Universal Vault Series - Amazon.com exclusive DVD-Rs - Page 7

Meanwhile, in their Universal Backlot series, Universal is releasing a Barbara Stanwyck collection on April 27, to include the films listed below.  I guess there is still some hope for pressed DVD collections after all.

All I Desire
The Bride Wore Boots
The Great Man's Lady
Internes Can't Take Money
The Lady Gambles
There's Always Tomorrow


Here's the UPC: 025192048647     It's a three-disc set retailing for $50

Seems the only way to get pressed releases is to be an "A" star who is still conistered a superstar.

But then TCM got the Cary Grant films...but demand for those lead for them to be a pressed release!

Poor Deana Durbin. :)

Just got "Pure Luck" a few days ago. The transfer is pretty good (Anamorphic WS) and so is the audio (crisp and clean), but there is no menu on the disc. It came with quality artwork, amaray case and the disc had a blue print on top with movie info. I'd say asking $19.99 is way to high for these kind of "on demand" pressings, these should be at least $12.00 or $10.99. While "Pure Luck" it's no masterpiece of cinema, just a fun silly comedy and I do appreciate them making these kind of titles available to consumers that would never see the light of day on DVD otherwise. I hope they continue making more and more titles available to buy.
Edited by ricktech12 - 2/10/10 at 10:47pm

I'd be utterly shocked if 10% of the American population even had heard the name "Deane Durbin". She's a forgotten star in the eye of Joe Public.

I would die for THE LONELY LADY with Pia Zadora!   Her Academy Award speech at the end of the film is one of the greatest bad-cinema moments ever!  

Sadly, that is probably true.

In the 30's and 40's, she was the biggest female star on the planet, the highest paid actress in Hollywood.  She was Winston Churchill's favorite actress, Anne Frank had a photo of her on her wall, Mussolini even published a letter to get her to intervene to stop World War 2.  

Yet, she retired from acting at the end of the 40's and left the country. 

She is still alive today, living in France. While 19 of her 21 films are available on DVD in the UK, only one set has been released in the US. 

it's fascinating to see how some stars are widely remembered while others slip from the public conscience. In the case of Deana Durbin vs., say, Shirley Temple, I wonder if TV had a big part of this? As a kid in the early 80s before cable took off I can recall my mom (a child of the 50s) recording Temple's films off of TV quite regularly. I didn't become aware of Durbin until I studied film in college. Were Durbin's films not on the TV circulation as much during the 50s-80s?

Television played a role, but Durbin leaving the public eye while living in Europe also contributed to her star slipping from the public conscience.





Crawdaddy

Well, if the enourmous request for the Cary Grant set made Universal/TCM change their original plan (to make the set available as pressed discs), maybe if the orders for the Durbin set reach similar heights, they can release it as pressed too.

I think that is one of the factors.  Even TCM only shows a couple of her films on a regular basis.

At least one was remade so the original was taken out of circulation.  There are rights issues with others. 
Edited by Jon Martin - 2/13/10 at 6:18pm

In the case of Durbin, her style of movies and her soprano just went out of fashion. Much the same way Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy movies hold no interest for modern audiences outside of the nostalgists. Not a comment on Ms. Durbin's or Ms. MacDonald's talents but THREE SMART GIRLS or MAYTIME don't resonate with contemporary audiences the way, say, Astaire and Rogers still do. As cinema, 100 MEN AND A GIRL and NAUGHTY MARIETTA simply cannot compare to SWING TIME or TOP HAT.

I watched "Trapeze" tonight.  It's watchable, but it's finally good to see an anamorphic presentation of it. 





Crawdaddy

I guess most of the public doesn't remember Deanna Durbin, but even those who do don't spell her name correctly.
We see Deana and Deane above, neither of which are correct.
Sorry to be pedantic, but I'm sort of a stickler with accuracy in such matters.

DM

Does anybody know if there's a release schedule for the UNIVERSAL VAULT SERIES?  I'd like to see FLESH & FANTASY released and some of the PARAMOUNTS  they own the rights to.

I don't know of any...I guess were just supposed to find out about new releases on our own. I'm not surprised as for the most part(other than the big titles) Universal has shown very little respect for it's classic catalog titles.

As for Flesh and Fantasy, I caught this one recently and must say I really enjoyed it. It's the Twilight Zone before the Twilight Zone and with an amazing cast....Edward G. Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Thomas Mitchell(who is great in it as always), Charles Boyer etc.. The lead in to the three stories is a little weak(could have used Serling for that) but overall I would definitley buy this.  I would  buy Tales of Manhattan as well ,also by director Julien Duvivier. Not as Twilight Zonish(kind of) but does have multiple stories and a even better all-star cast.
Edited by Van594 - 2/15/10 at 5:27pm

 FLESH AND FANTASY would be a terrific release. Hopefully it would be on a pressed disc. They could include 1944's DESTINY, which took the former's cut sequence footage and reworked it to 65 minutes and changed the story quite a bit. But it has interest.
Frank Skiinner also reworked Tansman's music throughout. 

That's putting it nicely, 100 Men and a Girl and Naughty Marietta are simply awful, both of them, with almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Three Smart Girls is merely just bland.

A website dedicated to Disneyland has some screen captures from 40 Pounds of Trouble on their site. Looks to be a pretty nice anamorphic transfer of the film.

miceage.micechat.com/allutz/al021610a.htm

Doug

Has anyone heard if there will be more titles available soon.  It has been a little over a month since the the first ones were announced and placed on sale.  I am much more interested in the Universal titles since, while they are DVD-r's, they seem to have better transfers than the ones MGM released in January also, that is except for THE CHALK GARDEN, which was not anamorphic.  The other titles I purchased I was pleased with the transfers.

As an thought, how long does anyone think that the film companies will support the MOD program, I guess I mean how long do you think it will take for direct downloading to be the main access to these films.  I remember reading an article several years ago (maybe 10 years) that a head of home entertainment for a major film studio predicted that their entire library would someday be available for home download.  I can see that we are going in that direction.  Especially since the studios are making HD transfers of their films, but are not releasing them on standard DVD or Blu-ray, but using them for HD broadcasts.  While I am enjoying titles from Warner Bros, Universal and even MGM that I never thought I would own, let alone see, I am not sure that this will last another three years.

The problem is a good portion of the demographic group that will purchase many of these titles aren't exactly the most savvy individuals when it comes to technical situations like downloading movies and then playing them in their home theaters.  I think the industry as a whole needs to make the process much more simple in which it takes nothing more than a click of a button to view your favorite film downloaded to the home theater area of your preference.

I concur with you and your thoughts.  While I consider myself as savvy enough to download (I head up digital projector roll out for a theatre circuit), I just don't want to because it is not just a simple click and presently it takes too long.  I love pressed disks, but I am also very comfortable with the MOD programs from Warner and Universal and do not wish to see them go away if it is a way to see limited interest films.  I want someone else to do the work and sell it to me at a fair price.

I don't know. Netflix instant view service, which is available on a large number of DVD and blu-ray players, not to mention the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 couldn't be much simpler to use. The movie starts playing in about 5 to 8 seconds. Faster than most blu-rays load. Some TVs are now coming out with this service built into them so you don't even need a player. Blockbuster now has an instant view service too. The quality is remarkably good, particularly with the films in HD, and they have thousands of films available now. My guess is that optical media has about 5 years left before it is seriously on its way out.

At that point I think this kind of service will be the only way you can watch movies in the future. Soon I don't think you'll even be able to download a movie, it will be streaming only. Honestly I think owning a physical copy of a movie is on the way out, which is exactly what studios want.

Doug

Is there a chance that Eagle Squadron might become one of the Vault releases?  I saw it several times as a boy and its unofficial sequel, Fighter Squadron, now available from the Warner Archive.

Again, many people have their players hooked up improperly so that they're not getting the full enjoyment of their video and audio presentations.  So, to expect them to have the internet hooked up to their systems is stretching it.  By the way, that demographic group couldnt' tell the difference in an X-Box from PS 3.






Crawdaddy

My new TV can stream movies from Amazon and Vudu, but I'm not going to stop buying regular discs anytime soon.  VOD is certainly convenient, but is overpriced- a lot of movies cost more to 'rent' for 24 hours than I've bought them for on DVD ($3 Big Lots titles) and I'm not about to pay $20 to 'buy' a movie that I can't actually keep on my shelf and play anywhere I want.  What's there to stop anyone from pulling movies from these services for whatever reason?  At least when a disc goes out of print you still have a chance of getting one of the already existing copies.

I'm not paying $20 for a DVD-R either- the only DVD-Rs I buy are blank ones :)

Neither do I and I have about 70 of them from Warner, MGM and Universal.

Netflix is $9.95 a month for unlimited instant view, many of them in HD.

I agree with your concerns about these services. They could pull obscure movies any time they want. Having said that the studios have been trying to put the home video genie back into the bottle sense the betamax decision. They NEVER wanted to people to be able to own a movie, and they have been trying to kill the betamax decision legally for years. Now they have the chance to do it technologically and still provide home video on their terms.

Doug

I don't think that learning curve will last that long as these devices start to have built in wireless connections and simple menu driven setup. Not to mention most stores that offer delivery will also setup the device for you. And yes many people don't have their players hooked up to their TVs correctly, but frankly most of them also don't care, as long as the can watch a movie. I know that doesn't mean much for us here at HTF, but that is the reality of the situation.

On a side note. I am disturbed by the number of films on video on demand and instant view, that are cropped from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1. It seems we have this fight to do all over again, if streaming ends up being the future of home entertainment.

Doug

This is a strange way  for UNIVERSAL to do business.  Releasing just 20 titles in their VAULT SERIES and then silence.  Will there be more and if so--when.  Are these titles to be released on a monthly basis?  If you want to compete with WARNERS, your going to have to do better the next time.

I was wondering the same thing.  Perhaps they are testing the waters, but I was very impressed by the range of titles.  It may be a quarterly event.  I suspect that the MGM-Amazon dvds are toast, since the studio is in such chaos, but it would be great if they would at least release WHOOPEE! and KID MILLIONS since they have already printed those for the Musical megaset.