Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection (1931-1954)

[MykeHavoc]

Originally Posted by Wally Q

That would be half of a double dip but I wouldn't complain at all. Now if only we can get the Hammer Horror films and House of Wax on Blu-ray and I'd be so, so, so happy.

We're getting Hammer, ever so slowly. I have The Man Who Could Cheat Death and Vampire Circus. Synapse is also putting out Twins of Evil, Countess Dracula and Hands of the Ripper soon. Then there are the various region B titles coming out. I know what you mean about the obvious titles, though. The Warner and Universal stuff. I believe Paramount is going to put out the few titles they have at some point. We shall see.

[BluPat]

Originally Posted by dumb_dutchman

"the studio's concern was that - believe it or not - sales of those titles haven't been very good on DVD over the years. "


Well, this probably had much to do with saturating the market with a "new" re-release of these films every couple of years. They got me with the original release of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Bride of Frankenstein...then again with the legacy sets. I passed on the 75th anniversary editions.

While I am happy they are going to release these, I would wager they will probably follow the same release format of as they did with DVDs, and we will see expanded releases later on.

That's exactly what my bf said. Very true.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by dumb_dutchman

"the studio's concern was that - believe it or not - sales of those titles haven't been very good on DVD over the years. "


Well, this probably had much to do with saturating the market with a "new" re-release of these films every couple of years. They got me with the original release of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Bride of Frankenstein...then again with the legacy sets. I passed on the 75th anniversary editions.

Not to mention releasing the originals in separate quality collector editions back at the birth of DVD when nobody owned a player, letting them go out of print, and re-packaging them in quick, lazy barebones Universal catalog Cram-o-box editions every time they wanted to promote "Van Helsing" or "The Wolf Man".

You could either get the lazy version, which most collectors didn't, or try and find the originals on eBay, which wasn't making any profit for the company either.

[MykeHavoc]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Not to mention releasing the originals in separate quality collector editions back at the birth of DVD when nobody owned a player, letting them go out of print, and re-packaging them in quick, lazy barebones Universal catalog Cram-o-box editions every time they wanted to promote "Van Helsing" or "The Wolf Man".

You could either get the lazy version, which most collectors didn't, or try and find the originals on eBay, which wasn't making any profit for the company either.

The Legacy sets were the way to go for me. You get all the sequels and features in one package. I do hope they port over the additional features from the Anniversary sets onto the new BDs.

[TJS_Blu]

For what its worth, here's the rumor that was posted in the Criterion forums at the beginning of the month (a br.com member complained & original post was moved to the 'wishlist' subforum).

Blu & dvd classic monsters set (10/23): Not sure, but think this will have Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy '32, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Creature From The Black Lagoon and possibly The Hunchback of Notre Dame '23 and The Phantom of the Opera '25 & '43

That would be an excellent set.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by MykeHavoc

The Legacy sets were the way to go for me. You get all the sequels and features in one package. I do hope they port over the additional features from the Anniversary sets onto the new BDs.

Well, that was my point (about Universal cramming everything from vintage catalog onto cheap multi-title boxes, after Abbott & Costello helped clean up the vault):
Does the Legacy repackaging of the '31 Dracula have the documentary, historian commentary, Spanish-reshoot version AND the Philip Glass re-score like the original Collectors' disk did?

(If the Blu does, even on SD for the extras, I'll stand down from my paranoia of Universal vintage catalog, but until then, I've got a severely underwhelming Marx Bros. box on my shelf...)

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Does the Legacy repackaging of the '31 Dracula have the documentary, historian commentary, Spanish-reshoot version AND the Philip Glass re-score like the original Collectors' disk did?

Yes, it does.

[jrsl76]

If this happens, I'm so in.

[MykeHavoc]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Well, that was my point (about Universal cramming everything from vintage catalog onto cheap multi-title boxes, after Abbott & Costello helped clean up the vault):
Does the Legacy repackaging of the '31 Dracula have the documentary, historian commentary, Spanish-reshoot version AND the Philip Glass re-score like the original Collectors' disk did?

(If the Blu does, even on SD for the extras, I'll stand down from my paranoia of Universal vintage catalog, but until then, I've got a severely underwhelming Marx Bros. box on my shelf...)

Yes, they have all the features from the original individual releases. But the 75th Anniversary sets of the big four (Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman and Mummy) came with a few additional features, like new commentaries in addition to the earlier ones and more documentaries. I was just saying I hope the BD encompasses everything, but Universal is no slouch for special features. They ported over all the stuff from Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, so I'd imagine we'll be in luck come next October.

[painted_klown]

Just found this thread...so stoked for this release!

A Universal monsters box set is a true must have for the format, and any film collector.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by iap738

In the late 90s or early 00s, Universal released a DVD box set of the "8 Original Classic Monsters." It included: Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, Phantom of the Opera, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. I imagine the Blu-ray box will be the same titles, and I'm certainly okay with that!

They ALWAYS stick in Creature in with the Classic canon, ever since they got weekend-BO happy and were hoping to put him and Invisible Man into "Van Helsing 2".
There are certain unresolved-demon reasons why Universal keeps marketing the Classic monsters, ie., they always think that if they have one more hit, they can finally get that "CGI-resurrected Frankenstein vs. Wolfman, a la Forrest Gump" movie going again, like they've wanted to since the mid-90's.
Yes, fifteen years, and they still haven't given up yet.

But for now, they've also got to fight Warner's Disease, ie. "People don't remember Frankenstein! ", as Warner fears with Bugs Bunny.
As Bill Hunt put it:

This is actually something I talked about with USHE president Craig Kornblau back at Blu-Con 2010. I mentioned to him that a lot of our readers would love to see those films in high-definition, but the studio's concern was that - believe it or not - sales of those titles haven't been very good on DVD over the years. So I suggested doing them all as a big Blu-ray box set and making it sort of a special event release to generate sales and interest. Then they could always release singles later if the numbers justified it.

so let's all do our part to fight disease and create healthier studios.

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by EricJ

They ALWAYS stick in Creature in with the Classic canon, ever since they got weekend-BO happy and were hoping to put him and Invisible Man into "Van Helsing 2".
There are certain unresolved-demon reasons why Universal keeps marketing the Classic monsters, ie., they always think that if they have one more hit, they can finally get that "CGI-resurrected Frankenstein vs. Wolfman, a la Forrest Gump" movie going again, like they've wanted to since the mid-90's.
Yes, fifteen years, and they still haven't given up yet.

But for now, they've also got to fight Warner's Disease, ie. "People don't remember Frankenstein! ", as Warner fears with Bugs Bunny.
As Bill Hunt put it:
so let's all do our part to fight disease and create healthier studios.

Interesting quote from Bill Hunt in your post.

The sad, part is that these titles will (more than likely) not be huge sellers on BD either.

The reason being is that catalog titles do not really sell very well in the current environment. There are many reasons as to why (I am sure everyone has read the arguments) but I would really like to see this set sell well.

I really want to see more catalog titles come to BD. A big box set is nice to see though, and I agree with the point that the DVD market was over saturated with the same titles being lazily re-released over and over again. This leads to people thinking these titles should be little to no cost, and they have no value, except to "collectors".

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by painted_klown

II really want to see more catalog titles come to BD. A big box set is nice to see though, and I agree with the point that the DVD market was over saturated with the same titles being lazily re-released over and over again. This leads to people thinking these titles should be little to no cost, and they have no value, except to "collectors".

Universal has already been dumping "Bride" and "Son of" onto VOD and Instant Netflix without fanfare, which is traditionally the first step toward studio-dismissive Warner Archive-ism....
Interestingly, their studio VOD dumps have also included "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "....Meet the Mummy" in the Monster canon just on ACMF's reputation, even though those two and Meet Invisble Man were the only three "monster" comedies the duo did. Wouldn't mind seeing those get jammed into the Complete Boxset for completism.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by painted_klown

Interesting quote from Bill Hunt in your post.

The sad, part is that these titles will (more than likely) not be huge sellers on BD either.

The reason being is that catalog titles do not really sell very well in the current environment. There are many reasons as to why (I am sure everyone has read the arguments) but I would really like to see this set sell well.

They have an even higher uphill battle than many catalogs because they're "so old" and in black & white.

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Universal has already been dumping "Bride" and "Son of" onto VOD and Instant Netflix without fanfare, which is traditionally the first step toward studio-dismissive Warner Archive-ism....
Interestingly, their studio VOD dumps have also included "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "....Meet the Mummy" in the Monster canon just on ACMF's reputation, even though those two and Meet Invisble Man were the only three "monster" comedies the duo did. Wouldn't mind seeing those get jammed into the Complete Boxset for completism.

Yeah, I noticed that Abbot and Costello titles on Netflix as well (put them in the cue!). I never know weather to take a Netflix arrival as a good sign, or a dark harbinger of things to come.

I am hoping it is a sign of BD goodness on the way.

[bboisvert]

For something with sales that "haven't been very good on DVD", they sure weren't shy about re-releases (3 times for some of them), creating additional supplements, remastering (the transfers aren't the same across all versions), and merchandising the heck of the properties (an Amazon search under Toys for "universal monsters" brings up over 300 results).

Somehow, I have my doubts that something like Universal Monsters is being treated with hestiation because of poor sales by the studio, but things like Johnny English and The Family Man are released without a second thought...

[The Dark Uniter]

Amazing news! Between Jaws, American Pie and now the Universal Horror Collection, it looks like 2012 is shaping up to as great of a year like 2011.

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

They have an even higher uphill battle than many catalogs because they're "so old" and in black & white.

HAHHAHA!!!

The reason why that statement is so funny, is because it's sadly how a lot of consumers look at films.


It's not just the "younger" crowd either, I know plenty of people well over 30-40 years old who just aren't into watching older, foreign, black and white, silent, etc. films.


I don't understand how any movie loving person can impose such massive limits on the types of films they will watch. And if you try sitting them down and "making" them watch something that falls into one of the above categories, they will flat out refuse to enjoy it for no reason.

I think there are some fine examples that would be great "starter" films for people who are opposed to stepping outside their personal film boundaries.

For subtitled films I would pick Inglorious Basterds. Second choice, IP Man or The Killer (woo).

That way they still have high action included.

For black and white films there are many, many titles that would work wonderfully well. To keep them modern, I would roll with Night of the living dead. Second choice, Clerks or Ed Wood. I cannot wait for Ed Wood to come to BD.

Silent film can get a bit trickier, as this will be the one most people are going to be ultra resistant to. I am going to say I would pick Metropolis (the recent restoration released by Kino). Second choice, Nosferatu or Haxan. I like horror.

Older classics is another relatively easy category to get people to watch. Start with Wizard of Oz, and move them on to Casablanca and Citizen Kane.

Well, as you can see, I have spent way too much time thinking about this. Really, I have thought about this a LOT. Ways to get my friends to open their minds to all of the amazing and wonderful cinema out there just waiting to be discovered and shown some love.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

The recent Island of Lost Souls release from both Criterion and Masters of Cinema, and MoC's Touch of Evil and hinted future Universal releases makes me hopeful that if Universal doesn't do their back catalogue justice themselves, they are at least willing to let someone else do it for them.

That seems to be the case: When Island showed up on a monster-fest on ThisTV channel last October, it seemed to be the reconstructed print that Criterion worked on. (Not sure if it was as clean as the Criterion, but looked a lot better than it usually has--The original was in shreds before Criterion, and it certainly hasn't shown up on TV recently before that.)
Every disk restoration of 30's nitrate is also a studio restoration for modern digital and celluloid prints, and putting IoLS back together again was way too much salvage work even for Universal--They apparently decided to leave their vault work to the experts for that one isolated case, and Criterion got the disk release that Uni wasn't ready to bother with.

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

So let Criterion or Twilight or Kino or Masters of Cinema license them and do the heavy lifting then.

I would LOVE to see Criterion or Kino get more classic films, and legacy pics from all studios. In the hands of either of those two companies, those releases would be given the care and attention they deserve. And would be preserved for generations to come.

It is important that these films get proper restorations and are archived in the best way possible.