Lost, Lonely and Vicious

Frank Myers' Lost, Lonely and Vicious (1957) arrives on DVD from Alpha Video with newly devised opening credits and -- ironically for this public-domain company -- a newly copyrighted 2004 edition. The credits, made of successive still frames with names character-generated over each panel, look and sound alright; the movie, on the other hand, is made from a worn and somewhat scratched 16 mm print that looks to be from the year of release; the image is transferred full-frame (1.33:1). The soundtrack is loud and a bit boomy, and the movie looks the way it did in the old days of one-light transfers and even TV showings of 16 mm prints. This is one of those movies where all of the teenagers are played by actors pushing 30 and identify themselves by awkward dancing or leering at the women around them; there's also a chase sequence involving voice-overs and super-imposition shots evoking guilt and recriminations that is so heavy-handed as to recall the work of Edward D. Wood Jr. at its ludicrous best. In any case, the usual Alpha Video six chapter markers apply, though the makers have wasted two whole chapters on the opening-credit sequence. The disc opens automatically on a simple three-selection single-layer menu with the "play" option in the default position.