Author: Sandy Ferber

Bluebeard directed by Edward Dmytryk

It’s funny, but I always thought the Bluebeard character was based on a real-life historical figure, much as Vlad the Impaler had been the inspiration for Dracula, Gilles de Rais inspired Paul Naschy’s Alaric de Marnac, and the Countess Elizabeth Bathory was the obvious basis for Delphine Seyrig’s vampiric Countess Bathory in Daughters of Darkness. But a little research reveals that Bluebeard was rather the creation of French author Charles Perrault, and first appeared in a collection of the author’s fairy tales in 1697. The basis for no less than six cinematic treatments,

Cronos directed by Guillermo del Toro

Very recently, this viewer watched, for the first time, the 1958 Mexican film The Vampire’s Coffin, in which the Count Lavud – a bloodsucker very much in the traditional, uh, vein – returns to continue his nocturnal depredations. And just last night, for the first time also, I watched another Mexican film dealing with a man who has a decided thirst for blood, Guillermo del Toro’s first film as a director, 1993’s Cronos. This latter picture, however, coming 35 years after the other,

The Time Tunnel from Irwin Allen

By the time Irwin Allen’s The Time Tunnel premiered on ABC TV on September 9, 1966, the versatile producer/director/screenwriter had already released two hugely successful television programs. His first, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, itself based on Allen’s 1961 film, ran for four seasons, from 1964 – ’68, and can almost be viewed as Star Trek underwater (actually, since Voyage preceded Trek by two years, it would be more accurate to say that Star Trek was Voyage…