The Extras
The Extras
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Archive August Blu-ray Release Announcement
Hear it first on THE EXTRAS! George Feltenstein announces the new Blu-rays coming from the Warner Archive in August.
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Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies and animation and their release on digital DVD, blu-ray and 4K or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lard, your host, and joining me is George Felmsdain to announce the August Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. But before we dive in, i just want to remind everyone that, if you haven't yet, be sure to follow or subscribe at your favorite podcast provider, as that's the only way to guarantee you get all of our Warner Archive podcasts, including these monthly release announcements. Well, hi, george, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well, Tim, and it's always exciting to be able to share this kind of hot off the presses news with you and the people that listen to The Extras podcast Always very exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these announcement podcasts are quickly becoming some of my favorites, because I come into them with that same anticipation that everybody else does, so people are really enjoying them. Well, how many films will we be going through today for the August releases?
Speaker 2:Once again, we have a sex tet of new releases, all of which are, i would say, fairly different and unique, and we're spanning decades from the 30s to the 60s. So it's a nice array of, i think, something for everyone, and we'll start with the first release. We'll go chronologically. This is an extraordinarily important and famous film that a lot of people have been waiting for and requesting. It's the original 1933 version of Little Women starring Catherine Hepburn, directed by George Cukor and also co-stars the lovely Joan Bennett. This is the, i would say, the earliest definitive version of the Louisa May Alcott novel on the screen. This was remade famously 16 years later by MGM and Technicolor and it was a shot for shot, practically remake. It was exactly the same script but it had the benefit of Technicolor. This original version is considered really the definitive film and it's been remade recently and it was remade in the 90s. It's a story that really is continually compelling And Catherine Hepburn is wonderful in this and this is very early in her career.
Speaker 2:And Hepburn and Cukor worked together many, many times, were lifelong friends and this was also one of the bigger hits for RKO in 1933 and that was a pretty good year for them because they had a little movie called King Kong and the launch of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and Flying Down to Rio, so it was a busy year at RKO. This is a beautiful new master. It is from the best available elements. It's a 4K scan. I think people are going to be very, very excited. we will have some additional extras that aren't related to the feature but are more of what would be part of the movie going experience in 1933. This is one of those rare RKO movies where we actually do have a trailer. We actually have film on the trailer.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, yeah, it will look really, really good, but this is a big upgrade from the DVD and I think people will love to add it to their collection. The next film is the first Warner Brothers film to win the Best Picture Academy Award And the Oscar-winning film is The Life of Emile Zola from 1937, starring the great Paul Muni, who had the year before won the best actor Oscar for the story of Louis Pasteur. Here he plays the great Emile Zola, and this is directed by William Dieterly, and the film was another example of Warner Brothers kind of dealing with social issues by going back into historical context, and it was very prestigious for the Warner's to win their first Academy Award. It certainly wouldn't be the last, but they were proud to finally have a best picture on the mantle And this is a 4K scan off the original nitrate camera negative. It's a beautiful restoration And the film also features a great performance by Gail Sondegard, who had also won an Oscar the year before. She was the first actress to get the best supporting actress Oscar And I believe that was for Anthony Advers. I may be wrong, but I think that's what it was for. But she had a long career and this is a wonderful film and we'll have a radio version of it on there for an extra and various other little additives, but it's going to be a great disc and I think people are really going to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Then, moving forward, our next film takes us all the way to 1951.
Speaker 2:And this is a sequel to a film we put on Blu-ray I guess about five, six years ago. But this is a film people have been waiting for to look good And it is a 4K scan off the original camera negative And it's Vincent Minnelli's father's little dividend, reuniting Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Bennett as a sequel to Father of the Bride. Father of the Bride was so incredibly successful that MGM put Father's Little Dividend into production as soon as they could. As a matter of fact, this movie was filmed during the filming of An American in Paris. Vincent Minnelli finished shooting Everything But the Ballet for American in Paris, shot Father's Little Dividend while they were rehearsing the ballet and then finished American in Paris ballet after Father's Little Dividend was over. But this is one of those rare instances where the sequel was as well received as the original film was very profitable. It's been bouncing around, looking awful and finally we go back to the camera negative and make it look beautiful, and I think this is going to be a very welcome disc.
Speaker 1:Wow, three films, and we already have two from Joan Bennett.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, that's right. She had a very, very long career and was a very beloved member of the Hollywood community, that is for certain. Our next film takes us into the glorious grandeur of Cinemascope And it is from 1955 and directed by the great auteur Jacques Tourneur, and he made all sorts of films. His film noir's were quite remarkable, as were his westerns, and this is a Western. This is Wichita starring Joel McCrae, vera Miles and Lloyd Bridges, who came from underwater I guess.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've done Sea Hunt on television yet, so maybe my joke doesn't take place, but this is one of those rare Allied artists movies that was an A picture, an A budget picture for them And as a result it was very successful at the box office. And this is one of the films where Walter Mirish, who later went on with his brother to form the Mirish Corporation. They produced great films for United Artists. Walter Mirish really got his start at Monograms slash Allied Artists in the late 1940s and was a preeminent producer at Allied before they've made their independent companies and started making movies for United Artists. So Walter Mirish, who just passed away at I think he was 101. Wow Produced this, jacques Tourneur directing it.
Speaker 2:This is a favorite film and it's particularly gratifying to us that we get to bring this film out in a beautiful 4K scan. We actually use the camera negative, as well as the yellow separation, in order to restore the color and have this look as good as it can be. It's a remarkable upgrade. This is one of those films that came out on DVD in the very early days of Warner Archive And now we're getting to revisit it with a beautiful 4K scan and a restoration. It truly is looking and sounding great And for the Tourneur fans out there and the Western fans out there and the Joel McCrae fans out there, this is a wonderful thing to be able to share with the film fan community.
Speaker 1:Now, do you have any extras on this one, George?
Speaker 2:We have 1955 theatrical bonuses. It's again when we don't have something directly related to the film. We always like to add something that's like the Warner Night movies, only In this case it doesn't have to be studio-centric, because Allied artists didn't make shorts and cartoons or anything like that. So we will have material from some of the other libraries that we control to make it a well-balanced disc I think people are going to like. What are the bonuses on this disc? Then we move to the year 1962, and we have a full-length animated feature film that is a Warner Bros release, but it actually was not produced at the Warner Bros cartoon department. This was produced by UPA, which was the groundbreaking animation studio that came forth, i believe, around 1949. They started with the Gerald McBoying-Boying cartoons and the early Mr Mugu cartoons and they really had a revolutionary approach to animation. That was a totally different kind of design. Upa kind of changed management at some point, but the film wasn't the first UPA theatrical feature, but it was among their early ones. This is Gay-Perry. There's a dash between per and e because this is about.
Speaker 2:All the characters in this animated film are cats. The leading lady, cat Musette, happens to be voiced by none other than Judy Garland. It's the only time, to my knowledge, she provided her voice talent for an animated motion picture. She provided her as Jean-Thom. The love of Musette's life, was young at the time, robert Goulet, who had just made a name for himself on Broadway in Camelot. In support we have other voice talents like Hermione Gingold and the great Paul Freese, who's not given enough credit. He was such an incredible vocal artist. He was the voice of Boris Badenov. He was like he would do narration for everything. He's just not appreciated enough. And Academy Award-winning actor Red Buttons plays Jean-Thom's best friend and Red Buttons had won the supporting actor Oscar for Sianara in 1957. It was a 1957 film So Red Buttons was very popular at the time And so that added prestige and comic effect. All the voices are really good.
Speaker 2:But what's really interesting about this feature film is the songs were written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, who wrote the score for The Wizard of Oz. So Judy Garland once again is singing the songs. She had just a really almost a lifelong friendship relationship and professional relationship with Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg frequently, but particularly to have gotten them to create the original songs for this film was a big deal, and they have wrote a beautiful ballad. There's several really great songs in this film, but one ballad they wrote that I think everybody thought was going to be a quintessential, timeless hit. It's a song called Little Drops of Rain And I think there was a tie there over the rainbow. Unfortunately it did not become the kind of hit record everybody anticipated.
Speaker 2:But the love story. It's set against a Parisian background And the story was written by Dorothy and Chuck Jones. Dorothy Jones was Chuck Jones first wife. I believe she passed away at a relatively young age, but they had collaborated on this story together And the film is directed by a frequent collaborator of Chuck Jones, abe Levitao. Now the rumor is I can't confirm this as fact the rumor is that Chuck Jones was working on this project which ended up being a Warner Brothers release. But he was under contract to the Warner Brothers cartoon department And he was let go from the Warner Brothers cartoon department before it was shut down, only to reopen. And the reason, allegedly, that he was let go was that Jack Warner was angry that he had been working on this other film which they were picking up for distribution anyway.
Speaker 2:But the cleverness and wit and the beauty of the artwork they were very influenced by impressionistic artists. The whole design of this animated feature is really stupendous. So once again we have a 4K scan from the camera negative and it's going to absolutely blow people away when they see the colors and how beautiful the film is. And I remember enjoying this film greatly as a little kid. It was always on television, but now you're getting to see it in a beautiful way that we could never have anticipated. So this is a very exciting release and it will have some appropriate animated extras.
Speaker 2:And then we'll end the month with the king of rock and roll himself, mr Elvis Presley, starring in one of his more popular MGM films, spin Out from 1966. And this co-stars Shelly Faberay, who got her start as the daughter on the Donna Reed show And then, after being on the Donna Reed show for a while, she decided she wanted to be in movies and got under contract to MGM and was in several films there. She was really an audience favorite. But this is one of several Elvis movies where he plays a race car driver, mike McCoy. This is also produced by Joe Pasternak, who's the longtime MGM musical producer.
Speaker 2:You know we've talked about him before because he did things like Courage of Venice, father, which we just released. He had diversified away from musical films, but the few musicals he did make in the 60s he made one with Connie Francis and several with Elvis, and Elvis's films are to be treasured because he didn't make enough of them, and so we're grateful for the ones that we have. And among the 17 Elvis Presley movies that we control, spin out has always been one of the more popular ones, so it was time for its cinema scope color greatness to be given the Blu-ray treatment, and it's a 4K scan off the camera negative. I sound like a broken record sometimes, but that's not anything to be ashamed of, it's something to be proud of.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes for sure. Well, this is an amazing month. Another home run here, george, because you've got a pre-code. You've got an Academy Award-winning drama. You've got a comedy that I think your friend Leonard Malton said quite possibly is the first modern kind of sequel to a popular studio film that puts it in a unique place as well. Then you've got the animation with Judy Garland. You can never have too many Judy Garland films out there. Then you've got an Elvis Presley in a musical. Oh, and I forgot the Western. You've got so much variety for everybody. I just love what you're doing with the programming here with Warner Archive, george.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, tim. I'm always happy to be able to share these little advanced previews of what these discs are going to be like. We're actually in the midst of working on them right now to finish them so that they can be on people's doorsteps in August. So we're very proud of what we've been doing and very grateful for the continued consumer support, because without the consumer support there would be no Warner Archive. We're never taking that for granted And that's why we're trying to bring as many different kinds of films as we can as quickly as we can, without skimping on the quality of the master. It has to be pristine and it has to be a knockout of the park And hopefully people will be as excited about these as people have been about the recent releases, which have done really well and bode well for the future.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Well, as always, george, thanks for coming on the podcast, and I know that you'll be posting more information on your Facebook pages. We'll also have some more information on the extras Facebook pages as that comes out, and then also the pre-orders, which should be coming soon. So, as always, thank you, george.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Thank you, Tim.
Speaker 1:Well, this is a strong lineup of Blu-ray releases for August, so it's looking like a terrific summer of releases from the Warner Archive. As I mentioned, pre-order links will be made available in the podcast show notes as they become available and also on our webpage at wwwthexforstv, so keep a lookout for those in the near future. And I did want to mention one new thing that we're providing and that is transcripts for these podcasts. So if that interests you, look for the transcripts tab and you'll find that there. Now, sometimes it has misspellings and it doesn't have all the correct capitalization, but just to get it out to you quickly, it is available. And if you're a writer or a website and you wanted to use that transcript, i just asked that you give us a little credit and a link back. That would be terrific. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:If this is the first episode of The Extra you've listened to and you enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. If you're on social media, be sure and follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at The Extra's TV, or Instagram at TheExtrastv, to stay up to date on our upcoming guests and be a part of our community. And you're invited to a new Facebook group for fans of Warner Brothers films, called the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog Group. So look for that link on the Facebook page or in the podcast show notes. And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to follow and leave us a review at iTunes, spotify or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Mellard, stay slightly obsessed.