The Extras
The Extras
From Orson Wells & Humphrey Bogart to a Bathing Beauty, a Mamma, and Jonny Quest: Warner Archive September Blu-ray Reviews
George Feltenstein joins the podcast to review the five Blu-ray releases in September. We start with Orson Welles' "Journey into Fear," a film that, despite its tumultuous production, bears the unmistakable mark of his Mercury Theatre influence. We continue with a spotlight on the Technicolor splendor of Esther Williams in "Bathing Beauty." The meticulous restoration reveals the film's vibrant musical scenes that catapulted Williams to stardom. Next, we discuss the noir "Conflict" starring Humphrey Bogart in a darker, anti-hero role. And then we delve into the heartfelt story of "I Remember Mama," highlighting George Stevens' post-war directorial vision and his son’s dedication to preserving his legacy. We end with a Hanna-Barbera double feature with "JONNY’S GOLDEN QUEST (1992)/JONNY QUEST VS. THE CYBER INSECTS (1995)".
Purchase links:
CONFLICT
BATHING BEAUTY
I REMEMBER MAMA
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
JONNY’S GOLDEN QUEST (1992)/JONNY QUEST VS. THE CYBER INSECTS (1995)
The Extras Facebook page
The Extras Twitter
Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group
Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv
Hello and welcome to the Extras. I'm Tim Lard, your host, and joining me is George Feltenstein to review the September Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George.
Speaker 2:Hello Tim, it's great to be back with you on the Extras.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been a busy, busy few months. We talked about our reviews of August and September just recently and I've had a chance to go through the rest of the September releases and it's a terrific lineup of films today we're going to talk about and I thought we would go chronological. Today there's six films and we'll start with the oldest one and that is Orson Welles' Journey into Fear from 1943. This psychological thriller came out during the war, if I have that right. Yeah, and you could feel that backdrop influencing the whole narrative in the thoughtful setup and just a brooding air of uncertainty between the characters, and it's a lot of fun. I really did enjoy this one. What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 2:Well, this was a Mercury production that was Orson Welles' production company, but this was not directed by Welles and this had a very tortured production history. And the production history continued beyond the initial photography as Orson Welles went to South America and left RKO kind of dangling and basically the studio recut the film for previews and it had like a pre-release in a few theaters in July of 1942 with an ending that drove everybody in the audience crazy. They hated it. And so Wells came back from South America and he proposed making certain changes. Rko proposed spending less money and making less changes and they met in the middle. So this was kind of a. They shot one additional scene and they added narration, joseph Cotton. And they added narration, joseph Cotton.
Speaker 2:But when they made the first version of the movie before the cutting and changes that Wells wanted, they had made 200 prints and they didn't know what to do with all the money they had spent because the changes they were making, subtle changes they were making on almost every reel of the film. So I went into the production files to figure out what exactly happened, because there is another version. We have no access to it, but there is another version that is floating around Europe and people thought, well, this is Will's original cut and this is what Orson originally. No, what happened was they took and I found the memo that says this they took the 200 prints that they had already made and shipped them off to Europe. So that is why there is an alternate version in Europe and what opened here was more or less Wells blessed, if you will. It was the compromise that the studio and Wells came to in making it releasable. So there was a lot of controversy because there was like well, why didn't they include the? Wells is cut internationally, that's the well. Why didn't they include the? The Welles' cut internationally, that's the other version you know. Well, I found the documentation to prove that what was released internationally was not Welles' at all. I mean partially. It represents his influence. But there was cutting done to the film. The editorial was done by Robert Wise, who also had done Magnificent Ambersons in terms of the editorial without Wells. It was interesting that the later to be director, but the editor Mark Robson. He did the editing on the version of the film that we've just released.
Speaker 2:So this, this film, never came out on DVD in the United States. The master that we had up until now was so wretched that there was no way we could put it on a DVD. It's like sixth generation awful. We didn't have any good material on the film. The negative is long gone. We got a safety fine grain from the Library of Congress that was made in 1971 or 72. And that was our source for this new master which, considering everything, it looks really terrific. And now the film can finally be distributed in the United States with a little bit of decency and so many people, especially people who are Wells' disciples and fans.
Speaker 2:This was a missing part of his filmography. Even though he didn't direct it, it was a Mercury production. It certainly had his involvement direct it. It was a Mercury production. It certainly had his involvement and he did sign off on this version that we released as what was to be the final version. He was not aware that RKO had sent Prince overseas and I didn't find any memos in the file where he was complaining about that or there was any animosity over that.
Speaker 2:But I did find a memo that was painful to read, more as it related to the Magnificent Ambersons than this film, but it was an editor basically saying is it okay to throw out the unused footage and outtakes from Ambersons and Journey into Fear and another film that was somewhat of an independent production that RKO distributed because they weren't all 100% RKO controlled. This person was asking is it all right to junk the material? And I found the memo responding saying yes and you're going. Ah. So that's why it's so important for me, as we're putting these things out, to do as much research as I can on these particular films that had different versions and so forth and so on.
Speaker 2:So I'm very pleased with how this turned out and we did add three of the Orson Welles Mercury Theater radio broadcasts from 1938. The first three of them, actually. That just add a little bit more color, if you will, even though it's audio, to the genius of Wells as a creative individual who could do basically everything, and brilliantly. So the performances in this movie are, I think, exceptional. The cinematography is beautiful. I think Dolores Del Rio and Joseph Cotton particularly really stand out in the film. What did you think of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to mention Dolores Del Rio. I thought she in every scene she's in it really brings a lot of life to that. And then I mean, joseph Cotton is the main character here and you don't see Orson Well, wells, as much as I was expecting to, you know.
Speaker 2:And that's why he's last build. I mean, he he didn't want to overshadow, you know, the film and he did not direct it, you know. But this joseph cotton wrote the screenplay and he was part of the Mercury Theater and the Mercury that we're now able to put in its proper place, and it's been a very long time coming. It really was with the help of the Library of Congress. We were able to find a good enough element that could yield us a really nice looking master. Yeah, and we're very grateful for their partnership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that the film looked good. I didn't notice anything about it, you know, not looking good. It goes quickly. It's only 68 minutes, so it flies by really as you're watching it. And then the what was I going to say? I think I had seen that there was something about the scene before the title sequence. It's unique in this film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the whole structure of it is far more dare I use the word contemporary, but there's a sensibility in the filmmaking that is much less in the traditional studio style of Hollywood in the during the war, you know it's. It's a very different film than anybody else would have made and I think that's where you feel the Wells touch. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's really good the use of the music, the leitmotif there that runs through it. I guess that's the man chasing them. It's really enjoyable and I really really did enjoy watching this film and I think it's great that you were able to bring it out for the fans of um, of orson welles and who want to complete their journey, especially since there was no dvd.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is a pretty big deal there was a dvd in europe that looked kind of ghastly, uh, but now finally there's a legitimate release of high quality, and we're very grateful for that well, the next film we're going to dive into is the only technicolor restoration for this, uh, this, and once again it looks absolutely stunning.
Speaker 1:It's like a record on repeat here every time we say that about these Technicolors. But Bathing Beauty is the film from 1944 starring Esther Williams and Red Skelton, and you've had I don't know how many now of these Esther esther williams films in technicolor and they've all looked breathtaking um, I think this is the fourth million dollar mermaid.
Speaker 1:Dangerous when wet neptune's daughter and bathing beauty yeah and this one is esther's first of these, where she's kind of in the starring role, yeah, and and red, and Red is terrific, but she, I mean really she is just she's the star. It's so fun to see her in this first film of hers.
Speaker 2:And it set the stage for what was to come for more than a decade thereafter. This clearly shows whooshed her into superstardom. What I like about this film is that it has so many. It's a very loose plot, but it gives everybody a chance to not only see what a fine screen performer Esther was she had a really good sense of comedy and she was of course, very, very beautiful. And the swimming was also quite unique. Making swimming spectaculars that was kind of a new thing. But all the music in it. You've got the Latin rhythms of Xavier Cugat and his orchestra, you have Ethel Smith at the organ and then, of course, harryat and his orchestra. You have Ethel Smith at the organ and then, of course, harry James and his orchestra. So you've got big band 40s music. You've got Latin American music. I mean the picture starts out with Cugat doing his with his little dog and his famous illustrations. I mean, it's a time piece, so there's a lot of entertainment packed into its 101 minutes.
Speaker 1:The set pieces where she's doing the swimming. I mean, this one is as good as any of them in terms of the brilliance of the sets and the scope it felt like and it just the colors are lush, lush as you're watching this. It's just fantastic, it's eye candy in the best possible way, and I'm really you know to hear that the studio was able to see hey, we need to pivot. It was meant to be Red's film, really in terms of top billing, but they pivoted, didn't they? And they saw that Esther really was the star or had the potential to be a huge star, and it began that run. As you say, that's some smart studio executives right there to see her talent and her appeal.
Speaker 2:Well, that was what distinguished MGM is, you know, knowing what their particular talents under contract, knowing their value. They didn't always get it right. There were a couple of people that didn't gel well at MGM, but they were few and far between. They really knew how to take care of their talent and to maximize their opportunities on screen. And again you brought up the Technicolor, our ability to go back to the Technicolor nitrate negatives and align them down to the pixel. These colors are just really unprecedented.
Speaker 2:And I've said it before, I sound like a broken record, but you couldn't make a release print when the movie came out that would look as good as the movie does now. It just was not technologically possible. So we're grateful that this is a quantum leap from what people saw, you know, in previous iterations. And we have more Technicolor coming and these cost three times as much to do because you're dealing with three negatives. But it's worth every penny when you see it on the screen. And we did put a Tom and Jerry cartoon on the disc and MGM short on the disc of the era. And then we have Esther's interview with Bob Osborne from TCM, which is probably at least 20 years old by now or somewhere thereabouts, but thank goodness he did those interviews and they preserve in time. You know that was a very candid conversation. Osborne and Esther were very good friends and it's just a wonderful little extra to talk about.
Speaker 1:On the X it really is. I mean I watched the whole thing and just I mean I loved it. I mean just to see that archival footage of her and to hear her and, like you just said, they really they had a nice banter going and he was able to draw out of her just the truth like the real unglossed. Hey, I'm looking back of her memories on this and it was really fascinating. And so a great batch of extras on this release and I'm sure that fans of Vesta Williams are going to, you know, want to have this one because it looks so much better than previously Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:Well, next we're going to make another kind of like a 180 degree turn from the brilliance of bathing beauty to the darkness of conflict from 1945. The film noir stars Humphrey Bogart, alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet, and this is a thoroughly engaging thriller. I really enjoyed it. Here you have Bogart playing the bad guy. He's a man who murders his wife because he's in love with her sister. In terms of the plot it's pretty dark, but it's crafted very well and has terrific performances from those three stars, and I thought Sidney Greenstreet was really exceptional. I really enjoyed him and it's a fine noir.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was directed by Curtis Bernhardt, who is always delivering the goods for Warner Brothers. It's a different kind of role for Bogart because you usually always think of him as the hero, at least you know, from the Maltese Falcon forward. But he's kind of an antihero in this movie and you still root for him because he's Bogart. But everybody in the film is terrific. It reflects the house style at Warner Brothers perfectly. The design, the costumes, the music, everything. The cast is tremendous and this is a film that a lot of people were asking for.
Speaker 2:The DVD we released was very poor. I'll be frank about that. At the time we didn't have the budget or the ability to remaster from the original negative. That was just a dream. The film elements we had here on the lot was just a dream. The film elements we had here on the lot were fourth generation and they had all sorts of shading errors and all sorts of problems that we couldn't do very much about when the DVD came out. So to finally do right by this movie was rewarding on a number of levels. It is also packed with lots of fun little extras to make it a superb addition to anyone's Blu-ray collection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a little off-putting to see Bogart playing such a dark character, but he's Bogart, I mean. He's always fun to watch and you can't take your eyes off of him. And he has. He uh has a great performance in here. So I mean, I think if you're a Bogart fan, this is one you definitely want to have in your collection and to hear how much better it looks. That's always, of course, the big, big reason why you want to get these new Blu-rays is because of how much better they're all looking and sounding um, after all of these years and in terms of terms of the upgrade for that. So highly entertaining, a lot of fun and highly recommended as well. So the next film we're going to talk about is what would you say, george? It's just light, it's life-affirming, it's just wonderful in so many ways, and that's. I Remember Mama from 1948, starring the magnetic Irene Dunn.
Speaker 2:I just absolutely love this film and it really was a daughter's remembrance of her mother and John Van Druten wrote the play, which was a big success. It was based on a short story by Catherine Forbes called Mama's Bank Account. The play was a hit on Broadway. Rko bought the rights, rko bought the rights, and the interesting thing about putting the whole thing together was it was George Stevens. I believe it was the first film he directed after World War II and George Stevens basically put his whole directorial career on hold to be filming during the war, putting things on camera that certain other directors were doing as well. But he was very involved in capturing the war for posterity and that experience was life-changing for he and the other directors, like Frank Capra and even Hitchcock, that were overseas John Ford there were so many that went over there and they came back very changed. This was kind of a crossover film because the films George Stevens did after I Remember Mama were much darker Films, like Giant and Diary of Anne Frank and A Place in the Sun and Shane. They have more heavy gravitas. This is so charming and it really is a standout performance by Irene Dunn as the mother. She's such a well-rounded actress. She was so good at comedy. She did screwball comedies like the Awful Truth. She was so likable, you know. Now she's starting to get older and she transitioned into playing, you know, the mother of a, you know, soon to be grown woman. It was just, you know, putting the whole thing together. It's beautifully cast. Barbara Bel Geddes is terrific as the daughter, but as a set piece it's done with such meticulous care. There was a television series called Mama that was on for many seasons in the earliest days of television, and again it was derived from the same, similar source material. So this is something that has entertained people for generations. Uh, the film is now 76 years old, yeah, uh, it's hard to imagine, but again, this is another. We did have a dv of this but it did not look very good, and this is another RKO film we have rescued working from nitrate materials. The original camera negative was long gone but we had a second generation nitrate fine grain and it turned out so beautiful. And I'm grateful that I can say that.
Speaker 2:George Stevens Jr is a friend of mine and it was probably about a year ago, maybe nine months ago. I saw him. He was out here for an event. He lives in Washington DC and we talk on the phone frequently. But he came to me and he said, george, I really want to talk to you about I Remember Mama, is there anything I saw on TCM and it looks so awful and I don't like my father's work looking like that and what can be done. And I said, george, I'm happy to tell you we're in the process of working on a new master right now. So to be able to tell him that and he's been a dear friend for many, many years and he's grateful for what Warner Brothers does for his father's work he's a great filmmaker in his own right.
Speaker 2:He founded the American Film Institute in 1967. So his accomplishments on his own are amazing. But he's also made it his mission to preserve his father's legacy and made a wonderful film about his father called George Stevens A Filmmaker's Journey. So it's on multiple levels. He was very integral in drawing attention to film preservation, getting the American Film Institute started and all the AFI honors that they would do every year, where they would salute a particular person and give them the Life Achievement Award. That was all George Stevens Jr. Sadly his father didn't live long enough to even qualify for that, because the first person to get that Life Achievement Award was John Ford and George Stevens Sr had already passed away, but to be able to tell him hey, we're going to be able to make I Remember Mama look and sound wonderful again. And here we are.
Speaker 2:So I'm hoping that people will buy this film A lot of people if you haven't seen it. It really fits into its own place. It's not mawkish sentimentality, it is quite astute in its writing and it's just a work of such. I would say. You have all these talented artists coming together to create just a heartwarming piece of Americana, because part of Americana is the fact that this is a country that was built on people coming from all over the world to begin new lives in America, and it's a tribute to that spirit and, of course, to their origin backgrounds as well. And again, irene Dunn. She didn't make very many movies after this. She retired from the screen at a relatively young age, but this was one of her favorite performances and I'm so grateful that we've been able to add it to the Warner Archive collection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't said much while you've been talking about it, because this film felt very personal to me. George, my mother's maiden name was Hansen and she was Scandinavian, and so I actually I'm watching this. I'm like this is very much family history in certain ways.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is all the more touching yeah.
Speaker 1:And that this whole kind of Nordic pragmatism and frugality and emphasis on family it's very you know it's brought forth so well in this film. Having grown up with much of that, you know the truthfulness comes through. But no matter what your background, just the love of the family and the care and everything just comes through. As you're watching this film you feel it emotionally. It's wonderfully crafted, this film. It's going to endure and has endured for that reason and it leaves me feeling kind of like I do when I watch. It's a Wonderful Life, it's very life-affirming.
Speaker 2:Very positive and it's interesting that you say that, because Stevens and Frank Capra and William Wyler formed a company called Liberty Films and Liberty Films didn't last very long. It wasn't really practical for the filmmakers. But the first Liberty Films release was it's a Wonderful Life. It was under that umbrella. I don't believe this went out as a Liberty release at RKO and that's where Liberty was primarily housed. But there is a tie in there. It's a Wonderful Life was Capra's first film after the war and this, two years later, was Stephen's first film after the war. And it did. Certainly they do tie together in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just a terrific film and one that I'm going to revisit frequently, especially now that I have this beautiful Blu-ray. So well, we're going to finish up here, george, with this animated double feature from Hanna-Barbera of Johnny Quest, feature from hannah barbara of johnny quest, and that is from the 90s, 1992 for golden quest and cyber insects from 1995, and I'm assuming that fans of johnny quest are going to enjoy these or have enjoyed these, because I thought they were both a lot of fun. I really enjoyed golden quest, I think, uh, especially because of the emotional story arc you know that's a part of that one with Johnny and race and the mother daughter elements of that film. But they're both terrific looking and very enjoyable.
Speaker 2:Well, we had released these on DVD probably about 12 years ago, maybe somewhere around there. This was the, I would say, the beginning of the second revisitation of Johnny Quest. Johnny Quest debuted on network television in 1964 and was only one season on network TV before. That. One season got rerun for 20 years, which we've talked about before. It was a Hanna-Barbera signature sales tool, if you will.
Speaker 2:But Johnny Quest was popular for many generations and they created new episodes of Johnny Quest more than 20 years after the network series had debuted in the mid-80s. And then in the early 90s they created Johnny's Golden Quest as a TV movie event and it was so successful that after that they did Johnny Quest versus the Cyber Insects. And then, a few years after that, came the real adventures of Johnny Quest, which was kind of a very early CG animation initiative. But these two features are hand-drawn animation. They're really quite beautiful and they capture, they're very faithful to the characters of Johnny Quest and his dad and his friend Haji.
Speaker 2:And if you're a fan of Johnny Quest, if you grew up with Johnny Quest as many generations did, these two films are quite enjoyable and they were of a short enough length that we could put them on a BD-50 dual-layer Blu-ray disc without compromising the bit rate so that the quality is excellent.
Speaker 2:So there's an inherent value proposition to being able to buy the two movies for the price of one, and anytime we can make something available in better quality that makes me feel better. So I'm very pleased. We've heard from a lot of the Hanna-Barbera fans and the in general the Warner Archive fans that they love seeing this kind of classic television animation arriving on their shelves for Blu-ray in high definition, after watching muddy standard definition copies for all these years. And these two films were finished to negatives. They were finished to film, they were not finished to videotape. So we were able to do a proper going back to the original negative remaster that they both look terrific and I'm just delighted that they're available. We've gotten so many nice comments, social media and emails and so forth from fans that are really happy about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that, for those who think, hey, I enjoyed Johnny Quest, but I haven't visited that character or these films for a while, when I watched these it was great, fun. It just took me back to that age. I'm not that age now by any means, but it took me back to. Oh yes, I remember that age and it just they're so good in terms of getting that age of a boy and that development and that a little bit of hero worship of the elders, but coming into your own right, trying to find your own, who you are as a kid. It captures all that into these stories and that's tremendous fun If you're an older man, going back and revisiting and enjoying these, or if you're a younger person who is that age or slightly older to watch these now they hold up very well, just as a story as well. So it's great to see them looking like this so that you can enjoy them and the storytelling.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know this is the whole point of what we're trying to do and it's difficult, but we're trying to appeal with the releases to various different fan groups and Johnny Quest fans came out in droves when we put out the original series on Blu-ray and that was an extraordinarily expensive proposition when we did it and it was also very successful and profitable. And so anytime we do anything with Johnny Quest, it is a wonderful thing for the fans and it's also wonderful for our positive black ink of profitability, which I always talk about. But we can't have the Warner Archive collection if it doesn't retain its profitability and make money for the company, and that's why we're here. I'm very grateful that the Quest fans like this and who knows what else Johnny Quest may be around the corner this and who knows what else, johnny Quest may be around the corner.
Speaker 1:Well, as always, george, it's always fun talking about these and the time just flies by talking about such great films and I always think sometimes, man, we should devote a little more time to this film or that film. But you know what? You are bringing such a variety and wealth of films out each month that we would be talking for quite a while if we gave every film 20, 30 minutes. So this is just a kind of a good overview, a broad overview, that I think we bring to people so they can hear our take on these films and why they may enjoy them and add them in terms of adding them to their collections. So, as always, thanks.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, tim, and I look forward to the next time we can get together.
Speaker 1:For those interested. There are purchase links in the podcast show notes and on our website for the titles that we reviewed today, and if you are enjoying the podcast, please think about following the show or leaving us a review wherever you listen. If you're on social media, check out our social media links. Those are also in the podcast show notes, and you're invited to join our Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog films. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Millard, stay slightly obsessed.