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Unsurprisingly the Image holds up very well, but the removal of that line alone is enough for me to pick this up. Thanks for the link.

The last two updates to the Screen Classics by Request line included these titles:

First Update:

40 Carats (1973)
The Deadly Affair (1966)
Eleanor, First Lady of the World (1982)
Everything's Ducky (1961)
Idol on Parade (1959)
Ladies in Retirement (1941)
Mark of the Gorilla (1950)
Meatballs Part II (1984)
No Sex Please: We're British (1973)
Screaming Mimi (1958)
The Wrong Box (1966)

Second Update:

Assignment: Paris (1952)
Battle of Rogue River (1954)
The Black Dakotas (1954)
The Gun That Won the West (1955)
Jungle Man-Eaters (1954)
The Nevadan (1950)
Paula (1952)
Psyche 59 (1964)
Return to Warbow (1958)
Streets of Ghost Town (1950)
Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973)
The Swordsman (1948)
X, Y and Zee (1972)

The Heroes of Telemark and The Night of the Generals are coming to regular pressed DVD on April 5, priced at 14.98 each. Not sure if there are any more titles being released with them.

If you can stand PAL, the Heroes of Telemark is less than three pounds right now at Amazon.co.uk

There's another release of Psyche 59 floating around but I've no idea of the quality. The film is a delirious psychological drama, one of those "why the hell has no one heard of this?" type films that are an under-seen gem, definitely recommended.

New Screen Classics by Request titles - released today:

Across the Sierras (1941)
Blind Alley (1939)
Blood and Concrete (1991)
Hart to Hart: Old Friends Never Die (1994)
Let's Do It Again (1953)
Meet the Stewarts (1942)
Rumble on the Docks (1956)
Sister Mary Explains It All (2001)
Three for the Show (1955)
To Kill a Priest (1988)
A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970)
You Belong to Me (1941)

Frankinho007 wrote:To Kill a Priest (1988)

An Agnieszka Holland flick (with a strange cast) I've wanted to see for some time. Nice.

In Germany the following titles not available in the States or only as MOD discs will be released on April 21st by Sony:

Berserk (1967)
Genghis Khan (1965)
Burglars, The (Casse, Le) (1970)
R.P.M. (1970)
KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (1949)!!!!

New releases for May:
Because They're Young (1960)
Eight Iron Men (1952)
The Goddess (1958)
Laramie (1949)
Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
Love & Human Remains (1993)
The Reluctant Saint (1962)
The Return of Daniel Boone (1941)
Switching Channels (1988)

All of the Sony MODs are available on the Warner Archive Collection website (Lumet's The Deadly Affair was finally added today) with the exception of Andre Techine's Les Voleurs and Denys Arcand's Love & Human Remains (was supposed to be added today.)

Last month's additions were:

Abandoned and Deceived (1995)
Creatures the World Forgot (1971)
Destroyer (1943)
Dirty Little Billy (1972)
Hammerhead (1968)
The Kid from Broken Gun (1952)
Laramie Mountains (1952)
Out of the Dark (1989)
R.P.M. (1970) - Stanley Kramer
The Reckoning (1971)
The Southern Star (1969) - Orson Welles (uncredited)
Three Hours to Kill (1954)

This month's additions:

Because They're Young (1960)
Eight Iron Men (1952) - Edward Dmytryk
The Goddess (1958) - John Cromwell
Laramie (1949)
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) - William Wyler
The Reluctant Saint (1962) - Edward Dmytryk
The Return of Daniel Boone (1941)
Switching Channels (1988)

TIVOLI wrote:Given the disappointing news about Human Desire -- after such a long wait -- has anybody seen the Spanish release? Is it from the same source as the Japanese DVD?

I refer to the comments made on page 8. Well, I have bought the spanish release. Not the Suevia but the one from Columbia. And it doesn't look bad at all but it is full frame with the aspect ratio of 1:33. I compared it with the Columbia Coll. and there is much more picture information on top of the frame and below and very little cut off on the left and right side. I suspect that Columbia cut off the frames not only of "Human Desire" but of other movies of the two sets, too, to fill the screen of 16:9 television sets. Can anyone make a comment on this matter?

osmin wrote:I suspect that Columbia cut off the frames not only of "Human Desire" but of other movies of the two sets, too, to fill the screen of 16:9 television sets. Can anyone make a comment on this matter?

It isn't just to fill widescreen sets, but also to replicate the masking (of top and bottom of the image) that would have been applied for the original theatrical showings of these films (at least in most American cinemas). The 1.33:1 print of Human Desire is what is known as "open-matte" used for theatres not equipped for widescreen and later for TV and 16mm prints. There have been heated debates on this forum and others about whether certain post-1953 US films are aesthetically preferable open-matted (or less-matted) than their DVD releases, especially Touch of Evil and Magnificent Obsession. I don't know if such a case has been made for Human Desire.

June 7 releases:

Barbary Pirate (1949)
Key Witness (1947)
Love and Human Remains (1993) - Denys Arcand
Love Has Many Faces (1965)
Miracle on Interstate 880 (1993)
Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (1996)
No Sad Songs for Me (1950) - Rudolph Maté
Slightly French (1949) - Douglas Sirk
Snake River Desperadoes (1951)
Two Against Time (2002)
White Line Fever (1975)

Btw, a third Film Noir set is forthcoming as well. From Sony's Ask the Experts column:

Q: I’ve really enjoyed the first two Columbia film noir box sets - thanks for making them available. Can we expect a third film noir volume soon? Or perhaps some noir in the Classics by Request program??

A: Thanks for your feedback. We are indeed working on the next volume of Noir titles, and it will be a big one! Keep checking back for updates and more details to come. As for Screen Classics by Request, we’ll be adding some great Noir titles there too! Currently you can pick up New Orleans Uncensored, Pickup Alley, The Long Haul just some of Columbia’s under -the -radar noir, and next month the little-known but exciting Key Witness. We’ve got noir covered!.

Wow, that's a pleasant surprise. Maybe they'll even go back to having commentaries on things.

Actually, I bet they'll put In A Lonely Place on this one- as I recall, it almost wound up in Vol 2. I'd love to see Maté's The Dark Past, though.

Frankinho007 wrote:From Sony's Ask the Experts column:

A: Thanks for your feedback. We are indeed working on the next volume of Noir titles, and it will be a big one! Keep checking back for updates and more details to come. As for Screen Classics by Request, we’ll be adding some great Noir titles there too! Currently you can pick up New Orleans Uncensored, Pickup Alley, The Long Haul just some of Columbia’s under -the -radar noir, and next month the little-known but exciting Key Witness. We’ve got noir covered!.

Eddie Muller, who was involved with Columbia's first noir box, had this to say about the upcoming set:

It will be a box set, five films. Not at liberty to divulge the contents, but two of them have been mentioned in this thread. Most are from the 1950s. By my estimation, after this set is released there will still be a few terrific Columbia noirs in the vault, awaiting DVD release -- but they'll probably be MOD after this next box.

These were the titles mentioned in the thread referenced by Muller:
My Name is Julia Ross (1945)
Johnny O'Clock (1946)
The Undercover Man (1949)
The Reckless Moment (1949)
Framed (1947)
Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
M (1951)
The Mob (1951)
The Night Holds Terror (1955)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
The Burglar (1957)

It's too bad only two of them will be in the set as there are at least six or seven from that list I think deserve a slot. If In a Lonely Place and Lady from Shanghai are included I'm not going to be happy.

Would bet bug bucks on Harder They Fall, other is prob either Reckless Moment or Johnny O'Clock. No idea why they couldn't do ten films or twenty or whatever instead of five

Has anyone seen the '51 M? I've heard it's actually fairly good, and I would love to see it- though if I could only pick two from that list, it would probably be The Reckless Moment and the Harder They Fall.

matrixschmatrix wrote:if I could only pick two from that list, it would probably be The Reckless Moment and the Harder They Fall.

Those two are the ones readily available in R2, though.

I wonder why they said "it will be a big one!" when it's the same number of films as the last two.

Gregory wrote:

matrixschmatrix wrote:if I could only pick two from that list, it would probably be The Reckless Moment and the Harder They Fall.

Those two are the ones readily available in R2, though.

Sony already released the Bogart in Japan, so that's a no-brainer, but I agree that the Ophuls is the least necessary for anyone on this board

I'm hoping for Between Midnight and Dawn. If this is turns out to just be a rebox of already available R1 and R2 titles it will be a pretty worthless release, made even worse by how this is likely the last noir box we'll get from any major studio.

The Reckless Moment may be available in R2, but that doesn't mean a release here would be worthless by any means. It's true that does change the priorities a bit, though; I'd been thinking largely in terms of which movies interest me the most, rather than availability.

You also have to remember that Domino think that The Reckless Moment is worthless.

Wrong, I love it. You're thinking of Caught