The DVD Dump

DOCTOR WHO: GENESIS OF THE DALEKS (1975)

The Time Lords (Doctor Who’s bosses) enlist the Doctor for a mission of grave importance on the planet of Skaro. And by enlist, I mean forciblly bring him to planet before the Doctor even knows about the mission. Along with his two companions, Sarah Jane and Harry, the Doctor must find a way to stop the killing machines known as the Daleks by preventing their creation or at least hindering them (just guess what he ends up doing). The three arrive during a war between the Kaleds and the Thals. The Kaleds are headed by Davros, the supreme ruler and half a Dalek himself, who creates the Dalek race right before the Doctor’s eyes. With the Doctor and Harry captured by the Kaleds, Sarah used for slave labor by the Thals and no way off Skaro except for a ‘Time Ring’, this is one of the Doctor’s darker missions.

Now the Daleks themselves are not that intimidating considering how many people they kill. After all, how can you take a moving trashcan with a plunger seriously even if it is holding a laser rifle? Thankfully, the Daleks don’t take too much screentime. Most of the time is spent on the raspy-voiced Davros (who is played by a very competent actor despite the pounds of makeup and limited mobility) and the strict soldiers. The story of the war itself is more effective than watching each side take heavy losses in the form of miniature explosions, fake looking deaths via gunshots, and using negative color to create the illusion of a laser explosion. If you can get past all that, there is a fascinating story of biological warfare, genocide, the price of war, and the will to survive. Tom Baker is at his best in this serial despite not cracking as many jokes as usual. This time he is more serious considering the gravity of the mission. In terms of overacting, the only times I’d say the actors are at fault are when they play dead. I didn’t by a single death considering everyone falls down awkwardly or screams and flails their arms about. Despite the best efforts of the director and the designers, Doctor Who is really one of the shows where the science fiction elements are better on paper. No wonder there was a radio program.

Despite the dated and low-budget special effects (which I’ve come to accept from early Doctor Who), the story succeeds for it’s strengths in the drama and the acting. So for Doctor Who, this is one of the better stories. If you have to watch one Doctor Who serial, I’d recommend either this one or City of Death. Just don’t go in expecting the best special effects. I mean, this is 1970’s television were talking about here.

CLASSIC SUSPENSE

9 Classic TV Series Episodes

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed at the choices of cheap public domain 1950’s TV series? Thankfully, the good faceless people at Digiview Entertainment have made a dollar DVD that gives you a sample of nine television shows. And they all involve suspense!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1954)

Episode: The Case of the Texas Cowgirl

Not a half-bad interpretation of Sherlock Holmes especially for such an early TV series. The writing is decent and the comedy is usually effective. The acting is okay from the main characters, but the side characters range from amateur to awful. The episode on this disc is probably one of the worst episodes of the show considering it has stereotypical dialogue of cowgirls and Native-American Indians. And with stereotypes of Native-Americans, expect to see tomahawks, peace-pipes and jokes about scalping.

Dragnet (1951)

Episode: The Big Crime

This is probably the most popular show on the DVD. The episode is a pretty good story about missing children, but there is one big catch about the show being on this set. The main theme is replaced with this horrible electronic music that is poorly edited into the show! What a horrible destruction of such a classic show. If you can’t afford to show Dragnet in it’s entirety with the music, don’t show it all.

Gang Busters (1952)

Episode: The O’Dell-Griffin Case

A pretty decent crime show with good narration and a crazy opening sequence involving a poorly designed revolver pointing at the screen. I find it interesting how this show is based on actual events. Along the introductions, the show feel like America’s Most Wanted with dialogue. The episode involves jewel robbery and murder.

My Hero (1952)

Episode: Beauty and the Beast

My Hero is a detective comedy show with studio audience laughter. Bob S. Beanblossom (Bob Cummings) makes nice-nice with a movie director’s wife. Hilarity ensues. The comedy isn’t half-bad but I could I see how this show only lasted one season.

Lock Up (1959)

Episode: The Case of Tom Fuller

Another crime movie based on real-life events. This show is based is based on the life of LA attorney Herbert L. Maris who defended unjustly convicted individuals. This is a pretty good episode involving a hostage situation.

Decoy (1957)

Episode: Shadow of Van Gogh

The late Beverly Garland plays a police woman who takes on dangerous cases. The episode focuses on an artist making illegal copies of Van Gogh paintings. This is a show very ahead of it’s time, but, sadly, it’s easy to understand why it was cut after one season.

Lights Out (1946)

Episode: Curtain Call

This is one of the earliest classic horror shows that would later inspire The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. The show opens with a disembodied head talking, a candle blows out and an organ screeches. The episode involves a man hearing voices that he is a murderer. The acting is really good, but the video and audio quality is very poor on the disc.

Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955)

Episode: The Buried Box

Focusing on the French army in North Africa, Captain Gallant defends from bandit tribes while impressing his son. It’s a decent adventure show, but definitely not politically correct or true to real life events. In other words, its severely dated.

One Step Beyond (1959)

Episode: Emergency Only

While The Twilight Zone was a ‘what-if’ show, One Step Beyond is based on human record making it more of a ‘what-could’ show. This episode involves some army men in a 1915 European battleground who see a glowing beam of light in the sky that makes them feel at peace and not want to fight. There is some very nice acting and the story is well-written. Easily the best show on the disc.

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor (1979)

The Armageddon Factor is the final chapter in the six-part Key to Time saga when the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 arrive in the middle of an intergalactic, nuclear war between Atrios and Zeos. The TARDIS arrives in bowels of Atrios, near the central command. The Marshal of Atrios is slowly growing insane as he continues to lose his forces to the enemies of Zeos. He goes as far as killing his own men and locking away Princess Astra so he may keep order. For some reason, the Marshal believes the Doctor holds the key to his victory, but there is clearly another force at work here. Soon, the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 uncover a secret plot by the Dark Shadow cult as they, too, are in the search for the Key to Time. Sound confusing? You’re not alone.

The main problem with Armageddon Factor is that the episode feels too situational and decides to shy away from continuity when it isn’t needed. The writing suffers a lot from the fact that the Key to Time doesn’t come into play until part 4 and by then it feels forced. We also don’t get to see much of Atrios or Zeos outside of their command centers. Not all is lost as there is some great acting. Tom Baker gets in some humorous lines, as does K-9, and even an old friend of the Doctor pops in for some laughs. I guess I just found many parts of the script a little crazy. I mean, the Atrios people have never met their enemy, a computer is programmed to destroy Zeos, and the final piece to the key of time is a person. Overall, while not one of the worse Who episodes, it certainly isn’t one of the best. At least this serial makes more use of your imagination than the usual ’special effects’.

Atomic Age Classics: Venereal Disease & You

As a man, I always wondered during sexual education in school what they told the girls. I’m guessing the teachers told them about menstration, proper hygene, and how babies don’t actually come from a cabbage patch. I’m sure they watched a movie about sexual intercourse as well. I may not know specifically which sexual education videos they watched, but I can almost guarantee they didn’t watch the ones present on “Atomic Age Classics: Venereal Disease & You”. How do I know? They were all from the World War 2 era and ridiculously outdated.

“With These Weapons” focuses on syphilis and how apparently one in twenty adults had it in 1939. There isn’t really much to say on this one considering they don’t really cover visual examples or symptoms of syphilis. This is surprising considering this film was originally meant for civic and church audiences to take action against the spreading of syphilis. The film really only covers the history, statistics and treatment of the disease. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t really inspire me to pick up my condom-bound weapon and join in the war on STDs. Of all the sexual education films out there, this one is by far the most boring. This is one of the few that actually inspires young people to go out and get syphilis out of spite.

“Health is a Victory” moves us right along into gonorrhea. This film is told in the form of a factory lecture which perfectly simulates the boredom of an actual lecture. You can actually see the expression of fake interest in the audience. While the lecture does involve a doctor talking on a podium and drawing diagrams on a blackboard (which may have been considered risqué for it’s time), there is some nice stock footage and animation that rivals “With These Weapons” (including footage of a headline that simply reads ‘Death’). The film also stresses how big of a threat gonorrhea is compared to syphilis on a bar chart. There weren’t any measurements for the side axis, but the gonorrhea bar goes off the screen! That’s a huge bar and probably means something!

“A Message to Women” dispels the myth that only poor people get gonorrhea (even though statistically…never mind). The movie begins with a skit (which is a breath of fresh air after force-feeding information in the last few films) about a young woman who catches gonorrhea. The woman denies it and her mother denies it as well, claiming her daughter is not that kind of girl. She decides to learn more by attending ANOTHER LECTURE! Thankfully, this one has better animation, some hilarious b-roll footage, and it’s in color. Studies show cartoons are 10% more effective in color. There is also a really weird ending where a woman describes sexual responsibility through some kind of motivational posters. The main message of this film, which isn’t too surprising for a 40’s film, is don’t have sex until you are married. But once you are married, go hog wild.

“Story of the D.E. 733” (aka USS VD: Ship of Shame) is the longest, most enjoyable, and shocking film on the disc. It’s the most enjoyable movie on the disc since it tells an actual story. It’s the most shocking because they actually show pictures of STD infected penises (and they’re ‘uncut’ if you catch my drift). The story involves a group of men on a ship who don’t heed warnings about sexually transmitted diseases and they all have unprotected sex during shore leave. The doctor on the ship is the most likable character considering he rags on the soldiers for their stupidity in catching these diseases. Then, in the climax, a ship-to-ship battle breaks out and the men don’t perform at their best. The narrator really becomes annoying during this sequence since he keeps saying stuff like “did I say they were all performing at their best?” The boat doesn’t actually get shot down, but they come pretty close to losing the fight. I realized they did this so the captain could tell this story, but it would’ve made more of an example if they did die. Yeah, it’s a scare tactic of teaching sexual competency, but isn’t that what they were aiming for by showing the sick ding-dongs? This film is actually a reissued version with some footage edited out due to the dated methods of treating disease. That’s not to say the film itself is timeless. Since when was gonorrhea called Lover’s Guitar?

The lack of skits make this DVD hard to recommend, but the footage of infected willies in “Story of the D.E. 733” make it worth the price. It’s mostly for those who are interested in seeing how dated educational films on VD from WWII really were. Educationally it isn’t very effective by today’s standards, but the shocking footage of STD stricken sex sticks may scare off some teenage boys from intercourse for at least a year. And if they’re thinking about joining the NAVY, all the better for them to watch it.