Hip, Hot and 21/Hot Thrills and Warm Chills [Special Edition]

"Dale Berry was a Texas-based director of frantic sexploitation movies that featured plenty of cantilevered women and more inexplicable plot twists than you could shake a stick at, and two of his enjoyably puzzling efforts are featured on this two-fer DVD release from Something Weird Video. Both Hip, Hot and 21 and Hot Thrills and Warm Chills have been transferred to disc in their original full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1. While the prints for both pictures show occasional signs of wear (especially Hot Thrills and Warm Chills, which has a few blunt splices and a very noticeable tear across several frames), for the most part they look quite good for nudies of their era, and the transfers are sharp and well detailed. The audio for both films has been mastered in Dolby Digital Stereo, preserving the original monophonic sound mix for both movies; the mastering was performed from the optical tracks of the prints, and sounds as good as can be expected from the source material. Something Weird includes their usual array of bonus goodies on this disc, including three vintage peep-show reels (silent with music), trailers for three Southern-themed sexploitation titles, and a slideshow of cover artwork from movie-related '60s men's magazines (this particular item has appeared on a number of Something Weird titles and perhaps should be retired soon). Dale Berry's wonderfully shambolic movies certainly deserve wider circulation, and Something Weird have done a great job bringing these two movies to DVD -- sleaze enthusiasts will want to put this at the top of their want lists."