Clark Gable Boxset See Posts 12 & 13 for Update! (1 Viewer)

[Drew Salzan]

Did anyone catch MGM's San Francisco the other night on TCM? It looked amazing; much better than the WHV releases from that period (Mutiny on the Bounty comes to mind). I know that many of the titles from that period have inherent problems and lack original film elements. It looks as though the source material for San Francisco may have been from the original camera negative. Does anybody have any inside information regarding this? Thanks.

 

[seanOhara]

All I know is Warners is supposed to be releasing a Clark Gable set this summer, so it's quite possible TCM was airing a new restoration.

 

[John Hodson]

Just posted at www.thedvdforums.com :


The poster says he received the information from a friend who wrote to WHV, so it's not quite firmed up yet, but worth a nonetheless.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just a little late with those tidbits.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...36#post2943536

 

[John Hodson]

Ah! That firms it up nicely.

 

[Will Ryan]

They showed the 1948 reissue cut, missing the shot of the Goldem Gate Bridge under construction (which is in the original release). The original negative left us sometime around 1967.

 

[PatH]

To Will Ryan:

The original negative may have left us in '67 but I've seen this missing scene the last time I watched the film (not the last time they showed it) and what I saw had to be on TCM. The long and short of this is that I hope the original will be in the Gable box.

PatH

 

[Will Ryan]

Warner has both, but from time to time the 1948 version is played on TCM. The '48 re-release was just on last week. Let's hope the 1963 version is relased on DVD.

 

[PatH]

Will:

I know you meant 1936. Dyslexia's hell, ain't it? PatH

 

[Richard M S]

How did the 1948 edit change the film's ending?

I have not seen this film for a long time but I seem to recall the film ending with a montage of several different shots of 1936-era San Francisco. Was I imagining that montage?

By the way I am really eager for this box set, as well as an announcement as to what extras will be included.

 

[Robert Crawford]

The ending changed a couple of times. At first, the uncompleted Golden Gate Bridge in 1936 wasn't a part of the end sequence. Afterwards, it was added to the montage of a modern San Francisco with skyscraper buildings. In 1948, when it was reissued, the uncompleted Golden Gate Bridge was cutout again because the bridge was completed and being used. I never cared either way about the bridge being part of the ending sequence, but I understand why others will feel differently.





Crawdaddy

 

[Art_AD]

As per a trade magazine these are the Gable films for the set:
Boom Town
Mogambo
Dancing Lady
San Francisco
China Seas
Wife Vs Secretary

All with shorts and the set will include a documentary.

I was hoping for The Secret Six as that has never been on video, Manhattan Melodrama will most likely be on the Powell-Loy set coming up in 2007.

 

[Herb Kane]

This PR arrived from WB about 10 minutes ago:
=======================================


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE ATTACHED


Hollywood's King Still Reigns

CLARK GABLE: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION

Six New-to-DVD Titles Arrive June 20

Boom Town

Spencer Tracy co-stars in 1940's Biggest Money Maker

China Seas

Gable and Harlow as Lovers in '30s Screen Scorcher

Dancing Lady

First of 8 Movies with Joan Crawford; Fred Astaire in Screen Debut

Mogambo

Romantic Triangle with Ava Gardner & Grace Kelly; John Ford directs

San Francisco

Gable and Tracy Again. Tracy in first of 9 Oscar®-nominated performances.

Wife vs. Secretary

Harlow, Myrna Loy and James Stewart Join Gable in Romantic Romp

Bonus Material includes Clark Gable: Tall, Dark & Handsome, hosted by Liam Neeson, as well as vintage featurettes and musical shorts



Burbank, Calif. March 20, 2006 - On June 20, Warner Home Video rolls out the red carpet for one of the movie industry's biggest box-office stars with the release of Clark Gable: The Signature Collection. Clark Gable: The Signature Collection boasts the DVD debut of six of his films -- Boom Town, China Seas, Dancing Lady, Mogambo, San Francisco and Wife vs. Secretary. The Collection also features the documentary profile Clark Gable: Tall, Dark & Handsome, hosted by Liam Neeson as well as vintage featurettes and musical shorts. The six-film, six-disc collection will sell for $59.92 SRP. All titles will be available individually for $19.97 SRP with Mogambo available for $14.97 SRP.



Named as the seventh greatest actor on the American Film Institute's List of "50 Greatest Screen Legends," Clark Gable reigned supreme as a screen icon during the 1930's and 40's. Dashing, debonair and dangerous with his dark hair, muscular build and signature moustache, he appealed to both men and women. Gable's career spanned five decades, during which he appeared in 75 feature films.



Born William Clark Gable in 1901, the young Gable came to Hollywood in 1924 and started his career as an extra and bit player in silent films. In 1930, he became a contract player for MGM and landed his first "talkie" role as the villain in a low-budget western called The Painted Desert. The studio received so much fan mail they were forced to take notice and Gable was put to work regularly as a supporting actor. His role in A Free Soul, in which he played a gangster who slaps Norma Shearer, elevated him to leading man status. Throughout most of the 1930s and '40s, he was one of the studio's biggest box-office stars, earning the nickname "King of Hollywood." However, it wasn't until MGM loaned him to Columbia (after deeming him "difficult"), that Gable won his first Academy Award ® for It Happened One Night. Gable would ultimately earn two more Oscar nominations (Gone with the Wind and Mutiny on the Bounty).



Gable took a three-year break from making movies after his third wife, actress Carol Lombard, died in a plane crash. To honor her memory, he joined the U.S Army Air Force during World War II, where he flew several raids over Nazi Germany, rose to the rank of Major and earned both the Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross for his service. Upon his return to Hollywood, he never managed to achieve his pre-military success, becoming increasingly unhappy with the mature roles he was offered. The Misfits, co-starring Marilyn Monroe, was the last film he completed before he died in 1960.



Boom Town (1940) NEW TO DVD!

In this pyrotechnics-filled film classic, the only things bigger than the adventure are the four stars: screen giants Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy (in their last film together) as the oilmen and Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr as the women in their tumultuous lives. As the foursome struggle through the personal upheaval of love and loyalties, they hit a gusher, striking it rich - and a rig bursts into a screen-filling inferno that could turn dreams to dust. Boom Town boomed at the box office, too, and garnered two Oscar nominations for Cinematography and Special Effects.



DVD Special Features:

· Vintage short Hollywood Hobbies

· Classic cartoon Home on the Range

· Theatrical trailer

· Languages: English & Français

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (Feature Film Only)



China Seas (1935) NEW TO DVD!

With their wisecracking banter, gutsy glamour and dynamic physicality, Gable and Harlow prove once again that they were the '30s most scorching screen pair in this rough-and-tumble tale of the sea, their fourth film together. Gable plays rugged Captain Alan Gaskell who sails his steamer ship through the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore carrying a secret cargo of British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries. Both his fiery mistress (Jean Harlow) and his refined fiancée (Rosalind Russell) are aboard. Highlights include a raging typhoon, a battle with bloodthirsty Malay pirates, and Harlow's drinking contest with bluff villain Wallace Beery, who wants the gold and the platinum blonde.



DVD Special Features:

· Vintage Fitzpatrick TravelTalk short Cherry Blossom Time in Japan

· Musical short A Girl's Best Years

· Theatrical trailer

· Languages: English & Français

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)



Dancing Lady (1933) NEW TO DVD

Three film icons give this backstage musical a jolt of superstar electricity in a song-, dance-, and romance-filled extravaganza featuring support by Nelson Eddy and Robert Benchley with tunes by Rodgers and Hart, Burton Lane, Dorothy Fields and more musical greats. Gable and Crawford had such stellar chemistry that MGM teamed them for eight movies. Here, as always, they have street-smart glamour and charisma to burn, with Crawford in the role of a struggling young dancer being wooed by a rich playboy, and Gable as the Broadway director who gives her a role in his show. Making their film debuts are the debonair dancing Fred Astaire, as himself, and the delightfully ditzy Three Stooges.



DVD Special Features:

· 2 vintage musical shorts:

o Roast-Beef & Movies

o Plane Nuts

· Theatrical trailer

· Languages: English & Français

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)



Mogambo (1953) NEW TO DVD!

A remake of the 1932 film Red Dust Gable made with Jean Harlow, twenty years later he now costars with the sizzling Ava Gardner. Directed by John Ford, and shot on location in Africa this time, the film garnered two Oscar nominations including Best Actress (Ava Gardner) and Best Supporting Actress (Grace Kelly). The romantic pot-boiler adventure finds Gable as a big game trapper and guide hired by an anthropologist to lead a safari in the jungles of Kenya, where he finds himself becoming the target of affections of the boss' wife (Grace Kelly) and a Broadway showgirl (Ava Gardner).



DVD Special Features

· Theatrical Trailer



San Francisco (1936) NEW TO DVD!

Tremendous star power, a great story, and lavish special effects sequences resulted in this becoming one of the year's blockbusters, earning seven Academy Award® nominations, and one win. Clark Gable plays rakish Barbary Coast kingpin Blackie Norton. Jeanette MacDonald portrays a singer torn by her love for Blackie and her need to succeed among the opera going elite. Earning the first of nine career Best Actor OscarÒ nominations, Spencer Tracy is a priest who supplements spiritual advice with a mean right hook. He urges Blackie to change. But if love and religion can't reform Blackie, the San Francisco earthquake might. This extravaganza's street-splitting, brick-cascading, fire-raging recreation of the cataclysmic earthquake remains "one of the greatest action sequences in the history of the cinema, rivaling the chariot race in both Ben-Hurs" (Adrian Turner, Time Out Film Guide).



DVD Special Features:

· Documentary profile Clark Gable: Tall, Dark & Handsome, hosted by Liam Neeson

· 2 vintage Fitzpatrick TravelTalk shorts:

o Cavalcade of San Francisco

o Night Descends on Treasure Island

· Classic cartoon Bottles

· Alternate ending

· Theatrical trailer

· Languages: English & Français

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)



Wife vs. Secretary (1936) New to DVD!

A romantic comedy again pairs Gable with some of Hollywood's hottest leading ladies. Gable and Harlow star together for the fifth time, this time joined by Myrna Loy ( in her fourth film with the leading man). This entertaining romp is the story of successful magazine publisher Van Stanhope (Gable), happily married to wife Linda (Loy), until his interfering mother-in-law plants the seed of suspicion, suggesting that Stan may be having an affair with his loyal and indispensable secretary Whitey (Harlow). The film also features James Stewart in one of his first roles, as Whitey's boyfriend.



DVD Special Features:

Musical short New Shoes
Vintage short The Public Pays
· Theatrical Trailer



CLARK GABLE: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION

Street Date: June 20, 2006

Collection: $59.92 SRP; Individual Prices Noted Below

Boom Town
Run Time: 119 minutes
$19.97 SRP
Black and White /Not Rated

China Seas
Run Time: 87 minutes
$19.97 SRP
Black and White /Not Rated

Dancing Lady
Run Time: 92 minutes
$19.97 SRP
Black and White /Not Rated

Mogambo
Run Time: 115 minutes
$14.97 SRP
Color /Not Rated

San Francisco
Run Time: 115 minutes
$19.97 SRP
Black and White /Not Rated

Wife vs. Secretary
Run Time: 88 minutes
$19.97 SRP
Black and White /Not Rated

 

[Robert Crawford]

So Warner changed two of the titles. Instead of the following:

• Boom Town
• Dancing Lady
• Manhatten Melodrama
• Mogambo
• San Francisco
• The Secret Six

We're actually getting the following which should make the Jean Harlow fans happy:

• Boom Town
• Dancing Lady
• China Seas
• Mogambo
• San Francisco
• Wife vs. Secretary

That's two Gable/Harlow titles.





Crawdaddy

 

[Garysb]

Its great that Gable gets a box set and that it does not include previously released films such as Gone With The Wind and Mutiny On The Bounty .
There just seems to be other films they could have released instead of some of the ones they did . I really wish Red Dust ,Idiot's Delight, Too Hot To Handle, and Test Pilot had been released . Dancing Lady really belongs on a Joan Crawford set. Gable supposedly hated it because he didn't like be sung at . I believe his being sick and complaining about this picture resulted it him being loaned to Columbia for It Happened One Night. In addition to Fred Astaire, it was also Nelsen Eddy's first film. Warner said the new elements found look great. Again it nice that its being released but not because Gable is in it. Wife Vs. Secretary is probably the least sexy Gable Harlow pairing. Its more like a situation comedy where wife wrongly thinks husband is having an affair .
I guess Red Dust will be on a Harlow or a precode set. Red Dust has looked pretty poor on TCM and VHS. Hopefully they have found or are looking for better elements. Manhattan Melodrama will probably be on Powell/Loy set.

There was a radio version of China Seas made in the 1940's with Gable and Lucille Ball in the Harlow part. Too bad that is not included as an extra.

In this set I guess they wanted to include stuff from the 30's, 40's, and 50's . The best Gable films were in the 30's (my opinion) with Gone With The Wind his peak .


Oh well, I will still buy this set, enjoy it , and wait for Volume II

 

[Ira Siegel]

Thanks for the updates Herb and Crawdaddy. By the way, Mogambo is NOT new to DVD. I have it. (I forget who put it out.) In my opinion, the image and audio of the DVD I have are fine; the movie Mogambo is a big disappointment and boring. This is probably due to the presumed puritanical sensibilities of the time (i.e., there supposedly really would be high drama if the characters really were doing what was impliedly going on).

 

[Garysb]

Mogambo was a Target exclusive during last Christmas season along with the Three Godfathers. They were $10 each. Many people complained that when they went to Target they didn't have these in stock.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Warner has the task of spreading out Gable films to cover not only another Gable boxset, but for future boxsets involving precode films, Jean Harlow, Powell/Loy and perhaps another boxset we know nothing about, but one that Warner is planning for down the road. So maybe, we should give Warner a break as to how they release Gable films because they seem to be trying their best to please everybody with various boxsets.

As to Mogambo, I have that Target exclusive, but will give that away once this boxset comes out.






Crawdaddy

 

[Marc^H]

I must agree, MOGAMBO is pretty drab. It is practically Sesame Street compared to the original, RED DUST.

I would love to have seen THE SECRET SIX included, or one of his other early gangster/tough guy roles like A FREE SOUL or NIGHT NURSE...movies that havent already been played to death. But perhaps these have been earmarked for other promotions (pre code, norma shearer, etc).

MOGAMBO aside, the rest are reliable entertainments, so I'll definitely be buying this set.

 

[Corey]

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