Reviews (105)

The Pivitol Battle of the Pacific War
In June, 1942, the United States uncovered Japanese plans to invade the island of Midway, located only 1100 miles from the Hawaiian islands. This fine film brings this great battle to life.

An all-star cast, including Charlton Heston (Capt. Matt Garth), Henry Fonda (Admiral Chester Nimitz), Glenn Ford (Admiral Raymond Spruance), Hal Holbrook (Commander Joseph Rochefort) and Robert Webber (Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher) turn in fine performances as the men who would ultimately win the battle and turn the tide against the Japanese. The Japanese actors do a fine job as well portraying such officers as Admiral Yamamoto and Admiral Nagumo.

The battle scenes, especially the American dive and torpedo attacks against the Japanese fleet, are excellent. Real battle footage is also included, and if you watch close enough, you may even see some scenes from "Tora Tora Tora" in the footage.

One part of the film that I didn't care very much for was the love relationship between Matt Garth's son Tom and a Japanese/American girl. I felt that this was unnecessary and didn't really contribute anything to the movie. Overall, however, I thought this was an excellent film. The battle scenes are top notch, and the attention paid to historical fact is evident throughout the film, right down to Joe Rochefort's smoking jacket and bedroom slippers.

I've seen this movie several times on VHS, but this was the first time I saw it on DVD. The widescreen format made me feel like I was in the theater. I highly recommend this fine war film. Watch this film and experience the turning of the tide in the Pacific.

Poor sound, over-edited
Midway as originally filmed is one of the great movies of all time. This DVD is not.

Problem #1: I have one of the best sound systems you can buy. The sound goes up and down and up and down on this DVD. You have to hold on to the remote just to be able to stay in the room with it because some combat footage is too loud, and other dramatic discussions are too low in volume.

Problem #2: My wife grew to hate this move somewhere around 1990 because on the veteran related holidays, a good 4+ hours were lost to watching this movie. Others claim that the original was over 5 hours. I'm very disappointed with the 2+ hour version. I want to see it all.

The manufacturer needs to do something to get us the complete movie. They won't, though, becuase they have to redo the sound for the DVD, and that's expensive.

One of the better historical WWII movies

A good friend of mine (and a contemporary) rode in the backseat of a dive bomber at the battle of midway. He's dead now, like three quarters of the men who fought in World War Two. Can you imagine riding backwards in a dive while the people below are doing their best to kill you? Unless you've been there, probably not.

This is, historically, one of the most accurate portrayals of the war. One critic complained that "the writing was weak. There was no suspense at all in the film." Perhaps there'd have been enough suspense if he'd been there, like Bill. But Bill survived the battle and died of old age, so I can't ask him about whether he felt any suspense, although we talked a lot about the battle of Midway.

In the film, they used top notch actors. For "Bull" Halsey they used Mitchum. Not a look alike, but of course Bull's dead, too, and Mitchum did a good job. Heston, of course, represented a fictional character (Matt Garth), but virtually all of the names of people in the film were real men who fought a real battle, and it was the turning point of the war. After Midway, we took a lot of lumps, but they were on the run from that point on.

Of course Hollywood took some liberties, and since they used a lot of actual combat shots, some of the aircraft used were out of place (F6F "Hellcats" for F4F "Wildcats" several times, and the ditching scene where Ensign George Gay went in showed a "Hellcat" instead of the TBD Douglas torpedo bomber that he actually flew. And the shot of the "Hellcat" being torn apart on the carrier's island was well-known footage from the technicolor documentary, The Fighting Lady, which was shot on the old Enterprise during battle, with narration by Lt. Robert Montgomery (qv). Garth's (Heston's) fictional son was supposed to be flying it in the film, but it was an actual crash on board the "Big E", in an actual battle. "Hellcats" (F6F) were Grumman fighter planes (the big brother of the "Wildcat" (F4F) which was obsolescent when the war started, but in use at the Battle of Midway--as was the old Brewster "Buffalo") and the F6F never saw combat until late 1943 (on my birthday, as a matter of fact.) The battle of Midway was in June of 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

It helps when you know a little history. For instance, Ensign George Gay actually did ride out the battle in the water, after he ditched, and was debriefed personally by the commander-in-chief, pacific fleet (CINCPAC), Admiral Chester Nimitz. He was the only survivor of his torpedo squadron, VT-8 (torpedo squadron 8).

Altogether, when you see this picture, you are watching history (as near as Hollywood will ever get to it), and many of the people who died to entertain today's movie audiences are named in the movie.

So, try to overlook the lack of a plot, at least in the battle sequences. History wrote them, not Hollywood script writers.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

All-Star Cast. Ultimate invasion of Midway Island.
This story is set in June 1942, six months after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. Includes the all-star cast of: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Ed Nelson, Monte Markham, David Macklin, Christopher George, Robert Webber, Kevin Dobson, Edward Albert, Pat Morita, Dabney Coleman, Erik Estrada, Tom Selleck, Robert Ito, Steve Kanaly, Kip Niven, Clint Ritchie (ABC serial "One Life To Live"), Frank Parker (NBC serial "Days Of Our Lives"). The main cast can be seen acting with stock footage from THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO and some old Japanese war films. However, some actual wartime footage of the real combat is incorporated into this film. The actual war footage was filmed in color by navy photographers and by the cameras mounted on fighter planes in 1942.
Filmed in the same manner as EARTHQUAKE (1974) and ROLLERCOASTER (1977) and in "Sensurround". "Sensurround" was a new sound system set up for specific films only that would make the sounds in the film seem realistic to you. The sound was balanced and came at you all around. You would hear the sound of an earthquake, riding a rollercoaster or being in the middle of a battle. Very few films were made in "Sensurround" and was only a gimmick in the 1970's. Small theaters benefited the most. Nowadays, we have sound systems in our own modern homes that come at us from behind and the sides. Disneyland rides use a sound system similar to "Sensurround".
A special television version runs four hours with commercials. It includes new scenes NOT shown on video or in the theatres. It includes new scenes with an additional cast NOT seen in the original version, Susan Sullivan, Richard Sanders, Noel Conlon, Don Dolan, Richard Sarradet, Alec Smight, Miiko Taka and William Wellman Jr. The extended tv version includes a Charlton Heston-Susan Sullivan romance and the scenes of the Coral Sea battle is played out. At the end of the television extended version, Susan Sullivan and Christine Kukobo are both shown waiting at dockside.
I think this film was meant to be a tribute to those Americans who served.

Just slightly over-edited
Our USMC squad went to the 'World Premier' at Luneta Theatre, Manila, Philippines. Midway WAS a Full-length FEATURE movie-then. It was near 5 hours long. Our sixes burned from seating.
>These days the once good, and quite long Midway has been edited-down from it's feature film status, a 5, to the new 2+ hour typical 'Hollyweird' shortened edition, a true waste of unreplaceable WWII Pacific footage, though actually faked. According to The NAVY, there were NO USN photojournalists with color motion-picture cameras at or near Midway, and actual Naval Aviators names were changed, and most colorized motion picture photography was filmed at The Battle For Leyte Gulf.
>Some carrier shots depict the ESSEX-class carriers designed POST Midway, and produced in 1943. "Universal" left-out several hours of video footage. Midway should be near 4-5 hours. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Shot in English and budgeted higher than any of his previousAsian features, Jackie Chan's last film under his Hong Kong contract is anaction-packed globe-trotting adventure shot with the American audiencein mind. The spies and secret agent-laden plot is packed with car chases,explosions, gunfire aplenty, and of course Jackie's own brand of gymnastic martial arts. But the flood of his older films between his hits Rumble in the Bronx and Rush Hour had sated American viewers and Who Am I? woundup being sold directly to cable. It's our loss, for this mix of goofy slapstick and jaw-dropping action is his most impressive film since Drunken Master II. Playing a special forces agent (named, naturally, Jackie) struck with amnesia and adoptedby an African bush tribe following a failed assassination attempt, heembarks on a quest to discover his true identity while armies of killers pourafter him. After an explosive opening, the story gets momentarily bogged downin the kind of mugging humor that leaves most American audiencesscratching their heads, but once Jackie kicks into gear the film is a high-speed action flurry that culminates in a furious battle atop a Rotterdam skyscraper. Jackie is at his most charmingly naive (he berates the villains, pleading "Why do you want to destroy when you can make things better?") and athletically impressive: the marvelous stunts--including a flight downthe side of the skyscraper--and fight choreography make Rush Hourlook like a Sunday drive. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (111)

A very pleasant surprise
This is a great flick for both devotees and novice fans of Jackie Chan.

Why Jackie Chan's U.S. distributors didn't release this in theaters is beyond me. Before I saw it, I thought that it would be c**p, but hell, it's Jackie, so I gave it a whirl. Though the first half hour is slow (by Jackie Chan standards, at least), once this flick gets going it ranks right up there with Drunken Master II and Police Story. The escape from the police with a rope and bucket, the chase and fight in the streets of Amsterdam (what Jackie can do wearing of wooden shoes...), and the final fight on the roof are amazing examples of action and comedic artistry. Stuff that ONLY Jackie Chan could pull off. There's even a car chase scene that breathes some life into the old warhorse of action movie cliches. I feared that Jackie Chan might be slowing down as he reached 45, maybe doing less dangerous stunts...no way.

The actors are terrible, the plot non-existent, the dialog silly, the production values shoddy at times, but one might as well complain the writing is poor in Playboy. You're there to look at the pictures, and Who Am I? has some that took my breath away.

Wow! Typical Jackie Chan - completely entertaining
Let me state upfront that I am not an unbiased reviewer but rather a believer ("my name is Paul and I am a Jackie-Chan-fan..."). The man is, as always, amazing in his stunts. Here he again manages to take action and humor, mix them up in diverse locations, and come up with a winner.

Although the plot is a bit thin in places (who watches his movies for the plot?), this movie is fast-moving from the get-go. Action, action, action. Which in Jackies's case always means stunts and fights... from an atypical car chase in South Africa to a clog-assisted dust-up in the mean streets of Rotterdam to the truly breathtaking final scenes, this film hit all the right buttons.

If you've ever seen Jackie Chan before this film is sure to please, and if you haven't you're in for a family-friendly treat (staged violence aside).

Who Am I-Your a legend
This movie is very nice.It may be his best movie it takes place in Africa at First and he falls off a Helicoptor and gets amnesia and he then meets some girl who had to get help by him.Then later they are in Amstradam and he slides down a building believe me you will like this movie a must
Acting 10 Story 9 Direction 9 Ation 10 Entertainment 10
Overall=48/50 This movie gets a 96 wich is 5 star territory

The original has been cut so much!
I really like the original movie. But this release has been so much cut. I don't know what was the reason for it. But some really funny scenes (like a lion chasing Jackie) don't show up. Try to find uncut version.

STAY WITH ORIGINAL
Why American production make HK movies look so cheap? First of all, they cut off so much scene, second of all ruin it by making look acting so dumb by English Dubb. ALWAYS stick with ORIGINAL LICENSED HK RELEASE. Be careful with cheap imports, boots though. ... Read more

Description

Hot gang chicks, street punks, murder, wild sex and sadism are the key ingredients in this stylish 1950's teenage gangster film about a good girl in bad company who sets off a gang war by accidently killing a beat girl from the other side of the tracks. Produced and directed by Roger Corman! ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Kooky Corman JD pic in nice, clean DVD package
The second and final co-production between Roger Corman and the Woolner Brothers (released by Allied Artists), Teenage Doll is easily on par or better than any of Corman's AIP juvenile delinquent epics. The relatively dark story of good-girl June Kenney running afoul of bad-girl gang (headed by Fay Spain) and winding up involved in a murder is played basically straight. More compelling than other contemporary JD dreck like, say Hot Rod Gang or High School Confidential (both of which I also like a lot for different reasons), Teenage Doll contains a handful of those uniquely twisted Corman/Charles B. Griffith sick/icky/creepy moments (e.g., Fay Spain appears to be living in Walter Paisley's trash-strewn apartment with her malnourished 'baby sister'), as well as lots of goofy hep-talk and an effective rumble scene set in an auto salvage yard. However, if you're expecting steamy sleaze, based on the film's misleading advertising materials, you may be a bit disappointed. The cast includes a number of familiar Corman regulars including John Brinkley, Barboura Morris, Richard Devon, Dorothy Neumann, Ed Nelson, and Bruno VeSota, not to mention the sultry Ziva (Pharaoh's Curse) Rodan. The stark B&W cinematography is by Floyd (David's dad) Crosby.
The DVD presentation is minimal but very clean. An excellent-condition trailer with some light speckling/scratching, chapter stops, and four 'bonus' trailers are the only extras, but the source print used for the feature is in terrific shape. The tonal values, brightness, contrast, sharpness, and detail are uniformly excellent and there is only some very light speckling evident. Considering how few decent DVDs are out there so far for the 50s JD aficionado (this is about the only one I'm aware of), genre fans might as well snap this up.

A really fun Roger Corman film!
One of Corman's best features, this film stars June Kenney in her first major, role and she does a great job playing a girl from the right side of the tracks who gets her lilly-white self into a lot of trouble when she tangles with a tough all-girl gang lead by Fay Spain! John Brinkley co-stars as a James Dean type hood who Kenney has the hots for! Lots of action abound and fine performances by all involved! Also featuring Barboura Morris, Dorothy Neumann, Ziva Rodann, Jay Sayer and many other Corman regulars! ... Read more

Description

The graduates of the police academy are now in competition between the two police academies to see which one will survive a state-decreed budget cut. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The Replacement Killers
The director of Chow Yun-fat's first Hollywood outing, music-video veteran Antoine Fuqua, seems to be trying to squeeze the charismatic Asian superstar into a conventional American action-hero mold, and the results are dispiriting. Fuqua never lets this high-spirited actor smile, fetishizing him as a gunslinging clotheshorse in a series of garish, scenery-smashing battle scenes. As a paid assassin whose former employers turn against him, Chow enlists the help of an illegal documents specialist played, with surprising grit, by Mira Sorvino, and then spends most of the time fending off squads of killers in mirror shades. The movie is art-directed and photographed fit to kill (even the most routine incidents are eye-gougingly colorful) and edited to a hip-hop beat. It's garishly superficial. The frequent gunplay duels may keep action fans riveted, but they'll hate themselves in the morning. --David Chute

Who Am I?
Shot in English and budgeted higher than any of his previous Asian features, Jackie Chan's last film under his Hong Kong contract is an action-packed globe-trotting adventure shot with the American audience in mind. The spies and secret agent-laden plot is packed with car chases, explosions, gunfire aplenty, and of course Jackie's own brand of gymnastic martial arts. But the flood of his older films between his hits Rumble in the Bronx and Rush Hour had sated American viewers and Who Am I? wound up being sold directly to cable. It's our loss, for this mix of goofy slapstick and jaw-dropping action is his most impressive film since Drunken Master II. Playing a special forces agent (named, naturally, Jackie) struck with amnesia and adopted by an African bush tribe following a failed assassination attempt, he embarks on a quest to discover his true identity while armies of killers pour after him. After an explosive opening, the story gets momentarily bogged down in the kind of mugging humor that leaves most American audiences scratching their heads, but once Jackie kicks into gear the film is a high-speed action flurry that culminates in a furious battle atop a Rotterdam skyscraper. Jackie is at his most charmingly naive (he berates the villains, pleading "Why do you want to destroy when you can make things better?") and athletically impressive: the marvelous stunts--including a flight down the side of the skyscraper--and fight choreography make Rush Hour look like a Sunday drive. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Not awesome, but still worthwhile....
While I rarely agree with Maltin, I will say that I was SOMEWHAT disappointed with Replacement Killers. The Corrupter was SOOO much better and would have been a more appropriate introduction for Chow Yun-Fat to Hollywood. That being said -- I LOVE Mira Sorvino so it was still a GREAT movie with some GREAT action. Just not as a good as The Corruptor, IMO.

'Who Am I?' roolz! Nuff said. You won't be disappointed with this DVD.

Maltin should not be allowed to rate films!!
These are two excellent movies if you enjoy Hong Kong action movies. Being a big Jackie Chan fan, I thought Who Am I? is perhaps Jackie's best movie to date. Ditto for the Replacement Killers. Was reading the review for Titan AE and noticed that Maltin hated that movie also, BUT I remember Roger Ebert saying he really liked Titan AE because of its great graphics. If like me you hate Maltin's reviews so much that you use him as a contra-critic (you like what he hates)--these two movies are for you. Both have terrific action sequences with more action than in 5 American action movies each. And if you like Jackie Chan's playful comedic style of movies you will love both of these great action movies. Replacement Killers will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what happens next. A super combination of two movies, rare when so many companies are packaging movies like this with one bad movie put with one good one--I assure you this is not the case here.

One thousand beautiful images blended into motion
A perfectly executed painting, set in motion, and wrapped around a simple story. This is a piece of art. A series of beautiful images and motion. Colors and movement flow from scene to scene taking the viewer into a deep realm of perfect design. If your the kind of viewer who involves themselves in a visual experience, you can't go wrong. If your looking for a story to blow your circuits and change you forever.... don't be lazy, go buy a book. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Absurd but delightful cmic fantasy
Brook Shields plays newspaper reporter Brenda Starr, the glamorous heroine of a strip cartoon drawn by a slightly wet but amiable artist, who somehow manages to draw himself into the strip and finds himself sharing her adventures as they try to find a missing professor who has developed a secret formula to replace petrol and who is also being pursued by various baddies (well, something like that anyway). The artist naturally has a crush on the glamorous Brenda, but romantic compications occur when gorgeous Brazilian aristocrat Basil St. John (Timothy Dalton in tight black trousers and an eyepatch,oh crikey, I'm drooling again)turns up, he's also after the formula, I think. Look, I've watched this film three times now and I still don't really understand the plot, but who cares. It's a lot of fun anyway, and with Brook Shields in tight skirts and Timothy Dalton in tight trousers it has something to please everyone. True, there is a rather long bit in the middle of the film where Dalton isn't around, but you can't have everything, and the rest of the time, he's there, and absolutely divine. Don't worry about the baffling plot and crazy characters, just enjoy it.

Very Styleish.
I love all the pretty outfits that Brooke Shields wore in the Brenda StarrVideo. I think that Brooke is one terrific actress as well as supermodel.

Funny movie
Yes, I admit, I bought this movie because Timothy Dalton stars in it. And it does not disappoint. It is a movie with lots of humour and not to be taken too seriously. Just sit back and enyoy the humour. It has no pretensions of deep human emotions or of world philosophy and that is what makes it so enjoyable.

So Many Pizza Hut Plugs in This One It'll Make You Dizzy
We know of Timothy Dalton because we shamefully watched all of the James Bond movies, happening to see the one or two Dalton starred in. (Now, a man unleashes a wet, sickly cough, bracing himself on kitchen counter for support). "Brenda Starr" is one of the worst movies ever. What can account for this? Try one too many liberal arts graduates shuffling around under dim lighting in an empty warehouse, while yet another chain smoker coughs horribly into a tissue. It all comes up bloody in the end. At last! Brooke Shields is no longer making films!

It has lovely Brooke in it !! Of *course* we'll watch her !
Hi ... I am One Of Those Guys who, in His Adolescence, was so down on _me_ that it was not until into my Adulthood that I actually began **really** taking notice of those comely yeomen strutting their lovely posteriors in their micro-minis all up and down the Enterprise ... so, what's my point ?? Simply this: Brooke Shields is a sight for sore eyes no matter HOW old a man is when he finally learns it's okay to LIKE himself AND gawk at very beautiful girls. That is, apart from BRENDA STARR being, as I understand my elders, a pretty faithful adherence to the Heroine of so many young ladies in the fifties; lush with romance, comedy, bright colors and adventure; and a diverting and entertaining indulgence absent of foul speech which never takes itself *too* seriously -- there is, in every frame, our Brooke, our Heroine, Gorgeous Eye Candy for the Age of Cable and Color TV, most splendidly attired, for several delicious minutes at least, in a most eye-pleasing, fetching Barnum and Bailey style "costume" [ heh heh ]. Or, in the immortal words of my pal, Homer: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Brooke _Shields_." ... Read more

Reviews (39)

A Disaster Film Classic but bad acting
I recently bought the Airport Terminal pack for myself because I always had a passion for disaster films. Before I bought the terminal pack, I wanted to see if I could rent the Airport sequels at the VHS store, they didn't have them, when I finally bought the terminal and when I saw Airport 75, I thought it was a classic for a disaster film, but for acting i though it was a joke, in the entire film, from the beginning and to the end, Karen Black who plays the Head Stewdess on a Boeing 747 that collides with a small private plane during flight looks like she has her eyes crossed, now that was hiliarious! Her acting was just as bad, it became even worse when she had to take instructins for Al Murdock ( Charlston Heston) to fly the plane, that scene was really painful to watch, and one other thing to, the man who was flying the small private who eventually crashed into Flight #409 looked like he was having a heart attack when he lost control, before that happened, if he did have a heart attack then why didn't the movie tell anything about heart problems, I guess that was just to add excitment to the movie. All in All the movie was good, the acting was a joke, esepically Karen Black's acting!

Best of the bunch
My personal favourite of all the Airport movies, Airport 1975 is a camp classic. Right from the opening credits I am whisked away to the 70's and the familiar feeling of snuggling up at the drive-in....I can almost smell the thermos coffee. Airport 1975 doesn't take itself too seriously, yet all the characters play it straight. With a cast that reads like a guest list for a post Oscars party this movie seems to be full of cliches, yet it was this movie that started the said cliches, which I suppose debunks that theory. This is the movie that Airplane (aka Flying High) stuck closest too. With the sick child (Linda Blair), singing nun (Helen Reddy) and commitmentphobe pilot (Charlton Heston) all represented in the direct spoof. The movie however belongs to Karen Black, the poor old flight attendant. The plane is rendered pilotless when a midair collision with a small plane collides with the cockpit. Ms Black then has to take control of the 747 with no experience in flying whatsoever. Entertaining and hilarious.
I was disappointed however in the DVD which was very light on features. I would have loved to see a trailer, a commentary or better yet, a feature on all four Airport movies, but alas, it was not to be. I had to settle for a filmography on the top 2 stars only and that was it.
If you want a blast from the past, or are just fond of the disaster flicks churned out in the 1970's I would heartily recommend Airport 1975.

Buy this version unless they remaster the Terminal Pack...
I won't comment on the film or the acting; it's hard to take any Airport film seriously after Airplane! skewered the genre.

However, if you appreciate the film for what it is, fun entertainment, this is certainly one of the better in the 70's disaster film genre and the special effects have held up well over the years.

If you're interested in this film, I strongly urge you to buy this copy instead of or in addition to the Airport Terminal Pack; there is a mastering error that does not fully expand the film horizontally in that collection, with the result that objects are somewhat compressed horizontally from their true proportions. Another reviewer's references to "tire ovals" and "stick people" is a bit of an exaggeration, but you'll wonder why the plane is so short and stubby and why the airport's pickup trucks look as if they have 4' beds. :-)

In short, another mastering error on Universal's part and, frankly, a somewhat better transfer on GoodTimes' part make THIS the better transfer of Airport 1975...

Superfluous from Beginning to End
I first watched this movie on NBC back in April 1977. Though edited to make it fit its two hour timeslot and allow room for commercials, I later purchased the video from Goodtimes Video to watch the parts not shown by NBC. From the beginning of the movie shot at Dulles Airport in northern Virginia, the cast who star as the crew and passengers aboard Columbia Airlines flight 409, board a Boeing 747-123 (on loan from American Airlines) and it is typical Hollywood overacting, particularly the passengers. Some of the crew, especially Erik Estrada, who plays flight engineer Julio, does quite a bit of womanizing with one of the stewardesses. I've flown a lot during my lifetime, even aboard 747s, and have never heard so much redundancy as depicted in this movie. The sound effects were a little primitive from the Boeing 747 sounding like a Boeing 707 on take-off down to the telephone gongs that are the same ones used on the beginning of the "Rockford Files". This was in the days before George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic came into the vogue. By the way, his film "American Graffiti" was the inflight movie. Some faults are present in the film. The private pilot (Dana Andrews) identifies his plane as "two-three-two-zulu" instead of the correct identitication: N9750Y. Another fault was at the time the stricken 747 lands at Salt Lake City and runs out of runway before Charlton Heston has to turn the nose tiller to make the plane go left at a high rate of speed. Here, we see the passengers get thrown to the left instead of to the right. Another fault we see is that the passengers are catching a glimpse of the daring midair transfer. In reality it would be difficult for anyone to see such an operation. If you were to watch the movie more than once, you could see all these errors.

Better transfer than the "Terminal Pack" transfer
As hard as it may be to believe, this being a "Good Times" release, the transfer on this DVD is better than that included in the "Terminal Pack". Yes, the "Terminal Pack" transfer is anamorphic, and this one has SLIGHTLY more grain....but this transfer is in the correct proportion. Tires are round and the actors don't look like stick people.

My recommendation...buy this disk to supplement your "Terminal Pack". ... Read more

Reviews (8)

The Moral? Never Eat Sea Monkeys.
This sublime little gem from the one and only Roger Corman is a fun and cheesy way to spend 62 minutes of your life. After being launched into space via the magic of some of the lamest animation you will ever see, pilot John Corcoran loses control of his spacecraft and plummets to earth. For crashing at such high speed the spaceship is in remarkably good shape. NASA dispatches their one Jeep to the crash site and arrives within minutes. (Note: it is inadvisable to smoke cigarettes at an aircraft accident site.) John has one cut, but is dead, (evidently) although there is a lot of medical doubletalk about his skin color, so they whisk him to the base in the official NASA flatbed truck for examination.

Once back at the base John comes back to life with no warning. They draw a blood sample and see a hysterical piece of animation of one cell, oh sorry, 'alien amorphic cell structure', gobbling up another in the microscope. They decide they best put John in front of a fluoroscope to look inside him, and, (oh the humanity!) he is revealed to be teeming with what appear to be Sea Monkey embryos. John rapidly realizes that the thing that has been terrorizing the base since the crash is a Blood Beast from a different planet, and he is carrying its spawn. Surprisingly, he ends up leading the pro-monster lobby, and decides to reason with the Blood Beast. We actually get to see the felonious (murder and kidnapping) Blood Beast quite a bit (and his amusing shadow a couple of times, too.) It is normally good to get a lot of screen time for the monster in one of these movies, but here, I am not so sure it was that great of an idea, especially in daylight: the Blood Beast looks like a cross between something from 'Sigmund and the Sea Monsters' and a giant puffin with beak, claws, zipper, and very bad complexion. In short, the Blood Beast is a little less than horrifying. Ultimately the movie evokes a bit of 'It Conquered the World' or 'Zontar, the Thing From Venus' in the dramatic ending.

Throughout the movie there is dreadful acting (especially the women, for some reason), and great gothic music, which has been recycled from earlier Corman films. This movie was given the MST3K treatment to good effect, and I wish that version was available on DVD as well. Even without the MST3K treatment, this movie is fun to watch and makes you wish that they still made monster movies like this one. Thanks, Roger!

Night of the Bargain Basement Beast
Co-written and produced by Gene Corman, with Roger Corman as the executive producer, Night of the Blood Beast (1958) is a good representation of the Z grade science fiction movies of the late 50's.

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who also helmed Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), the movie stars, among others, John Baer, Angela Greene, and Ed Nelson, from Teenage Caveman (1958), The Brain Eaters (1959), and TV's Peyton Place (1964).

The movie starts off proper with an astronaut in a small capsule supposedly returning to Earth after a brief orbit. Something goes wrong, and after much techno babble, "The negative, cross-indexed hyper dyne ion chamber is reading 8 million psi!", "The multi-functional thyroid chronometer is unfunctional!", the small capsule crashes to Earth. Two individuals find the capsule (not much of a rescue party) and discover their space-traveling colleague is no longing among the living. They radio the rest of their small group, who soon arrive, and then they document everything and take the body back to some dinky, remote radar station they are using for a base. What they don't realize is that their chum didn't come back from space alone...oooooh...(cue creepy music)

A cursory analysis of the dead man reveals he is dead, but he isn't. The older scientist keeps saying, "That's impossible" every time they find another indication that the dead man may not really be dead. Soon after stuff starts happening...the radio goes kaput, the lights no longer light, vehicles no longer run...seems a magnetic field is playing havoc with just about everything. And to top things off, there's a space thingy running around, which makes it's appearance known by breaking some windows. The dead man comes back to life, and we find out a rather disturbing fact in that the man, who was once dead and is now seemingly alive, has wee, little aliens growing inside his body. Oh yes, the man with the alien babies also develops some kind of telepathic link with the alien, who is now hiding out in one of Hollywood's more famously filmed spots, the Bronson Caves, used for, among other things, the scenes from the 60's Batman TV show where the Batmobile came barreling out whenever the characters left the Batcave.

So what happens next? Realizing that their friend and colleague's survival is linked to the alien, do they make nicey nice with the alien? Or do they destroy the abomination? And what about those alien babies? Is a satisfactory conclusion forthcoming? Watch and find out. (Don't hold your breath)

I have to say, I thought the element of the man carrying aliens inside him was interesting, and the subsequent story, although a bit talky, kept me interested. The biggest thing working against this movie was the budget. The space creature was completely funky, looking like giant, sickly sloth with google eyes wearing dirty trash bags. This may have been better received at the time, but now seems like a dusty relic. The movie certainly doesn't hold up to others of the time, but is worth checking out if you enjoy clunky, cheaply made science fiction films of the 50's. The dialogue, as I said, got rather clunky, but the direction seemed to movie things along pretty well, along with a 65 minute running time. Short and sweet, that's the way to make a movie like this. I was just really happy they didn't try to pad things out with a lot of stock footage, as was a common practice with a lot of these low budget features.

The picture quality of the movie on this disc is not all that great, being washed out and showing many flaws and lacking clarity and the audio drops out briefly a couple of times, but I guess that is to be expected. I am not too familiar with Retromedia and their other releases, so I don't know if they try to use the best possible prints or whatever they have on hand. This release seems shoddy, especially for the asking price. The only extra feature is a really poor copy of the trailer for the movie. There is a nice, lengthy piece on the back of the case about the movie, written by someone from a book I never heard of...

Cookieman108

Very Little Blood Here...
Roger Corman does it again! Night Of The Blood Beast is a gooey cheese classic! An astronaut returns to earth, only to crash and burn. Scientists find him dead, yet still warm and without rigor mortis. They take him back to a research station, where a strange beast appears and kills one of them. The dead astronaut "wakes up" and starts acting weird. He is somehow linked to the monster and tells everyone that it means no harm (even though it's already murdered one of 'em). The astronaut decides he needs an x-ray and everyone sees that his body is plum full of alien embryos! The good news is that we do get to see the blood beast itself quite a bit. The bad news is that it looks pretty stupid. The beast tries to tell everyone that it is only here to help us by killing us all and melding our minds with it's own. So, the scientists burn it up in a cave. Will more blood beasts attack in the future? We are left to ponder this deep question. Still, as B movies go, this is at the top of the heap! The musical score is the same as in "Attack Of The Giant Leeches" and "Beast From Haunted Cave". Corman was a good recycler! Best when viewed after 2 am...

Drive in fare
This is a perfect example of a "B' 50's monster movie, comparable to "Attack of the Giant Leeches" or " The Giant Claw" The technical details of this movie aren't worth mentioning, acting's pretty bad too, and the monster looks like a giant paper mache' parrot made by a class of kindergarteners. Despite all that negativity I liked this movie for the same reason I like the two I mentioned above, it's fun to watch. And Bronson's cave makes an appearance, you'll recognize it from several other flicks

Okay Film, But Stereotypical
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST

Is the Ventura release listed here the same as [another] version reviewed by everyone at this site?...

NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST is an enjoyable but cheap and somewhat predictable fare. The actors do the best they can with the material. Some elements are reminescent of other films. The Quatermass Xperiment, for instance, also features an astronaut who comes back to earth, a man who should be dead, but who is kept alive and consumed by an alien parasite. This film has the "momma" or "papa" alien aboard the rocket as well. It will become the protagonist of the film.

The body scan of the astronaut, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) with the incubating alien parasites in his chest cavity is rather cool. Dr. Wyman (Tyler McVey) has his head bitten off but we are spared the gore. (Did it originslly show more?) We find out later that the alien has appropriated the dead doctor's knowledge and language. Didn't Corman already do this bisiness in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS?

This film is hardly a Roger Corman classic. Esentially he assisted his brother who directed this film and the BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES. The script is poor and steals profusely from others. The monstrous alien is fashioned from a recycled costume used in TEENAGE CAVEMAN.

The sets are essentially Griffith Park (plenty of fences) and Bronson Caves (seen in lots of movies!).

... What became of the 35 mm original? Is it lost? It is sad if this is the best copy anyone could find. Many films have been lost through careless circulation.

The notes on the box are quoted from LAST GASPS: HORRIBLE HORRORS FROM HORROR HEROES by Thorn Sherman. However, I wish you luck trying to find it...!

The notes close with another peculiar statement, that the "lucky film fan ... finally has a chance to see it in the format in which it was meant to be seen in its COMPLETE, TRUNCATED form." Huh? Are they still pulling our chain? For anyone with poor vocabulary, "truncated" means edited or shortened. How can such a thing be complete? The notes are a bit insulting.

Even the trailer is abruptly cut off at the end. The picture quality is poor and the audio is fair.

>NO NUDITY
>NO GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND/OR GORE
>NO BAD LANGUAGE ... Read more

Reviews (5)

He must avenge his father's death.
Frank (John Brinkley) is looking for the gang that killed his father who was a watchman. They know they got away in a white T-Bird automobile. Frank has a hunch it was Alex Hendricks (Ed Nelson). He goes all over town asking people and looking at every T-Bired car. He must get proof. In a bar, he catches up with the T-Bird gang and after proving himself in a fight, he joins the group. Frank gives them a fake name. If Frank is going to beat them he has to find out how they work. Can Frank keep himself out of trouble while trying to avenge his father's death? You might be surprised by the appearance of Vic Tayback (Alice tv series) who plays the first cop at the gas station. Jazz music trys to help this film.

Truly Awful
I enjoy good moves and I also get a hoot out of camp. This is neither. This is not a hot rod movie. There are no drag races, no street rods etc and worst of all absolutely no one is cool in it. There is only one "T-bird" and it is a 2 seat 56' not a 4 seat 58' or 59' as depicted on the cover. So it only holds one other person. They also have one other beat up car. This consitutes "the gang's" cars and with the two seater you are not going to be able to haul around a lot of gang members so it is a terribly small gang. The leader of the gang wears a sport coat and tie and drives around in the white T-bird with the top down even while pulling his "jobs" - I guess so everyone can get a good look at him and discribe him accurately to the police. Save your money and if you want true 50's camp buy the Peter Gunn TV series which is now out on DVD (2 sets)good action, great music (by Mancini). He has a cool girl friend that sings in a 50's lounge (Mother's), drives cool cars, wears cool cloths - he is 50's cool.

Rebels
this movie was great i think it shows how teens were back then in tha 50s. the gangs intead of gangs from nowadays usen guns. they use there fists. so it shows if u wana deal somethin deal it with ur hands not guns.

Disappointing even at the price
I picked this DVD up cause I like the 50s JD stuff and figured I couldn't go wrong at the price. Well, the movie itself isn't disappointing, but the DVD quality is lacking. The image overall is very soft, like a poor quality EP mode VHS tape, and quite dark, especially in the night scenes. If you're desperate to see every JD epic ever made, go for it. If you're looking for a quality addition to your movie library I would have to say pass on this one, even at the price (although in perspective it's not as bad as some Madacy and Diamond discs I've seen in the same price range). The star rating is for the DVD, the movie would get about a 3 or 4.

Rare Juvenile Delinquent Feature Finally Gets a DVD Release
This Filmgroup release features John Brinkley as a young man whose father is killed in a robbery. He joins forces with the T-Bird gang in order to exact revenge on the killers. Some of the performances are a bit rough, but Ed Nelson as the leader of the T-Bird gang, and John Brinkley both put on a good show. Brinkley, who seemed to make a career of appearing in these juvenile melodramas, also co-wrote the screenplay along with his co-star Tony Miller. The low budget show throughout the film but it generally holds the viewers interest and for the price this is a hard DVD to pass up! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

He must avenge his father's death.
Frank (John Brinkley) is looking for the gang that killed his father who was a watchman. They know they got away in a white T-Bird automobile. Frank has a hunch it was Alex Hendricks (Ed Nelson). He goes all over town asking people and looking at every T-Bired car. He must get proof. In a bar, he catches up with the T-Bird gang and after proving himself in a fight, he joins the group. Frank gives them a fake name. If Frank is going to beat them he has to find out how they work. Can Frank keep himself out of trouble while trying to avenge his father's death? You might be surprised by the appearance of Vic Tayback (Alice tv series) who plays the first cop at the gas station. Jazz music trys to help this film.

Truly Awful
I enjoy good moves and I also get a hoot out of camp. This is neither. This is not a hot rod movie. There are no drag races, no street rods etc and worst of all absolutely no one is cool in it. There is only one "T-bird" and it is a 2 seat 56' not a 4 seat 58' or 59' as depicted on the cover. So it only holds one other person. They also have one other beat up car. This consitutes "the gang's" cars and with the two seater you are not going to be able to haul around a lot of gang members so it is a terribly small gang. The leader of the gang wears a sport coat and tie and drives around in the white T-bird with the top down even while pulling his "jobs" - I guess so everyone can get a good look at him and discribe him accurately to the police. Save your money and if you want true 50's camp buy the Peter Gunn TV series which is now out on DVD (2 sets)good action, great music (by Mancini). He has a cool girl friend that sings in a 50's lounge (Mother's), drives cool cars, wears cool cloths - he is 50's cool.

Rebels
this movie was great i think it shows how teens were back then in tha 50s. the gangs intead of gangs from nowadays usen guns. they use there fists. so it shows if u wana deal somethin deal it with ur hands not guns.

Disappointing even at the price
I picked this DVD up cause I like the 50s JD stuff and figured I couldn't go wrong at the price. Well, the movie itself isn't disappointing, but the DVD quality is lacking. The image overall is very soft, like a poor quality EP mode VHS tape, and quite dark, especially in the night scenes. If you're desperate to see every JD epic ever made, go for it. If you're looking for a quality addition to your movie library I would have to say pass on this one, even at the price (although in perspective it's not as bad as some Madacy and Diamond discs I've seen in the same price range). The star rating is for the DVD, the movie would get about a 3 or 4.

Rare Juvenile Delinquent Feature Finally Gets a DVD Release
This Filmgroup release features John Brinkley as a young man whose father is killed in a robbery. He joins forces with the T-Bird gang in order to exact revenge on the killers. Some of the performances are a bit rough, but Ed Nelson as the leader of the T-Bird gang, and John Brinkley both put on a good show. Brinkley, who seemed to make a career of appearing in these juvenile melodramas, also co-wrote the screenplay along with his co-star Tony Miller. The low budget show throughout the film but it generally holds the viewers interest and for the price this is a hard DVD to pass up! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Boggy Babes Battle For Ill-Gotten Booty...
I'm not a big fan of Roger Corman's cheaper-looking monsters (as in "the creature from haunted sea" et al), however, SWAMP WOMEN could certainly have used one of Corman's 8' styrofoam space-turds to spice things up a bit! Instead, we've got four women, consisting of 3 "hardened" criminals and one undercover cop, floating trough the bayou. We've also got Mike Conners and his half-wit girlfriend as hostages. It seems the "Nardo Girls" have escaped from prison in search of $200,000.00 in stolen diamonds. Unbeknownst to them, a policewoman is posing as their partner in crime. We get to see Conners tied to several trees, and his dopey girlfriend gets (mercifully) eaten by alligators. Eventually, the diamonds are found, the girls have one catfight after another (the only real highlight), and one decides to sneak off with both the diamonds and Mike Conners! This leads to her demise at the end of a spear. Beverly Garland is tough as Josie, and stands head and shoulders above the material. This film is 70 minutes long and would have been much better at 50 or so. Watch it if there's nothing else to do... ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Guys 'n' Thighs
Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is the only one of these features that deserves a single star. It at least tries to be straightforward sci-fi, even though its monster is so atrociously ill-made that it looks like a cousin of the Creature from the Haunted Sea--which is intended as parody. The latter has as much satirical savy, however, as a film scripted and shot by second-graders. Swamp Women, meant as jailbreak drama, should be of interest only to those who enjoy ogling short-shorted, cat-fightin' floosies--or maybe Mike Connors perpetually tied to a tree! Many of the players in the trio are competent actors (seeing them in other films proves this), but the sandwiching cinema is so shoddy that one would be better served acquiring Phantom as a single. It at least has a plot more expansive than that better suited for a short!

Quantity and price make it worthwhile for bad movie lovers.
None of the movies here represented can individually redeem a purchase, even for camp aficionados, but together on one disc you can hardly go wrong. Additionally, the prints are average at best, but come on... these movies are not likely to receive Criterion Collection treatment anytime soon. So for the price, they're fine.

As with a lot of the dvds in this "horror classics" series, the inclusion of at least one of the movies is questionable. Here that would be the crime-based Swamp Women. Yet, I'm glad, because it exists on dvd nowhere else. The other films exist in other formats, and have been amply reviewed, sometimes by me, so I will constrain my comments to Swamp Women. (Phantom gets a dull 2 stars, Creature gets a sometimes-good 3 stars.)

Swamp Women itself is no great shakes, earning a shaky three stars. You need to know little besides "1955" and "Corman" to figure that out. His movies from this early period are gratingly inept, but without a lot of the goofy charm that they possessed just a few years later. The draw is the cast: Beverly (Pretty Poison) Garland, Marie (The Killing) Windsor and Mike "Touch" Connors, of Mannix renown. The story involves a butchy policewoman going undercover in a Louisiana jail to infiltrate a gang of broads (led by Windsor, whose screen name is Josie. Would that make them Josie and the Alleycats?) who know where their former boyfriends hid a cache of stolen diamonds. The hard-bitten ladies take her into their confidence at once, as they perform "hard labor" in what appears to be a cigarette warehouse. They escape easily by climbing out a window, and run to a waiting car. None of this arouses any suspicion.

They change (offscreen) into pastel shirts, then commandeer a motorboat which holds Connors and his girlfriend ("Hey, baby, wanna tour the swamp?"), and a guide, who is shot dead so that penny-pincher Corman could pay him only for an hour's work. Connors, the nominal hero, is knocked cold by one weenie Windsor punch. The policewoman must then balance her hardened criminal act with her attempt to keep the hostages alive.

They all head toward the diamonds, inserting lots of padding and filler and stock footage, making time for bickering and cutting off the women's jeans to make them into short shorts. This meager bit of cheesecake helps the movie a whole bunch. They fight over Connors' affections as he is tied to a tree, and Garland has a nice wrestling match with the Jan Sterling-esque Jill Jarmyn (If you're familiar with Jarmyn's history, you know she's had practice). Plus, Connors, who earlier had been KO'd by Windsor, battles an alligator and kills it quite simply. Yet not before the budget-conscious Corman allows it to bloodlessly kill the girlfriend, who was flailing in clearly much bluer, cleaner water. (Personally, I think this scene was inserted later only at the behest of Connors and his agent, so Touch would not be the most worthless "hero" in the history of cinema.)

The movie tries hard to be tough and mean, like the caper films of the period, but it doesn't walk the walk, and it certainly can't talk the talk. Windsor's main hard-boiled line (over and over) is "Cut it out, you two!" The Asphalt Jungle this is not. Eventually they reach the "buried" loot, which appeared to be no more than delicately wrapped in dry reeds, rather like a tamale. More squabbling occurs. Then the group begins their trek back out of the swamp. Ill-planned double-crosses, a shootout that wouldn't have needed to happen, a javelin toss, a rattlesnake, a poignant death, catfights, oarfights, headbutts and a circling police helicopter ensue before a romantic fadeout that is just ... yucky.

Now I shall cowboy up and admit my particular bias. Beverly Garland was one of the few B Scream Queens who could act, really act. But it gave me no great pleasure to see her acting like a kill-crazed Bayou Barbie. And although her rassling matches with Jarmyn made me wish this had been made 10 years later, they were somewhat offputting, in part because they were quite convincing. I also did not like her playing second banana to Windsor. I won't even begin to discuss Garland's demise.

In fact, the whole cast is decent. But the script and direction are so bad and unambitious that they annoy, rather than elate. Not enough happens to be truly, memorably terrible. (I find bad noir less appealing than bad sci-fi.) A felt-and-rubber Blaisdell monster would've helped.

As always, when I describe early Corman, I like it better now, having reviewed it. Writing all the silliness down gives me a chance to process it; what was merely blah before brings chuckles in retrospect. But I don't know that it would help on repeated viewings.

Still, the three mediocre movies combined make for a dvd worth owning. ... Read more

Description

A Bucket of Blood (1959, 65 min.) - Roger Corman directed and produced this black comedy set in a coffee shop where a group of 'far-out' beatniks inhabit a world of their own fantasies. "Attack of the Giant Leeches" (1960, 63 min.) - The placid backwaters of Florida serve as a backdrop for this shockingly scary film. Creepy lighting and cheesy organ music will put you on the edge of your seat as you watch several unknowing inhabitants of swamp country stumble into their hideous doom. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

The Moral? Never Eat Sea Monkeys.
This sublime little gem from the one and only Roger Corman is a fun and cheesy way to spend 62 minutes of your life. After being launched into space via the magic of some of the lamest animation you will ever see, pilot John Corcoran loses control of his spacecraft and plummets to earth. For crashing at such high speed the spaceship is in remarkably good shape. NASA dispatches their one Jeep to the crash site and arrives within minutes. (Note: it is inadvisable to smoke cigarettes at an aircraft accident site.) John has one cut, but is dead, (evidently) although there is a lot of medical doubletalk about his skin color, so they whisk him to the base in the official NASA flatbed truck for examination.

Once back at the base John comes back to life with no warning. They draw a blood sample and see a hysterical piece of animation of one cell, oh sorry, 'alien amorphic cell structure', gobbling up another in the microscope. They decide they best put John in front of a fluoroscope to look inside him, and, (oh the humanity!) he is revealed to be teeming with what appear to be Sea Monkey embryos. John rapidly realizes that the thing that has been terrorizing the base since the crash is a Blood Beast from a different planet, and he is carrying its spawn. Surprisingly, he ends up leading the pro-monster lobby, and decides to reason with the Blood Beast. We actually get to see the felonious (murder and kidnapping) Blood Beast quite a bit (and his amusing shadow a couple of times, too.) It is normally good to get a lot of screen time for the monster in one of these movies, but here, I am not so sure it was that great of an idea, especially in daylight: the Blood Beast looks like a cross between something from 'Sigmund and the Sea Monsters' and a giant puffin with beak, claws, zipper, and very bad complexion. In short, the Blood Beast is a little less than horrifying. Ultimately the movie evokes a bit of 'It Conquered the World' or 'Zontar, the Thing From Venus' in the dramatic ending.

Throughout the movie there is dreadful acting (especially the women, for some reason), and great gothic music, which has been recycled from earlier Corman films. This movie was given the MST3K treatment to good effect, and I wish that version was available on DVD as well. Even without the MST3K treatment, this movie is fun to watch and makes you wish that they still made monster movies like this one. Thanks, Roger!

Night of the Bargain Basement Beast
Co-written and produced by Gene Corman, with Roger Corman as the executive producer, Night of the Blood Beast (1958) is a good representation of the Z grade science fiction movies of the late 50's.

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who also helmed Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), the movie stars, among others, John Baer, Angela Greene, and Ed Nelson, from Teenage Caveman (1958), The Brain Eaters (1959), and TV's Peyton Place (1964).

The movie starts off proper with an astronaut in a small capsule supposedly returning to Earth after a brief orbit. Something goes wrong, and after much techno babble, "The negative, cross-indexed hyper dyne ion chamber is reading 8 million psi!", "The multi-functional thyroid chronometer is unfunctional!", the small capsule crashes to Earth. Two individuals find the capsule (not much of a rescue party) and discover their space-traveling colleague is no longing among the living. They radio the rest of their small group, who soon arrive, and then they document everything and take the body back to some dinky, remote radar station they are using for a base. What they don't realize is that their chum didn't come back from space alone...oooooh...(cue creepy music)

A cursory analysis of the dead man reveals he is dead, but he isn't. The older scientist keeps saying, "That's impossible" every time they find another indication that the dead man may not really be dead. Soon after stuff starts happening...the radio goes kaput, the lights no longer light, vehicles no longer run...seems a magnetic field is playing havoc with just about everything. And to top things off, there's a space thingy running around, which makes it's appearance known by breaking some windows. The dead man comes back to life, and we find out a rather disturbing fact in that the man, who was once dead and is now seemingly alive, has wee, little aliens growing inside his body. Oh yes, the man with the alien babies also develops some kind of telepathic link with the alien, who is now hiding out in one of Hollywood's more famously filmed spots, the Bronson Caves, used for, among other things, the scenes from the 60's Batman TV show where the Batmobile came barreling out whenever the characters left the Batcave.

So what happens next? Realizing that their friend and colleague's survival is linked to the alien, do they make nicey nice with the alien? Or do they destroy the abomination? And what about those alien babies? Is a satisfactory conclusion forthcoming? Watch and find out. (Don't hold your breath)

I have to say, I thought the element of the man carrying aliens inside him was interesting, and the subsequent story, although a bit talky, kept me interested. The biggest thing working against this movie was the budget. The space creature was completely funky, looking like giant, sickly sloth with google eyes wearing dirty trash bags. This may have been better received at the time, but now seems like a dusty relic. The movie certainly doesn't hold up to others of the time, but is worth checking out if you enjoy clunky, cheaply made science fiction films of the 50's. The dialogue, as I said, got rather clunky, but the direction seemed to movie things along pretty well, along with a 65 minute running time. Short and sweet, that's the way to make a movie like this. I was just really happy they didn't try to pad things out with a lot of stock footage, as was a common practice with a lot of these low budget features.

The picture quality of the movie on this disc is not all that great, being washed out and showing many flaws and lacking clarity and the audio drops out briefly a couple of times, but I guess that is to be expected. I am not too familiar with Retromedia and their other releases, so I don't know if they try to use the best possible prints or whatever they have on hand. This release seems shoddy, especially for the asking price. The only extra feature is a really poor copy of the trailer for the movie. There is a nice, lengthy piece on the back of the case about the movie, written by someone from a book I never heard of...

Cookieman108

Very Little Blood Here...
Roger Corman does it again! Night Of The Blood Beast is a gooey cheese classic! An astronaut returns to earth, only to crash and burn. Scientists find him dead, yet still warm and without rigor mortis. They take him back to a research station, where a strange beast appears and kills one of them. The dead astronaut "wakes up" and starts acting weird. He is somehow linked to the monster and tells everyone that it means no harm (even though it's already murdered one of 'em). The astronaut decides he needs an x-ray and everyone sees that his body is plum full of alien embryos! The good news is that we do get to see the blood beast itself quite a bit. The bad news is that it looks pretty stupid. The beast tries to tell everyone that it is only here to help us by killing us all and melding our minds with it's own. So, the scientists burn it up in a cave. Will more blood beasts attack in the future? We are left to ponder this deep question. Still, as B movies go, this is at the top of the heap! The musical score is the same as in "Attack Of The Giant Leeches" and "Beast From Haunted Cave". Corman was a good recycler! Best when viewed after 2 am...

Drive in fare
This is a perfect example of a "B' 50's monster movie, comparable to "Attack of the Giant Leeches" or " The Giant Claw" The technical details of this movie aren't worth mentioning, acting's pretty bad too, and the monster looks like a giant paper mache' parrot made by a class of kindergarteners. Despite all that negativity I liked this movie for the same reason I like the two I mentioned above, it's fun to watch. And Bronson's cave makes an appearance, you'll recognize it from several other flicks

Okay Film, But Stereotypical
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST

Is the Ventura release listed here the same as [another] version reviewed by everyone at this site?...

NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST is an enjoyable but cheap and somewhat predictable fare. The actors do the best they can with the material. Some elements are reminescent of other films. The Quatermass Xperiment, for instance, also features an astronaut who comes back to earth, a man who should be dead, but who is kept alive and consumed by an alien parasite. This film has the "momma" or "papa" alien aboard the rocket as well. It will become the protagonist of the film.

The body scan of the astronaut, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) with the incubating alien parasites in his chest cavity is rather cool. Dr. Wyman (Tyler McVey) has his head bitten off but we are spared the gore. (Did it originslly show more?) We find out later that the alien has appropriated the dead doctor's knowledge and language. Didn't Corman already do this bisiness in ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS?

This film is hardly a Roger Corman classic. Esentially he assisted his brother who directed this film and the BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES. The script is poor and steals profusely from others. The monstrous alien is fashioned from a recycled costume used in TEENAGE CAVEMAN.

The sets are essentially Griffith Park (plenty of fences) and Bronson Caves (seen in lots of movies!).

... What became of the 35 mm original? Is it lost? It is sad if this is the best copy anyone could find. Many films have been lost through careless circulation.

The notes on the box are quoted from LAST GASPS: HORRIBLE HORRORS FROM HORROR HEROES by Thorn Sherman. However, I wish you luck trying to find it...!

The notes close with another peculiar statement, that the "lucky film fan ... finally has a chance to see it in the format in which it was meant to be seen in its COMPLETE, TRUNCATED form." Huh? Are they still pulling our chain? For anyone with poor vocabulary, "truncated" means edited or shortened. How can such a thing be complete? The notes are a bit insulting.

Even the trailer is abruptly cut off at the end. The picture quality is poor and the audio is fair.

>NO NUDITY
>NO GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND/OR GORE
>NO BAD LANGUAGE ... Read more

Amazon.com

Six months after the Japanese destroyed the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Americans discovered the Japanese were planning to seize the Naval base at Midway Island--a perfect staging point for invading Hawaii or the mainland.Outnumbered four to one, the Americans won a surprise victory and shattered the backbone of the Japanese Imperial Navy.This 1976 film feels more like a history lesson than a drama, but World War II buffs will appreciate the attention to historical fact (especially the way in which fate and a few bad decisions turned the tide), as well as the generous use of actual battle footage.The all-star cast includes Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, and Cliff Robertson in cameos and a whole slew of familiar TV faces in supporting roles.Hal Holbrook is fun as an oddball intelligence officer. --Geof Miller ... Read more

Reviews (105)

The Pivitol Battle of the Pacific War
In June, 1942, the United States uncovered Japanese plans to invade the island of Midway, located only 1100 miles from the Hawaiian islands. This fine film brings this great battle to life.

An all-star cast, including Charlton Heston (Capt. Matt Garth), Henry Fonda (Admiral Chester Nimitz), Glenn Ford (Admiral Raymond Spruance), Hal Holbrook (Commander Joseph Rochefort) and Robert Webber (Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher) turn in fine performances as the men who would ultimately win the battle and turn the tide against the Japanese. The Japanese actors do a fine job as well portraying such officers as Admiral Yamamoto and Admiral Nagumo.

The battle scenes, especially the American dive and torpedo attacks against the Japanese fleet, are excellent. Real battle footage is also included, and if you watch close enough, you may even see some scenes from "Tora Tora Tora"