Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[Somebuddy]

Any mention of post 1980s titles in the podcast?

[MifuneFan]

Ferretferret, I am sorry to report that Mr. Feltenstein was not asked about the whereabouts of Kangaroo Jack. It would have made a great combo-breaker between his answers for pre-code films, and future technicolor endeavours.

[PowellPressburger]

Originally Posted by tama

It does have a bit of an electronic look to it.

There are several early WAC titles that I'd wish had been released "Today" with there higher standards.

Every time I watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I swear that transfer does NOT look as great as it could.

[Rayjg]

The man really is a treasure. God bless him.

[Guy LeDouche]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Ferretferret, I am sorry to report that Mr. Feltenstein was not asked about the whereabouts of Kangaroo Jack. It would have made a great combo-breaker between his answers for pre-code films, and future technicolor endeavours.

I would imagine that they are saving that question for a separate podcast dedicated solely to Jack in order to provide an appropriately thorough answer. Most likely accompanied by the inevitable 4K announcement.

[whiteberry]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Ferretferret, I am sorry to report that Mr. Feltenstein was not asked about the whereabouts of Kangaroo Jack.

He may not have been asked about it but George was clearly hinting at a 4K UHD release of Kangaroo Jack:

"Some exciting things happening in 4K as we look into next year...a very famous, famous Warner Bros film, one of the most famous."

[romuald121]

Originally Posted by whiteberry

He may not have been asked about it but George was clearly hinting at a 4K UHD release of Kangaroo Jack:

"Some exciting things happening in 4K as we look into next year...a very famous, famous Warner Bros film, one of the most famous."

If you are referring to 2003 movie with 8% rotten tomatoes, I hope you are joking

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by whiteberry

Pre-code Hollywood movies

"I would like to see that happen too. We have to create brand new masters." They won't use the existing HD masters created for the DVD box sets.

With this in mind, Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck is currently $5 on iTunes and will port to and from Movies Anywhere.

I caved and bought it. $5 is a small price to pay to have Babs in my pocket.

If/when there's a Blu-ray, I'll gladly double-dip.

[Rayjg]

Originally Posted by Guy LeDouche

I would imagine that they are saving that question for a separate podcast dedicated solely to Jack in order to provide an appropriately thorough answer. Most likely accompanied by the inevitable 4K announcement.

George would probably spit out his coffee if he was asked about Kangaroo Jack in a podcast.

[Ned Brainard]

Originally Posted by playingphysicist

I wish someone would ask George about Vitaphone movies, IIRC WAC only has released one or two of them and they are still DVD only (Why Be Good? from 1929 and Don Juan from 1926).

But considering Kino has said most of the silents sell terrible, I can't see WAC doing much in the way of them or vitaphone movies either. I doubt Warner would allow them to spend money for scores for silents, but I thought maybe Vitaphone movies.

They've released a few others on DVD - When a Man Loves, Noah's Ark, The First Auto, Old San Francisco, and The Divine Lady. Then there's The Jazz Singer which has an excellent blu-ray currently available from WAC.

I would say that the Vitaphone silents have a slightly greater chance of release if the sound discs exist. That is the reason why we have Why Be Good? (discs exists) but not Synthetic Sin (only one disc currently available).

[Ferretferret]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Ferretferret, I am sorry to report that Mr. Feltenstein was not asked about the whereabouts of Kangaroo Jack. It would have made a great combo-breaker between his answers for pre-code films, and future technicolor endeavours.

Aww, I was hoping they'd at least ask about Cats Don't Dance.

[mep]

Originally Posted by KHannersHM

I'm pretty confident that the German release will be a bootleg. Legitimate Blu-rays licensed by Warner to third parties always have an acknowledgment of the studio's authorization using their name and or logo (Anolis' Horror of Dracula comes to mind). Germany is closing in on Spain as a hotbed for pirated product getting into traditional distribution.

Japan is one of the few places in the world where Warner doesn't control home video rights to RKO films, but the PQ and AQ of the company that does control them there has been distinctively subpar. Buyer beware.

Sorry, but that’s just totally wrong and I don’t know how you can come up with such a conclusion. Germany is not a lawless island somewhere unknown in the world. There are just no Bootleg releases, that get regular distribution via Amazon.de. But of course here in Europe you can have different ownership of certain movies as in the US; also there could be different timeframes when a work of art becomes public domain. But there are no Bootleg releases that are distributed via official German retailers. Period.

PS: The release is from Filmjuwelen. They are a well known local German boutique label, that puts out many licensed international and local movies from the backcatalog, often from mayor studios.

But: I also don’t think this edition will be as good as a new remaster from WAC themself would be.

[playingphysicist]

Originally Posted by Ned Brainard

They've released a few others on DVD - When a Man Loves, Noah's Ark, The First Auto, Old San Francisco, and The Divine Lady. Then there's The Jazz Singer which has an excellent blu-ray currently available from WAC.

I would say that the Vitaphone silents have a slightly greater chance of release if the sound discs exist. That is the reason why we have Why Be Good? (discs exists) but not Synthetic Sin (only one disc currently available).

Yeah I think on one of these podcasts he mentioned the part about scores - Warner's silent film survival rate is poor anyway - pretty much rules out those for WAC releases. Truly silent films need scores and that is $$$ WAC will not get.

I could see Don Juan - maybe one of the better known Vitaphone films - and possibly other John Barrymore vitaphones (ie When a Man Loves) getting releases. Hoping out for that.

[the ladykiller]

I would like to give a heartfelt thanks to the team at Warner Archive that have done such great work on the recent Errol Flynn bluray releases. As a lover of technicolor Elizabeth & Essex and Don Juan really stood out for me though I also loved Santa Fe Trail, Objective Burma and Edge of Darkness in b/w. I do hope Warners will continue to release more Errols on bluray and may I humbly suggest That Forsyte Woman for consideration for a future release as the current WAC dvd is the only archive release that I was genuinely disappointed with.

[dvdmrp]

Glad to listen to the podcast and hear about all the great stuff coming up. I'll admit that I'm a little bummed that my question regarding all the 3D titles that Warner owns was not asked. I had initially inquired about 3D and if they would be willing to work with 3DFA on any collaborations in the same way that they worked with the Cinerama people. They could scan the materials at Warner and then 3DFA could do their magic.
Alas that question was passed over. I guess they don't realize how much we love 3D bluray releases.

[xochipilli]

Absolutely wonderful podcast, as expected, utterly packed with information as always from the wonderful Mr. Feltenstein! Unfortunately I didn't get to ask a question due to not having a Facebook account, but since two other people asked about the same subject as I'd have, I kinda did get an answer. I hope they decide to do this again before too long, and maybe let us send questions through e-mail, so I could get my say! After listening for the second time, I thought I'd bring up some thoughts that came to my head during:

George says he finds it frustrating that he "didn't find a way to properly convey" that they would skip August, but unless the relation between departments over at Warner is that weirdly structured, I can't see why he couldn't just tell whoever is occasionally posting some stuff on the Facebook page to say "heads up, stuff's backed up and we're skipping a month". Just sounds odd, is all.

It's surprising that he says that he still hasn't gotten the go ahead from above regarding that major animation project that's still supposed to hopefully come out this year. If a regular classic film can take between eight and nine months on average, can he actually get something like this done in less than five?

When George said an animated feature was being remastered from a 4K scan off the camera negative, I had a hard time thinking of older films they own that fit that category. I know of a few more recent ones, like Cats Don't Dance, but with them being so recent I would imagine they would go for a standard 2K restoration. Besides Gay Pur-ee, can some more knowledgeable animation fans here name some older animated films owned by WB which could be the one he's talking about?

Absolutely ecstatic that the questions about 80 Days and Raintree County were answered, since what I would have liked to ask about were the 70mm titles they're in charge of. Given the former is stated to be in the queue and that the biggest issues with the latter seems to be about the condition of the roadshow elements, and that getting a proper version of the theatrical cut would be comparatively much easier, it seems pretty certain that the two much less problematic titles, Ryan's Daughter and Cheyenne Autumn, are bound to come about eventually!

I'd hoped a question I saw on the Facebook page regarding the new restoration of Life with Father being stuck on streaming for going on two years now would have been one of the ones picked, but barring that, I'll assume what George said about certain titles on Max not being considered for physical release due to perhaps not being thought of as being able to break even applies to it. While it's public domain, and lacks the name recognition of A Star is Born or the star power of Flynn's Santa Fe Trail it doesn't seem like that much of a harder sell, and I hope they reconsider putting it out on disc. Plus, have any new remasters premiered on the service without a physical release for the last, say, twelve months?

Interesting to hear that only one of the RKO Astaire-Rogers titles has it's original negative still in existence. That would mean, regarding the one title each said to be coming from 1934 and 1935, that it couldn't be two of either The Gay Divorcee, Roberta and Top Hat, as I'd postulated. It has to be either one or none of those. I don't suppose anyone here knows for sure if any of their negatives is definitely lost?

[okcmaxk]

Originally Posted by xochipilli

Besides Gay Pur-ee, can some more knowledgeable animation fans here name some older animated films owned by WB which could be the one he's talking about?

The Phantom Tollbooth, maybe?

[ukulelemonster]

Originally Posted by xochipilli

When George said an animated feature was being remastered from a 4K scan off the camera negative, I had a hard time thinking of older films they own that fit that category. I know of a few more recent ones, like Cats Don't Dance, but with them being so recent I would imagine they would go for a standard 2K restoration. Besides Gay Pur-ee, can some more knowledgeable animation fans here name some older animated films owned by WB which could be the one he's talking about?

I didn't listen to the podcast, but I think your Gay Pur-ee guess is a good one. If he's referring to an even older film, could he possibly be referencing Mr. Bug Goes To Town (1941)?

[Glorian]

Originally Posted by xochipilli

When George said an animated feature was being remastered from a 4K scan off the camera negative, I had a hard time thinking of older films they own that fit that category. I know of a few more recent ones, like Cats Don't Dance, but with them being so recent I would imagine they would go for a standard 2K restoration. Besides Gay Pur-ee, can some more knowledgeable animation fans here name some older animated films owned by WB which could be the one he's talking about?

Maybe something else from the Hanna-Barbera catalog, like Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964), or Charlotte's Web (1973)? I'm not thinking of much else off-hand, if we're talking about theatrical films.

But if he just said 'animated film', maybe it was something made as a TV film? It almost certainly isn't this, but something really cool to see would be the TV movie Rock Odyssey. It was worked on and completed in the 1980s, but was never released or broadcast in the United States; I think Spain aired it in 1987 (in Spanish).

[ukulelemonster]

Originally Posted by Glorian

Maybe something else from the Hanna-Barbera catalog, like Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964), or Charlotte's Web (1973)? I'm not thinking of much else off-hand, if we're talking about theatrical films.

Oh good one! I don't believe Charlotte's Web has been released here in the states yet.