Confessions of an Opium Eater
Albert Zugsmith’s shining moment in an amiably disreputable career that nonetheless included producing pix by Sirk, Welles and Jack Arnold. Only Fu Manchu is missing from this hypnotically retrograde yellow peril hallucination starring Vincent Price and half the Asian actors in Hollywood. Amazingly, in 1959 William Castle was originally set to shoot this in color with Miiko Taka, star of Sayonara–in Tokyo!
Although Joe laments the home video unavailability of this title in his commentary from several years ago, we’re happy to report that Warner Archive has since issued a stellar transfer that captures all the weirdo beauty of this uniquely odd movie.
More Trailers with Joe Dante
About Joe Dante
Joe Dante is a lifelong film buff who turned his obsession into a career. He got his start cutting trailers for Roger Corman and later directed the hit movie Gremlins, as well as Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Innerspace and Small Soldiers for producer Steven Spielberg. His feature films include The Howling, Piranha, Matinee, The ‘burbs , Looney Tunes Back in Action, The Hole (first winner of the 3D Persol Award at the Venice Film Festival) and the zom-com Burying the Ex. His TV directing work includes: Police Squad, Amazing Stories, the HBO film The Second Civil War, the Masters of Horror titles Homecoming and The Screwfly Solution, and episodes of Eerie, Indiana, CSI: NY, Hawaii 5-0, Witches of East End, Legends of Tomorrow and Salem. His most recent big screen credit is an episode of the anthology film Nightmare Cinema. He’s currently consulting producer on the Amblin Television/Warner Bros. Animation hit, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.
Joe is also the frequent co-host of Trailers From Hell’s official podcast, The Movies That Made Me, available everywhere podcasts are streamed and downloaded!