Transcript: Christian Movie Reviews: 50s Sci-Fi Classics on Blu-ray

Greetings, classic cinema and TV fans. This is Jason Lockard, also known as Pastor Jay, here with you once again on a Retro Drive-In Podcast. And today, we're talking, taking a little bit of a trip in a time machine back to the, a simpler time, back to the 50s. And we're taking this trip with The Film Detective, an awesome company, just an absolute awesome company. I have been marveling at the releases from The Film Detective, and it has just been spectacular. Some of the stuff that they've done here recently has just blown my mind. Well, baby, yeah, baby, yeah, baby. We're talking about two of them today. You can go to our official website, Classic Cinema Plus, and check out the full reviews. Just search Film Detective and you'll get all those reviews. But we're going to talk about two specific ones today. And we're dealing with science fiction. Science fiction in the 50s was really awesome. Always about a mad scientist or crazy creatures coming about from the atomic age or something. Always something kind of crazy. Space travel, time travel, whatever. Always something. And these were B-movies. B-movies meaning low budget. And so they didn't have these huge, huge, humongous budgets. but they were still done in such a way that they were so amazing. And they've become iconic. Many of them have fallen in the public domain. And so, yeah, you can watch them all over on the Internet, you know, archive.org, YouTube, you know, all the different types of places. You can watch these films, and it's just amazing. I love these films. I want a complete and honest report from you. and Film Detective has released two sci-fi B-movies that are absolutely amazing. Now, if you're watching the audio or listening to the audio, you'll just have to listen. But if you're watching the video, you can see what we're talking about here. We're talking about this one, 1958's The Giant from the Unknown. I love this film. I have to be honest with you, I never saw this film until this release. And this is a great film. We'll talk about that in just a second. And then the newest release that, as we're recording this, has just dropped this week. Great clouds of blue maps. This is Flight to Mars. Oh, my goodness. These are just great films. Just B-movie goodness I mean it really is First off we want to talk about The giant from another world Or giant from the unknown If you will And it's really interesting It's about Dr. Frederick Cleveland And his daughter Janet Are joined by I'm reading this here for you Joined by scientific researcher Wayne Brooks In the pursuit of Ancient artifacts a giant five now get this 500 year old Spanish conquistador There this lightning storm that comes up okay So there's a lightning storm that comes up, and it reanimates this conquistador, and he's huge, and he's giant, and he goes on a rampage. And the townspeople are all not sure what's going on, And it's the idea of this rampage from this giant from the unknown. Wow. This release is absolutely spectacular. It is filled with bonus features, and I want to share some of them with you. Ted Weaver and special guests are part of a special audio commentary in this release. And they give you so much knowledge about this film. It's worth the purchase of this release for that alone because it's that great. There's also audio commentary with co-star Gary Crutcher. There is all new interviews with screenwriter Gary Crutcher and film historian C. Courtney Joyner. That is a really, really cool interview as well. there is something that's really cool if you're going to see the video you can see this if you're not well just listen in there is a booklet a special booklet you can see for those that are watching the video you can see that special booklet and it is just jam picked packed with all kinds of awesome information production stills behind the scenes stills all kinds of stuff just amazing amazing stuff there from the film detective. This thing is just amazing. Love this stuff. Love when you get a special booklet. That's really cool with all kinds of stuff. Now, what is really cool about this film is that it's only 77 minutes long. So it's very short, but it moves so fast in that short time that what it does is you don't get time to get bored with it. It's just, I mean, it's just one thing to another. And before you know, you're at the end and it's like, wow, this is, this is really cool. And then you're going to want to visit it again. It's really awesome. Um, I think what makes this very, very cool for me is that this release here, uh, they took the original, uh, film negative. Okay. And they restored it in 4k. Now I have to tell you, this thing looks absolutely amazing. I can't tell you what it looked like before because I have never seen this film before, but I can tell you with this, this thing looks amazing. I mean, the picture is so crystal clear and the audio is so amazing and clear and everything. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful release. Alright, so the next film that is in this is Flight to Mars. And Flight to Mars is really, really an interesting B-movie from 1951. This one is only 72 minutes, so another very, very short film. But it's so... the shorter the film, the more they pack the information in there, and you don't have that time to get bored with the film. So that makes it really, really cool. But basically Flight to Mars basically deals with a group of astronauts that get in a spaceship and fly off to Mars and to explore Mars Well when they get there something very interesting happens They're greeted by the inhabitants of Mars, and everything seems so easygoing. Everybody seems so good, and everybody seems so happy and so inviting and everything. and it's just a great thing but you know what? Maybe the inhabitants of Mars have an ulterior motive and we come to find out they do. I'm not going to tell you what it is. You'll have to watch the film to find out what that is. Oh, that's bad. Great bunch of stuff in this release and Film Detective has done another great job with this release as well as with Giant from the Unknown. They have given another 4K restoration from an original 35mm negative. So that's pretty, pretty cool. We get special bonus documentaries. Really, really cool stuff. From Bombay to the Body Snatchers and Interstellar Travelog. cinema's first space race. Those two amazing documentaries are spectacular. Audio commentary with Justin Humphreys, a very, very good commentary, definitely good. And then there's also a full booklet as well. Again, another full booklet. Mars at the Movies is the essay given in this one. And it is really, really cool with production stills, complete in this thing. It's just great. It's just great. Love when they have booklets. Just love those things. So, yeah, I mean, and again, and again, this here, this release here, along with Giant from the Unknown, looks amazing. These 4K restorations are absolutely spectacular. The colors of Flight to Mars is absolutely spectacular. They really pop with this 4K restoration. Now, Giant from the Unknown is in black and white, so you don't get the colors, of course. But both of these pictures of both of these films are so spectacular and so crisp and so clear and so clean. I really examined them. I didn't see any sort of problem with the picture. No specs, no dirt, no problems at all with any of these. I really didn't. And the audio just is so clear as a bell. It's just amazing. Great, great releases. And I'm telling you, this is great stuff. This is great stuff from the film detective. I am so looking forward to see what's coming next. Every single time the next one comes through, I'm chomping at the bit. Can't wait to see what's next. And so, yeah, so we are going to revisit these many more times throughout our years as we enjoy more great 50s cinema. And we want to thank the good folks at the Film Detective. and we tell them to keep up the good work. Sportsman, raconteur, polo player, and all-around good egg. Well don lay it here huh This is just great cinema to me Those B from the 50s I just love them I have so many B films in the Classic Cinema Plus library around here that it just insane But there's just something about them. Whether they're the old cheesy films that are just so low budget that have the creatures on a string or whatever or you can see the strings on the spaceships or whatever. To stuff that are really well produced like these, I just love them. I think that is something that we miss in this generation so much is that film fans have gotten so used to CGI and stuff like that, that practical effects and stuff like that and sets that are built and stuff have just gone by the wayside because people want that CGI. And I mean, I love the practical effects. I think the makeup that is put on from back in the day and to make the creatures and to do the different things, it made it much more believable to me. And so I'm just loving these. So I want to thank the film detective for releasing these two amazing sci-fi films on Blu-ray. wow in 4k restorations they're just just absolutely gorgeous so I definitely definitely suggest picking up the giant from the unknown or flight to mars they're just great stuff and really really deserve to be checked out so go check out the film detective online check out these brand new releases go to Amazon and pick up a copy of these. These will probably sell out. I'm telling you, they're that great. They'll probably sell out, so you need to pick up a copy now. Pick up a copy for yourself, if nothing else. It's just great stuff. Again, thank you to the film detective for sending these to us so that we could share them with you. Let us know what you think about the giant from the unknown or flight to Mars. we'd love to hear your comments on that let us know what your favorite sci-fi film from back in the day is we'd love to hear from you be sure to like, share and subscribe and we just want to remind you to be sure to go to our official website for Classic Cinema Plus go there and check out all the reviews Blu-ray and DVD reviews as well as articles and videos go there all the time check out the new stuff. Almost every day of the week we put up new stuff. So go check that out. Make it part of your daily experience. Come back next month as we take another trip into the past here on the Retro Drive-In Podcast. This is Jason Lockard. Also known as Pastor Jay. Wishing you an awesome day. And be sure to check out a classic if you want to see a great film. We'll see you next time. Bye. Thank you.