House of Silent Scream: Let's get ready to robot rumble!

What do you do with something like Alpha Video?

Alpha Video deals mostly in the z-grade public domain detritus of early film. They repackage wrecked prints of (often justifiably) obscure flicks, slap on some evocative cover art, and then clog the bargain bins of America's DVD retailers with the results. I have yet to see a silent flick from Alpha that wasn't transferred from some highly damaged print and matched with painfully modern and cheesy music. Furthermore, their marketing borders on the deceitful. I've been stung more than once by an AV copywriter who decided to pitch a melodrama as a horror or suspense film. They also have the annoying tendency make literally true, but somewhat misleading claims about, say, their films. If, for example, Bela Lugosi makes a cameo, you can be sure he'll get top billing on the cover.

That said, Alpha's often the only source for some of the more obscure silent era flicks. So little of the silent era is still with us. The unstable nature of the film medium, lackluster preservation standards, and popular disinterest means that, aside from a truly tiny percentage of films, most of film's earliest works are lost forever. Consequently, when we talk about the development of film, or a particular genre within film, we tend to make the record the fact and ignore all those data points we know existed, but are no longer present to us. The problem is that what we know is miniscule compared to what we don't. Of all the silent films ever made, experts estimate that only about 10% or 15% are still around. For horror fans, this includes the first two werewolf flicks (The Werewolf, 1913; The Wolf Man, 1924), the earliest adaptation of Dorian Gray, an adaptation of Balzac's trapped-alive tale La Grande Breteche, the first adaptation of Fantomas, another Golem film, a handful of haunted house flicks, and (most famously) Lon Chaney's London After Midnight. And that's just taking into account flicks we know we've lost. The unknown unknowns could include all manner of revelations.

The end result of this legacy of loss is a distorted sense of the roots of the art. We think, for example, that silent horror and fantasy consists of a handful of George Méliès films and, later, Nosferatu and Caligari.

In so much as any added glimpse of the era - especially films outside of those three or four flicks consistently revered by modern horror community - gives us a fuller picture of the past, it is something to be grateful for.

Ultimately, while I wish Alpha had better prints, I'm thankful they've got prints at all.

That includes the chopped up remains of The Mechanical Man, a French 1921 sci-fi action comedy directed by early auteur André Deed. MM is both a treat and a disappointment. Originally an 80+ minute flick, all that remains are a scant 17 minutes. This means that what remains is largely incomprehensible, even with a cheater title card up front that lets you know what the plot is. The upshot is that the titular robot is one of the earliest robots on film (beating Metropolis's Maria out the gate by a few years) and it features what's most likely the first robot vs. robot battle scene.

The story of The Mechanical Man is now only comprehensible through secondary sources. The plot involves an evil criminal mastermind (one of many female kingpins in silent cinema, it was a surprisingly common trope) who uses her gang to steal the plans for a giant mechanical remote control man. She takes her metal monster on a rampage at a opera house only to run into a second mechanical man, this one built to thwart her plans. Along the way there's a jailbreak, a murder, a faked death, and a gypsy. Though, with so much footage missing, it is no longer clear how all those elements fit in. Visually, the interest in The Mechanical Man (or what's left of it) is pretty much in the title character, the intriguing lead villainess, and a few well-performed stunts. It lacks a strong visual style and there's no evidence that, even in its entirety, it would rank up there with better known silent genre works.

Still, as a early example of sci-fi filmmaking, it merits attention. What I recommend is skipping to chapter 5 and just checking out the robot. Here's some action shots.

This chopped up flick is a sadly appropriate monument to tragic career of Deed. Though now largely forgotten, Deed's was briefly a major name in the French film industry. A comedic stage performer, Deed's got into the film biz in 1901, when the industry was just leaving its larval stage. He first gained fame as an actor, appearing in nearly 160 films. By 1905, he was an internationally famous actor. He jumped behind the director's chair in 1909, eventually helming 38 flicks. The last of these film was The Mechanical Man, which he also wrote. In 1915, his fame as a star waned and he started spending more time behind the camera. His last major role was in 1928. He had some small bits in flicks into the 1930s, but mostly he was washed up. He died broke and is now a footnote in French film history.

Comics: City stompin' mega-monster action; cheap as free.

Boom Studios, an indie comics publishing house, recently made comic biz buzz by offering one of its new series in simultaneous print and free online formats. Though retailers groaned, Boom claimed the strategy was a success and that the print edition sold out. (It is actually nearly impossible to judge the accuracy of their claim due to some quirks in the comic biz publishing model – still, it was news.)

"You will let me know when I should start caring, right?" you may well ask.

Tough crowd.

Fair enough. Here's why you, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Q. Horror Fan, care. Boom has picked up the reprint rights for Steve "30 Days of Night" Niles's 2005 mini-series Giant Monster. Several years ago, Niles – then the one-man vanguard for horror comics – was tearing through the dusty horror subgenres, trying to revive them with a crazed mix of off-kilter approaches and over the top ultra-violence. His take on the BFM subgenre was fun, but it didn't capture the imagination the way his vampire epic did and ended up gathering dust while other his other works were republished in nice collected editions.

Boom has taken upon themselves to correct this oversight. And they're doing it up nice. For Boom's new collected Giant Monster, the publisher is revisiting their double-barreled online/print approach. This time, though, the online edition is being released in a serialized form. Comic Book Resources started things off by posting the first 22 pages of the comic. Every day, CBR will post the next page. Eventually, all 90-some pages will be available, completely free.

Here's the first pages.

If you get impatient, the hardcopy book is available at your local comic shop.

News: President denies rumors that Russia is developing giant robots to defend itself from eldritch horrors.

There are many burning issues that President Vladimir Putin must deal with: tensions over the United States proposed missile defense system; continuing political strife with various breakaway republics; the fallout from the murder of Alexander Litvinenko; and, according to the St. Petersburg Times, the military deployment of giant robots and the awakening of Cthulhu.

In a recent press conference, President Putin agreed to answer questions submitted to him via the Internet. Here's an excerpt from the short article about the conference:

“Yes, we will use the latest technical devices. Already now they are being stationed, for example, in the southern parts of our country,” Putin said when reporters asked him after the conference whether Russia planned to use “gigantic, humanoid war robots” to defend itself.

Asked to elaborate about what he meant, Putin said: “These are unmanned aerial vehicles. And maybe the time will come for gigantic robots. However, so far we have put our main hope on people — namely border guards,” Putin said, Kommersant reported.

Asked about the possible awakening of the giant mythical octopus Cthulhu, the fourth-most popular question among the more than 150,000 sent to Putin, he said that he believed something more serious was behind the question. Cthulhu was invented by novelist H.P. Lovecraft and was said to be sleeping beneath the Pacific Ocean.

Putin said he viewed mysterious forces with suspicion and advised those who took them seriously to read the Bible, Koran or other religious books.

Thanks to Dave over at Digital Download for the heads up on this story.