Warner Brothers has set up something called The Warner Archive, an online-order program where they send out manufactured-on-demand DVDs of movies that aren't going to be relased to stores.
Ronald Epstein at the Home Theater Forum has more about this program. Apparently the widescreen movies will be in 16:9 format, and the individual titles have video clips online that indicate the print/transfer quality; it seems generally good from the clips I've seen. They have 140 titles up on the site, and are planning to add more.
Most of the titles they have at the moment can be described as minor films of major stars: lots of not-yet-on-DVD movies by popular stars with huge filmographies, like Cary Grant, Norma Shearer, Clark Gable. There are a bunch of films that were relased on VHS but never made it to DVD, and some real curios like The Grasshopper, a remarkably cheesy low-budget sexual-revolution melodrama starring Jacqueline Bisset (as an innocent Canadian girl who comes to mean, sexy L.A.) and made by... director Jerry Paris and writers Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, exactly the people you'd expect to portray the wild world of sex and drugs.
Also, as an Ann-Margret fan, I'm glad they've included Made In Paris, a "family" film that's incredibly sleazy even by Joe Pasternak's standards, and one of the two 1966 star vehicles that basically wrecked her movie career (the other being The Swinger).
When I can figure out where to have them shipped (they're not shipping to Canada) I'll definitely be getting Once Upon a Honeymoon, though I'm surprised it wasn't considered a candidate for general-release DVD, considering that it stars Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. It's Leo McCarey's anti-Nazi comedy in the vein of The Great Dictator and (from the same year) To Be Or Not To Be, and its mix of comedy, drama and propaganda is weirder and more controversial than either of those films. It's not very satisfying as a whole, but some of its parts are extraordinary.
Wow, and they have Jack Webb's The D.I. as well! That's definitely a must-own title. Thanks for the tip.
ReplyDeleteThis is positively sweet--I've already found the first one to order, The Beast of the City.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jaime!
I wish ALL of the studios would do this...
ReplyDeleteI hope Warner will extend this to animation and TV eventually. This would be the best way to release the MGM Tex Avery and Happy Harmony shorts.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see the notable films that they felt weren't cost-effective enough to give a normal release. Besides The D.I. there are some other movies that used to be ubiquitous on TV back in the pre-VCR days (Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Sunrise at Campobello). Plus early directorial efforts by Robert Altman (Countdown) and Francis Coppola (The Rain People), and Paul Simon's One Trick Pony, which is often dismissed as a vanity film, but is actually a scathing look at the music business circa 1980.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this info, which I found via Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.
ReplyDeleteI've posted more info if you're interested, including links to Glenn Erickson and an AP article. I'm going to be very interested to hear what more is said in tonight's live chat with Feltenstein at Home Theater Forum.
Thanks and best wishes,
Laura
I just bought Honeymoon.. Wanna copy? LOL
ReplyDelete