Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

[beamish14]

So much for Splendor in the Grass joining the Criterion Collection.

Here’s hoping that America, America gets a 4K. It would be nice to have The Arrangement in HD, too

[crimlaw]

America, America, is on the National Film Registry and Kazan’s last truly great film. Criterion should seriously consider it.

The Arrangement has some supporters, although its negative reputation hasn’t been entirely rehabilitated, unlike say Huston’s Reflection in a Golden Eye.

[Stefan Andersson]

"Per the announcement podcast the nitrate camera negative for only the cut for rerelease version of "The Enchanted Cottage" still exists. To restore the footage cut for the rerelease other nitrate sources were used."

Source: post 10,016 here:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... 2/page-501

[Stefan Andersson]

Interesting discussion about the presentation of the main title music on the UHD of The Searchers:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... 63/page-20

Discussion (long and involved) starts with post 386:
"Steiner's epic herold beginning of his soundtrack for The Searchers /.../ you will hear and feel it in full on every theatrical, television and home video version ever produced prior to this one.
Unfortunately, for this one there seems to be no 1-2 seconds of black "leader" before that downbeat on the very first note that comes roaring in simultaneously with the Warner Bros. logo. Instead, the sound and image of the fade in on the music and the WB logo begins a tad too soon. Too soon for the music to come roaring in with the scary epic power it always had. Instead it kind of shuffles and fades in with timidity."

The problem seems to be a lack of 1-2 moments of black leader + silence before playback starts, and/or a delay, intruding on the music, between the necessary "handshake" between the TV and the audio equipment.

[agnamaracs]

Listings for Looney Tunes Collector's Vault 1 are going up. Back cover images indicate the following lineup:

Spoiler

Disc 1 ("never before released")
Bars and Stripes Forever (Hardaway and Dalton, 1939)
Beauty and the Beast (Freleng, 1934)
A Day at the Zoo (Avery, 1939)
The Dixie Fryer (McKimson, 1960; Foghorn Leghorn and the buzzards)
Double or Mutton (Jones, 1955)
Each Dawn I Crow (Freleng, 1949; Elmer Fudd)
Easy Peckin's (McKimson, 1953)
Feather Dusted (McKimson, 1955; Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead Jr)
A Fox in a Fix (McKimson, 1951)
Good Night Elmer (Jones, 1940)
The Goofy Gophers (Clampett and Davis, 1947)
I'd Love to Take Orders from You (Avery, 1936)
A Kiddies Kitty (Freleng, 1955; Sylvester)
Let It Be Me (Freleng, 1936)
Of Fox and Hounds (Avery, 1940)
Quackodile Tears (Davis, 1962)
Ready, Woolen and Able (Jones, 1960)
Robin Hood Makes Good (McKimson, 1939)
The Squawkin' Hawk (Jones, 1942; debut of Henery Hawk)
Terrier-Stricken (Jones, 1952; Claude Cat and Frisky Puppy)
Tweet and Lovely (Freleng, 1959)
Tweety's Circus (Freleng, 1955)
Two's a Crowd (Jones, 1950; Claude Cat and Frisky Puppy)
Wild About Hurry (Jones, 1959)
Zip 'n Snort (Jones, 1961)

Disc 2 ("select fan favorites, making their HD debut")
Ain't She Tweet (Freleng, 1952)
Banty Raids (McKimson, 1963)
Birth of a Notion (Clampett and McKimson, 1947; Daffy Duck)
Bye, Bye Bluebeard (Davis, 1949; Porky Pig)
Cat-Tails for Two (McKimson, 1953; debut of gold-toothed Speedy Gonzales)
Daffy Dilly (Jones, 1948)
Daffy Duck and Egghead (Avery, 1938)
Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z (Jones, 1956)
Gonzales' Tamales (Freleng, 1957)
Hare Conditioned (Jones, 1945)
Hare Trigger (Freleng, 1945; debut of Yosemite Sam)
Hare Trimmed (Freleng, 1953)
Horton Hatches the Egg (Clampett, 1942)
Little Boy Boo (McKimson, 1954; Foghorn Leghorn, debut of Egghead Jr)
Much Ado About Nutting (Jones, 1953)
Odor-able Kitty (Jones, 1945; debut of Pepe Le Pew)
Past Perfumance (Jones, 1955)
Porky's Duck Hunt (B&W) (Avery, 1937; debut of Daffy Duck)
Rabbit Punch (Jones, 1948)
Red Riding Hoodwinked (Freleng, 1955; Sylvester and Tweety)
Rhapsody Rabbit (Freleng, 1946)
Snow Business (Freleng, 1953; Sylvester and Tweety)
Tom Turk and Daffy (Jones, 1944)
Two Crows from Tacos (Freleng, 1956)
Zoom and Bored (Jones, 1957)

If this is the final lineup... they must have poor short-term memory, because "Double or Mutton" was on Collector's Choice 4 as well.

Here's hoping for a volume 2, and that it will have Chuck Jones's abstract masterpiece, "Now Hear This."

[Ashirg]

Yes, they caught Double or Mutton repeat and announced that the next volume will include an extra short to make up for this.

[Finch]

July titles

They died with their boots on
Brainstorm
The Prisoner of Zenda
Two Weeks with Love
Melinda
Bright Leaf
Knights of the Round Table
The Cobweb

Thank you WB for They Died With Their Boots On! Zenda is unfortunately not the 1937 version. Boo!

[Finch]

Forgot to mention that the Zenda release will have the 1922 silent version.

[Stefan Andersson]

They Died With their Boots On "includes additional footage not seen in theatrical release."

[FrauBlucher]

Feltenstein said July was going to be a huge month. While there are some nice titles, it's not exactly a pass the smelling salts month

[domino harvey]

They are nearing Minnelli completion. The whole movie is legit about drapes, they put this one off for a reason

[What A Disgrace]

I've been wanting to see both of these Zendas for years, and They Died With Their Boots On is the best Errol Flynn film where he's not Robin Hood.

[JSC]

Feltenstein said July was going to be a huge month. While there are some nice titles, it's not exactly a pass the smelling salts month

An ideal month for me would have to include at least one of these:

Petulia
Stage Door
Top Hat (in fact any Astaire Rogers musical would be nice)
Adam's Rib
Zabriskie Point
Savage Messiah
O' Lucky Man!

[Aunt Peg]

Feltenstein said July was going to be a huge month. While there are some nice titles, it's not exactly a pass the smelling salts month

An ideal month for me would have to include at least one of these:

Petulia
Stage Door
Top Hat (in fact any Astaire Rogers musical would be nice)
Adam's Rib
Zabriskie Point
Savage Messiah
O' Lucky Man!

I'd purchase every one of those.

Only getting The Cobweb from this months release slate.

[hearthesilence]

Definitely getting The Cobweb.

I've been wanting to see both of these Zendas for years, and They Died With Their Boots On is the best Errol Flynn film where he's not Robin Hood.

Dave Kehr's been championing Flynn's films with Wash lately, partly because they had an Errol Flynn retrospective not too long ago and he's always championed Walsh. I may have to get this and Gentleman Jim.

[Finch]

Seconding Stage Door. And they're taking forever on Air Force.

[beamish14]

Feltenstein said July was going to be a huge month. While there are some nice titles, it's not exactly a pass the smelling salts month

An ideal month for me would have to include at least one of these:

Petulia
Stage Door
Top Hat (in fact any Astaire Rogers musical would be nice)
Adam's Rib
Zabriskie Point
Savage Messiah
O' Lucky Man!

Savage Messiah has an unusually poor-looking Archive DVD. Such a neglected work, and I love it

[Matt]

They've really got my number releasing these corny Jane Powell Technicolor musicals. A Date with Judy in June and now Two Weeks With Love in July. I'm fully expecting Nancy Goes to Rio in August.

I do want to recommend Bright Leaf. It's a solid, well-cast, well-crafted studio melodrama in the mold of King's Row or The Little Foxes, with good performances by Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, and especially Patricia Neal (antagonizing Cooper again a year after The Fountainhead). Plus, it's a key basis of Ross McElwee's fantastic documentary Bright Leaves. I've only ever seen it in the fairly rotten transfer shown on TCM, so this 4K scan from the original negative should really do justice to Karl Freund's cinematography.

The Cobweb is about drapes, but it's a pretty good movie about drapes. The best maybe, unless you count the Minnelli Madame Bovary and Rebecca. It's been years since I've seen it, but I remember being pleasantly surprised by its, for its time, sensitive treatment of mental illness. I'm sure Oscar Levant brought a lot of his own struggles to his performance. The whole thing is otherwise very much a soap opera.

[FrauBlucher]

Seconding Stage Door.

Last week I was watching this on TCM for the umpteenth time. I'm still at a loss as to why this has never had a bluray release. With all the star power this film has besides just being a great film you would think WAC/WB would have given it a proper upgrade. I don't know what to think. Sigh. Maybe Criterion has it and they are sitting on it

[Finch]

Could be they're restoring it and it takes a while.

[Matt]

Probably the same reason that the Astaire & Rogers films haven't been released on Blu-ray yet: RKO film elements were never stored as carefully as the MGM or Warner Bros. stuff. The negatives for these films probably don't even exist anymore so a proper restoration would involve combing archives around the world for decent enough film elements to improve on the DVD-era scans they already have.

[onedimension]

I thought the word was that UHD exposes flaws in the Astaire/Rogers films themselves, not the materials. Dust on floors, visible wires…

I don’t understand why they’re sitting on An American In Paris, Meet Me In St. Louis, or The Band Wagon

[felipe]

July titles

They died with their boots on
Brainstorm
The Prisoner of Zenda
Two Weeks with Love
Melinda
Bright Leaf
Knights of the Round Table
The Cobweb

Probably a stupid question, but when it says "NEW 4K RESTORATION" then why is it not a 4K blu-ray?

[yoloswegmaster]

Because 4K discs are expensive to produce

[Matt]

Probably a stupid question, but when it says "NEW 4K RESTORATION" then why is it not a 4K blu-ray?

The number of people who would buy a 4K UHD of Two Weeks with Love is probably in the dozens, not hundreds or thousands. It's just not economically viable. And usually WAC really push the bitrates on their Blu-rays, making them look better than a lot of the poorly encoded UHDs out there.