Warner Random Speculation

[shearerchic]

i would like all these titles to be released in keepcases:

-mrs. miniver
-goodbye mr. chips
-take me out to the ballgame
-anchors aweigh
-on the town
-good news
-designing woman
-hepburn and tracy titles
-garland set titles
-kim
-objective burma
-the prince and the pauper
-the master of ballantrae
-sidney poitier titles
-gaslight
-mutiny on the bounty
-alice adams
-little women 1933 & 1949

[Subbuteo]

Shearerchic - I have many of those titles, just throw those snappers away, its easy. Plus it's great fun compiling artwork and making covers for keepcases, although for me thinpacks win the day.

[HerrSchreck]

They are: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941) (1931) (the prints used and the extras are acceptable but come on, the disc is double-sided!); House of Wax (1953)/ Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) (again ,the prints used and the extras are passable but this one is also a double-sided nuisance); The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) (such a classic surely deserves better treatment, no?)

Like Matt I don't get the double-sided beefing. I have an old TCM/WB VHS of HUNCHBACK but the other two are absolutely fabulous deals with great transfers, etc. MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM/HOUSE OF is one hell of a deal and to miss it is a sin. Remember-- losing a flipper doesn't always get you the best deal on earth... Example:

From the LES VAMPIRES RESTO THREAD post of mine:(re the new multi single-sided set Gaumont vs the DVD18 Image:)

From Jonathan Rosenbaum here... interesting.

II A Few Not-So-Definitive Editions

a) Is there any reason to suspect that Gaumont's four-disc French edition of Les Vampires, Louis Feuillade's great 399-minute, ten-chapter serial of 1915-1916, might be better than David Shepard's US edition (on only one two-sided disc), released eight years ago on Image Entertainment? Recalling Gaumont's exquisite edition of Feuillade's earlier Fantomas, one of the best box sets any company has ever released, I thought there was. But I was wrong and I'm afraid my money was wasted. Quite apart from the absence of subtitles, and excepting the bonuses not included in the US version (four Feuillade shorts from 1908-11, one of which jammed on my copy; a half-hour TV documentary from 1963), the American edition is flat-out superior in almost every respect, including price and design. It's true that the Gaumont box set includes a handsome 34-page brochure summarizing all the episodes and reprinting a Louis Aragon text, plus a new, beautifully and lavishly illustrated 128-page paperback by Patrice Gauthier and the indispensable Francis Lacassin, Louis Feuillade, Maître de Cinéma Populaire. But you can also order the paperback separately, forget about the rest, and save a lot of money.

Holding off a definitive resto due to a flipper disc bonus side (after all... it's a Real Big Extra-- not a nuiscance!) is almost as bad as holding off due to cover art. I wouldn't hold my breath on DR J or WAX-- though you may see the Laughton. I know Kino is planning a "final" or "authorized" edition of the Uni HUNCHBACK with Lon Sr., which may be a strategic time for WB to roll out a new edition.

[HerrSchreck]

I also love the Wax Museum and House of Wax flipper if only cause it's in the spirit of a great double bill. (Allows you to change mood, 'tude, makeup, whatever.)

Bingo-- really throws a dividing line between the two films forcing a new mindset, metabolic setup... refreshed head or drink or whatnot so they don't bleed into one another. I'd almost never watch sequels back to back-- same side or no-- for that specific reason... clear the head & residue of the source film so that the sequel can be taken in afresh.

Like watching CAT PEOPLE & CURSE OF back to back will create a disorienting hinge between the two which may be off-putting to some... whereas the link is conceptual at best between these most different primary-sequel works.

So if putting time between two flicks, the flipper issue is of no import.

All ya gotta do is strategically arrange a run for cigs/drink/muchies/loo to coordinate with the upcoming end-of-flick... to effect that strenuous agonizing disc flip.

GAWD! Back when I was a kid we had to Rise & Approach The Television JUST TO CHANGE CHANNELS!!! With a rotating, non l.e.d. display KNOB!!! No remotes-- no cable-- no digital transfers-- no widescreens!-- and in BLACK AND WHITE! No home vid whatsoever...

Perspective, perspective. Flip that disc for your bonus film with a smile.

[shearerchic]

Shearerchic - I have many of those titles, just throw those snappers away, its easy. Plus it's great fun compiling artwork and making covers for keepcases, although for me thinpacks win the day.

But they don't completely fit in the keepcases and I don't wanna mutilate the artwork by cutting them.

[Joe Buck]

Why can't Warner have a mail in program where you can get the artwork for previous releases in non-snapper form? We can buy our own cases. I'd pay a buck or so for them to send me an insert for my Driving Miss Daisy Special Edition...not to mention Lethal Weapon, Falling Down, etc....

It doesn't seem like it would be so costly, and I'm sure many of us freaks would be willing to bargain.

You may say I'm a dreamer.....

[Cinephrenic]

LEGENDS OF HORROR 2

I'm guessing from the unreleased Warner properties:

The Walking Dead (1936) with Boris Karloff
Svengali (1931) with John Barrymore
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
The Mad Genius (1931) with John Barrymore
Beast with Five Fingers (1946) with Peter Lorre

[ByMarkClark.com]

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY is also coming in 2007, although that one might rate a separate SE. And FRANKENSTEIN 1970 is strongly rumored. (And it would make a reasonably logical co-feature with THE WALKING DEAD if they stick to the format of three double-features.)

[Cinephrenic]

FRANKENSTEIN 1970

Does Warner distribute Allied Artists films? They have MGM (pre-1986), RKO, and what else?

[Ashirg]

Allied Artists (upcoming Queen of Outer Space, Gold), Monogram (Dillinger, upcoming Decoy), Cannon (American Kickboxer, Bloodsport). They also released a few films from Castle Hill.

[Quot]

I'd love to see them revisit Who'll Stop the Rain, well-deserving of an upgrade. And can anyone speak to the quality of the latest incarnation of Duel in the Sun?

[dx23]

Remember that now FOX is going ot release MGM titles because of the new distribution deal. There is a good possibility that these titles get a nice treatment the next time around.

[Floyd]

The Candidate was the first film that came to mind for me... the DVD is atrocious for this great film. Speaking of Michael Ritchie where is Downhill Racer? I digress.

[shearerchic]

Should i sell my The Great Ziegfeld dvd. It's a snapper and I was wondering do you think they'll include a keepcase version in Loy and Powell 2??

[fdm]

(In addition) I'd like to see them do an SE of Altered States. Was pretty much one of the first WB DVDs I listened to/watched after getting a surround receiver, and the transfer was a bit "dirty" looking. The sound was stunning.

These could stand to become anamorphic...
Doc Hollywood (widescreen too), Frantic, Giant, 2010 (from what I read long ago, it's not actually anamorphic).

I may have read that The Year Of Living Dangerously could use a re-do also.

[BusterK.]

From DVDBeaver (last October, i think)

"Warner announced they will be releasing Greed, The Wind, The Crowd, The Big Parade, The Unholy Three, and several other silents this year and in 2007."

Does anyone have any more infos? Any official date for 2007? I think this will be one of the dvd events of the year, as far as i'm concerned.

[Lino]

From here:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Now that many of its most celebrated movies have been released as lavish multidisc collector's editions, Warner Home Video is going the minimalist route and reissuing such classics as "Gone With the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Ben Hur" in slim packs as part of its new "The Essential Classics Collections" line.

Five DVD collections will be released April 24 as the first wave in the new line, the studio said. Included are some of the most acclaimed movies in Hollywood history.

The "Classic Romances" set includes "Wind," "Casablanca" and "Doctor Zhivago." "Classic Dramas" consists of "The Maltese Falcon," "Citizen Kane" and "Hur." "Oz," "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" and "Goonies" are in the "Classic Family Films" collection. "Classic Musicals" features "My Fair Lady," "Singin' in the Rain" and "Gigi," and "Classic American Musicals" has "The Music Man," "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

[Highway 61]

So are the original releases going out of print? The inclusion of the just recently released Maltese Falcon makes me assume they won't, but I'd like to know for sure.

[godardslave]

Logically extending this, presumably the next releases would then be:

"the nonessential classics collection" or possibly
"the essential nonclassics collection"

which would be every American film ever made before 1950.

[What A Disgrace]

The "Classic Romances" set includes "Wind,"

OH. OH OH OH. Very, very nasty.

[Matt]

So are the original releases going out of print?

The remainder of the article (not quoted above) makes it pretty clear that these are for the kind of people that wouldn't normally buy a 2-disc (or 3-disc or 4-disc) edition DVD and that the original special editions will not be going out of print.

[Lino]

[Nihonophile]

Many of these movies were originally released as a single disc, can we expect the re-emergence of snapper cases, even just if for that 1998 nostalgia.

[Ives]

The Goonies?

[Matt]

What's the last Ultra-Resolution title we had? The Wizard of Oz in October 2005? I know the process is expensive and time-consuming, but jeez. Then again, if An American in Paris and Showboat (and possibly The Pirate finally emerge this year...