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I was just about to order this on VHS.

The new interviews are nice but is the original film going to be included or are you just going with a redux version?

taraco wrote:

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There are many ways to approach the creative process, and the decision to incorporate older footage is perfectly appropriate, especially in the area of Lugosi, where so much has been done already.

Some of the older Lugosi 'Biography' type documentaries were pretty pro forma, and I for one look forward to this new try at telling an Old World story anew.

david

It's called butchering the original version.  If the producers want to make BELA LUGOSI: THE (whatever but forgotten) KING then I'm all for it.  However, to take an original film and chop it up or make it unavailable in its original form is no better than what George Lucas has done over the years and yeah, I'd call it an insult.  Now, if they want to make a "new" documentary and use some of the interviews from the original film as archival ones then that's all good.  TCM makes some of the greatest documentaries out there and they often go back to their vaults to use older interviews.  Peter Bogdanovich updated his John Ford documentary but he didn't destroy the older version or pretend that it didn't exist.  He made a new documentary on the subject and used the older footage in bits and pieces.  Still, both are out there and the new isn't trying to hide or overtake the original.

I've been wanting to order BELA LUGOSI: THE FORGOTTEN KING (and MONDO LUGOSI for that matter) because they're what I saw as a kid and they're what got me into Lugosi.  They weren't TCM quality but neither were the majority of the films that the documentary covered.  I will gladly buy a copy of this new version if it's an actual new film with a new title and a different page at IMDB.  However, if it's just going to be the new Lucas version then I'll go with the VHS. 

And I don't think everyone knows for certain that ALL of the original interviews with be shown complete in this new one.  If there were "issues" with the original version then they might try to either get rid of them or just leave them out of the film.

That would be just fine. In 1985 he was forgotten so let that film stand on its own. Times have changed so do a new documentary for 2012.

I've been watching A LOT of documentaries from the 60s-80s recently and the truth of the matter is that most of them suffer. It's because back in the day many people didn't have ANY chance of seeing these films so seeing clips of them in these documentaries were a blessing. THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN was unavailable to me for many, many years so the only way to see any of it was through a trailer that would show up on these docs or even just a still. I can't remember if it was this doc or MONDO but it had clips of RETURN OF THE APE MAN, which was the only way for me to see anything from that film. These documentaries were "good" back then because the films weren't so wildly available as they are today but I still don't think that's any reason to do plastic surgery on them.

I watched THE WORLD OF ABBOTT AND COSTELLO last night for the first time and I found it to be rather pointless for a number of reasons. Mainly because why watch this when it doesn't use the best material but also because all of the movies are out there. That's still no reason to cut the best down, remove the weak spots (really? opening with GO TO MARS?) and then add better narration and more talking heads.