What's new

The Amazing Colossal Man/War Of the Colossal Beast Question? (1 Viewer)

Mark Oates

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 12, 2004
Messages
875
"War Of The Colossal Beast" is out in R2. There's a review on our site. The picture is 4:3, has the original colour ending (Sue didn't know about it) and has trailers and a 50 minute audio interview with Samuel Z. Arkoff.

I've got a particular soft spot for the movie from my 8mm collector days.
 

Jan Strnad

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 1, 1999
Messages
1,004
For me, the MST3K DVDs that I've seen are perfect: the original, unedited film on one side, the MST3K version on the other. As much as I love these 1950s B-films...and that's a lot...I know that most of them are perfect fodder for MST3Kifying. When watching them, unaltered, it's hard not to provide my own MST3K-type monologue, if only inside the privacy of my own head. :)

Jan
 

Jeff_HR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2001
Messages
3,593
That is where it should be kept.

The company or persons who provide MST3K commentary should produce their own movies. Then they can comment to their heart's content, & leave movies like "The Amazing Colossal Man" & "War of the Colossal Beast" alone.
 

Mark Cappelletty

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 6, 1999
Messages
2,322
As a die-hard MST3K fan, I think that what the folks at Best Brains did was brilliant. But, on the other hand, I'm glad that many of their titles include uncut versions on the flip-side. And I think that all films -- hell, even "Manos" -- should be seen in their best possible (original) forms.

However, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that some of Bert I. Gordon's movies are so bad that this form is the only way I'd be able to get through some of these titles.

Plus, "The Amazing Colossal Man" on MST3K is the only way to see the "Mr. B. Natural" short, one of the most bizarre things ever filmed.
 

Jeff_HR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2001
Messages
3,593
I've watched many of Bert I. Gordon's movies & own some. They would be completely ruined for me if they were subjected to the MST3K treatment. It is bad enough to have to put up with this sort of commentary in a Movie Theatre. I don't want to hear it on a video.

These "bad" movies have a charm that I don't want spoiled by someone else's idea of comedy.
 

Jay E

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 30, 2000
Messages
2,483
I'm a big MST3K fan, but there are certain episodes I will never watch because I like the films too much or they hold a special place in my heart which I don't want corrupted. The Amzazing Colossal Man falls into this category along with This Island Earth, Rocketship XM, Revenge of the Creature & The Crawling Eye.
 

John*C

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
203
DVDtalk forum Johnf14 has them in covers and they are on www.dvdcoverart.com for download. I have downloaded them in hopes some one will have one or all without the cover. Cheaper buy if they don't have the cover just the disc, I have saved $ on a number of discs this way.
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 21, 1999
Messages
2,312
Real Name
Peter Fitzgerald
I'm not so sure Columbia still has the home video rights to THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and the other 1950s AIP flicks mentioned in this thread. The actual owners are James Nicholson' widow (fomer AIP starlet Susan Hart) and the estate of Samuel Arkoff --each entity controls a subset of the 1950s catalog of AIP titles (MGM also has a few, like THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES, and the estate of Herman Cohen retained HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM and THE HEADLESS GHOST). Several of Arkoff's titles were licensed to Columbia Tristar in the early/mid 1990s, and released on VHS tape, but no more have come from Columbia since then (and haven't been released on LD, nor R1 DVD, either). Methinks their agreement has since lapsed.

The real question is why a deal seems to have been struck with an R2 company for a couple of years now, but not in R1 yet. Surprising that a R1 company like Image, Anchor Bay, Blue Underground or Rhino isn't producing some of these. It's also odd that the R2 DVDs sport an "AMC Monsterfest" logo; to my knowledge AMC never had a UK version of their channel. R1 DVDs released in conjunction with the AMC channel are typical bad-quality public domain "bargain bin" titles, released by 1001 other bottom-feeding companies (Brentwood, Alpha, Marengo, Madacy, Diamond, etc). Very strange...
 

Joe Karlosi

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 5, 2003
Messages
6,008
Jeff, I agree with you 100% about the MST treatments of these movies. I've seen a few of them, don't think they're very funny personally, and if I'm going to crack jokes about a movie while watching it I can do so with ideas from my own head. I don't need those characters telling me what's "supposed" to be hilarious and offering lame remarks which are ten times funnier when I think 'em up myself.

Anyway, the DVDs ought to be released without the laugh tracks intruding upon the original films. I detested having to bite the bullet and buy the MST version of BEGINNING OF THE END many years ago, because it offered the "unscathed" version along with the comical one. Thankfully, Image eventually released their own superior disc of this film and I was unable to unload the MST one! :D
 

Kevin M

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2000
Messages
5,172
Real Name
Kevin Ray
Strange, I own the now OOP VHS of The Amazing Colossal Man and it doesn't have the "Mr. B. Natural" short, are you sure it wasn't on the War of the Colossal Beast episode?

In regards to the MST3K naysayers, I can understand the resistance since sarky pop reference filled humor isn't for everyone....personally I get it and love it.
 

Kevin M

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2000
Messages
5,172
Real Name
Kevin Ray
Yep, it was on the WOTCB episode, from the Satellite News Episode guide:
 

Jeff_HR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2001
Messages
3,593
Thanks for the support Joe. ;) It is never easy supporting an isolated opinion on this Forum. :angry:
 

Jeff_HR

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2001
Messages
3,593
Thanks Robert. :)

If I wish to listen to this sort of humor I'd rather seek it out in another form.
 

Kevin M

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2000
Messages
5,172
Real Name
Kevin Ray
:)
Since earlier in the thread you told someone to "speak for themselves" I thought I would add that a nicely placed "IMHO" in statements like this one above tend to go a long way towards not coming off as a bit of an egomaniac as far as what constitutes "entertainment", now if you are referring to people doing this in a theater well that is a different story but that isn't what Jan Strnad or anyone else here were talking about. I'm a strong believer in "to each their own" but in print you have to actually say IMO sometimes unless you want to come off as a bit of a pushy hypocritic. I'm sure you don't want to come off as that at all.
 

Mark Oates

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 12, 2004
Messages
875
Don't get me wrong - I'm not on some superiority kick - in the US you have access to wonderful movies and tv series that we never ever EVER see in the UK because of a combination of broadcaster snobbery and Rupert Murdoch sitting on the rights to thousands of movies to feed his PPV channels.

We've never seen MST3K this side of the puddle (except for "The Movie" and that was bad enough). Frankly I thought that kind of artistic vandalism died out with Robert Youngson. It's like a yak track you can't turn off by somebody who hates the movie. Over here, it's far from ideal; we do have to stomach arrogant young continuity presenters taking the p*ss out of cult tv series and movies, and far from finding them witty, I find myself wanting to beat them to death with a shovel. Then again, I think any kind of continuity announcement should be a capital offense....

Short fuse. Maybe I should change my medication. ;)
 

Patrick McCart

Premium
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 16, 2001
Messages
8,196
Location
Georgia (the state)
Real Name
Patrick McCart
Robert Youngson's compilation films resulted in people re-discovering a lot of silent comedy classics. Also, films such as The Battle of the Century and The Cameraman only exist because of Robert Youngson having fine-grain positives made for making new dupe negatives for his films. Look down on him for making clip shows, but you do have to wonder how many people got into silent film thanks to When Comedy Was King or The Golden Age of Comedy. ;)


Also... while The Amazing Colossal Man isn't really that bad (it's a little silly, but it's still good sci-fi), who is going to watch films like Invasion of the Neptune Men, Horrors of Spider Island, Girl in Gold Boots, Monster a Go-Go, Eegah!, Catalina Caper, and The Creeping Terror? I actually thought Eegah! was an interesting movie that could have been neat (Richard Kiel did a great pantomime role) if just a few things were changed (like deleting the awful Arch Hall Jr. songs).

Thanks to MST3K, films such as Manos: The Hands of Fate and The Creeping Terror have become minor cult classics. Before MST3K, how many people knew that Manos even existed?

In fact, some of the people who worked on Manos have seen the MST3K version and found it to be amusing. Hal Warren jokingly suggested (after the film did horribly) that they could re-dub it and subtitle it like a foreign film and it could be a hit.
 

Kevin M

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2000
Messages
5,172
Real Name
Kevin Ray
.....so, ah...Chas, how do you like what your thread has mutated into?:)
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,705
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top