TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures

[What A Disgrace]

Classicflix sent this in an email...

While there is no official word as of yet, we're passing along news that Warner will soon release TCM: Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures Collection. The 5-disc set will feature four new-to-DVD titles, with Objective, Burma! being a re-release.

We've set the likely release date as July 27th, but that is just speculation. As far as price, all 5-disc TCM Spotlight sets have retailed for $49.92, so this set will likely follow that price point. When we know more, we'll pass it along and make the set available for sale.

Mostly Raoul Walsh stuff in the set; including Uncertain Glory, which I've been wanting to see forever. I wonder if the Men Who Made the Movies doc will finally appear here?

[domino harvey]

Too bad they couldn't make it a general Flynn catchall box ala Doris Day and throw that recent Archives title in instead of Objective, Burma! Still, great release, though I'm surprised Flynn could carry a pressed box while someone like Ginger Rogers or Clark Gable got pushed to the Archives

[Frankinho007]

Too bad they couldn't make it a general Flynn catchall box ala Doris Day and throw that recent Archives title in instead of Objective, Burma! Still, great release, though I'm surprised Flynn could carry a pressed box while someone like Ginger Rogers or Clark Gable got pushed to the Archives

Only Warner can tell...

... nonetheless it's good to see three Warner box sets coming out in June and July and I do hope it's not only a flash in the pan an they'll continue this trend through fall and winter. Hoping for some more Bette Davis, Forbidden Hollywood, Jean Harlow, Humphrey Bogart, Greed and co. on pressed DVD this year & next year.

[HarryLong]

Too bad they couldn't make it a general Flynn catchall box ala Doris Day and throw that recent Archives title in instead of Objective, Burma! Still, great release, though I'm surprised Flynn could carry a pressed box while someone like Ginger Rogers or Clark Gable got pushed to the Archives

I suspect this has little to do with Warners & everything to do with TCM.
TCM, after all, released that box of Universal "Cult" titles & gave a far better packaging than anything Universal was doing. A very nice box & each title had its own disc - compared to their 5 movies on 2 sides of 1 disc for their Bela Lugosi... er... box, for instance.

[domino harvey]

But this is the same series that gave us the Powell and Loy set way back. I actually have a lot of these TCM sets and they're just like any other Warners Sets, only in a bright foldout digipak rather than slimlines or cases. I suspect Warners owns the rights to the TCM moniker and arbitrarily bestows it to those personalities that meet some (undefined?) consumer criteria

[domino harvey]

Release date pushed to August 3. Extras:

Desperate Journey (1942)

BONUS FEATURES:

* Warner Night at the Movies 1942 Short Subjects Gallery:
o Vintage Newsreel
o Oscar-Nominated Patriotic Short The Tanks Are Coming
o Musical Shorts Borrah Minnevitch and His Harmonica School and The United States Army Air Force Band
o Classic Cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimento University or the Rivals of Roquefort Hall
* Trailers of Desperate Journey and 1942’s Murder in the Big House

Edge of Darkness (1943)

BONUS FEATURES:

* Warner Night at the Movies 1943 Short Subjects Gallery:
* Vintage Newsreel
* Musical Short The United States Service Bands
* Classic Cartoons Hiss and Make Up and To Duck….or Not to Duck
* Trailers of Edge of Darkness and 1943’s The Hard Way

Northern Pursuit (1943)

BONUS FEATURES:

* Warner Night at the Movies 1943 Short Subjects Gallery:
o Vintage Newsreel
o Wartime Short The Rear Gunner
o Musical Short All-Star Melody Masters
o Drama Short Over the Wall
o Classic Cartoon Hop and Go
* Trailers of Northern Pursuit and 1943’s The Constant Nymph

Uncertain Glory (1944)

BONUS FEATURES:

* Warner Night at the Movies 1944 Short Subjects Gallery:
o Vintage Newsreel
o Musical Short Unted States Coast Guard Band
o Classic Cartoons Brother Brat and Russian Rhapsody
* Trailers of Uncertain Glory and 1944’s The Mask of Dimitrios

Objective, Burma! (1945)

BONUS FEATURES (ON 2003 SINGLE DISC ONLY AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE):

* 2 Classic Warner Brothers Wartime Shorts
o 1941's The Tanks are Coming With George Tobias, Richard Travis and Gig Young
o 1943's The Rear Gunner with Burgess Meredith and Ronald Reagan
* Raoul Walsh Profile
* Theatrical Trailer

BONUS FEATURES (PART OF 2010 ERROL FLYNN COLLECTION ONLY AVAILABLE AS RENTAL):

* Commentary by Historians Rudy Behlmer, Jon Burlingame and Frank Thompson
o Warner Night at the Movies 1945 Short Subjects Gallery:
o Vintage Newsreel
o Joe McDoakes Comedy Short So You Think You’re Allergic
o Classic Cartoon A Tale of Two Mice
* Trailers of Objective, Burma! and 1945’s Pride of the Marines

So that's why they included Burma!

[Finch]

Haven't seen any of these but Burma, Edge of Darkness and Northern Pursuit sound all intriguing. Uncertain Glory was panned by Variety back in the day if the imdb link is anything to go by.

[What A Disgrace]

Uncertain Glory is considered a masterpiece by Tag Gallagher, though, and its the reason I'm excited about this set.

[Finch]

I'm likely to buy the set anyways but hearing that Gallagher rates Uncertain Glory highly piques my interest in the set even further. Between this and the Noir 5 box (albeit featureless), Warner makes some amends for their DVD-Rs.

[zedz]

Any box with that much Raoul Walsh in it is worth a blind buy. I've only seen Objective, Burma!, which is terrific.

[Matt]

Could someone please explain to me the two lists of extras on Objective, Burma!? Are all the extras available on the retail set, but only some available on the 2003 stand-alone release and only some available on the 2010 disc that will be available for rental? Or does the retail set have NO extras for this film (extras exclusive to 2003 edition and rental edition)? That's a very confusing listing.

[bjeggert82]

What a great set. I've been waiting for these films for years. I've seen them all on TCM before, years ago, back when they commemorated the first Flynn boxed set with a month of his movies. I'm particularly excited about Uncertain Glory and Northern Pursuit. The former is a neat spy role for Flynn, and the latter is like an actionized version of The 49th Parallel. But they're all very good films--as expected, with Walsh behind the camera. This is probably my most anticipated DVD release for the year now...

[HypnoHelioStaticStasis]

Could someone please explain to me the two lists of extras on Objective, Burma!? Are all the extras available on the retail set, but only some available on the 2003 stand-alone release and only some available on the 2010 disc that will be available for rental? Or does the retail set have NO extras for this film (extras exclusive to 2003 edition and rental edition)? That's a very confusing listing.

Matt, I take it as meaning that ALL the extras listed are going to be on the box disc, while the first section is stuff that was on the 2003 release. The other list is just stuff heaped upon that release. I agree, they need to clarify that a little better. Who knows, I may be wrong...

Great looking box by the way! Desperate Journey is excellent. More Walsh = a better life.

[domino harvey]

And the stuff that was on the 2003 release shows up on other discs in the set, I think

[kawest]

And the stuff that was on the 2003 release shows up on other discs in the set, I think

Since the original Objective, Burma! disc came out before the advent of Warner Night at the Movies, the short subjects were related to the feature only insofar as they were all WWII-era Warner productions. In those days, no one batted an eye if a 1943 short like The Rear Gunner was paired with a 1945 feature like Objective, Burma! That short has now been relocated to the Northern Pursuit disc so it can take its place alongside other contemporaneous also-rans Hop and Go lest someone have a fit. The new Objective, Burma! disc will only be available in the boxset while the old snapper version (which had an outstanding transfer) will remain available singly, with the same extras it's always had. At least that's what I take the press release to mean.

[Jonathan S]

I think the rental reference is only because the announcement came via ClassicFlix who rent discs from sets out separately, and they have presumably now replaced the old version of Objective, Burma! in their rental catalog with the new one (though you can still purchase the old version). They've now confirmed the retail price is $49.92.

The Walsh Men Who Made the Movies is a sad and surprising omission on this set (given the inclusion of two Wellman documentaries on Forbidden Hollywood 3), though I realise he didn't direct one of the films. I remember seeing the original versions of MWMTM in the 1970s - it encouraged me to take Hollywood films more seriously - and recall the Walsh as one of the best (I still have Schickel's book of interviews for the series). Of course, this set is marketed as a Flynn product - is he the first star to get four pressed Warner sets?

[Finch]

My copy of the set arrived today (impressed with TCM's international shipping), and we'll give Desperate Journey a spin tonight. Will post impressions later on.

edit: We just finished Desperate Journey and both agreed that the set is off to a good start with this film. It's a fast-paced and suspenseful men-on-a-mission yarn with one or two twists along the way and a sterling cast including Flynn, Arthur Kennedy, a very handsome Ronald Reagan, Flynn's sidekick Alan Hale, and Raymond Massey as the villain. Sig Rugman has a two-minute cameo that is very reminiscent of his famous role in To Be Or Not To Be, and it's side-splittingly funny. It may be more obvious than intended but it should be appreciated nonetheless that Walsh insisted on Massey and the other actors playing Germans speaking most or all of their lines in German rather than have all the German characters speaking English. Not that this striving for some sort of authenticity extends to the location shooting when hilly Southern California stands in for the flat countryside of Holland etc but if nothing else it's good for a chuckle. Very entertaining film and hopefully just a foretaste of things to come in this set. The print was very clean for most of the time ahd exhibited strong blacks and contrast; for DVD and for a film of this age, it looked almost exceptionally good. Audio was also very clear.

[Napier]

Thanks David, I'll purchase it based on your enthusiasm. If anything, good sales of the Flynn box will help Warner's realize that the films they press on DVD or BD, I will buy. And the films they dump in the archive, will unfortunately, stay there.