If you’re excited about the promos for the Ridley Scott science fiction movie coming out this summer, Prometheus… it might be a good time to visit some of the films that have been mentioned over the years as the inspirations for ALIEN, and it just so happens they’re all pretty short and all available on Netflix streaming – a perfect weekend triple bill.

Who wouldn’t love to go to L.A. from NYC via zeppelin? So what if it takes a week? Open air rear observation compartments! Farmers looking up, amazed, waving, scratching their heads in disbelief… rivers, lakes, Montana…

istaVision, it’s also what Hitch shot VERTIGO on… and now both those films too make more sense, VERTIGO especially always seemed too traveloguey for a supposed top ten of all time classic. Now, if it was on Blu-Ray I’d get it even though the DVD version I have is pretty damned good and I don’t even really love it… yet

Price’s florid hamminess fills in the sparse patches of Corman’s sometimes spare mise en scene, and the sparseness conversely gives Price lots of room to floridly ham. Add Les Baxter’s crazy scores, some good freaky psychedelic California painters to make the portraits of dead and evil
uncles and incestuous sisters and flowing red paint credits, and sharp scripts by Richard Matheson and pre-CHINATOWN Robert Towne, and viola!

Homicidal gang debs, tripping youth, murderous charismatic hippie cult leaders,German lesbian junkie spies, sexy German terrorists: 6 Rare, Strange, awesome films (all on Netflix Streaming) from or about the late 60s-early 70s.

There’s nothing wrong with these films per se, they stir deep emotions; they move us, en masse; they spark enraptured conversation on the drive home from the mall-tiplex, are superb examples of craftsmanship, and most importantly, they make bourgeois Oscar voters feel good about themselves, and their profession; these films rub the voters’ shoulders and whisper in their wrinkly ears – “you, my darling Academy member, are the makers of our dreams.”

In darker shadowy lairs, Myrna Loy meets with her devoted astrologer, Swami Yogadaci (the ever villainous C. Henry Gordon) to figure out how and when the constellations want her to assassinate her former sorority snubbers. Loy’s the villain, ostensibly, but you’ll be rooting for her all the way (unless you’ve never felt the sting of a snubbing yourself).

Unseen for years thanks to its “dangerously progressive” attitudes towards sexual relationships outside wedlock, tomorrow, Tuesday 12/6/12! Criterion has released it in the stand-alone glory it deserves, replete with extras and an essay by the great Kim Morgan.

William is one of the great re-discovered icons of the pre-code era, exhumed by TCM like a King Tut of badass Satanic bravado and good humor, a cross between the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood and Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.

Murders are talked over via close-ups of cat statues, and a very dirty fella named Blackie gets offed by Guy Kibee (as you’ve never seen him before!).