Coronet Blue coming from Kino Lorber (1 Viewer)

[Flashgear]

It looks like Kino Lorber have set June 20 as the street date for Coronet Blue complete series...

 

[Flashgear]

B+W Publicity Photos from the Coronet Blue episode "Six Months to Mars" (Ep. 10, Aug. 14, 1967 , series shot in original color), featuring Patrick O'Neal, Alan Alda and Billy Dee Williams...an experimental simulated Mission to Mars and an opportunity for "Michael Alden" to discover his true identity... or a carefully laid trap?

From "The Rebels" (Ep. 3, July 19, 1967) with guest stars Candice Bergen, David Carradine and Jon Voigt...

 

[Dave Lawrence]

Coming June 20th!
First Time on DVD!

Coronet Blue (1967 Complete Series)
• New Interview with Show Creator Larry Cohen

View attachment 37665

Bringing this post (added earlier today) over from the Kino thread. I'm thinking the attached image is going to be the cover art.

 

[Neil Brock]

Nice. Can't wait to get rid of my Frankenstein set. Some from film, some black and white of color, some from Japan, some from Australia. Be nice to get it in great quality finally. Looking most forward to this and The Immortal. Now if we could only get a release of a remastered He and She.

 

[Flashgear]

Really looking forward to seeing the complete Coronet Blue in what I expect to be a high quality release...and really appreciate Kino Lorber going the extra mile and including a newly produced on camera interview with Larry Cohen...one thing about KL is that they really endeavor to include extras on their releases, if it's at all possible and feasible...sometimes adding more extras in the lead up to street date...so, I'm really hoping that KL can include at least one Larry Cohen episode commentary as well...Cohen's interview should be very interesting...I don't suppose that he would want to dwell upon the tortured and convoluted story behind CBS finally taking it to a summertime 1967 burn off... over two years after the pilot was accepted and the series green lighted in early 1965...Plautus Productions going from having three shows on CBS in the winter of 1965 to having none whatsoever the following fall...both The Defenders and The Nurses/Doctors and the Nurses finishing their sucessful primetime runs...and Shatner's For the People being cancelled after 13 episodes as a mid season January replacement...somehow, the decision by CBS to reverse their earlier cancellation of Richard Crenna's Slattery's People in favor of renewing it with an overhauled younger supporting cast and love interest played a part in delaying Coronet Blue's premiere in the fall of '65...but even after the second cancellation of Slattery's People in November, Coronet Blue sat on the shelf...and again for the following fall of 1966, despite it being a show originally shot in Color and ready to go for the All Color new season...the final irony being that it did find an audience and surprisingly good ratings in the summer of '67...despite several pre-emptions and postponements for Big Breaking News like the Arab - Israeli Six Day War...the War coverage broke June 5...the week following Coronet Blue's May 29 premiere...breaking news coverage of the Arab - Israeli War pre-empted the show several times early on...and Football blotted it out later in the summer, especially for network affiliates in the East...the show was cursed, it appears...Here are a couple more publicity shots from Coronet Blue's episode "Six Months to Mars"...

Here is Frank Converse with Jack Warden and Robert Hooks in NYPD, his successful 1967 - 69 show that precluded whatever thoughts CBS had to renew Coronet Blue in hindsight to it's surprisingly strong summer ratings...at least Converse didn't have to move for his next job...

 

[Neil Brock]

Frank Converse is alive and well, living in Connecticut. Don't know why they wouldn't contact him for an interview. Not to mention the fact that he has a 15 minute promo reel for the series, which is likely the only copy.

 

[Darby67]

Frank Converse is alive and well, living in Connecticut. Don't know why they wouldn't contact him for an interview. Not to mention the fact that he has a 15 minute promo reel for the series, which is likely the only copy.

Neil:

You should mention that to Scott (screen name: Mister Lime) who is Kino Lorber's insider and very active on this thread: https://www.hometheaterforum.com/co...tly-moderated-read-guidelines.337771/page-251

 

[Flashgear]

Newly released artwork from KL...love it!

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Woohoo! Within a few months of the release of The Westerner, another of my top short-lived grail shows is imminent! Automatic pre-order!

Who knows? At this rate, maybe my years-old yearning for T.H.E. Cat may also eventually pay off!

 

[Darby67]

Amazon pre-order link is up: https://www.amazon.com/Coronet-Blue...8&qid=1492901949&sr=1-1&keywords=coronet+blue

 

[Flashgear]

I have locked in my pre-order of Coronet Blue with Amazon Canada at $34.97 Canadian dollars...at the current exchange rate, that price is approx. $25.88 U.S. dollars...I see that Amazon.com has it at $49.95 U.S...unless that price drops before release date, or someone like DD has it much cheaper, I would think that it might make sense for some of you U.S. residents to order from Canada with your stronger dollar which is currently at $1.35 Canadian...even considering Shipping costs, you might come out well ahead...you can check what shipping costs would be at checkout, of course, and decide at that point how much you might save...

I also locked in my my pre-order for Mill Creek's Rockford Files complete series on Blu-ray at $121.74 Canadian...that is approx. $90 U.S....Amazon.com currently has it at $129.98 U.S....

Kino Lorber's upcoming Tuesday releases of Farewell to Arms, Papa's Delicate Condition and Don't Give Up the Ship Blu-rays are all priced at $20.97 Canadian...$15.50 U.S....I also locked in the upcoming June Blu-ray release of the Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune war movie Hell in the Pacific at $20.97 Canadian...again, approx. $15.50 U. S....it's up for pre-order on Amazon.com for $29.95 U.S...

The vagaries of automated pricing algorithms...best to shop and compare...

 

[Flashgear]

Tv Guide ad from Topeka, Kansas CBS affiliate channel 13 promoting the Coronet Blue episode "The Rebels" (June 19, 1967)...guest star Candice Bergen with Frank Converse...the third episode finally aired after having been postponed during June 1967 for Breaking CBS News coverage of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War...

TV Guide promo for the pilot episode...May 29, 1967...

The Lovely and Talented British Actress Susan Hampshire (Three Lives of Thomasina) guest starred in the pilot episode...

Guest star Dick Clark signing autographs on the Coronet Blue set for the episode "The Flip Side of Tommy Devon" (Sept. 4, 1967)...this episode was shot in the summer of 1965 at the Central Valley Inn Golf and Country Club in upper New York State...

 

[Neil Brock]

Interesting that episode aired on a Thursday as I recall the show being on Monday nights.

Susan Hampshire was also in the Time Tunnel pilot episode as well but I don't believe she did much American television.

 

[Harry-N]

This is exciting news. I've already pre-ordered the series as I have fond memories of it.

As I recall from that summer of 1967, we'd already seen the effective end of the series THE FUGITIVE while awaiting its ultimate conclusion in August. Summer TV was a time for reruns, but CBS, the network we generally watched the most, was premiering this new drama series that was sort-of FUGITIVE-like in its one man on-the-run while being pursued format.

I recall that I and my Dad stayed up to watch that first episode and we were both very taken with the series. We knew it couldn't last - they told us that up front - but still, it was appointment television every week that it aired that summer.

I suspect that one of the reasons that CBS decided to finally give it airtime was the not-unimportant fact that it was in color in that first year of all-color-on-all-networks television. That in itself is just a bit of an oddity, as not that many series in the 65-66 season were shot in color for CBS, generally only the most successful made the switch that early.

We'd had a color TV for a coupled of years by that time, so we got to see it in all of its glory. I loved the theme and recorded it on my crappy reel-to-reel tape recorder.

I'm quite intrigued that Kino Lorber is releasing this. I'd actually never heard of them until a year or so ago when I found out that they were releasing a fondly remembered but little known movie called STORM FEAR. And not only was it coming on DVD but Blu-ray! And the transfer is magnificent.

 

[JamesSmith]

Interesting that episode aired on a Thursday as I recall the show being on Monday nights.

Susan Hampshire was also in the Time Tunnel pilot episode as well but I don't believe she did much American television.

Susan was/is so beautiful. Sigh!!!

James

 

[Harry-N]

Susan Hampshire was in a couple of episodes of SECRET AGENT/DANGER MAN. I know that's a British series, but she's always a welcome sight.

 

[Flashgear]

I imagine what night you saw Coronet Blue air would depend on where you lived and if your local CBS TV was a Network owned station or just a CBS affiliate (affiliates having their own autonomy, up to a point)...especially in the summer months and for a show with no future like Coronet Blue...and especially more so if it was postponed for a Breaking CBS News Special Report, as happened to Coronet Blue several times in June and early July 1967...firstly because of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, which broke on June 5 and was a Global Cold War Crisis threatening a World War...and then again later in June and into early July because of Breaking News from The Vietnam War...several CBS News Special Reports aired also for coverage of the growing scale of combat in South Vietnam...Operation Junction City, which was the largest Airborne action of the war...and the battle of Con Thien where the U. S. Marines suffered their worst one day combat losses of the whole war...on July 2 to 3 1967, over 280 casualties in one day with over 80 killed in action...of course, CBS delayed or postponed Coronet Blue's "A Dozen Demons" from it's scheduled broadcast that evening in order to cover the battle of Con Thien...Cronkite sometimes anchoring or Mike Wallace with Taped or live reports from Morely Safer and Peter Arnett in Vietnam...from what I can tell, "Assassins", "The Rebels", "A Dozen Demons" and "Faces" were all delayed or postponed for CBS News Special Reports...and with Baseball and pre-season Football also pre-empting Coronet Blue later in August and into early September, especially in the Eastern Time Zone...on some CBS affiliates, I imagine it aired late or not at all on a number of scheduled nights...

 

[Harry-N]

It definitely aired on Monday nights in Philadelphia on then CBS-owned WCAU-TV. As I recall, there were a couple of game shows occupying that 10 PM hour, that went on hiatus for the summer and allowing CORONET BLUE to air. I have little memory of any actual shows and other than the haunting theme I haven't seen a frame of it in these 50 years. In fact, it would have been nice for this to street a month earlier so it would fit in with all of the 50th anniversary stuff going on from that great TV year of 1966-1967.

Preemptions were annoying but necessary events in television. They happened to all series, but this one, a doomed series, got the hook quite often. I do recall the fact that there were reports that the show was doing well in the ratings, better than expected, and that the network was in a bind having a hit on their hands that simply couldn't continue. Frank Converse was no longer available.

In some respects, the series was an early polar opposite to another one called NOWHERE MAN that ran on UPN in the 1990s. Instead of a man whose life is ripped away by a failing memory, NOWHERE MAN had the hero's life ripped away by having everyone in the world not know who he was, while his memory remained intact. Both had pursuers and the pursued, and both I think delved into mind games.

The following summer, CBS treated us to another brain-bending series, THE PRISONER. Heady times.

 

[Flashgear]

Interesting that episode aired on a Thursday as I recall the show being on Monday nights.

Susan Hampshire was also in the Time Tunnel pilot episode as well but I don't believe she did much American television.

Susan was/is so beautiful. Sigh!!!

James

Susan Hampshire was in a couple of episodes of SECRET AGENT/DANGER MAN. I know that's a British series, but she's always a welcome sight.

Susan Hampshire is still working, most recently on Midsomer Murders and Another Mother's Son...she will be 80 years old in a few weeks...fondly remembered for Monarch of the Glen, Barchester Chronicles etc...I will always associate her with Disney's Three Lives of Thomasina, where she was the kind Celtic witch of animal husbandry...she was and is a great beauty and talented actress...those two episodes of Secret Agent that Susan Hampshire did were directed by Don Chaffey...her same director as Three Lives of Thomasina, and of course with the same co-star Patrick McGoohan...two of the best episodes of that series, I think..."You're not in Any Trouble, Are You?" and "Are You Going to be More Permanent?"...both darkly hilarious and greatly enhanced by Susan Hampshire's lovely and luminous presence...other than Time Tunnel and Coronet Blue, the only other American TV credit I can find is a 1961 episode of Adventures in Paradise...

The Lord and Lady Kulukundis, O.B. E., as Susan Hampshire is known today...

I'm really looking forward to seeing her in KL's Coronet Blue pilot episode...now if only Disney would remaster and release a nice Blu-ray of Three Lives of Thomasina...

 

[Darby67]

Walmart currently lists Coronet Blue: The Complete Series for $33.03 but also as "out of stock": https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coronet-Blue-1967-Complete-Series/55776609

I will buy it at that price once they start taking pre-orders.