The Extras - 5 Top Shelf Blu-rays From the Warner Archive

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and they're released on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lard, your host. And joining me for our first podcast of 2024 is George Feldstein

Starting point is 00:00:30 to review some of the December Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George. Hello, Tim, and happy New Year to all. Happy New Year. How was your holiday? Well, a lot of my time during the holiday was spent working on uh upcoming releases which is a joy yeah it's a good thing yeah well as you've mentioned in our last podcast we had a terrific uh 2023 for the warner archive and lots of fun things already announced for january so there's a lot of films between December and January,

Starting point is 00:01:05 which is a bit unusual because December is often a light month for you, but not this year. So we have a lot to talk about today. Absolutely. Well, because I've been a little busy, I wasn't able to go through all of the films in the December releases, but I did focus on the five classic films that were released on December 12th. And I thought it'd be fun to kind of go a little bit out of order. So I wanted to start our discussion with what I assume is a fan favorite and highly requested. And one that you mentioned in our last podcast has already sold very well. And that's the 1932 film Tarzan, the ape man. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's a, it's got a fun plot and it holds up pretty well. You know, it's a, an older film here, pre-code. And part of that is because the chemistry between Marino

Starting point is 00:01:57 Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller is terrific. And I was watching the documentary on this release and it sounds like the casting of those two was a little bit of a risky move because neither one of them was a big star or anything. Right. He had never, to my knowledge, been in any kind of narrative film. I know there was film of him when he was an Olympic champion, but I think this was his first acting role. And Maureen O'Sullivan was a young contract player at MGM just starting out. And it turned into be one of the great teamings of film history because Johnny Weissmuller went on to make five more Tarzan movies at MGM and continued making them on slimmer budgets at RKO in the 1940s. But when he moved to RKO, Maureen O'Sullivan

Starting point is 00:02:57 did not go with the package. An actress named Brenda Joyce took on the role of Jane. And the later 1940s RKO Tarzans aren't nearly as good as the MGM productions. But this is the granddaddy of them all. And I think I may have mentioned this before when we talked about the announcement of this title, and that is that there is no apocryphal saying of the line, me, Tarzan, you, Jane, that never happens. But they established the character and the chemistry between them was, as you say, fantastic. Big takeaway here is the restoration, because I've never seen this film look good. And now it looks amazing for something, especially that's over 90 years old and where the original negative was long destroyed. So we worked with the best available elements to try to make this as gorgeous as we could. And I'm hoping that we succeeded. Yeah, I thought it looked terrific.

Starting point is 00:04:07 And the sound, of course, as well. And this is, I mean, we're talking 1932, so it's still pre-code. Very much so. Yeah. I mean, the outfits that they have Maureen in, and then also just some of the innuendo maybe that's included in there is totally pre-code, right? And that makes it a lot of fun and kind of holds up maybe to the modern audience. But back to how it looks and sounds, it comes across and looks terrific on my 4K monitor.

Starting point is 00:04:38 Yeah, it's pretty spectacular. You know, you mentioned the pre-code nature of it, that the following film, the second film, Tarzan and His Mate in 1934, which many people consider even better than Tarzan the Ape Man, I'm hoping that that will be something that we will be able to tackle because that one is particularly pre-code in that there's actually a nude swim with a body double for Maureen O'Sullivan that was, it became part of the way we distributed the film decades ago, but that version of it was pulled with the production code and the swimming sequence and so forth was removed from the film from subsequent viewings and television viewings. It's long been around, but if this seems a little pre-code, Tarzan and his mate seems even more so. So that's why I'm hoping that the universe will smile down upon the Warner Archive and allow us to proceed with that.

Starting point is 00:05:48 And the, as you mentioned, and I shared with you earlier, initial sales on this, among many of these December titles, they've all been really, really well received and the sales have been very impressive. But I'm feeling guardedly optimistic I'll get a green light to be able to move forward on Tarzan and his mate and hopefully more thereafter. Because we have a lot of Tarzan. But this is the granddaddy as far as talking pictures. There had been silent Tarzan of the Apes, I think, in 1918 with Elmo Lincoln, if I have my names and dates correct. But Tarzan had been in silent screen with not much impact. Tarzan the Ape Man and MGM behind it was a box office bonanza.

Starting point is 00:06:39 And it was one of the earliest MGM movies to come out as a videocassette. And you think about what the industry was like in the very early 1980s when MGM started to do that. the essential classics that people who didn't know classic cinema in depth would know these films need to come out. And Tarzan the Ape Man was one of those movies. So it's been available to own for over 40 years. And that's why physical media is so important, because people want to be able to continue to own their own copy that no one can take away. I'm very proud of the Tarzan and the 8-Man Disc because it has that terrific documentary that we had put together for the DVD and a substantial overview of Tarzan, the property, Tarzan film series, Johnny Weissmuller, the people in it. And it was nice to be able to carry that through along with some other goodies. Yeah, I learned a lot of the background stuff from that documentary and watching it starts from the very beginning and it has the historians and they're telling

Starting point is 00:07:59 the history of the Tarzan series from the book and everything. And that was fascinating. I mean, I didn't realize there were that many Tarzans done in the teens and 20s and 30s, but the author had really did an amazing kind of job of making sure that the Tarzan property got out there. Edgar Rice Burroughs, right? Yes. You know, it's very interesting because Edgar Rice Burroughs created this with MGM, but he continued to have other rights to continue making other Tarzan movies. So there's a whole other series of Tarzan films that were produced by a gentleman named Sal Lesser. There was a serial and there was a Buster Crabbe Tarzan and Herman Bricks Tarzan, you know, just all these different Tarzans in the 1930s at the same time MGM was making theirs. So it was really Tarzania, Tarzan mania.

Starting point is 00:09:07 Yeah. I mean, what a great era for literature. I love that era of the stories and they've just, you know, they were then made into movies. So they're great fun, these adventure stories from that era. Do you have a couple other HD cartoons on here for extras that were quite good? And then the theatrical trailer, which is a lot of fun. Well, we're thrilled with the disc and we hope to be able to satiate more fan appetite with more Tarzan in the future. So fingers and toes crossed on that. Well, let's talk about the next one. And we're going to jump back a couple of years to Anna Christie. And you and I talked a

Starting point is 00:09:47 little bit about this in the last podcast for other reasons. I mean, it's a historical film because it's the first one where Garbo talks, of course. But it's also quite a compelling film. I know it's not a perfect film, but it's a fascinating film to me because it's taken from the Eugene O'Neill play. And from that very first scene on the barge with Marie Dressler and George Marion, where they're just bantering. I mean, you know, they have heavy accents, but you get a sense right off of the characters. And then they move to the bar where Anna arrives. And then they move to the bar where Anna arrives. I mean, I was just drawn into the story, this kind of tragic story there.

Starting point is 00:10:35 And 93 years later, I feel like the film still really packs a punch. Oh, absolutely. And again, you said it, Eugene O'Neill, really, I'd say the first of our great American 20th century playwrights, I mean, in the class by himself. And most of his works are stunning classics. And Anna Christie is among them. And Anna Christie was filmed as a silent film in 1923, I believe believe with Blanche Sweet, if I'm correct. And MGM bought the property. They wanted Garbo's sound debut to really be a knockout because the question of whether or not she could survive in talkies was a big one.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Her last silent film was the last silent film MGM ever made, not counting silent versions of sound movies that were needed for little pokey towns that didn't have theaters with sound equipment. They still had to make silent versions in the early 30s to satiate. Didn't last very long. But her last film, The Kiss with Lou Ayers in 1929, that was a silent release when everybody else had already switched basically entirely to sound. Thalberg and Mayer and MGM were all deeply concerned that Garbo, who was arguably their biggest female star of the time, whether or not she would make the transition. And the excellence of the film and the fact that the film holds up so well is a direct product of Irving Thalberg's genius at how he handled production at the studio and who worked on what

Starting point is 00:12:29 film and who was cast in what film. He was very involved in the nitty gritty. He made sure that Garbo's debut would really make a killing at the box office, and it did. And probably more people saw Eugene O'Neill work via this film than had previously seen any of his work on the stage. And we talked about this on our announcement podcast, but there were multiple foreign language versions of this film made because they had not yet perfected dubbing for international territories. And these would be filmed at night on the sets with different casts. And in the case of Garbo, she spoke all the different languages in each of the foreign language versions with different casts and different directors. And the only one that survives, at least in our vaults, is the German

Starting point is 00:13:35 version. If there is the French version or some of the other versions, we don't have any remnant of that. But we're lucky to have what we have because there were many MGM films made in multiple languages in that early period. And we do have a few alternate versions. But for Anna Christie, this German version is particularly notable because there are those who actually think it is a better film than the English language version. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, but the director certainly was more fluid in his camera work. And one of Garbo's dear friends played the Marie Dressler

Starting point is 00:14:22 role. So to have that on there as an extra, and while we didn't have the funding to be able to restore it, we did create a new HD master so that it wouldn't be a standard definition master that would have interlacing. So it's much more digestible and viewable, even though we couldn't do our usual aim to pristine, immaculate cleanup. It just wasn't possible financially. But I think it's there as an overall presentation of how this film was experienced by different audiences, particularly in German-speaking countries. audiences, particularly in German-speaking countries. Also on the disc, we have a radio production from Lux Radio Theater done in the late 30s with Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy. From Lux Radio Theater, you always find these fascinating things, and I thought it would be

Starting point is 00:15:21 appropriate to put that on this disc. That was something we had done on the DVD. And then further to that, we added the MGM Parade episode that talked about Garbo's earlier career. We had previously released another episode that talked about her later career on one of our releases earlier in the year. So I think it's a great package. Again, the team at Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging did a tremendous job in the restoration of the movie, and we're very proud of it. And I'll jump back a little bit just to say that I did watch part of the German version, and I found it fascinating watching the film,

Starting point is 00:16:07 you know, having just watched the English version to see Garbo just, you know, so natural and everything, of course, in that version, just like in the English version. But then you have, you know, a whole different set of actors. The costumes are a little bit different. They're just slight little differences in it. The costumes are a little bit different. There's just slight little differences in it. It was a fascinating bit of film history for me just to watch that.

Starting point is 00:16:37 And I think you've tried to include these other versions on the films when they're available. I mean, it's a terrific, terrific thing to have on there. And then, as you say, the package of that with the other extras that you have really makes this a robust disc. And obviously, if you love the film and you love Greta Garbo, you're going to get it just for that film. But then when you look at this, just all these extras that you've put on here and how great they are, it really is, as you just said, a terrific package for the fans. Absolutely. We're very, very proud of it. And I hope people will support it because people want more Garbo. Buying Anna Christie and Camille and Queen Christina, those are, you know, in one year having three Garbo essentials certainly stimulates an appetite to fill in the gaps with others that we're hoping to bring to Blu-ray.

Starting point is 00:17:33 Yeah, and they're all very different, aren't they? Yes, they are. Just in terms of action adventure versus drama versus romance, you know. Yeah. It's a great range she had she's always garbo but i mean it's quite the range of different genres there well i'm glad you enjoyed it and hoping to bring more for everybody so yeah yeah well next on our list is uh i think another probably just fan favorite from what I'm seeing so far and was highly anticipated when you announced it. And that's the 1936 Best Picture Oscar winner, the great

Starting point is 00:18:13 Zegfeld. The acting in this film I thought was terrific, but really, I was just overwhelmed with the pageantry and how terrific your film looks and sounds. You want it to look great and sound great because of all of that pageantry. It's a remarkable, unique production. And it's also, you know, it is a musical because there's so many musical sequences, but all the musical performances are on stage. It's not a musical where the characters sing, except on stage. This is a project that was actually under development and planned to be made at Universal Pictures. Universal started preparing it in 1934, and they were assuming it was going to

Starting point is 00:19:11 be a huge production with them. Universal struggled financially through multiple decades in the early talkie era and really up through the 40s and 50s, they were always having financial trouble. But particularly at this time, the cost of this film was going to be so high that they decided that they couldn't move forward with it. And they sold the whole package to MGM. And they sold the whole package to MGM. And it was in, I think, probably early 1935 that the deal was Glinda Goodwitch of the North, who was Ziegfeld's widow, to buy the rights to the Ziegfeld name for motion picture making. And that ended up leading to Ziegfeld Girl in 1941, Ziegfeld Follies, which was ultimately released in 1946. But the studio

Starting point is 00:20:28 had other plans. They were going to think of maybe doing Ziegfeld Follies shows on Broadway that they would produce and using the name. But the main focus was making this movie first and foremost. And I think really one of the most impressive aspects of it, it's really the key to what makes the film work or not, is the performance of William Powell as Florence Ziegfeld. He is just tremendous in the film, very compelling. The film is not, as with many biographies of that era, this film is not very accurate in terms of telling the story of Ziegfeld. And even in the credits, they say, you know, influenced by certain moments, I'm paraphrasing badly, but moments and achievements during the career of Ziegfeld.

Starting point is 00:21:28 They really wanted to make something that was representative of who Ziegfeld was and what he did on the stage, but they had to deal with his financial ups and downs. They had to deal with the fact that he was a bit of a womanizer, a ladies' man. And I don't mean that in a pejorative, negative sense, but his first wife, Anna Held, was not particularly crazy about the fact that he was going out with lots of showgirls. You have Louise Reiner in a performance that some people agree with me in thinking that it's a remarkable performance. It's really down to the one scene on the telephone after she's talking to Florence Ziegfeld after their divorce and she finds out that he's remarried. That

Starting point is 00:22:23 telephone scene is what's considered to be the factor that won her the Best Actress Oscar, which she would win again the following year for her leading lady role in The Good Earth, 1937. Very rare that people win consecutive Oscars, especially in the Best Actor or Actress category. But Louise Reiner is one of those people. She was a much more remarkable person as well as an actress than she was able to exhibit on the screen. She left the screen and left MGM several years later because she just didn't want to put up with a lot of the politics and behaviors and so forth.

Starting point is 00:23:11 But the small cinematic legacy that she left is there to impress. And I always find her work in this film to be quite notable and quite remarkable. her work in this film to be quite notable and quite remarkable. And then, of course, you have William Powell's other half on screen, if you will, Myrna Loy playing Billy Burke, Ziegfeld's second wife. Always seeing Powell and Loy on the screen together is a joy. And Billy Burke was working at MGM and performing on the screen and very active. And so she had her eye on the way the film was being constructed. So it would be respectful of Ziegfeld and his legacy. And also their daughter, Ziegfeld and Billy Burke had a daughter, Patricia Ziegfeld, who is in the documentary on our disc.

Starting point is 00:24:17 It was originally thought that she would be when Universal was making the movie. They announced that they were going to have Patricia Ziegfeld help cast it. That didn't happen at MGM. But she obviously has very, had very positive things to say in our little documentary that's on the disc. The main thrust of what makes this film so different for its time is it's three hours long. And what we're presenting on the disc is overture, intermission, exit music that hadn't been, until we did it for the DVD, that hadn't been shown with the film since its premiere engagements.

Starting point is 00:25:01 I think it only was used in New York and in Los Angeles. And we uncovered that when we were preparing it for DVD, which was close to 20 years ago. And now with the Blu-ray, again, with a film where the original negative burnt up, working with various elements from the preservation, photochemical preservation side of things, we were able to make the film look and sound really wonderful. I'm very proud of it. This has been very much like Tarzan the Ape Man. This is something people knew they had to own.

Starting point is 00:25:37 You know, it was one of those elusive Best Picture Oscar winners that wasn't available on Blu-ray. And now it is. And we're very proud of the package. And I certainly hope people are enjoying it. That is what my messaging has been so far from reviews and also friends and people within the industry who have gotten the disc and have really liked it. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog

Starting point is 00:26:16 physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Yeah, the massive wedding cake sequence, that scene, I mean, wow. To see it in this new 4K scan, it looks amazing. And of course, the filming and direction on that is fantastic. It was interesting to hear that this started off the Universal because it feels so much like an MGM film. I mean, it just feels like it very much is. And if Universal had made it, it would have been completely different.

Starting point is 00:26:58 Doesn't mean that they wouldn't have done a good job because they were still capable of making great films. 1935 was Bride of Frankenstein. 1936 was their version of Showboat. Both of them are heralded classics. But MGM had yet to become, quote unquote, the musical studio. That would happen really with the rise of Arthur Freed as a producer starting in 1939. But they were making musicals. But for this film, they pulled out all the stops. MGM was the Tiffany of motion picture studios. It was the greatest dream factory. And they had the finest people in every way to get together and put this together. And the Pretty Girls Like a Melody wedding cake number cost somewhere between a quarter of a million and $300,000 to film. Now put that into today's

Starting point is 00:28:02 dollars. That would be probably five to six million dollars to film just that sequence. It is so overwhelming because it mixes all forms of entertainment. You know, the Berlin song is the primary melody that carries the production number through. that carries the production number through. But you've got little nods to classical themes and all sorts of forms of dance. You've got a little swift of Rhapsody in Blue in there, which at the time was only an 11-, 12-year-old composition, but already so well-known.

Starting point is 00:28:42 It was astounding, and it was the end of Act One, because it precedes the intermission. It left people gasping at its enormity. And then almost 40 years later, when MGM put together That's Entertainment, or I should say more properly, when Jack Kelly Jr. made That's Entertainment for MGM, they did something really unique with the Pretty Girls Like a Melody in that they positioned it early in the story of telling the rise and fall of the MGM musical. They put the Pretty Girls Like a Melody sequence, an excerpt of it, early in the film. And they blew it up because the original presentations of That's Entertainment were in 70mm.

Starting point is 00:29:33 And they had the screen open up. They were cutting off the top and the bottom, which nobody really cared about back in 1974. cared about back in 1974. But the thrilling effect of that in the theater was accompanied by that they were able to create true stereophonic audio for that number. And Sinatra's narration was, if it could be filmed today, maybe this is what it would look like. Back in 1974, seeing that on a big 70-millimeter screen was pretty thrilling, and it was one of the many highlights of that great compilation, which incidentally is going to turn 50 this coming May. To have the great Ziegfeld always at your fingertips for entertainment, you get to see some actual Ziegfeld performers, including the great Fanny Bryce.

Starting point is 00:30:27 There are also performers within the onstage performances that actually were never in a Ziegfeld Follies, but had become recent MGM contract players like Ray Bolger. And this is one of the more prominent showcases for his unique eccentric dancing, and he's terrific in it. Eddie Cantor is portrayed by another performer who is known for imitating him because Cantor was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn. They couldn't get him, might not have been able to afford him. And then another person very famous for being in the Ziegfeld Follies was comedian Will Rogers. MGM would have had to borrow him from Fox, but he actually had been killed in a plane crash. who was known for doing a good Will Rogers impression to take his spot, as both of those performers were very integral in what made The Follies so substantial. This film was an enormous financial success, and it was among the many pre-1948 MGM movies that went to television in 1956.

Starting point is 00:31:47 So it's never been away. But this new presentation on the Blu-ray really makes it shine and shimmer. And our folks did a great job on the pictorial restoration as well as the audio restoration. And I'm so happy it's now on Blu-ray for people to own and enjoy. Yeah, and I'll just throw in a couple comments here real briefly about the extras. You mentioned the retrospective Ziegfeld on film featurette that's on there, which was quite informative. And then you had the vintage newsreel excerpt and the classic Warner Brothers cartoon. Oh, and then an audio-only Leo is on the Air promotional program

Starting point is 00:32:33 and the theatrical trailer. So, boy, you throw in the three hours for the film and then all of these extras and just how terrific it looks and sounds. This is a terrific package for this film. And I also have to tip our hat to the author and crew, because when you're dealing with a three-hour motion picture plus extras, and you want to keep my mandatory high bit rate, they did a great job. And the disc is really something of which we're very proud. And I really hope people will support it

Starting point is 00:33:04 so that we can bring more films. I know people are hungry for more Powell and Loy. So the success of this will certainly bode well for more of their non-Thin Man films to arrive on Blu-ray. Well, next on our list that I want to talk about is Madame Bovary from 1949. I watched it last night. The story itself, of course, is so strong from the novel, but the film, it's very, very well done. And I did want to mention the directing, which I thought was fantastic by one of your favorite directors, Vincent Minnelli. But it's just so smooth and seamless and natural. There's a lot of things to the story.

Starting point is 00:33:47 You know, there's a lot of ups and downs and tragedy and joy. But the directing really keeps it together. And then, of course, the acting is terrific in here. But probably the most celebrated part of this film is that music by Miklas Rosa and that ballroom scene. I mean, it's the defining moment of the film in my mind as Emma Bovary is just swept up in the allure of her fantasies and the tantalizing element that maybe they're within reach. I mean, that's a fantastic scene. And really, this film is quite, quite good. This is, in my opinion, one of Minnelli's greatest masterpieces.

Starting point is 00:34:30 And that's a very tough category because there are so many. But when you look, and I've said this before when we've talked about Vincent Minnelli, this man could basically handle every genre. He was, of course, known for his musicals, but he could do drama. He could do light comedy. He could do screwball comedy. He could do sophisticated comedy. And what he did with musicals was really in a class by itself. But this is unlike anything I think he ever did before or after because it tugs at your heart. It draws you into the storytelling.

Starting point is 00:35:20 Every actor is so phenomenal. Every actor is so phenomenal. And I think it's Jennifer Jones' best performance on screen. She won the Oscar in 1944 for The Song of Bernadette. But I think this is the that had to do with Minnelli's direction. But the combination of Roja's music, which is playing a vital role in this film as any of the leading players, his music, not just in, of course, the great waltz dance scene, but all the way through, the music is a character. It's helping to shape the storytelling, and it's magnificently shot. The restoration is beautiful. This is the first time we've ever had a high-definition presentation. We scanned our preservation elements in 4K, elements in 4K, and the net result is shimmering beauty. And I'm terribly happy that we finally have been able to bring this out because Madame Bovary has been made into a motion picture several times, but I don't think any of the other iterations can touch what Minnelli did in 1949. It is a masterpiece. Yeah, I mean, if you're a fan of this film, you're obviously going to want to buy it because this restoration, I guess we always talk about it. But in this film, when you're watching the scenes and they have some great sets, it just looks terrific.

Starting point is 00:37:02 And then, of course, because of that music, the sound was so important for this. Well, I mean, of course it was important for Great Ziegfeld. I, I don't want to make too much of it, but it really was important. The restoration work that you guys did to make it sound terrific, because that's the emotional, that's what's driving the emotion, right? That music and the sound in this and so much is driving that emotional story as it carries you along. You've hit on a great point, Tim. The more we can bring excellence to a presentation, the more likely we are for people to increase

Starting point is 00:37:40 their ability to enjoy and be taken in by the craftsmanship by which these films have been created. You're getting to see the MGM dream factory, as it were, really operating at full throttle. There were dark days to come years later, but at that point, they had honed their departments to be able to just achieve anything. There are some remarkable, interesting casting choices in this because you have James Mason in one of his earliest American film appearances, maybe even his first, I am not sure. But the way they framed the whole storytelling with the courtroom and so forth and so on, he was phenomenal. Louis Jourdan was terrific and darkly menacing. And another underrated actor, Van Heflin. People don't know who Van Heflin is now unless they're classic movie fans. But this man was really, I think, underrated as an actor because he could do so much.

Starting point is 00:39:08 underrated as an actor because he could do so much. And you feel for his character, you empathize for his character. Everybody is just sensational. But Minnelli could bring out those performances in actors. He knew exactly what to do. And he conceptualized his films almost the way Hitchcock did and storyboarding things and planning things out. And if you think about it, you can see that that same mind two years later was crafting the unprecedented American in Paris and its signature ballet at the end of the film. There are, I think, creative links to the Bovary dance sequence and what was done in the American in Paris ballet. I can't say enough good things about Minnelli. He didn't always direct perfect movies. There are some that aren't as good as others, but he rose to the challenge. The majority of his filmography is really superb. There are several others of his films that have yet to make the jump to blue. And I'm hoping we'll be able to do that maybe even this year. Who knows? Well, there's also a terrific extra on here.

Starting point is 00:40:35 That's that MGM 25th anniversary retrospective film, Some of the Best. That's also in HD. Yes. That was a lot of fun to watch. Was it Lionel Barrymore is kind of the host of that? He's the host behind the desk. Yeah. And then he kind of takes you through one film from each of the 25 years that they've chosen. And it's just a great snapshot. As I'm watching it, I'm like, wow, that's one archive released recently. You know, there are quite a few in there that you've released in the last two, three years,

Starting point is 00:41:06 but it was, it was a fun, uh, very entertaining moves quickly and a great, great retrospective for the MGM 2050 year. And then it was fun because at the end, you know, he says, and these are some of our upcoming films. And of course they've got Madame Bovary in there as one of their upcoming films. So you get to see. Which is exactly why I put it on this disc. Yeah. And they did a sum of the best in 1944 for their 20th anniversary. And then they decided to up their game and expand upon it for their 25th anniversary. We had had this available in standard definition previously, but to have a new HD transfer of it to add as an extra, I thought was very substantial. And it does show a lot of the MGM 25th anniversary luncheon footage,

Starting point is 00:42:10 A lot of the MGM 25th anniversary luncheon footage, much of which was also seen by the public years later, and that's entertainment. But it just underscored the enormity of the star power of the studio that rightly proclaimed more stars than there are in heaven. And I was delighted to be able to add that to this disc. And it was fun to see Jennifer Jones. She's there at that luncheon. And she's the only one who looks like she dressed, well, it looks like she's wearing one of her outfits from the film. She was in costume. There are a couple of people in their Mario Lanzas also in his costume from a musical he was shooting. There are a few people that literally walked from the set to the soundstage where they were doing the luncheon and wore their costume while they ate. And they're just very careful not to leave any crumbs.

Starting point is 00:42:57 Yeah. I mean, you have to be paying attention. But when I saw her and she's got the veil over her face, I'm like, oh, well, that's directly from the film. And it was kind of fun. I mean, other folks there are just wearing their normal attire or whatever, their suits and dresses. But I've seen that footage many times, as you mentioned, but it's always great to see it. It's really fun to see all of those stars just at that luncheon. And then you have a couple of cartoons on there and the theatrical trailer as well. Yes. You know, we always like to be able to add heft to the presentation and make it

Starting point is 00:43:33 more attractive as something to own on your shelf. The film's the thing, but if you can put extras on, put extras on, as you very well know, that only adds to the value of having the motion picture in your collection. I feel like all these films we've talked about, we could have talked more about them, but we're giving everybody just a good kind of overview. But each of these films really are spectacular in their own way. Having said that, I did save my own personal favorite for last. The combination of a great star like Errol Flynn. But then this story where there's a mixture of comedy. I mean, I found myself laughing out loud because of the fighting of the Corbett brothers and just kind

Starting point is 00:44:25 of some of the, I don't want to call it slapstick, but you know, they, they just mix in some physical comedy as well and everything. But the character that Flynn plays, he's so charming. Flynn is just so fantastic. And this is a gentleman, Jim from 1942, of course, that we're talking about, but I just enjoyed it. I mean, I love movies where you laugh. It's serious as well. It's got drama. And this film really just has all of that. Well, this was allegedly Errol Flynn's favorite role of all the roles he played. of all the roles he played, I would assume that has to be true because he's superb in it. And it is one of the times where he's not swashbuckling or not being a Western hero. He's being a debonair gentleman who just happens to be a fine boxer.

Starting point is 00:45:27 And he was portraying, of course, a real life story. And this was a situation where Warner Brothers bought the rights to make the film from his widow. Again, with the biographical film, it's not 100% accurate in terms of the truth of Corbett's life, but he really helped to raise the acceptability of heavyweight boxing as a sport that was given a little bit more respect. respect. There really are very few Flynn films that stand out as unique, but I think this is definitely one of them. You've also got another one of my favorite directors, Raoul Walsh, who Flynn got along with famously. They really loved working with each other. The net result of this is just. It's just a film that makes you feel good, you know, it really did you feel that way, Tim? I did. I mean, as I mentioned, I literally was laughing out loud at times and it's not a comedy. I mean, this is not a day at the races, which we'll talk about before too long.

Starting point is 00:46:45 of comedy. I mean, this is not a date the races, which we'll talk about before too long, but because of the charm and the ease of which you're watching this story, and even in the story, they're making fun of the character, you know, paging Mr. Corbett, paging Mr. Corbett, that running gag, so to speak, right. At the club where he's at, there are just light touches that Walsh has of comedy through this. And it's fantastic. It makes for great storytelling. Like you said, it might not be as accurate to do that, but for the audience, it's terrific because then your, your veering experience is so much fun and they mix in just enough of the fighting with the drama and the, the romance, of course, it's terrific in here as well. So that it just makes for a terrific entertainment. I really enjoyed it. It looks terrific. The fighting scenes are fantastic. You know, it's not always easy to mix all that boxing in with drama.

Starting point is 00:47:45 But it comes across pretty realistically, you know, the fighting scenes and everything, how they shot that and everything. So it's fun. I just really enjoyed it. That's kind of why I saved it for last for just personal reasons here, because I thought it was a terrific film. Looks great. And then you have a great package with it. This is a fan favorite you know people who love flynn love this movie it just gave him an opportunity to show a different side it was different than anything he had done before it was tremendously successful when it was

Starting point is 00:48:20 released and it continues to be, you know, when we announced this was coming out, people were like, oh, finally. And people want more Elro Flynn. And my goodness, we have so much more of his work that we need to deliver. And I'm hoping that we will be able to do that. You know, the screenplay was a skeleton based around Corbett's autobiography.

Starting point is 00:48:52 And that's what his wife sold the rights to, to Warner Brothers in the very, very early 40s. And then the film came out in 1942 and was a smash from the get-go and has been beloved ever since. And then we should just probably talk a little bit about these extras on here. You have the classical cartoons, the Dover Boys at Pimento University. And I was watching that, and that was quite amusing. That's in HD. And then you've got Phony Fablesables in hd hobby horse laughs in hd you've got the audio only lady esther's green guild playhouse broadcast with daryl flynn and

Starting point is 00:49:33 alexis smith and the theatrical trailer i mean that's a that's a nice package of extras on here as well very entertaining well we want to you know as I've said before, it's a Warner night. The movie is, if you went to see this in a Warner brothers theater, you'd likely see maybe one, maybe two cartoons from the studio, but not four. But we wanted to give more of an opportunity to show some obscure 1942 cartoons. And then Dover Boys is a Chuck Jones classic. It's been something we've made available several times before, but I felt thematically it fit very well with the elegance of this film and the way it is crafted. It seemed like a good fit. film and the way it is crafted, it seemed like a good fit. And the radio show is also quite enjoyable because they do manage to effectively tell the story in a very limited timeframe. It's a, you know, it's a terrific way to end the year of 2023, George, for the

Starting point is 00:50:41 Warner Archive with these five classic films we've discussed today. And there are more films that we didn't get to today, but these five, I mean, it just finishes off the year on a high, high note. I hope the fans are able to, uh, to, to get them and support the Warner archive. But I can't imagine that of these five films that most people listening to this podcast, isn't a fan of at least one or two of them. And then to see them with these restorations and the whole package of extras that you've put on here just really was a high note to the year. Well, and I'm hoping you'll get a chance to see

Starting point is 00:51:17 Saving Grace and A Midwinter's Tale, which the other December releases, so we can talk about those. They're a more contemporary vintage, but they are modern classics. Right. And there's a lot to talk about there. And then, of course, we'll get a chance to talk about the January releases when that happens. And then we'll also get a chance to talk about what's coming in February when we're ready to make those announcements. So a lot of fun is in

Starting point is 00:51:47 store, folks. For sure. For sure. There's a terrific amount of movies here right at the end of the year and to start the next year or so. It's a great way to end and finish. And of course, it's just the turning of the calendar from the release schedule perspective. It's just great to see so many in the pipeline here. So as always, George, thanks for coming on the podcast. Well, thank you, Tim. And I appreciate everything you're doing to help support our efforts. And for people listening to this podcast, thank you for supporting the Warner Archive. And here's to 2024.

Starting point is 00:52:21 Here's to 2024. Well, as always, thanks to George for coming on the podcast to review five of the December Blu-ray releases from the Wonder Archive. And I will have purchase links in the podcast show notes and on our website for those of you interested in purchasing these titles. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.

The Extras - 5 Top Shelf Blu-rays From the Warner Archive

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