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You should run to Applause which is pretty easily his best film.

They should put out City Streets instead of just mindless upgrading proven sellers (not holding my breath there), but yes, a lot of people like Blood and Sand. And as with the case for Criterion's Mikado, it may not be the greatest cinema but any of the late '30s/early '40s technicolor features that can be done presentably on blu-ray should be.
Best not to go into later Mamoulian films expecting anything in the category of City Streets, Applause, and the other early works. That can only lead to disappointment, but there is some enjoyment to be had in a couple of the later ones.

I was hoping that The Mark of Zorro would've gotten the Blu-ray treatment first between the two Mamoulian films, but Blood and Sand being upgraded to Blu is definitely welcome to me.

knives wrote:You should run to Applause which is pretty easily his best film.

I pretty much agree*. Applause is great, and certainly among one of best early Hollywood sound dramas. I love the set-up with the faded diva and her cad lover who wants to coerce the innocent youth in to the seedy world of dance.

The film has beautiful flowing camera usage throughout, quite the opposite of what one expects from such an early sound film, which is made all the more impressive by the fact that Mamoulian uses plenty of long takes. Some of the musical sequences rival Busby Berkley for sheer audacity. There’s also lots of location-shooting, and tight montage sequences that give one a feeling of how New York must have been like to experience at the time.

The characters are on the whole very believable, with the films main emotional crux being the relationship between mother and daughter. I thought the ending packed a real passionate punch that the film earns trough this relationship. I was also impressed by how the aforementioned cad (i.e. “the antagonist") is pretty even-handedly portrayed. Although he is a cheating bastard and a moocher, his motivation for getting the girl on stage is to make her work and pull her own weight, which one would assume was a natural thing for a girl at that age and standing to do at the time.

The film is not without it’s faults, though. For example, the farcical situations with the mum coming through the door every time Slimy Step Dad tries to paw the girl, and the succeeding silly excuses is repeated three times. And I’m not quite sure about the girls little romantic interlude.


*Even so, of all of Mamoulian’s films, Love Me Tonight is even more of a masterpiece and unbeatable for my money. Though they may not be completely comparable because Love Me Tonight is more of a fully-fledged musical (only a good thing in my book)

It’s the songs, the humour, the raunchiness, and of course The Maurice (Most Charming Man on Earth) Chevalier.

I'd wager that because Love Me Tonight has gotten a lot more attention by contemporary historians and fans, Applause is the more forgotten film, which is a shame though.

Anyway, like knives I can whole-heartedly get behind this,
Applause = Great film. Period.

Also, I quite like the sailor.

(Edited to specify that I rate Love Me Tonight above Applause)

kingofthejungle wrote:

captveg wrote:It appears Blood and Sand (1941) will be getting a release on 7/9/13.

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-And-Sand-Bl ... B00BQ6TIVO" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just out of curiosity, does anyone actually like this movie? I find most post-Golden Boy Mamoulian borderline unwatchable.

I remember liking it. The story is melodramatic nonsense, but the visual design, especially the symbolism that takes over part way through, is quite well done. Plus it has Laird Cregar Laird Cregaring it up.

I saw Blood and Sand at The Filmoteca in Barcelona many years ago and will never be able to see it again with a straight face. To the predominantly Catalan audience, the film's mixture of cliches and stereotypes was met with frequent outbursts of laughter and a sense of amusement with a dash of contempt.

According to the member of blu-ray.com Fox rep. has confirmed Blu-ray of The King of Comedy for this year!

The new How Green Was My Valley Blu didn't wow me quite as much as last year's Fox Blu of The Grapes of Wrath but this John Ford masterpiece is still an essential purchase for lovers of classic Hollywood cinema. My review

John Doe wrote:According to the member of blu-ray.com Fox rep. has confirmed Blu-ray of The King of Comedy for this year!

That would indeed be awesome. Gotta cash in on that 30th Anniversary hype.

In Old Arizona (1928) on 6/4/13

Source

Really? I understand most of these terrible movies getting released, but I can't imagine why a major studio is releasing this. Hopefully this is a sign that things are going pre-'06 however slowly.

Haven't seen the film, but is this another case of fanatical Academy Award completists demanding and getting a film they probably wouldn't care about had it not won? Best Actor went to Baxter for this film, by the same weird bunch who thought Broadway Melody was the "Best Picture."

Gregory wrote:Haven't seen the film, but is this another case of fanatical Academy Award completists demanding and getting a film they probably wouldn't care about had it not won? Best Actor went to Baxter for this film, by the same weird bunch who thought Broadway Melody was the "Best Picture."

Possibly. I see it more of a sign that Fox has internally organized certain films within their "Studio Classics" label, with others being categorized as "with Criterion" or "with Twilight Time", etc. It seems they are simply coming through on their word to re-introduce the Studio Classics line to BD.

And, depressing though it is, "won an Oscar" is probably top of the list for how studios define what is or isn't a 'classic' among their holdings. ("Directed by an established auteur" wouldn't even be in their top ten.)

zedz wrote:And, depressing though it is, "won an Oscar" is probably top of the list for how studios define what is or isn't a 'classic' among their holdings. ("Directed by an established auteur" wouldn't even be in their top ten.)

Fox has just released a Kazan box, remember?

felipe wrote:

zedz wrote:And, depressing though it is, "won an Oscar" is probably top of the list for how studios define what is or isn't a 'classic' among their holdings. ("Directed by an established auteur" wouldn't even be in their top ten.)

Fox has just released a Kazan box, remember?

Probably thanks to the work Scorsese has done over the years for his reputation and the fact that many of those films have oscars.

Indeed. This is how the product description blurb begins on Amazon:

Master director Martin Scorsese brings you this unprecedented collection of fifteen cinematic treasures from fellow Academy Award® Winner Elia Kazan.

Well, they were promoting A Letter to Elia at the same time, so no surprise there.

Something from Fox Searchligh catalog in a while. One Hour Photo, May 7th.

Did that film do well at the box office? I so rarely hear it talked about, I thought it was a real gem, and images from it have stuck with me to this day.

mfunk9786 wrote:Did that film do well at the box office? I so rarely hear it talked about, I thought it was a real gem, and images from it have stuck with me to this day.

$31.6 million in the US and $52.2 million worldwide - pretty good for a film like this. I saw it at Sundance when it premiered and was really struck by it, as it was the first time I saw Williams do a role like it.

I've only seen it once ten years ago and I remember liking it a lot, definitely more than Romanek's latest, Never Let Me Go. Anyways, special features for One Hour Phote have been announced and it looks like a great set:
NEW – Cast Rehearsals
NEW – Lensing One Hour Photo
NEW – Main Title Test
NEW – Sy’s Nightmare Elements
NEW – Storyboards
NEW – Poster Explorations
Commentary by Mark Romanek and Robin Williams
The Charlie Rose Show
Sundance: Anatomy of a Scene
Cinemax Featurette
Trailer and TV Spots

MSRP is only $19.99 and pre-order is up at Amazon for $14.99.

Well, Fox Cinema Archives dropped the ball on Apartment for Peggy, a wonderful and absolutely charming Technicolor film & one of the key Jeanne Crain films and all we get is a master created in the 90s for a Fox Movie Channel broadcast. This one really needed to be brought back for a bigger audience and released on blu ray, but nope. I'm assuming the other key Jeanne Crain films, Margie (my favorite) and Take Care of My Little Girl, will suffer a similar fate. I love Jeanne Crain and wish there were more lavish presentations of her movies (I like Kazan's Pinky, which has a great release, but I don't think it's as great as these others I've mentioned... of course, she's also in Leave Her to Heaven which will get a blu soon, and that's a masterpiece but it's really Gene Tierney's movie and not Crain's).

Edit: DVDBeaver won't let me directly link their review of this disc, so you'll have to find it in the SD-DVD review section on their main page.

mfunk9786 wrote:Did that film do well at the box office? I so rarely hear it talked about, I thought it was a real gem, and images from it have stuck with me to this day.

It's not "Fox catalog release" related but mfunk, have you seen Romanek's first film, the bus taken hostage by a man who says that he can see Heaven through the white noise in television sets film, Static? (Spoilers in that linked video, but it is the only one I can find)

It's a great little film but seems to have dropped out of distribution entirely (I'd love to hope that Criterion could rehabilitae it), and is a wonderful reminder of when Amanda Plummer was a major presence in movies.

I haven't, but I've been trying to seek it out. I still need to see Never Let Me Go, too, which was championed by a few people whose opinions I respect.