criterionforum.org

Giveaway/contest on Eureka's Facebook page:

Vote for your favourite film from the @mastersofcinema Series - Round 1. Over the next 5 days, there'll be a selection of 10 different films each day that have been featured in the Masters of Cinema Series. We'd like to know each day, which is your favourite film of the bunch selected. It'll be a tough decision because its an eclectic mix of quality films, but for one lucky voter each day, there is the chance to win a steelbook of REPO MAN.

Did MoC say they were probably releasing 3 silents this year?

Great. I meant to post that in the forthcoming thread but I guess it doesn't matter now. *crosses fingers for A Page of Madness*

The Twitter page mentions that a 7th Lubitsch film will be released by MoC this year. I'm hoping it will be The Man I Killed / Broken Lullabye, though I suspect it will simply be a Blu-ray of Trouble In Paradise or Heaven Can Wait, since they have deals with Universal and Fox, and those are much higher profile titles to start off on Lubitsch talkies.

Didn't it actually mention something about Lubitch going from 6 to 9 by the end of the year?

found it

@clydefro re: Imamura. We have 10 x Murnau films and 32 x Buster Keaton -- plus, Lubitsch is going to hit 9 by the end of the year! -NW

Im guessing one of those will be Design for Living, it's also a Universal title i believe, so makes perfect sense.

Re Lubitsch and silents quota The Loves of Pharaoh (Lubitsch, 1922) kills two birds with one stone.

It would be really nice to finally get a good edition of the Merry Widow...

There's only one coming. I corrected the tweet a few moments later.

Can't quote the tweet from behind my work firewall, but did I miss something? Is MoC releasing something by Schlondorff?

jwd5275 wrote:It would be really nice to finally get a good edition of the Merry Widow...

I would also love it to be The Merry Widow, though that doesn't appear to be a Universal title.

jwd5275 wrote:Can't quote the tweet from behind my work firewall, but did I miss something? Is MoC releasing something by Schlondorff?

There's a Schlondorff interview series with Billy Wilder that's going to be an extra on one of their upcoming Wilder blus.

Please Nick let the Lubitsch be Angel, something great which Criterion probably won't put out. It's Universal too.

Hope it's Heaven Can Wait, as I can't see it being high up on Criterion's list

Great news that more Lubitsch is coming. I've recently finished working my way through the Lubitsch in Berlin set, so I say the more the better! I'd be delighted with Heaven Can Wait/Trouble In Paradise getting a quality UK release.

Or how about The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. That is one in need of a good release (don't know of any DVD for that?)

Yes, another Lubitsch would be grand. 'Trouble in Paradise' BR...one can dream....

BrokenFace wrote:Or how about The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. That is one in need of a good release (don't know of any DVD for that?)

Yes, that's a wonderful film much in need of a decent release. I dream of a set of Lubitsch's American silents anyhow.

Another vote for Trouble In Paradise here; Heaven can wait...

I count 9 Universal-Lubitsch titles, no?:

The Love Parade
The Man I Killed
Monte Carlo
One Hour With You
Smiling Lieutenant
Trouble in Paradise
Design for Living
Angel
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

We've seen MoC and Criterion duplicate each other before, so I wouldn't be surprised (but I would be disappointed) if MoC were to release Design for Living.

Obviously from that list The Man I Killed is in the most need of a release so I hope it's them, but it is probably going to be one of the released titles alas (though I highly doubt it will be something like Angel which has an in print UK edition). Though I don't know if the rights transferred over to Universal several of his silents were done with Paramount most notably right now Loves of Pharaoh. There's actually about twenty potential titles.

But I suspect justeleblanc's right and it'll just be Design For Living

An available HD transfer seems to be the biggest factor here.

knives, I hadn't considered his silents, though even so I'm not sure if they offer any realistic possibilities.

Kiss Me Again and The Patriot are both considered lost films, The Marriage Circle, Three Women, Lady Windermere's Fan, and So This is Paris are all Warner titles (at least they once were), and Student Prince is Warner via MGM. The only Paramount/Universal silent of his that I'm aware of is Forbidden Paradise, but it is extremely rare and at least as of 2005 (when Kristin Thompson was writing her book on Lubitsch) the only functional copy was an old nitrate print from Czech Republic.

As for his German silents, I haven't come across any news regarding restorations with the exception of Loves of a Pharaoh, which is getting the platinum Blu ray treatment soon. Perhaps MoC will mirror this Blu ray, but then that would be kind of a waste (much like a mirror of Design for Living).

knives wrote:though I highly doubt it will be something like Angel which has an in print UK edition

Actually, most of MoC's Universal releases (all but Lifeboat and the Laughtons?) already had in-print UK editions. Angel's as likely as anything else.

justeleblanc wrote: The only Paramount/Universal silent of his that I'm aware of is Forbidden Paradise, but it is extremely rare and at least as of 2005 (when Kristin Thompson was writing her book on Lubitsch) the only functional copy was an old nitrate print from Czech Republic.

Paramount still own their silents anyway, not Universal (though maybe the rights for this went to Fox when Lubitsch/Preminger remade it?) I obtained a rather poor tape copy of Forbidden Paradise about 10 years ago which may be from the Czech print as it has obviously remade English intertitles.