Georges Franju

[Stefan Andersson]

In March 2022, Gaumont´s "DVD Découverte" series will release a DVD collection of five Franju shorts: En passant la Lorraine, Hôtel des invalides, Le Théâtre national Populaire (containing the only known footage of Gérard Philipe on stage), Mon chien et A propos d'une rivière.

The Cinematheque Francaise has restored Le sang des bêtes.

Other Franju shorts belong to Pathé and other rights holders. One short belonging to Gaumont is not included in the above release.

Source: https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... f#p2937534 - Dec. 2 post by 1kult.

Update of the above info re: Gaumont´s upcoming DVD collection of Franju shorts:
the collection will now also include Sur le pont d'Avignon, the last remaining Franju short in Gaumont´s catalogue, the OCN having been restored due to some kind of mould/fungus on the materials ("une sorte de champignon avait commencé à attaquer le matériel").
Source: https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... c#p2939912 - Dec. 13 post by 1kult.

[MichaelB]

How is this release likely to be obtainable by foreigners like me? I'm more than happy to pre-order it right now.

[tenia]

It's too early for the page to be up but you'll see it pop up Amazon.fr and Fnac.com as any regular release.

[MichaelB]

Perfect - I order from both of those anyway. Thanks!

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

I don't know if you have ordered recently from Amazon.fr but since Brexit it seems that your UK address is not acceptable until after the release date so don't be surprised if you try to pre-order and it rejects it.
Another spanner in the tool kit for Macron to throw in to the works to antagonise Johnson who no doubt was aching to order the Feuillade restorations in advance.

[MichaelB]

I finally remembered to order the Franju shorts compilation from Amazon.fr, and it arrived today. (No complications with ordering, incidentally; it was just like any other Amazon order.)

I'm too busy to watch them properly right now, but I just thought I'd note that while the disc doesn't have English subtitles (completely as expected), it does have French SDH subtitles, which was a welcome and unexpected surprise. (My ear for spoken French is considerably worse than my eye for written French.)

The final line-up is:

• En passant par la Lorraine (1950)
• Hôtel des Invalides (1951)
• À propos d'une rivière... (1955)
• Mon chien (1955)
• Le Théâtre National Populaire (1956)
• Sur le pont d'Avignon (1956)

...which has filled in lots of gaps.

Of the remaining shorts, Le Sang des bêtes (1949) is included in the Criterion BD of Eyes Without a Face, Le grand Méliès (1952) is on the Criterion BD of Judex and Monsieur et Madame Curie (1952) and La Premiere Nuit (1958) are on the BFI BD of Eyes Without a Face - all are in HD. Judex also includes Hôtel des Invalides, but in SD and from a drastically inferior source than the restoration on his new DVD.

Still MIA are the very early short Le Métro (1935) plus Les Poussières (1954), Navigation Marchande (1954), Notre-dame, cathédrale de Paris (1957) and Marcel Allain (1965), although I don't believe any of those are regarded as essential (Franju apparently disowned Navigation Marchande).