Showing Soon; Optimum Highlights… July 10, 2008
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, Showing Soon , trackbackAnother look at what the world of (mostly) classic film is throwing up for fans in the UK, and after Showing Soon’s recent BFI Special, we’ll put the spotlight this post, gentle reader, firmly on Optimum…
British distributor Optimum has another of their sledgehammer schedules hovering over the anvil, but, aside from some real treats for western fans, things might not be quite as mouth-watering as they first appear. We’ve seen many of these titles before, I’m afraid…
Optimum are set to release a number of titles previously sold via Momentum, presumably the licensing rights for titles being held by Optimum’s parent Studio Canal, having expired. It’s not certain whether, across the board, Optimum will carry across any extras that were on the previous discs (in some cases - at least where they’ve actually revealed details - they clearly haven’t in others, they appear to have done a little better), or if they will improve on previous transfers.
The release of a handful of titles that were under MGM’s control is a puzzle - maybe it’s to do with Optimum’s relationship with Fox, who market those titles for MGM, maybe, again, the rights have simply fallen to Studio Canal - but I can only speculate. On to the list…
DVD Times has the artwork for two of the Boulting Brothers titles coming imminently - here - and the following press release:
Optimum Home Entertainment have announced the UK Region 2 DVD release of three Boulting Bros titles on 14th July 2008. British filmmakers Roy and John Boulting were born on 21 November 1913 in Berkshire, and were to become best known for their comedies such as the BAFTA-winning I’m Alright Jack and The Family Way. They also mastered the dramatic genres with such films as Brighton Rock and The Magic Box.
The three titles released by Optimum in July are Seven Days to Noon, Suspect and Run to the Sun [sic]. Priced at £12.99 each, the discs are all barebones with the main features presented in 1.66:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, 4:3 Full Screen and 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen respectively. Audio is English Mono and there are no subtitles.
The problem is, quite clearly, Seven Days to Noon was shot in Academy (though it’s been matted for TV broadcast in recent years), Suspect was most probably 1.66:1 and Run For The Sun is a ’scope feature. We can but hope, but sadly, Optimum is becoming extremely sloppy - I was appalled recently by their treatment of The Long and The Short and The Tall, the state of which would have shamed a low-life public domain outfit.
Also imminent, The Richard Attenborough Screen Icons Collection; The Ship That Died Of Shame, Brighton Rock, Dunkirk, The Man Upstairs and The Angry Silence, and possibly Brothers-in-Law and Private’s Progress - I say ‘possibly’ because some etailers show this as a five disc set, others as a seven. Sadly, Optimum wouldn’t answer my question when I ‘phoned to confirm (I had to ‘email’; never had a reply yet). Keep ‘em guessing - good old Optimum!*
There’s no doubt about the titles in a very handsome looking 14-disc Ultimate Godard Collection:
This mammoth collection features thirteen of the Jean-Luc Godard’s most memorable films along with an exclusive bonus disc (details of which have yet to be revealed). Films included: Le Mepris, Alphaville, Passion, A Bout De Souffle, Made In USA, Pierrot Le Fou, Une Femme Est Une Femme, La Chinoise, Le Petit Soldat, Detective, Notre Musique, Helas Pour Moi and Eloge De L’amour. Look out too for the Jeunet & Caro Collection; Delicatessen, The Bunker of the Last Gunshots and The City of Lost Children.
Coming the same date (July 14) is John Boorman’s Emerald Forest and a Brigitte Bardot Screen Icon Collection: The Vixen, Le Mepris, Naughty Girl, Love On A Pillow, Viva Maria. No word on extras on either, if any.
The following week sees the release by Optimum of Peter Yates ‘letter to Hollywood’, Robbery, and at the end of July a Gerard Depardieu Screen Icons Collection; Buffet Froid, Mon Pere Ce Heros, Tous Les Matins Du Monde and Le Colonel Chabert. The only extra is on Tous Les Matins du Monde; a making of featurette.
August sees a glut of those former Momentum titles appear including Universal Soldier, though, as said, no word as yet as to whether the extras have been carried over. Other titles in what Optimum calls their Action Icons line include Stargate, Flash Gordon, Red Heat, Raw Deal, Red Sonja, Total Recall and – the only titles new to UK DVD from this bunch - Iron Eagle II and Iron Eagle III. Be careful; Stargate was to be an SE, but the extras have been dropped from the intial release, and the extras that were on Momentum’s excellent Flash Gordon set don’t appear on the Optimum disc. Full details and artwork at DVD Times here.
Incidentally, August 4 also sees Optimum release Blu-ray discs of Cliffhanger, Terminator 2 and Total Recall. Dick Lester’s enjoyable romps The Three Musketeers and the sequel The Four Musketeers are scheduled for a DVD double set the same date as is Air America, a three disc Sylvester Stallone Action Icons Collection: Lock Up, Cliffhanger, Death Race 2000 and a four disc Arnie Action Icons set (reviewed here): Red Heat, Red Sonja, Total Recall and Raw Deal.
John Carpenter’s The Fog and Escape From New York SE (I’m assuming this will replicate the Momentum disc) get simultaneous SD and BD releases, They Live comes the week after, August 11, while Renny Harlin’s enjoyable Cutthroat Island also makes the move to Optimum - interesting one this; the original Momentum release was cut - headbutts if I recall correctly - but the BBFC relaxed their rules shortly after it came out, so this should - should - be uncut. August 11 sees the release of the newly restored David Lean films Hobson’s Choice and The Sound Barrier part of his Centenary Celebrations, and at the end of August, a nice, and nice and cheap in these ‘credit crunch’ days, looking box set comprising a Walter Hill Collection:
Walter Hill is undeniably one of the most underrated filmmakers to have emerged during the 1970s. His influence on the modern action film is immense and perfectly exhibited in this collection of six films. Includes: The Driver, Southern Comfort, Extreme Prejudice, Johnny Handsome, Red Heat and The Warriors.
DVD Times has art and details on a Special Edition for The Elephant Man (here), with the extras amounting to: The Real Elephant Man featurette on life for Merrick in Victorian England (19 mins), Trailer, New & Exclusive John Hurt interview, New & Exclusive David Lynch interview.
August 24 also sees two 40th anniversary releases; The Producers SE, and The Lion in Winter 
(I’ll be astounded if the latter amounts to more than the previous Momentum disc, but nice cover art) and fingers crossed for Optimum to produce an OAR, anamorphic release of John Schlesinger’s Far From The Madding Crowd. Am I optimistic? Sadly not. Go on, surprise me.
There’s a 3-disc David Lynch Collection on the way; Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, and another entry in the Boulting Brothers line; the long postponed Happy is The Bride.
September and things get a little more interesting; The first of the month sees Blake Edward’s What Did You Do In The War Daddy, with James Coburn, a brace from Ken Russell; Valentino & Crimes of Passion, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ‘58 version of The Quiet American, Michael Winner’s awful (bless him) Bullseye, John Frankenheimer’s awful (not often that word is used with Mr Frankenheimer) Island of Dr Moreau, Nic Roeg’s estimable Eureka, with Gene Hackman, and Ted Post’s excellent Vietnam set drama Go Tell The Spartans with Burt Lancaster - can Optimum better Warner/HBO’s frankly dreadful R1 transfer? It wouldn’t be hard.
Milking their ‘Carry On’ titles, Optimum are to release the titles in four 4-disc sets, with a budget rrp of £12.99 (currently £7.99 per set at HMV).
The second week in September sees a glut of westerns, a feast for fans - Robert Mitchum, Angie Dickinson and David Carridine in Burt Kennedy’s Young Billy Young, Sterling Haydon in the unusual and interesting Terror in a Texas Town, Dick Fleischer’s The Spikes Gang with Lee Marvin, Sergio Corbucci’s Navajo Joe with Burt Reynolds (who, by the by, felt cheated because he thought he’d signed up to a Sergio Leone movie), and Anthony Mann’s superb Man of The West with Gary Cooper. This was not long ago released by MGM in R2 and R1; too much to hope that Optimum will add some extras this film deserves? I reckon.
Deep breath, more westerns; Enzo Barboni’s Man of the East (E poi lo chiamarono il magnifico) with Terence Hill, Carlo Lizzani’s The Hills Run Red (aka Un Fiume di dollari; Thomas Hunter and Dan Duryea slumming it), Don Medford’s über-violent The Hunting Party with Oliver Reed and Gene Hackman, Michael Witney’s Doc, another take on the Earp legend with Stacey Keach and Faye Dunaway, André De Toth’s Day of The Outlaw with Robert Ryan and Henry Hathaway’s pseudo-western Legend of The Lost with John Wayne and Sophia Loren. Soldier Blue also makes the switch from Momentum.
Excellent news; Franklin J. Schaffner’s The Best Man, a political drama from the acid dipped pen of Gore Vidal, with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson is also set for September as is a six disc Roger Corman Collection; Five Guns West, Gunslinger, The Haunted Palace, The Premature Burial, The Masque Of The Red Death, Wild Angels.
The long ago scheduled Rashomon gets a mid-September release date alongside another Momentum refugee, The Graduate; Collectors Edition, and both SD and BD versions of Basic Instinct.
Late September and horror/thriller releases from Optimum; Assault On Precinct 13: Special Edition, The Vincent Price Horror Icons Collection; City Under The Sea, The Masque of The Red Death, Comedy of Terrors, The Cry of the Banshee, The Oblong Box, a two-disc set of The Vampire Lovers / Lust For A Vampire. The Stephen King Collection (Cat’s Eye, Silver Bullet and the risible King directed Maximum Overdrive), Blood Moon, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Dead and Buried, The Lady in White (1988), Wes Craven’s Shocker, Michael Mann’s Manhunter (again), Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder, Joe Dante’s The Howling, The Hitcher, The Evil Dead 2 (also on Blu-ray) and Evil Dead 3, George C. Scott in The Changeling, Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, and, another two-fer, Blacula / Scream Blacula Scream.
Well, that’s the plan from Optimum; the usual caveat applies however - titles could be postponed, cancelled, zapped into another dimension, changed, added to, taken away from, at any moment…Showing Soon will be back before you know it (hopefully), with a round-up of the rest of the third quarter ‘08 news in the UK…
*EDIT - DVD Times confirms the Attenborough box as seven titles - for more information on that, and other July Optimum releases, go here and here.
Comments»
Your fears about the Boulting titles are well founded. “Run For The Sun” is cropped and “Seven Days To Noon” is hard matted to 1.66:1
Bugger; that’s no sale on the former, but I think I’ll just grit my teeth on the second - it’s tight, but it doesn’t render it unwatchable.
Thanks Mike.
Thanks for all that info John. Great to see ‘The Best Man’ coming to DVD.
Thanks Mike, for the confirmation of those specs. I’ve had ‘Seven Days to Noon’ on pre-order since May 2007 and now it seems I may cancel.
‘The Long and The Short and The Tall’ really was bad and didn’t even meet my “could look good but assume the worst” expectations. I got the disc on release but still haven’t got around to watching it because it looked so poor.
Run for the Sun was shot in SuperScope 235, which is a similar process to today’s Super35. So a 1.85:1 transfer MIGHT have gained height. On the other hand, they may have taken a Scope version of the film and panned and scanned it.
Can’t say either way - I haven’t seen the film and don’t own the DVD.
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