TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT DEBUTS Manufacture-On-Demand DVD SERIES (1 Viewer)

[Richard--W]

What needs to be answered is if all these do exist at Fox or archives about the place. Failing that those artist created posters are superb. I knew an old lady who was looking for some of those titles on video a few years ago because her father had brought her up on Zane Grey books when she was growing up in New Zealand. She was also looking for a couple of documentaries Zane made out her way to do with fishing.

Only Fox knows the answer to your first question. Personally I have a hunch all the films survive. What Fox doesn't have in their archives can no doubt be had from another archive. I'm constantly being surprised at the number of "lost" or forgotten films that keep turning up in private hands. There are a LOT of silent and early talkie westerns in circulation that originated at the studios as well as from smaller independent companies that no longer exist.

The two documentaries "Fisherman's Pluck" and "Outdoor Adventures with Zane Grey" were officially released in horrid quality on Lions Gate's ZANE GREY WESTERN CLASSICS box-sets volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4. Four films per box, mostly 1940s versions, each with the same home movies. I wouldn't call them documentaries. They're heavy sledding. Some of the films are pretty good; about equal to the Tim Holt westerns from Warner Archive. Out of print now but still available at amazon marketplace and ebay.

 

[moviepas]

Thanks. I have never heard of the Lionsgate box set.

As for 20th Century-Fox 35mm I have a couple of stories from my city, Melbourne. Firstly there was a company called BB or something similar, Chemicals in the inner Melbourne suburb of Collingwood. Some companies sent prints there for melting down for the silver etc. Fox was one. I know of guys who said that there were usually several prints of the same film that went there so this guy got this reel form that print of Film X and that guy got Reel so & so from that copy and so until between them they had a complete film. Many of these were Technicolor musicals from the 1940s.

I was told of one fire of these musicals in a suburb in my municipality about 5-10mins drive from my home, a suburb that was mostly scrub and near the sea then and suffered from the 1939 bushfires. Who knows.

Then is an inner suburb there was a guy I later knew as a customer who worked for the City of Melbourne in the gardens but was mentally effected. His lived with his Mum in this house adjoining a home appliance factory. I was told his Fox musicals set the house on fire and he just stood there just staring at the residue.

Later I heard about a court case regarding films from this chemical works. Someone got caught and reported the other names in the ring who had prints so he would not be carrying the can by himself. I know one man who involved whose parents once had a bakery shop a block up from my shop before I was in business. The family loved films. The dad got scared and burnt the films in the back garden incinerator(I wonder due to what would happen if that method was used). According to this man they also burnt a mid-30s Canadian Western. He showed me a Classic Film Collector where they were looking for this "lost" Western. He swore blind they burnt a good copy. They still went to court and got fined, I think, and a bond.

It was said they did not know what happened to MGM's films for destruction as they never came thru that chemically works. MGM also had sound on disc in the depression in Australia, as did Universal. A workmate, an old man then about 1968-70, had a boyhood friend whose family owned a moviehouse and they often went with the dad on Saturday mornings to MGM's Melbourne warehouse to collect the week's films and told me about the discs for the sound.

Later the likes of Fox used to send films to the city dump and had a lawyer go there and observe the workers put an axe thru the reels and signed off the operation when it was finished. Columbia cleared out there excess material including those Columbia 3-D shorts for destruction. An independent distributor, Filmways(not the US company involved with The Beverly Hillbillies), destroyed all their excess prints in the 1970s. Filmways was owned by a moviehouse group that had a few houses in Melbourne. In the 1980s I got a few Variety newspapers from the owner's household trash can when I used to do advertising catalogs in the area. He had an upstairs little screening room in the house, not uncommon in properties in that wealthy suburb.

In the 1970s someone(a farmer, actually) knew someone who worked in telecine in Sydney at the TV station running Fox's pre-1950 films. Copies were made from the 16mm films and the unprocessed film sent to Melbourne to the sister station who had a film lab on site but operated by an outside business to process the newsfilm etc. The titles included Clive of India, Suez, Shirley titles and so on. None of the pre-1935 Fox titles were in the package.

 

[borisfw]

Add Goodbye Charlie, with Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds , to the Fox mod terrible Pan and Scan collection . I thought Say One For Me looked better in Pan or Scan than this one does . Needed to be Widescreen badly . Three people conversations with only two in picture . Strange movement in picture to get third person into picture when they speak . Pretty bad .

 

[Matt Hough]

GGGGGGGRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It gets more and more irritating with every response like this!

 

[ahollis]

Has anyone received THE REMARKABLE ME PENNYBAKER and ALL HANDS ON DECK I would like to know if they are OAR and anamorphic. Thanks

 

[borisfw]

I have Pennypacker . I will give it a check .

 

[borisfw]

The back states Letterbox 4:3 . I believe that is what it looks like when I watched it .

I hadn't seen this one before . I liked it . A very odd premiss though .

 

[Matt Hough]

I found out tonight that I will be getting some of this latest selection of MODs for review.Pennybaker is one of the ones that will be coming.

 

[Richard--W]

Thanks. I have never heard of the Lionsgate box set.

As for 20th Century-Fox 35mm I have a couple of stories from my city, Melbourne. Firstly there was a company called BB or s

I should have pointed out that The Zane Grey Western Classics box-sets released by Lions Gate were not Fox films, however. Other studios had rights to the novels. But the Fox films starring George O'Brien were the best.

 

[lionel59]

Re PENNYPACKER: non-anamorphic Letterboxing beats Pan-and-Scan any day. My copy is still in the mail.
I guess they don't make family movies about bigamy anymore....and it's safe to say that casting Clifton Webb in this role was "casting against type". It was based on a true story (no doubt sanitized), which I think became a Broadway play before reaching the screen. I'm sure Fox saw it as good box office to put Webb in another movie with lotsa offspring/kids after the success of CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN and MR SCOUTMASTER.

 

[lionel59]

Thanks to the people who commented on the flaw in PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER. I nearly ordered it.
I have recently received THE DANGEROUS YEARS, JOSETTE, WILSON and THIS IS MY AFFAIR. The first three look great. THIS IS MY AFFAIR is a little on the dark side but watchable.
I have ordered THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE (reportedly a good transfer going by one online review I found), THE ROCKET MAN (described as a good transfer by a fellow HTF contributor under this topic), HIGH SCHOOL and THE MOON IS DOWN. I will share my thoughts on their quality once they arrive.

 

[Matt Hough]

I have a review copy of The Farmer Takes a Wife, but no time to review it with the glut of Fox Blu-ray vault titles appearing today (along with two new releases). It'll get done eventually.

 

[Lromero1396]

I wonder what the next CinemaScope titles are that Fox MOD will ruin...

 

[Matt Hough]

I don't even want to think about it.

 

[lionel59]

Now and again they surprise us with generally very good anamorphic transfers egs THE MARRIAGE GO ROUND, WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER and OH MEN! OH WOMEN! WILSON, in 1.37:1, was a pretty good transfer too. Let's live in hope......

 

[John Hermes]

Has anyone received THE REMARKABLE ME PENNYBAKER and ALL HANDS ON DECK I would like to know if they are OAR and anamorphic. Thanks

ALL HANDS ON DECK is pan & scan after letterboxed titles.

 

[Doug Bull]

Yet another Cinemascope title down the can. (is that the correct US slang for toilet?)

 

[lionel59]

I think that should be "down the 'john'"....

 

[lionel59]

I received a copy of SUEZ today. Overall I am quite pleased with it. The transfer is NOT the one shown on FMC. This print window-boxes the titles and the card which pop up during the movie containing written information. The details seems better on this transfer and the image is not as dark as the FMC print. I think there is a bit of minor "noise" on the image but nothing which overly concerned me. Great Ty Power epic. Would look terrific restored on Blu Ray. Another entry in the '30's 'Disaster Movie' cycle (which was a fore-runner of the one which occurred in the '70's) as there is a well executed sand-storm sequence which "blew me away" (if you'll pardon the unpardonable pun...).

 

[Robin9]

. . . . there is a well executed sand-storm sequence which "blew me away" (if you'll pardon the unpardonable pun...).

Nothing unpardonable about that. It's quite good!