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I'm not even through to the first commercial break and I can tell that this show is just another pile of faux-reality CRAP! Zawi Hawass is such a ego-maniacal, self-centered publicity whore that I wouldn't doubt for a second that he'd jump at the chance to make himself the action hero center of an alleged "reality" program -even to the point of faking this whole intern,documentary thing in and around these priceless ruins. Notice how in the first minute or two he makes a convenient "discovery" the instant he sets foot inside the tunnel beneath the pyramid? I SEVERELY question whether any serious archaeologist would just pick up such a fragile object in his bare hands and handle it so casually.

The interns and crew are clearly actors (or at least reading prepared lines) and the setup so far is obviously staged.

I have no intentions of following any further episodes and strongly advise others not to waste their time.

A heart-breaking film of incredible beauty! I was guided towards this film by Delpeut's other "found footage" masterpiece, Lyrical Nitrate. In that assemblage I was introduced to the genius of Lyda Borelli and sought out whatever titles of hers may still exist -this was the top of the list.

Anyone who has any sort of preconceived notions about silent film which involves goofy black-and-white makeup, cardboard sets, static camera setups and custard pies is in for a surprise. Anyone who thinks that silent film acting was all about waving your arms and stalking back and forth is in for an earth-shattering revelation.

True, there is a bit of monochromatic makeup (panchromatic hadn't yet been perfected), but the use is masterly and you are more readily reminded of today's "heroin chic" or Goth makeup fashion. In most instances the "back to the future" quality of the makeup actually works in its favor.

The sets glimpsed here are anything but cardboard. The entire collection of films appear to have been shot on location, in actual mansions or else on lavishly appointed sets that would rival anything DeMille or Merchant/Ivory could devise.

The direction and cinematography of the original films is quite frankly breath-taking. There was a scene in an opera house early on in which the director executed a camera move (panning the breadth of the opera house from inside one of the boxes using the actress as the pivot point) which I had never seen done in a film before. It was startling. Elsewhere there are scenes of ravishing beauty, artistic composition simply for art's sake and camera work designed simply to showcase the beauty or the expression of the actress or her movements.

Just look at the image on the box cover and you can instantly sense that our heroine is in the midst of some torment within herself. So much from just a still frame -and even there it is so carefully composed an image that it becomes art in itself. The entire film is that rare and perfect blending of art and drama so delicately balanced that one never compromises the other. Scenes are played for the maximum dramatic impact (and there are some category 10 hurricanes brewing), but at the same same time the images are composed so as to resemble Beardsley illustrations or Old Masters paintings. But again, one never outweighs or interferes with the other.

First and foremost, each actress in the several clips assembled is given license to unleash her dramatic demons and take no prisoners. This they do with all the fury or a woman scorned (Do not expect hand-wringing melodrama, or anything along the lines of a Lifetime Movie for Women, these women are Divas of the highest order, sexually liberated and may the gods help anyone who gets in their way).

Secondly the actresses are treated by their directors and cinematographers as goddesses incarnate, and are so presented in all their silver nitrate glory; faces in sublime agony become poetic landscapes of beauty, or a coquettish glance is transformed into a thunderstorm about to explode. Images of ravishing beauty accompany scenes of soul-wrenching misery. The mixture is astounding.

Forget any thoughts of banana peels or custard pie fights; there is not a single instant of slapstick comedy anywhere on screen. Quite the opposite, this film is drenched with seriousness to the point of suicide. Had there been sound these characters would be singing grand opera. The women whose lives are enacted in these all-too-brief moments were fraught with sinful passions, sorrow, anguish and -of course- high drama.

It is this last which I mean in in its best sense, not in the current flippant meaning. This is drama of the most operatic proportions; of Ophelia decking herself in silk and veils to take her last, final swim. This is of the woman, so desperate in love despite her illness (one is reminded of La Boheme and her TB) that she willingly lets herself be overdosed on morphine so she can share one moment of love. There are Salome's and Lady MacBeth's here as well -all wrenching and grasping, seething and smoldering visibly as well as below the surface.

But again, don't expect "silent movie" acting. These women, Lyda Borelli, Pina Menichelli and the others -grand dames every one- threw themselves bodily into their roles (quite literally at times) but never at any point do their agonies come across as comedic or unbelievable. Names like Streep, Close and Sarandon spring to mind immediately when watching the performances; these are women who can act with their faces, their eyes, with the simple turn of the head.

It has taken nearly a hundred years for the supreme artistry of the Dolorous Diva to come full circle and be appreciated. What a loss that so much of the output of these superstars of early film has been lost. Delpeut's film has restored at least part of them to their rightful niche of immortal performances.

Diva Dolorosa is a spectacular achievement on so many levels

Having seen Lyrical Nitrate and been hypnotized by the beauty of it and of the artistry possible to be created out of found footage (even as it disintegrates), I bought DECASIA based on the reviews and in the hope that the same creative lightening would strike twice.

I was much disappointed.

The moments of "artistic" decay are few and far between. A previous reviewer pointed out (most poetically) the highlights of the film, but the majority of the film is endless -endless -endless clips of just poor quality footage.

To make matters worse, most of the clips, which went on far too long to hold interest, were actually slowed down to make them LONGER. Case in point is the whirling dervish footage, which not only is slowed down, but also repeated several times. Then there is the procession of camels which drag across the screen in slow motion to the point that I had to fast-forward just to get past them. Neither sequence, by the way, was particularly decayed or showed any damage of note; certainly nothing to merit slowing them down to such extents.

Likewise, a procession of schoolchildren through a convent garden is slowed to such an excruciating crawl that one actually misses the fact that this sequence IS damaged until you speed it up.

My other complaint (and an artistic mis-step on the part of the film-maker) is the fact that black-and white film stock was used instead of color. As Lyrical Nitrate demonstrated, part of the artistic value of decayed nitrate (even if it was a "black & white" film) is the palette of color produced by the chemical reaction of the film stock.

Lost are the yellows, oranges, rusts, browns and reds which might have lent some genuine visual interest to this otherwise rather bland collage.

I personally would not recommend this film and would instead direct interested parties to the vastly superior Lyrical Nitrate.

I would love to know what audiences in 1929 thought of this film; how they approached it, what sort of conversation, emotion, thoughts it generated.

The 1912 sinking of the Titanic was the greatest disaster of its time, shaking the social foundations of the period to it core. Society changed as a result, the world changed forever and everybody was touched by it to a greater or less degree.

In many ways, it could be likened to 9/11 in terms of cultural and worldwide impact.

Bearing that in mind -and mindful of the UNITED 93 film which has just been released- I'm very curious as to how an audience of the period would have greeted this fictionalized version of so great a disaster.

Aside from a 1912 newsreel and a one-reel exploitation film of 1915, it strikes me as very significant that 17 years passed before the first real film adaptation of the Titanic disaster was made.

Were film makers so sensitive to the material? Were audiences not ready until almost twenty years after the fact? How different are we today when TV movies pop up sometime within months of events (the David Koresh/Branch Davidian TV flick was being filmed while the standoff was still taking place!)? I'm all in favor of tasteful motion picture depictions of events such as the Titanic, Hindenburg, 9/11 events; but care and sensitivity have to be exercised or else you run the risk of exploitative trash like the Dahmer films.

ALL THAT having been said, this version creaks badly, bears little but superficial resemblance to the actual Titanic disaster and may likely be more akin to a film version of the infamous novel Futility.

The sets are nicely done, though clearly sound stages; the jazz band is a bit out of place (particularly as the ship is sinking!) and the acting is SO wooden they should have held the ship up on their own.

The actual disaster scenes are very well done for the period, the flooding sets still impress and -most surprisingly- the final blackout as the ship goes under -sound effects, screams and crashing played against a black screen- is startlingly effective.

VERY VERY FEW films can move me to tears.

This is one of them. Both the tragedy of the lost films, the ravishing beauty of the subjects captured and the precious fragments preserved here are at once poetic and pitiful.

The glorious travelogue footage of a world since vanished; the literally flickering images of men and women long since dead; the faces of children who would today be pushing 100 years old and the pathetic remains of deteriorated film footage bringing the program to a close on an eloquent and wrenching contrast...

For me the most riveting moments were those of Lyda Borelli. For all I know the fragments presented here are all that survive of her entire film career -and that alone renders into greater perspective the stunning artistry she projects simply and subtly with her eyes...a gesture...the subtle movement of her head. Even her very presence projects intensity and drama in shots where she is standing still.

It is completely possible, in the seven or so minutes that her clips are presented, to be moved and touched and involved in whatever tragic scene(s) she is enacting -even without their original context.

This has always been one of my all-time favorites of the original SUPERMAN series, but also one of the most puzzling to me.

It is very different in tone, feel, design and execution from all the rest of the series. Most particularly because of its "darkness." I mean this both literally and figuratively.

While all the others are, for the most part, bright and cartoonish in their color design, TERROR is dark, gloomy, murky and downright sinister -even in the opening scenes of what should be a bright, cheerful circus setting.

The opening shots of the circus posters and scenes appear to me more to be still-frames, rather than intended snapshots, as though the original footage has been replaced with these artificial still shots. I am strongly tempted to believe that these particular shots were modern substitutions for the original footage.

Later, when the gorilla makes his appearance, it is plainly evident (from the excessive graininess) that the original image has been photographically enlarged to produce the close-ups of Lois Lane and the gorilla.

The unusual (and uncharacteristic) lack of detail in the close-up of Lois, combined with the strange quality of the speed at which she moves suggests that the close-up was manipulated from a much longer shot and perhaps slowed down somewhat.

The initial close-up of the gorilla is even more extreme (and highly effective as a terror shot) and suffers more from darkness and lack of detail.

A later shot of Superman wrestling with the ape also shows signs of tampering, like the poorly framed shot of Superman and the ape which, because of the clumsy re-framing of the image, results in an awkward and lengthy close-up of Superman's backside. Surely this was NOT the original intent of the film-makers.

Can anyone provide any insight?

I saw this film -properly- for the first time on a finely remastered Triton DVD triple feature called Horrors From Space which also included Phantom From Space and Killers from Space (this last includes green tinted sequences, inserts and effects shots!).

I was impressed with the quality of the Triton print, amused by the poorly looped dialog, and laughed at the truly ludicrous acting -particularly Dawn Anderson.

David Love is the lone standout among the cast, with his 1950's handsome good looks and 1950's wooden performance as the alien coming across as somehow heartfelt and sincere.

The lack of any real special effects is impressive (not forgetting the shots of the ONE spacecraft) because it actually makes the skeletal disintigrator ray effects seem all the more startling and effective.

And who could ever forget -or fail to succumb to- the towering image of ---the Gargon!!! Yes, the Gargon! The silhouetted image of a lobster stalking across the screen in all its crustacean terror...

Finally, alert listeners may also recognize music tracks later used as the main title from Night of the Living Dead

The Human Vapor is a surprisingly worthwhile change from the usual round of men in rubber suit Japanese horror films. It is an effective cross between The Invisible Man and Phantom of the Opera with just a dash of Hangover Square.

The kabuki sequences were very well staged. The musical score is lush, heartfelt and at times quite moving. It has tremendous production values and some good, sincere acting.

It is marred only by over-abundant comic relief and choppy editing (although the latter is almost certainly the fault of it's American distributors).

It is also hampered by its current un-availability in any medium. My sad, long out of print, much-abused VHS rental copy is close to 20 years old and appears to have been made from a very worn out, badly scratched and faded TV print.

Does anyone know of a restored print? A letter-boxed version? A DVD???? All in all though, it is worth watching....really.

No Stars! No Stars! This was worse than awful!!!!

I will never laugh at Cecil B DeMille again.

I'd never conceived of the Bible as comedy, even when Walter Houston produced his version of the Flood in THE BIBLE, turning Noah and Co into a bit of a buffoon, it was done with a sense of reverent whimsy.

NOAH'S ARK is nothing less than a blasphemous mockery. There is no reverence at all -either for the situations, characters or the Bible itself. Compared to this, those old Schick Sunn Classics "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" TV specials (remember them?) come across as cinematic art.

I was so horrified at having witnessed such blasphemy I rent my garments!

Other reviewers have enumerated the litany of flaws, inaccuracies and outright abominations contained in this epic trash. There is such shameless heresy throughout that everyone -EVERYONE- associated with the production be forced to perform public penance on the steps of Temple Mount or face excommunication.

To quote a previous comment: "This movie,although about a hurricane, beats "twister". very little foul language, no graphic violence, but still leaves us with plenty of thrills and excitement and gets it's point across that a hurricane is nothing to mess around with." I agree completely -AND it appears to have the same random cow in the road! On the whole, it's really not as bad as might seem from a TV movie, and the inclusion of actual storm footage actually adds to the semi-documentary style.

My only real gripe is with the eye-of-the-storm sequences, in which the very minimal effects are at their weakest and the stock footage used is inconsistent at best.

SPOILER! Additionally, being a fan of the old Adam 12 series, I was saddened at the fate of the heroic Martin Milner. To make matters worse, his demise with that of his crew is not even shown on screen; it's only mentioned in passing later on.

One of my earliest and most vivid memories of childhood is of sitting in the Lovejoy Theatre in Buffalo, New York, in late 1972-early 1973 and being scared out of my wits by the TRAILER for this film. When the film opened in late June 1973 my whole family went to see it and it scared the daylights out of all of us.

The opening scenes of the swamp critters frolicking and the subsequent sepulchral cry of the creature remains one of the most primordial images of terror I can imagine.

I absolutely loved this film then and nearly flipped when I found the 1988 VHS release. For the first time in over a decade the family relived the chills we'd experienced and shared stories of how scared we were going to the family cabin in the upstate New York woods after seeing it the first time.

The VHS copy served well and faithfully until the recent DVD release supplanted it with its excellent print quality and cleaned up sound. I can only hope that if there is another DVD release, they will use a widescreen print.

I've read critiques of how bad this film is, and I can't dispute that the pre-credits sequence with the little kid and the general store coots is wretchedly awful, and the voice-over narration is PAINFULLY embarrassing with its "ooh...shudder-shudder" delivery.

However, I am in awe of how disturbing, effective and genuinely scary this film can be -and still be rated G! Yes. This film is rated G and it remains the single most frightening -genuinely frightening - film I've ever seen.

I am particularly impressed at how it creates mood and tension by what it DOESN'T show. The creature is, for the most part, only shown fleetingly in the background, or obscured by foliage, or else in bits and flashes. I applaud the restraint (whether intentional or budgetary) of the director NOT to show the creature full-on in bright light.

THE UNTOLD (aka SASQUATCH) would have been one of the all-time best Bigfoot movies ever if they hadn't included that Gawd-awful face-to-face meeting at the climax (granted that their design of the creature was excellent).

The same superbly photographed trees and bottom-land which draw you into the beauty of nature suddenly take on a sinister mood of isolation a moment later when the creature steps out behind a tree in the distance, or when its cry is heard. Massive kudos to the cinematographer and film editor.

I will also go out on a limb here and admit that I particularly enjoyed the music score in this movie. I emphasize the SCORE and not the lyrics, because the composer did a very creditable job, whereas the lyricist should never had quit his day job writing greeting cards.

The Ballad of Boggy Creek, MINUS the lyrics, is one of the most infectiously hummable tunes I've ever heard and almost qualifies as true Americana, while the Travis Crabtree sequence -again MINUS the lyrics and the Paul Williams wannabe vocal- is effectively scored to conjure the feeling of rustic simplicity and the freedom of backwoods living.

This was a first rate film that had a truly fascinating and (nearly) original premise, with some very talented actors and a literate script...

BUT then it throws credibility and rationality and any trace of plausibility and coherency out the door.

What could have become a really great paranormal ghost story (almost like the first half of Poltergeist or The Ring)loses all validity when they decide to NOT decide if they want a paranormal thrill, suspense drama or just plain old slasher film.

In the end (again just like Poltergeist and The Ring), they never really decide and therefore the last half of the film becomes a supremely unconvincing and unsatisfying -and in this case downright unintelligible- mish-mash leaning heavily toward the slasher/monster movie genre.

Had they chosen to present a straightforward unembellished paranormal drama about EVP (and had they used actual EVPs as part of the narrative) it would have been a much better film instead of just another mad killer on the loose with a whitewash of mystic mumbo-jumbo to confuse you.

This version was better than I thought it would be, but not quite all it could have been.

The sets, costumes, cinematography, music and effects were all excellent. These are the greatest strengths of the film.

The vocal talent (particularly the Phantom and Raoul), the makeup and added material were great weaknesses.

I won't get into the whole Crawford/Brightman debate of who should have done the singing. I thought Gerard and Emmy were wonderful and brought much to the parts, but while Butler's actual singing was quite weak he played his part with the right amount of inner torment, whereas Raoul's was just badly done all around. Both actors, though, provided the sort of virile eye candy this sort of spectacle requires.

Minnie Driver as Carlotta was brilliant, adding the right degree of talent (of a kind), pomposity and humor.

The scenic transitions were inspired, particularly the "Titanic"-like transformation at the beginning and the long interior tracking shots used throughout to literally move the action along.

The choreography was well done, and the re-imagined "Masquerade" sequence was particularly effective with the Maestro conducting from the balcony and the (possibly intentional?) reference to a similar scene in the Claude Rains version. The Phantom's toned-down Red Death costume was a very effective revision.

During the "Prima Donna" number one would almost expect Jim Broadbent and company to pop out of the wings with a few bars of "Spectacular! Spectacular!"

The subtle nod to Claude Rains tortured and sympathetic Phantom, by having the camera drift down to the cellars to reveal him listening during the "Think of Me" was a very nice touch.

What didn't work was the added back story of Madame Giry rescuing the young Phantom from the circus -although the novel does have the Opera Ghost mention exhibiting himself as "The Living Corpse."

Nor was the much-heralded new song worth the ballyhoo. It's nice to hear Minnie Driver sing, but the song is rather dish-watery and doesn't fit the style of the rest of the score.

With all the pre-release hoopla I was, of course, expecting more than this film delivered. It was an interesting premise, presented freshly, but with an unsatisfying resolution, made even more so by the build-up, both within the film itself and through the media surrounding it.

From the beginning, I was extremely let down by the PAINFULLY embarrassing TV mockumentary "The Buried Secret..." which was released to whip up interest. While "Buried..." is in the same tongue-in-cheek vein as Hitchcock and his whimsical teaser shorts, "Buried" kept up its flimsy pretext an hour and a half too long. It came across as little more than desperate.

Likewise, "Village" tries to sustain a Twilight Zone episode premise far longer than it can be stretched. The film has great strengths -very great strengths- such as the moody photography, the deeply expressive score (with some fine playing by Hilary Hahn), excellent performances all around (Adrien Brody and William Hurt particularly) and a wonderfully written script full of dialog resembling half-remembered schoolbook Colonial.

Knight's direction, also adds to the ever-present sense of impending doom, drawing the viewer in to his world of insipient hysteria. The underlying sense of something not-quite-right is always there, but the viewer never knows precisely when or where -or even how.

But again, the twist and resolution is wholly unsatisfying and seems almost a cop-out -a cheat- after luring us into this fairy tale world of fog and darkness and Those We Don't Speak Of.

By they way, are Those We Don't Speak Of related somehow to He Who Walks Behind The Corn?

The classic January 18, 1952 live TV broadcast of "Frankenstein" with Lon Chaney, Jr. is finally available on DVD!

I had never even heard of this program until I was browsing in my local dollar store and happened to flip through their bin of dollar DVD's and saw a black and orange package bearing the title Tales of Tomorrow with a picture of three men in space suits staring at me.

I picked it up and immediately spotted Thomas Mitchell on the back cover photo. Any television appearance with Thomas Mitchell is worth seeing, but when I saw that the first episode was "Frankenstein," I knew I had a genuine find on my hands!

The three episodes are as follows:

Frankenstein (1-18-52) Starring John Newland and Lon Chaney, Jr. This, of course,is the prize of the lot. Chaney's performance (drunk or not) still hints at the sensitivity and greatness he was capable of. I'm left wondering what he might have done during an "actual" performance.

The Crystal Egg (2-29-52)Stars Thomas Mitchell and is based on a story by H G Wells. Mitchell sees Mars inside the titular crystal egg -which promptly goes missing and there's dirty work afoot!

Appointment on Mars (6-22-52) Leslie Nielsen (looking unusually young and virile) appears as one of a trio of space explorers in this weirdly disturbing drama which comes across as a low-rent adaptation of The Martian Chronicals.

Mother Theresa was wrongly rewarded if we are to take this revisionist view of the Manson Family slaughter at it's face value. Linda Kasabian is presented as something like a wandering Brady kid who just made a few wrong choices.

The actors played their parts as though they were in an episode of NYPD Blue or Law & Order, with all the hip, urban "I've seen this all before" attitude -completely undermining the horror of the fact that during the time period the events took place NO ONE had seen ANYTHING like this before (that's why the crimes were so shocking).

Along similar lines, the entire look of the film was like watching a modern cop drama -the cinematography never once let go of the NYPD Blue graininess and roving camera moves. Aside from the old cars and very bad hippie hair, nothing about this film looked very "period."

The actor playing Bugliosi was particularly out of place, seeming like a demented cross between Joe Pesci and Tony Soprano. I kept expecting him to turn to the judge and say "You see your honor, there were these two yoots..." Or look Charlie in the eye and say something like "Am I a clown? Do I amuse you?"

Skip this exploitative redress and stick to the original.

Let me start off by saying that I love movies and documentaries about the paranormal, strange phenomena and unexplained mysteries. I particular enjoyed the old Rod Serling specials produced by Alan and Sally Landsburg, but I always regretted not having seen Chariots of the Gods.

I didn't miss anything.

On the face of it, this film would make a lovely travelogue of Mexico and South America because, despite the premise of exploring and/or revealing ancient mysteries, it actually does very little of either.

True, all the old familiar sites are visited, but the bland narration does little more than tell you that these places are associated with mysterious doings. It would be like a documentary on ghosts and hauntings showing only the exterior of the Amityville house and saying vaguely "...and the Lutz family claimed to have experienced something here, in this house."

The photography is very nice, the camera angles fresh and dramatic, but as I mentioned earlier, the narration (both the text itself and the narrators) is monotonously bland and surprisingly UN-informative; which negates any instructional value the film might have had as a documentary. Again, just change the narration and this could be a fine travelogue.

I suspect that the high ratings people give this title are based merely on that -the title and its association with the excellent and influential book- and less on the film itself. I also suspect that people are remembering the soundtrack LP (and later CDs) of the excellent Peter Thomas score -which ironically is almost unrecognizable in the garbled monaural sound mix of the film itself.

My opinion is that you should ignore this film and look instead at the much more dramatic and informative In Search of Ancient Astronauts (which is itself a far superior re-edit of this film, narrated by Rod Serling), or any of the other Landsburg productions, like In Search of Ancient Mysteries, The Outer Space Connection or Encounter With The Unknown.

For that matter, track down the old In Search Of... TV programs or Robert Stack ferreting out those Unsolved Mysteries.