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Post by geode on Apr 20, 2018 6:17:16 GMT
I second Richard’s words, telegonus ; I always appreciate your posts here so very much. I wonder if I’d have appreciated “Pigeons from Hell” more if I’d seen it when it came on TV, if only for the shock value (this may touch on Richard’s point about nostalgia, though I think I’m more inclined to agree with you on the subject). I agree absolutely about the atmosphere, something I always adore in cinematic horror (to be honest, more terror than horror, but so be it), but I just grew so annoyed with the acting (and the somewhat disappointing ending, a problem from which many Thrillers suffer, I’ve noticed) that the episode really turned me off. I’d have to take another look at the episode (and I will, but I’ll look at “The Cheaters” first, maybe tonight if I find time). On John Scoleri and Peter Enfantino’s ‘Thriller a Day’ blog, Gary Gerani writes that the episode is more “…a fever dream more than a story,” which is the kind of thing I like—so I will take another look. But I appreciate it when the fever dream feel is on purpose, including stylized acting (e.g., Burton’s Sleepy Hollow or Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves), and I’m just not sure about that with “Pigeons.” Again, De Wilde and Whorf’s acting is not even stylized, it’s simply bad. I think I saw "Pigeons From Hell" when it first aired, and I was scared mucho. Then about 25 years later I was living in Scotland. I went over to some friend's house and the wife of the couple said she just saw the strangest thing on TV with these menacing birds outside an old house. I asked for some more details that confirmed my suspicion and I exclaimed "Pigeons From Hell!" She starred at me and would not believe that anything would be titled as such. I added some of the plot and then I think she believed me. Looking at it now I don't think the problem is too much poor acting, it simply has too few pigeon scenes. That was what got to me as a kid, all that cooing outside in the dark. Come on, it isn't titled "Crazy Old Woman with a Hatchet" "Mumbling Superstitious Farm Hand" ""My Little Brother is a Snake" or "Southern Sheriff Solves a Murder" is it? |
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Post by Richard Kimble on Apr 20, 2018 10:25:24 GMT
Looking at it now I don't think the problem is too much poor acting, it simply has too few pigeon scenes. That was what got to me as a kid, all that cooing outside in the dark. Come on, it isn't titled "Crazy Old Woman with a Hatchet" "Mumbling Superstitious Farm Hand" ""My Little Brother is a Snake" or "Southern Sheriff Solves a Murder" is it? You have to keep in mind that animal scenes can be very time consuming to shoot. One reason you see far more dogs than cats in movies is dogs are much easier to train. And birds are often for the birds -- supposedly one shot in Fairbanks Sr's Robin Hood (1922), where a falcon grabs another bird in the air, took over 100 takes to get right. Even simpler bird shots can take a lot of time to set up and shoot, and TV schedules just don't give you those luxuries. For those interested, the original Robert E. Howard short story, published posthumously in Weird Tales magazine (1938) |
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Post by geode on Apr 20, 2018 16:16:33 GMT
Looking at it now I don't think the problem is too much poor acting, it simply has too few pigeon scenes. That was what got to me as a kid, all that cooing outside in the dark. Come on, it isn't titled "Crazy Old Woman with a Hatchet" "Mumbling Superstitious Farm Hand" ""My Little Brother is a Snake" or "Southern Sheriff Solves a Murder" is it? You have to keep in mind that animal scenes can be very time consuming to shoot. One reason you see far more dogs than cats in movies is dogs are much easier to train. And birds are often for the birds -- supposedly one shot in Fairbanks Sr's Robin Hood (1922), where a falcon grabs another bird in the air, took over 100 takes to get right. Even simpler bird shots can take a lot of time to set up and shoot, and TV schedules just don't give you those luxuries. For those interested, the original Robert E. Howard short story, published posthumously in Weird Tales magazine (1938) The pigeon scenes that spooked me as a kid didn't have any pigeons in them. The scenes with actual pigeons were not menacing at all as it was obvious they were either just sitting and doing typical pigeon things or had just been spooked into flying and were not attacking John at all. The only thing to indicate they had an evil intent was his dialogue after the fact. The scenes in which pigeons actually were scary just had them cooing on the soundtrack. The implied surrounding the house triggered my fear of the unknown. I will be honest that every time I have seen this episode has been separated by decades. Every time John wanders down the steps I have forgotten the actual lame ending of the thing and wondered how the pigeons caused it. My mind always wants the pigeons to be the focus of what is going on. It would have been a far better episode if they were. Except for their scenes on the soundtrack and the title of the show, this really always ends up a major disappointment for me. |
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Post by geode on Apr 20, 2018 16:40:47 GMT
I've only seen two "Thiller" episodes, and I watched them on YouTube. The first episode was "The Hungry Glass" and I agree that it was excellent. The other one I saw was "The Cheaters", which was also great. I meant to check out some more episodes on YouTube but never got around to it. Yes, I should have mentioned they were all (or nearly all) on YouTube. Thanks!  I haven’t yet seen “The Cheaters,” but it’s been rated very highly from what I’ve read. It’s one I will get around to. If/when you get around to some more Thriller, I’d love to read your thoughts! I have had the DVD box set for years, buying it at the time to watch "The Grim Reaper" which I remembered fondly from my last viewing in the 60s. It did not quite live up to memory as the best of the series. However, due to multiple mentions of "The Cheaters" I watched it today. It was not familiar at all, so this was probably my first time through it. It clearly is one of the best episodes of the series. One thing that I found especially inventive was Boris Karloff in the intro telling us of characters we will be seeing while showing them bespectacled. Apparently as an afterthought the actors playing them was dubbed in....the audio is distinctly different in the intonation of the character names compared to the actors names. |
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Post by geode on Apr 20, 2018 17:57:12 GMT
I just started to watch "The Hungry Glass" on DVD but stopped because the audio is horribly distorted. It doesn't just affect the music, sound effects have this hollow echo effect, sort of like putting your ear to a seashell. Really distracting. I opened the YouTube version that has been uploaded and it is the same. Is there a proper transfer somewhere that I can watch (and listen to)?
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Post by telegonus on Apr 20, 2018 18:29:25 GMT
Much appreciated, Salzmank; and I enjoy reading you two guys as well. As to Gary Gerani in the fever dream aspects of Pigeons, I not only agree with him but have posted with him, at length, in just that topic, on which we are agreement regarding not just Pigeons but many Thriller episodes. It's there in Parasite Mansion, Dr. Markesan and even episodes not strictly horror, that deal with crime, often creepy crime, such as Fingers Of Fear. Also dream-like if wholly wholly satisfying as a drama, The Return Of Andrew Bentley, with its nightmarish opening scenes. Hayfork And Bill-Hook features wonderful English folk music and stunning photography, although as a story it doesn't quite deliver as one would expect.
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Post by telegonus on Apr 21, 2018 4:06:34 GMT
I just started to watch "The Hungry Glass" on DVD but stopped because the audio is horribly distorted. It doesn't just affect the music, sound effects have this hollow echo effect, sort of like putting your ear to a seashell. Really distracting. I opened the YouTube version that has been uploaded and it is the same. Is there a proper transfer somewhere that I can watch (and listen to)? I'm sorry to hear that, Geode. The Hungry Glass is very good, captures much of the feel of the true north shore of Boston as of 1960 without the film crew or any of the cast leaving L.A., to the best of my knowledge. It's like the recently much discussed Pigeons From Hell in its featuring an old house in an isolated locale, with water (the ocean, not a swamp) figuring prominently. The locals aren't crazy, though. A crazy old woman also figures in the back story, and as startlingly hideous as she was was in Pigeons. No surprise. It's the same actress. This is a fairly quiet episode for Thriller. It's the visitors to the old house that go crazy in this one, or rather one of them does. The silent old mirrors are the pigeons in this one. No zuvembies here, and no need for one. I hope that you can find a copy with good sound. |
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Post by geode on Apr 21, 2018 9:04:58 GMT
I just started to watch "The Hungry Glass" on DVD but stopped because the audio is horribly distorted. It doesn't just affect the music, sound effects have this hollow echo effect, sort of like putting your ear to a seashell. Really distracting. I opened the YouTube version that has been uploaded and it is the same. Is there a proper transfer somewhere that I can watch (and listen to)? I'm sorry to hear that, Geode. The Hungry Glass is very good, captures much of the feel of the true north shore of Boston as of 1960 without the film crew or any of the cast leaving L.A., to the best of my knowledge. It's like the recently much discussed Pigeons From Hell in its featuring an old house in an isolated locale, with water (the ocean, not a swamp) figuring prominently. The locals aren't crazy, though. A crazy old woman also figures in the back story, and as startlingly hideous as she was was in Pigeons. No surprise. It's the same actress. This is a fairly quiet episode for Thriller. It's the visitors to the old house that go crazy in this one, or rather one of them does. The silent old mirrors are the pigeons in this one. No zuvembies here, and no need for one. I hope that you can find a copy with good sound. From discussions I have found online it sounds as if the only copies of "The Hungry Glass" with decent audio are either bootleg DVDs or VHS tapes. This was not an episode released on laser disc. I have that set. This seems to be the worst episode for audio problems in the Image box set from 2010, but apparently several episodes suffer from a mix that places music way too loud compared to dialogue. "Gary Gerani September 21, 2010 at 3:29 PM Interesting. Nobody seems bothered by the screwed-up soundtrack for this episode (an Image-inflicted defect), which is most obvious in the opening teaser -- the THRILLER main title is so sound-warped it actually makes me wince. All of the show's wind and crashing surf sound effects play like a dive-bombing jet, and Shatner's plunge through the window sounds like a plane going down, not a human body falling. This distracting audio problem does come and go; thankfully, the extended non-dialogue sequence where Shatner develops the ghost girl photo while his wife finds the mirrors upstairs, is pretty much okay, with the background music playing in non-distorted fashion (possibly because of the absence of a dialogue track). But the defect returns full-blast during the mirror-smashing climax: instead of normal glass-breaking sounds, we hear the "jet bomber/wind tunnel" audio defect every time Shatner strikes the mirror. Final end title music, featuring just the music track, plays just fine. Many people have complained about the volume level distortions of this DVD release ("The Storm," "La Strega"). But so far, "Hungry Glass" is the only defective soundtrack in the set that bothers me. And in case this got by you, just watch the teaser and opening title again (why should I be the only one to suffer?). Listen to how Rugolo's cool mini-theme has been thoroughly massacred by a hopelessly choked audio mix. Geez, if a screw-up like this HAD to happen, why couldn't it have occurred in "Rose's Last Summer" or "Man in the Middle," instead of one of the classic horror episodes?" "Dan January 17, 2012 at 12:51 PM I am in agreement with Gary here: Image has done a terrible job overall with this much-anticipated dvd release. The main culprit seems to be their mishandling of the Music and Effects isolated tracks. In HUNGRY GLASS the effects are completely distorted, making watching this an ordeal. Secondly, on other M&E isolated tracks on other episodes these tracks are so loud that they swamp the dialog, and they are not modulated up and down as would normally be the case in a proper sound mix. Apparently Image got ahold of these tracks, and the separate dialog tracks and just joined them together without a thought to the sound mix. The result is a complete mess and the viewer has to keep pumping up the sound to hear the dialog then turning it back down when the next music cue starts. Idiotic. All they had to do was to have the M&E tracks separate, and then for the show itself merely use the properly-mixed track that the show was provided with. It is just mind-boggling to me that there is such a colossal ignorance out there in dvd manufacturing land. Does anyone there even attempt quality control? Another incredibly stupid thing Image did on this set was to use on their menu screen photos of the surprise endings of these shows, thereby ruining the shock. It would be like them giving the name of the murderer away before the mystery even begins. How does one explain such stupidity? I spent a fortune for this set and am thoroughly disgusted. If - and that's a big "if" - Image decides to "re-master" this disc and correct all these egregious errors I MIGHT be compelled to purchase it again. But I will never recommend this set to any THRILLER fan, not at least without first warning them of all the dumb mistakes Image made." "The Hungry Glass" discussion.
Hasn't anyone else here noticed this? |
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Post by telegonus on Apr 23, 2018 9:40:07 GMT
That Thriller A Day blog is something else, eh, Salzmnank? Well written by people who know their stuff, have, as a group, a great sense of humor, and whether in this blog or their similarly structured Outer Limits blog (We Are Controlling Transmission), there's some sharp talk and analysis of why these two shows work so well, have so many fans. Gerani's focus on the idea, arguably an aesthetic, of a TV series capable of producing excellent, thoroughly satisfying episodes that simply play by different rules from other shows. A lot of the best Thrillers strike me as fever dreams or fever dreamy (sic) in having many of the qualities Gary was referring to.
Guillotine, Prisoner In The Mirror and even the more logically made Your Truly, Jack The Ripper often feel dreamy for long stretches; and in the way their stories are told there seems less emphasis on characterization, such as exploring human relationships, than in presenting a narrative that deals in irrational things for which there isn't or maybe cannot be full understanding, which the author-creator-director cannot fully state with confidence what hand he playing, what ideas he is trying to get across.
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