Lionsgate starting to work on its Republic catalog? (1 Viewer)

DVD Empire is listing ONLY THE VALIANT (51) with Gregory Peck and Barbara Payton for a July 1st release.

I was pleasantly surprised by this. Maybe we'll see DAKOTA INCIDENT, SOUTH OF ST. LOUIS, RAMROD, BUGLES IN THE AFTERNOON, THE MAVERICK QUEEN, A MAN ALONE, LADY FOR A NIGHT, IN IOLD OKLAHOMA, TEXAS LADY. I would hope that that they might reactivate their once promised Film Noirs (e.g., THE SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, THE DARK MIRROR). LionsGate has delivered on their superb StudioCanal 5 packs (Alain Delon, Luis Bunuel, Jean Renoir, early Hitchcock)

I am especially hoping for Johnny Guitar!!!

Someone at Lionsgate seems to finally be getting a clue and realized their sitting on a potential gold mine. Their recent releases that I've purchased including Soldier Blue, The Silent Partner and the Hitchcock and Delon sets have been excellent and I look forward to their promised Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve sets.

One can only hope a remastered The Quiet Man, Johnny Guitar, Letter From An Unknown Woman, Private Hell 36 among many others will soon see the light of day in decent transfers.

Thanks for the heads-up, Karine! I completely missed that during my daily review of the Recently Added titles. Another Gregory Peck title - excellent.

Lionsgate also has a nice war-themed set coming in May with The Sound Barrier, King And Country, Angels One Five, and The Captive Heart:

DVD Empire - Item - World War, The / DVD-Video

Love the 'don't mention the British!' art BTW, the 'war' link with the 'The Sound Barrier' is a little tenuous to say the least (but am I buying? You betcha...)

Be glad they didn't photoshop Audie Murphy onto the cover.

But seriously, that artwork says "video game" to me, not "classic movies".

Do Lionsgate own the rights to the original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers?
The current dvd i have is pretty lousy. I would also love to see the original cut of the film without the narration.

I believe IOTBS (1956) is indeed now a Lionsgate property. I completely agree with you that it cries out for a decent remaster. The original release was abysmal. We now finally know that the intention of director Siegel was that the film be released without the bookend hospital sequence that resulted in a hopeful ending, and that it be released at 1.33:1, which was the OAR during filming. The distributor altered this and released it in 2.00:1 "Superscope" to appease the 1956 movie crowds who were more and more demanding of widescreen presentations. Finding a 1.33:1 negative or excellent print might be challenging, but even more so might be finding any copies of the original cut without McCarthy narration and hospital bookends - they might not exist. Trying to re-cut the current version to resemble the director's preferred version could be tricky as hell, and I can't envision Lionsgate investing in such an effort. But we can dream, can't we?

I really wish that either Lionsgate or Paramount would get around to releasing quality versions of the Republic Serials. I'm not sure who has the rights to these a this point. They might be considered part of the television library and there for be under the CBS/Paramount label. None the less....SOMEONE PLEASE RELEASE THEM!!!!

Doug

Dick: IOTSB was released without hospital sequences on laserdisc at 2.35. Looked good but yes, I know, it´s supposed to be 1.33. There is a German R2 DVD out which looks much better.

Yes, the Republic serials is a big want on DVD. I believe there are rights problems with DRUMS OF FU MANCHU, nevertheless, it´s out on DVD from VCI Entertainment, but not from prime elements.

Stefan

Could you point me in the direction of the German R2 release ?

Cheers

Here Osc:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956

Comparison screencaps and the Beaver's link to Amazon.de.

I've got the old widescreen Republic laserdisc, and the hospital sequences are definitely there. Which laserdisc contains the film without these sequences?

I'm not even sure how VCI is releasing the Republic Serials. Are they licensing them? If so why to they have such crappy film elements? I don't believe that any of the Republic Serials are in the public domain.

Doug

The only real Republic holding that I'd like to see Republic release is the Fleischer cartoon library (they've already had remasters prepared)

Several of the Republic serials have fallen into the public domain, which is how VCI is able to release them.

The fact that Loinsgate has one of the largest film libraries, second only to WB and yet they release so few classic titles is beyond me. There are some titles that were released in the early days of DVD that never got the proper treatment, IOTBS is one of those titles, and for what its worth, not that we will see it any time soon, that is a two disc set, original full frame, with branching option to include narration and opening and closing in hospital, second disc would be the widescreen version offering the same feature mentioned before. A new interviews with McCarthy, Dana Wynter, a small doc on McCarthy era cold war paranoia, Just some ideas. For a set that should have been done by now. Yes I do love this movie.

Now on to the Fleischer animated properties, which ones were you expressly talking about, Betty Boop as WB has and agreement for the Popeyes, and are including the full and complete Gulliver’s Travels as a bonus feature on it’ s next Popeye Set. Would I welcome a chronological Betty Boop set of restored cartoons, I am waiting, in hopes of more classic animation.

I think the biggest problem is that while Lionsgate has distribution rights to a large catalog, their access to quality elements is rather limited.

How can access to materials be limited if they have the negatives, through different mergers and acquisitions, if you can trust Wikipedia they have the second largest film library, and I think that is before the fact that Paramount relicend the Republic catalog titles back to them.

Through these they have gathered some truly magical items, such as the Hal Roach period little rascals. With the current interest in short subject matter, such as the Stooges, the different animated features, from Popeye, Loony Tunes, I don’t see why a set of Chronological Little Rascals/Our Gang comedies is not being worked on, but if that was to happen I would hope that they have the good sense to do what Cabin Fever did and release them unedited, and yes I would want Maltin on the disc as a guide, because he is a true Rascals Aficionado.

Another item that I have with Lionsgate, is last year when Paramount and WB geared up for the John Wayne Centennial celebration, where were they, we got repackaged versions of old Artisan titles, these should have been cleaned up and presented correctly then, and while we are at it, where is Angel and the Badman, yes I know it is in the PD, but it was originaly a Republic title, so I would assume that the original negative is still in the library, this deserves an official release


if i am wrong in these facts will let us know.