Great comedies being released by Warner on June 20th!!! (1 Viewer)

[Jay E]

From DVDTIMES:

Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD debut of five entertaining comedies, each with a fervent "cult" following and previously unavailable on DVD. A Fine Madness, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, The Loved One and Petulia will each be available on 20th June 2006 for $19.97 SRP. All the films have been newly remastered and are presented in anamorphic widescreen.

A Fine Madness -- It's a certifiable case of a fine madness as genius, poet and carpet cleaner Samson Shillitoe (Sean Connery) and his beleaguered wife (Joanne Woodward) plunge into a series of daffy disasters from which Samson continues to come up smiling. Life takes a turn for the worse when he dallies with the wife (Jean Seaberg) of a psychiatrist (Patrick O'Neal) who seeks revenge by prescribing "brain surgery."

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight -- The screen version of the best-selling comic novel about a Brooklyn turf war brings together such diverse stars as Jerry Orbach, Jo Van Fleet, Leigh Taylor-Young, Lionel Stander and on-the-rise Robert DeNiro in his first major screen appearance.

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas -- Harold Fine (Peter Sellers) is a dedicated lawyer about to become a more dedicated dropout. Director Paul Mazursky spreads good vibes as Harold discovers tuning in and turning on can turn out daffily disastrous. Leigh Taylor-Young and Jo Van Fleet costar.

The Loved One -- Robert Morse plays a bemused would-be poet who gets entangled with an unctuous cemetery entrepreneur (Jonathan Winters), a mom-obsessed mortician known as Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger in an unforgettable, and unexpectedly out of character performance) and other bizarre characters played by an array of talented actors such as John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Tab Hunter, Milton Berle, James Coburn and Liberace.

Petulia -- Set in San Francisco during the `60s summer-of-love era, the film tells the story of a recently divorced doctor (George C. Scott) in a relationship with an unhappily married socialite (Julie Christie). As the director zigzags through the flashbacks and flash-forwards, the jigsaw pieces form a celluloid time capsule of life and love. Also starring is Shirley Knight and Richard Chamberlain.



Great news about Petulia, A Fine Madness, The Loved One & I Love You Alice B Toklas, 4 of my most wanted films...Thanks Warner!!!!!!!!

 

[JPCinema]

Absolutely Great News.!!! Those same four are on the toop of my list too!

 

[soop.spoon]

I always thought I Love You, Alice B. Toklas would be an MGM release. Nice!

For those who care about such things, the John Barry soundtrack for Petulia was recently released on CD by Film Score Monthly. It's a double feature disc with Barry's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

 

[Thomas T]

Hello? By what stretch of the imagination is Petulia a comedy? It's a pretty downbeat love story! Still, I'm so thrilled to finally be able to get it on DVD that Warners can call it a western if it wants to.

 

[Jon Hertzberg]

From what I recall, I Love You Alice B. Toklas exists in two different versions, an R-rated cut as well as a PG. Is this accurate? If so, what will we see on the DVD?

As for Petulia, I second the questioning of WB's labeling of the film as a comedy. It's such a fine film, one which has been largely forgotten for some reason, that I am just glad to finally get it in this format. At the end of the seventies, it ranked #3 on a wide-ranging critics survey which covered the years 1968-1978. How it has slipped so far under the radar, so to speak, in the intervening years is a mystery. For those in the Chicago area, it will be screening in 35mm on April 13 at Doc Films on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park.

 

[Charles Ellis]

I'm happy about The Loved One being released. Who can ever forget Mrs. Joyboy- I suspect she must've been kin to Mr. Creosote from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life!! For those who haven't seen this film, think of John Waters directing a 2-hour episode of Six Feet Under!

 

[oscar_merkx]

never seen any of them before.

I would be very interested in the De Niro movie

 

[Richard--W]

I recommend A FINE MADNESS, one of Sean Connery's best non-Bond films from the 1960s, and a good comedy.

Now if only they would release WOMAN OF STRAW.

 

[Charles H]

THE LOVED ONE is a terrific film but the production was chaos. Director Tony Richardson vowed never to do another film in Hollywood. He left before final editing (Hal Ashby was the editor) was completed. Stills exist of unused scenes involving Jayne Mansfield and Ruth Gordon. Some of the Barbara Nichols footage was restored to VHS, LD, and tv prints. It
would be great to know if they located any other footage.

 

[walter o]

nice to see not one but two Leigh Taylor Young films being released, as she is one of my favs.

 

[Dale MA]

I'll definitely be picking up "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight", I've been wanting to see it for quite some time now