10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Thanks to a tip off in another forum (thanks Clifford!) I just purchased a 2 DVD pack of 10 Blondie movies for $9.99.

The DVDs are from Platinum, which is one of the bargain companies that I've had good luck with.

The interesting thing is that the package makes you think these are TV episodes (the films are referred to as episodes). The total running time is also misprinted on the box as 144 minutes. From what the other forum indicated, all movies are uncut although they appear to utilize the credits used for the TV showings. A/V quality is said to be very good. For a buck a movie, I'm not complaining.

The films included are

Blondie
Blondie Meets the Boss
Blondie Takes a Vacation
Blondie Brings Up Baby
Blondie On a Budget
Blondie Has Servant Trouble
Blondie Plays Cupid
Blondie Goes Latin
Blondie in Society
Blondie Goes to College

These are 10 of the first 11 films in the series (only "Blondie for Victory is absent")

I found this in the TV on DVD section of Best Buy.

Steve

I've been waiting for a Blondie release. I may pick this up at Best Buy. I hope the picture quality is acceptable.

Well I'm guessing this isn't a legit release because the series is owned by Columbia and the character is owned by King Features.

The packaging carries the logo of Hearst Entertainment (some think they are the rights owners of the films)and references King Features.

I don't know if anybody else other than Best Buy is carrying these. I didn't see them in my local Borders and I don't have a Circuit City.

I have sampled various scenes from the movies and I was quite pleased with what I saw. Good prints were used. From what I can tell, there are two main comprises at this price:

* Use of the TV prints. Although complete, the original titles have been replaced with the standard shot of Dagwood running out of the house, knocking over the mailman, and the mail goes flying through the air.

* 5 movies are presented on one side. Each movie runs about 70-75 minutes. The average bit rate is about 3.0 - 3.3. Being B&W mono films, this isn't as big an issue as it would be otherwise.


Steve

Do these "Blondie" films have a bug/logo popping up on them? I only have one product from the "Platinum Disc Corporation" (a collection of episodes from the "U.S. Marshall" tv series, recently purchased), and a small bug stating the company name appears intermittently at the bottom corner throughout. I didn't like it, even if it was done fairly innocuously, as these things go. One of the reasons I've been jumping into the dvd scene is to get away from such intrusions.

I've always loved the old "Blondie" series, and I have most entries on tape. It would be great to upgrade to dvd, but I'm not interested, if infested with on-screen bugs.

I just looked at the Blondie compilation when I was in Best Buy today and the entire dvd is 144 minutes for 10 movies. That would mean less than 15 minutes apiece!

Obviously I din't purchase it even though I would like to own the Blondie movies.

The box is wrong. The running time of each movie is 72 minutes. Some moron listed the running time of each dvd of 5 movies in the 2 dvd package as 72 minutes and I guess the same moron listed the total running time as 144 minutes on the outside box which of course is 2 X 72. The actual running time should be 720 minutes.

As stated earlier in this thread, these are the TV versions of the Blondie theatrical movies. Each "episode" starts out with a few extracted scenes from the movie itself as a kind of preview of what is to come, then Dagwood knocks over the mailman and then the phony generic screen credits come on that were made for the TV showings with a 50's written Blondie song in the background. All of the Blondie movies were adjusted to run for exactly 72 minutes to make them fit nicely in a 90 minute TV slot along with lots of commercials.

The quality is not too bad and the bug-logo does appear in the bottom right corner, here and there and now and then.

Back in the days when AMC was a real movie channel, they did show a lot of the Blondie movies in their original form and with the original screen credits.

Thanks for the info about the "bug." Were these all nice, cleaned up prints with the original theatrical openings (and no bugs!), I'd surely jump on them. Otherwise, I don't feel terribly rushed. Maybe I'll pick them up at a later date. I guess they'd still be an improvement over some of my tapes. Always had such a crush on Penny Singleton, dating back to the first time I saw the films when I was ten years old. I almost fell over when I heard her speak in person a number of years back and noted that her voice sounded almost exactly the same despite her advanced years.

I thought I read somewhere that the movies (with the 'new' mailman/letters openings and preface parts) weren't put together and syndicated until 1965 or 1966. I wouldn't mind seeing the 1958-vintage TV series again out of curiosity, but I recall it being rather weak. It was run on cable on CBN around 1984, which is when I saw it. Never saw the short-lived 1968 version with Will Hutchins as Dagwood, but it sounds intriguing. Sugarfoot as Dagwood..?

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Does this dvd have the option, to pick the movie you want to watch out of the 5 on each set, or does this run as 1 long feature ???

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

You can pick out the movie you want to watch.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Thanks Steve !

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

If this is the same set I bought awhile back, I seem to recall the end credit being cut off. Is that the case with these?

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

The end credits were always cut off when these used to air on our local PBS affiliate (sundays at 4:00pm--they would run all of the Blondie movies and then Andy Hardy) and replaced with a generic King Features title card.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Not counting opening credits, end credits, the movies themselves dont have anything missing as in full versions ???

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Other than the credit changes and the addition of "preview" scenes before the feature (to bolster the running times to a standard 72 minutes) they are complete and uncut. In fact, the "restorations" that used to run on AMC used the available King Features versions and simply grafted the (somewhat rough) original openings on to them.

They didn't find all of the original openings either. One in particular (BLONDIE ON A BUDGET) uses the credits for the original Blondie with the ON A BUDGET title card from the King Features version added in.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Thanks Will, thats the info i was looking for !

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Ive recieved mine, and here is what I think from sampling only blondie goes to college. Considering that theyve put 5 movies on each dvd,they look alot better than i was expecting for a budget dvd release. These movies would look as good as the abbott and costello franchise collections , if they put 2 movies per dvd.All things considered still not bad for a budget release. My only minor complaint is the transfers are just a tad bright, but i just turn the brightness down a notch and it looks perfect! !! So if youre a fan of these films get them , i doubt we will see better dvd treatment for a long time.The company logo from about 40 minutes that ive watched did not appear once, i guess it appears twice tops during each movie so good news on that.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Hi Tony,

Yes, the bit rates are embarrassingly low but they do look pretty good. I contacted Platinum at the time of the original release to see if Vol 2 was in the works, but they said "no" and sure enough, no Vol 2 has ever appeared. Perhaps this was a one shot licensing deal with Hearst Entertainment for these 10 films only. For the $9.99 + tax I paid for this, I'm not going to complain too much. Heck, if Fox put this out, they'd charge $60 for each group of 4 films!

Steve

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Steve, you never know if the rest will be released . Just last week the set made it all the way up to amazons top 5,000 sales rank, outselling lots of other classic comedies fromthe 30s to 50s.In fact right now its sold out at amazon, and says usually ships in 3 to 6 weeks !!!

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

This has been out for quite some time, more than a year, easily. I have it and love it -- one of my fave low-budget compilations.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

For those that hate the platinum logo bug, here is a way to get rid of it. The logo on these dvds are encoded as if they were subtitles, so just turn it off with the dvd remote pressing the subtitle button, it worked for me.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Doesn't work that way for me. The Platinum Logo does not read as being a subtitle track, even though it is. It does disappear if I pause and rewind for a second.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Im just saying that if you press it once when the movie starts , it wont appear at all through the end.Doing pausing and rewinding is a different story

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

I dont know if this is a problem on my volume 2 dvd, but ill describe it.On the blondie goes latin movie , in the first 20 minutes or so the picture is jumpy at random parts.It also does this later on in the film too.Does this happen to your copies too ? Every of the other movies was fine in this volume, havent gotten around to watching volume 1 yet.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

So anyone checked their copy yet ?

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

If the dvd is selling well, you would think that that would encourage Sony to release the films on DVD...

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Does anybody know IF Sony plans to release the films on dvd??

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

Does Sony even own them? I was under the impression that they stopped being Columbia property years ago.

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

You could very well be right. Does anyone know who does own the rights so I can contact them and find out what's going on? Thanks!

Re: 10 Blondie (Singleton) movies now on DVD

I understand that the copyright for the Blondie movies reverted back to King Features sometime in the 60's, which is also the comic strip distributor. When they took control they cut off the original logos & titles and added their own logo and titles. They sold the 27 or so movies to local TV stations with cuts in any of the movies that could not fit into a 90 minute space with commercials. Which actually was not very many. Although in the late 90's AMC (in it's glory days) showed the series and went back and used the original beginnings including the Columbia Logo.

I would have to guess that King Features still holds what copyrights are in place, but may have lost those rights or least to the first 10 films since Platinum released those in their 2 DVD pack.

I also have the DVD's and while they are not top notch, they are enjoyable and still have a lot of laughs in them. I wish the others would become available.

On still another Blondie note, Columbia at the time did not respect the series, lost interest in it and even cancelled it in 1943 with Footlight Glamour supposedly ending the series. However they received so much mail and requests from theatre owners that they restarted the series in 1945 and continued it for another 14 films with the final being Beware of Blondie in 1950.

So here's to the postman and will he ever learn to stay away from that front door.