The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark
Studio: SHOUT! Factory
Year: 1968/2007
US Rating: Not Rated
Film Length: 90 Mins
Aspect Ratio: 4:3 / 1:78.1 (Non-Anamorphic)
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles: None
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US Release Date: July 10, 2007
The Film - 
out of
"Ah, the traditional ‘Post Coital’ fruit bowl!”
A naive but strong-willed stripper (or is that exotic dancer) Sandy (Rue McClanahan) tries to make her way in Hollywood while in employed by filthy scoundrel strip-joint owner. This less than savory businessman, Nick (Paul Bruce), has struck a deal with a local scrap-yard owner, Tony (Jack Vorno) to assist in a waterfront heist.
Matters are complicated when the scrap-yard owner Tony, a lonely and tortured soul, falls in love with the young Sandy. These two struggle with their newfound love as he grows angry of her profession and she fears for him and the robbery he undertakes.
There are plenty of films in the annals of Hollywood’s less than fine moments that the Film Crew, voiced by the team that brought us years of Mystery Science Theater 3000, could have chosen to target their cutting wit and less than bashful mockery, but I am hard pressed to think of one at the moment.
Speaking of the film itself, also known as Walk the Angry Beach and The Unholy Choice, this is 74 minutes if excruciatingly dull silliness. This is an unfocused telling of a rather lame tale that spends more than enough time lapping up film reels with untalented booty-shakers limping around on stage like seals with broken fins. Rue McClanahan isn’t terrible but she isn’t that good either, stumbling through a few obvious set-ups to her impressionable, easily led character that for some strange reason also has a sharp tongue and for all intents and purposes, her wits about her. She is coupled with perhaps the most singularly depressing, droopy and stilted human being since the Middle Ages as her leading man, Tony. Spewing tortured and silly tales of how unjust life can be, he drags his feet from scene to scene enjoying the dullness that he pulls along.
The final straws are the two ‘bad guys’ of the picture. The sleazy Strip Club owner Nick and his near-mute henchman Tom (John Barrick). So woefully pathetic are they that you have to wonder how they were ever able to work again. Paul Bruce is particularly unsettling, adorning a ridiculous Andy Griffith grin, displaying his misaligned Humphrey Bogart teeth and sporting a head of hair that seems to have been plucked from the head of a young Ronald Reagan.
I guess if this wasn’t a film that I wanted to remove from my memory with some tool devised in the trappings of science-fiction, The Film Crew would not have been able to so easily tear at it and give the world as many giggles as they did.
The Film Crew is comprised of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, three gentlemen that spent hours sitting through sci-fi and monster schlock to entertain us with their humorous theater seat observations for years with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K).
This is their first release under the banner of ‘The Film Crew’ from SHOUT! Factory and for the most part, it is entertaining. The three wry commentators introduce the film in a segment before the feature starts that feels slow. We visit them again during a lunch break intermission and then finally after the credits have rolled. These segments are all filmed in their basement location, the facility where they are tucked away, for adding as they put it “commentary tracks to every film that doesn’t yet have one”.
It all starts out a little awkwardly but does eventually find its pace, swinging wise-crack after wise-crack at the awesomely bad feature. When they hit the mark, these jokesters really pull a solid laugh from the audience but, as I found with MST3K, their comments are best enjoyed as a cumulative effect, allowing the bombardment of mildly amusing snaps to eventually saturate you with funny. Their work is to be appreciated over the course of the movie watching experience as no section on its own rises to the level of a laugh-out-loud zinger.
The Hollywood After Dark feature is presented in its original 4:3 Black & White format. The image is a mess with plenty of print damage, lines and dust present throughout. The ‘Film Crew’ sequences are 1:78.1 non-anamorphic and generally look okay. It is a shame that the widescreen portions are not enhanced for widescreen TV’s but given that those scenes only run about 15 minutes total, it may not have been all that worth it.
This presentation comes with Dolby 2.0 soundtrack for the commentary and the other scenes with our commentators. The feature has a poor quality sound, coming across very tinny with pops and hisses evident. The commentary is decent enough, no distortions or problems of any kind, good sound level and clear throughout.
Ode To Lunch – (1:32) - This is the sole special feature and it really isn’t that special or funny, just a minute and a half of one of the guys doing some spoken word about lunch.
Final Thoughts
To be honest, I miss the silhouette of our robotic friends, but the commentary provided by the sardonic trio is enjoyable. I think I also prefer the hammy, shoe-string sci-fi subject matter of MST3K over the just plain bad drama from yesteryear as well. But sitting through the utterly dull and inconsequential Hollywood After Dark starring the sultry ‘Blanche Deveraux’ from the Golden Girls while listening to these guys ruthlessly kick it in the pants is a reasonably good use of your time.
Neil Middlemiss
Kernersville, NC
