181 Frames of Gut-Crunching, Man-Eating Terror! Behind-the-Scenes of William Girdler's GRIZZLY

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The one that got away. [Insert sad face here.]

I've been hard at work procuring mountains of goodies for The Holecheck Archives lately (read: hemorrhaging money I don't have); some impressive, some not so much.  (Did I really need hundreds of sexploitation stills for movies I'm clueless about?  What the hell is Love Cave, anyway?)

Unfortunately, I missed out on one particularly awesome set:  not one, not two, but 181(!) 35mm still camera negatives taken behind-the-scenes of William Girdler's Grizzly.  I tried -- believe me, I tried -- but apparently my several hundred bucks wasn't good enough. Hopefully the current owner sees fit to do something worthwhile with them. 

Until then, I've presented a few low res examples below, for posterity's sake. I've tried to frame, sharpen and color correct them to get 'em as clean as possible, but there's only so much I could do.  Enjoy!

 

  

French poster courtesy of Devildead.com.

More rare photo displays coming soon, including some negatives I actually do own!

© 2010 -- Bruce Holecheck. All Rights Reserved.

It's Name that Movie Monday! Challenge #6!

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Welcome back to Name that Movie Monday!

It's time for Challenge #6 here at the ol' Arcana.  Can you identify this week's mystery photo, scanned direct from The Holecheck Archives?  If you think you recognize it, post a comment below.  As the week goes on, if no one guesses correctly I'll begin adding some pretty useless hints.  Easy, right?

Here ya' go -- good luck!

UPDATE:

Congrats go out to two-time winner Will Wilson for identifying this week's flick as William Girdler's Day of the Animals (1977).  After having a surprise hit with the prior year's awesome Grizzly, Girdler mined similar territory with this fun nature-goes-nuts romp, starring Christopher and Lynda Day George versus all sorts of snakes, birds, dogs, bears and, uh... an ozone-juiced Leslie Nielson.

Theatrical duties went out to producer Edward Montoro's Film Ventures International, who proceeded to advertise it with several different campaigns, including a 1978 reissue as Something is Out There.  There was even a tie-in novel!  Shortly thereafter, Girdler and Montoro would find themselves in a legal dispute over the ever-growing Grizzly profits, leading to the end of their collaborations.

On home video, Day of the Animals saw VHS release in 1982 from Media Home Entertainment.  The tape was intact, but cropped from its original scope framing, eliminating a lot of the gorgeous location shooting the film benefits from.  Fans hoped for a correctly formatted release when it was announced for DVD in the infancy of the format (by an outfit known as DVD, Ltd.; how's that for imagination?), but it unfortunately remained an aged, cropped transfer.  In 2006, Media Blasters thankfully did the title right, striking a new master from one of the few 35mm prints known left to exist, finally restoring its full picture and supplementing it with interviews, trailers, commentary and more.  (They even issued it in a triple-pack including Grizzly and Curtis Harrington's Devil Dog, Hound of Hell!)

For a look at last week's entry, click here.  And don't forget, our Upcoming Releases List (the best on the 'net) is constantly updated, so stop by and preorder some cool stuff!

© 2010 -- Bruce Holecheck. All Rights Reserved.