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Image Entertainment, you know, turns out more product than any other DVD company, though their emphasis has shifted to music-oriented programs rather than narratives. They also churn out the ‘Something Weird’ line of exploitation programmers, and these are hit and miss, but when they hit they’re worth owning. (This year FUEGO blew me away.)

For a gift larger than a single disc from Image, consider the two I SPY DVDs which contain the seven episodes written and sometimes directed by star Robert Culp. Over these, Culp, an intelligent individual, provides a commentary which fills in not only the history of the show but of the era and much more.

For a horror item more elevated than the ‘Something Weird’ catalogue, try Richard Gordon’s DEVIL DOLL. Two versions, one of them containing nudity for the European market, are included. And the very knowledgeable and articulate Gordon is interviewed on the commentary track by the very thorough and amusing author/historian Tom Weaver. Again, as with Robert Culp, we have a point expansive track, since Gordon and Weaver not only cover DEVIL DOLL from every angle imaginable, but branch out into the nature of the British film industry in the 60s, its American counterpart, etc. A worthy disc to own.

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Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment is releasing lots of quality DVDs, but if I were to go for a large package, I’d pick up THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, THE ENTIRE FIRST SEASON. Garry Shandling’s bitter-spirited yet somehow sweet-natured satire on late night tv talk shows was brilliant and hysterical, as well as cringingly painful at times, with extremely generous guest stars playing themselves rarely in the best of lights. In this 3-disc volume you’ve got Shandling playing Hobb with the likes of Carol Burnett, Dana Carvey, Mimi Rogers, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, and Richard Simmons.

For another Columbia/TriStar choice, one slightly less costly, consider two (count’em, two) versions of a classic supernatural tale on one DVD, Jacques Tourneur’s NIGHT/CURSE OF THE DEMON. We all have our top twenty-five lists (well, maybe if you’re a teenager, you have a top ten list, but by the time you get to our age, limiting your favorite films to ten is an exercise in masochism), and this tale of demon worship and scientific skepticism has been on mine for decades and decades. Released theatrically on the bottom half of a double bill back in 1958, it was and is definitely a ‘B’, but it belonged on the top of the bill, and it has endured long since it’s co-feature ( THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) was properly catalogued as just another mare in the Hammer stable. Based on, but having literally nothing to do with, Montague Rhodes James’ short story “ Casting the Runes,” Charles Bennett co-spun a vastly more entertaining and well researched script for us to enjoy, even insinuating the perverse mother/son storyline that he often supplied for Hitchcock.

The result is a film in which every shot is immaculately designed and lit, in which the ‘everyman’ protagonist that Val Lewton drilled into Tourneur’s head finally finds a strong enough vessel in Dana Andrews not to weaken the film’s impact, and in which even the producers’ insistence on two brief appearances by a muppet-headed-monster wasn’t able to cripple the film’s loving tone and montage of dread. It’s better than any of his Lewton films, and that’s high praise tantamount to heresy in some circles, I’m sure. And while I’m at it, where are the Lewton films anyway? They were released in a massive boxed laserdisc set, including the never-really-released GHOST SHIP, and all were in near-perfect shape. And Criterion released CAT PEOPLE singly on laser, with a fine commentary by Bruce Eder (which I helped him with in a small way by getting him in touch with Simone Simon [who is alive and well in Paris, and turning 92 this April]).

And while I’m still at it, where is Garry Shandling!?

Anchor Bay is a wonderful off-Hollywood DVD distributor, which has supplied us with Argentos, Herzogs, Hellmans, and Hammers by the score. All the offbeat indies and exploiters of quality you can think of, Anchor Bay has been dredging up, complimenting them with engaging ‘making of’ revisitations, usually helmed by the deft and provocative David Gregory.

Yet it isn’t an exploitation item I’m pushing from Anchor Bay for Xmas, but a collection of five British comedies from the 40’s/50’s. The thread that connects them is Alec Guinness, the chameleon actor remembered most fondly to the younger crowd as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original STAR WARS. (Annoying as that kind of limited awareness may be, I’ve fallen prey to it myself. As a college student, I got to interview Academy Award winner Ray Milland who, by the mid-sixties, was reduced to performing in sub-routine stage plays on Broadway. It was after a matinee performance in one of these that I arranged our meeting. He shook my hand warmly as I entered his dressing room, during which I uttered the fateful words I’ve regretted ever since, “ Mr. Milland, I loved you in ‘X: the Man With the X-Ray Eyes.” His response, a rather measured one as I think back on it, was “ I’ve gotta sit down for this…”

So I can’t be too severe with those who aren’t familiar with Guinness’s vast repository of work, much of which exists on DVD (Criterion has GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST and THE HORSE’S MOUTH). The five gentle comedies in this collection are KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (1951), THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (195l), THE LADYKILLERS (1955), and, exclusive to those who purchase the boxed set, an extra feature, THE CAPTAIN’S PARADISE (1953). The tones vary from the whimsical (LAVENDER HILL) to the farcical (LADYKILLERS), and have wonderful supporting casts (LADYKILLERS has Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, both of whom would move on to the PINK PANTHER series). They also feature some of England’s best directors of the time, such as Charles Crichton, whose later work can be found in the SPACE 1999 series, or in the comedy A FISH CALLED WANDA. One of the five features – THE LADYKILLERS – has been announced as an impending Hollywood remake.

And if it’s a terrific single special edition you’re looking for, look no further than NEAR DARK, Katherine Bigelow’s revisionist vampire thriller which stirs equal parts Western and Drug Addiction subtexts into its horror base. This is not for the queasy, but it is definitely for lovers of the vampire subgenre, not to mention lovers of the iconic and still underappreciated Lance Henriksen. There are two discs here, and the second features a 47-minute retrospective with Bigelow, Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Adrian Pasdar, Jenette Goldstein, and the Producer, DP, and Exec Producer.

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I thought one of the ten best films of 2002 was BLADE 2, with its radical, poetic variations on the death-of-the-villain scenes, courtesy of a good script and wise direction by Guillermo Del Toro. This you can have through New Line Home Entertainment, and it’s a two-disc-er, though if you’re in a mind to spend more cabbage, go for the deluxe edition of LORD OF THE RINGS, which Doug Pratt of The Laser Disc/DVD Newsletter called the best disc release of the year.

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