The Film Detective Sets Six New Film Restorations For DVD Release On May 2

The Film Detective announced this past week six new film restorations for delivery to the collectible marketplace on May 2.

The leader of the DVD hit parade this time out is cult filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1944 film release of Bluebeard, starring John Carradine as the demented Parisian serial killer — and painter ... and puppeteer — Gaston Morel. 

All of Paris is on edge as the murder count mounts and the elusive “Bluebeard” is nowhere to be found.   When Reene (Sonia Sorel — Strange Illusion, Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl), Gaston’s lover, asks the whereabouts of the models that he’s been using for his painting, he politely strangles her and dumps her body in the Seine … now that is a really direct way of answering her query!

Lamarte (played by Ludwig Stössel — House of Dracula, The Beginning or the End) is on to Gaston’s evil deeds, but he’s such a damn good painter — the money keeps rolling in — that he turns a blind eye to his serial killing ways.   But love is in the air as Gaston discovers the lovely Lucille (Jean Parker — The Ghost Goes West, One Body Too Many), who accepts a commission to design and sew new costumes for his puppets.   Love her?  Kill her?  Love her?  Kill her?   It’s more than enough to drive one crazy … oh wait, he already is!

Will the lovely Lucille be the next victim … and what triggers Gaston’s murderous rages?   These questions and more await an answer on May 2 with The Film Detective’s DVD release of Bluebeard.

Also streeting on that date is writer/director Norman Dawn’s 1936 adventure saga, Tundra, which finds Alaskan bush pilot and doctor Jason Barlow (Alfred Delcambre) tending to his far-flung rounds when his plane goes down and he must fight his way back to civilization against impossible odds.

For Hopalong Cassidy fans there is director Lesley Selander’s 1943 entry into the Hopalong Cassidy Western series, Border Patrol.   In this outing Hoppy (William Boyd is a Texas Ranger, who along with fellow lawmen California (Andy Clyde) and Johnny (Jay Kirby), are out to stop an illicit silver mine operation that is attracting illegals from the south of the border (filmed 74 years ago with the same border issue, how ironic).   

Border Patrol, while a Hopalong Cassidy Western, is noted for its interesting newcomer cast members that includes George Reeves, Robert Mitchum, Duncan Renaldo and Detour’s Claudia Drake.

Rounding out the May 2 selections are Blazing Barriers (1937, directed by Aubrey Scotto and starring (Frank Coghlan Jr., Edward Arnold Jr. and Florine McKinney) Crimson Romance (1934, James Bush and Ben Lyon are teamed with Erich von Stroheim) and Missouri Nightingale (also from 1934, directed by Albert Ray and starring Johnny Mack Brown and Jeanette Loff)