The Extras - Warner Archive October Release Announcement

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

George Feltenstein joins the podcast to announce six October Blu-ray releases, including three highly-requested horror classics. George provides 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 are not yet available. 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 Tom Weaver, author of Universal Horrors, a monster movie audio commentator, and member of the Tim Millard Fan Club. 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 their release on digital DVD Blue Rain 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Larder, your host, and I'm very excited to have George Feldenstein joining me to announce the October Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George.

Hi, Tim. It's almost the, as we record this, August is coming to an end, So we needed to get the news out of what's coming in two months at the end of October. Yeah, people are probably like heading out of town for their holiday weekend, but here you and I are slaving away, making sure we get this news out to everybody because it's very exciting. So I'm looking forward to talking to you today. And of course, the

October releases kind of signaled the move from summer into fall. And of course, October we know is known for and the buildup is always there for the thrillers, the horror and things of that nature. So I know we have some very highly requested horror on the list here. So I thought what we would do is kind of spread that out through our discussion here since there's more than one. But let's start off with one that is probably a highly anticipated title and that's the Return of Dr. X. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because for a very long time The return of dr. X was more a subject of people

joking about it or making fun that Bogart had to be in this movie because Allegedly he made comments and it was his most you know, the film he had not good feelings about. Because it was right before he had his breakthrough of becoming a top star. He was making appearances the same year he was in a supporting role in the Roaring Twenties, but Jamie Cagney was the star. And 1940, he really had a breakthrough with They Drive by Night and then High Sierra and then Maltese Falcon. So his work, right before he broke into stardom and being above the title and what not there are all sorts of oddities you play say bandito bad guy in virginia city with aro flinn so what about this time doing all sorts of things and. He seemed to refer to this film in a negative way but also with the sense of humor.

with a sense of humor. And in the meantime, horror film fans really dig it. And when we put together a DVD set, I put together probably, I'm guessing 2006, 2006 or 2007, as a Warner Home Video collection, it was called Hollywood Legends of Horror. And that DVD collection is still available as a DVD from the Warner Archive collection, but it was a Warner Home Video retail release because there was still video retail for Deep

Library Classics at that time. And all the films in that collection have made it to Blu-ray except The Return of Dr. X. So people are being quite vocal in wanting this film and that collection was a very big seller and I felt sure that this was worth doing. But even more importantly, or as importantly, this new Blu-ray Master is gorgeous. It is created from a 4K scan off the nitrate camera negative. And that was the source. That scan was the source for the new Blu-ray.

And the picture is immaculate and done at the highest quality caliber possible. And that enriches one's experience of being able to watch any film, frankly, and to have it in the best possible quality. But these less famous, shall I say, kind of films have been slogging around in really embarrassingly poor quality masters. So they really needed the upgrade. And I'm excited to see what people,

how people will react when they see how beautiful this turned out. One of the things about the announcements that we made, I wanted people to know what was coming because it's no secret we've been having some real difficulties with production capacity and replication timelines and so forth and so on. So we haven't been able to always hit the street dates that we've been aiming for and we're trying to catch up

but we're at the mercy of others in the supply chain. So my hope is that we're gonna have everything locked down and ready to go on these titles for October. But I specifically didn't announce the special features that will be on these releases, because some of them are still being ironed out and completed. And if we're not able to make that, I don't want to promise something that will suddenly disappear. So that explains why we haven't talked about it. We do have an archival commentary for The Return of Dr. X, but we're hoping to create a second one. So that's still up in the air and that is

also the case with some of the other films we'll be talking about today. So I just wanted to let people know why we haven't revealed the special features. There will be of course archival cartoons to recreate the theatrical experience of the time. And I think it's gonna be a solid release. But people will really be impressed with the quality of what the film looks like and sounds like because the audio gets restored as well. Well, I think that with the delays that have been happening, that's a terrific idea on how to kind of manage that so that people can get these, you know, before Halloween, you know, for the month of October. But knowing that there will be the cartoons and that there will be at least

the old commentary for this one. And that just means that people need to continue to check in with the Facebook page there for the Warner classics or on the Warner archive and Warner catalog page so that we will update what you eventually are able to put on there for the extras so they could have the assurance that it's coming with some extras and then just check with us for what those specifics will be in the coming weeks. Okay, George, before we dive into the rest of the horror classics, I thought we'd go to some of the other ones that you have here.

And I thought we would start with the only TV series that's coming out in October. And that's a man called Shenandoah from 1965-66. What can you tell us about that release? Well, this is a one season Western that was on ABC in the 1965-66 season produced by MGM Television 1965-66 season produced by MGM Television and starring Robert Horton, who became a big television star at the time a few years earlier on Wagon Train, which was a long-running, very popular western television series. And Horton wanted to do something different after Wagon Train. And this was really designed as a star vehicle for him. It was a very well-written Western, and there are an amazing amount of,

it's kind of a jaw-dropping group of performers that were guest stars on this series. So you see a lot of talent, Leonard Nimoy and Edward Asner and George Kennedy and the Riddler, Frank Gorshin. I mean, there's just so many familiar faces and you get to see a lot of them before they became famous. And that always adds to the fun. But the series is very well written. There are 34 half-hour episodes. And this series, I believe, would have had a much longer

run had ABC not put it in a very competitive time slot where it just didn't have a chance. And ABC was always the third ranked network in those days, fighting CBS and NBC. They were just smaller, they didn't have as much money and it was harder for them to succeed. It really wasn't until the mid 1970s that they overtook CBS and NBC with very different management in the programming. But in the 60s, it was harder for an ABC show to compete against CBS and NBC. And I have looked at this series

and thought it certainly would have had a longer run had it been in a better time slot, not against such tough competition. But Robert Horton really is very, very captivating as a leading player. And these Western stories are so good that when we put the DVD out, which is probably about six years ago, maybe seven years ago, we did release the whole series on a DVD with old standard definition masters. We had a very strong response

and a lot of people were like, I remember seeing this series as a kid, I never thought I'd get to see it again. And people really appreciated it. So now we've gone back to the safety film, Camera Negatives on these episodes and scan them in 4K and have beautiful new HD masters that are immaculate. So you can really enjoy the series and frankly,

it will look better than it ever did when broadcast obviously Standard definition on a tube TV in the 60s is not like the displays we see now So this is a big deal and we're hoping to continue to release more vintage television both live-action and animated and This is what we selected for October. Well, next I wanted to go back to 1938 to a classic film called Sweethearts. What can you tell us about this release?

Well, this is a very important milestone in many ways because this was the first feature film by MGM shot in the three strip Technicolor process. And it starred two of their biggest stars of the time, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, who had been in a series of Operetta films that were, of course, they were black and white, and they were incredibly successful at the box office. And the studio had toyed with the idea of putting them in Technicolor for a film that was very big hit in 1937 called Maytime, but that lever never got pulled and they decided to proceed with Technicolor in 1938 for Sweethearts. What set Sweethearts apart is, it sounds like it's going to be another old operetta,

but it's actually a contemporary story of the time of 1938 about a married couple who've been starring on Broadway in a production of Victor Herbert's Sweethearts. And the script is very witty and very good and there's a lot of lampooning about show business and whatnot. It was written by Dorothy Parker, very famous writer extraordinaire, and her husband Alan Campbell. And that gives the film a whole different style and sensibility than the other films McDonald and Eddie had been doing. And I should also mention that there are two future Wizard of Oz stars in this movie, Frank Morgan, who would later play the wizard the next year, and Ray Bolger, who of course

was the scarecrow in Oz the next year. And they had very significant roles in this film. It's filled with music of all kinds. There's a lot of the operetta music in the stage performances, but it also gave Nelson, Eddie and Jeanette MacDonald an opportunity to sing in a more, shall I say, popular vein of the era. Most notably, the Technicolor Photography earned an Academy Award for Color Photography

over the Adventures of Robin Hood, which was the same year. And that's pretty surprising. Now, if you've seen Sweethearts like on our DVD or even on Laserdisc or on TCM, it has not looked good. The reason for that is, this is one of the films where all but one reel of the original camera negative burned in the Eastman House Fire of 1978. And there were substandard secondary elements

that were the basis of prior video masters. And what we did here was we went back to the safety separation positive masters that were made off the negative and recombine them so it gets us as close to the original technicolor as possible. It is very similar to the situation on Singing in the Rain. Singing in the Rain, the entire film burnt in that fire except for one reel. And our Sing in the Rain releases from Warner Brothers have looked, I think, very, very great. And Sweethearts, albeit reflecting the infancy of the three-strip technicolor

process, the very early days, Sweethearts will look better than anyone has seen it, possibly ever, because our ability to use this recombination software that we developed, which really matches the image from each record to the pixel. So to explain technically, the film elements were positive copies made from each of the original three negatives. The yellow, cyan, and magenta, these were protection positives. And we've recombined the positives to create the new image.

I was always disheartened by the way this film looked given its pedigree of being so important in the history of technicolor photography. So it's a big step up from a technological sense. And also it's very entertaining. Some people aren't particularly thrilled or interested in the more legitimate operetta-type films that McDonald and Eddie made, and they have a huge fan base and people of all ages. And I've been involved with these films for a long time, so I know that the appetite is out there. But for people who aren't necessarily familiar with them or don't like the old style operetta music, this is a very different kind of film. And the screenplay really makes it,

the production value makes it. And there's an amazing optical visual that is created, optical visual that is created, I would assume by miniatures, it's supposed to be the skyline of Manhattan around Broadway was totally created in the studio, but it's gorgeous to look at. They're terrific in the movie. Everybody in the movie is great. I'm hoping our audiences will really

appreciate the work that went into bringing this to light, because it was so important that we make it look great, because it's looked not great until now. Well, are there any extras on this release, George? Yes, we have something very interesting that was also on the DVD we did about 12, 13 years ago. We put together a group of pre-recordings that were done in the recording studio before they started shooting the film that lets you basically experience what it would have been like to be in the MGM recording studio when they were recording the numbers for the film. You get to hear stops and starts and comments in between takes and it's

really quite a fascinating thing. So there's a good deal of that presented. That's obviously an audio only feature. Then we have a radio broadcast that was done in the 1940s for the Screen Guild players. That's on there as well. Then there will be some high definition cartoons and a few other things that I think people will enjoy very much.

Well, let's get back to our October horror titles. a few other things that I think people will enjoy very much. Well, let's get back to our October horror titles with The Walking Dead from 1936. What can you tell us about this release, George? Well, this film has a very incredible pedigree with two legends of Hollywood. Of course, Boris Karloff as the star, but it's also directed by Michael Curtiz. And Michael Curtiz, the Oscar-winning director of Casablanca, of Yankee Doodle Dandy, of now Voyager, of Dodge City, I mean I could go on and on. But he did make two very important horror films at Warner Brothers in the early 30s using the two-color technicolor process. Dr. X and Mystery of the Wax Museum were both directed by

Michael Crutiz. So here we're dealing with zombies and long before Robert Kirkman and The Walking Dead that became a graphic novel series and then eventually the huge TV franchise, The Walking Dead was the title of a classic 1936 Warner Brothers movie directed by Michael Curtiz about the same kind of thing, albeit very differently told. And one of the things that's plagued this movie is in fact that everything we were distributing came from very old video masters. There was a DVD collection we put together with Karloff and Lugosi films. This was included on it and did not look good. But once again we have the opportunity to go back to the camera negatives, scan it 4k and come out with something that is so radically improved. I think people are gonna enjoy this film. If they liked it before, they're going to love it even more now.

And we will have some very exciting extras. There was an archival commentary recorded for the DVD, and we hope to be creating a new commentary to go along with that as well. And various other extras will be on that disc. So it should be a lot of fun because the movie itself is really short. And it is our intention to also include a documentary we have about Michael Curtiz,

the greatest film director you've never heard of. We're gonna put that on this disc too because it's such a great documentary and we can't stop tooting the horn about how great Michael Curtiz is because when people talk about great film directors, you know, there are certain names that roll off the tongue like Hitchcock and Capra and Cukor and Wells and well Michael Curtiz needs to be among those that roll off the tongue Kurtis needs to be among those that roll off the tongue and I'm part of a group of several people who won't stop talking about Michael Kurtis getting more attention. So the fact that he was so crafty in making a really gripping and

arresting horror film and Karloff is terrific in this movie. He gives a really good performance. And with all that going for it, this is going to be a must buy for horror fans. Well, listeners to our podcast have heard you talk about Michael Curtiz as well as other guests that we've had on. So I think we're all behind you there

in our acclaim for Mr. Curtiz. And then of course, the cast for this and just the excitement for this title, I think is a must have for so many people. So really looking forward to it. Let's do the last horror classic next. That is The Beast with Five Fingers from 1946. This film was actually premiered in New York City on Christmas Day of 1946. It got its general release throughout the rest of the country in early 1947. So sometimes you see it referred to as a 1947 film, but it was finished and first shown in 1946. And it's a terrific little horror film. And it always had a hungry audience that wanted to see it on DVD even. We did remaster the film for its DVD release,

but the results were substandard. We didn't have the budget that we would now have to do it the right way. When we are doing film preservation, what we're doing now is we're scanning at 4k or 8k from the original negative. What was done previously was the original negative was used to make a fine-grain master positive and that was the source of the last videoMaster, which isn't bad, it's second generation, but there were defects in the original negative that weren't addressed.

What we've done here is scan the original negative and used a second generation nitrate fine grain to replace certain sections where the negative was damaged. So an enormous amount of work has gone into this to make it look and of course sound really terrific. And Robert Alde is the star. It gives a very captivating performance and Warner Brothers was really trying to build him into becoming a big leading man at the studio. He ultimately sought to return to Broadway and his son Alan Alda is the one that people

are more familiar with. But the real lure for this film among horror fans is the performance by Peter Lurie. He is one of the legends of horror films for a number of reasons, whether it's films like Mad Love from 1935, which we released on Blu-ray not that long ago, or in his later years, he was in a lot of the Roger Corman produced Vincent Price at Graal and Poe films. He's got a fan base from the 1960s when in his later years, he was in those films. But he's just terrific in this film and it's a fan favorite.

Everybody wanted it and we're delivering the goods and I'm very excited about that. And just like the other horror films, the extras here will be announced at a later date, is that right? Yes, yes. We didn't want to hold up the announcements because we wanted people to know, especially for Halloween, we always usually have one horror film or maybe two, but to have three, I think that's giving the fans what they want.

And it is one of the most popular and profitable genres out there. I would say horror and science fiction are the number one genres in terms of sales. So, you know, we are here to deliver for all different audiences, but the most vocal and rabid audiences are the fans of horror and science fiction. So we want to heed the call and I'm very glad we've been able to get all three of these. This is my hope and I'm so excited to be able to know that in about 60 days, people will have these Blu-ray discs in their homes. And for the listeners out there, I wanna reassure you that George and I will make sure

that we have a podcast where we celebrate these horror classics and maybe we can have some special guests join us for that. I think that's a terrific idea. Yeah, yeah, we've done it each year, I think. So put it on your shopping list, buy these. When the pre-orders go up, I think you're going to want to get all three of those

if you're a classic horror fan. Now, if you prefer newer films, we do have one last announcement. And you've been helping people who want to collect things that are newer classics with your releases each month. And this one is going to make a lot of people happy. It's from 2006 and that is the film For Your Consideration. What can you tell us about this one, George?

Well, which is a skewering lampoon of regional amateur theater. It's just beyond description. We did release that on Blu-ray. That was followed by Best in Show, which was on Blu-ray from Warner Home Video. Because it was such a popular film at the box office, that it warranted a Blu-ray release early. His next film was a spoof of folk music of the 60s and 70s and a reunion, and that was A Mighty Wind.

We put that on Blu-ray. I think it's great. I can't think about his films without starting to laugh. Right. For your consideration was what followed A Mighty Wind about three years later, and it basically is a searing laceration of all the nonsense that goes on during award season. It's about a bunch of people who produced an independent film and what they're trying to

do to win awards for their film during awards season. So a film that kind of skewers Hollywood is not necessarily going to please everybody in the industry. But what Christopher Guest did, and it really started with Gufman and continued. As he built an ensemble of incredible actors that would appear in each film in completely different roles. We're talking about like eight or 10 different actors.

Most prominently, aside from himself, Catherine O'Hara who people know from Beetlejuice and Home Alone, or SCTV. But she's incredible in all these films. Eugene Levy, who is also an SCTV alumni, he's in all these films. And then people like Parker Posey. And for this film, for your consideration, Ricky Gervais, who really wasn't that well known in the United States at the time, was added to the ensemble and he's terrific in this movie. And I happen to be a big fan of his as well.

I think he's another genius. So you've got so much talent on this screen. This had never gotten a Blu-ray release, so we decided to take that wrong and make it right. That's very exciting. Now, will there be any extras for this one, George? Oh, yes. There's a commentary that was recorded by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy and there will also be deleted scenes and

outtakes so all the content that was on the DVD release Is being carried over here and we'll have the trailer as well So it'll be a it'll be a very nice disk And that means that we'll have three of the four Christopher Guest films in the Warner Archive collection. Best in Show is still a retail disc. But all four of his films are available from Warner Brothers for you to own and enjoy. And we can't underscore enough the importance of physical media being the way you get to see these films whenever you want and with our mutual efforts throughout the organization we're trying to create releases with the best possible

quality and I can't stress enough how important that is to us. And that encompasses so many different people within the company, all dedicated to bringing the best final product to the home. And I'm delighted that we're able to take a film like for your consideration and Liberate it from you know shouldn't be that you only have a choice of having an 18 year old DVD you should be able to have it with much better quality and That's what this blu-ray release provides

Well as always George I'm looking back here at the list you have three, four, six releases here this month scheduled for October 29th. You've got one TV series. You've got the modern classic here from 2006. And then you've got the three horror classics and the one, Sweethearts, the Technicolor. So again, there's something for everybody in this month, like you try to do each month, with a emphasis, of course, for the horror fans for October, so that they can get a nice amount of releases for October. So as always, thanks for coming on and walking us through these. It's always a pleasure.

Well, Tim, thank you. It's always a pleasure. Well, Tim, thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. And just to let the dedicated fan base and customers of the Warner Archive collection, we always want to let them know how grateful all of us at the Warner Archive are for your continued support, especially as we navigate these periods of production lags and difficulties because we see the light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully can get back on track.

For those who would like more information about the films announced today, be sure to check out our Facebook page and our Warner Archive Facebook group. You can find the links to those and all of our social media sites in the podcast show notes. Facebook is also the best place to get the preorder links for these titles when they become available and will also post any more information about the extras that are going to be included on those releases. about the extras that are going to be included on those releases. 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 coming up. 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.