The King & I (1999) (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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[TJPC]

I have the DVD of this stored in the "what were they thinking" section of my collection. It is truly terrible!

 

[RichMurphy]

I am a huge fan of Christiane Noll, who does the singing voice of Anna Leonowens here, but even I have limits.

 

[MatthewA]

This gets a Blu-ray before The Black Cauldron, which Richard Rich also directed?

Is … a puzzlement.

 

[DVBRD]

Every time I think of this movie, I think of the Family Guy episode about "The King and I." I could see Lois Griffin getting pissed off about that movie, too.

"This man commited a murder here tonight, and the victim's name is Theatre!" - Lois.

 

[MatthewA]

I'd love to be able to say with all certainty that that episode was a commentary on this movie. I can't, but it sounds extremely credible.



The only songs this adds that the otherwise infinitely superior 1956 movie left out are "Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You" and "I Have Dreamed," which still made it onto Capitol Records' Soundtrack Album. Unfortunately, Fox probably threw the outtakes out with all the Cleopatra trims and nitrate negatives back in the 1970s if they'd ever saved them at all before that purge.

 

[TJPC]

“The King and I” is probably my favourite musical. My wife hates it! She is especially disdainful of dubbed voices. I have tried her with the 1954 flick — hated it, the live road show production — hated it. Finally we saw the cartoon version. We both hated it!
Thus this version brought us closer together!

 

[MatthewA]

Substantially less terrible-looking was the same year's nonmusical Anna and the King with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat. At two and a half hours, it is the longest version of the story of Anna Leonowens and King Mongkut.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Among forgotten Warner Bros. animated titles, I actually want a Blu-ray of Quest For Camelot. It is one of the last remaining wish list titles of mine that hasn't yet gotten a high def release. That this one would go before that one is surprising and unfortunate. I wish they would come out with that, at least from Warner Archive if nothing else.

 

[richardburton84]

Even as a kid seeing it on television, I thought this film was terrible and preferred the 1956 film, which I had seen before this film came out. I can’t help but feel that this film was only put into production as a result of the moderate success of Anastasia, though obviously this does not work as well as that other film with a lot of unnecessary and unfunny slapstick thrown in for the kids. However, as Matthew pointed out, it does add two of the three songs cut from the 1956 film, though quite a few others ended up cut from this film, such as the lovely “We Kiss in a Shadow.” All that said, I must also add my voice to the surprise that this film is being put out on Blu-ray (though since Mill Creek is releasing this, it seems quite plausible that Warner lost the rights to this film).

Among forgotten Warner Bros. animated titles, I actually want a Blu-ray of Quest For Camelot. It is one of the last remaining wish list titles of mine that hasn't yet gotten a high def release. That this one would go before that one is surprising and unfortunate. I wish they would come out with that, at least from Warner Archive if nothing else.

This film got a lot of ran a lot during my childhood. While the film does not hold up as well as other films from that era, it still has some good songs and I certainly wouldn’t mind a Blu-ray, though I do wish we could have gotten the original darker treatment that was originally planned.

 

[DVBRD]

Even as a kid seeing it on television, I thought this film was terrible and preferred the 1956 film, which I had seen before this film came out. I can’t help but feel that this film was only put into production as a result of the moderate success of Anastasia...

The film was in the works long before Anastasia; Rankin/Bass bought the film rights to The King and I in the early-90s. Had this film been a success, Oklahoma! would have been the next project; no doubt Jud Fry would have become a shapeshifter who turns into a fire-breathing dragon in order to invade Curley and Laurey's wedding.

I must also add my voice to the surprise that this film is being put out on Blu-ray (though since Mill Creek is releasing this, it seems quite plausible that Warner lost the rights to this film).

Yes, WB lost the rights a few years ago, since it's a Morgan Creek title. I think Sony has it now.

 

[RichMurphy]

"Biggest licensing mistake we ever made" - Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross 2/17/2009

 

[MatthewA]

And now they can cry all the way to the bank all over again.

 

[Jake Lipson]

And now they can cry all the way to the bank all over again.

Only if people actually buy it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

This film [Quest for Camelot] got a lot of ran a lot during my childhood. While the film does not hold up as well as other films from that era, it still has some good songs and I certainly wouldn’t mind a Blu-ray, though I do wish we could have gotten the original darker treatment that was originally planned.

As an aside because we were already talking about it in this thread, Quest For Camelot is now streaming on Netflix in HD, where it was added this month. It would seem pretty easy to dump that master on a Blu-ray, so I'm not sure why Warner hasn't done that yet. At least Warner Archive should, if it's not considered a big enough title to get a wider release. I would buy it. It still amazes me that this version of The King and I is getting a Blu-ray release before that does.

 

[richardburton84]

As an aside because we were already talking about it in this thread, Quest For Camelot is now streaming on Netflix in HD, where it was added this month. It would seem pretty easy to dump that master on a Blu-ray, so I'm not sure why Warner hasn't done that yet. At least Warner Archive should, if it's not considered a big enough title to get a wider release. I would buy it. It still amazes me that this version of The King and I is getting a Blu-ray release before that does.

Unless that master was made recently, the Archive may feel that the transfer’s not up to their usual standards, and they have given that reason for the absence of a number of titles then not on Blu-ray (some of which eventually got released through the Archive with newer transfers like Victor/Victoria and Time After Time). Furthermore, I must confess I share your surprise that this train wreck of an animated film gets released on Blu-ray before Quest for Camelot, which is slightly better.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

If I hadn't already seen this, I might buy it for a dollar. Unless I really warm up to the classic version by then, I'll likely pass. It actually did get a laserdisc release in the last year of that format's support in the US, wonder how many of those they sold. Quest for Camelot was decent.

 

[MatthewA]

One of the most disappointing aspects of the film outside of the way it treats a classic musical is that they didn't do it in the classic Rankin-Bass stop-motion animation style. That might have been more visually interesting than the bland, generic, and unappealing visuals that pale in comparison to Mulan which came out the previous year and still has more staying power.

Yes, WB lost the rights a few years ago, since it's a Morgan Creek title. I think Sony has it now.

Did WB lose the entire Morgan Creek library or just that?

The film was in the works long before Anastasia; Rankin/Bass bought the film rights to The King and I in the early-90s. Had this film been a success, Oklahoma! would have been the next project; no doubt Jud Fry would have become a shapeshifter who turns into a fire-breathing dragon in order to invade Curley and Laurey's wedding.

I imagine Flower Drum Song would have gotten the dragons if they actually had gone through with more, but that's not far off from what they actually did do to South Pacific on TV with Glenn Close. I remember what a critic said at the time about this animated film:

"What's next, The Sound of Music where Maria does the hoochie-coochie to distract the Nazis?"

I also remember my Mom commenting to me as the trailer for this film played before the 1998 rerelease of The Wizard of Oz, "Yul Brynner is spinning in his grave."

 

[TJPC]

I know it’s a matter of taste, but the Glenn Close version of South Pacific is actually my absolute favourite version. We play it often.