Ford at Fox; The Wait is Almost Over… November 30, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, About John Ford , trackbackThe wait is almost over.
My most anticipated release of 2007 is only a few days from entering the maw of the U.S. postal system. From there - for reasons best known to the etailer - it will travel to Sweden, across Europe, and thence to Blightly, into the hands of The Royal Mail (shudder…). HMC&E may (well, almost surely) also nab it, but, Customs charge, and RM ransom, be damned - I will at last own the 24 films, the rather hefty looking book and the rest of the paraphernalia that comprises Ford at Fox.
I’m like a kid that cannot wait for Christmas. I can hardly stand these final few days before this humongous set is mine; until then I live vicariously on the reports and reviews of others.
You’ll find details of the set in this earlier post, but as the great day approaches more information is emerging. Dave Kehr has got at least some of his review discs, and I’m heartened by his comments, posted in response to that blog entry, on the condition of Drums Along The Mohawk…
“…the transfer of “Drums Along the Mohawk” in the Ford box is indeed from new Film Foundation restoration. I don’t know what laboratory magic they worked to get around the loss of the original elements, but it looks very, very good.”
‘Drums’ is a Ford film that rarely gets the plaudits of Pappy’s breath-taking Fox output that immediately preceded and succeeded it, yet I think it is something of a miracle, even catalogued as a minor one, with some standout (typically Fordian) scenes and superb three-strip colour (it was Ford’s first colour picture) cinematography. Yes, it is newly restored - huzzah!
Over at DVD Beaver, Gary Tooze has his set and has posted some mouth-watering pictures here. He has also undertaken what promises to be a marathon review process, starting by comparing the BFI and Fox iterations of The Iron Horse here. Purty ain’t it?
I’ve no idea how true this is, but I read somewhere on the ‘net that Fox turned up a suitable print of the lengthier U.S. version 
of the The Iron Horse at the eleventh hour, making the DVD of Ford’s silent epic into a two discer after the unique packaging for Ford at Fox had been designed (I’ve also read, it has to be said, it was late added extras that pushed it to two discs - take your pick). It is the U.S. version of The Iron Horse, goes the story, which has been included in the set at the expense of Allan Dwan’s Frontier Marshall. After seeing the Beaver’s ‘caps, the truth - or otherwise - of those web rumours notwidthstanding, it underlines the fact that Fox made the right choice.
A shame about Dwan’s film, but those in the know assure us that Fox has something up their sleeve for purchasers of Ford at Fox; if not, the only way to get at Frontier Marshall, the script for which also forms the basis of My Darling Clementine, is to buy one of the three subsets on offer from Fox, and that will surely leave a sour taste in the mouths of those who have made a hefty financial commitment by buying the (almost) full set. I know several purchasers of the set who did so, not simply because they are Ford fans, but because they admired Fox’s ambition, their chutzpah, in considering this set at all, and wished to demonstrate their support for this - and hopefully similar projects - in the most tangible way possible. This from the L.A. Times:
…Good supplementary features stand as works of film history and scholarship, and some of the most valuable extras are being produced for older movies. The year’s most ambitious DVD set, the mammoth Ford at Fox box (out Dec. 4), surveys the 32-year career of the director John Ford at Twentieth Century Fox. “It’s film school in a box,” said Richard Ashton, director of classics at Fox Home Entertainment, who commissioned a new documentary by historian Nick Redmond, focusing on Ford’s relationship with studio czar Darryl F. Zanuck.
… in the case of “Ford at Fox,” entire films are being made available to viewers for the first time. Of the 24 titles in the box, 18 are new to DVD. If the Ford set does well, it could inspire the studio to dig deeper into the vaults, Ashton said, citing such master filmmakers as Frank Borzage, F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, all of whom had fruitful stints at Fox…
For those of you living in the U.S., to coincide with Ford at Fox, the TCM channel is celebrating the release of the set with three days of programming - called (what else?) Ford at Fox - on Dec. 9, 10 and 11; details here. There is, before you ask dear reader, no chance of the British version of TCM following suit.
Keep a watchful eye on DVD Beaver this weekend; more reviews, lots more screencaps, are on their way. I’ll certainly be devouring every last detail, the news no doubt stoking up the anticipation almost beyond the point that this mortal man can endure. *Sigh*.
Meanwhile, I’ll be drumming my fingers, clicking constantly on my order history over at Barnes & Noble, urging, by sheer will, my order page to be updated and for my copy of Ford at Fox to switch to ’shipped’. Come on dammit!
Did I mention that I can’t wait?
Comments»
This set is really unprecedented and I hope it sells well enough for that vault-digging mentioned by Fox. I almost bought another B&N membership to pick one up myself, but I think I’m going to opt for the silents set instead. Incidentally, Fox is really pushing the release it seems. I opened up the weekend NY Times this morning to see a half-page ad in the Arts & Leisure section. That’s definitely out of the ordinary.