There are legendary films that belong in any serious film
collector’s library. Sure, you can
count Citizen Kane, The Godfather (I and II), Wizard
of Oz, Casablanca … the list goes on and on, but you get the
idea. There are just certain films that
are keepers!
One of these “keepers,” which wasn’t a blockbuster, would
have to Roger Corman’s 1963 chiller, The Terror.
Word arrived this week that a new HD transfer will making
its way to Blu-ray on May 31 through the restoration efforts the Film Detective. Grab all of those PD DVD (and even VHS)
versions that you might have collected over the years and toss’em … the Blu-ray
is here!
These are reasons why The Terror is a must-have keeper:
First, Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman,
Jack Hill and even Jack Nicholson all had a hand in shooting the film (partly
because Corman, who always with eye out for production budgets, was using the
set from The Raven, which was in the process of being torn down while
they were still filming). That’s an impressive
list of filmmakers!
Next, the film stars Boris Karloff (who was available, as
legend has it, for just three days … and was run-ragged during that period as The
Raven set came down around his ears), Jack Nicholson (a Corman regular
during the early 1960s), Dick Miller (another Corman player), Jonathan Haze
(Seymour from Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors) and Sandra
Knight (ex-wife of her co-star, Jack Nicholson, who would also appear in Blood
Bath, before retiring — she came back for a cameo in the Corman-produced
1990 film, The Haunting of Morella).
And just for kicks, footage from the film was used in Peter
Bogdanovich’s 1968 film release of Targets, which also featured Boris
Karloff (the drive-in sequence, you’ll understand). Bogdanovich also began his film career as
part of Corman’s circle.
No comments:
Post a Comment