Val Lewton Double Feature Blu-ray - Richard Dix / Anna Lee (Patreon)

BONUS CAPTURES:

Val Lewton Double Feature Blu-ray - Richard Dix / Anna Lee

The Ghost Ship (1943) /  Bedlam (1946)

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OUR REVIEW:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film11/blu-ray_review_174/the_ghost_ship_bedlam_blu-ray.htm

This double-feature disc brings together two of producer Val Lewton's classic RKO horror films, newly restored and remastered. In 1943's The Ghost Ship, Tom Merriam (Russel Wade), the young third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia, witnesses the murder of a crewman by the ship's captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix). Merriam realizes Stone is going insane, but the rest of the crew won't believe him... or that he may be the mad captain's next victim! Boris Karloff reunites with Lewton for a third and final time in 1946's Bedlam, set in 1761 at a London asylum. Karloff gives an unforgettable performance as the doomed overseer who fawns on high-society benefactors while ruling his mentally disturbed inmates with an iron fist. Newly restored from their original nitrate negatives, both showcase Nicholas Musuraca's cinematography under the inspired direction of Mark Robson.

***

Russian-born, Val Lewton put his stylish, poetic, production signature on the most appreciated, modestly-budgeted, 'B' horror films of the 1940s; including Cat People, The Curse of the Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim, Shadows in the Dark as well as The Ghost Ship and Bedlam. The Ghost Ship has a paranoid ship's captain who fears that he is losing his mind. He is correct. And a young merchant marine officer who is the unsupported 'Maryk' character from The Caine Mutiny in attempting to expose the captain's behavior which, in this case, includes multiple murders. We have a blind man's prophecy and an awake mute crew member with 'internal monologues', look for an uncredited Lawrence Tierney as one of the crew. It's a cracker of a film. Bedlam was inspired by William Hogarth's 1732–1734 painting series A Rake's Progress. He was even given a writing credit on the film. Bedlam has a Quaker preacher savior, a deadly garden trowel, a live burial, unjustly committed asylum inmates, with Karloff at his most sinister and 'British Bombshell' Anna Lee fighting him at every turn. Delightful. Notably, Skelton Knaggs is in both films. The double feature Warner Archive Blu-ray is a must-own. The a/v quality is a brilliant step up and the film's are some of the most rewatchable in the genre and era. Let's get those last Lewton gems to Blu-ray - a real I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim, Shadows in the Dark. At the writing of this review this is 54% OFF at Amazon.