Showing Soon - Fields, Zulu, A Pair Of Horrors And A Prisoner… October 17, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, Showing Soon , trackbackA few snippets of U.K. news today; some good news and some not so good news…
Universal has unveiled details of it’s W.C. Fields; The Movie Collection, featuring 17 titles on 10 discs and coming at last on December 10. The full press release as found at Zeta Minor, tells us that, unlike the R1 sets there are no extras to be found. However, those extras are frankly pretty underwhelming, they are relatively expensive sets, and the U.K. box has the advantage of, I think I’m right in saying, all but two of Fields Universal titles in a single collection that can currently be found online at just over £50. Not bad.
Those titles are, I’ll remind you: Million Dollar Legs, My Little Chickadee, If I Had A Million, Tillie and Gus, Mississippi, The Bank Dick, Follow The Boys, Six of a Kind, International House, You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man, The Old Fashioned Way, You’re Telling Me, It’s A Gift, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, The Big Broadcast of 1938, Poppy and Never Give a Sucker An Even Break.
The set now includes Follow The Boys but there’s no sign of Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch or Alice In Wonderland, both listed in previous specs and possibly the cause of this box being shunted around the schedules.
December 3 sees Sony giving us yet another double-dip, but one I personally welcome for the chance to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind as I first enjoyed it 30 years ago. The blurb:
Aliens are among us again when Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30th Anniversary Ultimate Editionis released to buy on Blu-ray and DVD from 3rd December 2007, courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The Blu-ray release of popular science fiction classic, Close Encounters marks the acclaimed director Steven Spielberg’s high definition debut.
Marking the first time ever that all three versions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind are available in one package, the 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition serves up a treat for fans of this classic film.
The Blu-ray edition, Steven Spielberg’s first ever high definition release, will contain all three films on one 50GB disc (the 1977 Original theatrical edition, the 1980 theatrical Special edition and the 1998 Director’s Cut). Through a process called “seamless branching”, Blu-ray’s software identifies the differences between each version of the film and segments the footage accordingly. Extras include a new interview with Steven Spielberg, a new production scrapbook and a 90-minute making of documentary.
The DVD box set, spread across three discs, contains all three films and all the bonus material found on the Blu-ray release.
Written and directed by three-time Oscar-winner STEVEN SPIELBERG, Close Encounters of the Third Kind stars RICHARD DREYFUSS (Jaws, Poseidon) and TERI GARR (Young Frankenstein, Tootsie) and Oscar-nominated French actor/director FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT (Jules et Jim, The 400 Blows). On its original theatrical release Close Encounters was nominated for nine Oscars, winning two.
After an unsettling incident on a lonely road, working man Roy Neary (DREYFUSS) becomes obsessed with strange visions, much to the dismay of his increasingly distraught wife (GARR). Meanwhile a series of bizarre and mysterious incidents baffle scientists across the world, led by French scientist Claude Lacombe (TRUFFAUT). What is the meaning of the unusually-shaped mountain Neary keeps imagining and how will it become involved in a revelation that will change mankind’s future forever?
Nice.
And now the bad news. Both Showbox Media’s R2 discs of Hammer’s Brides of Dracula and The Evil of Frankenstein are presented, not in the original theatrical aspect ratio, but full-frame. Zeta Minor has some grabs here for ‘Brides’ and here for ‘Evil’ that compare the discs with the excellent transfers produced for R1. I don’t quite know how Showbox, better known perhaps as a purveyor of soft porn material (Doctor Screw anyone?) and a handful of ’50s British movies from Group 3 productions, has come to license these titles but their treatment of these two horrors does not bode well. I see that the BBFC has recently passed Welles’ The Stranger for release by them; be afraid, be very afraid…
As previously stated, Paramount is re-releasing Stanley Baker’s epic Zulu as a two disc ‘Special Collectors Edition’ next month. The Virgin Megastores website has a shot of the set’s back cover which reveals not too much difference between this new version and the old when it comes to extras:
Disc 1: Feature commentary with film historian Sheldon Hall and Zulu’s Second Unit Director Robert Porter.
Disc 2: The Music of Zulu / Zulu: Remembering an Epic / Teaser Trailer / The Making of Zulu: Role of Honour / The Making of Zulu: …And Snappeth The Spear in Sunder / Theatrical Trailer.
The BBFC has passed the film for this new release and hopefully it’s a gorgeous new transfer - they’ve also just passed the film for showing theatrically on DVD. And remember kids, the BBFC warns: ‘ZULU also contains mild language in the form of frequent ‘damn’ and infrequent ‘bloody’ and ‘bastard'’. Oh, I say…
It could well be that the first outing for the digital Zulu theatrically may be at the National Army Museum next month. On November 17 Doctor Sheldon Hall, who features on the Zulu DVD commentary and who is the author of the quite marvellous, meticulously researched tome Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It, The Making of the Epic Movie, is the guest speaker at the Chelsea based Museum. Zulu will be screened at the Museum at 11am and Dr. Hall will be telling the story behind the film from 2.30pm until 4pm. Full details here.
Bits and pieces; Tartan is releasing a Bergman box The Faith Trilogy, on January 7, while Network release a short series of Cuban films next month: Beloved (Amada), A Successful Man (Un Hombre de éxito), and The Twelve Chairs (Las Doce Sillas), click on each title for full details. Not featured on the Network website, but some etailers are showing they are also releasing The Adventures Of Juan Quin Quin, and Death Of A Bureaucrat.
Optimum meanwhile is - surprise, surprise - messing with their schedule. Apparently, web scuttlebutt has it that they have scrapped plans for a second George Formby ‘Comic Icons’ boxset; whether that’s due to poor sales (which can’t have been helped when the first box was released with some considerable authoring flaws) is not known, but it could be the cue for the new incarnation of DD Home Entertainment, now SimplyHE, to get it’s act together. Again, rumours have it that they are renegotiating the licenses DDHE held with Granada Ventures and Sony (for that series of Columbia titles that were mooted before DD went into administration), and we should see a return to ‘normality’ in the New Year. Over at the new SimplyHE website, you’ll find a much curtailed choice (compared to the previous DDHE site) at quite breath-taking online prices.
Optimum have pushed the planned releases of The Long Arm and Payroll to February 2008, but their new iteration of Plague Dogs will be released just before Christmas.
I am not a number…
Finally, can I put in a good word (or two) for Network’s thrilling new The Prisoner: 40th Anniversary SE U.K. R2 box set? No, it isn’t perfect. Much depends on the viewer, on just how hardened a fan you are, how steeped in ‘Prisoner’ lore, whether you see - or hear - the few errors as not much to write home (or on a forum…) about, or whether you will rent your garments asunder, weep, wail and…well, you get the idea. I won’t list them here because, frankly, I only spotted them after they were pointed out to me, and the only irritation I found in this otherwise stupendous package were the silly and irrelevent (and quite horrible) 5.1 soundtracks which are the default choice. But as the original mono sound is perfectly good, it’s a very minor issue.
The transfers are uniformly superb, night and day better than the old R4 Umbrella set, which was itself an improvment on the previous R2 Carlton box. For 40 years old television to look this good, this colourful, this sharp, is simply astonishing. Accompanying the set, and amongst the veritable cornucopia of carefully chosen, wonderfully thought out and well presented extras, is Andrew Pixley’s fabulous 288 page book of viewing notes; no critical dissection here, just page after page of intricate research, practically everythng you could want to know about McGoohan’s landmark series, from before the Arrival to after the Fall Out.
Buy it. You will not regret it. Be seeing you…
Comments»
Thanks for the W.C. Fields news! I copied your post (crediting you and linking to your site, of course) on my Booze Movies blog (boozemovies.blogspot.com). I hope that’s all right. If not, let me know.
Cheers,
garv
No that’s fine. Booze movies? What a strange coincidence, I was just reading this piece…:
http://www.drunkard.com/issues/03_06/0306_peckinpah.html
…the other day, most of which is very hard not to agree with.
Actually, I’m a columnist for Modern Drunkard Magazine. I wrote an article on the history of “Soused Cinema,” and I now have a column of the same name. I also wrote a piece on W.C. Fields for MDM.