2007: A Classic Year Ahead? November 29, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info , add a commentHear that? That’s the sound 2006 makes as it tears through the air, cracks on up, up, up to the upper atmosphere and finally disappears with a barely audible popping noise into the maw of history. Another year. Gone.
Well, practically. For us fans of older films, there haven’t been too many momentous announcements recently, and for the first time in several years, we’re heading into the new year unsure of what treats are in store with relatively few official announcements.
There are plenty of clues for what is, and what might be, heading our way in 2007 strewn around, however, if you know where to look. For instance, Universal has very quietly announced the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection Volume 2 for release next March, with some of Fields’ finest work: You’re Telling Me, The Man On The Flying Trapeze, The Old-Fashioned Way, Poppy, and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. There are trailers for each title and what sounds like a throwaway featurette Wayne and Schuster Take an Affectionate Look at W.C. Fields.
In both R1 and R2, Sony intends to release Here Comes Mr Jordan (extras free, but this is Sony) alongside an R2 Ship of Fools in February, and the following month, it seems the UK is to get new special editions of A Man for All Seasons and The Guns of Navarone. Death Wish 3 and Death Wish 4 (not my cup of tea, but someone will probably rejoice at the news) follow, as will My Sister Eileen. In June, R2 will also get more titles long out in R1: Bitter Victory, Fail-Safe and Gun Fury. Also in the UK, Universal offers the Douglas Sirk Collection in January: All I Desire, All That Heaven Allows, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, The Tarnished Angels and Written on the Wind.
Deep breath now, thanks to Zetaminor.com, we’re going to look at what Optimum has for us in the first quarter in R2. Since their takeover by Studio Canal, the British (now Franco / British, I suppose) label’s output has been phenomenal. However, they’ve not always hit the target quality wise, so caveat emptor, gentle reader.
In January we have Belle de Jour, a 40th Anniversary Edition, with such listed features as History of a Film, a commentary by Professor Peter W. Evans, and a theatrical trailer. This is closely followed by The Luis Buñuel Collection (eight discs packaged in two digipacks, in a slipcase: Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Tristana, The Milky Way, That Obscure Object of Desire, The Phantom of Liberty, La Joven (The Young One)). The set will feature Making of… documentaries for seven of the films.
Optimum continues their Comic Icons series (their Tony Hancock set featured two dreadful transfers carried over from the days of the Studio Canal / Warner deal) with The Leslie Phillips Collection, four disc set containing Please Turn Over, Watch Your Stern, No Kidding and Crooks Anonymous, with commentary by Phillips, although this still has to be confirmed. In the same series, The Frankie Howerd Collection, a ‘three disc’ set containing Up Pompeii and Up The Chastity Belt, there’s also been some speculation that the mysterious third disc might be The House in Nightmare Park. Again TBC, but I do hope so.
The Comic Icons theme also debuts The Terry-Thomas Collection, a six-disc set containing School For Scoundrels, His and Hers, Private’s Progress, Make Mine Mink, Too Many Crooks and The Naked Truth), plus The Sidney James Collection, a three-disc set containing The Big Job, Make Mine a Million and The Lavender Hill Mob.
I’m looking forward to Optimum’s disc of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort; the current R1 has dreadful audio. They’ve also scheduled a January release for Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, a two-disc set in Amaray case with metallic board slipcase. This features a ‘new and exclusive Roeg interview; Watching the Alien documentary; trailer; DVD-Rom featuring pages from the theatrical campaign brochure’.
In February we have The Go-Between (alarmingly, it looks like it might feature the same open-matte transfer as the newspaper giveaway from several months ago), and Stephen Frears’ The Grifters. Also February, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, the Narrow Margin (lord knows which version however), and the David Essex double That’ll Be The Day and Stardust. Look out too for Highlander; Immortal Edition in an ‘embossed steel tin including artcards; newly-created extra features (TBC); new hour-long retrospective documentary; new audio commentary by director Russell Mulcahy (TBC); “soundtrack / music video disc” (TBC).
February also sees David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive; Collector’s Edition, featuring Making of… documentary and interviews, plus 20-page booklet ‘extracting Lynch on Lynch’, special packaging and artcards, The John Sayles Collection (three UK DVD debuts: Lianna, Return of the Secaucas Seven and Brother From Another Planet), and possibly most exciting, an Early Hitchcock Box Set; Blackmail, Murder!, The Ring, The Farmer’s Wife, Rich & Strange, The Skin Game, The Manxman, Number Seventeen and Champagne.
In March we have The L-Shaped Room, The Raging Moon, Darling, The Jean-Luc Goddard Collection Volume One; Alphaville, Pierrot le Fou, Une Femme Est Une Femme, Le Petit Soldat, A Bout de Souffle, La Chinoise and Made in the USA. Steve McQueen fans in R2 might like Wanted: Dead or Alive, Series One Volume Two, a five-disc set containing twenty more episodes of the Western series. Features photo’ gallery and Life In The Fast Lane featurette.
Also March: Emmanuelle; Special Edition, featuring interview with director; Emmanuelle - An Erotic Success (52m documentary, “new to DVD”) plus a booklet containing behind-the-scenes stills, Fu Manchu Double-bill - The Castle of Fu Manchu and The Blood of Fu Manchu, and the Classic Horror Collection; The Beast Must Die, I, Monster, Night of the Eagle, Black Sabbath, Circus of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, Ghost Ship and Doctor Crippin, all available separately.
Look out too for two boxes entitled Screen Icons, the first with the delectable Julie Christie (The Go-Between, Billy Liar, Far From The Madding Crowd and Darling), the second with the delicious Catherine Deneuve (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Belle de Jour, Donkey Skin, Manon 70).
Later on in the month Sweeney! and Sweeney 2, and then, yum, Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom: Special Edition in a slipcase containing an Amaray case; The Eye of the Beholder documentary (30m); The Strange Gaze of Mark Lewis documentary (25m); booklet containing essay by Ryan Gilbey and interview with screenwriter Leo Marks; behind-the-scenes production stills; commentary by Powell expert Ian Christie.
Network has announced the titles (no details yet) on its first quarter schedule of R2 titles, which includes the usual mix of films new to DVD, those - because of their arcane deal with Granada Ventures - replicated by DD Home Entertainment and those replacing out of print Carlton / Granada versions: January - Kidnapped (which version? My guess is the 1971 Delbert Mann film, but it could even be one of the many TV adaptations), John Mills in H.G. Wells The History of Mr Polly, Carve Her Name With Pride Special Edition, The League of Gentlemen Special Edition and Mason and Lockwood in The Man in Grey. February - British produced Charles Bronson spring/autumn romance Twinky, The Four Feathers, the Mike Bentine comedy The Sandwich Man, Peter Finch in Simon and Laura, Hawk the Slayer, and I think that’s the ‘71 crime drama Assault on the list. March - Alec Guinness in the marvellous The Card, The Tamarind Seed, Bronson again in The Evil That Men Do, Hell Drivers and the previously postponed Things to Come, curiously, no longer an SE.
Still in R2, and over at DD Home Entertainment, finally - finally - George Formby fans have something to shout about in January with the release of Boots! Boots! (1934), and in March, Sidney Hayers Revenge (1971), the Holmes spoof Without a Clue, 1937’s Fire Over England and The Tamarind Seed.
Criterion looks to hit 2007 running, pop over to their forthcoming page for the low down (though you won’t see there that Criterion has let it slip Salo will make a reappearance next year, and dropped a heavy hint that they’ll release The Naked City); I’m looking forward enormously to Sidney Gilliat’s Green for Danger, which was announced completely out of left field. In the UK, Eureka say that their Masters of Cinema range will be extended by 2007 releases of Shoah and F For Fake early in the new year, later on among the goodies coming we’re told to expect a defintive 2-disc Nosferatu, plus Tabu: A Story of The South Seas and The Blue Angel.
No sign of that promised Ernest Hemingway Collection from Fox, but apparently Blood and Sand will be amongst their early ‘07 releases for R1 that also includes, among a handful of Doris Day titles, Caprice. Come February, Fox releases The Alice Faye Collection: That Night in Rio, Lillian Russell, On the Avenue, The Gang’s All Here, while in March three postponed westerns finally make their appearance, the 1939 Jesse James, the following year’s The Return of Frank James, and 1957’s The True Story of Jesse James.
In R1 from Warner, we know there’s a terrific looking Robert Mitchum Signature Collection in January (Angel Face, Macao, Home from the Hill, The Sundowners, The Good Guys & the Bad Guys and The Yakuza) and that Literary Classics Collection (Billy Budd, Captain Horatio Hornblower, Madame Bovary (1949), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 & 1952 Double Feature) and The Three Musketeers(1948)) the same month. Performance is coming February in both R1 and R2, alongside (R1 only this one) The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner (we’ll see if Warners transfer can better the OOP R2 from the BFI; still available at some etailers if you want to snap it up…), and they’ve flagged a new SE of Cool Hand Luke for 2007, the film’s 40th anniversary. Thanks to this year’s Warner/HTF Chat, we know Warner is also looking at Quo Vadis, that multi-disc edition of Blade Runner is definitely coming and we await those Kubrick SEs with great interest.
The Clock is coming, we may also see The Pirate plus a box set of the four ‘let’s put on a show’ musicals that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland made (Babes in Arms, Babes on Broadway, Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy), and the Ginger Rogers’ RKO films such as Vivacious Lady, Bachelor Mother, and Once Upon a Honeymoon. We might get a set of Andy Hardy films next year, or ‘08, and there’s a likelihood of another Joan Crawford box including Flamingo Road, plus The Strawberry Blonde in a James Cagney set. Glenn Ford may be boxed (pardon the expression), and Warner say it will put together another Errol Flynn boxset in 2007 including Gentleman Jim and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Hell, with Warner claiming they will probably market up to two box sets a month next year, we’ll all have to dig deep, or at least be very, very choosy (or win The Lottery; I’m easy) - another Powell/Loy collection, a box of Allied Artists films, Warner has stated that Twilight’s Last Gleaming will be part of a Burt Lancaster boxset next year, another Lon Chaney collection with Tell it to the Marines, He who gets Slapped and both versions of Unholy Three being restored from the original camera negative, A Summer Place is a possibility next year as well as a Natalie Wood boxset, and releases for The Hill, the O’Toole Goodbye Mr Chips, plus some other unnamed Delmar Daves films. Warner is still looking for 35mm film elements for the full length 102 minutes of The Sea Wolf. They say they have 16mm elements of it, but will continue to look for the very best that’s out there; fingers crossed. Also a lip-smacking prospect is a The Man Who Would Be King SE for ‘07.
Film Noir Box Four may contain Anthony Mann’s Side Street, and look out for some more MGM musicals - a makeover for the current iteration of Garland’s A Star is Born and the ‘37 version too - and possibly, to accompany their That’s Entertainment set, That’s Dancing. Possibly around September or maybe a little after (to hit the Christmas ‘07 market), Warner has said they’ll be doing a new Dirty Harry SE Collection, will ‘all-new’ extras.
It’s Bonnie and Clyde’s 40th birthday next year so, say those brothers Warner, watch out for a SE. Executive Suite is slated for 2007, Carbine Williams is ‘a possibility’ for the second James Stewart boxset, and - huzzah - a 2-Disc SE of Deliverance has been scheduled; John Boorman’s commentary is already in the can.
I don’t know about you, but I feel distinctly impecunious already; and, alarmingly, I’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s to come during 2007…