The Extras
The Extras
Warner Archive April Release Announcement PLUS a May Sneak Peek
George Feltenstein joins the podcast to announce six April Blu-ray releases, PLUS he gives us a sneak peek about a potential May release. George includes background on each film or TV series, the new HD master, and more clarification on the extras that will be 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.
Purchase links:
CHEYENNE-The Complete Series (1957-1962) Blu-ray
REVIEW - THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE with Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast.
The Extras Facebook page
The Extras Twitter
Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group
As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links. There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast. Thanks in advance.
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. tim@theextras.tv
Hi, I'm Tim Millard, your host and joining me today is George Feldstein from the Warner Archive. Hi, George.
George Feltenstein:Hi, Tim, great to be with you, as always.
TIM MILLARD:As always and this is our monthly announcement podcast, which is one of the favorites for everybody, because everybody loves to hear what the new titles are that you've been working on and are now ready to be released, because I know you're working on so many at any given time. But before we get into the April releases, I think there was a little bit of a few titles that maybe moved that we should talk about.
George Feltenstein:Well, yeah, I wanted to clarify that the street date of Just Friends is moving to April 8th, and that's rock solid. We also just announced the street date for Cheyenne is moving to April 22nd, and I want to explain to everyone the discs are done. The reason why we have delayed the release is the packaging we intended to use is no longer being manufactured, and so it was essential to me that, when Cheyenne came out as a complete series on blu-ray, that the packaging be sturdy and that discs aren't stacked on top of each other and discs don't fall out when you have so many discs in a set 30. There are some packaging options out there that really do a disservice to the consumer and the collector. So we'll be packaging each season of Cheyenne in its own Amore, or I really should say in its own Blu-ray Elite case, and the seven seasons will be neatly packaged into a sleeve box. So you couldn't ask for more secure packaging, and when people make an investment in owning a series on Blu-ray, I want them to have great packaging, because that's the ethic of Warner Archive, and so that's the reason for the delay. I think it's worth it and I hope people will really enjoy the release.
George Feltenstein:I also wanted to mention a couple of other things. There has been some internet rumor going around about our release of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being a cut reissue version. Absolutely not true. I had this confirmed by the people that did the photochemical restoration 30 years ago, kevin Brownlow. The film had been re-released in a shorter version after Rudolph Valentino died and that is not this version. This is the full version that opened in 1921. So I just wanted to clarify that.
George Feltenstein:I also wanted to mention and this is kind of a preview because it will be coming from Warner Archive, probably in May but one project I've been working on for a very long time has been announced to be shown at the TCM Film Festival and that is a new restoration and a new version, basically to the public, of the film Rhapsody in Blue.
George Feltenstein:I had been working on this project for two years, three years.
George Feltenstein:I had known that a longer version of the film had been shown to the soldiers overseas during World War II and that the film opened at 140 minutes in the US in 1945.
George Feltenstein:And we found the footage that had been cut out and we used the original camera negative and a nitrate fine grain to create this new master, which I have the honor to introduce at the TCM Film Festival in April, and I'm very happy to say that, if the scheduling all goes right, it will be a May Blu-ray from the Warner Archive collection and it will run 162 minutes, because it's 152 minutes of film and a 10 minute overture. And I just wanted to let everybody know how excited we are that TCM has chosen to include the film in the festival and people see about 13 minutes of footage that has never been seen, unless you were fighting overseas 85 years ago 80 years ago, I should say and it's it's a wonderful salute to the music of George Gershwin and the audio sounds great, the picture looks beautiful and it's going to be a beautiful Blu-ray. But you'll get to see it at the TCM Festival if you're in town in April, and I'll be introducing it.
TIM MILLARD:Looking forward to that, george, and that's great news for the fans to hear from you directly, and it's a great example as to why sometimes you have to shuffle your release dates because there are other parts of the company that need to fit things into their schedule.
George Feltenstein:Exactly, and we were working on this and I spoke to my dear friend of 25 years, charlie Tabish, who is the genius of programming at TCM, and I called him. I said, charlie, we've got this great Rhapsody in Blue. We finally found this footage and he was all over it, and so I'm really looking forward to seeing the audience react to it and people can look forward to the beautiful Blu-ray hopefully end of May release.
TIM MILLARD:So that was a nice preview. Let's get around now to the April release. Absolutely, and we'll start. We'll go alphabetical this month, so we'll start with a movie from 1988, actually, and that is Clean and Sober. What can you tell us about that release?
George Feltenstein:This was a really important film when it came out and I think its message still rings true today. It deals with the horrors of chemical substance addiction. In this case, michael Keaton plays a cocaine addict and it's all about addiction and recovery and, most importantly, it was the first time the public got to see Michael Keaton in a serious role and of course, he's since won a Best Actor Oscar. In recent years he's given so many amazing performances, performances, even the film he did after this, the 1989 Batman. That was not a comedic performance, that was a remarkable performance.
George Feltenstein:But this film was directed by Glenn Gordon-Keran, who is the creator of Moonlighting, and it's got a wonderful supporting cast Kathy Baker, morgan Freeman particularly and it just rings true. It very much feels like the late 80s with the hairstyles and various other things, but the message is timeless or addiction. The way that people can find recovery is really captured with true honesty here. These are the kind of movies that don't get made anymore, at least for the big screen. This has been requested for Blu-ray for I would say probably since the format began, and finally it's now here and we're delighted about it.
TIM MILLARD:Well, Michael Keaton has had a real resurgence. He's such a fine actor and it's great to see all the success he's had, and it's great that this is finally coming out on Blu-ray. Next we'll step in the Wayback Machine for a little bit, to 1953, and that's the film Lily. What can you tell us about this?
George Feltenstein:film was nominated for six Academy Awards. It was awarded one Oscar for best scoring. People call it a musical. It's really a film with music, but this is a charming, wonderful story. Leslie Cameron is wonderful in it. She plays a 16-year-old orphan girl who befriends a group of people running a carnival. It's a love story. It's beautifully directed with amazing technicolor photography and of course people know what we do with technicolor around here and of course people know what we do with Technicolor around here. And the DVD that Warner Archive released of this about 13 years ago was from an interpositive. It had dirt, it was. The colors were not right. It was the best we could afford at the time. Thankfully, this has gotten a 4K scan and a recombination of the Technicolor negatives.
George Feltenstein:This film was not expected to be a box office success. Producer Arthur Freed, who had made America to Paris with Leslie Caron, which is the film she was discovered for, said why are you doing a silly film like this? And MGM opened it in a very small theater in New York, not expecting much out of it, and it absolutely got rave reviews and I believe it ran at a theater in New York for a year. It was re-released in the mid-60s and the same thing happened all over again. It was hugely financially successful, but it is charming, it is moving.
George Feltenstein:Mel Farrar is particularly terrific in the movie. He plays a puppeteer who's disabled and falls in love with Lily. Disabled and falls in love with Lily, but he can only speak to her through his puppets and the song Hi Lily, hi Lo, became very popular. But it's a charming, sweet, beautiful film, very unique, and that's why it got six Oscar nominations. I'm just thrilled we're finally able to do it justice, because it was a knife in my heart that the best we could do was that DVD years ago. But thankfully our business is thriving and growing and we can re-approach these films. Just like you know, we did Rhapsody in Blue years ago and now we're able to do it and restore unseen footage. So it's very exciting. But lily is so charming and there's some very uh, fun little 1953 cartoons on there and I think people are really going to enjoy it well, next we have from 1950, the film Side Street.
TIM MILLARD:What can you?
George Feltenstein:tell us about this film. Well, this is another film directed by Anthony Mann, and you know that I happen to think very highly of Anthony Mann as a director big time. But what I love about this film particularly is there's an unbuilt character and that's New York City. This film was shot on location in New York. The location photography is amazing. It has such a great pacing. It is a seminal film noir. And Farley Granger and Kathy O'Donnell they had previously co-starred together and they were re-teamed for this film and it's just a nonstop thriller. And the New York locations have never looked so good thanks to our beautiful new 4K scan off the preservation negatives.
George Feltenstein:This is another MGM black and white film where the negative burned in the fire, so a second generation fine grain had to be our source. But it looks and sounds wonderful and we have a commentary that was recorded by the late Richard Schickel. We have a very, very short but very nice featurette that's called when Temptation Lurks. That takes you in the background of how this film was made. And then we have a Crime Does Not Pay short and some great cartoons. It's a great disc and people are going to be really blown away, not only by the filmmaking, by the quality of the disc itself.
TIM MILLARD:I'm really looking forward to that. You know how I love all the Noir releases and all the Anthony Mendes that you've been pulling from the vaults and releasing on Blu-ray. Well, next we have a Western from 1952, Springfield Rifle. What can you tell us about this one, George?
George Feltenstein:Well, this is Gary Cooper really at the zenith of his stardom. But you kind of have to say that Gary Cooper was a superstar for almost 30 years. So you know, anytime he made a film it was usually very well received and successful. This is a really terrific Western and it's directed by Andre de Toth, of House of Wax fame, and he's a union officer during the Civil War who goes undercover and it's got a real kind of espionage sensibility to it.
George Feltenstein:But it's beautifully composed and shot and it was shot in Warner color, which was not a great color process, so we went back to the camera negative, as well as the separations, in order to rebuild the color in the film. So this film has not looked very good in prior iterations and now it looks terrific and it's got a great cast. Phyllis Thaxter is his leading lady, david Bryan's in the movie, lon Chaney Jr's in the movie. It's a lot of fun. And it comes with two great Warner Brothers cartoons and a Joe McDoug short in the trailer. So I'm sure people will be happy with Springfield Rifle. It's been a bestseller on DVD for years, so now we've upgraded into high definition at last.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, I mean Gary Cooper. Yeah, what can you say? Dooper, dooper, you want to own it. Well, you've been doing a lot of, you know, modern classics from the 70s recently and many of them have been kind of the urban action films. And you have another one this month from 1974, three the Hard Way. What can you tell us about this one?
George Feltenstein:that this has three of the biggest urban action stars. Some people refer to these films as blaxploitation films because that was the variety speak of the era, but these are films that really had a lot of fun and action and are such a snapshot of the 70s. And here you've got Jim Brown and Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly in a movie and they're basically out to get a gang of white supremacists who want to come up with a formula that will annihilate the black race, formula that will annihilate the black race. And I know it sounds like a ludicrous idea and a horrible thing to even think about, but that's what the movie is about. And these three people Jim Brown, fred Williamson and Jim Kelly they're the superheroes who go after this white supremacist gang of evils and aim to be triumphant.
George Feltenstein:The most exciting thing about this release is not only is it a fan favorite, but it's also been distributed for the last 20 years minus about seven to eight minutes, about seven to eight minutes and it was one of our former colleagues here at the studio that brought this to my attention that what we had been distributing on DVD was 89 minutes and the film was supposed to be 96 minutes and change. So we went to great lengths to find the missing footage and have restored the film to its original theatrical length. It has good music by the Impressions and it's just. It's a lot of fun. The plot is a little bit ridiculous, thankfully, but the charisma of those three guys together in one movie was irresistible and it did very well at the box office because of that.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, I mean you got a lot of testosterone there Absolutely those three. You got a lot of action potential. And then you've got this and it's directed by Gordon Parks Jr. So what a team up of director and cast.
George Feltenstein:After Superfly. This was a follow-up and it's just a. It's a very, it's very much the definition of a fan favorite.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, yeah, I mean those, those who like to collect these genres from the 70s are going to really enjoy having this one.
George Feltenstein:It's great grindhouse.
TIM MILLARD:Yes, exactly. Well, I think that leaves us with only one more to talk about. That leaves us with only one more to talk about and, last but not least, it is a Hanna-Barbera Complete series from 1968 called Wacky Races. What can you tell us about this release?
George Feltenstein:Well, this was such a successful series that it actually led to spinoff series, because this is where we first met Penelope Pitstop. This is where we first met Dastardly and Muttley. Many people thought this was like a take on the Great Race and other films like it, but it was very much the mixture of a new concept and Hanna-Barbera's talent for always coming up with a different kind of show for Saturday morning cartoons. These are 17 half hours. There's two segments in each half hour and they are presented with the two segments, and a lot of the television broadcasts in recent years have just been the segments and not that half hour shows. When I say half hour, that meant they were in a half hour time slot.
TIM MILLARD:Right.
George Feltenstein:But these are 4K scans off the camera negatives. They're going to look a lot better than the old tapes that we were distributing on DVD. So this is a big, a big deal, and there are going to be a bunch of special features on the disc, but we haven't finalized them yet, so we listed them as to be announced.
TIM MILLARD:Right, well, and this just continues, your animation releases, which have just been coming, one after the other after the other. And you promised people, and here they are.
George Feltenstein:And there are a lot more on the back burner right now and here they are requested on Blu-ray very heavily whenever people are asking for Hanna-Barbera and our next animation releases, I think are going to make a lot of people happy. So we're trying to please everyone and of course we're always disappointing someone, but for every one person we're disappointing, there's 100 people that are happy.
TIM MILLARD:Oh, of course.
George Feltenstein:If you're disappointed out there, have patience, we're going to get to you with your favorites.
TIM MILLARD:Which you already told us about coming in May.
George Feltenstein:for some who, Well, I don't usually leak things, but I wanted to let people know about Rhapsody in Blue in case they were going to be at the TCM Festival. It's already been announced for the festival. Otherwise I wouldn't try to get in the way of TCM's promotion for the festival. But I did want to provide the little bit of extra background, because we'll probably be able to do a whole podcast just on all the work that went into finding the missing footage and restoring it. So it's basically a world premiere, unless you were in the armed services 80 years ago, right, well, this podcast today, george a wealth of information at the beginning.
TIM MILLARD:Well, this podcast today, George. A wealth of information At the beginning, some updates and then the announcements and a sneak peek as well toward May. So always great to have you on. And, as I always tell people, listen to the podcast, Hear directly from George. He's going to tell you what you need to know. Don't listen to rumors on the Internet. Hear from George directly and you tell it the way it is for people so that they can get the right information from the Warner Archive. So thanks again, George.
George Feltenstein:Always a pleasure, tim, thank you.
TIM MILLARD:For those who would like more information about the films announced today, be sure and check out our Facebook page and our Warner Archive Facebook group. You can find the links to those and 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. If you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider, you may want to do that so that you don't miss anything that's coming up Until next time. You've been listening to Tim Millard Stay slightly obsessed.