Warner Brothers Archive Collection (DVDs only)

[Perkins Cobb]

Gabriel Over the White House, They Won't Forget, and Lang's Rancho Notorious all to be dumped into the Archive.

[souvenir]

...and The Mortal Storm and The Bribe. Disappointing, to say the least.

[Matt]

And Confessions of a Nazi Spy. Are you kidding me? That TCM documentary on 1939 spent, like, 20 minutes talking about how important this film was.

[lubitsch]

Gabriel over the White House, The Mortal Storm, Rancho Notorious and They won't forget. Are they crazy? They release Esther Williams box sets and run of the mill fare like San Quentin on DVD and sink major classics in their dumping ground.
I was unsure yet, but now I wow never to buy one disc from their god damned trash can. I'll get myself a few nice TV recordings of the films and that's it. Warner is really the scum of DVD producers by now and everybody who supports this travesty should be ashamed.

Yes, you might have guessed it, I'm really angry.

[Mark Metcalf]

There are lots of these films I would like to have, but I have not bought a single one from the Archive Collection, and probably never will.

[buskeat]

With the October releases of truly important films into the Archive Collection, I think we can safely say Warner Bros. has thrown in the towel. I have no problem with buying those films I know would never get a normal release, mind you. It's hard to get self-righteous about the release of "Exit Smiling" or "Across to Singapore" or "The Barbarian" when they definitely appeal to a tiny group of people, were never released on VHS and would ordinarily never see the light of day even in the best of economic times. I thought the Archive Collection was for those kinds of films.

Even though people who knew these films existed can purchase them, the price point is still completely absurd and they're still NOT getting any actual exposure beyond a tiny group of people. Bottom line, Netflix doesn't carry these, the Chicago Public Library doesn't purchase them, no video store will carry them, and the film department of the college where I teach doesn't order them for their library. We've shown Gabriel Over the White House and Rancho Notorious in film school, for Pete's sake! Warners would make plenty of cash from university and library purchases ALONE on these kinds of films, and they won't see it. Maybe the execs at Warner just love their coke and hookers above everything else, but releasing genuine classics, important cultural touchstones, through the collection this way is simply foolhardy.

[kaujot]

Reading this thread always makes me a bit depressed.

[atcolomb]

Since Warner Bros. owns the RKO films i wonder what they will do with Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons...they better not put it in the Archives

[swo17]

Shouldn't this thread be merged with the Passages thread?

[knives]

Since Warner Bros. owns the RKO films i wonder what they will do with Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons...they better not put it in the Archives

The shortest cut will be released on Itunes for three bucks next decade.

[atcolomb]

Since Warner Bros. owns the RKO films i wonder what they will do with Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons...they better not put it in the Archives

The shortest cut will be released on Itunes for three bucks next decade.

For an extra $2 you get the even shorter version of Journey Into Fear..... #-o

[domino harvey]

I think the only hope now is that labels in other regions buy the rights to some of these movies and release them on real discs. It's been done before and quite recently-- Green Mansions, for instance

[Finch]

I asked Nick if MoC would consider doing exactly that but Warners won't licence to other labels. Guess our best hope is for Warners France to step in, or any French label.

[zedz]

If Warners UK, or France, or anywhere, had any brains and initiative, they should be pumping out 'Treasures from the Warner Brothers Archive' box sets on actual DVDs. Do it by year, by genre, by star, whatever, even a random assortment would probably sell.

[der_Artur]

If Warners UK, or France, or anywhere, had any brains and initiative, they should be pumping out 'Treasures from the Warner Brothers Archive' box sets on actual DVDs. Do it by year, by genre, by star, whatever, even a random assortment would probably sell.

Or at least make the movies readily available through VoD. I got used to Japanese companies making it really difficult to watch their movies outside Japan (and France), but if now also American companies jump on the bandwagon I start to doubt if there is any real interest in the movies being seen by anyone.[/rant]

[Tommaso]

I suppose they could make much more money from these over-priced DVD-rs if they'd cater to buyers outside the US, too. It's perfectly understandable if no-one buys them who is located in the USA and has access to TCM, for instance. Like many here, I wouldn't spend a cent on them if I could get them from TV; but as most of these films are never shown in Europe, there might be a lot of people who would jump on at least some of them, I suppose. And I can't imagine there would be rights issues at least with the older films among the collection.

[Jonathan S]

And I can't imagine there would be rights issues at least with the older films among the collection.

There are different rights holders outside North America for most of the films not originally produced by Warner or MGM. In the UK (I'm not sure about the rest of Europe) nearly all RKO films are owned by Universal, as far as DVD is concerned. I think this is why the Warner shop itself won't ship overseas, just as Kino won't directly sell most of their European licensed titles to customers outside North America. But at least now that the likes of Amazon and Deep Discount are stocking the Warner Archive line the rest of us can buy them if we wish (not that I do personally).

[Tommaso]

Sorry, I forgot they're now also available at amazon. Probably I discarded that option because the pricing is even more outrageous...

[knives]

They'll take that as a challenge David.
Up next: American downloadable only VODs. forty bucks a pop.

[myrnaloyisdope]

Uggh, how did Warner's go from being consistently fabulous, to whatever the heck they are now. Rancho Notorious?? Guess it means I stick with my crummy Optimum disc for time eternal.

Next thing you know they'll be dumping Vidor silents, and the complete 8 hour Greed, or the long lost Ambersons cut into the archive.

Is the cinephile community so small that they couldn't turn on profit on some of these releases?

I'm fearful that because of the antipathy being shown towards the archive that it will be seen as justification for giving up on classic film entirely. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, of well we put the films out there and people didn't buy 'em, so lets cut our losses. Even though they botched the process from the beginning.

I think the archive could be viable if they stuck to lesser known titles, and gave them a viable price point of $10 or less, as well as selling them in store or through various online distributors.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Sorry, I forgot they're now also available at amazon. Probably I discarded that option because the pricing is even more outrageous...

I couldn't believe until I saw myself ... Unbelievable ... Those **** want me to pay thirty dollars for an unsubtitled dvd-r of "I was a communist for the FBI" ... That is ridiculous!

[Tommaso]

Even worse is the choice of that soundtrack recording for the wonderful, wonderful Garbo film "Love", marred by audience laughter in all the wrong places. Outrageous even to show that version on TCM, unspeakable to release it officially, even if it's just a dvd-r.

[Dylan]

Warner has been working on a DVD of The Magnificent Ambersons all decade, so that's definitely in the cards because so much time and money has already been invested in it. It sounds to me like there will also be a big marketing campaign, and it will also no doubt direct fans of Citizen Kane who otherwise might not seek it out. I'm also predicting that they're hiring somebody, possibly Bogdanovich, to film/reconstruct some deleted scenes (that is, if everybody is telling the truth and Warner hasn't uncovered the lost Rio print of the complete version) like Peter Jackson did with the spider pit sequence for the King Kong SE.

But yes, the Warner Archive is dumping so many films worthy of legit releases that it's just jaw dropping. I just saw The Rain People by Francis Ford Coppola, which I thought was astounding and imtimate, a near masterpiece even, and by the time it ended I just couldn't believe Warner didn't put the time in to properly restore it with Coppola (the DVD comes from an LD/TCM quality print, which looks fine but surely isn't as good as the film could look), have him record a commentary and license George Lucas' documentary on its making, Filmmaker. Hell, I'm sure Coppola himself would've helped produce the restoration and the bonus features had they approached him and put the slightest bit of additional interest in it. I mean, for God's sake it's Coppola! But instead it got dumped. I'm sure Coppola's other Warner film, You're a Big Boy Now, will have a similar fate.

I'm pulling for Last Summer and Agatha to turn up in the archive. The former of which is a wonderful film that absolutely and without question deserves a legit release, but I can see WB having little faith in it. Also, it being 25 years since the lone VHS release, Last Summer is in dire need to surface in a watchable version, so I'll settle with an Archive release. The latter, Agatha, just seems interesting and classy and perhaps a more ideal candidate for the archive since it's also relatively obscure (though it does have Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave, and is shot by Vittorio Storaro).

[Highway 61]

Warner has been working on a DVD of The Magnificent Ambersons all decade, so that's definitely in the cards because so much time and money has already been invested in it. It sounds to me like there will also be a big marketing campaign, and it will also no doubt direct fans of Citizen Kane who otherwise might not seek it out. I'm also predicting that they're hiring somebody, possibly Bogdanovich, to film/reconstruct some deleted scenes (that is, if everybody is telling the truth and Warner hasn't uncovered the lost Rio print of the complete version) like Peter Jackson did with the spider pit sequence for the King Kong SE.

Is this all just a hunch, or do you have some kind of insider information? Because frankly, this seems wildly optimistic.

[Peacock]

I think he's joking.
No doubt Warner haven't even looked at the film yet