Annie available for preorder on Amazon (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

http://www.amazon.com/Annie-Blu-ray-Albert-Finney/dp/B008JEJPSC/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1343054233&sr=8-22&keywords=Annie+%5BBlu-ray%5D

Note: This is not the final cover artwork

 

[Matt Hough]

Really was not expecting to see this from Sony. I thought maybe Twilight Time might get its hands on it down the road, so the announcement is a BIG surprise!

 

[MatthewA]

Sony markets it as a family film, and those seem to be the only catalog titles selling these days, and except for The Caine Mutiny and that desert picture, the only Sony catalog titles not coming from Twilight Time or Image have also been family films (other than The Muppets Take Manhattan and Milo and Otis, I can't think of others). But with the Broadway revival coming this fall and the Willow Smith re-remake still in the works, I would have been more surprised if they didn't do it. I was more surprised to see Bye Bye Birdie end up at TT.

I'll just be happy to put the unpleasant memories of the Pan & Scan "Special Anniversary Edition" behind me for good.

 

[rsmithjr]

Sony markets it as a family film, and those seem to be the only catalog titles selling these days, and except for The Caine Mutiny and that desert picture, the only Sony catalog titles not coming from Twilight Time or Image have also been family films (other than The Muppets Take Manhattan and Milo and Otis, I can't think of others). But with the Broadway revival coming this fall and the Willow Smith re-remake still in the works, I would have been more surprised if they didn't do it. I was more surprised to see Bye Bye Birdie end up at TT.
I'll just be happy to put the unpleasant memories of the Pan & Scan "Special Anniversary Edition" behind me for good.

Glad to see Annie coming.
I think Sony has been doing a pretty good job with catalog. Here is a list of non-family catalog titles (other than Caine and the desert film) to be released by Sony on Blu-ray:
Tommy
The Guns of Navarone
A Passage to India
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Das Boot
Stand by Me
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Dr. Strangelove
Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Taxi Driver
In Cold Blood
Stripes
Jason and the Argonauts (plus other Harryhausen collection titles)
Some that are expected include:
From Here to Eternity
Oliver!
On the Waterfront
that desert picture
I also don't hold using TT against Sony at all like some here do. It was wonderful getting Picnic, Pal Joey and other titles in great shape from TT. Sony apparently gets the credit for the mastering.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by rsmithjr /t/322489/annie-available-for-preorder-on-amazon#post_3952893
Glad to see Annie coming.
I think Sony has been doing a pretty good job with catalog. Here is a list of non-family catalog titles (other than Caine and the desert film) to be released by Sony on Blu-ray:
Tommy
The Guns of Navarone
A Passage to India
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Das Boot
Stand by Me
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Dr. Strangelove
Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Taxi Driver
In Cold Blood
Stripes
Jason and the Argonauts (plus other Harryhausen collection titles)
Some that are expected include:
From Here to Eternity
Oliver!
On the Waterfront
that desert picture
I also don't hold using TT against Sony at all like some here do. It was wonderful getting Picnic, Pal Joey and other titles in great shape from TT. Sony apparently gets the credit for the mastering.

I was speaking in the short term, though. They were coming out at a faster pace before, but the titles released in-house seem to have slowed to a crawl. And we have yet to see what their deal with Mill Creek will bring. Still, what has come out has looked pretty good.

Hopefully this edition will be "fully dressed" with some more substantial extras.

 

[Ratko Mladic]

Extras:
Sing-Along with Annie! [ Blu-ray EXCLUSIVE ]
My Hollywood Adventure with Aileen Quinn
Original Trailers and TV Spots Theatrical Trailer
Trailers and TV Spots Behind the Scenes Teaser Trailer
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot (60 Seconds)
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot #2
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot #3
Musical Performance of “It’s The Hard-Knock Life” by Play!

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by MatthewA /t/322489/annie-available-for-preorder-on-amazon#post_3952831

I'll just be happy to put the unpleasant memories of the Pan & Scan "Special Anniversary Edition" behind me for good.

I didn't know what they were thinking!

 

[Ethan Riley]

Extras:
Sing-Along with Annie! [ Blu-ray EXCLUSIVE ]
My Hollywood Adventure with Aileen Quinn
Original Trailers and TV Spots Theatrical Trailer
Trailers and TV Spots Behind the Scenes Teaser Trailer
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot (60 Seconds)
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot #2
Trailers and TV Spots TV Spot #3
Musical Performance of “It’s The Hard-Knock Life” by Play!

I don't know where you got those extras, but they sound pretty much like what I'd expect. The film really needs a new doc and outtakes. I know they filmed the crap out of that thing...who knows if they got it right in the end? But they sure did burn through a lot of film. Last year, I met one of the assistant directors of Annie and he said he aged five years while they were making it. Lots and lots of work in that one. I don't know if "My Hollywood Adventure" is a new doc or a 1982 short; probably the latter. But who wouldn't want to hear from this lady? :

 

[MatthewA]

/t/322489/annie-available-for-preorder-on-amazon#post_3952956
I don't know where you got those extras, but they sound pretty much like what I'd expect. The film really needs a new doc and outtakes. I know they filmed the crap out of that thing...who knows if they got it right in the end? But they sure did burn through a lot of film. Last year, I met one of the assistant directors of Annie and he said he aged five years while they were making it. Lots and lots of work in that one. I don't know if "My Hollywood Adventure" is a new doc or a 1982 short; probably the latter. But who wouldn't want to hear from this lady? :

Last I heard about Aileen Quinn, she was in a rockabilly band called "The Leapin' Lizards."

"Hollywood Adventure" was the short making-of from the last DVD. It was 16x9, and all the clips from the movie were OAR, while the movie proper wasn't (unless you got the Region 2 version). Sony doesn't seem to be going back and making new extras for many of their catalog titles in their Blu-Ray debuts. The isolated score was on a German DVD, but it was in mono. They don't even need to make a new documentary; they made a pretty good one to promote the film back in the day, "Lights! Camera! Annie!" which aired on PBS.

There have been rumors for years about extensive cuts made to the film before release; they reshot "Maybe," "Easy Street" and "Never Fully Dressed" while the old video box from the 1980s had a picture of a scene in Miss Hannigan's bedroom with she and Annie looking mighty PO'd; that scene is nowhere to be found in the film. There's a lot of obvious cuts throughout the film that give hints as to what went missing. Nobody's looked in the vault for them, but if they managed to save all those oodles of cut scenes from 1776 and Lost Horizon, then there's a chance these might still be there…maybe. Here's one scene that ended up on the cutting room floor, but not before it became a lobby card (sorry it's so small):

 

[bryan4999]

Love all the actors - don't like the movie. Where is FUNNY GIRL?

 

[classicmovieguy]

Had the biggest obsession with "Annie" when I was a kid - though in later years, having seen the show in it's proper form onstage, I can't watch the film without comparing it - unfavourably - with the stage original. Disney attempted to rectify the situation in 1999 with their own remake, which is much closer in spirit to the show's musical theatre roots.

 

[classicmovieguy]

Love all the actors - don't like the movie. Where is FUNNY GIRL?

Agreed - I hope a great big sparkling restored version comes SOON.

 

[GMpasqua]

"I remember the way our sainted mother, would sit and croon, us her lullaby.."

Yes, best song in the show and they cut the first 2 thirds of it out of the release print. "Easy Street" was shot twice once as a big dance number with the street vendors and the version in the film (Carol Burnett had a chin implant after she thought the movie was completed - which is why in "many" scenes she's got a different face)

 

[GMpasqua]

The opening scene and the song "Maybe" were re-shoot last. Annie is dressed to escape and then gets caught by Miss Hannigan (just like in the stage show) Annie sings the first verse of "Maybe" to Molly, the orphans sings the second verse after she leaves. The studio liked that verse so they put it back into the film (after Annie's first night at Warbuck's mansion before the "bomb" explodes - the one in the film not the film in the theater)

The film was planned to open with Sandy roaming the streets of New York while "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" played over the radio in a bar - giving the film it's depiction of the depression. A Photobook released in 1982 includes some of those location shots.

It's well known both producer Ray Stark and director John Huston hated the stage musical of "Annie" and tried to make the film as least like it as possible. Both hated the song "Tomorrow" but Columbia Pictures would not let them cut it - "hey, we paid $5.5 million dollars for it! ( in 1978 - by the way, the film "Grease" cost $8 Million dollars to produce that same year). John Huston despised musicals but Ray Stark was a friend of his and Huston needed money at the time. The film also went through 4 cinematographers which is why it sometimes looks awful and the framing is bad.

This film should have been easy to produce - but the original producer was removed from the film when a corporate money scandal broke. Originally Jack Nicholson was to play Warbucks and the studio wanted Bette Milder for Miss Hannigan (she had just done "The Rose"). Steve Martin turned the film down because he had just broken up with Bernadette Peters and didn't want to work with her, so Tim Curry came on instead.

The original Broadway production was the best - and could have become a classic film like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Mary Poppins". Later the writers made the show more kid friendly. It's being released to tie into the Broadway revival in the fall (just like the DVD release tied into the last Broadway revival)

Great cast and great material completed wasted. Wonder what Bob Clark who directed "A Christmas Story" the following year would have done with the material?

 

[GMpasqua]

"You're Never Fully Dressed" was re-shot (photo above is the original - notice the difference in costumes) the trailer also includes a "kick Line" which doesn't appear in the film

"Let's Go to the Movies" cost a ton of money to film at Radio City Music Hall. When the producers looked at the footage of the actual Radio City Rockettes they said the dancers looked like Clydesdale horses and ordered the number re-shoot in Los Angeles with prettier (and thinner) dancers.

 

[MatthewA]

Interesting stuff, although I stand by my opinion that the unkindest cuts to the film were made in post-production after the reshoots. The narrative loses momentum where it needs it the most: in Warbucks' mansion as they are getting to know one another: This is where Annie is supposed to be convincing Warbucks to like her, which is the whole point of the story. It's wholesale cuts like this that hurt the film more than what Stark or Huston felt about the show. Consider the fact that they had Margaret Booth working for them as a supervising editor, and it just raises more questions.

Here's the kickline of the original "Never Fully Dressed," from the trailer (which had other alternate takes and angles as well):

Coca-Cola bought Columbia sometime between the end of filming and the film's release, and despite some big hits (chiefly Tootsie, Karate Kid and Ghostbusters), their seven-year ownership was not a fruitful one where theatrical releases were concerned (TV was another matter), and they couldn't wait to dump it on Sony, who I can only guess wanted to own a movie studio because they made VCRs. I wonder how much influence the studio heads, or possibly their new bosses in Georgia, had over the editing of the film (considering what it cost they probably wanted it around two hours). Even the last shot is mis-edited. Annie, Warbucks and Grace are watching the fireworks as the servants sing "Tomorrow" in the background, then they cut to a wide shot of the mansion, then a cutaway where the servants are still moving their mouths…but they've already finished singing! After that, we cut to the fireworks form Annie's name and the end credits. And then there's the end of "Dumb Dog," in which the last line of the song is being sung while Annie is walking down the street with Sandy, smiling at some boys.

Lights Camera Annie, which is on YouTube in its entirety, also shows there were more lyrics to the last reprise of "Maybe," before Annie leaves the mansion, that were never in any other version. The pre-records weren't working, so Aileen Quinn had to redo them on-set and film them to those…only to have them shortened in the film.