Catalogue Product

The Digital Bits reports that Warner Home Video, the current leader in old movies on DVD (in part because they own the catalogues of at least three major studios, and in part because of their wisdom in hiring George Feltenstein) will rush a ton of "catalogue product," as it is known, onto the market in 2006. Titles range from the sublimity of a two-disc The Maltese Falcon to the ridiculousness of Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty. A lot of good titles in there, though a surprising lack of good comedies.

Items of interest include the rest of the Astaire/Rogers films, a "Pre-Code" collection (including Baby Face), and a "Warner Tough Guys" collection, consisting of "tough" movies the studio made when they could no longer make out-and-out glorification-of-gangsterism movies; it includes an old favorite, the gangster comedy A Slight Case of Murder (one of the few good non-animated comedies Warner Brothers ever did).

Also, the item announces the official contents of the John Ford box set; the good news is that there are two John Ford sets, but the bad news is that neither one includes Wagon Master:

There's a new John Wayne/John Ford Collection on the way, which will include The Searchers: 50th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition (1956), along with a Stagecoach: Two-Disc Special Edition (1939), Fort Apache (1948), The Long Voyage Home (1940), The Wings of Eagles (1957), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), They Were Expendable (1945) and 3 Godfathers (1948).

There's also The John Ford Collection that will include The Lost Patrol (1934), The Informer (1935), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Mary of Scotland (1936) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960).