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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Devil Monster (1946)

Devil Monster (1946) (NTSC)

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Released 18-Feb-2011

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Cult None
Rating ?
Year Of Production 1946
Running Time 63:50
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By S. Edwin Graham
Studio
Distributor
Gryphon Entertainment Starring Barry Norton
Blanche Mehaffey
Jack Barty
Terry Grey
Jack Del Rio
Mary Carr
William Lemuels
Maya Owalee
Donato Cabrera
Case Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI Box Music None Given


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.37:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

     Six years after a boat goes missing in the south seas, some bodies are discovered on a remote island. Louise (Blanche Mehaffy), girlfriend of missing crew member Jose (Jack Del Rio), and his mother are convinced Jose is alive and prevail upon Robert Jackson (Barry Norton), who loves Louise, to search for Jose on his next voyage. With Robert’s father Captain Jackson (J. Barton) and ship’s cook/crewman Tiny (Terry Grey) they search the South Sea islands and succeed in finding Jose. However he is very happy living amid the natives and has fallen in love with the chief’s daughter Maya (Maya Owalee), so he refuses to leave. When the Jackson’s abduct Jose, of course they put him in control of the ship. In revenge he steers the ship into the waters of the great devil fish; a giant mantra ray.

     Devil Monster is a real mess. It is, in fact, a re-edited version of footage shot for The Sea Fiend (1936), itself not a particularly good film. Devil Monster uses recut and re-edited scenes from The Sea Fiend, travelogue footage of various natives, South Seas and otherwise, stock footage of islands and palm trees and natural history, such as sequences of seals and sea lions or a fight between an octopus and a moray eel that goes on for about 7 minutes and has nothing to do with the story. Not that there is much story anyway. A voiceover narration is used to link this diverse material and to tell us what is happening, which is just as well as the acting is poor. Director S. Edwin Graham has only these two titles on his resume; enough said.

     Devil Monster is included in the six film, 3 DVD collection The Devil at Work, a box set from Gryphon of devilish tales from the 1930s to 1970s. The full list is The Devil’s Daughter (1939) and Devil Monster (1946) on disc 1, Devil’s Partner (1963) and Beast of the Yellow Night (1971) on disc 2 and How Awful About Alan (1970) and Good Against Evil (1977) on disc 3.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     Devil Monster is presented in 1.33:1, and is not16x9 enhanced. The original ratio was 1.37:1.

     This is a very poor print that shows evidence of just about every film or video artefact known! There are frequent scratches and both positive and negative artefacts, the image is very soft, lacking in detail with blacks gray and shadow detail non-existent. However, by far the most distracting aspect of the print is the macro-blocking and ghosting that effects most of the footage (see from 1:47 or the sea lions around 10:01 but you don’t have to look too hard for examples), as well as noise, grain and tape tracking errors. This DVD was mastered from an inferior analogue source, and it shows.

     A number of times, including 13:17 and 33:44, a colour “Mill Creek” logo appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It is quite distracting.

     There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is an English Linear PCM track at 1536 Kbps. The voiceover narration is OK although effects are non-existent with music basically the only thing in the audio other than dialogue and narration. There is hiss, crackles and the odd drop out in the audio

     No composer is credited. The score is a mix of styles and sounds like newsreel music.

     Lip synchronization was sometimes badly off, as the original dialogue from The Sea Fiend was replaced in this re-edit.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

     None

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

     The film is available in Region 1 US as part of a double bill with Bowanga, Bowanga (1941). I have no information about the audio and video of that release.

     I cannot find any equivalent of The Devil at Work package in any region.

Summary

     Devil Monster uses re-edited scenes from The Sea Fiend, travelogue footage of various natives, stock footage of islands and palm trees and natural history plus a voiceover narration to tell us what is happening. The video is very bad, the audio not much better.

     Devil Monster is included in the six film, 3 DVD collection The Devil at Work, a box set of devilish tales from the 1930s to 1970s from Gryphon for a RRP of $19.95.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ray Nyland (the bio is the thing)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Review Equipment
DVDSony BDP-S350, using HDMI output
DisplayLG 42inch Hi-Def LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderNAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationNAD T737
SpeakersStudio Acoustics 5.1

Other Reviews NONE