Rating: 1 / 5

First in the four disc set (chronologically) is The Pink Panther, the first movie with Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, this time on a seeming vacation at an Alpine ski resort. He is actually out to catch the Phantom, a notorious cat burglar, who is after a gem called The Pink Panther owned by a princess. David Niven plays the classy thief, with Robert Wagner as his nephew. Though he has a major role, this is principally a Niven movie. Interestingly, just as people would incorrectly associate the name Frankenstein with the monster instead of the scientist (or that Nick Charles was the Thin Man), many would assume that Clouseau was the Pink Panther. This is a role Sellers would reprise several times and despite the efforts by Steve Martin in a remake, Sellers IS Clouseau.

Second is What’s New Pussycat, in which Sellers is once again in a supporting role, this time as the psychiatrist treating Peter O’Toole, a man who attracts women too easily. When he finally falls in love with a woman, his efforts at commitment keep getting derailed by a series of beautiful women. Sellers is not so much interested in treatment but trying to use O’Toole’s talents to snag some lovers of his own. This movie, which also has Ursula Andress, Romy Schneider and, in his first movie, Woody Allen (who also wrote the screenplay), is more than a bit dated, but it picks up a lot towards the finish.

Casino Royale is the movie that is much superior in its 2006 remake. The original cinematic version is actually a muddled parody which has its moments but also has all sorts of problems, probably not helped by the multiple directors. Niven plays Bond, called out of retirement to stop a diabolical villain. Sellers plays a card playing expert who takes the name of Bond to have a baccarat showdown with a Russian spy played by Orson Welles. This film is filled with stars, including Andress and Allen again, John Huston, Deborah Kerr, William Holden and George Raft. While some moments are brilliant, they are scattered and the end product is erratic. A bonus on this disc is the 1950s made-for-TV version of Casino Royale that may not be that well made but at least has historic value.

Finally, there is The Party, the only movie in the set in which Sellers is truly the star, playing an actor from India who is accidentally invited to the party of a studio chief. There is no real plot, just a series of humorous events as Sellers keeps getting involved in mishaps, which should be seen rather than merely related in a review.

All four of these movies are definitely in the style of the Swinging Sixties, which makes them both dated and all the more entertaining. Even with their flaws, What’s New Pussycat and Casino Royale are high three star and The Party and The Pink Panther each merit a high four or low five stars. With a few extras, this is a nice four star set. With his limited roles in three of the four movies, this may not be a Sellers showcase, but it still is a good collection.

Rating: 4 / 5

This set of films contains excellent scores from two brilliant composers. The inimitable Henry Mancini scored both THE PINK PANTHER and THE PARTY. Burt Bacharach, near the top of his game for capturing that wild innovative 60’s sound scored both WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT and CASINO ROYALE which featured great recorded tunes for Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

Rating: 5 / 5

I won’t go in to a long-winded run down of the film (the other review does a good job of that) but, here are some thoughts:

The movie looks GREAT compared to other Full Moon (and b-horror for that matter) flicks. Camera work is good, audio is good, color is good. The acting is passable, again you have to remember what you’re dealing with here, the gore is .. ok ..

My issues with this lie in the pacing more than anything else. Two people get waxed within the first 5 or 10 minutes of the movie then there’s………….NOTHING. No action until the last 1/4 of the film. This fact makes ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ a total yawnfest for the most part.

Great strides in the audio/visual department here, a few steps back in the action and actual enjoyability category.

Wait til it’s out for a while and the price goes down, but if you’re a Full Moon ‘freak’ you’ll probably enjoy it. If not, keep browsing.

Rating: 2 / 5

Matthew Dragna (Scott Whyte) inherits an old casino from his uncle and shows up with his friends to discover what he now owns is a decrepit gambling palace that got shot down after a bloody mob massacre took place there. There’s Matthew’s girlfriend JJ (Robin Sydney), Emily (Lily Rains) who is the smart one with the glasses who has a system for counting cards, Jimbo (Wes Armstrong) the friendly guy, Skeeter (Kavan Reece) the jerk, and Paige (Kristyn Green), his vocal girlfriend. They show up trying to figure out how to turn the place into their own personal goldmine, only to discover that that whatever else might not come with the place it does have a curse. It seems that it was Matthew’s uncle who was responsible for the massacre and they have been waiting for payback for some time now.

Heading up the ghosts that make up the titular Casino of the Damned are a couple of familiar faces, Sid Haig (“House of 1,000 Corpses”) as Roy “The Word” Donahue and Michael Berryman (“The Hills Have Eyes”) as Gil Wachetta, but neither of them is required to do anything let alone get into their roles. You also have a creepy bartender (Bob Rumnock), a cold blonde (Jessica Morris), and a crazed Blackjack dealer (Rico Simonini). Yes, that means there are five ghosts just like there are five cards in a poker hand, whether it is aces over eights or not. Now that a blood relative of the man who killed them has showed up they want to even things up by killing five of the six. At least this is an interesting idea: one of them is guaranteed to get out alive. I saw something similar in another horror film earlier this month, but neither one of them really exploits the idea, which could get pretty intense when the choice between death or life comes down to you and the one that you love. But “Dead Man’s Hand” does not go in that direction. In fact, it takes a long time to get around to much of anything happening that would be on interest to horror fans.

This 2007 film is directed by Charles Brand for Full Moon Pictures, which Brand started after Empire Pictures collapsed in the 1980s. Brand has produced a couple hundred movies under assorted names and directed a couple dozen films, and come up with story ideas for a bunch as well, most notably the “Puppetmaster” trilogy. The script is by August White (“Doll Graveyard”) and if this 80-minute film were a 30-minute episode of some television horror anthology it would be a whole lot better because basically it take way too long for what little happens in this film to start happening. There are quantitative and qualitative problems with the camp half of the equation here, and by the time we get to see the evil faces of the ghosts they look silly rather than horrific or even campy. This is a low-budget quickie and it shows. Rating: 2 / 5

I was not aware of region codes on Blu rays until now. A quick check on the web indicates about 30% of releases are region coded.

Unfortunately there is no warning on the outer casing or on the description that the disc is region 1.

Otherwise the bundle is a good mix of action genres… Rating: 3 / 5