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Just came back to add that the Swiss sculptor Peter Balbusch deserves credit as well for creating the menacing statuary of Scarlet Empress, much as Otto Hunte did the memorable town clock figures in Blue Angel.

Yes David Hare gave massive credit to both Balbusch and Drier in our commentary. The dude is a walking compendium of Joe.

Of course there is so much more to these things than the visuals! As noted, I've been looking at these things on a certain illicit substance and that is why I think so much about the visuals -- I actually had the sound turned off.

I didn't mean to downplay the sound, dialogue and the script, all of which I find equally wonderful and crucial to the whole. I'm just always staggered at how everything regarding the stories/themes is so completely played out visually on a number of levels. The imagery, and the way it reflects the other content like an infinitely regressing hall of mirrors, just overwhelms me in a way nothing else in cinema does. I agree the movies are almost impossibly funny and like Sloper says the often bad acting almost seems essential to Sternberg's aesthetic, incredibly enough. I was kind of joking when I said the extras were the stars -- though I do appreciate them more and more and more!

The lengths the man went to take credit for everything are indeed ridiculously over the top and ultimately do color the movies in a negative way. It is seriously unfair to the collaborators. People like Hans Dreier and (not in this movie, as far as I know) Jules Furthman deserve all the credit in the world for their work in these movies and Sternberg really does just dismiss them entirely in his book if he mentions them at all. Dude was maybe just a true weirdo eccentric artist of the highest caliber, for better or worse. I'm okay with that, in the final analysis, but I totally understand how it could rub a lot of people the wrong way.

I like the mostly-painted mirror room at the end of Shanghai Gesture! I forget off hand who did those paintings but that set is wonderful. I never even noticed it was a mirror room until my most recent viewing!

...certain illicit substance...

you can still get LSD in this country? i thought it was totally extinct and the original formula lost forever...although i'm a robitussin DM man to the core i'm happy to know it's still alive and kicking.

Sure you're not thinking of quaaludes?

This looks terrific...

PLUS: A book featuring essays by critics Imogen Sara Smith, Gary Giddins, and Farran Smith Nehme

Smart work around the Blue Angel issue as well.

Holy s***, this is amazing. I wasn't sure if some of these titles would ever get released.

FrauBlucher wrote:This looks terrific...

PLUS: A book featuring essays by critics Imogen Sara Smith, Gary Giddins, and Farran Smith Nehme

Much like Arrow, don't get too excited by promises of a "book" - especially considering only three writers are listed. It's probably just three essays in a 60-page perfect-bound book, not a whole big thing. Better than a pamphlet, though!

Most excellent news - a boxset to be cherished for the rest of my life. Now, please upgrade your DVD set with the Paramount silents, Criterion.

Christmas in July - been hoping they'd put something like this together for awhile, have made sporadic suggestions. All praise the benevolent Mulvaney, who clearly listens.

hearthesilence wrote:Holy s***, this is amazing. I wasn't sure if some of these titles would ever get released.

Most have been scattered on DVD, some in decent transfers - but this is the first time they've all been put together in the context they deserve.

Hoping for the same with the Mann/Stewart cooperations someday, but Criterion has a lot of months left to fill.

I haven't been this excited by a Criterion release in a while. I adore Sternberg and Dietrich's collaborations.

I'm stunned and speechless. This is a amazing release.

Holly shit.

I have been waiting for this for about 20 years. Thank you, Criterion.

Yeah, I think this was on the rumored forthcoming list at the first Criteron Forum back when I joined in.... 2003?

I notice that the set does not seem to include two supplements from The Scarlet Empress DVD release — Documentary: "The World of Josef von Sternberg," including interview with Kevin Brownlow (30 min.), and Von Sternberg tribute by underground filmmaker Jack Smith. I understand the documentary is quite good and a unique glimpse into Sternberg’s lighting methods. It sounds like quite a loss. Anyone have thoughts on these?

Shanghai Express was rumored to be joining collection at least since October 2001...

I'm pretty sure it had been rumored since Scarlet Empress was released, so 2001 sounds about right.

Finally! What a set.

Blonde Venus and the Golden Afro - not my favorite of the Von Deitberg collabs, but a weird and glitzy film. Worth it for the hairstyles alone.

I remember Shanghai Express being rumored around 2001-ish because I put off watching it for a few months thinking a dvd was imminent.

As I recall during an HTF chat with criterion around 2002-2003 era they said there were no suitable materials for Shanghai Express on dvd, at least not comparable to the standard they’d released Scarlett empress in, so it had more or less been indefinitely postponed/shelved.

The apparent absence of Jack Smith from the extras is concerning. I hope the overall impression of sober heteronormative academic analysis isn’t actually the whole story. Couldn’t they rope in John Waters, Charles Busch and Lypsinka for balance? Sheesh. The films are delirious, and the extras should ideally reflect this at some point. It’s not John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks fans who’ve lit candles and kept shrines to these films for lo these 80 years.

Any word as to the restorations? I'm hoping they've found the missing dialogue from SHANGHAI EXPRESS.