With this viewing, I think I'd probably knock two-tenths of a point off the film as a whole. The Blu-Ray looks terrific and is a must-have improvement over the old DVD-R that was released. But seeing it look this good drove him the editing problem I had with Sturges' failure to show Asner and Sutton murdering John Anderson and Henry Beckman in the opening, and also failing to even show us their dead bodies later. The narrative gap I was concerned with earlier, such as why are Maharis and Anne Francis interested in an abandoned car where they end up finding the flasks hidden in the river also stuck out so much with me that I was rewinding the film to see if I missed something.The Satan Bug (1964) 7 of 10.
-I watched this not too long ago when the DVD-R came out to less than stellar reception because of the lack of a new transfer (though it is anamorphic). Last time I was more self-consciously bothered by how Sturges showed too much restraint in the opening scenes that made it tough for the viewer to grasp what was happening (his not showing the dead bodies of Henry Beckman and John Anderson doesn't help either). THis time, I watched with that more careful "second viewing" (even though overall it's probably my fifth or sixth viewing of the film over the years) and it was a better experience. Even so, I think there's an overall incompleteness to certain things and too many ideas are developed way too fast. I'd sure like to know what additional scenes might have been shot and cut to see if they improved the narrative a bit.
Glenn Erickson's commentary track did clear up this gap in the plot. It turned out there was an additional scene shot to set up the fact that Richard Basehart had admitted getting a flat tire and needing to hitch a ride home, which is why Maharis was interested in finding out about the car and then getting led to where the stolen flasks were hidden. The absence of this scene was inexcusable IMO.
While Erickson's commentary was helpful in that regard, and while I also didn't mind his comparison of the film with Alastair MacLean's original novel, it is also veered off into one of those infuriating pieces of drivel where film buffs go off on unrelated tangents (for instance I had to suffer a five minute digression on Howard Hughes changing an early 50s movie of some blacklisted writer from post-war Nazi plot to Communist plot just so Erickson could regurgitate every stale cliché about the "Red Scare" era of filmmaking) or quote social critics making deeper insights about a movie than are warranted. It's a commentary track worth hearing once for the good tidbits, but never to be heard again once you've absorbed that info.
Where I do agree with Erickson is that "Satan Bug" is a rare case of a film where the "McGuffin" device is front and center the film (a bio-terror weapon) and the characters are all secondary to it, even to the point where the villain's plot and purpose never makes much sense when you think about it too much. It's a film that I think is helped with hindsight in that if you're a 60s TV fanatic, the chance to see so many familiar faces from the TV world brought together makes things even more irresistible (even with Simon Oakland in a small role considerably against type). And Goldsmith's score is terrific.
), but quietly compelling and grows on you as it goes along. A very good film, if not quite a classic.