Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

[What A Disgrace]

I hope Stars In My Crown and The Big Sky are among the westerns in the works.

[Peacock]

Plus Run of the Arrow or any of the Ford westerns.

[beamish14]

China 9, Liberty 37, which has been in the works for years

[Maltic]

Others with no bluray

RKO:
Cattle Queen of Montana
Tennessee's Partner
Montana Bell
Roughshod
Tension at Table Rock

WB:
Cheyenne
Riding Shotgun
Thunder Over the Plains

MGM:
The Wind (!)
Tide of Empire
Devil's Doorway

Some of them can probably be ruled out for reasons I wasn't aware of.

[bottlesofsmoke]

Are the Dwan / Bogeaus films with WB? I know RKO distributed them but I don’t know who actually has the rights, I don’t think WAC released them on DVD, which you’d think they would have if they could… Silver Lode would be a dream

I’d love Roughshod to get a release, really underappreciated western. And Stars in My Crown too…

I bet we get more Errol Flynn westerns.

[domino harvey]

A Big Hand for the Little Lady comes immediately to mind

[TechnicolorAcid]

I know this is going a bit off track but is there any possibility that any of the films in the Forbidden Hollywood sets could be upgraded for a Warner Archive release? Been wanting to get a Blu-Ray of some of them, especially higher quality upgrades of the first box set films.

[swo17]

They did upgrade Ladies They Talk About

[Peacock]

I know this is going a bit off track but is there any possibility that any of the films in the Forbidden Hollywood sets could be upgraded for a Warner Archive release? Been wanting to get a Blu-Ray of some of them, especially higher quality upgrades of the first box set films.

Not off-topic at all, George directly addresses this. He says the pre-code titles (Safe in Hell and One Way Passage) have been good sellers this year and that WB is in a fairly unique position studio wise for having the rights to a huge number of good pre-code films.
He says that’s the reason they were able to do all those Forbidden Hollywood sets before on DVD. He then quickly goes on to say something like that they wouldn’t be able to release that number in quick succession again but that he hoped they will be doing at least two pre-codes in 2024 which he believes will be particularly popular with fans.

Other things he covered that weren’t mentioned above:

- WB are very supportive of WAC and the work they do
- They are hoping to release more titles in 2023 than the 62 they put out in 2023. Looking at roughly 6 per month but sometimes a bit more. Looking to broaden their scope a bit in terms of types of films and production era of films (more modern stuff).
- They have some really major noirs by big directors in the wings to put out. Anyone know what he is referring to here? Dom?
- George acknowledges that they are very aware there are excellent Garbo films still to be upgraded and they hope to get to them sooner rather than later.
- The cost of putting out a UHD is 4 times the cost of doing a blu-ray and they have to show they can make a profit before they can put anything out, it sounds like he believes a 4K scan for a blu-ray disc is a reasonable compromise for now (is to me!).
- Release choices are sometimes based on things which need to be saved from deterioration and need restoring anyway.
- George is conscious that WB Discovery is a public company and he has to show shareholders that they will make money on each release. This may seem obvious but he says the people who buy new releases in the first few months are the most important customers as he can then quickly show how much money the decision to release that title is going to net the company and therefore get approval for similar titles that are waiting in the wings.
- The Looney Toons sets were definitely WAC’s biggest sellers of 2023
- King Solomon’s Mines, The Long Long Trailer were possibly the second biggest sellers (my interpretation)
- the Garbos, The Prince and the Showgirl, The Great Ziegfeld were also really good sellers (more good selling titles below with additional notes)
- George is glad the Joan Crawford titles this year have been popular as they have many more in their catalogue they can put out - which ones do you think are likely?
- Tarzan the Ape Man has done superbly already so there will be more Tarzan to come but he says it may not be until 2025 as 2024 is pretty full up and they needed to see how it would do first. Other non-Weissmüller Tarzan films George would like to put out as well someday.
- Day at the Races has sold well already so should lead to more Marx Bros titles (I’m guessing Day at the Circus etc)
- Dangerous When Wet was a big success as was Neptune’s Daughter so more Esther Williams titles will come. Anyone got any guesses for which?
- Safe in Hell and One Way Passage have done well as mentioned before so more pre-codes
- Land of the Pharaohs did well financially. Strong customer base for sword and sandals movies so they hope to do more 50s action adventures. Anyone have any guesses for which titles?.
- He seems to mention favourably a lot of customers requesting upgrades for titles that had DVD releases. He doesn’t really mention completely unavailable on disc titles unfortunately (which is a lot of great WB titles!)
- They haven’t put out a single title that has caused them a loss in 2023.
- Physical media, at least from WAC’s POV, isn’t on the decline.
- George doesn’t like criticisms of WAC’s work, but is very grateful for positive feedback on their Facebook page…. So I reckon that means fold your title suggestions into gushing comments of support on Facebook!
- No specific mention in the podcast of silents in 2024 but he seemed really pleased with how their 1920s titles did this year and stressed that part of his job is trying to win over young people to want to buy 30s films which they don’t know about. So I’m assuming he feels the same regarding 20s films

[TechnicolorAcid]

I'm looking Warner's past film noir DVD collections (thank you Wikipedia) and several stand out:
Born to Kill directed by Robert Wise
The Narrow Margin from 1952 by Richard Fleischer
Lady in the Lake by Robert Montgomery
The Racket by John Cromwell and Nicholas Ray
Act of Violence by Fred Zinnemann
The BIg Steal by Don Siegel
Amongst a couple of others. To me the most likely out of the ones I mentioned would seem to be Act of Violence but that's just me and my opinions.
Esther Williams could be Bathing Beauty maybe or more likely, Thrill of a Romance.

Also thank you Peacock for the very detailed breakdown of the podcast, very appreciated.

[Peacock]

You’re welcome!

Allow me to add Side Street by Anthony Mann in to the Noir mix, as well as Crime Wave by Andre de Toth. The Phenix City Story is another big one missing. Not sure if G-Men counts as Noir or not but worth mentioning too.

Fingers crossed for any of those you’ve mentioned though!

[sabbath]

I hope Stars In My Crown and The Big Sky are among the westerns in the works.

Back in August when they released Wichita, George talked about their plans for more Tourneur films and his affection for Stars in My Crown especially, although he admitted it would take some time because elements were poor.

[sabbath]

- Land of the Pharaohs did well financially. Strong customer base for sword and sandals movies so they hope to do more 50s action adventures. Anyone have any guesses for which titles?.

Combined with WAC's general fondness for Technicolor films and their plans for more Jacques Tourneur I mentioned just above, the first film that comes to my mind is The Flame and the Arrow (1950).

[Peacock]

More Tourneur is fine by me!

Not relevant to this discussion as it’s not a noir, western, pre-code, 50s action adventure etc but is Tourneur’s Easy Living a WB property?

[sabbath]

More Tourneur is fine by me!

Not relevant to this discussion as it’s not a noir, western, pre-code, 50s action adventure etc but is Tourneur’s Easy Living a WB property?

It's an RKO production and Warner Archive Collection released a DVD of it in 2012, so I guess so.

[domino harvey]

Curtiz’ the Unsuspected comes immediately to mind for noirs. Perhaps also the Locket

Re: Williams, I hope and pray for Jupiter’s Darling

Re: Crawford, imagine Humoresque is high on the list

[Aunt Peg]

Pre-code: Red Headed Woman and Baby Face are the top two on my wish list.

[Maltic]

Are the Dwan / Bogeaus films with WB? I know RKO distributed them but I don’t know who actually has the rights, I don’t think WAC released them on DVD, which you’d think they would have if they could… Silver Lode would be a dream

I guess that means no Slightly Scarlet either...

[Maltic]

Gregory made a list of the WB noir DVD sets earlier in the thread.

[domino harvey]

But we shouldn't overlook the multitude of noir titles relegated to WAC DVD-Rs (and indeed the Unsuspected should be a top priority, and how it got dumped over many of the titles in the fifth noir box is a true crime mystery)

[bottlesofsmoke]

Bigger “names” The Blue Gardenia (Lang) is probably the biggest, also Macao (Sternberg & Ray), The Man I Love (Walsh & a big Scorcese influence), A Woman’s Face (Cukor & also a Joan Crawford film), Undercurrent (Minnelli), The Woman on the Beach (Renoir), Berlin Express (Tourneur), The Big Steal (Siegel), Side Street & The Tall Target (Mann)

There’s also Where Danger Lives and His Kind of Woman, though I don’t know if John Farrow counts as a “big name” director

So lots of possibilities.

The Crimson Pirate and Captain Horatio Hornbloweseems like strong possibilities for a 1950s adventure films, and hopefully Scaramouche, also maybe Kim, At Sword’s Point, Blackbeard the Pirate, Knights of the Round Table, The Prisoner of Zenda, Mogambo, The Spirit of St. Louis

[therewillbeblus]

I’d expect even its haters to admit that The Blue Gardenia would be a smart, timely release

[domino harvey]

Bigger “names” The Blue Gardenia (Lang) is probably the biggest

Is this currently with Warners? The only DVD came from Image, and considering how every other Lang title they have is already out on Blu, I find it hard to believe it would be neglected if they had it

[TechnicolorAcid]

Well it was distributed by Warner so I wouldn’t be surprised if they still owned it.

[senseabove]

I'm convinced Blue Gardenia is in rights purgatory. BAMPFA's last showing listed the 16mm print source from Spain and no rightsholder. When the print source and US screening rights are not the same, they usually list them separately (for example), and I think it's safe to assume Spain's Classic Films probably doesn't hold US screening rights. Image's parent company was bought by AMC in 2018, and I expect that, if they did have rights in 2000 for their DVD, they'd lapsed by 2017 and/or no one who has them cares enough to know it.

I did some digging for film elements a while back, and the BFI has a few 16mm and 35mm safety prints and one nitrate print (and lists some rights info as well), but I couldn't find any evidence they've screened within digitized memory, and a 35mm print with hard subs (in bad enough condition to have a warning on the screening listing—though that warning now seems to have disappeared from the listing) played in the Lang retrospective in Paris earlier this year.

I sure wish Milestone would get on this one's case with their "Missing Movies" initiative...