Many of you, I am sure, like to lurk around the bargain DVD racks at your local retailer. I for one have found some real gems for 5 bucks or less in these veritable treasure troves of film both good and bad. I have scored my copies of Serial Mom, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Frogs (at the recommendation of fellow Monster Paul Bistoff’s review), The Bride, Ravenous, and countless others. If, like me, you are the bargain maniac shoveling numerous copies of Glitter onto the floor in order to get your mitts on that single disc of Altered States gathering dust on the bottom, you’ve come across the DVDs of Alpha Video.

Not the most ambitious of companies, Alpha Video uses public domain films for their catalog. Where they differ from similar companies like Platinum (who often shoehorn 4 of these freebie flicks onto a single disc then irritatingly watermark them) is that they have a little more class and love in their presentation. Any company who will distribute films like Eegah! or Manos: The Hands of Fate with a straight face, let alone packing the synopsis on the back of the case with some fascinating trivia or illustrating the front with some lusciously trashy artwork (sometimes incorporating the original lobby card elements) should be given a tip of the hat.

Of course, for every stinker they have (I mean, c’mon, Eegah!?), they give us budget-minded weirdoes some real great titles. I have gotten a boatload of old German silent films from them (including the gorgeous Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), great drive-in fare like Creature From The Haunted Sea and I Bury The Living, and much of Bela Lugosi’s underrated post-Dracula work. One of these great Lugosi discs I’ve gotten my greasy mitts on is the amazing behind-the-scenes murder mystery The Death Kiss, which serves as a goofy reminder of what fun films can be like.

A group of mobsters and a lone dame sit in a car, discussing the man whom they are about to murder in a drive-by shooting. In order to make sure the right man is shot, the dame plants a kiss (a death kiss! Dun-dun-dun!) on the target’s lips and hightails it out of there before her goons open fire, killing him. The camera pulls back, revealing a sound stage and film crew, finishing shooting of the final scene of a movie called The Death Kiss. Unfortunately, things aren’t all Hollywood smoke and mirrors: the star, Myles Brent, has actually been shot and killed, much to the chagrin of the stereotypical Jewish studio head Leon Grossmith (who actually wails "Oy! That’s gonna cost me a lotta money!"), and the imposing studio exec Joseph Steiner (played by the inimitable Bela Lugosi). They try to keep the murder under wraps (a virtually impossible feat in Hollywood) long enough for the arrogant police to deduce the real killer. All fingers point towards Marcia Lane, Brent’s ex-wife, even though practically everyone in Hollywood had a reason to kill Brent. Annoyed with the ineptitude of the police, screenwriter Franklin Drew (a rather obnoxious David Manners) decides to do a little detective work of his own to find the killer before his beloved Marcia takes the fall.

In a day and age when mysteries have to be brooding and somber, this fun Poverty Row feature is like a breath of fresh air. One of the few pictures to come out of the short-lived Tiffany Studios, The Death Kiss is grin-inducing at worst, and pure genius at its best, full of red herrings, colorful characters, some wickedly snappy dialogue, and plenty of plot twists. While Lugosi’s part is much smaller than the DVD case would have you believe, he still does a bang-up job. Also of interest is the notorious "color-tinting" of certain scenes within the film. Starting with the destruction of the dailies to hide the truth, all the way to the final catwalk shootout, fires, flashlights and gunshots take on an orange hue, which makes this pseudo-realistic film anything but. If anything, it takes on a much more surreal edge during these sometimes startling moments (the burning of the film in the projector actually made me gasp), which adds a little extra spice to an already tasty movie.

Alpha Video’s presentation of The Death Kiss is expectedly mediocre. Print damage runs rampant, including several persistent lines and plenty of white nicks. There’s also several dropouts (both in audio and video) to be seen. Audio ranges from decently clear to muddled, but never to the point of the dialogue being incomprehensible. It’s certainly not as nice as the print of the film I’ve seen on Turner Classic Movies, but it’s not the worst transfer I’ve seen. Of course, being an old public-domain feature, Alpha Video provides absolutely no extras. None. Nil. Zilch. Zero.

However, when it comes down to it, when the movie can be gotten for as little as 5 bucks, one can overlook the barebones nature of the disc. So go to your local retailer or to Alpha Video‘s website and score yourself a copy. When it costs as much as a fast-food lunch or a pack of smokes, can you really say no?