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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (June 2024): Kino have transferred four 1940's films as part of their Republic Pictures Horror double Blu-ray Collection; The Lady and the Monster (1944), The Phantom Speaks (1945), The Catman of Paris (1946) and Valley of the Zombies (1946.) They are cited as being from "HD Masters by Paramount Pictures – From 4K Scans". In 2023 we reviewed the Imprint Blu-ray of The Catman of Paris HERE, and compared a few captures below - it appears to be the exact same with the same marks / speckles. It has the most middling quality in the set. The rest look reasonable with effective contrast for the frequent shadows - mostly strong black levels, grain texture support, a shade saturated (Valley of the Zombies) and that latter film has some excessively dark sequences. The Phantom Speaks might look the best of the four but they are all very watchable-y enjoyable. I only saw one example, HERE, of notable frame-specific damage (Catman) so I am quite pleased with the HD presentations.

NOTE: We have added 160 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use DTS-HD Master dual-mono tracks (only 16-bit) in the original English languages. There are a handful of horror related effects and a few gunshots; with atmosphere and tension mostly being advanced by the scores; on The Lady and the Monster by Walter Scharf (Spy Hunt, Deported, Abandoned, Three Violent People, Casbah, The Glass Key, Hans Christian Andersen, The Geisha Boy, Rock-a-Bye Baby) - by Edward H. Plumb (who orchestrated or composed the scores for a number of Disney films plus Monsieur Beaucaire, Calcutta, The Accused) on The Phantom Speaks and Valley of the Zombies - and by R. Dale Butts (Too Late For Tears, No Man's Woman, The Shanghai Story, Stranger at My Door, Hell's Half Acre, City That Never Sleeps) on The Catman of Paris adding drama and mystery. Kino offer optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'A'-locked Blu-rays.

The Kino Blu-ray offers five new commentaries; for The Lady and the Monster by film historian Stephen Bissette (author of SR Bissette's Brooding Creatures) and G. Michael Dobbs (author of 15 Minutes With...Forty Years of Interviews.) For The Phantom Speaks by favorite Tim Lucas (Pause. Rewind. Obsess. One Man’s One Year Escape into Cinema.) On The Catman of Paris and Valley of the Zombies by film historians David Del Valle (Six Reels Under) and Miles Hunter - and a second for Valley of the Zombies by Mr. Lucas. Bissette talks about the Republic logos (see samples below), Czech figure skater and actress Věra Helena Hrubá whose name appears before the title, the miniature models used - by brothers Howard and Theodore Lydecker, John Alton's cinematography, the great Erich von Stroheim, the large differences from Curt Siodmak's novel, a definition of 'B' films - although The Lady and the Monster is considered an 'A' film, he reads from Brian McFadden's book Republic Horrors: The Serial Studio's Chillers and much more. Tim considers The Phantom Speaks one of the more undeservedly overlooked of 1940' horror films. He explores the production through details, cast/crew information including Tom Powers - a star of Vitagraph Pictures and who later became best known for his role as Mr. Dietrichson, the victim of scheming wife Barbara Stanwyck and crooked insurance salesman Fred MacMurray in Billy Wilder's film noir classic Double Indemnity - Tim sees an early comparison to Karl Freund's Mad Love, and plenty more. It's at his usual exceptionally well-researched level. David Del Valle and Miles Hunter talk about The Catman of Paris that they find has 'charm', the year the film was made (1946,) and how horrors were going out of vogue, the film's giant 'reveal' that comes out of left field, the lack of 'monster' screen time, Republic Pictures output of over 1000 films and much more. They also talk about Valley of the Zombies with no real valley or any zombies. Also commenting on the film is Tim Lucas who calls it a "snappy little time killer with occasional flourishes of style and economy" observing the title as conflating a previous Republic double feature; Death Valley Manhunt and Zombies on Broadway. It's great - as usual. Lastly we get an hour-long 'sidebar' on The Lady and the Monster - an on-camera conversation with Tim Lucas and Steven Bissette. They talk about the premiere's co-feature being The Underdog but a week later it would share a Philadelphia theatre with Weird Woman - based on Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife. They talk about the three filmed versions of Donovan's Brain. These 'sidebars' are wonderful addition. There are also four trailers (2 per disc) supplements although none of any of the four horrors in the set. 

I own a poster of the 1953 film Donovan's Brain, hanging on my office wall, and it was such a pleasure to see George Sherman's The Lady and the Monster - an earlier adaptation of Curt Siodmak's novel starring Erich von Stroheim and having John Alton cinematography no less! After a plane crash, wealthy tycoon W.H. Donovan's brain is kept alive through an illegal experiment and it starts to possess the mind of the Doctor who performed the operation. More supernatural mind possession occurs in The Phantom Speaks. After an electric chair execution, the dead convict murderer controls the mind of Dr. Paul Renwick (Stanley Ridges), an occult medium scientist who penned a book entitled Contact with the World Beyond. Cool. Lesley Selander's The Catman of Paris was produced in conjunction with Valley of the Zombies with the intent on making it Republic's first horror film double feature. It was a 7-reeler at less than 1 hour 5 minutes. Selander also directed Flat Top, The Vampire's Ghost, Dragonfly Squadron, Flight to Mars, so certainly genre flics are part of his pedigree. Here we get some supernatural, amnesia, false-accusations, dying confessions, mysticism, and a hideous 'Catman' - essentially a horror-mystery hybrid - set in classy Gay Paree. Unfortunately, Valley of the Zombies doesn't have any zombies per se. Committed to an insane asylum, Ormand Murks (veteran character actor Ian Keith) is resurrected from the dead (by Voodoo supposedly) and continues stealing plasma, believing that frequent blood transfusions will make him immortal. Ohhh, he can also hypnotize people - as he does to his complicit brother Fred and our female lead, Susan Drake, played by Adrian Booth (aka 'Lorna Gray' after 1945) who was in So Proudly We Hail! where she took a backseat to Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake, The Man They Could Not Hang with Karloff and Red River Range with John Wayne. Valley of the Zombies has similarities to Vincent Sherman's The Return of Doctor X with Bogie as Dr. Maurice Xavier, a.k.a. Marshall Quesne. Valley has a couple of extremely dark scenes in a crypt and later a cemetery. Probably its most glaring weakness is that it runs too short to flesh out any of the film's more ominous characteristics; voodoo, blood theft, a quasi-zombie-ish vampire, hypnosis etc. Still, I enjoyed it all right. Republic Productions output included The Quiet Man (1952), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Johnny Guitar (1954) and a huge amount of serials; Adventures of Captain Marvel, Nyoka the Jungle Girl, The Invisible Monster, Flying Disc Man from Mars, Radar Men from the Moon, Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, Panther Girl of the Kongo plus many more. This 4-film horror package has immense vintage and genre appeal. The two Kino Blu-rays offer 1940's Republic horror films, five new commentaries and a valuable Lucas / Bissette 'sidebar' running almost an hour. An absolute keeper for this reviewer. I hope this is a 'Volume 1' of many more. Strongly recommended to fans.

Gary Tooze