Brent Gair
04-17-2005, 10:30 PM
Singing, dancing and car chases. Yes, it must be DRACULA.
It occurs to me that most of my recent DVD purchases have been non-English language films. We all have a few Japanese films, I'm sure. I've got a French film or two and some German stuff...lots of Italian movies. I even have a Danish flick.
I just watched my first film in Urdu with English subtitles. THE LIVING CORPSE is a Pakistani version of DRACULA filmed in 1967. The DVD is released by Mondo Macabro. They've done a first class job. Although the print has its rough spots, it's restored from the only known negative and it looks pretty good. The movie is in 1.33:1 B&W.
http://mondomacabrodvd.com/mod103.html
This has to be one of the strangest films I've ever seen and I've seen a LOT of strange films. Dramatically, it's really very good. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the Dracula story and has all of the dramatic elements you'd expect. However, the insertion of several gratuitous dance numbers makes this quite a viewing experience. It's like watching the Exorcist and having it interrupted every 15 minutes by a sketch from Saturday Night Live. And the music...well, you have to hear it.
The disc is loaded with extras. It has an English language commentary track and a couple of documentaries. One of the documentaries contains new interviews with several of the principle people involved with the film. Much to my astonishment, this new documentary is presented in 16x9 anamorphic widescreen. To have 16x9 extras on a 1.33:1 movie is very rare.
This movie gets my high recommendation for collectors of oddities.
It occurs to me that most of my recent DVD purchases have been non-English language films. We all have a few Japanese films, I'm sure. I've got a French film or two and some German stuff...lots of Italian movies. I even have a Danish flick.
I just watched my first film in Urdu with English subtitles. THE LIVING CORPSE is a Pakistani version of DRACULA filmed in 1967. The DVD is released by Mondo Macabro. They've done a first class job. Although the print has its rough spots, it's restored from the only known negative and it looks pretty good. The movie is in 1.33:1 B&W.
http://mondomacabrodvd.com/mod103.html
This has to be one of the strangest films I've ever seen and I've seen a LOT of strange films. Dramatically, it's really very good. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the Dracula story and has all of the dramatic elements you'd expect. However, the insertion of several gratuitous dance numbers makes this quite a viewing experience. It's like watching the Exorcist and having it interrupted every 15 minutes by a sketch from Saturday Night Live. And the music...well, you have to hear it.
The disc is loaded with extras. It has an English language commentary track and a couple of documentaries. One of the documentaries contains new interviews with several of the principle people involved with the film. Much to my astonishment, this new documentary is presented in 16x9 anamorphic widescreen. To have 16x9 extras on a 1.33:1 movie is very rare.
This movie gets my high recommendation for collectors of oddities.