Warners Film Noir Collection 2 & Point Blank on 07/05/05 (1 Viewer)

[John Hodson]

Fantastic news from DVD Times:

Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of The Film Noir Classic Collection Volume Two for 5th July 2005. Hollywood’s legendary tough guys and femme fatales collide again with this second collection which includes five smouldering classics, all new to DVD and all digitally remastered: Born to Kill, Clash By Night, Crossfire, Dillinger and The Narrow Margin.

The movies star film noir icons Robert Mitchum, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor, among others, and feature commentaries from film historians and directors including Robert Wise on Born To Kill Peter Bogdanovich, with archival contributions from Fritz Lang, on Clash By Night; John Milius on Dillinger and William Friedkin and Richard Fleischer on The Narrow Margin.

In addition to the Collection, John Boorman’s (Deliverance, Excalibur) classic neo-noir, Point Blank, will also make its DVD debut featuring commentary from Boorman and director Steven Soderbergh.

Titles will be available in both a five-disc set, for $49.92 SRP, or individually for $19.97 SRP.

Details here.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm actually shocked that they included "Dillinger" in this collection. It's one of those films that not many people have seen. I only watched it one time, many years ago and don't really remember a whole lot about it. Very interesting choice!

I almost forgot, great news about "Point Blank", a film that more than a few directors have stolen from.





Crawdaddy

 

[John Hodson]

Point Blank is the real shock; with Boorman commentary - yeees!

 

[Herb Kane]

Great news John. Yes, a couple of interesting choices. I haven't seen the '45 Dillinger.

(2 for 5 -- yikes...)

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm not, it's such a great film that I knew Warner wouldn't neglect for long. Not only that, it's been playing on Turner Classic Movies Channel lately.





Crawdaddy

 

[John Hodson]

That's where you have the advantage over me; our TCM is, ah, a little different. BTW, they flagged Dillinger in last year's chat

 

[Robert Crawford]

Since, I haven't read the transcript since our hard drive took a dive, I don't remember them mentioning that title. It's still a surprising choice because hardly, anybody mentions it on this forum.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Great news. Thanks John. I'm really thrilled to see that Point Blank is getting a release. That is another big title on my wish list that I can scratch.

Robert Wise, Fritz Lang, two films with Lawrence Tierney, Robert Mitchum, Barbara Stanwyck, and two films with Robert Ryan; amongst the list of cast and crew. Sounds like another great set.

- Walter.

 

[oscar_merkx]

Great news indeed and Point Blank is awesome and even better with a JB com.

This is a must buy now, guess I will track down Vol 1

 

[Eric Peterson]

More of my hard earned money getting ported directly to WB. Is there anyway, that I can just have it auto-debited?

I haven't seen any of these, but if any of them are even close to the quality of the last set, then it will be worth every penny. I particularly loved "Gun Crazy" & "The Set-Up" in the first box.

 

[Armin Jager]

I collect everything by Robert Wise and never was able to get my hands on BORN TO KILL, so I'm very happy to get it. CROSSFIRE and THE NARROW MARGIN are two obvious classics. CLASH BY NIGHT is a an extremely untypical Fritz Lang film and certainly no noir, but I think it's one of his very best works.

I always thought I'm familiar with Hollywood classics, but what is DILLINGER???????????? It's even directed by a German exile director Max Nosseck, but I've heard this name only in connection to Buster Keaton's French comedy LE ROI DES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES. A curious choice to say the least ...

 

[Jay E]

Great News!

I'm especially pleased to see that Born to Kill is being released as I've been trying to see this for years.

Thanks Warner!

 

[Charles H]

Since DILLINGER is only 70 minutes long, maybe WB could include the Mark Harmon tv movie version (which had a cameo by Lawrence Tierney). Tierney had a colorful career--and an even more colorful life--with a comeback in RESERVOIR DOGS and a stint as Elaine's father in a memorable "Seinfeld" episode.
Perhaps WB could bring out the other films in Richard Stark's (Donald E. Westlake's) Parker/Porter series that followed POINT BLANK: THE OUTFIT (with Robert Duvall in the Marvin part) ad THE SPLIT (with Jim Brown)?

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Nah, Dillinger out of place on that set. It's okay, but I don't really think of it as a true Noir. But they rest are excellent and it will be great to finally own Point Blank with a Boorman commentary. Soderbergh's joint-commentary with Mike Nichols on Catch 22 is one of my most-favourite commentaries, so I'll really be looking forward to that one.

Great news, indeed.

 

[Steve...O]

Yup. It was actually in response to my question about potential releases of their Monogram holdings. They said the most likely candidates for release were The Bowery Boys and Dillinger. I'll confess to be being more interested in the BB than Dillinger (which I've never seen) but this is still welcome news.

Thanks to John Hodson for alerting us to this news. This entire set will a blind buy for me as I don't recall seeing any of these films before (if I have; it's been a long time ago).

Steve

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Superb news! Finally, POINT BLANK! And I'm especially glad to see that BORN TO KILL and THE NARROW MARGIN made it into the Film Noir Vol. 2 set. DILLINGER and CLASH BY NIGHT are also very welcome. Bravo, WB!

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

But there's a certain logic in its inclusion, because it was produced by the King Brothers, whose other delirious crime drama, Gun Crazy, was one of the big hits of the first noir set.

 

[rich_d]

Agreed.

 

[Mario Gauci]

I, for one, am glad that this announcement came out prior to the Warners Chat since both the Film Noir Collection Vol. 2 and POINT BLANK (1967) would have surely been brought up; in this way, it frees time, for those who are lucky enough to participate, to ask about something else!

Anyhow, although "Film Noir" is one of my favorite genres, I still have 11 of them (all of which I'm already familiar with, though) on my "DVD To Watch" list, including the first Warners set, and even more I have yet to buy:frowning:! As for what has been included in Volume 2, I kind of expected BORN TO KILL (1947) and THE NARROW MARGIN (1952) to make the cut, and CLASH BY NIGHT (1952) has also been bandied about lately - but DILLINGER (1945) really came out of nowhere for me.

Of course, CROSSFIRE (1947) and THE NARROW MARGIN are two of the finest noirs ever so to see them being given the Special Edition treatment will be a treat. The only other one from this bunch which I've watched is CLASH BY NIGHT which, though really more of a melodrama than an out-and-out noir, is a welcome addition to this set nonetheless given that it is a very underrated and atypical Fritz Lang film, and an extremely well-acted one at that (particularly by Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan).

I've heard much about Lawrence Tierney and I'm shocked as to how many of his latter-day films I've actually watched but I've yet to catch him in a starring role from his heyday; to be given a chance to do so twice in one go is just great!

Last, but certainly not least, it's just awesome that POINT BLANK is finally being released by Warners - although, to be honest, I kind of expected it to be a 2-Disc Set with John Boorman's 1998 Lee Marvin Documentary (which I've never watched) included; maybe this IS something that could be cleared up in the upcoming HTF Chat. By the way, I've yet to pick up Mike Nichols' CATCH-22 (1970) on DVD so I don't know how that joint Audio Commentary with Steven Soderbergh came about...but I have to wonder whether the one for POINT BLANK was sparked at last year's Venice Film Festival where they were both in attendance; Boorman was the President of the Jury while Soderbergh was presenting his segment from the three-part anthology EROS (2004). Actually, I was there too for the entirety of the festival and I even managed to get Mr. Boorman's authograph but, unfortunately, he seemed to be pressed for time at the moment or I would have given him a piece of my mind about those two train-wrecks in his curriculum - ZARDOZ (1974) and EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)!

 

[RyanZ]

I'm so excited to see Crossfire on DVD - it was one of the first old movies I saw on television.