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Annie Mall wrote:Anyone have any idea why Mondo Candido wasn't included on the original Mondo Cane box? It looks interesting to say the least!

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0198769/

Probably because it's not one of their 'shockumentaries,' which wouldn't be fitting with the theme of the box set. Perhaps if you e-mail them they might consider it for individual release.

I would love to know the reason. We can see glimpses of it on the extra disc of the Mondo Cane box that features the Godfathers of Mondo documentary - it's near the end and it was the last colaborative work between Jacopetti and Prospieri - and it really, really looks amazing.

There's someone selling it on ebay but I would love to see an official release of it. I still find it strange that Blue Underground ultimately decided to leave it off the set - it feels somewhat incomplete without it. And as for it not being a shockumentary, well, nor is it Goodbye Uncle Tom and that didn't stop them from including it in the set.

I tell you something - Blue Underground rock! I asked them just this afternoon about Mondo Candido and already got a reply:

Thank you for your email. We're glad you enjoyed Blue Underground's
release of THE MONDO CANE COLLECTION. The title MONDO CANDIDO was not
included in the collection because the rights were not available to us.
There are no plans for Blue Underground to release this title in the
future. Please visit our website www.blue-underground.com for additional
information on Blue Underground's releases.

So there!

zykl0nb wrote:Does anyone know when BU is releasing the poliziotteschi films they've had listed for what seems like forever? I want my copy of THE BIG RACKET, goddammit (I won't settle for the Vipco piece of trash)!

Castellari's Heroin Busters, Street Law and The Big Racket are going to be released on April 25. All of them include director's commentaries and theatrical trailers; Street Law will also include an interview with Castellari and Nero + TV Spot. List price is 19.95 each.

tomorrow two more Midnight Blue discs come out
Porn Stars of the 70's
Celebraties

March 28
The Black Belly of the Tranchula
The Fifth Cord
Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion
The Pajama Girl Case
Gillian Armstrong 2 pack MY BRILLIANT CAREER (2-Disc Special
Edition) and STARSTRUCK (2-Disc Special Edition)
Rockers and Bikers 2 pack LOVELESS, THE and SMITHEREENS

April 25
Along with the above mentioned Castellari's
Grindhouse classics 2 pack BONE & FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
Zombie Soldiers 2 pack Deathdream & Uncle Sam

Theodore R. Stockton wrote: April 25
Zombie Soldiers 2 pack Deathdream & Uncle Sam

YES! Here is an excuse for best buy to carry deathdream again and at a cheaper price.

May 30
two fims by Oswaldo de Oliveira
-Amazon Jail
-Bare Behind Bars
From the discription of the later: "every frame of vicious violence, savage sexuality, and inappropriate use of pineapples, is presented pristine and intact for the first time ever in America!"[/b]

Dylan wrote:Does anybody know whatever happened to their release of "The Fifth Cord," also shot by Storaro?

Have you managed to check this out yet, Dylan? Lovely camera work. Nice little 16 minute interview with Storaro (and Nero) as well.

Has anybody seen John Moxey's CIRCUS OF FEAR (1966), and/or grabbed the Blue Underground disc in particular? I'm grabbing some of the lesser known Christopher Lee thrillers (like DEVIL RIDES OUT, RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK in a nice 2-disc pak from Anchor Bay) where he's not buried in makeup or playing Drac for the 18th time. He was and is such a fine, nonpretentious actor, have dug him since I was 4 or 5 yrs old inand had the living shit scared outa me by Chiller Theater's now legendary broadcast in the early 70's of HORROR HOTEL (known in the UK-- made coincidentally by the same director as CIRCUS OF.. John Moxey-- as CITY OF THE DEAD). I could listen to him give commentary forever, even though I know on CIRCUS it's a Moxey commentary. The combination of magesterial charisma and total fucking humility in this guy just knocks me out.

Anybody seen & have thoughts on CIRCUS OF FEAR? Gordy?

No, haven't seen that one yet. I've seen Circus of Horrors (like it a lot; great lighting by Slocombe). I've seen Theatre of Death (it's okay; great lighting by Gil Taylor). So, those two great cinematographers are what drew me to those films, really along with the premises of the films, of course, and the only draw of Circus of Fear is Klaus Kinski, to be honest. Don't get me wromg, I totally dig Chris Lee, but isn't this one just another horror role for him? An easy $20,000? The cinematographer was Ernest Steward, who never did anything visually interesting - a lot of the Carry On... films; Ten Little Indians (1965) is quite good, though. However, the great Dudley Lovell was the camera operator, who worked with Huston on Moulin Rouge and The Kremlin Letter, Zulu, Zeffirelli's, Romeo and Juliet, Losey's, The Go-Between and, er... Twins of Evil, which is gorgeous, and City of the Dead has superbly moody lighting, so maybe Circus of Fear has some interesting qualities.

I watched Circus of Fear recently and found it abysmal. A dreary film (like a particularly lame episode of the Avengers without Steed and Mrs Peel, or any wit), and Lee might as well not even be in it: he's wearing a full-face mask for most of the film. I have it on a Midnight Movies double-feature with Circus of Horrors, which is a masterpiece by comparison.

Thereby saving me 19.99 for a Blue Underground abomination. I bought KILLER NUN on a whim (for the awesome semi-0true subject matter) and I couldn't believe the terrible English dub of this Italian flick was all that was provided.

I also considered purchasing Blue Underground's DVD of Circus of Fear when I found it at a local shop for $5. While looking it up online I found it's also quite cheap at DDD and is $1.99 for a used, like-new copy from an Amazon seller. However, the impression I got was, like zedz said, that it's abysmally bad -- possibly as bad as, say, Coleman Francis' films. I have a definite interest in bad films as cultural documents but it's hard to make time for them when I can't even get around to all the films I really enjoy.

Oh, shite is it? Pity.

On to another BU release: Shock Waves. I have been meaning to check this film out for a long time. Interesting premise. Said to be creepy as hell. Shot on 16mm. Does anyone here have the disc? Transfer is said to be grainy as hell, as prime elements (camera negative, etc) no longer exist and director Ken Wiederhorn's personal 35mm blow-up had to be used for the transfer - how does the image look? Screen caps that I have seen don't look that bad, quite good, actually. The film looks as close to the style as Tales from the Crypt that I have ever seen, so I am really drawn to it.

Any thoughts?

Gordon McMurphy wrote:Any thoughts?

I remember it being just ok when I saw it on home video in the 90's. There are occasionally interesting visuals, but most of the time the completely amateur pace of Wiederhorn (who I would argue never improved much) is barely held together by sporadic, late performances by John Carradine (very old and tired) and Peter Cushing (who was pretty good).

A lot of it is just stretched out padding, though the super nazis themselves are nicely done for what the production was. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Alan Ormsby - Bob Clark collaborator and director of Deranged - may have assisted in the make-up/effects department. For low-budget 70's horror, it's probably a good movie to netflix, but I don't think I could recommend it as a blind buy.

DrewReiber wrote:, though the super nazis themselves are nicely done

Fucking Super nazi's always wind up creating problems wherever they go.

(Falls to knees, hands on ears, shirtless, screaming at sky w straining temple-veins):

"Damn you super nazi's!!!!"

Like Drew said, Shock Waves plays a lot better in your mind later on when you can cut out all the meandering tedium and just remember the creepy stalking sequences.

So, the pace lets it down; that's a problem that many second and third tier 70s horror films have. I can't rent the BU edition, as I live in the UK and the Vipco edition is OOP.

On a more positive note, Chicho Ibáñez-Serrador's superior island horror, ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (Would You Kill a Child?) will be released by Dark Sky Films next year. Brilliantly creepy film.

Gordon McMurphy wrote:So, the pace lets it down; that's a problem that many second and third tier 70s horror films have. I can't rent the BU edition, as I live in the UK and the Vipco edition is OOP.

Well, if it makes any difference, my critique is meant as a comparison to the rest of that genre. I'm a huge fan of 70's low-budget genre filmmaking, and while Shock Waves is an interesting little film, I would recommend many other BU releases far more than that one. Especially Bob Clark's Deathdream.

I have Deathdream, as a matter of fact. It's a strange, disturbing film; a success, I feel. Good disc, too. Man, whatever happened to Bob Clark?

I also haven't seen Alan Ormsby's 1974 film, Deranged, which sounds fascinatingly fucked up with its garish pseudo-documentary approach and Rod Serling-esque journalist moving the story along. Tom Savini, fresh back from 'The Shit' made his make-up debut here. I must give it a go at some point, although I have read that the MGM Midnite Movies DVD is cut, but the German DVD - reviewed here - isn't and is said to have a far better transfer and includes a making-of and two documentaries on Ed Gein. Ormsby was also one of the writers on Schrader's, Cat People, which I love. I also love Clark's, Murder by Decree, which is much better than A Study in Terror. I wouldn't mind seeing Tribute again, simply for Jack Lemmon's performance.

Cheers, Drew. I think I'll check out Shock Waves soon - I am inexplicably drawn to it!

Earlier in this thread, I posted about Mondo Candido, the only Gualtiero and Prosperi film to be left out of the amazing Mondo Cane set, the fact being that Blue Underground don't have the rights for this title. Well, the thing is that this particular film just fired my imagination and curiosity having read nothing but hyperbolic opinions of it online. I managed to track it down on ioffer.com a few months ago and bought it. It's a bootleg, of course, made from a VHS source, in the wrong AR and very dark looking in parts (with english subs, though). Still, it's the only chance to catch it and so I did. And it caught me so to speak, completely off guard!

First of all, this is not a documentary. It's a very loose film adaptation of Voltaire's Candide, and I mean very loose! Full of anachronisms, visual excesses, highly charged performances and a sense of a certain filmmaking that simply ceased to exist altogether when the 80's and Reaganomics and Thatcherisms began to castrate art and culture at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic.

But what a wild ride it is! Top notch cinematography, crazy sets and costumes, abound with visual allegories, you name it -- it's all here! Quite possibly the last of the true psychedelic movies ever made. Needless to say, I do hope that someone grabs the rights for this little wonder and releases it in its proper AR with extras to match.

Mondo Candido is also available HERE for $15.

Sounds nuts. Was it shot in 2.35:1 or 1.66/1.85:1 ?

Tempting. Very tempting.

Gordon McMurphy wrote:Was it shot in 2.35:1 or 1.66/1.85:1 ?

It was 2.35. The DVD-R I own (probably the same source as the one you linked to) opens in scope but right after the credits, it switches to FF for the rest of the movie. A dirty shame really as this is one movie that has the potential to really look glorious in its proper AR. Oh, and the soundtrack is a killer too:

http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/mondocandido.htm

Beautiful!
Gorgeous!
Sexy!

In September they will be releasing the four Blind Dead movies individually.