"Bamboo Saucer" is available on DVD from Bijou Flix. It is a beautiful print, and costs around $15.00, with color packaging and a DVD keep case. If you are interested, go to <http://www.bijouflix.com>; for this movie as well as many others!
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I checked out Bijou Flix and they don't sell movies anymore. Does anyone else know where a DVD of this movie is available?
shareThis was a recent listing: www.musthavefilms.com
shareThat web site was recently closed by the MPAA's lawsuit.
shareThe search continues!
shareI just got a copy on DVD from www.aghosthouseproduction.com (via ebay) and was impressed by the quality. I wasn't expecting DVD quality, but the quality of this disk was very nice nonetheless. Full-screen, colour. If the source was VHS, they did a damn fine job of the transfer IMO.
This is a very cool movie! I would love to see a definitive official DVD release. It's a movie that takes itself seriously and I like that. People tend to laugh off old "B-grade" movies for being too "Cold War" propagandish... but hey, how is that any different from today? If anything, these old CLASSICS were more HONEST than anything today. BRILLIANT movie!
Nice take on old movies.
Yes, even "Casablanca" could be criticized for being a bit of flag waving propaganda. Even so, it does not take away from it being a great film.
I'm sure "The Bamboo Saucer" will probably never be on a Top 100 Classic Films list, but taken on its own merits it can, at the very least, be fun to watch.
What's wrong with that?
Hell! I just checked the list and it came in at 101!
Damn you, Phantom From 10,000 Leagues!!!
By the bye, esc & everyone, The Bamboo Saucer has just been released on DVD by Sinister Cinema. Check out my scintillating thread on the subject, someplace around here.
The needle to the end, eh, hob?
(Actually, as a lad I enjoyed Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. Goofy title, goofy monster and all! That's right and I admit it! I saw it again recently for this purpose: it is one of my all time great electronic sleeping pills perfect for a Sunday afternoon nap. Good music. I don't deny it!)
Thanks for the tip on the availablity of The Bamboo Saucer on DVD.
You've come through once again!
I like PF10L, too. (How's that for an acronym?) It even showed Cathy Downs on the beach in a 1956 bikini. It was on TCM yesterday (4/19/12) as part of their day-long collection of mostly 50 sci-fi B films, though I missed it. Besides all the poor prints of it available, there's a good one from the MGM Midnite Movie label, on a double-bill with The Beast With 1,000,000 Eyes.
But The Bamboo Saucer is new to DVD as far as I know. It's been so long since I've seen it I'm looking forward to revisiting it just so I can refresh my memories of certain key scenes, plus that "spangly" saucer sound. Cheap, but not a bad cast.
Sinister has also brought out one of my favorite infamous worst movies ever, Red Snow. Yay, on both counts.
I will be riduculed by some and I don't care, but I rather enjoying watching The Beast with a 1,000,000 Eyes. So what's to like? I know about all the cheapjack SFX, haywire plot and all, but I like the dreary atmosphere, the isolation, the despair, the molassass-like pace. I even like the scenario. There was a good story in there and even some good performances.
I've seen that double-bill you mention and I am sorely tempted to purchase a copy but hate to double up on PF10KL. DVD's take up space, too.
Except for a peek at The Bamboo Saucer on the television many years ago, I have not really seen it but read about it in articles, usually a mere reference, as if it had little significance. Most reviews on these pages I think take it as a good movie, notably the one by merklekranz.
Whatever shortcomings the film has, the very idea is intriguing. Even that other earlier, low-budget effort, The Flying Saucer (1950) had an interesting plot.
Ah, The Flying Saucer, that testament to the Renaissance talents of Mikel Conrad. Let's just say, never was a drunk scene more nobly and accurately filmed.
If you're interested in further examples of Mikel's work in this genre, check out the fabulous Untamed Women (1952, available on an odd double-bill DVD from VCI with Errol Flynn's Cuban Rebel Girls). That's another one I hadn't seen since the 60s, and it wound up being even better (i.e., worse, but more enjoyable) than I'd remembered. He also had a small role as Raymond Burr's boss back in Chicago in Godzilla, King of the Monsters. We see him once, on the phone with "Steve Martin". Fortunately, in that one Mr. Conrad was able to be seated throughout his brief scene, so his stagggering was a non-issue. He did a great stagger, as his two starring vehicles amply demonstrate, though no heed seems to have been paid to the dangers involved in letting someone who's staggering get behind any sort of vehicle.
Anyway, in TBS, at least the saucer is really from outer space. Teams of American and Soviet agents are secretly parachuted into Red China to retrieve the titular saucer, which made the mistake of landing there. An interesting Cold War take of the time, where the US and USSR found common cause against the looming threat of Mao's masses. I can't wait to see this one after a lapse of some four decades. By no means great, and very cheaply done, but at least unique.
You and I will never have a dispute about the efficaciousness of low-budget sci-fi classics, particularly when we can find a way of applying words like "efficacious" to them, thereby imbuing them with a deep sense of misplaced significance!
"Misplaced significance" to some, hob, significant to me and other like us and that's fair enough, isn't it?
There was some serious attention to the idea of capturing the elusive unidentified flying objects, even as mentioned in Conrad's The Flying Saucer, for use as a delivery system of atomic bombs. I don't think any Government at the time really cared where they were from.
Major T. J. "King" Kong: I don't give a hoot in Hell how you do it, you just get me to the Primary, ya hear!
To be able to drop the load and scoot away fast would simplify matters for the air crews. The bombardeers weren't even certain if their evasive manuever after unloading on Hiroshima would work!
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
Here's an interesting side note http://www.ebay.com/itm/170544518200?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trk sid=p3984.m1438.l2649
I have no idea if there is any real connection as the author's name does not appear in the IMDb listing. Strange coincidence.
Where do you find these links? Not sure if this is the source work for the movie -- it sounds similar to but not the same as the film. Bizarre.
Hey, check out the thread entitled "3D?" on the board for Dragnet (the 1954 film). The last couple of exchanges betwixt myself and our pal TDF. Apparently, you and I suffer from wooden heads. Happy reading, and maybe see you there.
Dragnet, eh? OK. You be Howdy and I'll be Mr. Bluster!
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