Disc Type

"He's back. The Sarge is back."

But not for long. Phil Silvers was aptly named. If anyone in show business had a silver tongue, it was Phil. He started, like most comedians of the era, in Burlesque and Vaudeville. There he honed the natural talent that would make him one of the first true television stars in the industry. With The Phil Silvers Show he introduced us to the character of Sergeant Bilko. From 1955 to 1959 Silvers and his Bilko character would take the television landscape by storm. In 1956 the show became the very first series in television history to win three Emmy Awards in a single year. That year the wins came in the Best Comedy Series, Best Actor (Silvers) and Best Director. The last honor went to the show's creator, Nat Hiken. 

"Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me, I'm living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP. "

It almost sounds like a take on Harry Chapin's WOLD, and in many ways it is. The song was hot for a while on radio stations. It seems that DJ's couldn't resist songs about DJ's. Who saw that coming? Of course, the song is the opening theme to WKRP In Cincinnati. The show is back on DVD thanks to the folks at Shout Factory. If that's not big news, this absolutely is: it's back with most of the original music intact including the opening and closing themes. For fans of the show, it's the news we've been waiting for for decades now.

“No war was ever like this.” 

McHale’s Navy actually started life as a dramatic episode of Alcoa Premiere, hosted by Fred Astaire. It was April of 1962 when Ernest Borgnine would introduce the audience to his most famous television role. The network loved the character but not the show’s format. By October of the same year the television series would debut not as a serious drama but a half-hour comedy. Who knows how a dramatic series would have performed? The comedy became a classic. People couldn’t get enough of the stuff, and two movie versions were produced during the show’s four-season run. These films have been collected here on a single DVD release.

When it comes to horror films about relationships, we’ve all gotten used to the same old story where a jilted ex-lover isn’t ready to let things go and violence and mayhem ensues. What is actually refreshing about Sociopathia is that we get a love story mixed with some graphic horror while seeing the story unfold through the eyes of a mentally unhinged young woman.  While Sociopathia may not be in the same league as Fatal Attraction, it is still a film worth watching for those who are fans of trashy, exploitive horror films.  And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this maybe the feel-good flick you single folks may be looking for to validate your single life.

Mara (Tammy Jean) is a single lesbian who is struggling in the dating world while also juggling her career as a film effects artist.  It’s very early on that we see Mara isn’t right in the head after we see her kill her lover and then go on to treat her in a very doll-like fashion, all while continuing to converse with the corpse as though she were still alive.  While this is effective in showing us how unstable Mara is, this turns out to be a case of too much too soon.  Once we’ve seen how far off the deep end she is, there really isn’t anywhere else for this character to go.

"Most women like a man with a bad reputation. Mind you, I'm not really bad. It's just I'm not troubled by my wicked thoughts. In fact I rather enjoy them. It's all perfectly natural. Man may have evolved from the trees, but his eyes still swing from limb to limb."

Years before he became the iconic suave British secret agent with the license to kill, Roger Moore might just have put himself in the running through his six-year run on British television’s The Saint. The show was part of the British Invasion of spy shows that came close on the heels of the first James Bond film Dr. No. Moore played Simon Templar, known throughout the globe as The Saint. While Templar wasn't really a spy, he acted like one most of the time, and the series managed to cover most of the conventions of the genre. There was always a pretty girl or two for Templar to either romance or rescue...often both. Like Bond, Templar was a globetrotter. Episodes took place all over the world. One episode might be in New York City, another in London, while the next two weeks took us from Rome to Paris by way of Monte Carlo.

When it comes to British gangster films (or just about any gangster film), you pretty much know what you are getting into: a lot of tough-guy moments filled with violence and characters living their life of excess.  To be honest, going into the film all I knew about the Kray brothers is that they were gangsters in the UK back in the 60’s, and I was pretty sure there was a Charlie Sheen film at one point about them.  With a big-budget American release Legendary, which is also about the Kray brothers, you would hope that the UK version would be able to hold its own and knock this one out of the park. 

We are first introduced to Ronnie (Simon Cotton) and Reggie (Kevin Leslie) Kray when they are nothing more than a pair of street thugs who like to fight.  They realize they can use their ability to inflict pain and turn it into a business, and the brothers start to run a protection racket in their neighborhood.  Very early on we see Reggie is the smooth negotiator of the two, and Ronnie is the loose cannon who has an unhealthy passion for violence.