Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

[therewillbeblus]

Last Summer is a huge rescue. It's a fascinating exercise at drawing a portrait of the side of youthful experimentation not often shown, at least in this way, and when it finally boils over you don't know what to make of it any more than these kids do, which feels as honest as everything that came before. Easily the best Perry movie I've seen

[domino harvey]

It's Love I'm After is great. It made our forum's top 25 screwballs list

Caught up to it 4 or 5 years ago, left me shocked that it didn't become bedrock canon decades ago

I’m kind of equally shocked at the positive notices here and from my LB friends! Unless we are rating a screwball comedy based on how hot Olivia DeHavilland looks, in which case this truly is a masterpiece, I think this one got left behind with just cause. A bad, unfunny script for a not altogether hopeless scenario that is nevertheless ground to an absolute halt by the uninspired and offputtingly docile direction. Surely amongst the worst directed comedies of the era courtesy of WB in-houser Archie Mayo. If I were to return to the film (after, perhaps, losing either a bet or my mind), and took score and dutifully counted, I would not be surprised if every instinct he had was wrong

[domino harvey]

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.

This film is so fabulously misguided that it beggars belief. This is the most baldly racist film I've ever seen come out of the studio era, and it is so much worse than you can possibly imagine. At one point Errol Flynn literally says, and I'm not exaggerating, "Maybe slavery is good. Maybe it isn't. But that's not for me to decide. Or for John Brown." This movie is so wrongheaded and offensively realized that you have to lower your opinion of everyone involved, and by that I mean humans as a whole

I didn't realize that the film was public domain. I know the original A Star is Born was a PD rescue too, is this WA's second one on Blu or did I forget some more?

[TechnicolorAcid]

This film is so fabulously misguided that it beggars belief. This is the most baldly racist film I've ever seen come out of the studio era, and it is so much worse than you can possibly imagine. At one point Errol Flynn literally says, and I'm not exaggerating, "Maybe slavery is good. Maybe it isn't. But that's not for me to decide. Or for John Brown." This movie is so wrongheaded and offensively realized that you have to lower your opinion of everyone involved, and by that I mean humans as a whole

Well I’ve seen The Rocketeer so I’m not surprised that Errol Flynn would star in this movie, very disappointed that Reagan chose to star in this, he seemed like such a liberal figure

[domino harvey]

Well Reagan's Custer (!) actually is played slightly liberal (or as liberal as it gets in this film), so make of that what you will

[domino harvey]

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

This is supremely silly stuff, a film where it's obvious early on that it will not have the courage to actually be supernatural so we figure everything out pretty quickly and just kind of sit there as it goes through the Old Dark House motions. Lorre is awful here, as he often is in films without a strong director to guide him, and everyone who isn't J Carrol Naish is a total dud (How have I somehow seen like five Robert Alda toplined films in the last few months, am I really running out of movies?). I'm obviously a Naish apologist but he's also clearly the only thing in this movie keeping a viewer awake (this thing is only 88 minutes but it feels like it's four hours long). I also enjoyed the stupid, completely ridiculous button ending that has every hallmark of being added months after production, also because of Naish

I will say that I enjoyed the two obscure cartoons on the disc, though why can't they ever put the cartoons I like on the discs of the movies I like?

[domino harvey]

the Master of Ballantrae

Truly have to wonder who, ever, at any time, was asking for this. This is as bad a film as I’ve seen come from WA’s Blu-ray unit, with a sickly, phoned in perf from Errol Flynn who must nevertheless shoulder 100% of the film because everything else here resembles what will come to be identified with Disney’s live action style in the next decade. Zero value or worth.

And of course as per my last post, this one has what is probably THE Bugs Bunny cartoon, so of course it’s on a movie I no longer want to own

[swo17]

That short is also on Looney Tunes Platinum 3

[Matt]

the Master of Ballantrae

Truly have to wonder who, ever, at any time, was asking for this.

I was certainly not asking for it, but when I was collecting every WAC 3-strip Technicolor BD I would definitely have bought it (on sale) without question. It's shot by Jack Cardiff and has Roger Livesey, so it's almost Powell & Pressburger-adjacent. That said, it is a miserable film otherwise.

[FrauBlucher]

The latest The Extras podcast with Feltenstein, he says the output for July could be the same as June, including possibly a 4k release