A bittersweet release for MST3K fans Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXIX Shout Factory. $59.97
It’s a bittersweet day for Mystery Science Theater fans. Shout! Factory has released the last collection of episodes from the original show. While it’s great that three new episodes (and a disc of bonus material) are out on DVD, it’s sad that there are 11 installments that have never been released, and probably never will be, because of copyright issues. Still, these three shows from the Mike years are solid, and the set, rather aptly, includes the very last episode. The shows included in this set are: • Experiment 601 – Girls Town Mike (referring to Mel Torme): He’s like a youthful Jabba the Hut! This first episode from season six features the installation of the Umbilicus, a tube that runs from the Sat-ellite of Love to Deep 13, and allows items to be sent between the Mads and the SoL. It’s a nice addition to the show and it will be used for the rest of the run of the show for various gags. The movie is pretty lame in and of itself, but does have a pretty impressive cast. It stars Mamie Van Doren, Mel Torme and Paul Anka. There are brief appearances by Harold Lloyd Jr. and Charlie Chaplin Jr., and there’s even a performance by The Platters. Unfortunately none of them can save this movie from the dull and plodding, not to mention predictable, script. One evening Fred (Torme) takes his date to the local make-out spot when they see his friend Chip trying to rape a girl. They laugh gently to themselves – good ‘ol Chip is always up to some mischief. Fred doesn’t think it so funny when he discovers that Chip has died, falling off a cliff after his date pushes him away. Having caught a glimpse of the girl, Chip falsely thinks it was Silver Morgan (Van Doren) who had defended herself. Silver, being out of jail on probation, is brought in for questioning and though she has a solid alibi, she’s given the choice of going back to jail or being remanded to Girls Town, a home run by nuns for young women, mostly orphans, who are at risk. There she has run-ins with the other girls, but things get worse when she discovers that it was her kid sister who was with Chip on the fatal evening and
that the law and Chip’s gang are both looking for her. This musical/drama had a bit of potential for being a great installment of MST, but it ends up being just so-so. There’s not a lot that Mike and the bots can say during the several songs that pop up, and the film doesn’t have that ludicrous element that makes for the best riffing. It’s alright, but not better than that. • Experiment 623 - The Amazing Transparent Man with the short Days of Our Years: Crow: So, the leading causes of accidents are joy, sex, and old age? The short, made by Union Pacific to promote safety among their workers, shows three examples of people who were careless and caused an accident. Mike and the bots have a great time with this, pointing out the ridiculous nature of some of the setups. This was a very good short. The feature itself was decent too, but not a classic. The story revolves around Joey Faust, an expert safecracker, who is broken out of prison by a mad villain, Paul Krenner. Krenner has a Nazi scientist working for him to perfect a ray that will make people invisible, and with that Krenner can create an invisible army that can take over the world. The only problem is that he needs nuclear materials secured in highly secured government vaults. So he strong-arms Faust to steal them for him, while invisible. The more he gets to know Krenner, the less Joey likes the man or his mad plan so he schemes to stop him. This plot is wacky enough to give the riffers plenty of material, and they come up with some good lines. There are several that fall flat, but there are more hits than misses. • Experiment 1023 - Diabolik: Crow: Y’know, this music would be better with women in bikinis shaking it all over the place... well, I guess that’s true of any music, really. A bit of a strange choice for the last episode, Diabolik is a European crime/action flick based on an Italian comic strip. Directed by Mario Bava, the film follows the adventures of the master criminal Diabolik, who lives in an underground lair where he plots and schemes to steal money from the government and make fools of the police. While I would have preferred a truly awful film for their final installment
DVD REVIEW JOHN SINNOTT
DuluthReader.com
(I was hoping for Plan 9 from Outer Space) the crew does a really good job with this. They riffs are pretty funny throughout and there are some really hilarious scenes like when Diabolik and his girlfriend are having sex on a pile of money. “They got pretty injured when they tried this with gold bars.” Even with the solid riffing, the highlights of this show are the host segments. Knowing that this was their last episode they crafted a good set of skits to wrap up the series and complete the stories of Mike, the bots, Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy. These were funny, sweet and touching. • Disc Four - Satellite Dishes: As mentioned earlier, there were some movies that Shout! Factory just couldn’t get the rights to. It makes sense in some cases, like the Godzilla movies or The Space Children (which is owned by Paramount) but the copyright owners of Quest of the Delta Knights (which has only had a VHS release in the USA) wouldn’t take a few bucks so the MST version could be released? Okay, whatever. Though Best Brains doesn’t own the rights to the movies, they do have control of the host segments, and Shout! has graciously put those on the final disc. Overall, it’s three hours’ worth of content, and a nice addition to the MST collection. The disc
contains the segments the following episodes: 201 - Rocketship X-M 213 - Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster 309 - The Amazing Colossal Man 311 - It Conquered the World 416 - Fire Maidens of Outer Space 418 - Attack of the The Eye Creatures 807 - Terror from the Year 5000 809 - I Was a Teenage Werewolf 905 - The Deadly Bees 906 - The Space Children 913 - Quest of the Delta Knights Note that the segments from Godzilla vs. Megalon (Episode 212) are not included. Though that episode is no longer available, it was released for a short time in Volume 10, but Toho’s lawyers took umbrage and forced Shout! to stop publishing it. Once again Shout! Factory has added some nice featurettes to this collection. First up is Chuck Love and the Anatomy of a Theme, an interview with the man who wrote the music to the opening and closing themes for the show. It was interesting to hear his reminiscences on creating the iconic songs. There’s also a look at the production of The Amazing Transparent Man in Beyond Transparency, and Showdown in Eden Prairie: Their Final Experiment is a short featurette concerning the final episode of the series.
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