By Hank Reineke
It was never his intention to be remembered as the Alfred Hitchcock of the Chester-Delaware Counties of Eastern Pennsylvania. Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. was a devout Christian whose real passion was turning out religious-themed short films that would bring the Gospel to the masses. But such proselytizing was cost prohibitive. So, at the suggestion of - and in partnership with - Philadelphia-based distributor/producer Jack H. Harris, Yeaworth signed on to direct a handful of low-budget teenage dramas and science-fiction films. Harris had convinced Yeaworth that there was a cash-grab market for such indie films, and these productions would bring in enough revenue to fund projects with loftier aspirations.
Yeaworth’s first feature film (as co-producer), The Flaming Teenage (1956), was not really his at all. It was instead a cobble of pre-existing footage from a drug-abuse morality fable now disguised and sold to distributors as an exploitation film.
It was never his intention to be remembered as the Alfred Hitchcock of the Chester-Delaware Counties of Eastern Pennsylvania. Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. was a devout Christian whose real passion was turning out religious-themed short films that would bring the Gospel to the masses. But such proselytizing was cost prohibitive. So, at the suggestion of - and in partnership with - Philadelphia-based distributor/producer Jack H. Harris, Yeaworth signed on to direct a handful of low-budget teenage dramas and science-fiction films. Harris had convinced Yeaworth that there was a cash-grab market for such indie films, and these productions would bring in enough revenue to fund projects with loftier aspirations.
Yeaworth’s first feature film (as co-producer), The Flaming Teenage (1956), was not really his at all. It was instead a cobble of pre-existing footage from a drug-abuse morality fable now disguised and sold to distributors as an exploitation film.
- 9/4/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
For this week’s home media releases, we have killer superheroes, prehistoric creatures, Frankenstein by way of Hammer, Anjelica Huston as a witch, the final farewell to Rick Grimes, and more on tap. Kino Lorber is keeping busy this Tuesday with several new Blu-rays, including 4D Man, Dinosaurs! and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, and Scream Factory is releasing the recent indie horror flick I Trapped the Devil and more Hammer genre goodness with Horror of Frankenstein as well. Another film I’m very excited to see hitting Blu is The Witches from the Warner Archive Collection, and William Friedkin’s Cruising is getting the special edition treatment from Arrow Video.
If you missed it in theaters, Brightburn will arrive on various formats this week, and for those of you who want to enjoy Rick Grimes’ final moments from this past season of The Walking Dead, you’ll get your...
If you missed it in theaters, Brightburn will arrive on various formats this week, and for those of you who want to enjoy Rick Grimes’ final moments from this past season of The Walking Dead, you’ll get your...
- 8/20/2019
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
An old monster formula props up this fantastic film, but at its heart is a brilliant central idea that excites the imagination. Jack H. Harris’s sophomore picture after The Blob is on the awkward side, but the good stuff is much better than we expect it to be. Ambitious performances by Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether and James Congdon come through with something unique, with graces we just don’t find in independent Sci-Fi from the late 1950s. And the new Blu-ray rejuvenates the film’s special effects — all it took was a good 4K restoration.
4D Man
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Edgar Stehli, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond, Chic James, Elbert Smith, Jasper Deeter.
Cinematography: Theodore J. Pahle
Film Editor: William B. Murphy
Original Music: Ralph Carmichael
Written by Theodore Simonson,...
4D Man
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Edgar Stehli, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond, Chic James, Elbert Smith, Jasper Deeter.
Cinematography: Theodore J. Pahle
Film Editor: William B. Murphy
Original Music: Ralph Carmichael
Written by Theodore Simonson,...
- 8/13/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
We know the greats; movies like Metropolis (1927), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977).
And there are those films which maybe didn’t achieve cinematic greatness, but through their inexhaustible watchability became genre touchstones, lesser classics but classics nonetheless, like The War of the Worlds (1953), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), The Time Machine (1960).
In the realm of science fiction cinema, those are the cream (and below that, maybe the half and half). But sci fi is one of those genres which has often too readily leant itself to – not to torture an analogy — producing nonfat dairy substitute.
During the first, great wave of sci fi movies in the 1950s, the target audience was kids and teens. There wasn’t a lot in the way of “serious” sci fi. Most of it was churned out quick and cheap; drive-in fodder, grist for the Saturday matinee mill.
By the early 1960s,...
And there are those films which maybe didn’t achieve cinematic greatness, but through their inexhaustible watchability became genre touchstones, lesser classics but classics nonetheless, like The War of the Worlds (1953), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), The Time Machine (1960).
In the realm of science fiction cinema, those are the cream (and below that, maybe the half and half). But sci fi is one of those genres which has often too readily leant itself to – not to torture an analogy — producing nonfat dairy substitute.
During the first, great wave of sci fi movies in the 1950s, the target audience was kids and teens. There wasn’t a lot in the way of “serious” sci fi. Most of it was churned out quick and cheap; drive-in fodder, grist for the Saturday matinee mill.
By the early 1960s,...
- 3/17/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
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