July at the Portage…

As I’ve noted in the past, I know some guys who run a monthly genre bill at Chicago’s Portage Theater. Here’s what they’re offering on Saturday, July 24th. Tickets are ten bucks and good for the entire slate.

3:00 Jetsons, the Movie.
4:50 The Reluctant Astronaut (Don Knotts)
6:50 The Last Starfighter
8:50 Without Warning, aka It Came Without Warning

The latter, a Greydon “The Uninvited” Clarke movie, has never been out on DVD for some weird reason and is very hard to see. Basically, the movie predates Predator with its tale of an alien whose come to Earth to hunt man, using these little alien frisbee deals. Amusingly, the alien is even played by the same guy who played the first Predator, Kevin Peter Hall of Misfits of Science. Even aside from that, what a cast! Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Cameron Mitchell, Neville Brand, Ralph Meeker, a very young David Caruso, Larry Storch…whew!

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BeckoningChasm

“Without Warning” used to play on cable all the time back in the day. For a Greydon Clark movie, it’s not bad at all. Of course, I don’t think he had anything to do with the writing.
The Rev. D.D.

Aw man, I’ve wanted to see Without Warning ever since reading about it in Fangoria long ago. (It was the late ’90s, so it wasn’t that it was a new movie…it might’ve been a retrospective on Kevin Peter Hall.) Between its link to Predator and its cast I was sold.

*sigh* Maybe someday.
Rock Baker

I was fortunate enough to tape It Came Without Warning on the Movie Channel a few years ago before I cancelled the satellite. (I’d earlier gotten ahold of a bootleg tape with German subtitles or something, so getting to see a good print was a real thrill) It really is a cool movie, one I’d sometimes call the last old-fashioned B movie (but that’s certainly a title up for debate). I strongly recommend it to fans of exploitation movies. That its going to be screened in an actual theater is both exciting (that someone’s actually doing it) and irritating (because I won’t get to see it).
Rock Baker

Kinda makes you wonder how they forgot to cast John Carradine in there somewhere.
Marty McKee

WITHOUT WARNING is airing on MGM HD this month. This is a must-see, because it has undoubtedly never aired on television in widescreen before, and MGM generally does a great job of remastering its hi-def prints.
Ken Begg

Thanks, Marty! Does anybody have MGM HD?! I’m sure several of us would love copies of this film.
Rock Baker

That subtitled version I mentioned was scope, and (unless there’s another print with a larger scope) it works pretty well in academy ratio. If standard is 1:33 to 1, Without Warning looked to be about 1:35 to 1. Hardly worth the trouble, really. Still, I’d love to have as nice a copy as I can get. If someone records it (or, should it actually be aired in scope, The Green Slime), I have a spare DVD-R of Black Sabbath (Boris Karloff) I can offer as trade…

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