Long Live Alpha

I love Alpha Video.

Alpha is a wonderful DVD company that puts out very affordable versions of Poverty Row and other Grade B, C, D and even Z movies. The most bottom of the barrel, cheaply filmed, public domain horror, mysteries, westerns, thrillers, 1950s TV shows, etc.

Alpha does a great job with their color covers, and most of all the price is right. They can be mail ordered from the manufacturer for about $5 each. (www.oldies.com).

And that’s about what they’re worth.

That’s not meant as a criticism. Alpha satisfies a yearning in the film collector to watch titles that have remained elusive for years, if not decades. I order many Alphas and while most of them aren’t keepers, for $5 I’m happy to at least have the opportunity to see a particular title.

For example, the other night I watched a silent Tarzan movie, “Tarzan and the Golden Lion” from 1927. Boris Karloff had a supporting role as a native chief. It wasn’t very good, I guess, but where else would I see it? The print quality was more than acceptable, and all in all, it was a pleasant way to spend an hour (58 minutes actually).

Each month Alpha releases about a dozen titles and there are always four or five titles each month that I’ve always wanted to see but never had the opportunity.

Alpha fills a very important void for film collectors. I hope they’re around for a long time.