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Anybody heard if they licensed any other Gaumont Blus? I've got my eye on some, but I'm afraid to pull the trigger.

I know I'm coming in really late on this but could someone explain this to me?
Paramount bought Republic, took almost everything out of print, started Olive,
licensed Republic titles to themselves (as Olive) and put them out without features for twice
the price... had WB distribute the things they took OOP, but they still licensed things
to Criterion....

I'm pretty sure Olive is an independent company that just seems to have a pretty good relationship with Paramount, which doesn't seem much interested in distributing most of their own films anymore. I think someone in this thread may have said that Olive was essentially Paramount's distribution, but that was just an exaggeration. And I think Republic rights were owned by Lionsgate for a long time, but then the rights went somewhere else (to Paramount?) and Olive negotiated a deal.

From looking up Olive films on Yahoo, it seemed they were an independent company that was owned by Paramount.
The Republic rights did go to Paramount (It's A Wonderful Life). I don't know what any of this means and can't understand it.
If Paramount licensed things to Olive to put out expensive film only versions, why would Criterion not get things like Johnny Guitar,
but get things like Harold and Maud and Rosemary's Baby, that will sell more?
If it comes to money surely Criterion could afford Johnny Guitar if they can get the others?

I've never seen this officially confirmed, but it seems as though the Republic titles were an all or nothing sort of proposition (with Paramount holding on to stuff like It's A Wonderful Life for themselves), and Criterion would never/could never take on so many titles. Personally I'm just happy these titles are getting released at all: the list price is not so outrageous, and though there are some definite drawbacks to Olive's penny-pinching (no subs, spotty approach to extras), overall I'm pretty pleased, given the relative drought in official/pressed releases across the board as of late.

Agreed. Also, impatient as I am, it's really exciting to have a flood of six or ten new titles announced every month, even if that means that half of them are garbage and none of them have been treated as well as they might have elsewhere.

matrixschmatrix wrote:none of them have been treated as well as they might have elsewhere.

…Though a lot better than Lionsgate treated them. And they're going deeper into the catalogue and releasing more titles in HD than any major studio would've bothered to.

A brief history of Olive from Time Out Chicago. No Paramount business stake that I'm aware of. Wasn't that long ago that Olive was as much a boutique etailer of other companies' product as their own. Used to carry Criterions.

Interesting, thanks for the answers. And I agree that Olive is putting out things on Blu that are things I've seen on AMC in the mid '90's.
It's things like "Thinner" that throw me...
And that explains why they have Godard and Fassbinder titles, rather than Criterion.

More Feb titles, both Blus:
Les tontons flingueurs a.k.a Monsieur Gangster (Georges Lautner 1963)
Les Barbouzes a.k.a The Great Spy Chase (Georges Lautner 1964)

bluray.com review of The Quiet Man.

Good lord that looks beautiful.

definitely buying this now

Buncha John Waynes in March: Westward Ho, the Lawless Nineties, Wyoming Outlaw, A Man Betrayed, and McLintock!

Also in March:





The Sun Shines Bright is the Republic title I was most looking forward to, glad to see it confirmed

Oh my god, the Devil and Miss Jones on Blu?!?! Charles Coburn's finest hour available to the masses at last!

Wonderful to see Ruthless and China Gate getting their due as well.

I wonder if they've had enough time to get a Tag Gallagher essay for The Sun Shines Bright

Olive had my curiosity before this... but now they have my attention!

By all means, China Gate is minor Fuller, but, much like Plunder Road, this is a film whose widescreen print seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

I'll leave domino to fawn over The Devil and Miss Jones (or maybe not: I think I still owe you a write-up from the 40s project), but both Ruthless and The Sun Shines Bright are two sort-of masterpieces, the latter of which I never expected to see cleaned up.

Glad to see The Sun Shines Bright back in print, I've only seen this as a YouTube upload. (FWIW, I'm more partial towards Judge Priest.)

Ironweed is interesting one too, I seem to remember liking it more than Barfly.

holy shit, Ruthless on Blu-Ray! we live in a Golden Age, folks.

Oh my god, Ironweed! I spent YEARS trying to find this in widescreen, and a couple years ago, I finally tracked down the TF1 French DVD that is anamorphic widescreen and paid almost €50 for it (forced subs and all) on the Amazon.fr Marketplace. There might have been a few non-anamorphic DVDs circling around the world, but most, including the Lionsgate US DVD (from 2009!) were 1.33:1, so the Blu-ray announcement is beyond amazing...

Mind you, the French disc does have a couple short extras, one of which is a short interview with Streep from the time of the film.

Trust me on this one guys as I can't really say on here why, but if you want Olive to include a T Gallagher visual essay on their upcoming The Sun Shines Bright release, you have to contact them to let them know as it looks like they're changing their mind about using him for one. So please, for the sake of all us Ford fans, send 'em a message thru their website or FB!

Fingers crossed this'll work.

Done and done. Nothing deepens my appreciation for a film more than Tag's essays.

I see that they are releasing Monster Squad on 2/19. Does anyone know what the extras are? Are they going to port the extras from the Lionsgate release? I checked the Olive films website and for some reason they don't have this listed at all, yet Amazon and the Digital Bits say that this is being released.