Swing Parade (Audio Commentary)

Film Year:  1946
Genre:  Musical, Comedy
Director:  Phil Karlson
Starring:  Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Gale Storm, Phil Regan, Russell Hicks, Edward Brophy, Mary Treen, Connee Boswell, Louis Jordan
Commentator:  Michael J. Nelson

The Movie

Initially titled the more dated "Swing Parade of 1946," Swing Parade is the most circulated film to ever feature the Three Stooges.  This isn't because it's the best but rather because of its public domain status.  Just about anyone can release this movie, and on most releases you'll see "THE THREE STOOGES" plastered above the actual title of the movie, which is usually in a much smaller font (and that's including the Legend Films DVD I'm reviewing right now).  The truth of the matter is that the Stooges only have a supporting role and the film doesn't really revolve around the classic comedy trio.

Swing Parade is actually about a struggling singer played by Gale Storm who gets a job at a nightclub, where she falls in love with the club owner.  Unfortunately the club owner's father has been trying to shut down the club, but is unable to serve the process papers to shut it down through many misfortunes (including hired help Stooges).

As a film itself, Swing Parade isn't much.  It's basically just an excuse to film song and dance numbers while the Stooges bring in the comedy crowd.  The musical numbers are uneven, though Louis Jordan's toe tappers are probably at the top of the enjoyment list.  But other numbers just don't have much energy, and are meant to be more mellow and romantic.  When the film was in pristine condition these songs might have played better, but this film is in rough shape and a lot of the songs are washed out.

The Stooges do some new material mixed with old favorites, including pipe gags that were already done to perfection in the classic short A Plumbing We Will Go.  There's some great stuff with the Stooges as waiters bringing guffaws and some wild slapstick.  Unfortunately this is the final feature film Curly was able to film before the stroke that forced him to retire from the group, so Curly is in somewhat ill-health and a lot slower than he'd normally be.  That said, their routines don't quite suffer that much and laughs are still had.

Swing Parade is barely a movie at all, providing barely a story to string together songs and comedy.  But it's pleasant fluff.  It's not too offensive unless you firmly believe film should be more demanding than this, otherwise you might just look at it and say "Oh Brother!"

The Commentary

My favorite comedy teams collide!  Or at the very least brush against each other.  It's the Three Stooges meets Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Or at least a guy from Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Okay, sure why not?

Mike struggles a lot here.  This feels like a film that was handed to him and told he had to do, and to his credit he plows through it even if he sounds disinterested in it.  The film is a comedy, which is a Riffing 101 no-no.  Making things worse is that he has no backup with him, which means he has to pile his own brand of comedy on top of a different brand of comedy without any sort of support.  I don't quite blame him for feeling lost, because the odds are stacked against him here.

On the plus side is that the film is also a musical, and riffing on musical numbers is usually a lot of fun.  Louis Jordan lights up Mike with his fun numbers "Don't Worry About That Mule" and "Caldonia."  The former song becomes a bit of a running gag with Mike as he constantly refers to mules that might be going blind for a while after the number finishes.  Perhaps he rides on this gag a bit too much, but I'd have to say that given the film isn't giving him much to work with I'll give him credit for latching onto something that does and wringing it for what it's worth.  Not all numbers are a goldmine though.  Gale Storm's first number doesn't seem to spark any fire in him, which he just kind of heckles.  It's not really that funny.

As for riffs on the Three Stooges...he doesn't seem to think they can be riffed.  The two comedy styles don't mesh, and Mike realizes this.  He just kind of lets them do their thing while occasionally putting out a smartass quip.  I'm going to have to say that the Stooge routines are a lot funnier than what Mike puts out during these scenes.

For the most part I try to give these commentaries the benefit of the doubt because of limited resources at Mike's disposal and a lack of control Mike had on the movies he's riffing.  But Swing Parade comes off as a movie he should have left alone.  It's not that it's a great movie, it isn't, but it just doesn't gel with him.  And the sad thing is I think Mike realizes this, and he can't do anything except shrug and accept his fate.  Luckily for him that very fate had something bigger in mind, as this was his last Legend commentary and he would soon develop Rifftrax.

Not Recommended

The DVD

Yet another Legend Films colorization disc, but on this one we have the option of watching the commentary with either the colorized or black and white versions of the film.  I chose to watch it colorized, because I actually hadn't seen the colorized version before now.  And whew boy, is it ever garish.  There are so many ugly, mismatched colors being stylized in this version that I almost switched back to the black and white because it seemed healthier for my retinas.

If you're into vintage comedy, this disc might be worthwhile to pick up for the special features, all of which are vintage comedy material loosely related to the film itself..  We have a rare Columbia short starring often Stooge foil Dudley Dickerson, along with El Brendel and Tom Kennedy, called Phoney Cronies.  It features a group of hired hands who accidentally smuggle a thief into a museum.  While it's not up to the standards of the average Columbia Stooges short, it's fine and fairly funny.

Next is a clip from the Abbott and Costello film Africa Screams, which featured alternating Stooges Shemp Howard and Joe Besser.  The clip features Shemp and Joe trying to catch Costello in the middle of a native chase.  It's also colorized.  It's funny, but the film is in the public domain so just hunt down the full thing.  It's quite a fun movie.

Up next is a New 3 Stooges cartoon called Souper Man.  The cartoon features Moe, Larry, and Curly-Joe DeRita thinking that eating a certain kind of soup turns them into superheroes.  There's also a live action bookend with the trio on motorbikes.  Like most of the New 3 Stooges cartoons, it's fine for what it is.

Our next piece is a clip from the movie Smart Alecks, featuring Gale Storm.  Miss Storm helps the East Side Boys make dinner for an unwanted house guest.  Its fairly funny as well.

Our last vintage piece is an episode of the television series My Little Margie, also starring Gale Storm.  There's a bit of a thematic match at play as like Swing Parade this episode is partially about dodging process servers.  The primary story involves Storm's perky Margie character discovering a diary that she thinks was written by a murderer.  It's charming and typical of a vintage family sitcom like this, though not outright hilarious.

The final bonus features are colorized trailers for Swing Parade, The Three Stooges in Color, Africa Screams, March of the Wooden Soldiers, The Jackie Robinson Story, and The Shirley Temple Collection.

The Value of Teamwork (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

This wildly obnoxious short tells of a child who stands there and loudly barks his lines, both as a part of a school play and outside of it.  Speaking of barking, his talking dog isn't impressed by his teamwork and decides to give him a lesson in working together.

The Value of Teamwork has a valuable lesson, but just can't get it off the ground.  The examples of non-teamwork are so obviously staged that the short stunts its own lesson by making its main character look like a knob (painting a cow pink?).  But that becomes the fatal flaw in this short, I can't stand being around this kid.  He goes out of his way to be obnoxious, and even if he learns "the value of teamwork," I already hate him, so what's the point?  And then there is the talking dog teaching him the valuable lesson, an ill-advised attempt at being "cool," "cute," and "fun."  Believe me, he's none of those things.

"Ugh, the dog's doing freeform improv.  Get the shock collar."

Since the short is plenty weird, it gives the Mike, Kevin, and Bill a lot to work with.  What backfires for me is that the short itself is an unpleasant experience.  Even when a good line squeezes through the cracks of this mess the short thoroughly suffocates my laughter and rebounds me back into a state of daze.  It's not the fault of the riffers, because the commentary is fine and Mike, Kevin, and Bill know the value of teamwork well, but this is not one that I enjoy.

Thumbs Down

👎

Killers from Space (The Film Crew)

Film Year:  1954
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  W. Lee Wilder
Starring:  Peter Graves, Barbara Bestar, James Seay, Frank Gerstle

The Movie

Ferociously silly in its own presentation, Killers from Space is kind of a gift from god to bad movie lovers everywhere.  The film stars Peter "Ever see a grown man naked?" Graves as an Air Force pilot who crashes his plane but escapes unscathed, unable to remember anything that happened during that time period.  Graves begins looking into the events and discovers that he may have been abducted by aliens.  And if you thought the giant foreheads from This Island Earth were absurd, wait until you get a load of their choice exaggerated attributes.

Yes folks, it's an alien invasion with googly eyes!  But nobody believes Graves' insane ramblings of these Muppet eyed men from outer space, which leads him to try and figure out a way to stop them by himself.

But the beauty of Killers from Space is that the production itself lives up to the absurd aliens at the center.  There's so many poor framing shots zooming up close to faces that stare blankly at the viewer and quite a few lackluster special effects, including the wildly hilarious plane crash at the beginning that seems to give up on physics.

Unfortunately the film is a bit of a rambler, and it's fun inanities can sometimes be too much of a good thing.  Killers from Space will give us the absurd aliens and forced-perspective lizards to please our cheese-senses, but then it proceeds to give us nothing but for about ten to fifteen minutes without offering anything else.  It's a bit overwhelming, and the movie starts to become stale because of it.

And then it abandons everything by making Peter Graves a raving madman on the run, not showing us the aliens again.  It's an interesting third act that's almost clever, but the movie puts all of its cards on the table too soon and it feels like it's pretty much done by this point.

The Riff

Memory can be a funny thing.  I hadn't seen these Film Crew releases in quite a few years and from what I did remember Killers from Space was not a favorite.  I recall being a bit bored with it really.  I anticipated maybe just slugging my way through it but as I sat down to watch this entry into this brief and forgotten canon I found myself laughing quite a bit.  There are a lot of great reaction riffs to the film itself, the goofy aliens and the needless closeups getting the most jolts out of the guys.  They have a lot of fun with Peter Graves, which they always seem to do.  Mike gets one of my favorite lines in the episode when Peter sneaks around in an office, cuing the observations "Yeah, nobody's going to notice a six-foot-four Sweed."

But all is not sunshine and roses.  As the film drones on a bit, Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem to get a bit bored as well.  The venture into the menagerie of giant animals wears out its welcome after a while.  Sometimes a joke doesn't jive, but they decide to run it into the ground anyway, such as Kevin saying "MITTENS!" every time there is a close-up of a space man's hand.  There is also a bit of an overkill on "Biography" jokes, which is the same pitfall they fell into with Parts:  The Clonus Horror.

The host segments are charming winners.  I love the opening where Kevin nearly electrocutes himself to death and continues the segment with obviously limited brain function.  There is a fun Lunch Break presentation in which Kevin presents alternate exaggerated features for the aliens, which echos the "Is Torgo a monster?" segment from "Manos" The Hands of Fate.  There's also an amusing finale in which Mike and Kevin imitate the horrifying close-ups from the movie.

Enjoying this Film Crew episode as much as I did, I'm starting to think they never made a bad riff.  This was the only one I remember not enjoying that much, but time has been kind to it.  Maybe the Film Crew's legacy is really one that should be remembered in the riffing world:  short but sweet.

Good

The DVD

Like all Film Crew releases, Killers from Space was initially filmed by Rhino in 2005 but shelved and abandoned, while Shout Factory eventually released them on individual discs in 2007.  Overall I think the video is an improvement over Hollywood After Dark, in the host segments at least, which look a bit clearer.  These are still presented in non-animorphic widescreen while the film itself is in full screen.  The picture on Killers from Space is ugly and beat up, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

There is a bonus feature called "Did You Know...," which has Kevin telling us a piece of trivia about the backwards speak of the space men and displaying what he's really saying.  Afterward five "outtakes" are presented, which are really just hidden messages from Mike in backwards speak, usually hostile against Peter Graves.

Are You Popular? (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2008
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Folks, I watched Mystery Science Theater when I was in high school.  I was never popular.

This short seemingly aimed at nobody in particular wonders on in a daze, trying to figure out if it had a point or not.  It tells the tale of a girl at school who a lot of boys like, and the way she balances dates.  That's about it.

I'm certain there was something quaintly informative about this short that's trying to burst out, but I fail to see how it was helpful at all.  Was it made for high school girls who need to know how to balance boys in their schedule?  Was it made for boys in an attempt to teach them how to approach girls who are popular with other boys?  What about the unpopular, low self-esteem girls?  Is it meant to make them wallow in self-pity until they get home, cry into their pillows, and long for the sweet embrace of death?

If you're looking for answers to any of that, Are You Popular? will answer none of them.

The riffing is fairly high quality, as the naive and obvious production comes under fire.  The boys love characters with a certain amount of self-aware awkwardness, which is every teenager in a short like this.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill will play up all of these flawed attributes with the greatest of ease and easily get a laugh.  One of the highlights is an out-of-the-box riff in which Kevin does a play-by-play of a boy asking a girl on a date as if he were a sports announcer, which is a brilliant run-on monologue.

One minor nitpick:  there is a moment in which the narrator brings up the idea of how much fun it would be to bring another couple home with them.  While this hilarious on its own comment is riffed on with the line "But it might be awkward the next morning," I really feel there should have been a riff that could have played like gangbusters here.  But maybe anything more might have been a bit too on-the-nose.

Thumbs Up

👍

Danger on Tiki Island (Cinematic Titanic Live)

Film Year:  1968
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero
Starring:  Kent Taylor, Beverly "Hills" Powers, John Ashley, Eva Darren
CT Number:  10

The Movie

Oh good.  Just what I wanted to see.  A horror movie starring the stripper who flashed Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

(If you're wondering how I knew this, I could play the "male card" and say "I know that set of knockers anywhere" but in reality I just thought the on-the-nose name "Beverly Hills" was interesting and looked up her IMDB.)

Initially titled Brides of Blood, this almost inaudible movie is pretty tough to follow since all the dialogue sounds like it was on a long lost recording that was recently unearthed, but seems to be about islanders and virgin sacrifice.  An almighty Caucasian falls in love with an island girl who is set to be sacrificed and mucks up her chance to be the next meal to the island's budget Swamp Thing.  Bizarrely enough nobody seems to give a shit that he just fucked up a sacred ritual, however it angers the beast who seeks to hunt down the sacrifice that was never sacrificed and its true nature is brought to light.

There's something almost cool about the way this movie presents itself.  There's some nice sets, visuals, and cinematography.  Even the lousy dub adds something of a mysterious allure to the film.  Too bad about the cheapness.  All the monsters are hilariously rubber and fakey, making this Tiki Island vacation more goofy than frightening.  But even if the monsters were believable, it's a wonder that there are anybody on this island at all.  Sacrifices seem to happen about every two hours, leaving me to wonder just why virgin girls are so plentiful on this island and why more of them aren't sleeping around to fix this (I volunteer for the sake of survival, if they need assistance).  And with the beast tearing through these girls at the rate it is, I'm surprised there is anybody left on the island at all.

The film's attempt at being "sexy" is one of the things it falls limp on as well.  The above mentioned "Beverly Hills" (real name Beverly Powers) plays a sexpot who is eager to sleep with just about any man she sees.  While it's true Madam Hills looks pretty swell in a nightie, her pouty oh-faces of lust for men grow so overbearing that they're comical, and her innuendos are so needless they can only be scripted.  Her death at the hands of the primary monster kind of makes me laugh a bit.  She was no virgin sacrifice, I can tell you that much.  It might have been funnier if he looked her over, went "nope!," and just walked away.

Tiki Island is a rough ride made by people who are trying to make the best of it.  They're given a lousy script and cheap Halloween costumes, but they take it very seriously.  It's admirable and unintentionally hilarious at the same time.

The Live Riff

I might have the polar opposite of most when it comes to Cinematic Titanic's Live shows in that I don't really enjoy them as much as the studio DVDs they initially made, but for the most part they're actually pretty good so I can't complain too much.  But Danger on Tiki Island is really the epitome if a certain "static" feeling I get while watching them.  This one just doesn't work for me.  The audio on the film is atrocious, leaving me to have a hell of a time paying attention to the movie through both the riffers and the audience.  It gives me a whirlwind of crazy washed out visuals with decent commentary with a lot of mumbling that's followed up on by the riffers that might have been funny if I had understood the set-up lines.  I really would have wanted to see a studio version of this show to see if it became any more coherent.

There are a few lines I like.  I like the riffs on Beverly Hills, as Trace gets one of the earliest laughs by pointing out how absurdly "porn star" her name sounds, and there are some swell shots at her libido, such as J. Elvis making the hilarious claim that "Mrs. Roeper wasn't nearly as horny as this woman."  But for the most part this one doesn't tickle my funny bone.  It's not that the movie is a slog either, because it isn't.  The film's only real fault in relation to the riffing is how rough of a shape it's in, but it could lend itself quite well.  And the Titans seem jazzed up by the movie too, because it's so visually bonkers.  Yet there are patches of minutes at a time where I just don't so much as giggle.

Most of the Titans are in a pop cultural mood, making references to aspects new and old, yet not a lot of them really seem to land.  As someone viewing this riff almost ten years after it was recorded a lot of it feels dated (though I admittedly didn't think it was very funny when it was new either).  It feels to me like this movie could stand to use riffs that are a bit more observational.  If I were to single out any of the Titans who seems to get this I'd have to give a shout out to Mary Jo Pehl.  Her observational lines made me laugh harder than anybody else in this episode, with winners like "I love a woman who wears white pumps into the jungle" and "Honey, you were just spreadeagled naked in the town square, I think you can dispense with the modesty."  Oddly enough the audience is mostly silent during what I think are some of her most killer lines, yet howling at jokes that don't really do much for me, so maybe it's just me.

Overall I'd have to say whether Live or studio, it's pretty plain to me that Tiki Island is one of the weakest Cinematic Titanic releases.  But there are fans of the Live Titans' work that go nuts for it, so bear in mind this is just one man's lowly opinion.  If you like the Live works, give it a shot.  You might be more impressed than I.

Average

The DVD

Initially released by Cinematic Titanic through their website, Danger on Tiki Island featured a solid video presentation, though through fault of the film's own soundtrack I can't overly praise the audio, though I think it's accurate of the show itself.  There was a special feature called Between the Riffs, which was a behind the scenes look at the Cinematic Titanic Live shows, and features interviews with all of the Titans.

The Live show was also re-released in Shout Factory's Cinematic Titanic:  The Complete Collection, featuring the same audio and video transfer.  The Between the Riffs documentary was ported over, though it's not featured on the Tiki Island disc (instead sharing a disc with War of the Insects and Rattlers).  Tiki Island shares a disc with the previous Live show, The Alien Factor.

Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast?/Petaluma Chicken (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2008
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

We have a double dose of shorts action today as the boys beef up a runtime for the briefest of brief shorts (...or...short-shorts ::runs away) by combining two to limp all the way to the seven and a half minute mark.

First up is Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast?  Instead of accepting that she might just not be hungry, a narrator harasses a poor girl all morning asking why she won't eat breakfast.  TELL ME WHY?!  I MUST KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!  But nope.  She just smiles and glares.

I'm pretty sure this was meant to be an attempt at a discussion piece for kids, in hopes that they'll give the teacher theories on why Cathy won't eat in the morning.  While I'm sure the point of the film is that there is no correct answer, I have to really wonder what exactly is the reaction they're going for?  Why does this bother them so?  Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, but it's not going to kill Cathy just because she doesn't want to eat it.

My other theory is that it's for really, really stupid dairy council workers trying to get their profits up by coming up with asinine ideas to get kids to drink more milk by eating more breakfast.  This possibility almost makes the film more amusing.

But if Cathy's not eating breakfast, that means more breakfast for us.  Let's taunt her by making the WORLD'S LARGEST OMELETTE!  In this ancient short called Petaluma Chicken we watch a chef with a giant spoon command an army of women to create this omelette.

What you see is what you get here.  I don't really have much to say about it, except such a stylistic and goofy contrast to the previous short is hilarious.  The short is chopped to hell and has little to no context, so I have no idea why it exists or where it came from, all I know is I'm glad it's here.

For the Cathy portion there are a lot of riffs on the blatant milk advertisement in the short, as they underline each use of the substance with their own "Delicious milk!" comment.  They also take aim at the persistent narrator bugging this child, as well as giving their own theories to the titular question ("Not since my bypass.").  When the short never answers it's own question, one of my favorite Rifftrax lines is uttered:  "What?!  No Country for Old Men had better closure!"  But there's not a lot of time for diversity here, and the sameness of the jokes grow stale for a while, but when Petaluma Chicken starts there is no choice but to change it up.  The short is so weird that they can't help but question their own sanity while watching it.  I'd say both shorts are pretty good, and together they work quite well to bring out an overall positive experience.

Thumbs Up

👍

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXI - The Turkey Day Collection DVD Retrospective

Release Date:  November 25th, 2014

Buy Here!

Features the following episodes:
Jungle Goddess
The Painted Hills
The Screaming Skull
Squirm

Be it early or belated, Happy Thanksgiving eveyone!  And the perfect way to celebrate is by watching some turkeys on Mystery Science Theater through their Turkey Day marathon!  And if you can't make it, hold your own with this Shout Factory collection of four episodes, each with their own custom Turkey Day intro starring Joel Hodgson, with Trace Beaulieu as Crow and J. Elvis Weinstein as Tom Servo.  The episodes in this set rate pretty well in my opinion, with The Screaming Skull being my personal favorite of the set.  With Squirm coming in second. I think I favor the Mike episodes of the four featured, though Jungle Goddess is pretty solid as well.  The Painted Hills lingers a bit behind for me, though it has its fair share of laughs.

Average Rating (scale of 1 to 4):  3

Episode presentation is pretty good, with solid audio and video all around.  Special features skew Turkey Day related, with intros for each episode, a retrospective of the holiday marathon, and intros and commercials for the three Turkey Day marathons Best Brains created material for.  There is a mild disappointment that non-BBI Turkey Day intros weren't included, but it's understandable and easy to forgive.

Movie related special features include a documentary called This Film May Kill You:  Making The Screaming Skull, which documents the production of the picture.  Furthermore there is an interview with Joe Clokey, son of Gumby creator Art Clokey, about Gumby and an interview with Don Scardino about the making of Squirm.  Also included are theatrical trailers for The Screaming Skull and Squirm.

The set was initially produced with a special tin packaging, though it came with the option of a cardboard sleeve.  Both maintained the same cover art of Crow and Tom Servo dressed as pilgrims surrounded by turkeys, sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal of film stock.  Like most Shout Factory sets, each disc is given its own plastic case with its own artwork.  Jungle Goddess features Crow as a white goddess tying up adventurer Tom Servo to a tree.  The Painted Hills has Crow pushing old prospector Tom Servo to his death as Lassie looks on.  The Screaming Skull sees both Crow and Servo peaking out of the eye-holes of a giant skull.  Squirm features Crow and Servo being devoured by worms.  Disc art is standard for Shout Factory, an episode logo against a starry backdrop.

Disc menus are typical Shout creativity, which sees audio clips from the episode used as CG animated Crow and Tom Servo stumble through different scenarios.  In Jungle Goddess the Bots lead a white goddess through the wilderness, shoot at coconuts, and see wild turkeys and lions in the jungle.  The Painted Hills has them recreating a scene from the movie where the Bots try to poison a little boy but Lassie saves the day.  The Screaming Skull features the duo harassing the titular skull at a graveyard where they try to catch it.  Squirm has Crow and Servo out fishing with two characters from the film where they are harassed by "Squirmy the Squirm Sprite."

With a good selection of episodes and some great bonus features, I don't see any reason why MSTies wouldn't have Volume XXXI.  If you haven't yet done so, I say pick it up.  Definitely by Thanksgiving!

203-Jungle Goddess

Film Year:  1948
Genre:  Adventure
Director:  Lewis D. Collins
Starring:  George Reeves, Ralph Byrd, Wanda McKay
MST Season:  2
Featured Short:  "The Phantom Creeps:  Chapter One - The Menacing Power"

The Short

When we last left Commando Cody, the Radar Men had...

Wait...we don't have a Commando Cody?  HALLELUJAH!  What kind of short are they offering this week?  Educational?  Industrial?  Advertisement?

Another serial?

Well crap.

The Phantom Creeps is actually a far different beast than Radar Men from the Moon.  This serial stars Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist seeking to sell his maniacal inventions to enemy countries.  Seeking to sneak his way out of the spotlight, he plots to fake his own death and kill his enemies.

Lugosi is always a fun and committed screen presence, and he makes Phantom Creeps a far more entertaining effort than it needs to be.  It also helps that this chapter has a more engaging storyline than the last serial, which was more or less an excuse to get Commando Cody fly from location to location and punch people.  This one is more character driven and is a bit more interesting.

But the only real question I have is how many episodes will it take for the guys at MST to abandon this one too?  Let's watch and find out!

The Movie

Are you ready for some Caucasian superiority?  I know I am!

Jungle Goddess is a B-movie from the 1940's about a woman who survives a plane wreck and is taken in by a primitive tribe of natives and worshiped as a goddess.  Years later, future-Superman George Reeves and a eventually antagonist sidekick seek her out to collect reward money, but getting her away from the natives proves to be troublesome.

Probably the first thing I noticed about this movie is that the native tribe here doesn't seem to belong to one central race.  Most of the speaking roles belong to Hispanics and Filipinos while non-speaking roles have been regulated to African Americans (and maybe there are a few white people mixed in too).  We now live in an age where there is a rallying cry for all-inclusive casts that include minorities, and to that I daresay that Jungle Goddess was ahead of its time!

...or...it was a racially insensitive casting director who thought all non-whites looked the same.

Racial issues aside, Jungle Goddess is a silly but watchable movie about a girl lost in the wilderness.  It's almost a scaled down King Kong without a giant ape.  The story is mildly investing and the plight is fun, despite being haphazardly handled.  George Reeves is a charismatic hero while Wanda McKay is a likable leading lady.  The movie is simple, and runs an hour, so it doesn't overstay its welcome.

But it all boils down to how sensitive you are to racial insensitivity.  I'm Caucasian myself, so to say I was insulted by this movie is a lie, though I see what is insulting about it.  However I find myself unable to work up any hatred for a film that's seventy years old portraying a retro bigotry.  I mean, sure I could, but what would the point be in pointing out the obvious in a forgotten movie that nobody remembers save for MST and most people today would probably never watch?

The Episode

Well that film break back in Robot Holocaust seems to have killed Commando Cody.  Let's try another, shall we?  Desperate to fill up airtime with films that are running short the show is forced to give us another serial, which is odd since they never finished the last one, but it is what it is.  The Phantom Creeps is obviously done so everyone can break out a Bela Lugosi impression and they do so with enthusiasm.  Thick Hungarian accents are all over the place during this short, and the line delivery is killer.  This is a massive step up from Commando Cody riffing wise, but can they keep it up with more chapters?

And then we get to the movie, and for a movie with George Reeves there are less Superman references than you'd expect.  There are a fair few, mostly confined to a specific portion of the film.  There are also racial jokes that are less on the nose.  You can hear a sly riff like Servo dubbing a native laughing to himself "She thinks we can speak English?" or when all hell breaks loose the natives murmuring "No white people from now on."  There's a lot of funny stuff in this episode at the expense of the movie's cheapness and naivety.  And since the movie is pretty watchable in spite of itself, I have a good time with this one.

The episode does however suffer from a bad edit for time in the last theater segment where they cut for commercial after a serene scene where the characters are falling asleep but when we come back some sort of conflict has erupted between George Reeves and Ralph Byrd.  Even Joel and the Bots seem to be confused, wondering if they missed something.  I can't help but wonder if there was something else from the film that could have been cut to keep a more proper flow in the picture.

Moving on to the host segments, they're mostly a pleasant bunch.  My favorite is Joel's demonstration of different scope styles, which is really fun.  There are a couple of movie related white superiority segments as well, the first featuring a visit from Michael J. Nelson and Jim Mallon as "white devils" who wish to kill what they don't understand, while the final segment has Joel and the Bots turning Jungle Goddess into a sitcom.*  There is also an infomercial based on the spider bombs during The Phantom Creeps.  The Invention Exchange offers up a fun saw gag as Joel hooks an electric saw up to a remote control car, while the Mads offer up a simple magic trick posing as an invention as they stick Dr. Forrester's head in a saxophone.

Jungle Goddess won't win any awards for most beloved episode of the series (although there might be somewhere out there who loves it to death), but I've always liked it.  This is a pretty fun episode that's never boring.  I can pop it in at any time and enjoy myself.

*Incidentally this sitcom sketch accidentally sparked a running gag on the show, where Joel imitates Jackie Gleeson and introduces Crow as "Art Crow," a reference to Art Carney.  A little kid saw the sketch and sent in a drawing of Crow that was read on Giant Gila Monster where he labels Crow as "Art."  As an in-joke, the Pearl Forrester character would often refer to Crow as "Art" whenever she converses with him.

Good

The DVD

Jungle Goddess was the first episode featured on Shout Factory's Thanksgiving celebration set, Volume XXXI:  The Turkey Day Edition!  Audio and video were exceptional, while a few Turkey Day themed bonus features highlighted the disc.

First up is a specially made Turkey Day intro for the episode starring Joel Hodgson as himself, and Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein reprising the roles of Crow and Tom Servo.  The Bots discuss "teachable racism," like in those movies To Kill a Mockingbird and White Chicks, while Joel discusses Phantom Creeps more than the movie itself.

There is also an eleven minute documentary on the disc, titled Overcooked & Understuffed:  Inside the Turkey Day Marathon.  Joel, Trace, and Frank Conniff discuss the origins of the Turkey Day marathon, their enthusiasm for it, and how it evolved over the years.

The Phantom Creeps was featured as a part of Shout Factory's bonus Serial Variety Pack, released exclusively through Shout Factory's website on Volume XXVII.

Jaws (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1975
Genre:  Horror, Adventure
Director:  Steven Spielberg
Starring:  Roy Schieder, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton
Rifftrax Year:  2009
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Jaws.  The first summer blockbuster.  One of my favorite movies of all time.  What can I say about it that hasn't been said a thousand times before?  Believe me, I don't even want to try.

For those who actually haven't seen this film by some act of god, Jaws is about a small town haunted by a killer shark.  The sheriff teams up with a shark hunter and a marine biologist to catch the shark before the next attack.

A notoriously troubled production, everything that went wrong somehow worked in Jaws's favor.  The malfunctioning mechanical shark forced the filmmakers to use suspense more than monster action.  Keeping the shark out of view makes the first half more interesting, as it builds to the man vs. nature second half where putting the hunter and prey face to face provides immeasurable payoff.

A lot of aspects of Jaws are dated.  The rubber mechanical shark is pretty much an internet meme today.  The negative portrayal of sharks sparked controversy, leading to mass shark hunting back in the 70's.  Even the author of the original novel, Peter Benchley, became an activist for preservation of the species.  The ending of the film was even disprove on Mythbusters.  But Jaws is not about realistic portrayal, it's pushes exaggeration just enough to enhance it's adventure qualities, much like Moby Dick.

Director Steven Spielberg was thrust into the spotlight after this film's success, leading to one of the most impressive film careers of all time.  Even with the pressure of following up such a popular movie, Spielberg managed to live up to it with films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.:  The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and many more.  It has been proven many times over that his overnight success was not a fluke.

There are plenty of aspects to discuss about the production.  Just pick your fancy and run with it.  There's definitely a lot of essays Jaws can inspire, but personally I'd rather stop typing and watch the movie.

The Trax

Surprisingly enough there aren't many, if any at all, "fake shark" riffs in Jaws.  One would imagine that would be the default mode in which a comedian would make jokes about if one were making jokes about a Jaws movie.  Maybe it was considered too safe, but for whatever the reason it's almost a relief.  I would have been pretty bored with this riff if so.

But even though they don't go the safe route with Jaws they struggle to make it anything special.  Some of the biggest laughs in the first hour of the trax are at the expense of the grieving Mrs. Kintner, the mother of the boy who was the second victim.  The whole "not all librarians are secretly foxy" and ensuing jokes at her expense are somewhat harsh, but I won't deny that I laughed at them.  But for the most part I find myself wondering why they picked this movie to riff if there was nothing that was seemingly inspiring better material.

Then Quint appears.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill gravitate toward the crusty sailor and never let go.  It seems like the only reason Jaws was riffed was so they could play with Robert Shaw's shark hunter character.  And it's fun.  Sometimes the laughs miss, but even if the joke bombs the Quint impressions are usually on point and delivered with enthusiasm.

But overall Jaws is lackluster with a few high points in Quint and Mrs. Kintner making it worth a listen.  But one can't help but be disappointed that they decided to riff this film and let Jaws:  The Revenge get away scott free.  But at least Janet Varney and Cole Stratton balanced the force by riffing Jaws III the following year, proving that there is some sort of justice in the world.

Note:  When this riff ends the guys treat us to an original song sung by Kevin, "When a Man Loves a Shark."

Average

Krasner, Norman: Beloved Husband of Irma (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The guys at Rifftrax have a strange fascination with a gentleman named Norman Krasner.  They have riffed three of Norman's shorts in their Live shows for Manos, Birdemic, and Night of the Living Dead.  Yet they never riffed Norman's first short live, choosing instead to just riff it in a studio version and release aside studio versions of Welcome Back, Norman and Norman Checks In.

Norman is an odd duck indeed.  Somehow these shorts exist, starting with this strange little black and white number from 1974, and Norman seemed to come back in six minute intervals like clockwork every five years.  Who was making these and who he was making them for, I am uncertain.  The cast and crew of these Norman shorts seems consistent, but all they've ever worked on are Norman shorts.  Norman himself was played by a man named Douglas P. MacIntosh, who passed away around the same time Rifftrax started showing these shorts.  As far as I can tell, Norman is the only character he ever played.

Nothing about the production of these shorts makes sense...but here they are.  For better or worse, we have Norman Krasner.

But other than a certain fascination with the production (or lack of details behind), I'm indifferent to Norman.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill love him, but I never really found him ideal for riffing.  Rifftrax's use of these shorts in their live shows seems more or less just them sharing with use these weird things they've found, that tell us about a miserable man who has the worst luck in the world.  Some portions of these shorts are funny on their own, so I don't really see why they need Rifftrax's format.

Despite riffing the other shorts live, this first one, titled "Krasner, Norman:  Beloved Husband of Irma" (which was altered to "Norman Krasner" on the Rifftrax site) was never riffed in front of a studio audience.  Watching it now, it's easy to see why.  Norman's first short is about his struggles in a public restroom, and it's about as endearing as it sounds.  If you ever wanted to stick with Norman through his bowel movement rituals, this is the short for you.  We get to see him run out of toilet paper, solicited for anonymous restroom sex, and get trapped inside a stall.  Out of all the Norman shorts I'd say this is easily the one I want to unsee the most.

The riffing is par for the course on Norman.  They more or less just underline the gags in the short itself, which really isn't needed, especially not in this one.  I did get a good laugh from Kevin's line "Oh no, he's going back for another round...AND HE'S GOING TO DROP IT FROM A HIGH ALTITUDE!" but this short is firing blanks for the most part.  Norman shorts usually depend on the gags of the shorts themselves to work, whereas this one is too low-momentum and has gags that are really just gross.

I say flush this one down the toilet.

Thumbs Down

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Bride of the Gorilla (ICWXP)

Film Year:  1951
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Curt Siodmak
Starring:  Raymond Burr, Lon Cheney Jr., Barbara Peyton, Tom Conway

The Movie

Before fighting crime in Perry Mason and Ironside, murdering his wife in Rear Window, and even being one of the first gawkers at Godzilla, Raymond Burr was were-monkey.  In Bride of the Gorilla Burr is having an affair with his boss's wife and murders her husband in order to make her his own bride.  Luckily Jimmy Stewart wasn't around to witness this, but a voodoo witch is.  She casts a curse on Burr turning him into a gorilla by night (...maybe...?).

Also starring former man-beast Lon Cheney Jr. and the ill-fated Barbara Peyton, Bride of the Gorilla is a lackluster "man turns into monster" flick in a time where they were just getting cheaper and uglier.  The movie lacks monster mayhem payoff with only one real gorilla scene in it, which is mostly done in quick shots from a distance.  This is probably because the gorilla suit strongly resembles the type of costume the Three Stooges often used for their shorts and hopefully prevents unintentional laughter.

The film ends on the implication that Burr may not have been a gorilla at all, but was hallucinating that he was, but this revelation confounds me a bit.  It mildly works for a film like She-Wolf of London (which is a bad movie for other reasons) which never shows you a beast, but we do get shots of a gorilla hauling Barbara Peyton around.  We even have a shot of her screaming at something that is slowly coming toward her.  If Burr was really her lover, why would she react like this if he wasn't a monster?  It's a payoff that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Bride of the Gorilla is a film that fell into public domain.  Movies like it fell into public domain because the people who owned them didn't give a rats ass if they owned them or not.  It's somewhat easy to see why.  It's not a hard movie to watch by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels like it exists because maybe someone could be suckered into paying for a ticket and not because they thought it would be a good movie.

The Episode

The folks behind the fan riffing project Incognito Cinema Warriors XP have expressed a distaste for their first episode.  So much so that they've decided to discontinue production of DVDs of it and not offer it in download.  It's not all that dissimilar to how the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000 dislike their own early season at KTMA and wish it wasn't in circulation.  I disagree with this practice.  As someone who is pro-preservation, I believe all art, cinema, and yes even puppet shows and fan films demand to be accessible by the public who wish to view it.

That said, I sympathize with them.  Bride of the Gorilla is kind of a crash and burn.

But to catch people unfamiliar with Incognito Cinema Warriors up to speed, the zombie apocalypse has happened, and this show is infinitely funnier if you imagine it takes place in the same world as The Walking Dead.  Commander Rick Wolf escapes being devoured by the hordes of flesh-eating undead and takes refuge in a movie theater.  This theater is ran by a maniacal scientist known as Dr. Blackwood, who agrees to let Rick wait out the apocalypse in the safety of the theater as long as he watches the library of shitty movies at his disposal.  Thinking this won't be too hard, Rick agrees and sits down to watch with the two robots who run the theater, Topsy Bot 5000 and Johnny Cylon.

One thing I will note then let it slide, I don't particularly care for the designs of the Bots.  I like that the shapes are distinct and don't ring to the look of Crow and Tom Servo, but they are stiff and not very expressive.  But I'm going to forgive this since it's an independent production.

In the theater with Bride of the Gorilla, promise is seen, but delivery is off.  There's an over-eagerness to Rick, Topsy, and Cylon that can't be overlooked.  They say their riffs REALLY LOUD and reallyfast, like a comedian trying to compensate for the fact that his joke just isn't that funny so he over-emphasizes it in order to underline it.  ICWXP is hardly the only riffing project to fall victim to this, as both Rifftrax and the relaunched MST3K have fallen into this pit at times and I'm not fond of it with them either.  It's a bit tackier here because the people making this show aren't comedians and they wear their amateur status on their sleeves, which I suppose is part of their charm but doesn't fully win me over.

ICWXP at the very least tries to distance itself from MST by being a bit more "heavy metal" with its approach.  I kinda dig it, but there's a certain problem that arises when they wring out a desperate attempt at an "edgy" laugh.  At various times they just throw words around like "fart" and "asscheeks" in the middle of lackluster bits in obvious hopes that they might make them funnier.  It doesn't work.

But there is a bit of a silver lining.  Occasionally they'll put out a really good line or a well timed reference (I laughed pretty hard at the parallel between the witch and the Emperor from Star Wars).  Sometimes there's a line I like, but I grit my teeth and think to myself "That might have been just funnier if it was delivered a different way."  I had fun with the way they played with the format of the series as well, showing a preview for a movie and a "Let's go to the lobby for popcorn" promo at the beginning of the movie.  That's very clever and a lot of fun.

Incidentally, the trailer at the beginning of the episode is for The Hideous Sun Demon, which was riffed by Rifftrax in 2015.  Rick and the Bots better wipe the sweat off their brow because that one is torturing someone else!

The host segments are a batch of dogs.  The first thing you'll notice is that they're accompanied by a laugh track and for the life of me I can't figure out why anybody on the team thought this was a good idea.  If it was meant to distinguish itself from MST all it succeeds in doing is reminding us that MST does it better.  If it was meant to make lackluster gags seem funnier, it just makes them look worse.

Other than the laugh track, I can't say I enjoyed these.  The way they establish the world in a rush and jump into a theater works pretty well, though I'd hesitate to say any of the jokier segments land.  The "plants make a room darker" gag plays off a running gag in the theater that's just not that funny (they over-exaggerate how dark the movie is when honestly it's easy to see what's going on).  The segment that fares the worst is a meta sketch about alternate movie taglines that's meant to play like an unfunny Jay Leno bit, but being intentionally unfunny doesn't make your sketch funny.  The finale where Topsy tries to put a voodoo curse on Rick has a gag or two that work, but feels endless and ends on a weak point.

Poopie!:  In the third host segment, Rick identifies the first movie poster tagline being from Resident Evil:  Apocalypse when in fact the poster shown and the film itself he's referencing is Resident Evil:  Extinction.  In the same segment Cylon misreads the initial tagline to Mr. Woodcock.

I find myself in a mild conundrum in reviewing this release.  I'd like to restate that any review I put forth is just meant to be an honest reaction and what constructive criticism I can muster.  The people at ICWXP are fans of the professionals I normally review on this blog, and they operate independently and are really just amateurs with a drive as opposed to experienced comedians.  I admire their passion and all the hard work they put into this episode and any episode I may watch going forward, because doing what they do isn't easy, and even if I dislike a product I don't want to dismay anybody from doing what they love.  That said, Bride of the Gorilla is not very good, and features some mistakes that are pretty damning.  But if I were to paint it with some faint praise, if I were to compare this with the weakest episodes of MST and Rifftrax, I'd say Bride of the Gorilla has a better chance of hitting my television again over, oh say, MST's version of Killer Shrews.  I'd definitely say that if they edited the laugh track out of this episode I might consider bumping my rating up a notch.

But I emphasize that this is all in good fun, both the episode I just watched and my review of it.  I wish ICWXP luck and success on the endeavor they've embarked.  And I sincerely hope I enjoy future episodes more than I've enjoyed this one.  And regardless of my opinion on it, I hope the guys over at ICWXP find it in their hearts to re-release it to their fans at some point.  After all the support they've given this little project it seems a shame to lock the origin away from them.

Not Recommended

The DVD

Rikk Wolf and the creators of ICWXP initially offered this episode on DVD through their website, icwxp.com.  Unfortunately it's out of print.  I was provided a copy of the disc via an online friend (thanks Skyroniter!) in which the show probably looks about as well as it ever was intended.  The host segments are filmed in widescreen, but are non-animorphic and are pretty lackluster looking.  The full screen theater segments look better, with a strong presentation of a damaged public domain film.  There are no special features on the disc, though the menu is almost a special feature in itself as it's presented like a comic book in which the characters mock that there are no special features on the disc.

The Day I Died (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Whew boy.  This is a dark one.

This "DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE" warning film is about a teenage boy who has a wild day at the beach with friends and gets hammered.  Deciding to drive his way home, he gets into an accident is dies at the scene.   The rest of the short deals with him looking down on seeing his loved ones at the funeral while whining about how unfair it is.

Filmed with so much slow motion that you'd think it was directed by John Woo, The Day I Died was either a film shown to kids to warn against drinking alcohol, a film shown in Drivers Ed to warn against intoxicated driving, or possibly both.  I get that it's an important lesson to learn, and the film goes sooooooo far to hammer the horror of this story into your skull.  Deservedly?  Probably.  But as casual entertainment through a comedy website the melodramatics of the production are wild and kinda funny on their own.

Objectively, for those looking for some black humor, you could do worse than The Day I Died.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill aren't afraid of this thing, as they tease the frolicking teenagers at the beach, the (intentionally) incoherent accident scene, and point out how not-upset the friends and family are, despite the narrator insisting they are.  One of the better lines comes at him observing how shaken up his dad is, to which Mike quips "What are you talking about?  He looks like a tall, bland 70's newscaster."

That said, they do ride on "Time to die" riffs a little too much in the first half.  While it's funny at first because the short is upfront about telling the story of a boy's death, they do come a bit to frequently until the accident actually happens.  After that the short can get a bit overwhelmingly somber as well, which can drown out the riffers.

I'm of two minds on the subject.  I've known people who have died in car accidents, both friends and family (not while drunk, but still).  I'm sure there are other Rifftrax fans who have as well.  For that, The Day I Died treads on a fine line.  If you have a problem with them mocking tragedy that might hit too close to home then you might want to pass this short up.  But those open to what Rifftrax in a darker place can do, there are laughs to be had.  To those folks I recommend this one, because it is pretty funny.

Thumbs Up

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House on Haunted Hill (Audio Commentary)

Film Year:  1959
Genre:  Horror
Director:  William Castle
Starring:  Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Elisha Hook, Carolyn Craig, Alan Marshal, Julie Mitchum, Richard Long
Commentator:  Michael J. Nelson

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Vincent Price is at his Vincent Price-iest in this tale of the horror master throwing a spooky birthday party for his reclusive wife.  They invite guests that they have never met before for...reasons, I guess...and offer them a large sum of money if they're able to spend the night without getting murdered (maniacal laugh implied here).  But there seems to be weird things going bump in the night.  Is the house really haunted, is Price fucking with them, or is there something else at play?

Or if you're feeling clever do all three.  Be forewarned that if you decide to do so chances are you're not as clever as you think you are.

House on Haunted Hill seems to be a favorite among golden oldie horror aficionados like myself, but I've never particularly cared for it.  Price is an astounding screen presence that adds a lot to the film, this can't be denied, but it's so damn stupid.  The premise of the film is quite solid, though the plot is convoluted and messy.  Once revelations start piling up one after another the movie just stops trying to make sense and just twists itself for the hell of it.

I've also never been one of those people who looked at an old horror movie and laughed with disbelief that anybody in history could ever be frightened by it, as I always contextualize my film-going.  House on Haunted Hill is an exception, because it's scares are so stale and silly that even if I had seen it in 1958 I couldn't imagine myself being frightened by it.  Occasionally there will be a cool shot of otherworldly haunting, such as Carol Ohmart's scenes of being strung up in a noose, but these are few and far between.

But regardless of how silly I think this film is there is one thing I can always say in it's favor:  It's nowhere near as bad as the 1999 remake.

The Commentary

As par for the course on Legend Films colorized DVDs, Michael J. Nelson is back to give these discs some flavor.  He opens by pointing out he and his MST cohorts have never riffed a William Castle film, and given his schlocky but popular catalog there's certainly a lot to play with there.  Being Castle's most popular film, House on Haunted Hill might be as good a place as any to get cracking on.

Mike embraces the macabre of the film, relishing Vincent Price and his seemingly sensual love of all things involving death.  Mike takes the opportunity to get as dark as Price, dropping gags based on poison, guns, nooses, and various other death techniques.

The film's loopy characters also come under fire.  Our creepy little character actor in Elisha Cook is given appropriate riffs for his neurotic performance, including calling him a leprechaun, which has somewhat carried over into every time this film was riffed on Rifftrax.  Richard Long's Lance character gives him great material with his libido and clumsiness, while Carolyn Craig's Nora gets some laughs as being both a victim to the haunted house and Lance's sexual advances.

One great thing about reliving these commentaries after all these years is that since these commentaries eventually evolved into Rifftrax you can definitely hear jokes that lasted in the various future riffs this film received, up to the Live version in 2010.  House on Haunted Hill has quite a few of these that have been repeated word for word elsewhere.  They were funny then and they're funny now, even if Mike has no back-up commentators with this particular release.

Good

The DVD

This disc is brought to us by Legend Films, mostly as a demo of their colorization process, which is about standard for Legend's colorization.  Inanimate objects often look good, as if they had always been colored (the wet pavement in the opening scene is actually impressively real looking), though flesh tones look waxy and awkward.  I'm also not too impressed with the color on the titular house itself, which for the most part almost looks like it's still in black and white.  I'm not sure if this was a stylistic choice, a realism choice, or a minimalist choice, but most scenes outside the house look ugly.  Otherwise House on Haunted Hill is given a pretty crisp color master and good audio.  The black and white version of the film is included as a special feature.

There's also a press book, which gives us two and a half minutes of promo material for the film.  Also included are a trailer to the film, both black and white and colorized.  Trailers for other colorized Legend releases are included:  Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead, Reefer Madness, and The Three Stooges in Color.

You're the Judge (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

A pair of horny teenage girls try to win over some cute boys by baking a cake for them.  When the boys refuse their cake, instead of assuming that they might be gay like a normal girl would, they get pissed and challenge them to a bake-off.  Challenge accepted:  and both teams head to their kitchens for preparation.  The girls follow their recipes to the letter, including the use of lots of delicious Crisco.  But since the boys didn't use Crisco their baking is of course a disaster.

I pondered about the intended use for You're the Judge while it was playing out.  The closest I can figure is that it might have been a film showed in Home Economics class to teach the importance of following baking instructions and the dangers of substitutions.  It doesn't really teach it very well, more or less detouring into the wonders of Crisco several times, but it's quirky and cute and it's decently made.  I imagine teenager girls of the 60's may have enjoyed it.

That said, the short displays a bit of an outdated philosophy of women bending over backwards to please their men.  The climax of the short has the girls switching their baked goods with the boys to save their egos, and to cheat a way into winning their affections.  This is a pretty lousy moral on several levels, because it teaches girls to be submissive and always let the man be superior.  In other flaws, its setup doesn't come off too well, as the jarring switch between dialogue to exposition narration playing over dialogue saying the exact things the characters are supposed to be saying brings back horrific memories of The Creeping Terror.  But it's hard to hate on something that for the most part is just trying to be pleasant.

"Huh.  Crisco was involved with this film?  Didn't show."

The riffing of this short is light-spirited.  It mostly just emphasizes what's there instead of making fun of it.  When Crisco is onscreen the boys make no short work in pointing it out.  They also take the boys incompetence to the next level by adding more blunders to their effort, my personal favorite being instead of using flower they used "the good cocaine."  When they go for a joke at the expense of the short they tend to be hit and miss.  Kevin starts out the short with a long and drawn out impression of Alice Cooper's "School's Out for Summer" which isn't really that funny, and portions with the girls baking tend to be a bit dry because they aren't as fun to make fun of as the boys.  But they do have a tendency to try and remind these girls that if they are so hot for these guys then they have other attributes that may get the job done.

You're the Judge is made for a bygone age of squishy teenage girls who believe nothing is more important than impressing the guys.  Times have changed and the Rifftrax version is made for the modern day of comedians who believe nothing is more important than getting a laugh.  You're the Judge isn't perfect, but laughs are given and a pleasant time is had by all.

Thumbs Up

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