The
Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Murders
(1993 telefilm/Lorimar)/Chubasco
(1967/Warner-Seven Arts)/The
Couch (1961/Warner
Archive DVDs)/The DeVilles
(2009/IndiePix DVD)/Public
Hero Number 1
(1935/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
C/C/C+/C/C Sound: C Extras: D/D/D/C-/C- Main Programs: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
DeVilles
is
part of a really nice 10-DVD set called the IndiePix
Mix 10 Collection
in
time for the holiday season & sold through Amazon here at
http://amzn.com/B01577BN8S,
while the rest of the DVDs are now only available from Warner Bros.
through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the links
below.
Here
are four older dramas about the serious side of life and a new one
that tries to do something different with that theme...
Alan
Metzger's The
Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Murders
(1993) is one of last
of the serious (and filmed) network TV movies before they became
extinct and the arena of bad cable TV production. Elizabeth
Montgomery is the church-going, Bible-quoting, murderous grandmother
and title character, whose husbands seem to keep becoming suddenly
sick and dying. Montgomery breaks the fourth wall off the bat,
making this safer than it needs to be (unless they were trying to
meet commercial TV standards and practices, but it is a problem
either way) and the whole 92 minutes becomes a bit too predictable.
However,
this was among the last works of both Montgomery (we lost her much
sooner that we should have) of such telefilms and of the Lorimar
Company. This, it is also an interesting time capsule that reminds
us of the quality network TV used to try for all the time. Those
were the days...
There
are no extras.
Allen
H. Miner's Chubasco
(1967) is
part of the 'troubled guy' cycle that began in the 1950s when
Hollywood films (thanks to Rock Music?) started to really crank up
the tales of juvenile delinquency. This eventually turned into cushy
tales with pretty boys who were not that dangerous (not that we blame
Hollywood for the bad 'boy bands' of recent decades; not even Disney)
as ways to create new starts to appeal to a younger (read mostly
female audience). Christopher Jones (who left the business at the
hight of his success and passed away in 2014) plays the title role.
Can he find a better life and stay out of trouble?
His
chance comes when he lands a job with a ship owner (Simon Oakland, in
a string, key, scene-stealing role) who has a major fishing business,
but Chubasco has to deal with his employees and some of it gets more
sexual (he becomes the target of their jealousies) than expected. I
won't accuse the film of gay-baiting, but for a major studio release,
a surprising plot point. Susan Strasberg, Ann Sothern, Richard Egan,
Audrey Totter, Preston Foster, Norman Alden and Joe De Santis make
for a solid supporting cast, though the resulting film drags on a
bit, is a bit predictable and uneven.
Still,
it launched Jones for a brief time in a few really high profile films
before he walked away from all of it, making it a curio.
There
are no extras.
Owen
Crump's The
Couch
(1961) is
a thriller and curio for sure as Grant Williams (Incredible
Shrinking Man)
is a killer who calls the cops before he strikes, with a screenplay
by Robert Bloch (Hitchcock's Psycho,
plus Blake Edwards worked on the original story) in a film desperate
to jump on the Hitchcock/Diabolique
bandwagon. Some of its good, some of it does not work, some of it is
dated and a little bit of it is unintentionally amusing. I do give
the makers credit for trying to make this work, but it misses the
mark, though I wish more thrillers tried this hard today. Also, no.
Shirley
Knight also stars.
There
are no extras.
Nicole
N. Horanyi's The
DeVilles
(2009) takes
the real-life couple Shawn and Teri Lee Geary and has them play the
dysfunctional title characters, married, but not always happy. She
is a stripper who idolizes Marilyn Monroe while he is a Punk Rocker
and they come from that culture. Unlike the other older dramas on
this list where that means crime, despair and trouble, they are in a
sort of happy misery, with alcohol and regrets of past memories
haunting them. Interesting and with some good scenes, the problems
here are the length (too short) and how this barely finds itself
above a bad 'reality TV' exercise. At least it is something
different, but not enough so and many missed opportunities keep
happening throughout, partly from no ironic distance.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
J.
Walter Ruben's Public
Hero Number 1
(1935) is a prison crime drama where MGM tries from Warner Bros
territory. Chester
Morris, later immortalized as eccentric criminal-turned-detective
Boston Blackie and of the hit The
Big House,
plays an undercover FBI agent hanging with criminals who are known as
The Purple Gang to get them arrested for their crimes. This lands up
taking the characters to prison, there is also plenty of action in
the free world. Jean Arthur is 'the girl' and one of the big
actresses of the time, Lionel Barrymore, Joseph Calleia as the head
of the gang, Paul Kelly and Lewis Stone throws in everything it can
in its brisk 89 minutes.
Intertextual
references to other big crime stories of the time also turn up and
ewe get some fun, smart and even suspenseful moments. The talent is
here. However, it is uneven, has aged a bit and is lighter at times
than you'd expect from a gangster film. It is still worth a look and
those interested should see it.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
I
expected the 1.33 X 1 color image on Widow
and 1.33 X 1 black & white image on Hero
to be a little problematic as they are a filmed TV movie and very old
theatrical film respectively, but they are actually well shot, so
their softness is a disappointment and both could use upgraded
transfers. Still, they are watchable, but the anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on DeVille
is a digital video shoot and not a great one, so it will not get much
better than it does here.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.66 X 1 black & white image on Couch
is another good, but this too is just too soft versus what the
filmmakers intended. Even the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image
on Chubasco,
originally issued in 35mm dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor
prints (now very valuable) and shot in real 35mm anamorphic
Panavision is also just softer than it ought to be. You can see how
good the intended color was in more than a few scenes.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all the Warner Archive releases and
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on DeVilles
are rough, trying, compressed and on the weak side with DeVilles
having the most distortion and some location audio issues.
To
order any of the Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for them and
many more great web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
