6 great fox westerns - only in England !! (1 Viewer)

[Joe Caps]

Saw the announcement yesterday at dvdtimes. that Fox has licensed 6 westerns to this label, optimum.,for February release. Most of these I would kill to have -
they are:
Garden of evil
Broken Lance
Broken Arrow
Warlock
Young Mr. Lincoln
Western Union

Great titles - wold kill to have a widescreen stereo Garden of evil and Broken Lance

Now, what are the chances of Fox releasing these here?

 

[John Hodson]

And in March we get Man of The West from MGM...

My betting is that Fox will either (a) get around to releasing them in R1 (with the possibility of extras the R2s do not have) sooner or later, or (b) license at least one of those titles (Mr Ford's opus) to Criterion.

BTW, re the thread title; they may be available in the rest of the UK too...

 

[ChrisPearson]

According to Barrie Maxwell at thedigitalbits.com "It appears virtually certain that Criterion will release Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) as Peter Cowie has reportedly recorded a commentary on it for the company." (from his 22 December announcements column).

 

[Jon Robertson]

I was dumbstruck when I learned that, of all the Ford scholars out there, Criterion had recruited Peter Cowie to talk on Young Mr Lincoln.

(Incidentally, anyone know why The Digital Bits almost never bother to credit their sources (with the exception of the occasional "Thanks to reader John D. for the info" or whatever)? They took the above info from this article but never saw fit to actually afford it a link. It just smacks of trying to deceive readers into thinking they have exclusive "insider info".)

 

[John Hodson]

Joe McBride would have been a far better choice wouldn't he?

 

[oscar_merkx]

Hi John

I would agree with you there.

 

[Porter Faulkner]

Yes, John. Hopefully the rest of the UK will see the release of these great titles too.

However, Optimum Releasing have a strictly average record with the quality of their product. It would be a great shame to release them not in their OAR or in decent stereo mixes considering 4 of those titles are CinemaScope and originally in 4 track stereo.

Amazon UK,Play.com and DVD Times are showing no technical specs so far, so we hope for the best....

 

[ArthurMy]

Forty Guns was anamorphic - not the greatest transfer but very nice. But most of the other Fox licensed stuff in the UK has not been anamorphic, but almost all of the scope films have at least been letterboxed properly - Valley of the Dolls and The Girl Can't Help It both look good, which is double the shame they're not anamorphic.

And I agree about The Digital Bits - very disingenuous.

 

[Joe Caps]

Was Forty Guns and Girl cant help it in the original true stereo. Showings here on Fox ovies are always in mono.
I know that last year, Shawn Belston at Fox did a restoration of garden of evil and we have never had a widescreen stereo Garden of Evil. Fox movies shows it widescreen fake stereo, now mono and pan and scan true stereo.

 

[Porter Faulkner]

'Valley of the Dolls' wasn't licensed out in the UK. It was released as a double bill with 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' by Fox Home Entertainment. Unfortunately the print of 'Valley of the Dolls' is dull and flat with loads of dirt, speckles etc whilst 'Beyond' is very good.

 

[ArthurMy]

I'd have to fire it up again, but I do think Girl Can't Help It is stereo. Can't remember if Forty Guns is but my memory says no. I'll double check later.

 

[StevenFC]

Oh dammit!! Why won't Fox release Warlock here in the States!?
Son of a MOTHER!!

 

[Doug Bull]

Great titles BUT NOT Anamorphic??

I can play all regions, so no problems with region 2, but I think I'll play the waiting game and wait for either region 1 or 4 to release proper Anamorphic Editions.

Hmm!! Girl Can't Help it, Garden of Evil, No! Doug, show a little patience.

 

[John Hodson]

That's not confirmed though yet Doug.

BTW, over at thedvdforums.com hitch_fan says that Fox are releasing two more sought after westerns in France: The Bravados (1958, Henry King), & Buffalo Bill (1944, William Wellman).

 

[ArthurMy]

If it's the same company that did Forty Guns, then there's a good shot that they WILL be anamorphic.

 

[Doug Bull]

Although not strictly Westerns, Fox Australia have announced 2 early Cinemascope family efforts made in Australia, for release on Feb 9th in Region 4.
Shot in the Outback,(with plenty of dust and horses) the titles are, "SMILEY" and "SMILEY GETS A GUN".
Both should be Anamorphic (one would hope), not sure if the original Scope prints were ever released with 4 track Magnetic Stripe.

 

[Porter Faulkner]

I've already posted this in Regional DVD but thought you guys should know in here too.....

I have been reliably informed today that" Garden of Evil", "Broken Lance" and "Warlock" will be in STEREO but my source couldn't say what type of sound mix. Lets hope it is from 4 track. The other good news is that the aspect ratio for all three will be2.35:1 Anamorphic. The distributors are also upgrading their artwork and have many other 20th Century-Fox releases in the Region 2 pipeline for the near future.

February promises to be a very exciting month for classic film collectors especially if you have the ability to play region 2 disc's

 

[Daniel Windsor]

www.optimumreleasing.com

 

[andrew markworthy]

Actually, old boy, you're wrong - they're also available in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, The Channel Islands ...

A piece of friendly advice - try to use 'Britain' or better still 'UK'. A lot of Brits [not including me, I should add] get a bit cheesed off at the use of 'England' to refer to the whole of the UK.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Fox has traditionally released their westerns during the late spring. I expect some if not all of these films to be released in May or early June.






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