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Has there ever been a Criterion title that went out of print and didn't get a new improved release when it came back?

Shrew wrote:Has there ever been a Criterion title that went out of print and didn't get a new improved release when it came back?

M Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle.

Steven H wrote:

Shrew wrote:Has there ever been a Criterion title that went out of print and didn't get a new improved release when it came back?

M Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle.

And there have been plenty that went out of print and never came back at all, which is apparently the case here.

Traffic as well....

Jeff wrote:

Steven H wrote:

Shrew wrote:Has there ever been a Criterion title that went out of print and didn't get a new improved release when it came back?

M Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle.

And there have been plenty that went out of print and never came back at all, which is apparently the case here.

Indeed: as well, the sudden nature, unlikelihood of CC reissues, and lack of backtsock on sale from Criterion of the 4 titles that went OOP makes me think that LG might be in the mix...or that the licensing renewals were too expensive and the titles are OOP for good in R1.

EDIT- I guess we'll just have to wait and see, given that Criterion titles seem to go OOP for many different reasons, and come back into print for just as many more (though I guess $/licenses are the biggest factor on releases like the 4 SC titles).

ellipsis7 wrote:There actually isn't consistency - the Optimum JEAN RENOIR boxset has 2 films with fixed subs, 5 with optional subs...

Which ones have fixed subs? I rented the wonderful Marseillaise recently, and the subs were certainly optional. Can you give details of the others?

otis wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:There actually isn't consistency - the Optimum JEAN RENOIR boxset has 2 films with fixed subs, 5 with optional subs...

Which ones have fixed subs? I rented the wonderful Marseillaise recently, and the subs were certainly optional. Can you give details of the others?

Perhaps you might find the answer in a more appropriate thread?

Thanks, Matt.

Just got my Quai des Orfevres from my eBay seller and while I can't speak to the film yet, it's a shame we have to say au revoir to the sexiest disc art of all time.

That girl is HOT furchrissakes... I love that little peekaboo scene backstage. Tralala is nothing compared to her.

SPill the wine.

domino harvey wrote: it's a shame we have to say au revoir to the sexiest disc art of all time.

We also lose the only centerfold pin-up in the collection.

For those interested in the legal side, having read a lot of DVD license agreements for a job I had last year, I suspect CC couldn't give warning about this because their contract with Studio Canal includes a strict confidentiality clause that prevents them from announcing terms of the deal. Even if that didn't apply here, it could also be that they were trying to negotiate an extension, and didn't want to announce that these might go OOP and spark a rush on the titles, only to announce weeks later that they'd stay in production.

Ultimately, I would think that if they could have, CC would have announced that these were going OOP well ahead of time to clean out their (now apparently unsellable) backlogs.

time to clean out their (now apparently unsellable) backlogs.

Isn't losing rights meaning they cannot produce the item any longer, which would mean they could sell the remaining stock on hand?

Cinephrenic wrote:

time to clean out their (now apparently unsellable) backlogs.

Isn't losing rights meaning they cannot produce the item any longer, which would mean they could sell the remaining stock on hand?

Well, they're losing distribution rights, so I imagine not. Though I'm no expert on the matter...

I seriously doubt they'd be forced to eat the discs. This has to have come up a bazillion times when rights transit from one party to another, or expire, and language must exist in contracts to correspond to it. There's usually enough of a lag time between a new licensee in the region to get their product out onto the street whereby thru sales and other promotional incentives inventory can be liquidated fast enough without anyone acting like a paperwaving dick.

And anyhow, they can always just wholesale them to online & bm shops, and let them deal with it... I'm sure they'd be delighted to jack up the prices and make a killing.

wow...I can't really believe this! I have Le Corbeau, but Quai des Orfevres has been on my wishlist since it was announced and i've just never gotten around to it. I also don't care about Variety Lights...but went ahead and ordered Port of Shadows too from Amazon. Both are still available there for the very reasonable $22 - and free shipping of course.

But damn, now I have to put off the Malle Documentaries Eclipse box i had in my cart in the DD 20% off sale

ETA: Well maybe they aren't available at Amazon anymore after all...they just updated the shipping time to the dreaded 1-3 weeks. Crap!

VARIETY LIGHTS is one of my favorite Fellini pictures. Luckily, I already had all these titles.

Aren't there a few more Studio Canal titles in the CC?

"Tales of Hoffmann" if I remember correctly, and "Ran". It would be a crime if any of these disappeared from the catalogue.

Yeah, I just got the email from Amazon about Quai des Orfevres as well. Like you, I'd been meaning to pick this one up forever but never got around to it. Now I'm kicking myself. Any ideas where I might find a copy before its too late (besides ebay)?

rwaits wrote:I just got the email from Amazon about Quai des Orfevres as well. Like you, I'd been meaning to pick this one up forever but never got around to it. Now I'm kicking myself. Any ideas where I might find a copy before its too late (besides ebay)?

Amazon.ca has them, but at $39.99 CAN, it's probably less attractive than Ebay.

rwaits wrote:I just got the email from Amazon about Quai des Orfevres as well. Like you, I'd been meaning to pick this one up forever but never got around to it. Now I'm kicking myself. Any ideas where I might find a copy before its too late (besides ebay)?

A few Amazon Marketplace sellers have copies in the $22-$25 range at the moment. They might be worth a shot.

Tommaso wrote:"Tales of Hoffmann" if I remember correctly, and "Ran". It would be a crime if any of these disappeared from the catalogue.

A.K. on the Ran set definitely has the Studio Canal logo before it.

Contempt also is, and a few of the Bunuels - or at least Diary Of A Chambermaid.

Licenses usually have timeframes written into the contracts. First party licenses seem to be around seven years, but I wouldn't know much about third party contracts. This could either effect individual titles or batches, but it would never effect a licensee accross the board unless the licensee's rights are being questioned. I'm sure that Variety Lights wasn't part of the same deal that the more recent releases were on, but rather someone noticed the rights happened to be up at or around the same time.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about other Studio Canal titles, at least not until we have reason. Its pretty unlikely that titles as big as Ran or Contempt would have been included under the same deal(s) as the newly out of print titles here. Pure speculation of course, but thats what my intermediate experience with film licenses would indicate to me.

I could also see a scenario wherein if Studio Canal sold the rights to those films to someone else or they are being legally challenged by the family of the filmmakers (pure speculation) it could force Criterion to pull them under the matter is resolved.

DVD Empire still has Quai and Port of Shadows....I ordered this morning from them and they shipped this afternoon. If you buy 3 you get free shipping, and there's a $5 off $35 code floating about....