THE BETTE DAVIS COLLECTION VOLUME 3 - April 1, 2008 (1 Viewer)

[ColbyCo82]

Bring on more Norma!

 

[Miguel M Santos]

Norma Shearer is in a similar position to Myrna Loy and De Havilland, which I mentioned earlier. With THE WOMEN, MARIE ANTOINETTE, ROMEO AND JULIET and now A FREE SOUL and THE DIVORCEE already released, these cover her most famous titles. This means there is not a good anchor to sustain a "Norma Shearer Signature Collection" or similar. So they have to be packed somewhere else...

And once you spread the remaining titles around, you are still going to end with a few titles that can't be marketed. Some can be easily be packed in the Forbidden Hollywood series, and hopefully will (STRANGERS MAY KISS was mentioned in the doc in vol 2 of Forbidden Hollywood; perhaps PRIVATE LIVES, which a Coward fan I'd love to see) or in her co-stars' future volumes, especially the titles with the likes Gable or Lon Chaney.

And then she suffers from the unmarketability of the remaining titles (apologies if I just made up the word) - these are usually less known you can't put them in a box with her name cause only hardcore fans will buy, but at the same they have their fans, and some might even be very good - it's just that they haven't been seen by an wide audience for nearly three generations. Which begs the question of how do you market it? Or simply do nothing, which is a pity as all films should be released, even the awful ones.

 

[GlennH]

This is true. Colman was great. We've loaned out our Random Harvest DVD to a number of friends who enjoy good movies but who aren't really classic film buffs. They universally love it, but of course most had never heard of the film or Ronald Colman or Greer Garson before.

 

[John Skoda]

I was on a Caribbean cruise last November and the ship had a "TCM" TV channel but it featured more old TV shows than movies. Old 70's shows I hadn't seen in years, like "Medical Center." From the time zones it mentioned, it looked like this channel was produced for the Central American market. Is this similar to what is seen in Europe?

 

[Corey]

I don't mind if Norma's films aren't in a set dedicated to her. Private Lives, Strangers May Kiss, and Riptide can go in a future FH set, Idiot's Delight can go in a Gable set, and Escape can go in a Hollywood Goes to War promotion.

 

[Miguel M Santos]

No - it has some old films, and some more recent stuff from WB's catalogue such as Batman, Unforgiven, etc. but they tend to show the same stuff over and over again. Is simply a movie channel which fills they non primetime with B&W stuff.

 

[John Skoda]

Thanks for the info! I figured out that you can go to TCM Turner Classic Movies and look at the program listings for TCM UK, TCM Spain, etc., by following the links at the bottom of the page.

Things could be worse--you could be watching TCM Latin America, which is what I was watching on the cruise, apparently. Today they're seeing episodes of "Dallas," "Gilligan's Island," and "I Love Lucy!"

 

[Miguel M Santos]

I got my box this morning and a question poped as I was going through the boxes: Whatever happened to the career profile that was meant to be in the WATCH ON THE RHINE disc?

Please note I haven't yet played the discs (just got them from the Royal Mail depot), so if it's there my excuses.