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So I was listening to the Director's Club podcast episode on James Whale. And they mentioned SHOWBOAT and how they didn't watch it because they couldn't locate a copy.

I checked the Warner Archive page and...

SHOW BOAT (1936) is out of print.

There is no James Whale in the Collection and there was a report of a phantom page a year back so this movie is now a possibility.

I'm sure Show Boat is coming at some point - as it was a former Criterion Laserdisc title. Oddly, the laserdisc commentary has shown up on the TCM broadcast of Show Boat as a SAP audio option (strange since the commentary has never appeared on any other video release).

Its a great film, although I mostly just remember the Paul Robeson performances.

Speaking of which - Criterion apparently has the rights to the 30s King Solomon's Mines. Thus I wonder if they'd pair it with the 50s version as well (which WB owns). They could also do the same sort of thing with including the remake of Show Boat with the 30s version, although I think the Whale version is far superior and can exist on its own.

Ashirg wrote:Whatever happened to Linklater's Suburbia?

To respond to myself, it's getting a DVD-R release from Warner Archive in January...

Ashirg wrote:

Ashirg wrote:Whatever happened to Linklater's Suburbia?

To respond to myself, it's getting a DVD-R release from Warner Archive in January...

Bloody hell, that's annoying! Not even a WB Archive Blu-ray, but a DVD-R? You'd think Linklater's name alone would have persuaded them to bump it up to a pressed disc. Do we know if Warner have the UK rights to this as well? Something in the back of my mind says it was a different distributor, but I could be wrong.

Apparently, last night at a spoken word show, John Waters confirmed Criterion was doing Female Trouble for 2018 and Polyester for late 2018/early 2019.

criterion10 wrote:

ianungstad wrote:Stop (Bill Gunn)
Last Summer (Frank Perry)

I do know that the Warner Archive was planning to release both of these, only to be postponed after having trouble locating quality prints.

Bill Gunn’s STOP! - quality print does exist...
Ganja & Hess soundtrack by Sam Waymon out 4/21/18. Contact your local record store to make sure they stock this.

Also I heard from Warner Bros the definitive reason why Bill Gunn’s “Stop!” Hasn’t been released - copyright issues:
“This is mostly in relationship to street music heard in the distant background of the film during interior scenes”.

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:55 am Was wondering what was left from the initial group of WB oop titles that were speculated to be heading to Criterion. Ian's post was from November of 2014 (page 15)

ianungstad wrote:About a week ago Warner Brothers discontinued a number of Archive releases that generated some speculation that they may have been licensed to Criterion including:

Dreams (Akira Kurosawa)
Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz)
Barcelona (Whit Stillman)

The OOP list this week has a few more Warner titles that seem like they may go to Criterion:

Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)
A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan)
Klute (Alan Pakula)
Day for Night (Francois Truffaut)
Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
Cat People (Jacques Tourneur) Both the individual Cat People and the Val Lewton box are officially discontinued this week.
Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater)

The only titles left from this list. Ambersons, Klute and A Face in the Crowd.

Now we (seemingly) wait for Klute and A Face in the Crowd...

Local Hero and Altered States are on Criterion Channel. Any chance for those?

Those seem as good bets as any. I'm team Zabriskie Point myself. It's really hard to go wrong with their catalogue, but then they opted for The In-Laws and Woman of the Year. I heard murmurings of 42nd Street in another thread----why not a Busby box? Maybe Minnelli? The Best Years of our Lives, surely. And so forth until you end up on a miracle of a film you didn't even realize you knew you wanted (The Breaking Point).

I'm hoping The Wild Bunch in September will set off another straight year of a Warner a month like the below list. Perhaps Ambersons in October and Bringing Up Baby in November.

02/16 --- The Emigrants/The New Land
04/16 --- Barcelona
07/16 --- The In-Laws
07/16 --- The New World
09/16 --- Cat People
10/16 --- McCabe & Mrs. Miller
11/16 --- Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
12/16 --- The Asphalt Jungle
02/17 --- Before Sunrise / Mildred Pierce
03/17 --- Blowup
04/17 --- Woman of the Year
06/17 --- They Live by Night
07/17 --- Lost in America
08/17 --- The Breaking Point
10/17 --- Barry Lyndon
11/17 --- The Philadelphia Story

Omensetter wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:15 amMaybe Minnelli?

The only rational explanation for some of WAC's most recent BD announcements

Didn't A Face in the Crowd end up with a different company than WB in the past few years? I seem to recall reading somewhere that WB didn't have the rights anymore, so people were wondering where it ended up. But, maybe I'm just imagining things.

We also have this secondary list of WB DVDs that went OOP:

Round Midnight
The Roaring Twenties
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
O Lucky Man
Lone Star
Captain Blood
Mean Streets
Scaramouche
The Cameraman
Freaks
----------------------------
The Philadelphia Story
Barry Lyndon

Hedwig & The Angry Inch - confirmed
Death in Venice - confirmed
Bringing Up Baby - possibly confirmed
Arsenic and Old Lace - possibly confirmed

Scarecrow - WB Archive released

==========================================
Have there been any other suspicious WB OOP titles - than the ones listed above? I just checked WBshop and the following don't show up:

Swing Time
Adam's Rib
A Night at the Opera
Show Boat
King Solomon's Mines (Criterion owns the '37 version, so it would make for a great pairing)

I also find it strange that WB didn't include Horror of Dracula or Quatermass and the Pit in their Hammer collection.

Minkin wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:50 am Have there been any other suspicious WB OOP titles - than the ones listed above? I just checked WBshop and the following don't show up:

Swing Time
Adam's Rib
A Night at the Opera
Show Boat
King Solomon's Mines (Criterion owns the '37 version, so it would make for a great pairing)

After Hours and Lone Star don’t show up on WBShop either, if that’s indicative of both being OOP.

Omensetter wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:15 am Those seem as good bets as any. I'm team Zabriskie Point myself. It's really hard to go wrong with their catalogue, but then they opted for The In-Laws and Woman of the Year. I heard murmurings of 42nd Street in another thread----why not a Busby box? Maybe Minnelli? The Best Years of our Lives, surely. And so forth until you end up on a miracle of a film you didn't even realize you knew you wanted (The Breaking Point).

I'm hoping The Wild Bunch in September will set off another straight year of a Warner a month like the below list. Perhaps Ambersons in October and Bringing Up Baby in November.

Spoiler

02/16 --- The Emigrants/The New Land
04/16 --- Barcelona
07/16 --- The In-Laws
07/16 --- The New World
09/16 --- Cat People
10/16 --- McCabe & Mrs. Miller
11/16 --- Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
12/16 --- The Asphalt Jungle
02/17 --- Before Sunrise / Mildred Pierce
03/17 --- Blowup
04/17 --- Woman of the Year
06/17 --- They Live by Night
07/17 --- Lost in America
08/17 --- The Breaking Point
10/17 --- Barry Lyndon
11/17 --- The Philadelphia Story

The murmurings of 42nd St, I think, were just a reboot phantom page, now gone, that folks suspected was only for Filmstruck anyway. A Busby box would be wonderful, though, and I expect it'd be the best way for Warners and Criterion to sell the later Berkeley/Gold Diggers movies.

I think I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is also on Criterion's radar and a film that's in their wheel house. Plus, the DVD has been OOP for a while. And during the era of the phantom page Mervyn LeRoy did have one.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:41 am Local Hero and Altered States are on Criterion Channel. Any chance for those?

Local Hero is indeed oop.

Again, it's worth remembering that many, many, many WB titles have gone out of print and the studio is gradually adding them back to the Archive as MODs, so this doesn't necessarily mean anything as it could just be a while til they get around to a given title

Has there been a specific rumor about The Wild Bunch? Because I don't think WB's ready to let go of that and Mean Streets just yet.

The Oiled Bunch newsletter clue

Did we speculate at all that might be a clue for There Will Be Blood by any chance?

The Wild Bunch definitely needs a new scan. I posted about this elsewhere in the forum, but during Lincoln Center's fairly recent Peckinpah retrospective, they projected a good 35mm print of the '90s re-release of the "director's cut." After watching that screening, I went home and put on the Blu-Ray disc, and the transfer looked incredibly dated, like an "early HD video" look with that crummy detail and texture. A lot better than VHS, but nothing that could be called "film-like."

We can cross Pink Flamingos off the list of possible Criterion titles

Warner Brothers called me yesterday. They’re doing Pink Flamingos again. And who would’ve ever thought that Warner Brothers would distribute Pink Flamingos?

A little off-topic, but Warner Brothers will happily release a movie that contains actual coprophagy, but won't release The Devils?

Feego wrote: Sat Jun 23, 2018 3:28 pm A little off-topic, but Warner Brothers will happily release a movie that contains actual coprophagy, but won't release The Devils?

I have never, ever received an actual concrete reason as to why Warner Brothers won't put it out. Even the man who joined it at the hip, Mark Kermode has never really given an explanation. All I ever hear are rumors that one particular executive faints on his couch whenever it's mentioned and doesn't want it released.

The Devils is almost 50 years old, and pretty tame by contemporary standards; I find it hard to believe that there is anyone at Warner Bros.--or their new bosses at AT&T--who gives a shit about The Devils.

Which is probably the problem: Warner's catalog contains about a billion movies, a lot of which would make money, so nobody gives a shit about The Devils.

Criterion would put it out in a heartbeat, and I’d be astonished if they hadn’t made enquiries.