Vive La DVD! February 1, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info , trackbackStill playing catch-up, and there have been quite a few mouth-watering announcements and discoveries recently, which I feel, dear reader, I must share…
Since my last couple of round-ups - see the posts here and here - of what’s upcoming for classic movie fans, there has been news which will make many a classic movie fan’s bank manager tremble, and much of it, you may not be surprised to learn, emitting from the Studio Canal catalogue…and on both sides of the Atlantic.
Last summer’s deal that Lionsgate sealed with Studio Canal - which gives the R1 based outfit access to over 2,000 of the films the French company has the rights to - is bearing fruit, first in the shape of a nicely priced Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Set (due any time now), three discs with The Manxman, Rich And Strange, The Skin Game, Murder! and The Ring, plus a 15 minute ‘talking heads’ featurette, all for a very reasonable $39.98.
And in April, they are releasing a Jean Renoir Boxset - La fille de l’eau, Nana, La Marseillaise, Sur un air de Charleston, La petite marchande d’allumettes, Le testament du Docteur Cordelier, and Le caporal épingle for just $29.98. I’d buy it just for the design of the packaging.
Early previewers have already given the thumbs up - two in fact - you’ll be glad to read, to Optimum’s (you’ll recall the UK company is now owned by Studio Canal) R2 release of Hitchcock: The Early Years (The Ring, Champagne, The Farmer’s Wife, The Manxman, Blackmail, Murder!, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange and Number Seventeen), with extras ported across from the previously lauded French set, though readers with little more than ‘O’ Level French (bonjour!) will be glad of the subtitled introductions by Director / Film Historian Noel Simsolo and documentary with Claude Chabrol and Bernard Eisenschitz. At the price - it can be had for around £26-£27 - it’s a snip.
Not officially announced but listed at various etailers, it seems that Optimum are set to release three Amicus Classics in April; At The Earth’s Core, I, Monster and The Beast Must Die (previously seen non-anamorphically in an Anchor Bay UK box, or anamorpically in a very nice R1 Dark Sky release). You’ll see from that link that a boxset is also mooted.
Perhaps slightly more interesting - mentioned previously but now up for pre-order - will be their Classic Horror Collection - Night Of The Eagle, Dr. Crippen, Ghost Ship (1952), A Bucket Of Blood (1959), Circus Of Horrors, and Black Sabbath. No box set, and no details of any extras, if any, as yet.
Optimum is also releasing The George Formby Collections - Vol. 1 (No Limit (1936), Keep Fit (1937), I See Ice (1938), Turned Out Nice Again (1941), Let George Do It (1940)) and Vol. 2, (Spare A Copper (1941), Keep Your Seats Please (1936), It’s In The Air (1938), Come on George! (1939)) plus The Dirk Bogarde Collection and The James Mason Collection, though you’ll have to play your own guessing game on those as to titles, none having even been hinted at as yet.
Come June, look out too for a Boulting Brothers Collection (these appear to be separate releases again, not a box set) - The Magic Box (which is a lovely film), The Family Way (which I have issues with…), Happy Is The Bride and Suspect. Really good to see the Boultings get some of the respect they justly deserve. Plus, the Jean Renoir Collection (a box containing La Grande Illusion - probably a cut down version of Optimum’s recent SE - Le Crime De Monsieur Lange, La Bete Humaine, Boudu Saved From Drowing) and the Jean Paul Belmondo Collection (no detail, but it is a five disc set).
Last on the Optimum front for now, all rights issues which have prevented their release on home video appear to have been resolved: Abel Gance’s majestic silent Napoleon & his 1960 film Austerlitz are getting released. Absolutely no detail as yet - so which versions, have they been restored, what extras; all questions to be answered at a later date.*
Just one snippet from Network, who still, like Optimum, have the power to delight and disappoint (usually within the same disc), they intend to release Raise The Titanic, another reissue from the old Carlton catalogue. I’m keeping my fingers crossed; their recent re-release of Carve Her Name With Pride is still non-anamorphic (and where, dammit, is that The Boys From Brazil SE?). Universal UK, who hold the rights to the RKO catalogue over here, is releasing Hawks/Nyby’s The Thing From Another World - they are claiming a ‘digital restoration’ (though it wouldn’t take too much to outshine Warners bizarrely extras free R1 ’SE’), and it will be a two-disc set with the ‘colorized’ version chucked in especially for numbskulls, or those who would like a nice shiny new coaster (as they did with their release of King Kong). The big come on is a commentary by John Carpenter…which means I’m in. I’ll let you know…
Those kings of the double-dip, Paramount, meanwhile, have announced another, albeit not unwelcome in R1. Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (the best film to feature a Sunbeam Alpine with Night of The Demon a close second. Not alot of people know that…or would want to) is getting, amongst other as yet to be announced extras, a commentary, and hopefully a slightly better transfer than last time. In May, after numerous delays, MPI finally release Becket, complete with Peter O’Toole commentary; that alone should be worth the price of the disc.
Finally, in R1 Universal have sprung a few surprises. Coming May, the Clint Eastwood: Western Icon Collection, with High Plains Drifter, Joe Kidd and Two Mules for Sister Sara, all three in anamorphic widescreen. I’ve held off High Plains Drifter for so long, hoping it would get the royal treatment, but I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath. Still, a gorgeous transfer is not too much to ask and I have high hopes.
I’m also excited about Classic Western Round-Up: Volume 1 & Volume 2 - the first with The Texas Rangers, Canyon Passage, Kansas Riders and The Lawless Breed the second with The Texans, California, The Cimarron Kid and The Man From Alamo. Look out too for Pirates of the Golden Age Movie Collection (Against All Flags, Buccaneer’s Girl, Yankee Buccaneer and Double Crossbones). Not quite as excited about these, but as I love to buckle my swash, I can hardly pass them up.
Universal is also releasing Wave 2 of their ‘Cinema Classics’ range. As I type, a couple from the first wave for winging their way across the Pond to me, and already I’m pretty stoked by what I see in Wave 2 - No Man of Her Own (Gable and Lombard), Scarface (Muni), So Proudly We Hail! (Colbert, Goddard, Lake) and Unconquered (Cooper and Goddard - as I already own the Hawks film, my pick of the bunch). The latter might suggest that Universal has canned the idea of a second Cecil B. DeMille box set; I do hope not, I’ve yet to pick up the first (hmmm - so it might be my fault…)
As you already know about them, I have no need to mention Criterion’s up and coming wonders (Brute Force - yum!) or Warners R1 plum box sets - The Errol Flynn Signature Collection 2, and The James Cagney Signature Collection. You do know about them don’t you…?
*NB - A little more info on Optimum’s Napoleon; Amazon UK is listing the disc, giving the film’s release date as 1934, some seven years after the original release. That, plus Amazon’s given running time of 135 minutes would indicate it is indeed the sound-added cut down version, and not Gance’s fully restored, original epic.
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