The Film Detective has
gathered and remastered eight complete episodes of the Groucho Marx and George
Fenneman comedy game show, You Bet Your Life!, for DVD release
on Sept. 12.
It may have been a “game
show,” but most everyone tuned in each week to watch comedy ad-lib antics of
Groucho Marx, who was able to verbally feed off the studio contestants. Of note, according to several sources, the
show was filmed before a live audience, but not shown live. Instead, the film from the show each week
was screened and then edited to take out broadcast code-related issues and dull
portions … there was always plenty to work with.
The Film Detective is
presenting the eight episodes complete with the commercials from the period —
which are often, in retrospect, as funny as the show itself.
In other release news
from The Film Detective, Aug. 15 marks the arrival of five new film
restorations on DVD. So let’s take a
look at what film buffs can expect on that date.
Before Ed Wood laid claim
to being the worst filmmaker of the 1950s — only by his sheer tenacity in
cranking one “cult” film after another — there was his contemporary, Phil
Tucker, who produced and directed the 1953 “cult” sci-fi classic, Robot
Monster, which is the lead film in The Film Detective’s Aug. 15 film
restoration parade.
Notice how the word
“cult” is used to describe both the collective films of Ed Wood and Phil
Tucker’s Robot Monster … it is much akin to how motorists always
slowdown to take a gander at a car wreck on the freeway.
Also of note, Ed Wood’s Glen
or Glenda opened theatrically in April of 1953 and Tucker’s Robot
Monster made its theatrical debut two months later. Both, by any standard, are truly bad films
(aka: “cult”), but the big difference between the two is that Robot
Monster was profitable … so much so that Tucker went on a rampage of
filmmaking over the next 18 months and directed such gems as Dance
Hall Racket (noted for starring Lenny Bruce and his “former” stripper
wife, Honey), Broadway Jungle, Dream Jungle and the “After
Midnight” gems, Tia Juana After Midnight and Baghdad After Midnight. He then took the rest of the 1950s off,
which gave Wood free reign to establish himself as the king of bad filmmaking.
As to Robot
Monster, when you make a hit theatrical release that is so bad that it
is good, you are bound to get plenty of ink (critical writing) over the next
fifty years on the film itself. In
other words, there is plenty of history on this golden treasure and any genre fan
knows that if you don’t have a decent copy of Robot Monster in your
film library, then you are simply not all that serious about your film library,
or for that matter, movies in general.
The film was shot in the
3D process over a 96-hour period in the Griffith Park area of Los Angeles —
notably Bronson Canyon and Chavez Ravine (the future home of Dodger
Stadium). 96 hours from start to wrap, Stanley
Kubrick could take 96 hours just to get one scene right!!
The film had a zero
budget — the honey wagon alone at a major Hollywood production blows through
the Robot
Monster budget in the same 96 hours and little if anything gets on
film. So by any standard this is
keeper.
Robot Monster, Aug. 15, The Film Detective, that is all that
you need to know. Circle the date on
your calendar. You know you want it!
Also heading to retail on
Aug. 15 is director Lambert Hillyer’s 1938 gangster tale, Gang Bullets, starring
Morgan Wallace as “Big Bill” Anderson, a notorious racketeer, who opens up shop
in Bridgetown, much to the disgust of the local DA, Dexter Wayne (Charles
Trowbridge) and his chief of staff, John Carter (Robert Kent), who is engaged
to Wayne’s daughter, Patricia (played by Anne Nagel).
The local newspaper, run
by Jim Wallace (Joseph Crehan) starts receiving — and publishing — a series of
letters from the mysterious “Junius” (the middle name of Lucius (Junius) Brutus)
— which are highly critical of the DA and his efforts in stopping Anderson’s
ever-growing crime network.
If the letters were
awful, what follows next is even worst for the DA … he gets caught (on tape) of
accepting a bribe from Anderson. Both
are swiftly convicted and are bound for prison, but Anderson has other plans,
which includes escaping and the murder of the now disgraced DA.
So who is the mysterious
“Junius” and will “Big Bill” Anderson make good with his plans … you’ll have to
pick up your copy of Gang Bullets on Aug. 15 to find out!
The other three entries
in The Film Detective’s Aug. 15 line up of new films restorations on DVD are: Range
Busters (1940, the first of 24 films in the “Range Busters” Western
series starring Ray “Crash” Corrigan, John “Dusty” King and Max “Alibi” Terhune),
The
Return of Casey Jones (1933, starring Charles Starrett and Ruth Hall,
with Robert Elliott as the legendary Illinois Central train engineer) and Riders
of the Deadline (1943, William Boyd stars as Hopalong Cassidy).
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