todmichel

Quote: "I won't give away the ending, but think it was satisfying as far as it goes, but not nearly as appealing, from my angle, as the foregoing material. That brings up my one complaint: the title. By the end of the movie, we have some sense of the meaning of the title. Yet it still seems to me to feel cheesy and really unworthy of the movie." Sorry, but I think exactly the contrary. The movie is unworthy of its brilliant title, and totally unworthy of Matheson's book. Some of the scenes in deserted NY are truly impressive, but the animation effects are simply ridiculous, and the best actor remains Samantha (the dog). Will Smith seems, at times, plays another movie and sometimes overplays. And the "explanation" of the title, in the movie, is inept. The same title was PERFECT in the Matheson original.

According to John Carr himself, at first this movie was not finished. Then, some portions of the filmed materials were incorporated in the "Night Train to Terror" anthology. After that, Carr left USA for England for a time. When he came back to the USA he was amazed to find that the producers made a "complete" version of his movie, using almost all the materials filmed. This version was released on VHS as "Scream Your Head Off". Later, John Carr decided to finish his movie and shot new sequences with John Philip Law (noticeably older) and incorporated Marilyn Monroe (played by Francine York) in the story. This last (?) version is the one known as "Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars", "completed" in 1992. In résumé, there are THREE versions of this movie: - 1) one as a segment of "Night Train to Terror" - 2) the illegitimate version, "Scream Your Head Off" (in VHS only) - 3) Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars. Apparently, during the first shooting some scenes were filmed twice, with girls more or less clothed. The nude version of these scenes was shown in "Night Train to Terror". It also seems that some shots in "Night Train to Terror" were gorier than the "Marilyn" version. But it COULD have been specially filmed material by the producers of "Night Train to Terror", as it was made for the two other movies "cannibalized": "Cataclysm", and "Death Wish Club". Special sequences involving SPFX were filmed when abridged versions of these two movies were included in "Night Train to Terror".

I know very well the still showing Boris Karloff menacing Stan & Babe, often reproduced in books and magazines, but I have serious doubts about Boris playing "The Tiger" as written in different places, and in the IMDb entry for "Sous les verrous". I think Walter Long played the role in all five versions (American, Spanish, French, German and Italian). In any case, we have now the proof that it was Walter Long in the Spanish and German versions, as the first one exists on video ("De bote en bote") et a segment of the German one has been found, and shown on TV and DVD, and Walter Long plays the same role in this. If Karloff was really in the movie (whatever the version) he would have played a little role. Why ? because he wasn't fluent in French, as proved by the fact he was replaced by other actors for French-language versions of two of his films made at the same period : "The Criminal Code" (he was replaced by Daniel Mendaille in the French version, "Criminel") and "The Unholy Night" (another actor played his role in the French version, "Le spectre vert", directed in Hollywood by Jacques Feyder). So, if Karloff was replaced by French actors for the French versions of two of his movie, it seems highly dubious he replaced an American actor, Walter Long, for the French version of another movie !!! Of course, the only way to solve the problem would be to find this French version, but unfortunately it is "lost" since decades. Since the immediate post-WW2 period, the film known in France (where I live) as "Sous les verrous" is in fact a dubbed print of the American film, NOT the original French-speaking one. To date, the only French-speaking movie of Laurel & Hardy still in existence is "Les carottiers", released on DVD by Universal, which is "Be Big" and "Laughing Gravy" combined together (same thing for the Spanish versions, "Las calaveras", also available on DVD). The Italian version of "Sous les verrous" is apparently lost too.