Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

[yoloswegmaster]

Releases for August are being announced:

FATHER'S LITTLE DIVIDEND (1951) - New 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Camera Negative
GAY PURR-EE (1962) - New 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Camera Negative
THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937) - New 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Nitrate Camera negative
LITLE WOMEN (1933) - New 1080p HD master from 4K scan of best nitrate preservation elements
SPINOUT (1966) - New 1080p HD Master from 4K Scan of the Original Camera Negative
WICHITA (1955) - New 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Camera Negative

[FrauBlucher]

That’s the first Muni

[Furstemberg]

The inclusion of Spinout makes this month one of WAC’s worst by default

[Peacock]

Tourneur! I was hoping for Wichita at some point on Blu, another weird little Western, left me pretty cold on first viewing so keen to revisit it in HD.

And great to get more Muni; Zola is screening at my local cinema club this month in fact. Happy about Little Women and will need to check out the rest

[What A Disgrace]

Wichita! What a glorious day this is.

[Maltic]

I was surprised it was in the WB catalogue tbh (I see the DVD is also WAC though).

MoC or Indicator style extras would've been nice, but can't complain when it gets the WAC treatment.

[Finch]

In for Wichita. They must be saving the Lewtons for Halloween.

[hearthesilence]

Wow, an ELVIS movie. I know he's experienced a resurgence of late, thanks to Luhrmann's movie and now Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, but 20 years ago, the guy was such a towering cash cow that there's no way this wouldn't have been a more high-profile release. I think there have been a few articles on this, but his audience started to age and die out sometime in the last five or ten years. This wasn't lost on anyone who was profiting from his legacy - for example, the market value of Elvis memorabilia went into steep decline just before the start of the decade - and I think his estate has been aggressively trying to renew his fanbase. Then again, new fans are more likely to be won over by Luhrmann or Coppola's films then the dreadful ones Elvis made, so maybe a low-key release makes more sense.

Thrilled about Wichita - the previous Warner Archive DVD is truly awful and I'm glad I don't have to settle for its crappy picture quality anymore. Little Women is intriguing - I've heard some people say it's a really, really good adaptation with high praise for Cukor, Hepburn et al, and I do have a soft spot for the book (as well as Armstrong's film - Gerwig's was kind of a mixed bag for me), so I'll probably get it.

[Rayon Vert]

There was a discussion recently on the board about Cukor and I don't remember Little Women being mentioned, at least I didn"t. But it's definitely one of his successes in my book.

[Drucker]

Is there any website which tracks all of the Archive Blu Ray releases? I'm at a point I barely even know what I've missed out on since WBShop ended (even manually browsing on that site was preferable).
Or do I need to build a list on like deepdiscount/rarewaves or something?

[FrauBlucher]

Warner Archive on bluray.com... not the greatest to navigate but all the blu-rays should be there

[Rayon Vert]

I thought there was a Wikipedia page with the releases per year, but now I can't find it (?). Either I'm imagining that or they took it down.

Edit: Oh, I think that's explained in the thread about the missing Criterion page.

[Drucker]

Warner Archive on bluray.com... not the greatest to navigate but all the blu-rays should be there

Honestly this is perfect. Thank you!

[domino harvey]

I find this Letterboxd list helpful

[Gregory]

Warner Archive on bluray.com... not the greatest to navigate but all the blu-rays should be there

Honestly this is perfect. Thank you!

It's really incomplete. Whether I sort it by release date, recently added, or recent preorders, it includes titles from 1—2 years ago on the first page.
I started keeping my own list for reference after Wanker Wikipedia Editor deleted that and similar pages, even though this year's WAC announcements have proved too late for me to purchase anything. (No working Blu-ray player or screen setup currently—time will tell whether I'm out of the Blu-ray game.)

[Drucker]

Thank you. For a while my Amazon wishlist became my place to store this stuff and I would just buy from the WBShop, but I have tried to permanently cut out Amazon at this point. Maybe that method would be best.

[Drucker]

I honestly am not sure why I picked up The Santa Fe Trail. Either the appeal of a story about John Brown or I may have mistakenly thought it to be a Raoul Walsh film. Regardless, as beautiful as the film and transfer is, this particular story about how John Brown's desire for bloodshed was the key driver that led America into the Civil War, and if we had just given the south a little more personal space, the whole slavery thing would have sorted itself out, is particularly difficult to watch. I have a stomach for films which don't accurately depict history and have other problematic elements wen evaluated through a contemporary lens, but the whole story here is fantastical and it's pretty hard to sit through.

[domino harvey]

A Lion in the Streets is an interesting, in some ways superior version of the Huey Long story that inspired All The King’s Men...

Didn't notice this until now because I didn't remember the title, but A Lion in the Streets is one of the films I've been looking out for. (I knew about the Warner Archive DVD but I was hoping for a local repertory screening, never believing a Blu-ray would be out first.) Richard Brody has been talking it up for quite some time.

I enjoyed it on the whole as entertaining hokum but I can’t think of any ways in which it would be superior to All the King’s Men, other than the sickness of auteurism making it so by brute force. There’s some good ideas here, but a whole lot of cut corners (the film has a first act and a third act, but nothing in between). The film is also more or less mocking the progressive voice of the left, so I REALLY think those who’ve expressed the most interest in the title are doing some real humdingers of acrobatics to have it fit their worldview
(By the way, you both have the title wrong: A Lion IS in the Streets, though I think the punchier title sounds better!)

[bottlesofsmoke]

I enjoyed it on the whole as entertaining hokum but I can’t think of any ways in which it would be superior to All the King’s Men, other than the sickness of auteurism making it so by brute force. There’s some good ideas here, but a whole lot of cut corners (the film has a first act and a third act, but nothing in between). The film is also more or less mocking the progressive voice of the left, so I REALLY think those who’ve expressed the most interest in the title are doing some real humdingers of acrobatics to have it fit their worldview
(By the way, you both have the title wrong: A Lion IS in the Streets, though I think the punchier title sounds better!)

It’s been a while since I’ve seen either movie, so you may be right, but I remember thinking that Willie Stark went from teetotaling political reformer to corrupt drunk in monogrammed silk robes without much satisfactory explanation as to why he changed, outside of “power corrupts,” whereas I felt the Cagney character has more of a clear descent into demagoguery and the change felt more natural, based on what we know about both characters before. Though again, I haven’t seen it in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I think All the King’s Men is a better movie (and like several of Rossen’s films just as much as any of Walsh’s), just that A Lion is in the Streets does that part a little bit better.

[domino harvey]

I agree that Cagney’s tilt seems organic, but I’d argue that is because he’s been crooked from the outset based on his aside to his new bride when guilting the poor folk of the county to give him a hand with his homestead while he reads a law book, which is just a preamble to what amounts to the first of several personally beneficial confrontations. Even his marriage seems to anticipate the need for a politician to have a respectable bride when he clearly prefers the company of Anne Francis (who appears to exist in this film for no other purpose). I wasn’t surprised to learn this was an adaptation of a novel because a lot of these beats don’t have enough presence to register as more than quick blips, and one gets the feeling Cagney is resisting this character being as shrewd as he appears given his obvious ambitions. A better film would have leaned into these threads, made him a fully Machiavellian orchestrator rather than someone getting high off his own fumes, but it’s not this one

[Ribs]

Coming in September:

Christopher Strong (1933)
Saratoga (1937)
Westward the Women (1951)
Cats Don’t Dance (1997)
Palmetto (1998)
Before Night Falls (2000)

[Matt]

Don’t sleep on Westward the Women. Great film.

Palmetto though? Definitely one of those Warner Archive “huh?” releases.

[Rayon Vert]

I second Westward. Wasn't expecting that one but glad it's coming!

[ryannichols7]

Westward the Women seems like a must pick up, but the rest of this batch feels like titles I never see anyone request. I'm glad the output has been high this year (6 title months are common!) but the titles they've chosen are wacky

which is par for the course..

[What A Disgrace]

Westward the Women is probably the best film Frank Capra has a credit on. Christopher Strong will probably go down nicely with as Merrily We Go To Hell.