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From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-02 (Thursday)
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 13:35:34 -0800
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On 1/12/2025 1:05 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:
> Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
>> On 1/3/2025 8:32 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
>>> On 1/3/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
>>>
>>>> What did you watch?
>>>
>>>
>>> What did you watch?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I watched:
>>
>>
>>
>> The Phantom of the Opera (4K disc) - I watched the 1943 classic
>> Universal Studios version.  When I put the disc in, I was expecting the
>> 1925 black and white, silent version, and was very pleasantly surprised
>> when this version (filmed in color) played instead. I bought a 4K box
>> set of the classic Universal horror movies a couple of years ago.  I'm
>> finally cracking it open to start to watch some of them.  With the
>> exception of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein," I've never seen any of the
>> classic Universal horror films.
> 
> Gasp!
> 
>>
>> Going into this, I was only familiar with the Andrew Lloyd Webber
>> musical version.  In that version the identity of the phantom is
>> unknown.  And he's already the Phantom at the start.  In this version
>> Claude Rains plays a music composer who believes someone is stealing his
>> work and tries to murder the man.  The man's wife throws acid on his
>> face to stop him.  So, everyone knows who the Phantom is and his back
>> story.  He spends the movie trying to help a young woman in the opera
>> become a star. To my surprise, this version is practically a musical too.
>>
> 
> The best version of this is Phantom of the Paradise.
> 

I saw it once and didn't care for it.  I was tempted to revisit it, but 
changed my mind.

>>
>> The Wolf Man (4K disc) 1943 version of the Universal Studios classic
>> about a man who is bitten by a werewolf and turns into one himself.  On
>> the commentary they said the movie was a huge success.  I forget the
>> names, but when all the money came flowing in, one guy bought his wife a
>> diamond ring, another got a $50,000 bonus, and another asked for a $25
>> raise, and to the guy who requested the $25 raise, Universal said, no.
>>
>> When I pulled out the box set, I had a general idea of which movies I
>> planned to watch, but not the order.  My first thought was to go to
>> Wikipedia, figure out the release order, and watch in that order.  But I
>> *wanted* to watch Phantom first, so that's what I went with.  Turns out,
>> Claude Rains stars in this movie too.  And he stars in "The Invisible
>> Man." Had I known that I would have started with "The Invisible Man" and
>> watched in release order.  In addition to Claude Rains this movie stars
>> Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as a different werewolf.
>> I was on the fence, but I decided to hold off on watching "The Invisible
>> Man" until the reboot's sequel is released. I'm holding off on watching
>> "Frankenstein" for similar reasons.
> 
> Does the set include the Abbott and Costello movies? Have you ever seen
> Young Frankenstein?
> 
> 

No Abbott and Costello movies.  I don't think I've ever watched any of 
their universal monster pairings.  Actually, I'm not sure if I've 
watched any of their movies all the way through from beginning to end. 
I think I've only ever seen clips on TV.

The set has: The Mummy, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the 
Opera, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Frakenstein, The Invisible Man, 
and The Wolf Man.

I have watched Young Frankenstein once or twice.  I did a Frankenstein 
movie marathon a few years ago but skipped Young Frankenstein (and the 
original).  I'll be watching the original, and Young Frankenstein along 
with the other Frankenstein movies in my collection in a few months when 
the Bride of Frankenstein remake comes out.


>>
>>
>> The Wolfman (4K disc) 2010 remake of the 1943 classic starring Bencio
>> del Toro as the Wolfman and Anthony Hopkins as his father.  I watched
>> with a new commentary.  The guy doing the commentary talked about how
>> much of a mess this movie was to make, in particular due to the director
>> being replaced along with other behind the scenes fighting.
>> Unfortunately there were often long gaps of silence, I suspect because
>> much of what he was saying being edited out.  That wouldn't have been
>> too bad but for whatever reason, they muted the movie audio, so whenever
>> he was speaking there was just dead silence.
>>
>>
>> The Creature From the Black Lagoon (4K disc) 1954 Universal Studios
>> classic about a group of scientists who go on an expedition to find a
>> strange fossil and find a living creature instead.  This was just above
>> background noise with the commentary, but it did generally hold my
>> interest whenever I looked up to watch.  On the commentary they said the
>> movie was originally going to be shot in color and 3D, but they crunched
>> the numbers and realized that they could save $100,000 if they shot it
>> in 3D black and white instead. They also mentioned they weren't going to
>> let the elaborate suit they constructed for this movie go to waste, so
>> they quickly cranked out a sequel.  My box set only includes the 4K
>> version, but a 3D version is also available too.
> 
> It’s got a lot of fun 3-D shots in it and knowing it’s in 3-D explains the
> stuff that they stick right into the camera.

I am extremely annoyed the box set doesn't include the 3D version. 
There are several different versions of this box set and I think all of 
them include the 3D version *except* the set I bought.  But it wasn't 
100% clear if the 3D version was or wasn't going to be included until I 
opened it up and looked.


  There are two sequels although
> none is nearly as good as this one.
> 

I just know the character from "The Monster Squad."  He was probably the 
weakest / easiest to kill monster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OQqB1bnhBw

> Now you are eligible to join my friends Creature Facebook group. :-)
> 
> I had the 8 mm Home movie version when I was a kid and loved it.
> 
> I saw it in 3-D in the theater (unfortunately anaglyph) decades ago as part
> of a series of 3-D movies they showed at midnight and if you watched the
> first four you got the last one free. 

I vaguely remember it came on TV when I was around 10 or so, and 
everyone said it was in 3D.  They didn't have enough of the anaglyph 
glasses.  They gave a pair of something but whatever they gave me didn't 
work and I ended up not watching the movie.

I’m pretty sure there was a
> cheerleaders movie, and a couple Andy Warhol movies, and creature, and then
> the free movie was the completely unwatchable fantastic invasion of planet
> earth. Starring the guy from the mod squad who died recently. it just came
> out on Blu-ray. I think but it’s absolutely terrible. When it ended, like
> two in the morning the film just ran out and the screen was white and you
> could hear the end of the film go flat flat flap across against the
> projector. We looked around and there was nobody in the projection booth or
> anywhere in the theater that we could find. We finally made sure all the
> doors were locked and went out one that locked behind us. couldn’t do
> anything about the running projector though.
>