue let Diana seek refuge from Emperor Octopus Grabus in their shop. They're arrested, but when Curlycue disguises himself as Diana, the Emperor's passion is unlocked and they find themselves on the run from jail and the altar.

Fiddlers Three (1948) The Stooges can be a royal pain in the -- well, you know -- but sometimes they're the butts of the joke. Moeth, Larryeth and Shempeth are royal fiddlers who become the targets of an evil magician when they try to rescue their noble ruler's daughter, whom he has abducted.

The Three Stooges - Stooges and the Law

Five Three Stooges shorts:

Idiots Delux: Testifying from the witness stand, Moe defends himself against Larry and Curly's accusations that he attacked them while camping out in the woods, claiming they were responsible for frazzling his already frazzled nerves.

Pop Goes the Easel: The Stooges paint themselves into a corner when they hide from a cop in an art school. Accused of stealing brooms from a shopkeeper, they're actually innocent of that crime...but now they're guilty of creating some really bad art.

The Three Trouble Doers: The Old West wilder than ever when the Stooges are enforcing the law. After Blackie kidnaps Nell's pappy to force her to marry him, Sheriff Curly and Deputies Moe and Larry will have only until sundown to save the day.

Yes, We Have No Bonanza : Larry, Moe and Curly strike pay dirt - literally - while prospecting for gold to pay off their girlfriends' father's debt to Maxey, the wicked saloon owner they all work for. But when they find out the money is Mazey's stolen loot, it's payback time.

In the Sweet Pie and Pie: The Mushroom Murder Mob - Larry, Moe and Curly - are to be hanged in twenty-four hours, and three lovely ladies have a midnight deadline to marry or lose a $10 million inheritance. But even though the Stooges are pardoned after the nuptials, they're not exactly free.

The Fly (1958)/Return of the Fly (1959)

The plot device is so damned great that it simply had to be revisited: a scientist invents a device that transmits matter by disintegrating it in one chamber and reintegrating it in another. When he attempts to transmit his own body, he accidentally allows a fly into the chamber, and the resulting man-insect hybrid runs rampant across the Canadian countryside. Philippe, the son of that ill-fated scientist, is told the family history by a benevolent uncle (an oddly prim Vincent Price); possessed with the scientific will-to-know, he becomes determined to re-create his father's experiments. The legendarily silly costuming of the original Fly returns, and with it, the perplexing logic of transmogrification--it becomes difficult to decipher which of the man-insect hybrids we're meant to understand as possessing Phillipe's agency. The film is hampered by the lack of a strong female lead, and by performances by all principals that are disappointingly modern in their clear motivation and restraint. Almost normal--even by modern standards--Return of the Fly represents an interesting bridging piece between the arty, abstract, symbolist sci-fi aesthetic of the early '50s and the naturalist, highly mimetic, realist style that quickly came to dominate the genre. --Miles Bethany