One of the first Criterion publications of the new year is likely to puzzle fans of the company who associate it almost exclusively with high art, such as the Janus Film Collection and the severe aesthetics of Bergman and Bresson. I refer to the company’s new box set, Monsters and Madmen, a four disc compendium that hits the street on Tuesday, January 9th, for $79.95. Monsters gathers together two rare Boris Karloff films from the late 1950s, together with two sci-fi films from the same period, all executive produced by Richard Gordon, who, with his brother Alex, comprise a rather remarkable chapter of minor film history. Close students of Criterion will recall that the company issued Fiend Without a Face back in 2001, and this box completes, or at least continues, Criterion’s excavation of Gordon’s work, done in collaboration with the enthusiastic writer and researcher Tom Weaver, author of numerous McFarland books on subjects such as John Carradine. The Gordon collection is all part of Criterion’s occasional forays into the offbeat genre material, such as their Beastie Boys collection of a few years back, and of some recent releases such as Equinox, all of which may have been part of a genre imprint that Criterion was contemplating initiating for a time.

The box contains, in the order in which I viewed them, Corridors of Blood (1958), The Haunted Strangler (1958), The Atomic Submarine (1959), and First Man Into Space (1959) (Fiend was released in 1958). The first two are the Karloff films, and are surprisingly good, as long as you don’t expect Psycho. The second two are the militaristic sci-fi films, the first execrable, the second somewhat better (but still without the iconic rightness of Fiend).

Corridors of Blood packs a lot of story into its short running time, and covers a tall social canvas. It’s about the search by an elderly but still idealistic British doctor in the 1800s seeking to invent anesthetics. Like Dr. Jekyll, he ends up experimenting on himself, which leads to mood changes and physical incompetency, but also falls into the hands of a band of lower class louts, among them Christopher Lee, that sells corpses to the very medical school where the doctor performs. The script, credited to Jean Scott Rogers, is quite clever, but calling it a horror film is something of a stretch. Put, say, Joel McCrea in the role, as he was in the similar The Great Moment by Preston Sturges, and it is more like a period drama. Indeed, Corridors of Blood is much like one of those short films from MGM in the 40s about science or american history, just more nuanced and complex. One of the film’s “ironies,” is that the doctor most contemptuous of Karloff’s endeavors is the most rapacious client of the graverobbers. The film is also remarkably contemporary, with Karloff descending into the depths of addiction, sucking on his elaborate smoking device like it was a crack pipe. Also, look for Bond’s Q in the background of some of the operating theater scenes.

This disc supersedes an Image release of 1998, but though the black and white, full frame transfer mostly looks good, there are some defects, such as a hair in the gate around the 35:24 time code. The static, musical menu offers 15 chapter scene selection for the 86 minute movie, and like most of the discs in the set, there is an audio commentary track with Gordon, conducted by Weaver, a short 15 minute making of that features video interviews with director Robert Day and cast member Francis Matthews, and audio interview with actress Yvonne Romain (who is married to the composer who wrote the theme song to Goldfinger), a short survey of censor cuts, the trailer, and a gallery of promotional stills.

The Haunted Strangler is a another Jekyll and Hyde tale, with a little over flow into the investigator-looking-for-himself genre (like Angel Heart). In this case a prominent writer (Karloff) is attempting to prove that the man hanged for a series of Jack the Ripper like murders is innocent. Karloff is most engaging as the writer, and the role demands a surprising level of emotional variation. It’s slow paced, but never unconvincing, and the filmmakers got a lot out of a little.

Haunted features another yak track by Weaver and Gordon, a 12-minute making of with interviews with director Day, writer Jan Read, and cast members Jean Kent and Vera Day, along with the trailer, radio spots, and a stills gallery.

Not so hot is The Atomic Submarine, a woeful tale in which a sub is sent to the North Pole to track down the reason for a series of naval disasters. The solution proves to be a flying saucer that swims, using the magnetic field to recharge itself. The film stars Arthur Franz, a familiar face, as the sub first mate, and Brett Halsey as a scientist. George Sanders’s brother, Tom Conway, sonambulizes his way through the story, also as a scientist. Special effects are laughable and the “monster,” when finally seen, is atrocious. The film comes narrated by an officious voice, and the film in general evokes memories of The Thing, but it is inconsistent in all ways great and small. For example, a frogman on board asks for a locker to store his stuff, and is told that there are no lockers. Then, five minutes later, you can see a wall of lockers in the background of a shot with another character.

Extras are another commentary with Gordon, but augmented with taped interviews with his late brother Alex, plus an entertaining and frank interview with Halsey in the making of, the trailer, and a stills gallery.

Finally, there is First Man Into Space. Like Sub, it starts out like some kind of military tale, but when the pilot always striving to climb higher is infused with space dust, he comes back to earth a monster. His brother (Marshall Thompson, another familiar face — indeed, he even resembles Franz — and who was also in Fiend) seeks to help him out, but fails. Unlike Sub, this film is well-written, well-acted, and well-shot. Only the eventual manifest appearance of the monster drags things down. Supplements include another track by Weaver and Day, and a brief making of with video interviews with director Day and some cast members, trailer, radio spots, and a stills gallery.

All the commentaries were recorded in 2003, with the promotional material shot shortly thereafter, which gives an idea how long these items were either on the shelf or in the works. The four films come in two dual disc keep cases, housed in a box. There are two companion booklets of 24-pages each. The Karloff films booklet contains a terrific essay by Maitland McDonagh, who gives a summary of the remarkable career of the Gordon brothers. In addition to chapter titles, cast and crew, DVD credits, and transfer information, there are excerpts from the memoirs of John Croydon, the producer, whose thoughts were only printed in Fangoria magazine. To accompany the sci-fi films, there are essays by Michael Lennick and Bruce Eder. Packaging is nifty, with imagery that evokes the starlite, deluxe 1950s of bowling alleys, sci-fi magazines, and coasters.

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