Warner's Catalogue of Films not released on DVD in Region 1! (1 Viewer)

[Rachael B]

Larry, I have the Warner LD, WOODSTOCK THE LOST PERFORMANCES, (12202). It came out in 1991. It's been out-of-print for a long, long time. It didn't stay in print too long. That's what you're talking about. I don't know if all this was put into the director's cut of WOODSTOCK. LOST runs 68 minutes. Here's what you get:
The Band- The Weight
Joe Cocker- Let's go get Stoned
Canned Heat- Going up the Country
Paul Butterfield- Drifting Blues
Arlo Gutherie- Walking Down the Line
Blood, Sweat & Tears- More and More
Country Joe- Rockin' Around the world
John Sebastian- Darling be Home Soon
Sly & Family Stone- Love City
Tim Hardin- If I Were A Carpenter
Melanie- Birthday of the Sun
Jon Baez- We Shall Overcome
Crosby, Stills & Nash- Marrakesh Express and Blackbird
Janis Joplin- Work me Lord
Richie Havens- Strawberry Fields Forever
and a Rain Chant.
I hope it comes out on DVD for ya. If you have a LD player look for it. It's quite good! Best wishes!
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Rachael, the big disc cat! Remember, actual mileage may vary....
AFI Film Challenge, hey I've only got 4 to go!

 

[Barrie Maxwell]

I too lament the hundreds of classic WB (and MGM, RKO, Monogram, AA) titles that Warners is sitting on. (By classic I mean anything 1960 or earlier.) It's shameful that so little of the work of Bogart, Cagney, Robinson, Davis, Garfield, Flynn, etc is available on DVD.
I think, however, that it should be recognized that WB did release 20 classic titles last year (not 2 or so, as has been suggested elsewhere in this thread). The titles were:
North By Northwest (MGM)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (MGM)
Annie Get Your Gun (MGM)
42nd Street (WB)
Arsenic and Old Lace (WB)
Good News (MGM)
Friendly Persuasion (AA)
tom thumb (WB)
Pat and Mike (MGM)
Butterfield 8 (MGM)
Giant (WB)
The Big Sleep (WB)
The Maltese Falcon (WB)
The Pajama Game (WB)
A Star Is Born (WB)
Key Largo (WB)
The Time Machine (MGM)
House on Haunted Hill (AA)
Anchors Aweigh (MGM)
On the Town (MGM)
They also re-released under their own banner quite a number of the classic titles that they acquired from MGM a year and a half ago and which MGM had already released to DVD. So WB was quite active on the classic front in 2000. Possibly only Columbia came at all close to them among the major studios.
This is not meant to be an apology for WB's efforts on the classic front, but I do think it necessary to set the record straight. Having said that, they should be doing much more to get their classic titles out on DVD. Given all they control, even if they tripled their efforts, they wouldn't get out all the titles they should in the next ten years. So any talk that they need to hold back titles so as to have attractive product to offer later holds no water. They could put out 100 classic titles a year for the next decade and still have dozens of other gems sitting untouched.
One suggestion - concentrate more on actual WB titles. Over half of what they put out in 2000 were MGM or AA films. And for now, we have enough musicals. A few of my top requests:
King's Row
Now Voyager
High Sierra
Yankee Doodle Dandy
The Roaring Twenties
Angels with Dirty Faces
Five Star Final
Edge of Darkness
Barrie

 

[Robert Crawford]

Barrie,
Though, it's true that Warner released some classics to dvd in 2000, there are whispers that the number of classic films released to dvd in 2001, will be less in numbers due to Warner's perception or belief that they're not profitable. As a collector that disturbs me, especially if you take a look at what film rights they own. Besides the following announced dvd releases, what other classic films are being released by Warner for the first time on dvd during the first quarter of 2001? By the way, "Giant" has not been released on dvd in the United States.

• Ben Hur (3-13-2001)
• The Old Man and the Sea (3-13-2001)

Crawdaddy
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[Blake Comeaux]

Three Richard Burton - Elizabeth Taylor movies that I really want on DVD were, i believe, recently acquired from Warner from MGM. They are:
The Sandpiper (1965)
The VIPs (1963)
The Comedians (1967)
Too my knowledge these films have never been released in widescreen on home video and they are all 2.35:1 movies. The Sanpiper and The Comedians also have featurettes that air on TCM from time to time and would make good supplements. But alas I will probably never see these make it to DVD. If MGM still has the rights to these please let me know at least then they'd have a better chance of being released even if they have a mediocre presentation it's better than the Pan & Scan VHS tapes. I'd also love to see John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye starring Taylor and Brando. It too hase never been available in widescreen, but at least I got to see the 2.35:1 anamorphic trailer on The Man Who Would Be King.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Blake,
TCM showed a widescreen presentation of "The V.I.P.s" on January 14th, which I taped. Since Warner's position in 2001, regarding classic films released on dvd is questionable, I'm afraid that taping off my satellite with a super vcr is the best I can do for the moment.

Crawdaddy
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[Randy_M]

If Warner's doesn't think these films would be profitable to release, what possible harm would it then be for them to license them to an indie (Anchor Bay, Artisan, Criterion come to mind)?
Would it cost Warner's anything to license the films (assuming the independents would want to release them)? Wouldn't everyone win in this situation (Warner's would have to take a chance, but they'd still recoup license fee)?
Or am I missing something?
Randy

 

[Barrie Maxwell]

Robert:
Yes, I'm also disturbed at the thin classic pickings so far announced by WB for 2001. You're right about only 2 titles being definite so far. We did get some hints from the Studio Day reports from last November that the following were in the works for this year:
Mutiny on the Bounty (1936, MGM)
Rio Bravo (1959, WB)
The Thing (1951, RKO)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, WB) along with several other Bogarts
Citizen Kane (1941, RKO) (in the works seemingly forever)
but this is far from adequate.
We have to keep hammering at WB on this. You may be aware that I write a weekly column on and do reviews of classic films on DVD for the site DVD Verdict (www.dvdverdict.com - but presently in hiatus as the site undergoes an overhaul). I have talked about the WB problem there in the past, but will be using that forum to highlight the WB classic film neglect more strongly when we're back in business there.
Barrie

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Okay, the 2 was an exaggeration, but there's not really 20 there either. Giant wasn't released in the US at all. Weren't Anchors Aweigh and On the Town originally MGM releases that were just stuck in new cases by WB? My point being that Warner has an immense catalog (getting bigger all the time) and they're issuing next to nothing on disc. I mean, that's barely 1 disc per month!
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For 11+ hours of Beethoven music available nowhere else, visit www.unheardbeethoven.org (New THIRD Millennium update done 10/22/00 )

 

[Nate Anderson]

Okay, I realize the title I'm about to mention is a lot more recent then a lot of the other titles mentioned on this thread...but I would like to see:
The NeverEnding Story
The NeverEnding Story II
I really would like these both on DVD, with at least some supplements, especially on the first film.
Suggested suppliments:
The NeverEnding Story:
Director's Commentary
Longer European Cut
Full Anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen
Theatrical Trailers
Retrospective Documentry
The NeverEnding Story II
Director's commentary
Theatrical Trailers
Making-of Documentry
Full 2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen
Etc...
I also would purchase several of the movies listed previously in this thread, especially any remaining Hitchcock films, such as Dial M for Murder.

 

[Nate Anderson]

Phew! I don't know how much supplemental stuff they have for Branagh's Hamlet, but I'd certainly be happy just having this movie on DVD period.
I really would like them to do this title right though, and it would obviously be a two disc edition, and hopefully they would do the whole movie on disc one, and then all the supplements on disc 2. And I would have to insist on "Fight Club" style packaging, not the crappy half-assed packging they used on the recent Oliver Stone re-releases. Ugh.

 

[Wojtek]

I would like to second (or third or fourth) the call to release Oh Lucky Man on DVD.
If there is a cult movie for me (and many), this is it.
It's out on LD; what's wrong with these people???
That's why bootleggers thrive (although mostly in VCD format in Asia).
Even though I'm righteous most of the time , I would buy a bootleg DVD of Oh Lucky Man in a heartbeat, if only to send a message to Warner.

 

[Barrie Maxwell]

Some recent email campaigns to WB regarding how we want TV series released (by year instead of "best of") and dislike of the 2-disc snapper (the recent Oliver Stone releases) may have had an impact on WB. Perhaps we should be organizing something similar for classic films that they hold. I'm willing to be involved.
Barrie

 

[Daphne]

I am constantly on the lookout for any DVDs released with Cary Grant and/or Doris Day. My dream is a complete collection of movies on DVD for both of these actors.
I can't believe WB wouldn't see a profit. Cary Grant is universally loved. My mom loved him, my grandmother loved him, and I love him - from 30 to 80 yrs. old. As for Doris Day, her son, I believe, said in an interview that she gets more fan mail every year.

 

[Randy_M]

Daphne,
I agree totally on these two...along with Humphrey Bogart (who is fairly well represented) and Audrey Hepburn (who will be after the spring/summer), these are my favorites, especially Cary.....
Cheers

 

[Daphne]

Oh, definitely Humphrey Bogart, and Audrey Hepburn, too...and Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy! There are so many I would love to collect if I had an unlimited pocketbook.

 

[Dick]

PETER F.: I was aware Warner owned numerous Allied Artists films, but who owns BILLY BUDD? That was last released by Key Video (Fox) and has shown up on TCM in widescreen.

 

[Carlo_M]

Just out of curiousity, since it has been brought up numerous times that WB will not release a film they think is not profitable...
Does anyone know what it costs to master onto DVD nowadays?
I remember the cost in the $100,000 range early in the format, but surely the cost is less now? I'm just trying to figure out how many copies of a DVD a studio would need to move in order to consider it profitable.
I guess we'd also have to figure in the cost for a restoration job, as I'm sure quite a few of the films in this topic would need that.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Carlo,
One time, I asked a studio executive point blank how many dvds you must sell to turn a profit on a catelogue title and he diplomatically refused to answer the question. I imagined that many titles are in need of restoration which means the cost could be very high, of course, the final cost depends on the condition of the film elements.
Crawdaddy
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[Robert Crawford]

I originally posted this thread on January 11th, now it's two months to that day and I'm only able to revised the list of films by deleting only one film which is "Rio Bravo".

Also, I'm perplex that many members on this forum are willing to bash MGM for the inconsistent level of quality regarding their dvd releases but for some reason are willing to give Warner a free ride for only announcing one catelogue release of the many films noted in this thread.

By the rate Warner is going, many of us are going to be too old to give a damn what format our favorite movies are on or the video quality of said films.
Crawdaddy
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[Greg_M]

Warner's is also releasing "Ben Hur" and the "Superman" films - aren't they also catalog titles?