Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and Carole Lombard Collections

[Gigi M.]

From DVDACTIVE:

Universal Home Video has announced three new Glamour Collections for Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and Carole Lombard titles. Each two-disc set will include five films, with the exception of the Carole Lombard set - which will include six. The Marlene Dietrich Collection will include Morocco, Blonde Venus, The Devil Is a Woman, Flame of New Orleans and Golden Earrings. The Mae West package will include Night After Night, I`m No Angel, Goin` To Town, Go West Young Man and My Little Chickadee. Lastly, the Carole Lombard set will include Man of the World, We`re Not Dressing, Hands Across the Table, Love Before Breakfast, The Princess Comes Across and True Confession. Each film will be presented in 1.33:1 full frame, along with English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono tracks. The only extra material will be some trailers. You'll be able to own each Glamour Collection from the 4th April, priced at around $26.98 a pop.

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/ ... tions.html

[cafeman]

Holy. Smokes.

[Napoleon]

Glamour Collections !

The marketing guys must have been up all night coming up with that one.

[htdm]

Great news (especially, We're Not Dressing)!
But...no Dishonored? Looks like I'll have to break down and buy the French set.

[Shahed]

Five films on 2 DVDs? Is that even possible?

[htdm]

It is for Universal -- remember the Abbott and Costello collections? They had 8 films on 2 dvds.

[Gigi M.]

Five films on 2 DVDs? Is that even possible?

Both The Marlon Brando Franchise Collection and The Garry Cooper Franchise Collection from Universal, carry five films each on two dvds.

[pzman84]

They better not fuck up like they did with the Marx Brothers!!!

[zedz]

How stupid can they be to pull off this cheapo stunt instead of a proper Dietrich / Sternberg box? Do the people who put these sets together even know who Dietrich was?

[Gigi M.]

Shanghai Express (still) and they obviously can't re-release Scarlet Empress.

The omission of Shanghai Express from this set makes two things very clear:

1 - A possible Criterion release
2 - The relationship between Universal and Criterion is still strong

[viciousliar]

I'll cling to the hope that alternative "1" be the case.


Sincerely,
Shanghai Lily

[viciousliar]

You've got such an exquisite memory, Mister. I think I could love you, that is if you can afford me.


Shanghai Lily

[kekid]

Can someone comment on the quality when 5 movies are squeezed on to 2 discs? Does this information alone suggest that the quality will be inferior to the French DVD's, or do we need to wait and see?

[Gregory]

Here's the DVDBeaver review with screen caps of the Gary Cooper collection.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... ection.htm

[unclehulot]

They better not fuck up like they did with the Marx Brothers!!!

And how, pray tell, did they "fuck up"?

[unclehulot]

Can someone comment on the quality when 5 movies are squeezed on to 2 discs? Does this information alone suggest that the quality will be inferior to the French DVD's, or do we need to wait and see?

Seeing that these are probably 2 DVD18s, it's only one film that will have to be piggy-backed, so they take the two shortest ones. Not a big deal, except for the reported glitchiness on certain Universal DVD18 pressings. Netflix will probably rent 4 single siders, so I suppose one could "buy" their copies.

[ben d banana]

You can thank me, my French Sternberg/Dietrich discs shipped last week.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

And The Wests have all been released in R2 UK.

The R2 West collection has only two titles in common with the upcoming R1: I'm No Angel and My Little Chickadee. As far as I can tell none of the others have been released in the UK.

[HerrSchreck]

Five films on 2 DVDs? Is that even possible?

I havent read down to the bottom (in case someone pointed this out already), but Universal does the DVD18 dealy from time to time (see the Bela Lugosi Collection for the basic template of how 5 films in decent tranfers/hi bitrates get jammed onto one double sided 2-layer/ea disc w extra room for decent bitrates afforded by supplement-lack)... the lack of Xtras is made up by the relatively low cost. So five films on 2 discs should be a breeze for, uh, Universal.

[HerrSchreck]

I am still very happy with the French discs, but it's possible Uni R1 will do an even better job. But such slapdash releasing. Doesn't anyone there have a clue?

SCHREKO!! Take the whip down to releasing!

Construction in our kitchen & been raiding Distrib's soda & ate all their pretzels. Less munchies for them = more good stuff coming out. Now to find out who's doing 2BL INDEMNITY (& eat all their yogurt...)

[pzman84]

They better not fuck up like they did with the Marx Brothers!!!

And how, pray tell, did they "fuck up"?

Maybe it was the god-awful transfers. For the Pre-Code film festival at the Film Forum and the Balboa, they had perfectly good prints of the films. Instead, we had what looked like to be a combination of 35mm, 16mm and video parts.

Second, how about the lame extras? As much as Groucho Marx on the Today Show in the 1960s fascinates me, I think there were more appropriate things to do (commentary by his son, scholars, documentary, etc.).

Universal is clearly lacking "moral values" when it comes to classic DVDs (it worked for GW. Maybe it will work for me. ). Warners, which had far less "classic" Marx Brothers titles, was still able to put out a good set. Universal dropped the ball on this and the W.C. Field's set. I am hoping they will at the very least give us some good transfers for the Dietrich set.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rufus I actually PREFER the titles on the UK West box - Going to Town and the other two are fairly dire. Uni could at least have released She Done him Wrong (Sherman) and Klondike Annie (Walsh, with plenty of crackle despite the censorship.) These are really very patchy groups of titles.

Do you think a Stanwyck box is next? At least the UK box has Double Indemnity, General Yen and Miracle Woman (plus Golden Boy, which is really Bill Holden's picture.)

A couple of the R1 Wests I haven't seen, so I'll be double-dipping (or triple-dipping given that Chickadee is on the Fields set as well). Agreed that the quality of the films is variable. The Lombard set looks pretty good as I haven't seen any of them. As to a Stanwyck box, didn't George Kaufman fantasize about that? Or was it James Agee? Anyway a set of her pre-code films would be nice. How about Night Nurse, Baby Face, Shopworn, Forbidden and Ten Cents a Dance?

[dx23]

Screen menus, dvd cover artwork and more info about the releases here:
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=59938

[HerrSchreck]

I am in paradise with the R1 Uni DIETRICH GLAMOUR COLLECTION.. I woulda been in hog heaven with just MOROCCO for 21 bucks! But the other 2 Sternbergs, plus the Clair & Liesen, it's just

Hea-ven.. I'm in heaven...

Now CC needs to produce on SHANGHAI... and um, some-company-or-other-with-the-old-Paramount-catalog, needs to deliver the remaining Sterno silents on DVD

Toldya Dave, R1 wouldnt be far behind.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

How is the video presentation on the Dietrich box set? I'm suspicious of five movies on two discs and was curious about the compression et al.