What's up with Warner DVD? (1 Viewer)

[CineKarine]

What??? Maybe you are thinking about your own favorite films and forgetting about all the others, but there are still numerous films which were on VHS which have not made it to DVD yet and lots of well-known titles with major stars still missing.

I still have some 200 titles on my DVD want list, and not one reissue in the bunch.

In terms of Warner titles, I would buy any of the following in a wink:
Numerous Jean Harlow films (Bombshell, Suzy, The Girl from Missouri...)
More Cary Grant (Every Girl Should Be Married, In Name Only...)
Shirley Temple (Honeymoon, That Hagen Girl, Kathleen...)
Judy Garland (Little Nellie Kelly, Listen Darling, Everybody Sing...)
More Holiday films (Bachelor Mother, Her Twelve Men, The Voice of the Turtle)
Three Comrades (38) - one of the top movies of that year
More Bette Davis (The Sisters, A Stolen Life, Dangerous)
More Doris Day (It's a Great Feeling, Julie, Tea for Two...)
More MGM musicals (Yolanda and the Thief, Lovely to Look At, Thousands Cheer, Athena...)
More Errol Flynn (Desperate Journey, Escape Me Never, Cry Wolf, Green Light...)
Four Daughters (38) and sequels
More Noir (Backfire, The Man I Love, Berlin Express, Born to Be Bad...)
Famous tearjerkers anyone? (The Human Comedy, The White Cliffs of Dover, A Guy Named Joe, The Enchanted Cottage...)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street - both 1934 and 1957
More Katharine Hepburn (The Little Minister, Quality Street...)
More Clark Gable, John Garfield, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan (dozens of titles)

And that's just a tiny fraction of my list. And these titles must be a part of many, many other DVD collectors' lists too!

 

[MLamarre]

I really only have 2 titles that I am eagerly awaiting from Warner, and those are 1) the 1990 TV version of Treasure Island with Heston and Bale, and 2) the reissue of The Man Who Would Be King that Warner promised in a chat so long ago.

 

[cineMANIAC]

You guys don't really expect the studios to release every single film ever made to DVD do you? Well, if we can buy things like Manos the Hand of Fate on DVD then i suppose anything is possible. I'm not diminishing classic, or for that matter, cult films here. I'm just saying that many of these flicks simply aren't considered marketable by the studios to release on video. And now Blu-ray, though a wondeful invention, is
threatening to upstage everything and is going to force the more obscure films further on the back burner. One more thing, The Road Warrior is an awesome film and it was promised to us 2 years ago and, yes, it is a far better film than alot of the stuff you guyus are asking for.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I've restrained myself from most of Warner's output (and most other studios) also released on BluRay like How the West Was Won and An American in Paris. If it has a dual release, I'm holding off. I made an exception for the Kubricks mainly because I was in a film class discussing his films.

WB has been really slow with silents, though. They're fortunate enough to have access to the largest copyrighted library of pre-1930 films.

On the other hand, this year's Popeye and Looney Tunes sets are the best shorts collections of the year, along with Sony's Three Stooges volumes.

 

[DaveM4964]

I'm still waiting for the widescreen editions of Grumpy Old Men/Grumpier Old Men.

 

[ColbyCo82]

My Warner wish list is filled with mostly pre-code films. If they arent going to release more on DVD they should at least try and show them more frequently on TCM. When was the last time TCM ran films like Joan Crawford's "Paid" or Norma Shearer' "Trial of Mary Dugan"? These rarities need to see the light of day whether on DVD or cable TV.

 

[Simon Howson]

Was this ever released in 70mm?

I wonder what Warner will do for a film shot in Ultra Panavision, but only screened on 35mm?

Cropping to 2.55:1 is probably the best compromise, but they'll probably release it in 2.76:1 like Ben Hur and Mutiny on the Bounty

 

[Dan McW]

Both the 1929 and 1941 versions of THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN "are subject to the Abend Decision and cannot be distributed at this time," according to a 2006 post by a TCM staffer on the TCM message boards.

TCM aired PAID on Jan. 13, 2005, and I don't think it's been on since.

 

[ColbyCo82]

Thanks for that info Dan. I had no idead Mary Dugan was also caught up in copyright litigation. I know TCM has aired the 1929 version at least once after the Abend decision (which i think was an early 90s Supreme Court Case)...maybe they recieved flack over that.

 

[serenapowell]

I'm not noticing a decrease in Warner's releases, but I haven't really been counting...it just feels like I'm still buying a lot.

Of course I want even more, and as always I agree with CinéKarine's taste in movies... I'd buy everything on her list, as well as (and I know these are covered by her mention of musicals, but I'll name them anyway) any Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Jane Powell, Kathryn Grayson, Eleanor Powell titles still unreleased. And anything with Olivia de Havilland, John Garfield, Joan Blondell, Barbara Stanwyck...I have so many favorite actors who are always worth watching. I would honestly buy *anything* in which they appear!

I also agree with jdee28 that Fox has been doing a wonderful job. I love the fact that they include commentaries and/or featurettes even for relatively obscure movies. I love the fact that they *release* relatively obscure movies!

Almost every Fox dvd I've bought has been a blind-buy, and I hope I'm not alone and that this helps prove that availability is key, even if we're unfamiliar with certain movies at first...they'll still sell eventually, right? Everyone is unfamiliar with everything at first, and we have to discover our favorites somehow.

If not on TV, then through someone's recommendation which leads to renting/buying over the years... so if the studios release it, we will buy!

If I may respond to Luisito34's comment about these movies maybe not being marketable... This is just my opinion, but if newer/modern movies that weren't blockbuster mega-hits theatrically, and aren't really universally known titles today, can make it to DVD on the strength of their famous stars (like Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford), I'd like to think that older/classic movies (many of which *were* big hits in their day, although they might need to be reintroduced to this generation) also deserve a DVD release, especially if they too feature famous, still-recognized and loved stars like Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Cary Grant, etc.