WANTED: MORE ALLIED ARTISTS 1950s SF AND HORROR FILM DVD RELEASES!!!!! (1 Viewer)

[JeffT.]

As it has been well over a year now since the excellent start of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment having made available the (former) Allied Artists Pictures Corporation 1950s SF B-film programmers ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN (1958), QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) and THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959) on DVD all digitally remastered and newly restored in excellent pristine quality how about making more of these high-demand AA cult classic titles available?!

FLIGHT TO MARS (1951)
THE MAZE (1954)
TARGET EARTH (1954)
WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) * This one is VERY high priority!
INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN (1956)
THE ATOMIC MAN (1956)
ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957)
NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957)
THE CYCLOPS (1957)
DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957)
FROM HELL IT CAME (1957)
THE DISEMBODIED (1957)
FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958)
WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958)
MACABRE (1958)
THE BAT (1959)
THE COSMIC MAN (1959)
CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959)
THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE (1959)
BLUEBEARD'S TEN HONEYMOONS (1959)
THE WASP WOMAN (1959)

and from the 1960s:

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)
THE HYPNOTIC EYE (1960)
THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960)
ATLAS (1960)
TORMENTED (1960)
THE MERMAIDS OF TIBURON (1962)
CONFESSIONS OF AN OPION EATER (1962)
BLACK ZOO (1963)
THE STRANGLER (1964)
CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965)
FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965)

Don't stop now! You have only just begun tapping into this great stuff!

Jeff T.

 

[Richard--W]

I've got money burning a hole in my wallet to spend on Allied Artists DVD's. The titles listed here and a good many of the crime-noir films. WHV release it, I'll buy it.

 

[Richard--W]

Addendum: part of the appeal to us old-time film buffs is the original art. You can't top it today. The more WHV can work with the original art for DVD covers the easier it will be for money to slide out of my pocket and into WHV's.

 

[Richard--W]

My two Most Wanted:
WORLD WITHOUT END (1956)
MACABRE (1958)

If anyone has more Allied Artists one-sheets let's show it to them here.

 

[JeffT.]

Well the annual Warner Brothers Home Entertainment online question-and-answers session was a tremendous aid in both finding out vital information from the source and for making suggestions something that we were unfortunately deprived of this year.

Hopefully retails sales for the ATTACK OF THE 50-FT. WOMAN (1958), QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) and THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959) DVDs were such that will warrant Warners to indeed proceed with further similar releases specifically from their Allied Artists film catalogue.

And one has to wonder just what treasures are locked away in the Warner's film vaults out of the public sight and accessibility!

As an additional incentive we can continue to convincingly hammer away the point here!

Jeff T.

 

[Jack Theakston]

A number of titles on your list aren't owned by WHV, and a few of them are on DVD now. THE MAZE is Paramount, for example.

On DVD:
FLIGHT TO MARS (Wade Williams/Image)
TARGET EARTH (VCI)
ATOMIC SUBMARINE (Criterion)
MERMAIDS OF TIBURON (VCI)
FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (Dark Sky)

 

[JeffT.]

With the exception of Criterion none of the companies that have been listed are the "official" copyright holders of the specific films mentioned...as the poor quality of the source elements for most of those DVD titles painfully attests to!

I don't know why it is felt that Paramount should have THE MAZE (1954) under its ownership but I won't dispute this.

However on the basis of uncertainty I have listed all the titles that came to mind just in case Warner Brothers does indeed still has these films under its ownership...which it probably does!

I probably should have also included DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) and CRACK IN THE WORLD (1965) to the list as well.

Jeff T.

 

[BradleyS]

I'd love to see these movies, but the fact that we haven't seen any more AA releases after the first wave is a bad sign. Combined with the (second) death of the Midnite Movies line and Universal's unwillingness to release any more classic horror, I wonder if we will see any more of these types of films again from the major studios. We might have to wait for downloading, on-demand, or licensing to a smaller distributor.

 

[JeffT.]

This has also occurred to me as well which likely in part prompted this discussion thread...that and the lack of any genuine interesting SF-Horror-Fantasy genre material being made available on DVD!

Right now the economy isn't necessarily the greatest compounded by the fact that Warner Brothers Home Entertainment did somewhat over-saturate the market with four volume box sets of its Cult Camp Classics series.

I also think that Warner Brothers has spread itself out in so many diverse directions that just so much attention can be afforded each individual project. Just to compound things further some of us are still waiting for a long anticipated Bowery Boys DVD release!

ATTACK OF THE 50-FT. WOMAN (1958), QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) and THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1959) are still readily available and additional sales may just turn the tide to our advantage.

Generally I think that the Allied Artists film catalogue is a solid seller and all that is needed right now is some sustained encouragement on our parts.

Jeff T.

 

[Jack Theakston]

DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is owned by an independent producer who is currently restoring it on his own.

 

[JeffT.]

Well if all goes well then we will be getting DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) in the bargain.

If FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965) is from the legitimate copyright owner than why is the source element used in the Dark Sky DVD release missing a couple minutes of footage (the axe murder of a hapless victim)? Why didn't they go back to the original (and presumably intact) 35mm print negatives which should be in their possession?

With the initial Allied Artists DVD releases there have been several prominent DVD online information services that are eagerly cackling in anxious anticipation about stuff like ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957), NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957) and whatnot so I am fairly confident we haven't heard the last of these Allied Artists films as potential DVD releases from Warner Brothers.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) was once part of this group as well!

Jeff T.

 

[JeffT.]

If you wish to see the two provided posters included in this discussion thread in all their full glory simply click them with your cursor and they will miraculously e-x-p-a-n-d in size!

Very nice!

Jeff T.

 

[Bob Graham]

Not really a "horror film", more of a drama with horror elements, but I'd like to see a release of FACE OF FIRE.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957) is also available on DVD from All DAY Entertainment, though it's probably out of print.

 

[Jack Theakston]

Because it's cheaper to do it this way.

 

[JeffT.]

Well the way things are going we may end up with just a few Allied Artists film titles in the original inventory but it (still) remains to be seen just what Warner Brothers will come up with?!

I remember seeing FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965) along with CURSE OF THE VOODOO (1965) on a doublebill and surely an intact pristine print must still be in circulation somewhere.

Jeff T.

 

[Jack Theakston]

There are a LOT of prints of FMTSM "out there." There was a whole warehouse find of them some years back.

Another situation may be that the original elements for that film may not survive. Not uncommon for super-low-budget companies that didn't pay their lab bills.

 

[Conrad_SSS]

Warner probably retains less than half of the films originally released through Allied Artists. Most of them had already flown the coup before Allied was purchased by Lorimar, and therefore before Lorimar was purchased by Warner.

As Mr. Theakston has already pointed out, Allied was frequently just a 'distributor', and its rights as a distributor to many films would expire and revert to the original production company.

In addition, several dozen Allied-produced films from the '50s were sold outright by Allied to NTA in the late '60s. (NTA became Republic, then purchased by Spelling and merged into Viacom...hence Paramount...)

Allied faced bankruptcy during that period, and selling those pictures was its only way of staying alive. That's how INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ended up with NTA/Republic, along with THE MAZE, CRY VENGEANCE, THE ROSE BOWL STORY, THE TALL STRANGER, DINO, NEW ORLEANS AFTER DARK, the list goes on and on.

Another group of titles ended up with another company under similar circumstances, but I don't recall their name.

Some of the titles that Roger Corman made pre-AIP also ended up reverting to him somehow, including CRY BABY KILLER.....

All this being said, Warner Bros. does still retain a great number of terrific Allied Artists pictures, and I trust their peerless acumen enough to believe we will be seeing some choice titles popping up in due course.

 

[JeffT.]

I think that one of the inherent problems with Warners Brothers Home Entertainment is that B-films (with the occasional exception) aren't exactly their forte.

Warner generally has its head in the clouds with its stellar (and ultra expensive) signature collection of screen classics...which may please someone like Robert Osborne but the greater buying public out there? Forget it!

How many more Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwick and Joan Crawford collections are necessary before the DVD department declares absolute bankruptcy?! Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn are one thing but Warner is carrying a point to ridiculous extremes...and I well know how this sounds!

It is unfortunate that this discussion thread must compete with the current MGM MIDNITE MOVIES one for attention and support (as this one likely inspired the other) but many enlightened online DVD information services are bemoaning the absences of elusive favourites like NOT OF THIS EARTH (1957) and ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957) among others and they are all to found right here.

It may well prove to be that some of the errant 1940s Mongram produced Charlie Chan films with Sidney Toler and Roland Winters are also under the auspices of Warner Brothers.

Jeff T.

 

[Roger Rollins]

It would be kind of difficult for Warner to release NOT OF THIS EARTH or ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, since they do not own either film.

Rights to many of the films Roger Corman made during his "Allied Artists" period reverted to him...that was how he got to remake NOT OF THIS EARTH in '87. A few years ago I read that he licensed a whole group of his films to Buena Vista, but it seems the only older title to newly emerge from that transaction (thusfar) has been CRY BABY KILLER (paired with LITTLE SHOP...)