THE EPITAPH VOL. 49 - WARNER BROS. ROUND-UP EDITION!
DINNER AT EIGHT (1933) - EYE OF THE DEVIL (1966) - MAD LOVE (1935) - NIGHT SHIFT (1982) - THE GHOST SHIP (1943) - - BEDLAM (1946) - CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1963) - STARGIRL: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON (2021) - CATWOMAN: HUNTED (2022)
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 111 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore
Dinner at Eight (1933) is a pre-code black comedy that offers a glimpse into the lives of the posh and powerful Manhattan high society, with a set-up featuring Millicent (Billie Burke, The Wizard of Oz) and her shipping magnate husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore, It's a Wonderful Life) hosting the titular dinner party. Among the invites are an aging but once legendary stage actress Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler, Min and Bill), business magnate Dan Packard (Wallace Beery, Treasure Island) and his gold-digging younger wife Kitty (Jean Harlow, Bombshell), waning silent era film star Larry Renault (John Barrymore, True Confession), who is having a fling with the host's daughter Paula (Madge Evans, Sinner In Paradise), and Dr. Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe, Honeymoon Deferred) who is having an affair with the sexy gold-digger. A top-notch ensemble cast help this somewhat overly long comedy keep percolating, especially any scene with super-sexy Jean Harlow vamping it up or quarrelling with her husband who is in over his head with this little lady. A film chock full of verbose characters, witty repertoire, and even a suicide, this is a comedy that is sure to please pre-code comedy buffs. Warner Archive give this a wonderful transfer that turns the art deco interiors into monochromatic eye-candy, plus we get some wonderful archival extras that explore the life of Jean Harlow, including the 47-minute Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell (1993) hosted by Sharon Stone, the 1933 short Come to Dinner that spoofs the films, and a 3-min trailer. If you're looking for some pre-code ensemble cast comedy with a few twists you won't see coming this is worth a spin!
Special Features:
Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell (47 min)
Come to Dinner (22 min)
Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Cast: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Donald Pleasence, Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson
Eye of the Devil (1966) first caught my attention because it;s the feature-film debut of doomed starlet Sharon Tate and also features Donald Pleasance. It's a supernatural thriller that keeps a good sense of mystery about it. In it Philippe (David Niven, The Pink Panther) is a vineyard owner who leaves his home in Paris to his estate of Bellac, where the family vineyard resides. Apparently it's failing and he needs to deal with a few things and leaves by himself. His wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr, The Innocents) notes his odd behavior and follows him there with their young son and daughter to check in on him, and gets a chilly welcome from the family. There they stay together at the family castle, but the strange behaviors persist with a pair of siblings that also live on the property, Odile (Sharon Tate, The Fearless Vampire Killers) and Christian (David Hemmings, Deep Red), both are odd, and Christian is always around with his bow and arrow, occasionally flinging arrows at doves around the property. A weird film to be coming from J Lee Thompson, it has a certain Wicker Man sort of vibe or strangers intruding on something they have business involving themselves in with dire consequence. It's well-shot and has some interesting editing choices which keep thing off-kilter but at the end of the day it comes up a bit short for me, it's of interest, I wanted to like it more than I did, but I didn't. Not terrible and an interesting supernatural cult curio for genre fans to seek out, with interesting turns from Nivens, Pleasance, Tate and Hemmings, but it doesn't come together quite right for me. The Blu-ray from warner Archive looks terrific but the audio is problematic in that there seems to be age related source issues and some distortion.
Special Features:
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 68 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Karl Freund
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy
The mad tale of obsession Mad Love was the American feature-film debut of the bug-eyed legend Peter Lorre, a creepy tale of plastic surgeon Dr. Gogol (Lorre, The Comedy of Terrors) whose who is absolutely obsessed with actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake, The Invisible Ray). She performs in a Grand Guignol theater and he attends every show. When he announces that on a particular night it will be her last show so that she can accompany her concert pianist husband Stephen (Colin Clive, Frankenstein) on tour the doc is besides himself, so much so he buys a wax figure of her and keeps it at his home. As fate would have it Stephen’s hands are crushed in a train derailment accident, and Yvonne turns to Gogol as a last resort to repair her husband's piano-playing hands. The increasingly sadistic doc abides her wishes, but secretly replaces the pianist's hands with those of a guillotined murderer, Rollo the Knife Thrower, but the hands seem to take on a life of their own, only too happy to carry on with the ways of their former owner's murderous way, always seeming to reach for a sharp blade on their own! Lorre is fantastic here as the increasingly sadistic and reprehensible, bald, and bug-eyed plastic surgeons driven mad by his obsession for an unattainable beauty, it's one of my favorite performances
from him, cannot recommend this enough! Another terrific HD presentation of a vintage flick from Warner Archive, I previously owned the WB DVD edition and this blows that release away easily with more stable nitrate grain, improved contrast and sharpness and the audio is crisp and clean, highlighting the terrific score from Dimitri Tiomkin (Dial M for Murder). The Blu-ray carries over the excellent Steve Haberman commentary and trailer from the previous standard definition release.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Steve Haberman
- Theatrical Trailer
NIGHT SHIFT (1982) 
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 106 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long, Gina Hecht, Pat Corley
The world of Wall Street drove Charles Lumley III up the wall. His new job at the New York City Morgue is quieter – until Billy “Blaze” Blazejowski shows up with a cool idea on how to liven things up.
Directed by Ron Howard after Grand Theft Audio (1977) but before Splash (1984) the 80's comedy Night Shift is a lot more fun that I remembered from seeing it on cable in the 80's one time. Howard recruited his Happy Days co-star Henry Winkler (Heroes) who shed his ultra cool 50's Fonzie persona to play a former Wall Street broker turned offbeat morgue attendant Chuck who has just been moved to the graveyard shift so his boss could give his own dipshit nephew the cushy day shift. At home his fiancé Charlotte (Gina Hecht, St. Elmo's Fire) is neurotic and insecure about her body with their wedding looming on the horizon, and at work he is introduced to his new co-worker Billy Blaze (Michael Keaton, Batman), who says he is so full of ideas he has to write them down, and they're all pretty terrible ideas - like feeding mayo to tuna - instant tuna fish salad, uh okay. At his apartment Chuck encounters his neighbor, a pretty call girl named Belinda (Shelley Long, The Money Pit) who is recently without a pimp, and has just been beat up without any protection. Chuck begins to have feelings for her as het gets to know her, walking home from work together and sharing breakfast. Wanting to help her out he remembers one of Blaze's lame ideas, to run a escort service out of the morgue overnight, which suddenly doesn't sound like such a bad idea. With Blaze's idea, his skill with money, and Belinda's natural talents, along with other prostitutes who join in on the new business venture, the money starts rolling in. Of course it all comes crashing down as their operation catches the attention of a violent criminal element, his fiancé and the cops. A comedy like this could only have existed in the 80's, it was a special time for madcap comedies and that's exactly what this is. Keaton is charming as fuck, I don't remember for sure but this must have been a breakout role for him at the time, he steals the show. The Blu-ray from Warner Archive is outstanding, the A/V is top-notch with sharp detailed visuals that are vibrant and well-defined throughout, and we get rock solid uncompressed stereo audio. Sadly the only extra is the trailer, would have loved a new commentary for this. If you love stuff along the lines of After Hours or Doctor Detroit and have not yet experienced Night Shift I think that you are missing out, get on it.
Special Features:
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 69 Minutes/80 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 12.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Mark Robson
Cast: Richard Dix, Russell Wade, Edith Barrett, Ben Bard, Edward Glover/Boris Karloff, , Anna Lee, Richard Fraser, Glenn Vernon, Ian Wolfe, Jason Robards
How can you say no to a Val Lewton double-feature? You cannot, so give and snag this this monochromatic two-fer that starts of with the moody gem The Ghost Ship (1943) wherein sailor Tom Merriam (Russell Wade, The Body Snatcher) signs on as the third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia. Even before they set of a crew member dies, pretty much setting the pace for what follows, as Merriam bares witnesses the ship’s captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix, The Whistler), methodically planning the death of his
crew whom he feels are disloyal. Some of the deaths are gruesome in nature, including a man crushed to death in an anchor chain room! Not as instantly pleasing as some of the other Val Lewton produced black and whites this is a film that grows on me with each watch, especially when you take into consideration how seminal of a cracked-psyche/madmen flick this was for this era. The second half of this double bill was Lewton's final film, Bedlam (1946), starring Boris Karloff (Black Sabbath) and set in a 1761 London asylum. Karloff plays the corrupt overseer who controls the mentally disturbed inmates with cruelty. His cruel ways are overlooked as he agrees to put on a stage play starring the inmates, but his control is tested when protégé Nell Bowen (Anna Lee, Picture Mommy Dead) and politician John Wilkes (Leyland Hodgson, The Ghost of Frankenstein). This has a great cast and it's well acted, but it's Karloff as the ever charismatic devil-in-disguise steals the show, unsurprisingly. Both films looks quite good in HD black and white, except for a unfortunate digital filtration issue that lead to a moth being erased from one scene, but otherwise these Val Lewton produced film look and sound absolutely terrific. The only extra is an Audio commentary on Bedlam by noted film scholar Tom Weaver, though trailers are advertised on the sleeve they are not included.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary on Bedlam by Tom Weaver
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 89 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HA MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Anton M. Leader
Cast: Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, Sheila Allen
In the somewhat maligned sequel Children of the Damned British psychologist Tom Lewellin (Ian Hendry, Repulsion) and geneticist David Neville (Alan Badel, The Medusa Touch) study super-intelligent Paul, a young emotionless boy who displays fantastical brain-power. At home his tormented mother Diana (Sheila Allen, Venom) curses the day she gave virgin-birth to him, her life controlled by him. Having had quite enough of her at this point the boy mind-controls her and sends her in the path of an oncoming car. As the psychologist and geneticist attempt to corral Paul, and five other children in the UK who have been identified with the same genius intellect and psychic powers, but the children have found each other and hole-up in a dilapidated war-torn church where they devise a laser-type weapon made in part from shards of stained glass. Nowhere near as enthralling as Village of the Damned and a bit of mess at the end, the film does boast a high body count and is well-shot, but that whole screwdriver oopsie at the end nearly unseats anything I liked about it. That said, the Blu-ray transfer is top-notch with a solid uncompressed audio track, plus we get the trailer and an audio commentary from the film's screenwriter John Briley who offers a first hand account of the making of the film.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Screenwriter John Briley
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
STARGIRL: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON (2021)
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 535 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Cast: Brec Bassinger, Luke Wilson, Nick Tarabay, Yvette Monreal, Anjelika Washington, Cameron Gellman, Trae Romano, Hunter Sansone, Meg DeLacy, Amy Smart, Jonathan Cake
DC’s Stargirl has become one of my favorite DC superhero shows, centering on high school sophomore Courtney Whitmore (the wonderfully charismatic and genuine Brec Bassinger) who has inherited the power of her late father, who was a member of the superhero-team the Justice Society of America. She teams-up with her stepfather, a former sidekick of her father's, Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson) and forms a team of teen heroes to carry on the legacy of the JSA. In the second season the main baddie is Eclipso (Nick Tarabay), a dark entity that can conjure you're biggest fears, which leads to some truly dark encounters for the superhero teens that are genuinely creepy. The team this season features a new incarnation of Johnny Thunder (Alkoya Brunson), a Green Lantern ring barer (Ysa Penarejo), rweturning members Wildcat (Yvette Monreal), Doctor Midnite (Anjelika Washington), Hourman (Cameron Gellman) and a few others. The storyline is darker and effects are even better this season, with the new Dr. Midnite summoning the original (Alex Collins), and more of the giant-robot S.T.R.I.P.E. which for some reason always reminds be of Big Guy from Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, and more of Solomon Grundy! Season two also sees the return of season one baddie Shiv (Meg DeLacy) who attempts to resurrect the Injustice Society, as well as flashbacks to season one villains Brainwave (Christopher James Baker) and his son Henry (Jake Austin Walker). It's a pretty action-packed second season, if you enjoyed the first I think you'll like this season even more, I certainly did. The 3-disc set arrives on Blu-ray from WBHE in a side-loading slipcase, and feature two featurettes as extras.
Special Features:
- Thank You, Georgia: Stargirl
- Gag Reel (Exclusive to Blu-ray and DVD)
- Never Alone: Heroes and Allies
- Digital Copy
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 79 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (1.78:1), 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Shinsuke Terasawa
Cast: Elizabeth Gillies, Stephanie Beatriz, Jonathan Banks, Steve Blum, Lauren Cohan, Keith David, Zehra Fazal, Jonathan Frakes, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Kelly Hu, Andrew Kishino, Eric Lopez, Jacqueline Obradors, Ron Yuan
Catwoman: Hunted (2022) is a fun bit of anime-styled DC fluff that opens with Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman (Elizabeth Gillies, Vacation) attending a superhero-themed costume-party in Spain, dressed as a retro-version of do-gooder Batgirl, as the guest of East Coast crime kingpin Black Mask (Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad). The event is hosted by the international evil-doer organization Leviathan, also in attendance are baddies Barbara Minerva AKA Cheetah (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Killing Eve), Tobias Whale (Keith David, The Thing) and a small army of henchman. Catwoman is really there to steal the Cat's Eye Emerald, a precious green gem that is to be the Black Mask's entry fee into the criminal organization, and after stealing it Catwoman makes a daring escape, assisted by her feline friend Isis, with the baddies chasing after the infamously curvy cat burglar. Along the way Interpol agents King Faraday (Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Julia Pennyworth (Lauren Cohan, The Walking Dead) intervene as Catwoman's theft of the emerald threatens a sting operation currently in the works, with Catwoman teaming-up with Batwoman (Stephanie Beatriz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) to take on Leviathan. It's a breezy bit of comicdon on display here, thin on plot, heavy on quippy one-liner, but stylish and action-packed, with appearances from Talia al Ghul and Nosferata (both voiced by Zehra Fazal, Batman: Death in the Family), Solomon Grundy (Steve Blum, The Manhattan Project), Cheshire (Kelly Yu, X2: X-Men United), among other demonic monsters I am not familiar with. Gilles seems to relish her sultry and purr-fectly sexy incarnation of Catwoman, and I loved the bubble-bath seduction scene with Batgirl that happens aboard the Penguin's confiscated private jet. It might be PG-13 but it leans towards more adult fare, and for the briefest of moments I thought we were gonna get some serious girl-on-girl fanboy fic there. I also love having the distinct voice-talents of Keith David and Jonathan Banks, but I did think that Stephanie Beatriz might have been slightly miscast as Batwoman, she's a bit too straight and stiff, but overall, despite being not a huge fan of anime in general, I loved this breezy crime-caper, which has a great smooth jazz score that suits it quite well, as does the anime style. A solid UHD release from WBHE with HDR highlights that broaden the color spectrum a bit over the accompanying Blu-ray, no Atmos but a solid DTS-HD 5.1 and a pair of featurettes that are nearly an hour long combined, plus we get a slipcover featuring the same artwork as the wrap.
Special Features:
- When The Hunter Becomes The Hunted (New Featurette)(19 min)
- Catwoman: The Feline Femme Fatale (40 min)
- Digital Copy
