MovieChat Forums > The Leech Woman Discussion > DVD is here!

DVD is here!

posted 17 years ago by hobnob53
11 replies | jump to latest

Universal has just released its Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 2, which includes THE LEECH WOMAN among four other titles -- DR. CYCLOPS, THE LAND UNKNOWN, CULT OF THE COBRA and THE DEADLY MANTIS.

The set's only available at present from Best Buy, at $19.99 -- less than $4 per title, and like Vol. 1 it will probably eventually end up on sale elsewhere. The quality of the prints is excellent, with LEECH WOMAN also widescreen (1.85:1), as are CULT (1.85:1) and LAND UNKNOWN (2.35:1), and DR. CYCLOPS's Technicolor is superb. Great set.

[–] joni46231 17 years ago

I've remembered this movie since I was a young girl, I'd love to see it again! Thanks for the tip, I'll try to find this collection.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

[–] tday-1 17 years ago

Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. Aint it cool? All four of my favorite movies in one set,especially Cult of the Cobra. the quality is excellant. Sorry about my purchase of House on Haunted hill in color but they had black and white version too,so it worked out. Did u ever notice how good the acting is in these films? Those actors really knocked themselves out to make the thing work. Coleen Gray in Leech Woman was so pathetic,very believable as the woman seeking love and acceptance.

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

I watched it over the weekend, and thought Colleen Gray was excellent -- much better than the picture deserved, the sign of a true professional. Also, Maltin's Film Guide said she was "very good".

[–] tday-1 17 years ago

Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. Another great performance is Allyson Hayes in Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman,I bought this in a collection,I was amazed at her dramatic scenes and her tears when she crying over her philandering husband. Something to see.

[–] tday-1 17 years ago

Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. Formatting strikes again. When I taped Earth vs. The Flying Saucers,it was simply on tv. On the dvd,it's formatted,eliminating the people at bottom of frame running from saucers. Is this necessary?

[–] hobnob53 17 years ago

Many DVDs carry the label "enhanced for 16x9 TVs", or words to that effect. Unfortunately, that can result in bits of the original frame being cut out at top and bottom. It is annoying, and they certainly could avoid it -- obviously, it isn't exactly how the film looked in theaters. This is mainly a problem on older films being shown in an "enhanced" 1.85:1 aspect ratio on DVD; films shot at 2.35:1 or wider don't suffer from this as their image is naturally so wide there's no need to artificially trim the picture to make it look wider. It also doesn't appear to be a problem in films shot in a modest aspect ratio such as 1.66:1, where the widescreen effect is minimal.

[–] surfink 13 years ago

The Leech Woman was shot to be a widescreen movie, not full frame, and the DVD presents it in its correct aspect ratio (as does the DVD of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers as well). This is a common misconception about widescreen DVD releases. Many (if not most) movies of the 1950s through 1980s (particularly middle to low budget films) were shot "open matte" so that they could be properly cropped to widescreen (1.85:1) format in theaters that had the proper screens, or alternatively projected "standard" (1.37:1) in theaters that did not have wide screens or for television broadcast. (1.85:1 just means that the picture is 1.85 times as wide as it is high, and so on.) This was an economical way of shooting a "widescreen" movie without having to rent expensive CinemaScope or Panavision cameras (which utilize 35mm film shot through anamorphic lenses to get an aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 2.66:1). To shoot "open matte" the director of photography would expose the entire 1.33:1 35mm film frame, but leave extra room at the top and bottom so that these areas could be cropped off by the theater projectionist, leaving an approximately 1.85:1 "widescreen" viewing area in the middle of the frame (or sometimes 1.78:1 or 1.66:1). If done properly, no important information is cropped out in the widescreen version, and the framing of shots and dynamism of compositions usually improves dramatically in comparison to the full frame version. Sometimes the DPs were sloppy and forgot to frame a few shots here and there correctly, accounting for the occasional cut off heads, etc. This also accounts for the boom mikes, etc., sometimes spotted in films shot this way, especially, it seems, low-budget ones. In movies with nudity such as 1960s sexploitation flicks there can be a downside to the correct cropping: sometimes you actually see more skin, or even "naughty bits" in the open matte version. Many of the movies that we grew up watching on TV in 1.37:1 were actually shot to be projected widescreen (usually 1.85:1). Please see the article on "open matte" cinematography on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_matte

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Good post, surfink. Still, many if not most of the so-called "enhanced" DVDs made for widescreen TVs seem to crop out some of the top and bottom beyond what might have been lost in an original theatrical 1.85 or 1.77 matte. Conquest of Space, shot in VistaVision, is a good example of this.

[–] joni46231 15 years ago

I recently watched on YouTube, in it's entirety (although it took about 9 different videos) Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Leech Woman.

Seeing as how I love MST3k as well as The Leech Woman, this was a treat for me. Check it out if you don't mind smart a$$ comments from the peanut gallery. I think it actually enhanced the film. Not that the original isn't worth watching!!!

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

[–] PeterBlues 12 years ago

this was better than i expected, and with good acting, actually in a review book i read the actress get praised but not the flick. also i was suprised the story just kept developing close to an hour in, i'm used to these classic horror films being about 60 min long, but yet it seemed to end quite abruptly after that, and i guess the message we take away from this is, grannies are scary.

change of heart,
and faith went gone,
how high of you i thought,
but your love turned low,
change of heart,
what time do turn,
the sunny times we played the parts,
a time that's now been burned,
change of heart,
magic is gone,
and our hearts don't play together no more,
we had a change of hearts.

[–] rexmagicman 15 years ago

I bought this set months ago, and just finished watching all of the films. WOW!!! What a blast from the past----I remember seeing all of these when I was a kid, and they still hold up remarkably well!! And, "The Leech Woman" is such a great film, I think. Great story, eerie settings (in the jungle), and then her performance is just fantastic, and really lent credibility to the film. Much like "The Wasp Woman", which I also just watched for the umpteenth time, where the acting really elevates the film.