WB Gypsy / The Great Race / Mister Roberts / Auntie Mame

I'd have The Great Race in a heartbeat.

Sometimes you get the impression there's a queueing system at the Studios for catalogue titles - always the usual suspects coming out first, and certain titles that come along late or never come out at all.

Yep, hopefully this year The Great Race. It still works for me, I view it about once a year. The DVD looks great, it doesn't need any new look or colour scheme, just an HD version please.

I enjoy all four of those titles and would certainly go for them also.  The Great Race is a favorite of mine and you can't go wrong with Auntie Mame. 

I would buy every one of these without thinking twice about them. They're all very special movies to me for various reasons, and having them in pristine Blu-ray versions is a dream I hope comes true and sooner rather than later.

Id like to see Gypsy get the Special Edition treatment like Star Is Born, My Fair Lady (WB's DVD) and Music Man. (actually I think Music Man deserved better than it got.) Great Race should be handled like Around the World in 80 Days was. Ditto Auntie Mame. Remember when Auntie Mame was released in Warners' "Night at the Movies" (cartoons/shorts/feature) series on VHS? There is plenty they can do to add value to a feature without it costing a bundle.

Didn't Warner say they were planning Auntie Mame for next year?

 

I would like to see a seamless branching option to watch Gypsy with the cut scenes reinstated, as bad as they look (unless a better source turned up).

Good idea. Me, too.

I recently watched The Great Race (on DVD) for the first time in years, and fell in love with it all over again.  

 

I remember seeing it with my family when new, and I remember the intermission break being there.  I'm also fairly certain we were seeing it at one of our regular theaters, and not at a roadshow house.  Did it have an actual roadshow run, or were its overture, exit music, etc., written into the film purely as a stylistic touch?  I'm also uncertain as to whether the "Overture" and "Exit Music" title cards were on the film, or if these are the typical home video add-ons.  The period "Gay Nineties" design makes me think were there, but I'd love to know how this film really was distributed and played originally.

 

When I saw it, there was no intermission, overture, or exit music. It was longer than the usual film of the time, but it played in continuous showings at the theater where I saw it.

 

I share your enthusiasm for it. I've always loved it, loved the jaunty Mancini score, and found Jack Lemmon's two roles a real tour de force that he really seemed to be relishing.

I fall in love with it again every time I see it, & it's a great looking DVD of a great looking film (I had to import the DVD from Germany as Warner never got around to releasing it in the UK). I hope it won't be too long before Warner releases a Blu-ray, they probably won't bother releasing it in the UK, but I'll be more than happy to import it.

I didn't see "The Great Race" theatrically but did see many other roadshow pictures both in roadshow engagements and, more frequently, in general release. I never, ever, saw any print with "Overture/Entr'acte/Exit Music" title cards, but usually there was a card announcing the intermission. Apart from "intermission" these are home video add-ons.

Many films had intermission cards and the roadshow music retained in at least a few 35mm monaural scratchy general release prints. I saw "The Sound of Music" quite a few times in neigborhood runs. A couple of times a makeshift intermission was placed at a convenient reel-change with no card, no entr'acte and an abrupt resumption of the film after the interval, but more often the proper intermission and entr'acte was retained. I never saw "Gone with the Wind" without a proper intermission and Max Steiner entr'acte, although the Stephen Foster intermission music was always missing, even in 70mm prints. I likewise never saw "My Fair Lady" in general release without a proper intermission. But most roadshows weren't usually so meticulously presented in neighborhood runs.

The most surprising example of retaining exit music was when Houston's Channel 11 ran a 16mm TV print of "Cleopatra" in an open-ended afternoon time slot around 1979 or so, complete with exit music playing against a blank screen. I wasn't watching at the conclusion of the first half, so I have no idea if the entr'acte was aired or not.

Yes, GREAT RACE needs to be released on blu. This is a really big production that would look great in bluray. I think the LA run started out roadshow and shortly afterward went as a general run.

I saw a screening of THE GREAT RACE at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the early 1990s. It was not a great print. It had no Overture and the ice floe sequence was edited together so there was no break at all where the intermission occurs on the DVD. There was also no exit music. In this print, the color would change drastically when the reels would change - and I mean drastically. I also saw THE KING AND I at this same location and it also was a disappointing print - pink with a greenish cast. But, on the plus side, I saw a screening of WORDS AND MUSIC there that was stunningly beautiful.

The high point, however, of the screening of THE GREAT RACE, was that Jack Lemmon was there and spoke before the film. I believe it was a Blake Edwards retrospective, as THAT'S LIFE played before RACE. He spoke about the film industry and how, in his opinion, "violence is the real pornography." He got quite a wonderful reponse from the audience.

I don't know where the Los Angeles County Museum gets their prints - if they have their own archive or get them from elsewhere. I have not been there in many years as I no longer live in L.A., but the screenings I saw, while a nice large screen, were definitely a mixed bag in terms of quality.

Yes, with the correct main title music this time, so that the audience is not hissing Tony Curtis and cheering Jack Lemmon.

It is correct on the German DVD.

My potted palm and I would like to place a Vote for Mister Roberts!

I'll take one of each, please.

It is also correct on the current USA version. I took a chance and re-bought it from Amazon as I heard they fixed the problem, which they did.

There is still another possible problem, but now I wonder if I am misremembering it. When they are getting ready for the big race to start, there are a few shots of those old flash cameras going off, but you hardly hear the sound at all. I seem to remember it being more upfront. What leads me to think I am correct, is an earlier scene when Lemmon and Falk are about to embark on that device on the train track, the flash sounds are upfront. What makes me doubt myself is the foreign version soundtracks seem to have the muted sound, but I still think maybe they had the separated tracks and when remixing for 5.1 sound, somehow that particular track didn't get enough volume. Does anyone still have an old tape from an old tv broadcast to check?
Thanks...

PS I think the music in the title was always correct, but they misaligned the cheers and boos somehow.

Any possibility in some markets Jack Lemmon had top billing and somehow that version of the soundtrack wound up accompanying the titles?

The flashes are the same on my mono VHS from the 1980s.

That's exactly what happened. Jack Lemmon had top billing overseas and Tony Curtis had top billing in the U.S.

Thanks Mark. I now have no qualms about this film being released on Blu Ray.