The Extras
The Extras
Warner Archive July Release Announcement
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Hear directly from George Feltenstein as he announces the Warner Archive's July Blu-ray releases, ranging from a Scooby-Doo double feature to an often requested Spencer Tracy Technicolor film. George provides background on each film, the new HD master, and all of the extras that are included. And he always drops some knowledge about what is being worked on for the future. There is no better way to learn about what is on the Warner Archive schedule than to hear directly from George.
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Hello and welcome to the Extras , where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows , movies and animation and their release on digital DVD , blu-ray and 4K for your favorite streaming site . I'm Tim Large , your host , and joining me is George Feltenstein to announce the July Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive .
Speaker 2Hi George , Hi Tim , Great to be with you again and glad to be able to talk about the latest offerings we have on the menu from Warner Archive .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'm excited to hear June . I mean , those were some great releases that we still have to look forward to . But from our last announce and now we have , boy , the heart of summer here with July , with the announcements we're going to be talking about today . So I'm looking forward to hearing about these releases . How many are there and where would you like to start ?
Speaker 2Well , depending if you count a double feature , there are eight . I mean there's seven releases there's the double feature we have of the two Scooby-Doo telefilms and then six theatrical films . So it's a loaded month and we tried to make it a month where we have something for everyone , because we have a lot of dedicated consumers who love when we bring a modern classic to Blu-ray . That's been long overdue for the format , something like a stand and deliver . And then we have a lot of consumers who want films from the 30s and 40s and we're trying to please everyone Because we've also had new opportunities open to us in recent years . We couldn't release things from Looney Tunes , now we can , so we've been doing that . Similarly , the Scooby-Doo franchise was off-limits to us for Blu-ray and now it isn't . What we have released has sold exceptionally well and we are responding to fan requests and healthy sales figures which are really attractive to our shareholders who want to see us be a very profitable company . So we will be releasing a double feature of two of the most requested Scooby-Doo telefilms Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost from 1999 and Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders from 2000 . These are both at a maxed out bit rate on a BD-50 .
Speaker 2There's certain people out there who are under the misunderstanding that if you put two programs on a disc it's going to affect the compression .
Speaker 2That would be true if these were two-hour films , but when you're looking at basically I think it's a total of 140 minutes of content we will be easily over the 35 to 40 MBS bitrate on the whole disc . Everything will be not compressed and looking the best that it can be , and these are really fan favorites . These are fun adventures that have a little bit of a horror twist and another with a little bit of a sci-fi twist , and they've been very popular for a very long time , and one of them is 25 years old . The other is 24 years old . That's scary , but it's also indicative of the popularity of this franchise . So you know , kids that grew up watching these films are now adults with kids of their own in most cases , and they can share them with their kids . And the popularity of Scooby-Doo is obvious and we're delighted to be able to respond to fan requests by bringing these two out Looking great . They both also have 5.1 surround tracks , so it's going to be a wonderful disc and I think people will enjoy both films tremendously .
Speaker 1And is there any extras with this release ? George ?
Speaker 2We're going to have the same extras that were on the DVDs that are motion related . I think there may have been some CD-ROM games , given the infancy of the DVD format that were on maybe one or two of those . We can't translate that on Blu-ray and , frankly , they would also learn how to draw Scooby-Doo . We don't carry those things over . They're really a product of a different time . But there are very short making of pieces I think they're like three minutes a piece and promotional trailers , if you will . So they'll be there too . Yeah , we try to carry over as much as we can when it makes sense .
Speaker 1So I think to your point earlier too . It's like you have this whole library of Scooby-Doo that people have just been like , hey , how come this isn't coming out . So it's great now that Warner Archive could kind of take on that mantle and release these .
Speaker 2It was very frustrating that we couldn't , because we saw the need and we saw the opportunity . But there is now enough Scooby to go around for everybody . But there is now enough Scooby to go around for everybody . And you know , our mission is to keep making those shiny silver discs that people can put them on their shelf and enjoy them .
Speaker 1And the ones you've released . You know that we talked about , for May were fantastic and June , and I think that the big thing is to get these out there looking so good . Well , yeah , that's what people want , and I'm hoping we're able to do that . Yeah , and then where did you want to go next , george ?
Speaker 2Well , I thought it would be fun to go in a different direction and talk about the films that are most recent and then go back in time , rather than what we usually do is start with the earliest and go to the most recent . And the most recent is like a brand new movie for us . It's only 29 years old . This film is a very underrated , charming film that comes from a production company a couple of hundred feet from my office , on the lot called Malpaso . Yes , you may be familiar with a man named Clint Eastwood that runs the joint Yep . This is one of the Malpaso productions that Clint Eastwood only produced .
Speaker 2He did not direct or perform in this film , but it's a terrific film with a terrific cast . It's called the Stars Fell on Henrietta and it was released by Warner Brothers in 1995 . And it's got a great cast Robert Duvall , who is one of my personal favorite actors of our contemporary age , yes , aidan Quinn , francis Fisher and Brian Dennehy , who I always thought was magnificent in everything that he did . And this is a Depression-era story . It's quite charming , it's very , very well made and Clint Eastwood didn't invest any of his time in something that he didn't believe in as a story worth telling . The film was directed by James Keech . The performances are terrific and it's a wonderful period piece that had never made it to Blu-ray and we changed that , and we did so with a brand new master .
Speaker 1Yes , this is a terrific cast from the 90s . I mean , Aidan Quinn was in it and Francis Fisher , Brian they were just in a ton of stuff , Of course , Robert Duvall , as you mentioned , so this is a fun one to have coming out in HD .
Speaker 2And it really is Robert Duvall .
Speaker 2he usually steals most films he's in , but this was really a vehicle for him and , just to put things in perspective , this is 12 years after he won his Oscar , for 10 anniversaries . You know , he's had an incredible career and if you're a Robert Duvall fan , this is a must have and we're really , really proud to be releasing it . So , going back chronologically only a year , a film that is not that well known . It's an Irish film that is actually a remake of a 1960s French film . It's called War of the Buttons and this came from Oscar-winning producer David Putnam he who was responsible for bringing Chariots of Fire to the screen and it's most definitely an art film , but it's a comedy about kids in an Irish village and it is very charming and it's the kind of thing that's worth rediscovery and I'm delighted that we're able to bring it out .
Speaker 2This is a new master and it looks terrific . It's 94 minutes long . It is just a great diversion , a really , really entertaining movie In the DVD days . We did release this on DVD years ago . We were trying to shine a light on films that were rare and hard to find , that didn't get a big theatrical release but were worth watching . This is certainly one of those and now it's coming to Blu-ray looking absolutely spectacular .
Speaker 1And George , you've had a few of these that feels like you've done over the course of this year , these smaller kind of art house films , and and then when I've watched them , I mean they've been just fantastic because the quality of the film just endures so well , even though it might not be as well known . And then seeing it , you know , in the hd , and I'm and I'm thinking of was it a mid winters , midwinter's ?
Speaker 2tales saving grace , saving grace , those are nightfalls . They're like little gems that people . Midwinter's Tales Saving Grace , night Falls .
Speaker 1They're like little gems that people have forgotten about and because they feel more recent , obviously they've kind of gone out of the thinking because they're not old enough and they're not new enough and they're kind of in that little range there . So it's great to see these films come out . So it's great .
Speaker 2Well , the next film I'm going to talk about is actually from the 80s . This is from 1985 . And this is a tour de force performance from a wonderful Oscar-winning actress , sissy Spacek , and the film is called Marie . And the film is called Marie . It's also called Marie A True Story because in fact it was a true story about a woman named Marie who was exposing is , if I'm correct , australian , roger Donaldson .
Speaker 2He was quite hot in the 80s , made a lot of films that were very important and some commercial successes like Cocktail , but he also directed no Way Out and 13 Days . He directed this story where , basically , sissy Spacek gives an outstanding performance exposing the political corruption that she sees . There's great performances also from Jeff Daniels and Morgan Freeman , and this came out in the United States and Canada as an MGM release and that's why it's part of our library . But it was part of a larger initiative by producer Dino De Laurentiis , who had probably three or four or five different production companies during his lifetime , because he was always closing down one and opening another , and he made a deal with MGM to distribute in the United States of Canada and own a group of films that also includes Year of the Dragon and Red Sonja . So Maria True Story was one of those films and it was very , very well respected .
Speaker 2And it's notable that in the real story of this woman whose name was Marie Riganti , when she was needing an attorney , when she was getting in trouble for exposing the corruption , she hired a lawyer whose name was Fred Thompson . Fred Thompson went from being a lawyer to being an actor and eventually went to being a Tennessee senator and then , after he left the Senate , he went back to acting . He's since passed away , but a lot of people recognize him , he did a lot of television he did .
Speaker 1He's a fine actor .
Speaker 2And this is a fine film with really great performances from very esteemed creative individuals . The Master is a letterbox film . It's a 2-3-9 aspect ratio . It looks and sounds terrific and we're delighted to be bringing this to Blu-ray . Sissy Spacek , I don't think , gets enough credit for what a great actress she is and of course she won an Oscar for playing Loretta Lennon , coal miner's daughter , in 1980 , beating out Mary Tyler Moore for Ordinary People , which is no easy task . But you know , I think sometimes people only think of her as Carrie or as Loretta Lynn . She really did a lot of great screen work and this is a fine film we're proud to add to the Warner Archive collection . So then , going back another 20 years to 1965 , we find a very different MGM . Mgm in the 60s was creating all sorts of films , and the same year they released Dr Zhivago they released two films with Elvis Presley and we're releasing one of them right now on Blu-ray for the first time . It's a 4K scan off the camera negative , and this is Harem Scare-Em from 1965 .
Speaker 2Elvis is not only a singer and a performer , and he sings , I think , close to 10 songs in this movie , he's also showing off some martial arts skills . The story is , to be blunt , kind of silly . It's about a secret group of bad guys called the Assassins that kidnap him and whisk him to an Arabian realm that's been isolated for the world for 2,000 years . But Elvis sings all the way through and you've got Marianne Mobley as his co-star . She co-starred with him again in Girl Happy .
Speaker 2The movie was directed by Gene Nelson , who became a film director after spending many years as a very successful movie performer . He acted and danced and sang opposite Doris Day in a lot of Warner Brothers movies , like Lullaby , broadway and T for Two , and then he was Will Parker in Oklahoma and settled into many years as a successful director of films in the 60s and then went to Broadway and starred in Stephen Sondheim's Follies . So I think he's somewhat of a forgotten individual and he was very capable for bringing in modestly budget movies to be very profitable and virtually every Elvis movie , regardless of who he played opposite or whatnot , was profitable for the studio . I mean there are 15 Elvis movies that he made for MGM . They all were very , very profitable and Elvis' fans just want more .
Speaker 2We also added two of the Chuck Jones , tom and Jerry cartoons from 1965 in HD on this disc , along with the trailer . So it's going to be fun and we want to keep bringing . We keep getting requests for more Elvis on Blu-ray , and so the romp continues and there will be more . So that's a lot of fun .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean there's just so many Elvis fans and so many Elvis movies . I mean just getting them out on a regular basis . You know you're going to be able to do that hopefully for a while , but it's great to see another one out . The last few ones have been , you know , fun romps too , like you said . You know they're just they're there to showcase the singing and that's kind of it's all about Elvis . So you know , when you put the movie in they're just a fun evening for you to to enjoy . So looking forward to that one .
Speaker 2So am I , and I'm particularly excited to talk about the next film because we've been working on this for at least two years , maybe two and a half years , because this is a 25-year-older movie than Haram's Karam is from 1940 and it's King Vidor directing the great Spencer Tracy in MGM's Technicolor Adventure Epic Northwest Passage from 1940 . We have had so many requests for this and the previous iteration of this looked so bad and this film was meant to look gorgeous because MGM , particularly LB Mayer , was not particularly in love with Technicolor and the costs of it and they preferred to make their movies in black and white , whereas other studios were more quick to embrace the three-color Technicolor process . I think of 20th Century Fox versus MGM . So when MGM did make a film in Technicolor , it was a major event at that time and Northwest Passage required location shooting , required location shooting and it was such an arduous film to make that they went to the trouble at the time of filming the filming which people didn't usually do at that time , and they created a little featurette as an MGM short called Northwest Ho , which we will have on the disc , just as we did on the DVD . But what's important here is this is a 4K scan of the original three Technicolor negatives which have been meticulously recombined using our proprietary technology , which matches everything down to the pixel . So the registration of the colors is even better than it could have been in a wet lab with a print that was made in 1940 . So you get outstanding color and , most importantly , it's a great movie .
Speaker 2This was an adaptation of a book by Kenneth Roberts called Rogers Rangers and it was supposed to be a two-part movie because this is book one , rogers Rangers but there never was a sequel , which I attribute probably to the cost and the fact that the war was going on in subsequent years , not because Northwest Passage wasn't a huge success . It was a big success critically and financially . But this will be an opportunity for people to see this movie as they've never seen it before . The colors just are gorgeous and the photography is exceptional , and MGM went to the great expense of filming this in Technicolor to make a historically accurate tale that is filled with adventure and really is also a showcase for how great an actor Spencer Tracy was . This is set against the French and Indian War and it is very realistic .
Speaker 2Robert Young also co-stars , along with Ruth Hussey , but King Vidor is one of my favorite directors and I don't think there are many films in his filmography that aren't of greatness . And this is certainly another feather in his cap and it is also a representation of when MGM committed to making a major motion picture , they gave it their all . So it's a tribute to MGM and Spencer Tracy and King Vidor and Technicolor , and when we're able to bring these new Blu-rays out of these Technicolor restorations that take so long to do and they're so expensive but they're so worth it , because we're finally being able to let the people see the film the way they never could before , and we're really happy about that .
Speaker 1And I was just noticing too that this is 128 minute movies . It's a , you know , it's the by far the longest movie of of the group we've talked about , but so that the technicolor , the length of the movie , I mean that that adds just to the complexity and the time it takes .
Speaker 2Sure Cause we have to scan . It's like scanning three 120-minute negatives .
Speaker 1Right , this is not a 90-minute movie , so just so much excitement for this one , and I've never seen it looking as good as it's going to look , so I'm really , really looking forward to seeing this new Technicolor restoration .
Speaker 2You will be pleased , I am sure . Good . And then , for the last film in this group , we only go back one year and we have two names above the title that define MGM , certainly in the 1930s , the leading lady being Norma Shearer and the leading man being Mr Clark Gable . This is Clarence Brown's production of Robert E Sherwood's hit Broadway play Idiot's Delight . And when you've got Clarence Brown directing Gable and Sher in a great play , the results are charming , fantastic , and both Sher and Gable are at their real peak .
Speaker 2It's a terrific film . It's a great deal of fun , and Idiot's Delight is one of the hundreds of MGM black and white nitrate negatives that were destroyed in the tragic fire that we talk often about on your podcast . But thankfully , preservation , second generation safety elements made by MGM long before the fire are there for us to work from and can yield staggering results . Sometimes people say we can't believe this wasn't off the negative . That's what we want them to say . And this film also has a great supporting cast Edward Arnold is in it , charles Coburn , who I love in everything , joseph Schultkraut . Robert Sherwood was one of the great playwrights of the 20th century , certainly of the early 20th century , earlier first half , and it's just terrific fun , and I'm delighted that we're able to give Idiot's Delight its Blu-ray debut .
Speaker 1Well , anytime a movie comes out and it says 1939 after it we've talked about how great of a year that is . This is what Gable's second movie of that year , after Gone with the Wind .
Speaker 2I believe that he finished shooting this right before he started working on Gone with the Wind . I think it was shot at the end of 38 . Then he went right into Gone with the Wind . I think it was shot at the end of 38 . Then he went right into Gone with the Wind from this and Norma Shearer went from this into a little movie called the Women . It also happens to be a 1939 masterpiece and that's been on Blu-ray from Warner Brothers brothers for quite some time . But it's a . It's a really great looking blu-ray and , uh , I could spend a long time talking about that film , but it speaks for itself . But this film sure would actually won the pillet surprise for the play uh , the broadway play on which this is based . So it's a a really , really fine work and we added some HD Looney Tunes on here . It's going to be a great disc . I think people are really , really going to enjoy it .
Speaker 1Well , as always , george , these are fun , fun , fun episodes to record with you , because I love hearing about them , as everybody else does at the same time . So thank you so much .
Speaker 2Thank you , tim , and let's look forward to what we have for the next podcast .
Speaker 1For those who would like more information about the films announced today , be sure to check out our Facebook page and our Warner Archive Facebook group . You can find the links to those at all of our social media sites in the podcast show notes . Facebook is also the best place to get the pre-order links for these titles when they become available , and if you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider , we'd appreciate it if you would do that . That helps the show and it also keeps you up to date on any of the updates and episodes as they come out . Until next time , you've been listening to Tim Millard . Stay slightly obsessed .