FILM FRENZY

George Barrows in Robot Monster (Photo: BayView)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

THE ANDERSON TAPES (1971). Seven years before participating in The Great Train Robbery, Sean Connery participated in the great apartment robbery by headlining this heist flick with a twist. Connery plays Duke Anderson, a professional thief who’s released from prison after a 10-year stint and immediately plans his next caper. Noting that his girlfriend Ingrid Everleigh (Dyan Cannon) lives in a swank apartment building, Duke decides that he will rob all the other apartments — to this end, he organizes a team whose members include Tommy Haskins (Martin Balsam), a gay antique dealer, and The Kid (Christopher Walken, receiving an “Introducing” credit), a laid-back electronics expert. But what Duke doesn’t realize is that in this newfangled world of technology, he’s constantly being recorded by all manner of people, most of whom aren’t even especially concerned with him but with his associates: FBI agents monitoring Black Panther activities, government suits eavesdropping on the Mob, narcotics officers tracking drug deals, and a private eye hired by Ingrid’s sugar daddy (Richard B. Shull) to keep tabs on her. The technology might be dated, but the film’s examination of a nation in which no one is allowed any privacy and any action may be captured on film or tape remains relevant. Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Prince of the City) directs with his usual attention to NYC authenticity, and the cast (which also includes The Wizard of Oz’s Margaret Hamilton and a pre-Saturday Night Live Garrett Morris) is uniformly excellent.

Blu-ray extras consist of film historian audio commentary; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other titles on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★★

BEAU IS AFRAID (2023). Remember those feelings of utter despair, unfettered anxiety, and unmitigated depression experienced at select moments during — and definitely at the bleak conclusions of — writer-director Ari Aster’s previous two films, Hereditary and Midsommar? Those feelings are front and center for every single nanosecond in all three hours of Aster’s one-of-a-kind odyssey of the mind. Beau is Afraid is one of those movies in which the protagonist’s sole desire is to get from Point A to Point B (usually home) — it therefore shares DNA with movies like Scorsese’s After Hours, Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Hill’s The Warriors but makes even the darkest moments in those pictures look like outtakes from The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure by comparison. Joaquin Phoenix is Beau, a middle-aged schlub who’s trying to get home to visit his mother (Patti LuPone). But he initially can’t even get out of his neighborhood, as his apartment keys are stolen and vicious derelicts are around every corner. Circumstances lead to him briefly residing in the home of a cheerful couple (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan), and it’s after this interlude that Beau Is Afraid, up until now disturbing yet compelling, goes off the rails. The middle portion, set among an acting troupe in the forest, is a slog, and the movie only grows more lugubrious from there. Aster should be commended for making a movie that’s anything but cookie cutter, but some severe trimming and a more defined central character (there’s no establishing context to his misadventures) might have prevented it from being overbaked.

The only Blu-ray extra is a making-of featurette.

Movie: ★★½

THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE (1956). Two years after co-starring in Fritz Lang’s Human Desire (and six years after co-starring in the prison drama Convicted), Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford again found themselves sharing a marquee with this interesting Western. Like Gregory Peck in 1950’s The Gunfighter, Ford plays a gunslinger whose fast-draw makes him a target of anyone who wants to beat a legend. Unlike Peck’s Jimmy Ringo, Ford’s George Temple has been able to hide from his reputation, toiling as a meek store owner in the small town of Cross Creek. Tired of being belittled by the other menfolk for his refusal to drink or carry a gun — and over the objections of his wife Dora (Jeanne Crain) — George allows his pride to take over while in an inebriated state and reveals his true identity as the fastest gun in the West. With the secret spilled, a murderous bank robber (Crawford) who has just killed another quick-draw artist comes a-calling, even though the law is hot on his trail. The film looks at the high cost of machismo in the Old West, and Ford is particularly good as a man concealing another secret beneath the secret. The story stops long enough for 21-year-old Russ Tamblyn, who had impressed everyone with his dancing in 1954’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (he played the youngest sibling), to perform an intricate number at a barn dance — this unnecessary sequence would be annoying were it not for the fact that Tamblyn’s acrobatic agility is really something to behold.

Blu-ray extras consist of two 1956 Tom & Jerry cartoons, Blue Cat Blues and Down Beat Bear, and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

52 PICK-UP (1986). Compared to the usual schlock released by Cannon Films in the 1980s — movies often starring Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff or break-dancers — 52 Pick-Up stands as a quality production, insofar that a movie featuring a cameo by Ron “The Hedgehog” Jeremy can be considered classy. Directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) and based on Elmore Leonard’s bestselling novel (with Leonard himself writing the screenplay), this casts Roy Scheider as Harry Mitchell, a successful Los Angeles businessman with a loving wife (Ann-Margret) and a loving mistress (Kelly Preston). His extramarital activities lead to him being blackmailed by pornographers Alan Raimy (John Glover), Bobby Shy (Clarence Williams III), and Leo Franks (Robert Trebor) — when he elects to fight back rather than pay up, he finds himself framed for murder. 52 Pick-Up is about as sleazy as a mainstream movie can get — the natural reaction after watching it is to take a shower — and Ann-Margret is largely wasted as Harry’s wife. But the movie features not one, not two, but three memorable villains, and it’s satisfying to watch as Harry turns the tables on them. Incidentally, Cannon had released another adaptation (albeit a looser one) of the same novel just two years earlier: The Ambassador, starring Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, and Rock Hudson in his final film appearance.

Blu-ray extras include film historian audio commentary; an isolated track of Gary Chang’s score; TV spots; the theatrical trailer; and trailers for other titles on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★½

NETHERWORLD (1992). An unusual setting adds a slight lift to an otherwise muddled horror yarn from Full Moon Features. It unfolds in backwoods Louisiana, where Corey Thornton (Michael Bendetti) arrives to claim the mansion his estranged father Noah (Robert Sampson) had left him when he died. The estate is located next to a bordello that specializes in more than happy endings — it also houses a comely witch (Denise Gentile), a flying killer hand, and birds harboring the spirits of dead people. Corey soon learns that it’s his dad’s wish that he be resurrected, somehow not realizing that it all has the potential to end badly. This bordello of doom provides enough material for its own movie (among its residents are the real Marilyn Monroe and possibly the real Mary Magdalene), so it’s a shame when the resurrection plotline takes over the film — it’s not as interesting as the rest, and the ending is rushed and unfocused (for starters, evil characters inexplicably become good). The disembodied hand that hurtles through the air down hallways and digs itself into people’s faces surely must be a nod to the flying sphere in Phantasm — at any rate, it’s a pretty groovy effect. And if you think that white-maned musician playing in the house band looks exactly like Edgar Winter (of “Frankenstein” and “Free Ride” fame), that’s because it is Edgar Winter. In other music news, the film’s score is by David Bryan, keyboardist for Bon Jovi and a Tony Award winner for scoring the Broadway hit Memphis.

Blu-ray extras consist of a behind-the-scenes featurette and trailers for other titles on the Full Moon label.

Movie: ★★½

ROBOT MONSTER (1953). Legendary among bad-movie buffs, this has long been considered one of the worst films ever made, with its featured creature named The Most Ridiculous Monster in Screen History in the book The Golden Turkey Awards (its competition included the crawling carpet in The Creeping Terror and the walking tree in From Hell It Came). Said monster is Ro-Man (George Barrows), who hails from outer space but who looks like a guy in a gorilla suit and a diving helmet. Using his advanced machinery (or, as the credits state, “Automatic Billion Bubble Machine by N.A. Fisher Chemical Products, Inc.”), he has managed to kill everyone on Earth except for six people: a family of five and a scientist (George Nader), all trapped in Bronson Canyon. Some of the tech contributions aren’t bad — Oscar winner Elmer Bernstein (later of The Magnificent Seven and Far From Heaven) composed the score — but this is the pits in terms of the direction, the story, the dialogue, the performances, and, of course, that chubby robot monster.

Go figure that a movie this lousy receives a Blu-ray release this splendid. BayView’s 70th Anniversary Restoration Edition offers the film in 2-D and 3-D (as it was originally available). Extras include audio commentary by Greg Moffett (who played young Johnny) and a trio of 3-D experts; 1953’s Stardust in Your Eyes, a 3-D short starring comedian Slick Slaven that accompanied Robot Monster in theaters; a Trailers From Hell segment hosted by Joe Dante (who used Ro-Man in a cameo in his zany 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action); footage of Bela Lugosi on a 1953 episode of You Asked for It; a memorabilia gallery; and much more.

Movie: ★ (but ★★★★ for aficionados of turkey cinema)

SWAMP THING (1982). Director Wes Craven spent so much of his career making hard-R movies that this campy adaptation of the DC Comics series has always been the odd title out in his horror filmography. It’s all the better for it, as it remains one of his most entertaining and least pretentious outings. Penning the script himself, Craven serves up a tasty origin tale set in the Florida Everglades, as the brilliant Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) has concocted a plant-based formula that could benefit the world. He shares his findings with government liaison Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau), but it’s not long before the evil Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) and his thugs arrive, killing everyone in sight. Cable manages to escape, whereupon she stumbles across a wise-cracking local kid (Reggie Batts) who offers her assistance; Holland, meanwhile, is believed to be dead but instead has undergone a painful transformation into a half-man, half-plant creature (played by stuntman Dick Durock). The film starts out strong but grows sillier as it progresses, but the Swamp Thing makeup is fine (the Arcane Monster makeup, not so much), and Barbeau and Batts make an engaging team. This was followed by 1989’s pitiful The Return of Swamp Thing.

MVD’s excellent new 4K UHD + Blu-ray edition contains both the U.S. theatrical PG version and an unrated international cut. Extras include audio commentary by Craven; audio commentary by makeup effects artist William Munns; interviews with Barbeau, Batts, and Swamp Thing creator Len Wein; and photo galleries.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953). Nitroglycerin figures prominently in the plot of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear, but it’s the movie itself that’s truly explosive, a powder keg of social outrage and cinematic thrills. This isn’t one to watch on the couch with Grandma or the kids: If the level of nail-biting suspense doesn’t kill them, then the piece’s nihilistic worldview will surely lay them out. Set in a Latin American hellhole named Las Piedras, an impoverished town that hasn’t been helped in the least by the American company that’s been raping the surrounding land for its oil, the film focuses on the international denizens who have come to the area and are now in search of the means to escape it. When the US company seeks volunteers to drive two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over 300 miles of rocky terrain (one bump could mean bye-bye), many apply but only four are chosen: gruff Mario (Yves Montand), bullying Jo (Charles Vanel), ice-cold Bimba (Peter Van Eyck), and blustery Luigi (Folco Lulli). Although Clouzot treats everything in his film with the same lack of sentimentality, this French import garnered a reputation in this country for being anti-American; as Dennis Lehane reported in an essay on the film, Time magazine wrote that The Wages of Fear is “a picture that is surely one of the most evil ever made.” This was remade by William Friedkin in 1977 as Sorcerer; starring Roy Scheider; it’s nowhere near as good as this bruising beauty.

Movie: ★★★★