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Universal Cult Horror Collection (DVD) - AVAILABLE NOW!

Universal Cult Horror Collection (DVD) - AVAILABLE NOW!
A 5-disc collection of mad doctors and murderous fiends that includes such rarely seen thrillers as the Pre-Code shocker Murders in the Zoo (1933), House of Horrors (1946) and The Mad Ghoul (1943).
Was: $64.99
Now: $49.99

Law of Desire (DVD)

Law of Desire (DVD)
This bizarre and beguiling gender-flipping tale from director Pedro Almodovar starring Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura details the quest for happiness and love by two siblings. A 1987 art house hit.
Was: $19.99
Now: $17.99



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THE ITALIAN JUNGLE COLLECTION - A Eurotrash Double Feature of Tarzan Clones ON dvd

Retromedia Entertainment’s “Italian Jungle Collection” DVD features two European bush adventures patterned after Hollywood’s hugely successful Tarzan franchise. Edgar Rice Burroughs published his first Tarzan novel in 1912 and there were nine Tarzan films in the silent era alone. The heroic character didn’t become a going cinematic concern until Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Johnny Weissmuller vehicles of the 1930s and 40s. Over the next few decades, the King of the Apes’ loincloth would pass to a number of actors and athletes, among them Buster Crabbe, Herman Brix, Lex Barker, Denny Miller, Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney, Mike Henry and Ron Ely. It was inevitable that Italy, having exhausted the sundry possibilities of such shirtless Greco-Roman titans as Hercules, Maciste, Ursus, Samson and Goliath, would want to give the more cost effective Tarzan game a go.

A co-production of Italy and West Germany, Luana (Luana la figlia delle foresta vergine, 1968) stars Netherlands-born actor Glenn Saxson, who had played the title roles in Umberto Lenzi’s Kriminal (1966) and Alberto de Martino’s Django Shoots First (Django spara per primo, 1966). Sporting a two-day growth of beard, Saxson rocks a pre-Indiana Jones world-weary grubbiness as explorer George Barrett, a self-professed beachcomber and “friend to all and none” hired by beautiful Isobel Donovan (Evi Marandi, of Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires). The expedition to find the remains of Isobel’s scientist father, whose plane went down fifteen years earlier in the jungles of Darkest Africa while searching for a rare plant, is joined by the late Derek Donovan’s business partner, Norman Albright (Pietro Tordi), who has designs on the plant that are less than scientific. As bad luck plagues the expedition, Barrett finds himself falling for Isobel, whose wears a charm bracelet identical to one he had seen on a mysterious jungle girl who once saved him from certain death.

Luana commits the cardinal sin of giving away too much information early on and having very little to fill its interminable second act. It’s no mystery that Isobel and the tree-swinging Luana (Mei Chen, from Jean Rollin’s Rape of the Vampire) will turn out to be half sisters or that Albright will be revealed as a world class bastard with no regard for human life. The bulk of the film is taken up with safari stock footage while the principals tramp around about a potted jungle constructed within a corner of a cramped studio soundstage. Interest picks up a bit when the elusive plant turns out to be a monstrously proportioned man-eater (think the love child of Audrey II and Caltiki the Immortal Monster) but the wrong villain gets swallowed too early and the actual denouement (a dive on the submerged wreckage of Donovan’s airplane) is anticlimactic. Mei Chen may not be a very compelling “daughter of the virgin forest” but Evi Marandi does get a couple of near-nude scenes that surely made male moviegoers stand up and take notice forty years ago.

Although the keepcase for this all-region “flipper” DVD claims the presentation of Luana is full frame (1.33:1), the transfer is actually letterboxed closer to 1.66:1. The image is slightly better than bootleg quality, and on par for most Retromedia releases. Colors are never vibrant but as long as viewers don’t have their hearts set on verdant jungle greens, the image is serviceable – especially for a forgotten film with a very narrow appeal. The monaural English dub is the only soundtrack option (even Luana’s chimp companion sounds like he was revoiced by the English Language Dubber’s Association).

A hardbodied non-entity named Johnny Kissmuller, Jr. is Karzan, Jungle Lord (Karzan, il favoloso uomo della jungla, 1972) but doesn’t turn up until the thing is more than halfway over. The bulk of this tedious trek across the Serengheti is taken up with an expedition to find a specimen of “white ape” glimpsed on a remote plateau – a safari underwritten by titled scientist Lord Carter (Roger Browne, also on hand for Guido Malatesta’s similar Samoa, Queen of the Jungle) and guided by avaricious explorer Captain Fox (former Italian matinee idol Ettore Manni). Also along for the ride are photojournalist Steve Wood (Jerry Ross) and the dark-eyed Dr. Monica Cromwell (Melù Valente), who finds the washboard-abbed Karzan far less favoloso than his slinky treehousemate Shiran (Simonetta Vitelli, daughter of director Demofilo Fidani). When Carter et al grab Shiran as a specimen and beat it back to civilization, Lord Karzan gives chase, enduring a gauntlet of jungle predators to recapture his lady love.

Karzan, Jungle Lord benefits from greater location photography and less reliance on studio interiors, giving the production a slightly more expensive feel. The hunting party is also given an interesting delineation between those in it for the thrill of the hunt and those out to serve science and humanity; the risibly verbose dialogue seems to be a commentary on the superficial over-refinement of civilized characters whom we suspect will soon prove to be baser than the jungle dwellers they track. Frustratingly, Karzan never really makes good on the promise of this stylistic choice, dropping character development for asides of rote slaughter (African aboriginals pop up as foot-stomping, ooga-booga-spouting shooting gallery targets) and lame comic relief (at least we think Karzan’s battle with an Italian stuntman in a gorilla suit is supposed to be funny). Suspicions that all of the above was written by monkeys is actually confirmed by the film’s closing shot.

Karzan, Jungle Lord is presented in its intended Techniscope aspect ration of 2.35:1. The image is somewhat soft but reasonably colorful and the mono English soundtrack, while hardly robust, is at least noise-free. Retromedia’s “rumble in the jungle” (“3 Hours of Savage Thrills”) double feature is attractively packaged, with some cool Frazetta-style cover art carried over to the very spare menu screens. While each feature is chaptered, no chapter list is included and there are no extras.

For more information about The Italian Jungle Collection, visit Image Home Entertainment. To order The Italian Jungle Collection, go to TCM Shopping.

by Richard Harland Smith

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