superb miniature, TO THE PUB­ LIC DANGER shows Fisher mas­ tering his craft for the first time, and it demands to be counted, with STOLEN FACE and THE FOUR-SIDED TRIANGLE (both 1952), among the very best of his early works. The companion featurette,
Slim Hand’s PENNY AND THE POWNALL CASE, is an engag­ ing, light-hearted caper film. Penny Justin (Peggy Evans), the model for the popular daily comic strip “Penny For Your Thoughts,” is addicted to mys­ tery novels and suffers from a hyperactive imagination; as her best friend Molly (a very young, dark-haired, flat-chested Diana Dors) remarks, “Everyone you see is either a master criminal or an ace detective.” Penny fi­ nally gets her chance to fight crime when her comic strip is connected to the murder of a secret service agent named Pownall. With the help of In­ spector Carson (Ralph Michael) of Scotland Yard, she learns that Jonathan Blair (an amazingly boyish Christopher Lee), the wolfish artist of her strip, has been using his drawings to com­ municate orders to a French- based organization devoted to liberating Nazi war criminals. It’s harmless, breezy fun with some eye-catching fashions and an early score by Elizabeth Lutyens, who later scored DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HOR­RORS (1964) and THE SKULL (1965), also with Lee. VSoM’s tape looks about
three generations away from the original source, being a copy of a conversion copy; while not perfect, it’s pretty good and does preserve a sense of the original photographic gloss of these featurettes. The hi-fi sound qual­ ity is excellent. The total com­ bined running time is 87m 37s. —TL
& 25
ERRATA
24:64 Eric Draven’s song in THE CROW is “Fire in the Rain,” although its lyrics are those of the end title, “ It Can’t Rain All the Time”— hence the confusion.
25:4 Contrary to Michael Barrett’s remarks, “The Private World of Darkness” is mentioned in Marc Scott Zicree’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE COMPANION (on page 147)—as the original title of Rod Serling’s teleplay. The episode was retitied “Eye of the Beholder” for broadcast, a title which endured on syndication prints for roughly the next quarter century. Apparently, when Viacom remastered the entire TZ series to 1 " video about five years ago, a rare print of “Eye” with the alternate title was shuffled into the mix. As a result, most stations currently showing TZ hold the episode under its “Private World” title, including The Sci-Fi Channel, which begins airing the program next year. Therefore, FoxVideo’s recent laserdisc set THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE CREATIVE VISION, VOLUME 1 may mark the last appearance of the classic episode under its original broadcast title.
25:4 Kenneth Anger’s short films KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS and PUCE MOMENT appear on Volume One of Mystic Fire Video’s “Magic Lantern Cycle” series, not Volume Three, and remain available.
25:6 Although Wim Wenders’ 5-hour version of UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD was supposed to have been shown on German television a couple of years ago, it remains a stillborn project. Unable to locate financing for the massive task of re-editing, Wenders eventually lost interest in the project. Thus, the “expanded” Japanese laserdisc edition remains the longest.
25:29 The BBC production of THE SPREAD OF THE EAGLE was not telecast until 1964, by which time Peter Cushing was obviously well-established as a movie actor.
25:29 In 1958, when Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were informed by an American studio executive that HORROR OF DRACULA had saved his company from the brink of bankruptcy, the studio in question was Universal, not Warner Bros. The second half of the double-feature was not THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, but THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE. CURSE and HORROR were not double-billed until a popular Warners/7 Arts reissue in 1966.
25:30 BRIDES OF DRACULA was not scored by James Bernard, but by Malcolm Williamson.
25:58 The DEMONS soundtrack album was briefly available on RCA compact disc in Japan.
25:62 About Matthieu Carrière being described as a “German child actor” in ITALIAN FILM: A WHO’S WHO... Carrière was born in Hannover, West Germany to parents of French ancestry, and raised in Lübeck; he first appeared onscreen in TONIO KROGER at the age of 13. So while the book’s description is essentially true, it does not take the larger part of Carrière’s life and career into account—namely, that he is an adult actor in international (mainly French) film productions.
Thanks to Mick Burton, Peter Claren, Ines Groth, Alan Jones, Bill Kelley, Tim Murphy, David J. Schoiv, Larry Thomas and Joni Tyler.
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