The Extras - Warner Archive July Blu-ray Reviews Part 2: "The Last Time I Saw Paris," "Land of the Pharaohs," "Helen of Troy," & "The Fastest Gun Alive"

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive joins the podcast for a fun and informative review of four of the July Blu-ray releases.   We review each film, provide background on the restoration and all of the extras on each release, and share our insights into why these films are worth adding to your Blu-ray collection.  Purchase from Amazon:LAND OF THE PHARAOHSHELEN OF TROYTHE LAST TIME I SAW PARISTHE FASTEST GUN ALIVE The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku 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

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 Allard, your host. In our last podcast, George Feltenstein joined me for a review of three of the July Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive.

Best Picture Oscar winners, The Broadway Melody from 1929 and Cimarron from 1931. We also discussed the MGM musical comedy, Du Barry Was a Lady from 1943, starring Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, and Gene Kelly. In part two, we'll review four more Blu-ray releases, all from the 1950s. Well, the next film, we're jumping into the 50s, George, and that's the last time I saw Paris. We're jumping into the 50s, George. And that's the last time I saw Paris. And I really enjoyed this film. I thought, wow, what an emotional love story, drama. And I just thought it had great performances from Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson and everybody, Walter Pigeon, Donna Reed.

I really enjoyed this movie. And this is one of the very last films to be shot in the Technicolor process. It was released in 1954. By that time, the industry was pretty much switching over to Eastman Color camera negative. And there were very few three-strip Technicolor films being made. This is, I think, one of the last three that MGM did in 1954. And the location photography is very impressive. Location photography is very impressive. But also, I think what's really key is Elizabeth Taylor was 21 when she made this film and had been a movie star for 11 years.

Wow. You know, you go back to Lassie Come Home in 1943. But this film was like a first opportunity for her to get a meaty roll and sink her chops into it. And it's based on a work by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited. And the theme of the title song, The Last Time I Saw Paris, which was actually first brought to the public about 13 years before when it was featured in an MGM movie called Lady Be Good. And Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote that song after Paris fell to the Nazis. wrote that song after Paris fell to the Nazis. And the way it's used as a consistent underscoring theme really contributes greatly to the charm of the love story. And you're right, everybody is really given moving performances.

And a shout out to the director, Richard Brooks, who's I think terribly underrated and underappreciated as a director. He made some really magnificent films, and many of them are available from the Warner Archive on Blu-ray, like Cat on the Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. He's really a very, very talented, amazing filmmaker, and his body of work speaks for itself. But there is so much to be impressed by with this film,

but I think the fact that we're finally seeing it restored because people have been looking at awful versions of it for years and to have it in the proper aspect ratio and restored, it just changes your experience. It has to. Yeah. And again, we added some short entertainment pieces of the period to add to the experience of it. And overall, we're very delighted. And I know a lot of the Elizabeth Taylor fans, of which there are many, were particularly excited about this release. So we're very, very happy to have brought it forth in proper presentation.

It looks great. I mean, and the fact that they shot this on location in Paris lets you really enjoy and immerse yourself in the city. And there were some shots in there, which I just, I was kind of mind boggling, I thought, to see like when they, you know, this isn't really giving anything away from a plot point, but like when they're at the Arc de Triomphe and they're relighting it, the city for the first time, I'm like, how did they redo that scene? And then I don't know if they used footage from

some of the actual end of the European conflict in there of the people celebrating everything and then mixed it in with some of the live action. But I thought it was very seamless and it looked terrific. I really enjoyed just immersing myself in that locale in Paris for the storyline. And it was written by the Epstein brothers who also wrote Casablanca. And it's got that flavor, right, of the international, the love, the bit of tragedy, bittersweet. It's got all that mixed in, which I'm a sucker for. And I really enjoyed it for that reason. And, you know, when I was younger, we lived in Europe as well. So I don't know. I just, I just liked all of the elements that are part of this film. And Elizabeth Taylor, like you said, you kidding me? She's 21? Because she really, she has to play a role that ages, right?

Right. And she does a terrific job. And I don't know, I thought it was really great. I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend this. And then the extras on there are just a fun little addition as well. So I'm so glad you released this film. So am I. And that takes us to the next year, 1955, and over here at Warner Brothers, when, in fact, I really should be giving credit to over there, meaning across the sea, because Land of the Pharaohs, directed by the great Howard Hawks, released in 1955 for Warner Brothers,

was shot on location in Egypt. And it is really a remarkable achievement because they had a massive cast, massive amount of extras. This was one of those cinemascope those cinema scope big screen historical epics that was designed to lure people away from their little 19 inch televisions black and white at home and get them into the movie theater for spectacle right and not only do you get spectacle, but you also get Joan Collins, who gives a just unforgettable performance in this movie. This is really, I believe this was her first American film. And she made quite the impression on the American movie going public. Right.

And it just shows the versatility of Howard Hawks. I always find Howard Hawks fascinating because he could make screwball comedies, you know, like Bringing Up Baby, and musicals like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and westerns like Rio Bravo, and war films like Air Force. He could do anything. And he's one of my very favorite directors. And I know that this film has a huge cult following among cineasts. And one of its biggest supporters is Martin Scorsese

and he's always saying the praises of this film. And in fact, this is one of the 10 Warner Brothers films that was restored with the promotional support of the Film Foundation. Restoration was done at MPI by MPI, but the Film Foundation was integrally involved in those 10 films being part of our 100th anniversary celebration. And to have this where the Warner color, which we've talked about, is so problematic, the colors burst off the screen and it looks better than it ever has. And the sound with 5.1 is really, really impressive.

And the whole presentation is just luscious. I think that's the best word to describe it. We're very proud of it. It's amazing those shots with all of those extras and all of those panoramas of the desert and their building of the pyramids. I mean, it's something to see in this new, you know just really nothing else to say other than you need to get this Blu-ray to see it in the way that it was intended to be seen. little bit of a delay because we had a problem here that was the same as we had with Angel Face, where because we were coming off the original negative, there were more frames in the negative scattered throughout the film than the secondary elements that were used to make the prior standard definition transfers. And here you have the rare opportunity of hearing the great, late Peter Bogdanovich,

amazing film director in his own right, but also a film historian and really critically involved in the early days of film history, being looked at from a more modern lens, as he wrote about in the 60s before he started directing. And he also interviewed his favorite directors, and he interviewed Howard Hawks, and some of his interview footage with Howard Hawks, not footage, but audio recordings, I should say, are part of the commentary. And so the way these commentaries were put together for the DVDs, they're not separate. way we could solve this was to have the standard definition source with the commentary in the special features so i know that comes across as a little weird but it was the only way we could save the commentary there was really uh it would have been heartbreaking to not continue that. We really don't like having something on the prior release

that isn't carried over as a legacy bonus feature. So it delayed the release a little bit, but we were able to save it. And hopefully this won't happen again to us, but twice within the same month, we did get Angel Face out for June, but Land of the Pharaohs got a little delayed, but I think it was ultimately worth it. And I've just gotten a lot of, I've been reading the reviews, people are really enjoying the disc and that's very gratifying. Yeah. And the, the acting, you know, with Jack Hawkins and June Collins is really fun so that it has that kind of drama that's of this pharaoh who is really, you know, building these pyramids for his own tomb for all of this wealth and everything. So the plot itself, too, to go back to the story a little bit, is really fun.

That's woven through while you get all these great, great, great epic shots of the building, of the actual pyramids and things of that nature. So it's really fun. I mean, I think this is a great package as well. Absolutely. And then the other thing is the music from Dimitri Tyomkin really is a great part of this film as well. A lot of people, I think, would want to have this movie just for the score. Because it's one of the times, not unlike when we talked about The Old Man and the Sea last month, Tiomkin's score is as much a character in the film for Land of the Pharaohs as he was with The Old Man and the Sea.

His work is in a class by itself. It's not that he was better than anybody else. He was unique. But he's certainly one of our great classic era film composers. But he's certainly one of our great classic era film composers. And I find his work fascinating. And his contribution to a film means so much. And it certainly does here.

And it's something we're very proud of. 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 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. Well, the next film, Helen of Troy, came out just a year later, George. I think that was a real time for the sword and sandal type epics that were being made.

I think, what, Ten Commandments came out in 56 as well. And it's a lot of fun. I was a literature major when I was in college, so I know this story very well. And I thought that it was a very, very well done movie. And it just, it hits all the notes of the story and has some really great performances and great visuals. And this was directed by Robert Wise. I mean, he had already established his ability as a director, but he didn't yet have the success he would have just a few years down the road with films like West Side Story and The Sound of Music and The Sand Pebbles. view of fine director. And you've got a cast of Rosanna Podesta and Jacques Sarnas, who Warner Brothers in the United States called Jack. Only in the US do you see him billed as Jack and not Jacques. But they're really good in the movie.

And again, it is a spectacle. It is in CinemaScope. It does look better than it ever has before. And it benefits again from a 5.1 audio track that has power. And it is irresistible fun. and it is irresistible fun. One of the things that's super fun about this disc is that we have three different excerpts from the Warner Brothers Presents television series

and Warner Brothers Presents was an anthology series that had three separate shows in rotation, an adaptation of Casablanca starring Charles McGraw, an adaptation of King's Row based on the film that Ronald Reagan and Anne Sheridan were in. And then there was a Western starring Clint Walker called Cheyenne. It was not based on the 1947 movie of the same title, just used the same title. But Cheyenne Bodie was the breakout star from that rotating series and went on for six more seasons.

And what each one of those episodes would do was really Warner Brothers' first venture into television and they did it with ABC and right before the last 10 minutes of each hour-long episode they would take like a six-minute segment for Gig Young to act as a host to take people behind the camera for films that Warner Brothers was producing at the time. And we have three behind-the-camera sequences promoting Helen of Troy on this disc. And one of them is really interesting because it kind of has nothing to do with Helen of Troy. is really interesting because it kind of has nothing to do with Helen of Troy. They use it sort of as a reason to show off old Vitaphone equipment,

which I thought was a kind of specious connection. But the fun part of it is that nobody gets to see that series anymore. And this is like a rare chunk of it. And there's still hope that we can free up the whole thing at some point because i think it would be an important part of both the company's history and television history but in the meantime we have these little excerpts and we've used them for other films and i hope we get to use more of them in the future and present the shows in their entirety but you do get a little backstage behind the scenes aspect of Helen of Troy as well as the way the studio very ingeniously wove other things into these little sequences and made them quite compelling.

So they're on the disc as well. And it adds to the fun. Yeah. And I'm assuming that one of the reasons why they did these segments to push this film and to promote this film is because it was a big gamble, wasn't it, for the studio? Huge. Yeah. These were big budget movies.

gamble, wasn't it, for the studio? Huge. Yeah, these were big budget movies. And the studio was teeter-tottering. You know, the whole industry was because television had taken such a huge bite out of the audiences. And the government's divorcement decree, which forced the studios to sell their theaters, it was like a one-two punch that nearly destroyed these studios completely and one of the ways warner brothers was able to survive was by going into full tilt television production and supplying abc so to see these big screen epics that they were producing to try to draw people away from the television represents the conflict of the time. The byproduct of which is we as historians and viewers and audiences can enjoy the films. audiences can enjoy the films and with a beautiful blu-ray and a restoration Helen of Troy was also another title that was restored at MPI with the promotional support

of the Film Foundation so we're very grateful for their help in saluting our 100th with a variety of different kinds of films. And I know that we have a little bit of interest bubble up for Helen of Troy. I'm seeing either 19 or 20 years ago when Brad Pitt's Troy movie came out, Wolfgang Peterson's film. And suddenly people were asking for Helen of Troy. But the way it looked then on DVD compared to the way it looks now with this new 4K scan off the camera negative and with the color and audio fully restored, it's really a knockout. Yeah. And then you have a couple other extras I'll just mention, and that's the Napoleon Bunny part and the theatrical trailer, which were great to have as well. Yes.

And any time we can put Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies of the era of the year, specifically what you would have experienced in the movie theater, it's like a miniature version of when we do the full tilt Warner night at the movies. And I just think it adds a lot more to the experience of just having a movie on a disc. And it brings you back to what it would have been like if you were seeing this movie in 1956. You very likely would have seen a 1956 cartoon with it. So beginning of 1956, that is the year of release also of the last film we're going to talk about today, which is kind of the antithesis of a big budget color cinemascope stereophonic epic. And this is a very

impressive and exciting, tightly made Western with one of the most underrated leading men, I think, from Hollywood's Golden Age and thereafter, Glenn Ford,

stars in The Fastest Gun Alive, along with Gene Crane, and a very young Russ Tamblyn. I think this is a terrific little Western. It was shot in black and white. It was shot in widescreen. It did not have stereophonic sound. There was a cheap process called PerspectaSound that moved mono optical audio around the theater using tones. But it was, despite what certain people say, it was fake stereo. It was not real. And this is an authentic, clear mono track.

And this is an authentic, clear mono track. And the presentation, again, it's a scan off the camera negative. And the benefits are quite remarkable because I've never seen this film look that good. The film never looked bad, but now it looks fantastic. exciting, very, very economically made and well-written Western with the traditional tropes of a 1950s Western. But Glenford could be the lead in any kind of movie and pull it off. I've seen him in romantic comedies, in dramas that are deeply serious, gangster films, but westerns. He had a special relationship with western characters. He worked a lot at MGM, also was under contract to Columbia before that, and he kind of teeter-tottered around various other studios.

of teeter-tottered around various other studios but the man is just not well remembered enough for the great work he did on the screen one of the things i also like about this film is the bad guy is played by broderick crawford and he's always terrific and everything right and then as i mentioned before russ tamblyn coming off the heels of being in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, you know, in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, three of the brothers couldn't dance. And Howard Keel was one of them. Jeff Richards was another one. And Russ Tamblyn wasn't a dancer, but what he was was a tumbler. a dancer, but what he was was a tumbler. And he was able to learn how to move and dance in Seven Brides so well that they managed to find a little dance sequence in this movie for him, which is just cute and charming. And, you know, so many people are fond of him. He's had such a long career.

Thankfully, he's still very much with us and very active. And he was at the TCM Film Festival recently. People know him from being Riff in West Side Story. People also know him from Twin Peaks. You know, he's had this amazing career. But MGM was his home for many years. He's the little brother and father of The Bride. We watched him grow up from Rusty Tamblyn to Russ Tamblyn to being in Son of a Gunfighter,

which is a spaghetti Western in the 60s. He's had an amazing career. But he just adds to the entertainment value of this film. I really enjoyed this Western, George. he just adds to the entertainment value of this film. I really enjoyed this Western, George, and I enjoy Westerns a lot. This one, Glenn Ford, as you mentioned, does a terrific performance. And there's a good story here as well. We don't want to give anything away, but it's got a slow build, and they've got that little Russ

Tamblyn sequence in there to bring a little lightness. And then the rest of the story just builds and builds and builds to this very, very interesting, fun ending that's very dramatic. And it's a terrific way to finish out that Western. But Glenn Ford, I mean, what can you say? You've said it all here. He just deserves so much more credit for playing. Well, there are many more of his excellent films,

mostly on the Warner Brothers side, but a couple on the RKO side. And I can think of at least one on the Warner Brothers side that I would love to bring to Blu-ray. And I think a lot of the fans out there would like to see those as well. And we do have some, but not enough. So we're always keeping our eye out for more Glenn Ford. And, you know, it's an embarrassment of riches in our library

because there's so much great stuff to choose from. And it's just what can be ready when and how can we get to the public to look the best that it can be and sound the best that it can be. That makes July a very exciting month. Yeah. And there are a couple of extras on that release. Yes, there are. The two Tom and Jerry cartoons, blue cat blues and downbeat bear and they're very different also and uh very much representative of the change that was going on in animation and they're in high definition and they look terrific and i think it just wraps it up for a very nifty 1956 Blu-ray release.

And it's very pleasing to have such a diverse group of entertaining films that people can enjoy and add to their collections. There's something here for everyone. Yeah, yeah. in here for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. What a, what a range of different, uh, sword and sandal, Western twenties, thirties, you know, various decades, various genres. So it's a terrific month and I really enjoyed these movies. So, well, as always, thanks for coming on and giving us a review and giving us the background. And it's always fun for you and I to kind of chit chat and give our impressions and personal opinions about these films. Well, I'm excited when I get to hear what you think after you've seen them. Yeah.

You know, because one of the things I'm working on these releases is you spend so much time with the film and making sure everything is absolutely the best that it can be that you end up watching certain sequences or the whole thing 10 20 times and the real fun is after you've completed a project and it is it's been set out to see and you know for all the people to own and love and to hear the response, but then to revisit it maybe six months or a year later and look at it again, it's doubly gratifying because when you're in the thick of it, it's overwhelming. Right.

And we have to make sure every detail is correct. And I'm looking forward to the next time we get together to talk about the August releases, because that's an equally diverse group. Yes. Yes, for sure. For sure. That's a great lineup as well. This is part two of our July Blu-ray reviews from the Warner Archive.

If you missed it, be sure and listen to part one, where we review the Academy Award winning films, The Broadway Melody from 1929 and Cimarron from 1931. We also reviewed the Technicolor comedy, The Berry Was a Lady from 1943, starring Lucille Ball, Red Skelton and Gene Kelly. For those of you interested in ordering the films we discussed today, there are links in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv.

So be sure and check those out. If you're on social media, be sure and follow the show to stay up to date on our upcoming guests and to be a part of our community. And you're invited to our Facebook group for fans of Warner Archive films called the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers Catalog Group. And you can find that link either on the Facebook page or in the show notes. And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to follow and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media,

producers of podcasts, 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.