Ann, do you know if IMDb's list of Albstros productions is complete?

Good news: Pathé is releasing a 4-DVD boxset of Albert Capellani pictures on May, 11th.

We have "big aspirations" for the Mutuals, pulling in material from all the archives that will cooperate and doing 2K scans,digital restorations and re-recording to film. It is endorsed by Association Chaplin. But it will be really expensive. A TRIP TO THE MOON, restored that way and in (hand) color, will open the Cannes Film Festival on May 11th. It was paid for with Foundation grants and cost north of $400,000.

Here are the details of the Capellani boxset (40 p. booklet included):

4 features:
1. L’assommoir - 1908 (35’46” - B&W)
2. Germinal - 1913 (148’ - tinted)
3. Le chevalier de Maison Rouge - 1914 (108’ - tinted)
4. Quatre-vingt-treize - 1921 (185’ - tinted)

7 shorts:
5. Drame passionnel - 1906 (6’35” - tinted)
6. Mortelle idylle - 1906 (5’30” - B&W)
7. Pauvre mère - 1906 (5’55” - B&W)
8. La fille du sonneur - 1906 (10’04” - tinted)
9. La femme du lutteur - 1906 (5’07” - B&W)
10. L’âge du coeur - 1906 (4’06” - B&W)
11. Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse - 1906 (13’20” - tints and colors)

Assuming the contract now with the Cinematheque's legal department goes through, next year Film Preservation Associates will be releasing through Flicker Alley an Albatros DVD box set with KEAN, LE BRASIER ARDENT, FEU MATHIAS PASCAL, GRIBICHE and LES NOUVEAUX MESSIEURS; also the complete serial LA MAISON DE MYSTERE as a separate release.

I might as well tell the world that we are just completing production on a new edition of that old warhorse, POTO, for release through Image Entertainment in early October.

This will be Blu-Ray, mastered at Movietone aperture from much better 35mm material than we have ever used before. There will be two complete runs of the 1929 version: one at 24 fps with a new score by the Alloy Orchestra and an optional score on theatre pipe organ by Gaylord Carter, previously issued in monaural but now in stereo from the original master stereo recording; the second run at 20 fps with orchestra/soprano score by Gabriel Thibadeau and an optional new audio essay by Jon Mirsalis. Both runs will include the Technicolor sequence mastered from our 35mm YCM labs negative and hand colored scenes on the opera roof and in the scene of "intolerable heat." The program will also include a standard definition transfer of the original 1925 edit from a tinted 16mm print in the usual deplorable quality but with a superb new score by Frederick Hodges. Extras will include (as still images) set construction and production stills, publicity stills, original advertising art, frames from a stencil-colored French release, and the complete script.

Unfortunately, we found significant problems with the new Image Entertainment Blu-Ray of POTO after some product had already been shipped to resellers.
Image has recalled all copies and will fix and re-press the edition. It will be later than announced, but God willing, it will also be the fine edition we intended to produce.
If anyone somehow ends up with one of the first printing, which should be rarer than an upside-down airmail stamp, please do not use it to judge the work. We will arrange to replace it with the corrected version.