Other than John Wayne are Screen Icons being ignored on DVD? - Page 3

Where are the W.C. Fields DVD's?

It's a Gift
The Old Fashioned Way
Man on the Flying Trapeze
Poppy
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
My Little Chickadee
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

Yes, I'm a big Fields' fan as well. Universal I believe own the rights to all his sound features but again don't seem to be in a hurry to release them. Perhaps they should farm them out to Criterion who are the only company so far to give us some talkie Fields : The Bank Dick and Six Short Films.

I third the vote for more W.C. Fields.

And while we're talking about classic comedians, I don't believe that anyone has mentioned "The Marx Brothers". One of the greatest comedy teams ever and they are represented by 5 films on DVD, all of which are sub-par in picture and sound quality and horribly out of print and rare. I know that WB is planning on releasing many of their titles next year, but what about remastered re-releases of their early movies.

Let's not forget Harold Lloyd either. One of the 3 great silent comedians and there is nothing on DVD. I understand that his family owns the rights and are looking for the right company to distribute them, but let's stop being so picky. These are great films with a small cult audience, so you're not going to find a distributor willing to throw money at them.

Our Gang "The Little Rascals" are also horribly under-represented.

From my understanding, "Laurel & Hardy" & "Abbott & Costello" are also horribly mistreated. I believe that many of the titles by these teams have slipped into the public domain and that we may never see quality releases, which is a terrible shame.

Veronica Lake has only two films available on DVD ("Sullivan's Travels" and "Star Spangled Rhythm")from her great run in the 40s. It would be nice to see Universal release (or license someone else to release) some of her classics like "This Gun for Hire", "The Glass Key", or "The Blue Dahlia". That would also help the Alan Ladd situation immensely.

Regards,

You are right Eric about the classic comedians. I have the Marx Brothers box set from Image Entertainment but I don't think the picture and sound quality are that bad for early 30s' movies even though I agree they need and deserve some restoration. Warners have at least mentioned the prospect of releasing their Marx films but there has been nothing from Universal who own the Paramount movies probably their best films. The fact they licensed these films to another company in the past doesn't give me much hope that Universal Marx releases will occur in the future. Probably the best hope is Criterion who would hopefully give the brothers the DVDs they deserve.

One thing I've always wondered : Are "A Night in Casablanca" and "Love Happy" in the public domain ? If so I'm surprised DVDs haven't appeared particularly of the former which isn't a bad movie at all and I as a Marx fan starved of DVDs would probably buy it.

As you quite rightly say the audience for these DVDs isn't as large as it should be but the likes of Harold Lloyd's films should be available when both Chaplins and Keatons are. The Harold Lloyd Trust have restored all his films
(they were all seen recently in the US on TCM) but seem reluctant to release them on DVD for some reason. I heard a rumour that Kino offered the same money for the Lloyds or less than they offered for the Keatons (many of which are in the public domain). At first that sounds insulting but Lloyd has never been as well known as Chaplin and Keaton because of the poor availability of all his films. Unfortunately that trend seems to be continuing with no DVD releases to capitalise on the TCM festival.

Hallmark are releasing some talking Laurel and Hardy in the fall : a 2 DVD set comprising "Sons of the Desert", "The Music Box","Another Fine Mess","County Hospital" and "Busy Bodies". Hardly comprehensive but at least its a start. We're a bit luckier here in the UK because most talkie Stan and Ollie is available in Region 2 either here or in Germany.

Another giant that I don't remember anyone mentioning.

LON CHANEY SR.

There are only a handful of his movies available on DVD and many are cheap public domain garbage. Where are the true SEs for Hunchback, Phantom, etc.., etc...

Here's the excerpt from the WBHV chat to which "Crawdaddy" referred: