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Not to give short shrift to Grayson, Keel, and the Champions, but Lovely to Look At also has Ann Miller, Red Skelton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Marcel Dalio. Now that's a dinner party I want to be invited to.

Unless I'm confusing it with something else, Summer Holiday has been on my "unseen Arthur Freed" filmography for years. I don't think it's even aired on TCM in the 6 years since I made that list, but it is getting a showing on September 9.

Is anyone familiar with the pre-coders? I haven't heard of any of them.

Oedipax wrote:Has anyone purchased Brewster McCloud? The quality looks pretty decent on the Warner Archives site preview, but I'm guessing it'll be non-anamorphic and might not look as great as the postage-stamp sized sample clip...

According to this review, "the disc boasts a surprisingly robust image," and is also anamorphic. Why wouldn't it be? As far as I know, all of the widescreen Warner Archives titles have been anamorphic.

Matt wrote:Not to give short shrift to Grayson, Keel, and the Champions, but Lovely to Look At also has Ann Miller, Red Skelton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Marcel Dalio. Now that's a dinner party I want to be invited to.

Just don't sit me next to Red Skelton

Oedipax wrote:Has anyone purchased Brewster McCloud? The quality looks pretty decent on the Warner Archives site preview, but I'm guessing it'll be non-anamorphic and might not look as great as the postage-stamp sized sample clip...

I have it. It's anamorphic and looks really fine to me. Colors are at least as vivid as in the new print I recently saw.

Devil's Doorway is terrific Anthony Mann, with some amazing compositions. Robert Taylor's two good performances (the other being Party Girl, of course), now relegated to the Warner Archive.

He's pretty good in Above and Beyond too-- also in the Archives, ha

Netflix is now streaming Cracking Up. I think this is the first time an Archive title's cover has ever appeared on a Netflix page, so I'm hoping more titles will show up as well.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Cracking_Up/70141692

Warners just dumped the Locket in the Archives. WTF, you couldn't add that and the Unsuspected to that last noir box, really?

The mind boggles at shunting The Unsuspected off to DVD-r land. The film was probably too glamorous for their notions of the box-set noir. They would rather drop the perfectly WB Archivable Crime in the Streets in there for it's gritty modern (?) sensibility than have something as flashily 40s as the gorgeous, yet unfortunately derivative, Curtiz film. Is Warner Bros telling us Young Cassavettes > Claude Rains?

This kind of arbitrary, half-assed catagorization has always been just beneath the surface of even the most carefully programmed of the Warner boxsets. It's just been exacerbated by the institution of the Archive model. DILLINGER and ILLEGAL clearly belonged in the Gangster line rather than Noir and the dumping of THE FALLEN SPARROW, THE BRIBE, and now THE LOCKET and THE UNSUSPECTED (and certainly THE STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR will follow) further dilutes the intent and purpose of their Serie Noir as anything other than a last gasp marketing ploy.

david hare wrote:All we need now for the WB Archive Noir hat-trick is Crack Up!

Brother!!

or He Ran All The Way. At least there's the Optimum, but still. *expects*

I thought it was weird that the fifth box was the first to not have a Mitchum title, now I think it's just perverse.

Poor John Brahm. First the cringey Richard Schickel commentary on Hangover Square and how this.

I neglected to mention the other new titles:

So Well Remembered (1947) Dmytryk!
Young Bess (1953) George Sidney! Jean Simmons, Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, and Charles Laughton!
Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) Ugh, the Dead End Kids plus Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan

Domino, is Young Bess any good? Kerr and Laughton are the pull for me here.

david hare wrote:Given the state of the print for my most recent DTV copy of the Locket (earlier this year) the elements appear to need quite a bit of work.

Hence the picture's consignment to Archive Hell.

"Archive Hell," (as opposed to PD Hell), I must say you coined a wonderful phrase there - Bull's Eye!

Killerinstinct wrote:

david hare wrote:Given the state of the print for my most recent DTV copy of the Locket (earlier this year) the elements appear to need quite a bit of work.

Hence the picture's consignment to Archive Hell.

"Archive Hell," (as opposed to PD Hell), I must say you coined a wonderful phrase there - Bull's Eye!

Well, actually...

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Domino, is Young Bess any good? Kerr and Laughton are the pull for me here.

No idea, but the pedigree both in front of and behind the camera moves it to the front for me

domino harvey wrote:

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Domino, is Young Bess any good? Kerr and Laughton are the pull for me here.

No idea, but the pedigree both in front of and behind the camera moves it to the front for me

A BLACK NARCISSUS reunion of sorts - Jean Simmons (Kanchi), Deborah Kerr (Sister Clodagh) and Kathleen Byron (Sister Ruth) together again!

Clifford Odets' Cary Grant vehicle, None but the Lonely Heart, will be available for preorder tomorrow.

I wouldn't mind seeing the 1967 Frank Sinatra film, The Naked Runner on WB Archives.

domino harvey wrote:

Matt wrote:Not to give short shrift to Grayson, Keel, and the Champions, but Lovely to Look At also has Ann Miller, Red Skelton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Marcel Dalio. Now that's a dinner party I want to be invited to.

Just don't sit me next to Red Skelton

I wasn't expecting much from Lovely to Look At (I find Kathryn Grayson's adenoidal singing a little hard to take and a little Red Skelton goes a looong way), but the number where the Champions dance "in the stars" to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is absolutely magical. Exactly the type of number that made MGM musicals justifiably famous. Their other two numbers in the film are pretty great, too, with that slinky Hermes Pan choreography.

And that Adrian fashion show finale is a riot. I love the gown that looks like it was sewn from a quilted satin duvet.

Titles to be released on August 17:

Invasion Quartet (1961)
It's a Small World (1950) (William Castle!)
A Lady Without Passport (1950) (film noir alert!)
Oil for the Lamps of China (1935) (Mervyn LeRoy!)
Saadia (1953)
Santiago (1956)
The Sellout (1952) (film noir alert!)
Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951) (film noir alert!)

2 other noirs, The Window and High Wall will be released through Warner Archives sometimes this year per George Feltenstein.

Ashirg wrote:Titles to be released on August 17:
Oil for the Lamps of China (1935) (Mervyn LeRoy!)

Don't get too excited about the LeRoy, the film is quite awful. it's moderately funny in a few moments due to "its so bad its good" but for the most part it's just a lukewarm piss of a film.