Dave Kehr, who first broke the news about Fox's upcoming Ford At Fox box, now has all the information about the set, contents and special features. It doesn't have all of Ford's Fox movies -- some of the surviving silents are missing -- but it does have 24 movies, some of Ford's wartime documentary work, and a new feature-length documentary. The official studio release is here.
Everybody will have an oddball favorite among the movies that haven't been previously released on DVD. Mine is Tobacco Road. Yes, it's a sanitized version of the book and play, but it's like a satire of The Grapes of Wrath by the same people who made that film (Ford, producer Darryl Zanuck and writer Nunnally Johnson) -- the dark side of the people that they were sentimentalizing the year before.
Now, given the price of the set, how many reviews will include some variant of: "Get it if you can a-Ford it?"
I really regret Fox not including Riley the Cop. It's one of Ford's most relaxed films and one where his style of comedy really works.
ReplyDeleteThose films that Fox is omitting, like Riley, The Brat and Submarine Patrol, have such a low profile that I can't imagine that they'll turn up on DVD without some stronger films to pull them along. Even if this Ford collection sells well (and at such a high price I have my doubts), I'm afraid that the rest of Ford's Fox work will never see the light of DVD.
List price for this set in the U.S. is $299.98. List price for this set in Canada is $419.98. Somebody at Fox hasn't heard that the Canadian dollar is now at par with the U.S. dollar. Sales of this set from Canadian retailers are going to be non-existent.
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