WILLARD (1971) / BEN (1972) Limited Edition Blu-ray Boxset from Second Sight Films on 10/31

WILLARD (1971) / BEN (1972) 

Limited Edition Blu-ray Boxset

Also available as single-disc Blu-ray Editions 

 

Release Date: October 31st 2017 

Label: Second Sight Films

Region Code: B

Cert: 15 

Duration: 94 Minutes/95 Minutes 

Audio: English Lossless Mono 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Daniel Mann/Phil Karlson

Cast: Sondra Locke, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Borgnine, Bruce Davison, Michael Dante/Arthur O'Connell, Joseph Campanella, Lee Harcourt Montgomery, Meredith Baxter, Rosemary Murphy

The rats are on the rampage in two classic 1970s horrors, Willard and Ben which make their UK home entertainment debut in newly restored versions complete with brand new special features. They arrive together as a Limited Edition Blu-ray Boxset and as individual releases on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as on-demand and download courtesy of Second Sight Films.

The Limited Edition Boxset exclusively features stunning new artwork by renowned artist Graham Humphreys and includes a collector's poster of the artwork. It will be available on Blu-ray on October 30th 2017 alongside single Blu-ray releases of Willard and Ben.

Daniel Mann’s 1971 classic horror film based on Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert, inspired a new generation of horror films with animal predators and stars Bruce Davison as the eponymous
Willard alongside Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Lanchester in one of her last ever appearances and Sondra  Locke.

Meek misfit Willard Stiles doesn’t have much going for him. His overbearing mother constantly screams at him, he’s ruthlessly bullied by the boss who stole his father’s business and mercilessly laughed at by his co-workers. Willard eventually turns to a colony of rats for friendship and with training they will soon do anything for their new friend. It’s time for Willard to get even.

With its world-famous theme song sung by the one and only Michael Jackson, Ben the sequel to Willard was originally released in 1972 and stars Lee Montgomery as Danny Garrison alongside Joseph Campanella and is directed by Phil Karlson.

Danny is a lonely young boy with a heart condition who finds a friend in Ben, a rat once trained by misfit Willard Stiles. His new best friend protects him from bullying and keeps his spirits up through hard times. But all is not well in Ben’s colony and the other rodents terrify the town with a series of violent
attacks. The police are determined to wipe them out. Can Ben survive? Who will prevail in the battle of rat versus human?

SPECIAL FEATURES:

WILLARD (1971)
- New 4K scan of the original camera negative - Audio commentary with actor Bruce Davison
- Interview with Actor Bruce Davison
- Theatrical trailer
- TV Spot,
- Radio Spot
- Stills Gallery

BEN (1972) 
- New HD transfer and restoration using the best surviving archive print
- Interview with Actor Lee Montgomery
- Commentary with actor Lee Montgomery
- Theatrical Trailers
- TV Spots
- Willard/Ben Double Feature Trailer 
- TV Spot
- Radio Spot
- Stills gallery

BOX SET EXCLUSIVES
• New artwork by Graham Humphreys exclusive to boxset
• Poster of new artwork exclusive to boxset

WILLARD (1971) (Blu-ray Review)

WILLARD (1971) 

Label: Scream Factory
Release Date: May 16th 2017
Region Code: A
Rating: PG
Duration: 95 Minutes 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Daniel Mann
Cast: Sondra Locke, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Borgnine, Bruce Davison, Michael Dante

Willard Stiles (Bruce Davidson, Lords of Salem) is a bit social misfit, he lives with his overbearing mom Henriette (Elsa Lanchester, Bride of Frankenstein) in a run-down Victorian mansion. He works at a factory formerly owned by his now deceased father, a business stolen away from the family by his new boss Al Martin (Ernest Borgnine, Escape from New York), who is always on him, pushing him around and making him feel small in front of everyone at work.. At home his mother is both a doting harasser and totally smothering, between her and his boss Willard is about at his rope's end. Increasingly unhappy with his lot in life Willard befriends a pair of rats he find living in the basement of his home, a white rat he names Socrates and a darker rat named Ben, who becomes the lead rat to Willard's legion of the rats. 

Hiding away in his basement Willard develops a rudimentary form of communication with his rats, forming an army of rodents who begin to perform his bidding, beginning by ruining his bosses annual party, the rats invading his home and causing quite panic. At work Willard befriends a new employee, the pretty and kind Joan (Sondra Locke, The Outlaw Josey Wales), with his new found rat friends and a lady in his life things are looking up for Willard, but his nagging mother is in failing health, and his boss is trying to screw him out of his Victorian mansion, he's at the edge and things turn dark soon enough, first with the death of his mother, and second when his boss kills Socrates at the office. 

After being fired from his job by Mr. Martin Willard goes to the factory after-hours with his army of rats and confronts Mr. Martin in his office, calling him out for all his evil deeds and slights against him, before commanding the rats to "tear him up!", which they do, forcing the bastard to leap out a window to his death as he is gnawed upon my dozens of rats.  Unfortunately, in the aftermath Willard begins to mistreat his rat-friends, tricking them and drowning them, and Ben is not having any of it, launching an attack against Willard, proving that you should never betray your friends, even yur rat friends. I love it when Willard is on the run from the horde of vengeful rats, screaming "I was good to you Ben!".

The shots of rats are well-filmed and rather creepy, directed by Daniel Mann (Our Man Flint) the films has a nice look and atmosphere, though the film does have a certain TV look about it, not surprising since cinematographer Robert B. Hauser (The Frisco Kid) worked in TV for twenty-five years, but the shots are nicely lit with colored lighting adding a dramatic flair. If you have a fear of rats this is gonna be an icky watch for you, they did good work capturing the rodents on film, particularly the shots of the lead rat Ben, some of which do give him some kitschy menace. You have to laugh when you clearly see that the rats are obviously being flung in the cast from just off camera.   

Willard is a weird, dark movie that holds up well, Bruce Davidson is wonderful as the sort of pathetic weird guy turned rat-commander, who himself proves to be a villainous character in the end, but he is the most likeable of the characters the movie focuses on. Ernest Borgnine is superb as the cruel, larger-than-life Mr. Milton, who puts upon poor Willard at every turn, but he gets his comeuppance and then some.  Elsa Lanchester as Willard's mum is also a blast, a slightly insane sort of woman in poor health, her eyes read crazy, and his relationship with both her and Mr. Milton makes for some great scenes, you can see why Willard is such a frustrated weirdo. 

This was my first time watching the movie, I've seen clips pop-up here and there on YouTube through the years, but this is the first time the film has been available on any digital home video release, this sucker has been dormant since the days of VHS! It was worth the wait, this is a great film and a wonderful looking release, the extras with actor Bruce Davidson are fantastic, highly recommended. 

Audio/Video: Willard (1971) arrives on Blu-ray for the first time-ever on any digital format from Scream Factory, benefiting from a gorgeous new 4K scan looking sharp and details from the origial negative, blues and greens really pop, the textures and fine detail are wonderful, those 70s furnishing and fashions pop right off the screen. There's some modest depth to the image, the moody lighting in the latter scenes look great, this is a wonderful presentation. 

The extras are slim but good, beginning with a brand new commentary with actor Bruce Davidson moderated by Nathaniel Thompson of MondoDigital.com, a fun track with Bruce waxing nostalgic about his time working on the film with not just the rats but the amazing cast, including Elsa Lanchester (Bride of Frankenstein) who gave him some sage advice about director';s and their loads of codswallop, plus some great anecdotes about working with the larger-than-life Ernest Borgnine (Escape from New York), impersonating him while saying his line "This place is a woodpecker's hamburger". Davidson approaches his own career with some wry humor, mentioning how after kissing a rat in this film he didn't have the chance to kiss a girl on film for the next years! Thompson does good work keeping the conversation flowing, prompting Davidson to speak about his work in Short Eyes and Long Time Companion, and his own ideas about what the sequel should have been. 

There's also an on-camera interview with Davidson, he touches on a lot of the same information as the commentary, speaking about what an enthusiastic director Danny Mann was, again relaying the story of how at one point when struggling with a scene Mann told him to "think of the Nazis", and his love for actress Sondra Locke. We also get a selection of radio spots, TV spots and the theatrical trailer for the film, plus a gallery of images which includes promotional stills, lobby cards, and posters from various territories. This release is a dual format BD/DVD Combo, containing both HD and SD versions of the film, each disc having the same feature and extras, two-discs housed in a standard blue keepcase. The artwork is not reversible but features a scene from the film on the reverse side. 

Special Features
- NEW 4K scan of the original camera negative
- NEW audio commentary with actor Bruce Davison
- NEW interview with actor Bruce Davison (12 min) HD
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD
- TV Spot (1 min)
- Radio Spots (1 min) HD
- Still Gallery (6 min) HD

This is the sort of cult releases I celebrate Scream Factory for, we've been waiting for Willard (1971) and it's sequel, Ben (1972), to come to Blu-ray for years, and now it's here, and it was totally worth the wait. I hope this release brings some younger viewers to the altar of Willard, a film that deserves a wider audience, but because it has been so scarce for so long it's reputation has languished and waned. I'm sure many folks don't even realize the 2003 movie was remake, and that's just a damn shame. 4/5

Blu-ray Review: OUR MAN FLINT (1965)

OUR MAN FLINT (1965)

Label: Twilight Time DVD
Region Code: Region FREE
Rating: Not Rated 
Duration: 108 Minutes
Video: 1080p Anamorphic Wiescreen (2.35:1)
Audio: English 1.0 DTS-HD MA with Optional English SDH Subtitles
Director: Daniel Mann
Cast: James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb, Jean Hale, Andrew Duggan, Anna Lee, Steve Ihnat

Synopsis: Derek Flint (James Coburn)—super-spy, man of multifarious skills, playboy extraordinaire—has his hands full in Our Man Flint (1965), the Bond spoof to end all Bond spoofs. With a team of mad scientists plotting to rule the world by controlling the weather, Flint is called into action by the chief (Lee J. Cobb) of Z.O.W.I.E.—Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage. Now he must contend with a seductive counter-agent (Gila Golan) and her evil cohort (Edward Mulhare), in a race against time to save the swinging world as we know it. 

James Coburn is the star in this whimsical Bond-spoof actioner from director Daniel Mann (BUtterfield 8), in it we're treated to equal parts homage and anti-007 shenanigans. It's got everything one could hope for from a Bond film plus some wonderfully irreverent humor, too. It's not quite as over-the-top as the Austin Powers films but it's pretty damned funny just the same, and it's interesting to note just how much Austin Powers copped from this film, from the particular tone of a phone to the idea of fem-bots - it's all right here. We get the nifty gadgets, the chics, garish fashions, the shag carpeted bachelor pad, not one, but three villains set on word domination, some hot pleasure unit action plus an awesome volcano lair plus it's all wrapped up in candy-colored 1960's technicolor.

Our super-spy is Derek Flint (Coburn), the character is pretty anti-Bond, the man is just not Sean Connery in any way, shape or form but is instead a lanky fellow with a toothy smile - not what one has come to expect from the super-spy genre but he brings his A-game with charisma to spare and an ultra-cool detachment, it makes for a great performance and he really makes it his own, which is something given how easy it would have been to just give what Coburn himself called a "Bond-age" performance.  

Flint is a former operative of the spy agency Z.O.W.I.E.  and is reluctantly brought back in by the spy chief (J. Cobb) to help stop a trio of scientist bent on controlling the world through means of weather manipulation, these weather manipulation scenes are a mixed bag of awful looking stock footage and dated (but awesome) miniature sets, some far worse than others. Shot relatively cheap the film definitely has it's share of schlocky moments, some o the sets visibly shake at times, but I sort of love that sense of underlying cheapness, it's part of the fun. 

Our Man Flint is fun stuff, there's so much to enjoy here for fans of the spy and spy-spoof genre, this one really holds up, there's some great super-spy riffing to be had and I would find it hard to believe that if you are a fan of the 007 series you won't love this spy spoof on the genre, I prefer it to many of the Roger Moore entries myself, this is great stuff. 

Blu-ray: Twilight Time presents Our Man Flint in a 1080p AVC encoded transfer in the original 2.35:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio. The print used for the transfer is in fantastic shape with few if any instances of dirt, scratches or specks and it has a healthy amount of natural film grain too, which is wonderful. The image doesn't exactly pop with 1080p brilliance like you would get from a new title and the fine detail while decent for a film of this age is not all one would hope for but overall this is a very nice image, aside from the truly awful stock footage elements.

The English language DTS-HD Master Audio Mono sounds quite nice, dialogue, score and effects all sound quite good and are presented with wonderful clarity, it's a lively audio track and the Jerry Goldsmith score sounds fantastic, even more so is the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 isolated score track that brings the Jerry Goldsmith score to life when broken free of it's mono theatrical track.  

We get quite a few more extra features on this disc that I am accustomed to seeing from Twilight Time, it's a pleasant surprise. First we get Jerry Goldsmith's isolated music score for the film, a fantastic score with a few nods to John Barry's iconic themes. 

The Audio Commentary with Film Historians Lee Pfeiffer and Eddy Friedfeld is a nice listen, pleasantly conversational and not at all academic or dry, good stuff.  There's an extended Theatrical Trailer (6:42)  for the film presented in 2.35:1 - it's a great trailer, too. 

The first of several featurettes begins with Spy Style (6:48) a brief and fun look back at the film with film critic Chris Gore and set designer Perry Blake that puts the film in context of the spy craze of the 1960's following the box office phenom that was Dr. No (1962)

Up next is Spy-er-Rama (9:14) features Pfeiffer, Friedfeld and screenwriter Ben Starr discussing the film's origins beginning with 20th Century Fox's reluctance to finance any more epic films after the fiasco that was Cleopatra (1963) which nearly bankrupted the studio, plus them wanting to cash-in on the Bond zeitgeist with a mainstream hit. 

Perfect Bouillabaisse (1:30) is a fun recipe laden goof paying tribute to one of the film's tastier subplots. A Gentleman's Game (4:13) is a fond appreciation of James Coburn from cast and crew, remembered as a one of a kind gentleman by all accounts. 

Derek Flint: A Spy is Born (24:29) is the longest of all the other featurettes and also puts the film into context with the 60's and the spy craze, it talks about film's like The House on 92nd Street (1945) and it's gritty docudrama style and the evolution of the spy spoof which aped similar spoofs like The Pink Panther (1963) which were big box office successes. There's some talk about a nutty first draft of the script which involved an alien angle, really weird stuff. eventually screenwriter Ben Starr was brought onto the project and he speaks a bit about his own life's experiences finding their way into the script. James Coburn's daughter Lisa makes an appearance and offers an appreciation of her father's character and sense of style. 

Directing Flint: Daniel Mann (11:09) is a look back at the film's director with fond remembrances from son-in-law Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters) and his son who speaks of ruining the final shot of the Judith (1966) when he inadvertently walked onto camera during an impossible to re-shoot explosive finale. 

My favorite segment was Flint vs Kael (6:07) in which we learn how the legendary film critic loathed the film and the controversy her scathing review stirred up, even ending in her firing from McColl's magazine.

The special features are rounded out by three storyboard to film comparisons totaling about 10 minutes in length  featuring Jerry Goldsmith's score. Lastly but not least are two screen tests featuring James Colburn and Gina Golan in black and white plus another with Coburn opposite a very lovely Raquel Welch who was up for the role of the seductive counter-agent but who instead went on to feature in The Fantastic Voyage (1966) instead. Last but certainly not least is an full-color 8pg. booklet with writings from regular Twilight Time writer Julie Kirgo offering the always insightful liner notes, this time pitting the film's inherent sexism up against the delightful whimsy of the spy spoof.

The disc is jam-packed with extra goodies, a fantastic edition from Twilight Time and surely one of their most well-stocked with extras so far. As with all Twilight Time DVD Blu-ray release this title is limited to just 3,000 editions and is available exclusively from www.screenarchives.com  so snap it up quick if it's appealing to you. 

Special Features: 
- Isolated Score Track 
- Audio Commentary with Film Historians Lee Pfeiffer and Eddy Friedfeld
- Derek Flint: A Spy is Born (24:29) 
- Directing Flint: Daniel Mann (11:09) 
- Spy-er-ama (9:14) 
- Spy Style (6:48) 
- Flint vs Kael (6:07) 
- A Gentleman's Game (4:13) 
- Perfect Bouillabaisse (1:30)
- Screen Test - James Coburn and Gila Golan (4:40)
- Screen Test - Raquel welch and James Coburn (1:54) 
- Storyboard Sequence 1 - Arrival at Galaxy Island (3:46)
- Storyboard Sequence 2 - Control Room Battle (4:31)
- Storyboard Sequence 3 - Escape from Armageddon (1:23)  
- Original Theatrical Trailer (6:26) 

Verdict: This was a first time watch for me and it was quite a romp, James Coburn at first seemed an odd choice to me but he completely owns this film. Our Man Flint is a quite a romp, chock full of jokes, gadgets, lavish sets, volcano lairs and world threatening baddies all wrapped up in garish 60's technicolor awesomeness, this gets a high recommend. 4 Outta 5