between audio channels! The commentary, which has its own running time of 78m 8s, is worth seeking out and adds its own share of information and dispar- ate perspectives to that compiled by FILMING FOR YOUR LIFE: MAK- ING AFTER HOURS (18m 53s), a detailed “making of,” sans Scorsese apart from a single sound byte, which was produced for the disc by Automat Pictures. Most of the commentary partici- pants appear here on-camera and share some fascinating sto- ries; of particular interest is Robinson and Dunne’s story of how the script found its way to them through Yugoslav director Dusan Makavejev, and how it nearly became the feature debut of VINCENT director Tim Burton, who gracefully withdrew when he learned of Scorsese’s interest. The disc also includes a the-
atrical trailer and more than 8m of deleted scenes—a mere sam- pling, considering that the first preview cut reportedly ran two hours forty minutes. Among the seven cut scenes presented here is more screen time and dialogue for Dick Miller and, amazingly, an important encounter between Dunne and John Heard (play- ing Arquette’s bartender boy- friend), a scene which both Robinson and Scorsese claim was their favorite in the picture.
DEAD EYES OF LONDON / THE GHOST
Die Toten Augen von London / Lo Spettro 1961/1963, Retromedia Entertainment, DD-2.0/LB/+, $19.95, 98m 46s/94m 57s, DVD-1
By Kim Newman This disc recreates a double
bill that trotted round American grindhouses in the mid-1960s, pairing significant horror myster- ies from West Germany and Italy.
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This interesting idea has cropped up before (on FEAST OF FLESH/ NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES, for instance, reviewed VW 104:50)—and it’s open to ques- tion whether re-presenting Euro- pean films as they were first seen by American audiences makes as much sense as would, say, double-billing Riccardo Freda’s THE GHOST with the film it po- sitions itself as a semi-sequel to (THE HORRIBLE DR. HICH- COCK [L’orrible segretto del Dr. Hichcock, 1962]) or Alfred Vohrer’s DEAD EYES OF LON- DON with the Bela Lugosi vehicle of which it is a remake (1939’s DARK EYES OF LONDON aka THE HUMAN MONSTER). Our preference would also extend to soundtracks in original lan- guages and broadcast quality source prints—which might seem more like wishful thinking if companies like Mondo Macabro were not delivering authorized discs with these specifications. Following a forty-year-old
marketing decision that seemed odd even then, Retromedia bill
DEAD EYES as the A-feature and relegate THE GHOST to the sup- port slot, presumably on the grounds that i t ’s slight ly shor ter—though i ts color cinematography, auteur director, cult star and superior thrills com- mand more attention. Despite the title, it’s not a true ghost story but a Les Diaboliques variation set in Scotland in 1910. The ailing Dr. Hichcock (Leonard Elliott), no apparent relation to the character played by Robert Flemyng in L’orrible segretto, is attended by his young, lovely wife Margaret (Steele, who had been the first Hichcock’s second wife) and a dedicated personal physician Dr. Livingstone (future WONDER YEARS director Peter Baldwin) who—as in Roger Corman’s PIT AND THE PENDULUM and many, many others—is in league with the wife against the hus- band. After the doctor’s death, the spiteful will seems to cheat the adulterous conspirators of their booty, and Hichcock makes startling spectral appearances
Adi Berber cuts the electricity in the Edgar Wallace krimi DEAD EYES OF LONDON.
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