Texan26

I own both the Drive In Cult Classics 32 Movie Pack and Too Cool For School 12 Movie Pack and I just watched the Too Cool version of Pom Pom Girls version last week. I thought with them both being Mill Creek sets, I had the same version of the movie. D'oh! Am I going to have compare other Mill creek movies before I watch them?

ProfessorEcho

I could read about this Mill Creek stuff all day. And sometimes you have to in order to keep it all straight. But I do love that company and can't get my head up their ass enough when it comes to public domain and exploitation goodness. Plus five buck Blu Rays! Criterion, eat your heart out.

Brian T

Yes, but probably not everything. The existence of the POM POM variants, as well as two prints of THE VAN in markedly different condition (one rough, one pristine), though both uncut, is reason enough to suspect that Mill Creek (and BCI before them) might be arbitrarily juggling prints they have on hand for other Crown International titles as well.

Another pair to be aware of: POLICEWOMEN and SUPERCHICK are both fullscreen in the HOLLYWOOD BOMBSHELLS collection, but widescreen in the out-of-print WELCOME TO THE GRINDHOUSE double feature sets:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WC38Q4/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WC38QE/
The version of POLICEWOMEN in the BOMBSHELLS set is titled "Policewome" in the opening credits!

HUSTLER SQUAD and CHAIN GANG WOMEN are also fullscreen in the BOMBSHELLS set, but I'm fairly certain they've been that way in all previous incarnations as well. I'm not certain widescreen versions even exist, or if either of them were even shot that way (they don't really look it).

I'm pretty sure there are a couple of versions of NINE DEATHS OF THE NINJA floating around out there as well. The one included in the out-of-print MAXIMUM ACTION collection is 2.35:1 and uncut (nudity intact), but a skin-free version is out there, although I'm not sure in which sets you'd find it.

Also in the MAXIMUM ACTION collection, THE LAST FOUR DAYS is a severely cut-down version of MUSSOLINI: THE LAST FOUR DAYS (aka MUSSOLINI: ULTIMO ATTO). Variants reportedly to max out at about 125 minutes, but the one in this set is just 74 minutes, which leads to some ludicrous editing within sequences and near-total incomprehensibility.

I suppose an "ultimate" spread sheet would be one that indicated which of these sets contained the best print of every film from the original Crown catalog that Mill Creek has in circulation, since most of them turn up in multiple sets. I'm actually a bit surprised to hear that some of them are turning up in the 50 packs with various public domain cheapies, since no Crown titles are actually in the public domain. The Crown stuff has been kept separate through multiple companies (Rhino, BCI, Mill Creek until now, apparently), which led me to believe that perhaps there was some sort of contractual obligation, but now I wonder . . .

kidglov3s

And to make things more fun there's a variant of Big Screen Bombshells (my copy, and a guy on Amazon's) that has the widescreen version of Policewomen.

It's just my guess but I think they put some high interest Crown titles (Don't Answer the Phone, Point of Terror, They Saved Hitler's Brain and Terror in the Jungle) into the Pure Terror 50 pack to spur fans of the Crown 12 packs into buying it, as they hadn't been released in 12 packs at the time, though Terror in the Jungle has since surfaced on Rare Cult Cinema.

Interestingly, referencing the Don't Answer the Phone on Pure Terror to the different versions contrasted on Movie-Censorship.com, the one on Pure Terror appears to be open matte (good news for fans of nudity but as it's not really my thing I'd prefer the theatrical OAR like the anamorphic release from BCI that I don't own) and uncut. When I saw it was full frame I assumed it was the bad version, but it has the stuff that was excised, so I guess that should bode well for its inevitable appearance on a future 12 pack. Point of Terror on the same set is in anamorphic widescreen, and, from what I can tell, is unedited (the unedited Scorpion release is listed as 88min and the runtime of the Pure Terror disc is 1:27:32, which seems to work out).

Another somewhat controversial title is Blood of Dracula's Castle, which Rhino released in a full frame version from an older video master. When the rights to the Crown titles transferred to BCI, a new anamorphic transfer from a print that had some quite obvious damage on it was struck, and while BCI went under before it could be released Mill Creek eventually released this version on the 12 pack Gorehouse Greats. The man who was overseeing the handling of Crown stuff for BCI, Cliff Mac, said that he had applied some corrections to this transfer that did not appear on Mill Creek's presentation.
You can actually find a lot of cool information about this stuff reading through posts from him on AVManiacs.

A review of the 12 pack Rare Cult Cinema says that The Young Graduates is full frame with credits cut off as opposed to being in widescreen on Drive in Cult Classics Vol. 4, but on my copy of Rare Cult Cinema it is in anamorphic widescreen. I'm not sure if this means there are variant releases of that or not but it's definitely widescreen on mine.

In quickly comparing them, Nine Deaths of the Ninja appears in the same 1:33:33 anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer on BCI's Maximum Action 8 pack and Mill Creek's Explosive Cinema 12 pack. Going through Maximum Action I found no differences for the 6 titles carried over to Explosive Cinema.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I remember at one point they used to have a section where you could see what movies appeared in which set. No clue if it's still up. I remember having to dig a little to find it.

I like this stuff too. I started back when Brentwood had their 20 movie packs, back before they started turning to crap with more recent direct to video stuff. Mill Creek has that stuff too but at least they segregate it from the "classics".

Brian T

Maybe more than one guy on Amazon. Someone left a response to my own review of the set there, mentioning widescreen versions of POLICEWOMEN and SUPERCHICK, although he later backpedaled on SUPERCHICK. The Crown library certainly deserves better treatment than it gets, though what it gets is certainly tolerable . . .


Are those two versions uncut, though? That's great if they are.

That might mean this ancient Rhino version is the only one worth avoiding, and it's OOP anyways:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004YA6J/


Brentwood did some very decent public domain 10- and 20-packs back in the day (when one movie per disc side was considered the norm!). One of my personal favourites out of 15 or so that I own is WHAT IT IS ... WHAT IT WAS! (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006LPBF/), which has some decent prints of lesser-known but still cool blaxploitation movies, including the delightful regional cheapie VELVET SMOOTH:
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M1bEQPkZKRM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I wish I would have picked up some of the martial arts stuff. At the time I only got the horror and sci-fi stuff.

Lang Thompson

Two of Mill Creek's spaghetti Western sets are on sale - 10,000 Ways to Die with 12 films at $3.49 and Spaghetti Western Collection with 44 films at $11.49. If the info on Amazon is correct then most but not all of the 10,000 set is on the larger one. But at least one exclusive to the small set seems only marginally SW - Great Adventure adapted from Jack London.

And Timeless Media's Best of Spaghetti Westerns is also on sale at $15.49 (61% off).

RKillgore

Thanks for the recommendation; I picked that up through Amazon marketplace for $10. Also, many of the Mill Creek 50 movie packs are $11.49, the lowest price they've been for the last year. Ordered the Drive-In Movie Classics 50 pack http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Movie-Cl...dp/B000AA4KLK/ as well as the Drive-In Cult Classics. I'm certainly set for next year's challenge.
Oh, yeah and a copy of The Tingler to get free shipping.

ProfessorEcho

The trouble with these, as well as Mill Creek's Sword And Sandal 50 pack, is that most, if not all, of the titles included are pan and scan versions. My threshold is set very low for Mill Creek products and I enjoy the hell out of them, but I can't get past pan and scan for a lot of these titles.

30smovies

That is hilarious that the rather innocent if campy musical SEXTETTE , 83-year-old Mae West's last film is included in a collection of exploitation films starring actresses one-fourth her age. Did Mill Creek just choose this film by it's title and not screen the movie before sticking it in this collection?

Regarding Mill Creek sets, I hate it that they deleted their HISTORIC CLASSICS set which had a ton of super rare 1950's television productions, most of which can't be found in any other sets by them or other distributors, while as this thread notes they have scores of sets in print that are basically the same collections split in different lots.

Brian T

It probably wouldn't be the first time.

And besides, she could've died at any minute on the set of that film. Perhaps that qualifies as "dangerous?"

mitch079

I see the Drive In Cult Classics and a bunch of others at Target for around $10 in the last aisle of the DVDs where they stick the collections and other cheap stuff.

kidglov3s

Sextette is part of the Crown International Pictures library, Mill Creek's 12 pack series has been composed exclusively of titles from the Crown library and is nearing completion, so far presenting 92 of the total 102 titles listed on the Crown International Pictures website, with only one duplicated title. The titles of the various sets are kind of arbitrary, they try to theme them but they all contain the heterogenous outlier here and there.

For trivia, the titles yet to appear on 12 packs are: Don't Answer the Phone, Point of Terror, The Seventh Commandment, Housewife from Hell, Catalina Caper, Welcome Home Brother Charles, Stakeout, Vengeance, Double Exposure, and Malibu High. Of these, The Seventh Commandment, Housewife from Hell, Catalina Caper, Stakeout, Vengeance, and Welcome Home Brother Charles are not available on some Mill Creek release outside of the 12 pack series. Three of them, Housewife from Hell, Stakeout, and Vengeance have yet to appear on a DVD release. The best case scenario is that the next 12 pack will finish the series and collect these 10 titles, along with maybe the uncut Pom Pom Girls and perhaps They Saved Hitler's Brain. Though I'd prefer instead of those two titles being repeated to have a side featuring all the trailers to the Crown films that they can obtain and put on a disc.

It does suck that they've let some sets go out of print though. I regret not picking up at least the Family 250 pack back when I ordered the Horror 250 set from Deep Discount DVD during a sale.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Looks like all the 250 sets are out of print. It's amazing how much the out of print sets have gone up in price compared to the Brentwood 10 movie sets which came out a decade ago but can still be bought for the same price as back then.

I've also discovered that you want to get the sets when they first come out because they'll reissue some with a different movie or two. I think Drive-In did that as well as one of the horror ones. Someone here had a reissue which had a different movie than my original one. It's been years so I don't remember much more than that.

The Night Screams 50 movie pack looks like it recently went out of print but the price hasn't gotten insane yet. If you were holding off on getting it, now is probably the time. I have it and can drag a film or two if someone wants to know the quality.
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Screams-...pd_sim_sbs_d_7