Warner Brothers Archive Collection (DVDs only)

[stroszeck]

Great, now I can buy Shaq's Steel. But on a serious note, I can't believe Made In Heaven got dumped into this wasteland....Alan Rudolph just gets no love.

[triodelover]

Just pointing out that B&N are having a 40% off sale on Warner Archive. Not that great if you live in America, but if you don't it's one of the better chances to grab them without too much third party markup.

Not that great is right. A crappy DVD-R that's priced at an already too high price of $19.95 on the Warner Archive site is bumped to an SRP of $26.99 at B&N so they can claim a "40% off" sale at over $16. A rip-off by any other name is still a rip-off.

[domino harvey]

Good News and A Date With Judy now MODs

[Perkins Cobb]

Good News and A Date With Judy now MODs

I want a remake of Saw starring George Feltenstein and Reed Hastings....

[domino harvey]

Maybe this will at least bring the price down on the OOP DVDs? I feel pretty guilty for picking up Good News new for $5.99 a few years ago!

[domino harvey]

Also, Texas Carnival and Skirts Ahoy!, meaning there'll be no Esther Williams Vol 3, the Affairs of Dobie Gillis, and a trio of Eleanor Powell flicks: Honolulu, Duchess of Idaho, and Ship Ahoy, plus the aforementioned Give a Girl a Break reish (which I already got my email about, offering me the new version for $4.99)

[Perkins Cobb]

I guess you told them the musicals list was winding up.

[Feego]

the aforementioned Give a Girl a Break reish (which I already got my email about, offering me the new version for $4.99)

Just curious, if you buy a Warner Archive disc from another vendor like Amazon or Movies Unlimited, will Warner still offer you a discount on a remastered reissue, or does it only apply if you purchased it directly from the Warner store? I have bought most of my Archive discs from the Warner store, but I bought a couple through Turner Classic Movies (Movies Unlimited), and just wondered, should these films be reissued, if I'll be offered the discount.

[domino harvey]

the aforementioned Give a Girl a Break reish (which I already got my email about, offering me the new version for $4.99)

Just curious, if you buy a Warner Archive disc from another vendor like Amazon or Movies Unlimited, will Warner still offer you a discount on a remastered reissue, or does it only apply if you purchased it directly from the Warner store? I have bought most of my Archive discs from the Warner store, but I bought a couple through Turner Classic Movies (Movies Unlimited), and just wondered, should these films be reissued, if I'll be offered the discount.

They sent me an automatic email since I ordered directly from them (they did the same for I Love Melvin but I forgot about it and didn't order before the offer expired. I suppose it doesn't hurt to call or email them to inquire, but my guess would be they'll tell you tough luck

[Murdoch]

Finally, Safe in Hell gets a release. Although I'd rather it been included in the Forbidden Hollywood Wellman set.

[agnamaracs]

Whelp, WB can't be bothered to finish the second season of THE JETSONS with the pressed discs they started with...

[Gregory]

From the top story on DVDTalk's homepage:

The Warner Archive Collection, Warner Bros.' "Manufactured on Demand" service, recently added its 1,075th DVD title to an ever growing catalog in just under three years. Not bad for a "boutique" label which started when myopic naysayers complained that home video was on the decline.

But it is in decline. Sales figures have consistently shown this for some time now.

Breathe easy, cinephiles and disc hounds your hobby is not going anywhere.

I guess these folks are just flat-out fooling themselves. But I wouldn't expect clear-eyed reporting on the home video market from a site that makes so much money from advertising (including putting ads inside of members' posts). Here they have the same link to the Warner Archive store four times in the space of three paragraphs.

[fdm]

Fairly off topic I suppose, but it seemed to relate somewhat to the previous post. The other day digitalbits.com linked to a story indicating that the major music labels are (apparently/allegedly) planning on dropping the CD format after next year, moving to digital distribution only for most things, and just using it for the occasional limited edition.

[triodelover]

From the top story on DVDTalk's homepage:

The Warner Archive Collection, Warner Bros.' "Manufactured on Demand" service, recently added its 1,075th DVD title to an ever growing catalog in just under three years. Not bad for a "boutique" label which started when myopic naysayers complained that home video was on the decline.

But it is in decline. Sales figures have consistently shown this for some time now.

Exactly. If the DVD market was robust, there are a host of titles in the Archive that would have appeared on a pressed DVD with some level of restoration, extras, HoH subs and the rest. Put another way, my wife and I watched Footlight Parade this AM out of one of the Busby Berkeley sets from a few years ago. The disc had several extras and multiple subs. Today that would a bare bones unrestored DVD-R from the Archive at a price that's close to what the set could be found for on sale. To take it even further, the price of the Archive discs indicates the volume of sales isn't there.

[matrixschmatrix]

I do wonder how much that's a self fulfilling prophecy, though- I mean, if the big companies stop putting out and heavily promoting interesting catalog releases, it's no surprise that sales will go down, and of course Archive titles aren't going to sell in the numbers that pressed discs do.

[TMDaines]

I would never buy from a DVD-R archive to be honest. The prices would have to be at the levels of those "grey area" sellers who sell the films that aren't otherwise released for me to consider it. I can burn a DVD-R for myself, I don't need to pay that much to do it.

[stroszeck]

I don't understand if these movies are considered niche and do not have a large target audience then why do they continue to butcher/edit them harshly? Finally got Dark of the Sun and its ridiculous just how much they cut out. I wish they would at least do a decent remaster or something as well. It just seems like such a half hearted effort the way they put some of these movies together that they might as well just dump the titles onto netflix instant viewing...

[BillWatkins]

WAC has a slew of films up for pre-order:

November 22nd:
-The Constant Nymph (Edmund Goulding, 1943)
-The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Jack Kaufman, 1968)
-The People Against O'Hara (John Sturges, 1951)
-The Seventh Cross (Fred Zinnemann, 1944)
-Northwest Passage (King Vidor, 1940)

December 13th:
-The Brothers Karamazov (Richard Brooks, 1958)
-Edward, My Son (George Cukor, 1949)
-The Great Sinner (Robert Siodmak, 1949)
-Youngblood Hawke (Delmer Daves, 1964)
-The Green Years (Victor Saville, 1946)
-Pre-Code Double Feature: Loretta Young (Road to Paradise [1930] / Week-End Marriage [1932])
-Pre-Code Double Feature: Joan Blondell (I've Got Your Number [1934] / Havana Widows [1933])
-Pre-Code Double Feature: Loretta Young (The Right of Way [1931] / The Truth About Youth [1930])
-Pre-Code Double Feature: Dorothy Mackaill (The Office Wife [1930] / Party Husband [1931])
-Pre-Code Double Feature: Comedy (Loose Ankles [1930] / The Naughty Flirt [1931])

Boxsets / TV / Reissues

November 22nd:
-Monogram Cowboy Collection Volume 1 (Oklahoma Blues / Partners of the Sunset / Cowboy Cavalier / Gun Law Justice / Outlaw Gold / Man From Sonora / Oklahoma Justice / Texas Lawmen / Cavalry Scout)
-Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story (Richard T. Heffron, 1987)
-Pearl: The Miniseries (Alexander Singer, 1978)
-Lon Chaney: The Warner Archive Classics Collection (He Who Gets Slapped / Mockery / The Monster / Mr. Wu / The Unholy Three / The Unholy 3)
-Elizabeth Taylor: The Warner Archive Classics Collection (Conspirator / Cynthia / The Girl Who Had Everything / Love is Better Than Ever / Rhapsody)
-Randolph Scott: The Warner Archive Classics Collection (Badman's Territory / Trail Street / Return of the Bad Men / Carson City / Westbound)
-The Tarzan Collection Starring Gordon Scott (Tarzan's Hidden Jungle / Tarzan and the Lost Safari / Tarzan and the Trappers / Tarzan's Fight for Life / Tarzan's Greatest Adventure / Tarzan the Magnificent)
-The Tarzan Collection Starring Lex Barker (Tarzan's Magic Fountain / Tarzan and the Slave Girl / Tarzan's Peril / Tarzan's Savage Fury / Tarzan and the She-Devil)

December 6th:
-The Robert Montgomery Collection (Shipmates / The Man in Possession / Faithless / Lovers Courageous / But the Flesh Is Weak / Made on Broadway / Live, Love and Learn / The Earl of Chicago)
-The Centurions: The Original Miniseries
-Elizabeth Montgomery TV movies (Black Widow Murders / Between the Darkness and the Dawn / Belle Starr)
-The Growing Pains Movie (Alan Metter, 2000)
-Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers (Joanna Kerns, 2004)

[JPJ]

Those are pretty obscure pre-codes,I've never even heard any of those.And six Lon Chaney movies and no West of Zanzibar?Hopefully at some point they'll put it out with Kongo.

[domino harvey]

Green Years is a DVD downgrade, Constant Nymph is a shock should be a real DVD

[HypnoHelioStaticStasis]

Green Years, as far as I know, has never been on R1 dvd (I'm a big fan of it). Thinking of Green Pastures, perhaps?

[movielocke]

ooh, Northwest Passage, finally. iirc it was slated for some restoration for an ill fated Spencer Tracy set, so I'm hoping that the archives is a nice new transfer. This will be my first archives purchase, most likely.

[domino harvey]

Green Years, as far as I know, has never been on R1 dvd (I'm a big fan of it). Thinking of Green Pastures, perhaps?

Whoops!

[med]

Growing Pains!

[Perkins Cobb]

Stunned to realize The Brothers Karamazov was never a real DVD in R1. That thing used to run on TCM every other day.

Really enjoyed the Delmer Daves melodramas that came out on real DVDs a couple years back; looking forward to Youngblood Hawke to finally complete the set.