Public domain gold mine

By Steve Marinucci
Originally published on DVD Watch Feb. 22, 2007


How many movie and DVD fans tend to take for granted the incredible number of films and programming in the public domain on those bargain bin DVDs you often find in drug stores and discount houses?
If you like old B movies and obscure TV shows, as we do, they're no brainers. But even discriminating fans of this stuff can find some great DVDs out there.
The best collections of this stuff are put out by Mill Creek Entertainment. They've compiled box sets of programming in collections with four, 10, 20, 50 and 100 films in a package. The 100 film boxes retail for about $30 -- 3 cents a film!
So what do you get in these collections? You'll find a fairly complete selection of them here in our Movie Pack store, but we'll run down a few of them and rate them on a five-star basis:
Warriors 50 Movie Pack: A collection of sword-and-sandal films. Most appear to be Italian and therefore overdubbed, making this a great one for fans of "Mystery Science Theater." The box includes "Hercules Unchained" with Steve Reeves (but, strangely, no "Hercules," the first film in the series) and 13 other "Hercules" or "Son of Hercules" films, including the dreaded "Hercules Against the Moon Men." There's also "Cleopatra's Daughter," "Caesar the Conquerer" and "Atlas in the Land of Cyclops." This is a fun set, not a serious one. 12 discs. 2 1/2 stars.
Historic Classics 50 Movie Pack: A fairly solid set for those who aren't big fans of these films, since there are several good films included here, among them "The Jackie Robinson Story," an autobiographical film Robinson starred in himself, "Abraham Lincoln," the D.W. Griffith film starring Walter Huston and "Scrooge" with Seymour Hicks, not our favorite version of "A Christmas Carol," but not a bad one, either. The box contains more than a few Biblical dramas, plus a few rare TV live drama playhouse shows, including "The Nativity" with Paul Tripp and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" with John Carradine. Those featured in films include Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Richard Greene, Chuck Conners, Jose Ferrer, Orson Welles and David McCallum. 12 discs. 3 stars.
Classic Serials Megapack 150 Episodes: This one appears to be out of print, though it's still available used on Amazon.com. It collects 12 serials: "The Hurricane Express" with John Wayne, "The Lost City" with William "Stage" Boyd, "The New Adventures of Tarzan" with Herman Brix, "Ace Drummond" with John "Dusty" King, "The Phantom Creeps" with Bela Lugosi,
"Shadow of the Eagle" with John Wayne, "SOS Coast Guard" with Bela Lugosi,
"The Three Musketeers" with John Wayne, "Undersea Kingdom" with Ray "Crash" Corrigan,
"Zorro’s Fighting Legion" with Reed Hadley, "The Clutching Hand" with Jack Mulhall,
and "Dick Tracy" with Ralph Byrd. This is hardly prime stuff as far as serials go, but it's not a total washout. The vintage serials make for some unintentionally funny stuff. Still, this would have been dynamite if the content had been better (3 John Wayne serials?) 12 discs. 2 stars.
Action Classics 50 Movie Pack:
"Action," and we use that term loosely, is the defining term of this set, which includes a couple of gems and a lot of B-movie fodder. Edward D. Wood Jr.'s "Jail Bait" is one of the highlights. The set spotlights action and adventure films, with more of the former than the latter. Classic Adventure, Born to Be Bad, Exotic Adventures and Hard-Boiled Heroes are the categories from the inside of the box. Couldn't have said it better. 12 discs. 2 stars.
Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack: Some of the titles make this one a natural for "Mystery Science Theater" fans. "First Spaceship on Venus," "The Brain Machine," "Eegah," "Mesa of Lost Women," "Teenagers From Outer Space" and "The Amazing Transparent Man" are just some of them. Some real sci-fi "classics" here, we said jokingly. A lot of fun for the money. 12 discs. 3 stars.
TV Favorites Megapack 100 Episodes: A discerning collection of old TV shows. There's a lot of the shows that always turn up on bargain DVDs -- "Bonanza," "The Lone Ranger," "Dragnet" "The Red Skelton Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies." But there are some that don't. This is only the second DVD collection we've seen with an episode of "Highway Patrol," the hard-boiled cop show with Broderick Crawford ("10-4") and the only one we've seen with "Boston Blackie". There's also "Racket Squad," "You Bet Your Life," "Dangerous Assignment" and "Mr. and Mrs. North." Grab this one. 9 discs. 4 stars.
Family Classics 50 Movie Pack: The collection this type of box set was made for. A fantastic set with box office big names. "Till the Clouds Roll By" with Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, "Life With Father" with William Powell, "A Star Is Born" with Janet Gaynor, the animated "Gulliver's Travels" from the Fleischer Studios, "A Farewell to Arms" with Gary Cooper, "Royal Wedding" with Fred Astaire, "The Little Princess" with Shirley Temple and "The Last Time I Saw Paris" with Elizabeth Taylor. As all of these sets do (some more than others), there are some flubs ("Utopia" by Laurel and Hardy comes to mind). But there is so much good here that it's worth the buy. 12 discs. 4 1/2 stars.
We've seen criticism that some of the films in these boxes are cut or may have logos. Except for "Long John Silver" in the Family Classics box, we haven't seen any that seem cut. No logos either.
But given that these aren't remastered and are basically just put quickly on DVD, these are a bargain and, in our view, well worth having.
We'll do a review of others in the series as time goes on. But these sets are valuable because they the cheapest and most convenient way to pick up some of these films. If you think too many of today's films seem like they came out of focus groups, you'll find these sets take you back to a different and bygone era in Hollywood.
And the nice thing is that it's a fairly cheap trip, too. Scan through the Movie Pack store and have a look.

Featured DVD: "Hollywoodland"

Published on DVD Watch Feb. 11, 2007


The trailer for "Hollywoodland"

"Hollywoodland"(Focus Films, out now): Hollywood. To outsiders, it's a mystery. To insiders, it's mysterious. That's the underlying premise behind Allan Coulter's "Hollywoodland," a film with two, two, two plots in one: It's a mystery film about whether the death of TV's Superman, George Reeves (played by Ben Affleck), was suicide, as the police investigation concluded, or murder, and a drama about a fictional private investigator Louis Simo (Adrian Brody) whose life had been unfulfilling due to a broken marriage and a lack of clients until the case of Reeves' death falls in his lap.
The film beautifully recreates the Hollywood of old, both in scenery and in spirit, from the architecture to the automobiles.
On the big screen, "Hollywoodland" was a somewhat murky film that has trouble figuring out whether it was a murder mystery or an atmospheric history lesson. On DVD, however, the viewer crystalizes the parallels between Reeves and Simo's lives. Both men had aimless lives. It's Reeves' death that, strangely enough, that makes him an almost mythical creature and gives Simo's life some purpose.
As befits any murder mystery, there are many suspects. Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), the wife of MGM executive Eddie Mannix (played by Bob Hoskins) in a marriage of convenience. She's Reeves' first "benefactor" and is angered when he decides to move to New York to further his career after the "Superman" TV series is cancelled. Did she kill him? Eddie Mannix, meanwhile, has power at his fingertips. Did he have Reeves murdered because of his affair with Mannix's wife? There's also Lenore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), who plays Reeves fiance at the time of his death. Did she kill him for his money? The film, for all the clues it offers, never answers the question. No surprise there.
Molly Parker plays Laurie Simo, the detective's estranged wife, while Lois Smith plays Helen Besselo, Reeves' mother, who initiates the investigation because she doesn't accept the L.A.P.D.'s police report.
Reeves was never much more than a cardboard actor, from his early role in "Gone With the Wind" as one of the Tarleton twins, to his "Superman" role. Affleck manages to flesh him out a little, but not much. One exception is a scene where Reeves, sitting in a restaurant, puts down a cigarette ("Superman doesn't smoke," he's told) and plays up to some young fans at the window. It's a charming bit that, for a few seconds, gives life to a face that never exhibited much on the screen.
The "Superman" aura itself really plays somewhat of a small role in the film. That the filmmakers managed to do that keeps the focus on the storyline.
Mystery or mysterious, we have a fascination with Hollywood. The film "Hollywoodland" drags in spots, but between its recreation of the old Hollywood and the dual stories about Reeves and Simo, it is an absorbing film, well worth a view, especially off the big screen.

Short takes
"All in the Family: The Complete Sixth Season": Changes are in store as the sixth season begins. Mike and Gloria are moving next door. But there's even bigger news: Gloria is pregnant, and the opening episode, with this revelation, is absolutely charming and one of the best in the series. "All in the Family" was at the top of the sitcom world for most of its run. The sixth season continues to show why.