With so many new boutique labels now unearthing forgotten gems or hidden treasures, it’s becoming quickly apparent – it’s not simply about how many or how obscure a title you can release, but it’s the importance of curation and contextualization you give your titles. For sure, you can unearth a film that’s never seen the light of day or has been cast aside by time and put it back out there, but unless you present it in such a way that it can be understood by today’s audiences, your film will probably end up on Hamilton Books in their bargain bin. That being the case it feels like we get a new label every few months cutting the teeth in the collector’s market and I had the pleasure of checking out a release by Film Masters, one of these new-ish labels who are just starting to gain some real momentum.
I first came across Film Masters thanks to their announcement of a restoration of one my biggest ISOs Redneck Miller, which will hit later this year. But Film Masters is not just a distro label, but a preservation outfit and in the few months since I’ve discovered them have released a plethora of content. While they are of course releasing physical media of their restorations, they also have a very formidable presence on their freely accessible YouTube channel, where they release scans of not only obscure films, but television as well. It’s something that really shows their respect for media as a whole, since I think older TV shows and made for TV films have their own charm and craft worthy of reappreciation.
But for this review I am digging into the 1960 sleazy supernatural thriller Tormented, by Bert I. Gordon, who helmed such B movie classics as Empire of the Ants, The Food of the Gods, The Mad Bomber and The Cyclops. Like most films of this time with seedier subject matter there is a purposeful focus on the morality of those that make certain choices and making sure they get their comeuppance. In Tormented the film focuses on Tom (Richard Carlson), a jazz piano genius who is visiting Cape Cod to marry a much younger and richer woman, than his previous blonde bombshell songbird girlfriend Vi (Juli Reding). The problem is said songbird comes to confront him and somehow they end up at the top of a lighthouse where she threatens to “expose” him and end his engagement. Well, she accidentally loses her footing mid argument and falls off the walkway at the top of the lighthouse. While grasping for dear life onto a lone piece rail she begs for Tom to help her, who instead watches her fall to her death.
With Vi out of the way, Tom tries to go back to his fancy upper class wedding to Meg Hubbard (Lugene Sanders), but not only is he plagued by visions of Vi, but the captain that ferried her over thinks there’s a buck to be made from the disappearance of his fare. While the film definitely has the expected trajectory, it works thanks to its eerie and atmospheric narrative that does manage to keep you on your toes. Richard Carlson, who is probably best known for his role as Dr. David Reed in Creature from the Black Lagoon, does a rather impressive unhinged job here as the guilt and the ghost drive him to some pretty dark places. This film came at the tail end of the actor’s career and he would only do about six more films, before unexpectedly dying of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 65. The Monroe-esque Juli Reding who was currently on husband 3 of 5 at the time was however just starting her career, thanks to some rather charming effects, has a rather powerful presence over the entire film – even though she dies in the first few minutes.
Thanks to its black and white cinematography and gritty subject matter, Tormented as a film feels somewhat noir-ish at times, and thanks to its ghostly leanings keeps you guessing at where it will go next. The film was shot by Ernest Laszlo who would go on to not only lens such classics as Fantastic Voyage, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Logan’s Run, but he eventually would take home an Oscar after 8 nominations for 1966’s Ship of Fools. It’s something Tormented definitely benefits from, since these films don’t often look this good and the competency of the cinematography definitely helps to take the edge off some of the more dated visual effects. This works hand in hand with the competent script and solid performances who are all playing it straight, with a generous helping of TV melodrama on the side.
The film is presented in a new 4K restoration from 35mm archival elements and it looks like they caught this film just in time. The scan still has its grain and film texture left intact, with minimal DNR and while you can tell there was a restoration, there’s still some visual damage present. For me this only adds to the charm of the viewing experience and really helps to highlight Ernest Laszlo’s command of the frame, as he not only captures the brightly lit beach sun scapes, but the dark and dreary world Tom inhabits at night. It’s a great way to contrast not only the themes at work and characters, but it’s something that you’re not going to see captured as impressively as it is here with the darkened scenes perfectly void of all light.
When I finish a film one of my favorite things to do is to start digging into the extras and THIS is where this disc obliterates most releases. Along with a great doc by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures on Bert I. Gordon in the 1950s & 1960s, there’s the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Tormented (1992), an unreleased TV pilot of Famous Ghost Stories, made by Bert I. Gordon and hosted by Vincent Price, the full feature in 1:33.1 and a commentary provided by film historian-writer-filmmaker Gary Don Rhodes. (Plus SO MUCH MORE!) I walked into this release completely unfamiliar with Bert I. Gordon, but after my sitting I felt I was completely familiar with the director, and how he leveraged B movies and monsters as his way into Hollywood. The disc also does a fantastic job at contextualizing Tormented in his filmography as a film that was made when the director had finally made his way to LA and was the culmination of this journey.
While I enjoyed Tormented as a watch on its own. It’s the contextualization that you can explore after the fact by diving into the plethora of extras that really helped me appreciate it for what it was at the time, which couldn’t have been easy to bring together for an obscure deep cut like this. Using every nook and cranny left on the disc Film Masters not only give you probably the best presentation of the film you’re going to get, short of seeing it at the drive-in in the 60s, but an exhaustive roster of extras that works to give you that history on why they bothered releasing the film in the first place. You can really tell it’s because they genuinely care about the director and his weird little film and that enthusiasm transcends to the viewer, which is something that’s hard to get from a triple dip on 4k by some other distros. What can I say, Film Masters is probably my new favorite indie distro and I can’t see what they serve up next!
