The Deadly Mantis Blu-ray - William Hopper

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

Directed by Nathan Juran
USA 1957

What’s worse than a horde of locusts? A gigantic man-eating praying mantis, released from a million years of deep, frozen sleep and ready to claw its way to world domination! This menacing insect kills everything in its path while scientists and military men work feverishly to stop it. Craig Stevens (Abbott And Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde) stars as the commander in charge of putting an end to this beastly insect with William Hopper (20 Million Miles To Earth) as the paleontologist and Alix Talton (The Man Who Knew Too Much) as his beautiful assistant, a photojournalist, assigned to help in this epic battle between man and mantis!

***

This is the one in which the "villain" is a huge, carnivorous praying mantis. After the titular insect has attacked several people in a remote Arctic region, Col. Joe Parkham (Craig Stevens) swings into action. Parkham and his associates, Dr. Ned Jackson (William Hopper) and Ned's assistant Margie Blake (Alix Talton), track the predatory mantis as it heads southward to Washington DC (how did it get past customs?) The green monstrosity meets its Waterloo in "Manhattan Tunnel," where it is bombarded with poison gas (a little Raid or Black Flag might have come in handy). Some of the Arctic scenes in The Deadly Mantis were clumsily culled from the 1933 drama SOS Iceberg and a handful of Air Force training films.

Excerpt from B+N located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: May 1st, 1957

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Review: Shout! Factory - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Shout! Factory - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:18:36.002
Video	1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 30,742,620,853 bytes Feature: 23,491,037,184 bytes Video Bitrate: 36.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	DTS-HD Master Audio English 1631 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1631 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit) Commentary: Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Shout! Factory 1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 30,742,620,853 bytes Feature: 23,491,037,184 bytes Video Bitrate: 36.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • NEW Audio Commentary With Film Historians Tom Weaver • Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Episode “The Deadly Mantis” (02/22/97 - 1:32:16) • Theatrical Trailer • Still Gallery (7:56) Blu-ray Release Date: March 19th, 2019 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 12

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Shout! Factory bring one of the quintessential low-budget 50s, campy, Universal creature-features, The Deadly Mantis, to Blu-ray. It's on a dual-layered disc in 1080P with a max'ed out bitrate. the short-ish film exports some consistent and impressive grain, decent, if not overwhelming contrast, and a reasonably clean and pleasing image. The film is loaded with scratchy and damaged stock footage from US Air Force planes to Eskimo children and they look poor - as I'm sure they did originally.

The film is transferred in a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel mono track at 24-bits. The film features modest sound effects but they have a modicum of depth sounding authentically flat. The score is surprisingly dramatic, original and these well-established cues benefits the presentation uncredited to freelancers Irving Gertz (The Alligator People, Plunder Road, It Came From Outer Space, Blonde Ice among others) and William Lava (Moonrise, S.O.S. Tidal Wave, War Arrow, The Night Riders, Retreat, Hell!) that sounds clear in the lossless adding flavor. The dialogue is consistent and audible. There are optional English subtitles on this Region 'A' Blu-ray.

Shout! Factory include a very amusing audio commentary by Tom Weaver who reminds us of film's may failings without specifics of the modest budget (including cast costs) and development - love the Donald Trump sound-bite! It is fun and worth the indulgence touching on a dissatisfied Mara Corday and Joe Dante's Matinee (with 'Mant'!). There are some later comments read by David Schecter about the score etc. More mocking of The Deadly Mantis comes with a SD version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Episode from 1997 - for an entire presentation of the film. There is also a trailer and stills gallery.

This is one of the 'so bad it's good' variety of innocent 50's creature-features. The Blu-ray transfer is as good as we are eve likely to get and the commentary and other extras poke fun and inform on the era and wonderfully nostalgic sub-genre. I loved it... cheesy as heck and too silly not to appreciate. Recommended!