Corey
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2006
- Messages
- 1,412
Rumors that 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment was planning a John Ford set have been rumbling through the community for months. I’ve just received confirmation from a Fox publicist that the rumors are not only true, but the project sounds bigger and better than I’d dared to hope.
Now set for release for December, 2007, the collection, to be titled “Ford at Fox,” will consists of 25 features that Ford made for Fox, including five silents, 18 of which will be new to DVD.
The box will list for $299.98 and also contain a new documentary on Ford by Nick Redman, a book of photographs featuring an essay by Joseph McBride and a reproduction of the program book for “The Iron Horse.”
The specific titles haven’t yet been released, but I’ll get them up here as soon as I have them.
Although the Fox promotional material says that the collection will include all of Ford’s extant Fox productions, this can’t be the case if only five silent films are included. The surviving silent Fox-Fords are, to the best of my knowledge, “Just Pals” (1920), “Action” (1921), “Cameo Kirby” (1923), 40 minutes of “North of Hudson Bay” (1923), “The Iron Horse” (1924), “Lightnin’” (1925), “Kentucky Pride” (1925), “The Shamrock Handicap” (1926), “3 Bad Men” (1926), most of “The Blue Eagle” (1926), three reels of “Mother Machree” (1928), “Four Sons” (1928), “Hangman’s House” (1928), and “Riley the Cop” (1928). Perhaps some of the Ford scholars who occasionally pass this way (that’s you, Scott Eyman) will know better.
But I’m hardly in a mood to complain if this means, at the very least, getting “3 Bad Men,” “Four Sons,” “Men without Women, “The Seas Beneath” and “Pilgrimage” back in circulation, there to claim their rightful places among the masterworks of Ford’s career.
Fox deserves the gratitude and, more to the point, the financial support of every cinephile for taking a chance on such artistically important but little known material. Who knows? If this one works, we might someday see “Murnau at Fox,” “Walsh at Fox,” “Dwan at Fox,” “Hawks at Fox,” and — who knows? — even the Holy Grail, “Borzage at Fox.
Now set for release for December, 2007, the collection, to be titled “Ford at Fox,” will consists of 25 features that Ford made for Fox, including five silents, 18 of which will be new to DVD.
The box will list for $299.98 and also contain a new documentary on Ford by Nick Redman, a book of photographs featuring an essay by Joseph McBride and a reproduction of the program book for “The Iron Horse.”
The specific titles haven’t yet been released, but I’ll get them up here as soon as I have them.
Although the Fox promotional material says that the collection will include all of Ford’s extant Fox productions, this can’t be the case if only five silent films are included. The surviving silent Fox-Fords are, to the best of my knowledge, “Just Pals” (1920), “Action” (1921), “Cameo Kirby” (1923), 40 minutes of “North of Hudson Bay” (1923), “The Iron Horse” (1924), “Lightnin’” (1925), “Kentucky Pride” (1925), “The Shamrock Handicap” (1926), “3 Bad Men” (1926), most of “The Blue Eagle” (1926), three reels of “Mother Machree” (1928), “Four Sons” (1928), “Hangman’s House” (1928), and “Riley the Cop” (1928). Perhaps some of the Ford scholars who occasionally pass this way (that’s you, Scott Eyman) will know better.
But I’m hardly in a mood to complain if this means, at the very least, getting “3 Bad Men,” “Four Sons,” “Men without Women, “The Seas Beneath” and “Pilgrimage” back in circulation, there to claim their rightful places among the masterworks of Ford’s career.
Fox deserves the gratitude and, more to the point, the financial support of every cinephile for taking a chance on such artistically important but little known material. Who knows? If this one works, we might someday see “Murnau at Fox,” “Walsh at Fox,” “Dwan at Fox,” “Hawks at Fox,” and — who knows? — even the Holy Grail, “Borzage at Fox.
