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Warner Archive Announces September Releases
Posted July 31, 2024 09:30 PM by
Warner Archive has announced its September batch of Blu-ray releases. They are: Journey Into Fear (1943), Conflict (1945), Bathing Beauty (1944), I Remember Mama (1948), A Prairie Home Companion (2006), and Jonny's Golden Quest/Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects (1992-1995).
Description: Orson Welles' touches of cinematic brilliance make Journey Into Fear a stunning success. Joseph Cotten portrays am American gunnery engineer pursued by Gestapo agents. His adventures make him cross paths with an impressive array of characters portrayed by Dolores Del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Hans Conried, and Welles himself, who plays Colonel Haki, head of the Turkish Secret Police. The cinematography by Karl Struss in low—key and stylized, with a reviewer of the era pointing to its "Brilliant atmosphere, the nightmare of pursuit, and when the shock comes it leaps at the eye and ear". Journey Into Fear is a thriller worthy of the cinematic master Orson Welles.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION from safety preservation master positives from the Library of Congress
Audio-only Orson Welles Mercury Theater Radio Broadcasts:
DRACULA (7/11/1938)
TREASURE ISLAND (7/18/1938)
A TALE OF TWO CITIES (7/25/1938)
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
Description:
Conflict is a love triangle with murder at its heart, an atmospheric film noir of rainy nights, looming shadows, fatal romance and a trench-coated killer that walks out of the mist – all directed by Curtis Bernhardt, a filmmaker skilled in the Expressionistic style of his native Germany. The story embraces the perfect noir topic: the almost-perfect crime. Humphrey Bogart portrays Richard Mason, married to nagging Katherine… but in love with her sunny sister. Shortly after a fifth-year wedding celebration at the home of a friend, Richard decides to remove the obstacle to his happiness. He kills Katherine, carefully leaving no evidence of his guilt. Or at least he thinks he killed her- until mysterious events cause Richard to fear Katherine is very much alive!
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Classic 1945 WB Cartoons:
LIFE WITH FEATHERS
TRAP HAPPY PORKY
WB 1945 Shorts:
PEEKS AT HOLLYWOOD
ARE ANIMALS ACTORS?
Audio-only CONFLICT radio broadcast (9/11/1945) starring Humphrey Bogart
Original Theatrical Trailer
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
Description: Hoping to win back his estranged swimming coach wife (Esther Williams), a love-struck songwriter (Red Skelton) enrolls in a women's college, and graduates summa cum laude in comedy! Red's in rare form and Esther's in formfitting swimsuits in this delightfully musical farce. Bathing Beauty begins with a splash: Xavier Cugat plays, Red clowns and Esther plunges into a pool. And from there things go, well, swimmingly. The college is lauded with pretty M-G-M starlets. Cugie shakes up more hot South American rhythms. Harry James swings into help North American sounds, and a fine cast including Basil Rathbone, Donald Meek, Janis Paige, and Margaret Dumont give expert support. The finale is a wowser of a water ballet, featuring Hollywood's favorite bathing beauty swimming gracefully along alternating jets of water and flame. But Esther isn't the only artistic lovely.
When production began, the film's title was "Mr. Co-Ed", with Skelton positioned to be the center of attraction, but M-G-M soon found out as filming continued, that the film was going to catapult Esther Williams into screen super-stardom, leading to the film being released with the title Bathing Beauty with Esther becoming one of the studio's biggest stars in a series of Technicolor® aquatic entertainments for over a decade.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL TECHNICOLOR NEGATIVES
TCM PRIVATE SCREENINGS with ESTHER WILLIAMS, hosted by Robert Osborne
Classic M-G-M cartoon MOUSE TROUBLE
Classic M-G-M short MAIN STREET TODAY
Original Theatrical Trailer
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
Description: Under the skillful direction of Oscar®-winner George Stevens, Irene Dunne and Barbara Bel Geddes star in this reminiscence of a daughter for the mother holding their family together with love and discipline in the heartwarming I Remember Mama. Mama emigrated from Norway to early 20th century San Francisco, where she has devoted her life to her children, including Katrin, keeping her house in order and reigning in their offbeat relatives, friends and boarders in this family classic. Based on Kathryn Forbes' short story collection "Mama's Bank Account" and the play by John Van Druten.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM NITRATE PRESERVATION ELEMENTS
Original Theatrical Trailer
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
Description: From legendary director Robert Altman comes his final film, the deeply moving and comedic A Prairie Home Companion. Based on Garrison Keillor's wildly popular radio program of the same name, Altman invites audiences to the fictional "closing night" of the fabled show. As the rain pours down on a blustery Minnesota evening, the cast tapes their final performance, while waiting for the Texas businessman who has bought the theater to arrive and shut them down. Backstage the colorful ensemble says their goodbyes and confront old conflicts, while onstage a sold-out audience enjoys the wit and musical whimsy for which the show is famous. But when a mysterious woman appears offstage introducing herself as the angel Asphodel, it becomes apparent that this will be no ordinary closing night.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Audio commentary with Director Robert Altman and Kevin Kline
Additional Scenes
Behind-the-Scenes Documentary
Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
Description: Nearly 30 years after the landmark animated series was brought to prime-time television by Hanna-Barbera, the continued popularity of Johnny Quest led the studio to create two new feature-length adventures built around Quest presented together on this one Blu-ray™ disc. In Jonny's Golden Quest, long-time Quest fans get to meet the women behind the adventurous men. Joining scientist Benton Quest, his plucky son Jonny, bodyguard Race Bannon and Jonny's young friend Hadji are Benton's biologist wife Rachel, Race's ex-wife Jade and young 12-year-old Jessie. In Jonny Quest vs.The Cyber Insects, the evil Dr. Zin has genetically modified household pests into disturbingly large insects that he calls assassinoids, fearless and devoted warriors that will conduct his plan for world domination. Team Quest, headed by internationally respected scientist Benton Quest, is Earth's only hope. When the good doctor becomes Zin's captive, the stakes – and the action quotient – grow higher. Enter Jonny Quest, Dr. Quest's bright, excitable, imaginative and heroic young son, ex-special agent Race Bannon, Jonny's child genius friends Hadji and Jessie (Race's daughter), their robotic pal 4-DAC and bulldog Bandit to complete the job of vermin extermination before it's too late.
A Prairie Home Companion, finally. How about all of Robert Altman, please? How about a 4K box set of all of Altman's films, in fact? He is deceased, after all, so it's not as if we'd have to continue to add more films to the collection.....Criterion did a nice job with Bergman and Fellini sets.
ALL the vintage releases, plus A Prairie Home Companion (blind buy). Some. Great. Stuff.
(Plus I see a European release of The Third Man 4K is coming from Studio Canal sometime this fall, whoop!)
@mulevariations
A comprehensive 4k set is never going to happen. It's too much for any boutique label to sink into licensing and remastering, and one of his biggest films is owned by a company that doesn't license out.
And that's not even going into the problems with California Split.
The Journey into Fear promo blurb notwithstanding, Welles insisted he only acted in the film and that Foster deserved credit for the direction. At least that's what I've read..
Many years ago, I took a random film class that showed "I Remember Mama," and I thought with a title like that it was going to be terrible. On the contrary, I found the film so profound and moving that I still "Remember Mama" today. Day 1 purchase for me.
I've heard of "Conflict" with Bogart but have never seen it, so this will be a blind buy.
That said, I would still like to see WB Archive releases of:
The Outfit
The Year of Living Dangerously
Mosquito Coast
5 Man Army
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Treasure of The Sierra Madre
to name a few...
More Jonny Quest is really good. And I echo the sentiment of a previous poster requesting the two seasons of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. The 2nd season is the superior, but Season 1 Part 1 on DVD seems to be out of print, which dictates the usual exorbitant pricing from the third party black market.
I was eager to see JOURNEY INTO FEAR, given the Cotten / Welles pedigree but found it underwhelming and dull. More middle-of-the-road titles. But glad for those out there who are excited about them. Alas, nothing for me this month.
I'm amazed that Warner doesn't release the 4 wonderful Miss Marple films with Margareth Rutherford on Blu-Ray.
So far there are only DVDs available worldwide. There isn't even an HD release in England. Pretty strange
Areyakiddin Allegedly Prime has the original version of California Split with all the music intact.
Also, it seems that there were two later DVDs of the film, one in a 6-film George Segal set by MC, and the other as a standalone DVD by MC. What do we know about those discs?
How about we get some pre-orders on August's titles and Septembers? So far, I can't order any of this stuff. Just look and wait in hope. Also, July's catalog was bumped to August. So, does August get bumped to September, in which case, these are October's?
Just hurry them up - pretty please. Bathing Beauty...about frickin' time!!!
BATHING BEAUTY and CONFLICT will definitely be added to my collection!
Couldn't be happier we're getting more Esther Williams in restored Technicolor this year! Warner Archive did an AWESOME job with the cover artwork for this and the film itself should look particularly luscious!!!
@moviemaker
Yes and no. They have a distribution agreement with the Goldwyn estate, which owns the film, but the estate has full control over what gets released and when it gets released. They seemingly have no interest currently in doing Blu-ray releases of even the movies they currently have HD masters for.
I will definitely get “A Prairie Home Companion.” Film critic Richard Roeper of “Ebert & Roeper” dismissing the film as “smug and elitist” makes me want to see it!
I'm definitely in for Conflict, and maybe even Journey into Fear and I Remember Mama. One's I'm most wanting from the Archive:
The Little Foxes, Humoresque, Splendor in the Grass, America, America, Wuthering Heights, I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, The Dawn Patrol (1938), All this and Heaven Too, Captain Blood, Watch on the Rhine, Bombshell, Red Headed Woman, Advise and Consent, and so many more.
The Little Foxes is available from Sony/Columbia in Spain in an english-friendly pressed Blu, with an excellent transfer and sound, plus subtitles in english, french, german and español. It's actually quite affordable.
Hey I like that cyber insect Quest movie. Never thought it would make it blu! I might have to get that one. I don’t know why I like that one. Sci Fi stuff I guess? Either way it’s always cool seeing deep cuts getting blu treatment.
Another very strange mix of less “expected” titles that are …. All over the place …. And why journey ? 68 minutes … what a waste of a place in the limited Bluray update for the month …. Hey many are excited so let’s hope they sell heaps …. Still waiting for AAA titles that are barely coming
MikuMiku05 I just got the widescreen roadshow tape. Spent 8 years looking for it. It will hold me over until the Blu eventually happens (I was working off a fullscreen roadshow tape for three years). Per GF, the film currently has the best chance it's ever had, but it hasn't been greenlit and no actual work has been done. The best elements confirmed to exist are still the cut 65mm OCN, the cut intermediates and separations in 35, 65, and 70mm, the uncut six track stereo mix, and the two Panavision roadshow prints. The jury's still out on whether the cut negatives of the roadshow scenes, totaling 20 minutes, still exist in the salt mine in Kansas where they were in 1986, per the late Washington Post reporter Tom Shales. Depending on who's telling the story, either the negative's great and the roadshow prints are bad, or the negative's bad and the roadshow prints are worse. Total cost is estimated to be in the $2-3 million range.
Ultimately it's a question of when do you bite the bullet. $50,000 was too expensive in 1986, $500,000 was too expensive in 1998-1999, $1 million was too expensive in 2006, $2 million was too expensive from 2016-2020, and now $2-3 million is too expensive in 2024. The cost isn't going to go down, it will only go up. At some point, they either have to bite the bullet and spend the millions, or farm it out to someone who can do it cheaper (David Strohmaier could get it done for no more than $500,000).
Allegedly, there's a list of movies that are too expensive to ever make a profit, so they restore them when the loss will hurt the studio the least. Around The World In 80 Days and Gone With The Wind are supposedly on this list. Raintree County should be right behind them.
“Journey into Fear”? Yes please! I’m not the kind of person who’ll see things based solely on who’s in it (a rather sensitive coworker of mine saw “Drive” because she noticed Ryan Gosling was in it—that did not end well) I’ll watch just about anything with Joseph Cotten in it except for “Guyana: Cult of the Damned.” And Welles is always interesting.
Doomhunter and BenOswald I can top that. When The Muppets Take Manhattan was first announced, it said that the disc contained a "NEW DOLNYPATMOS MIX". I nearly popped a kidney laughing when I read that.
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