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Just a quick update: Someone previously asked about Joseph Losey's 'M'.
Films sans Frontières - Region 0 - PAL (March 2016) - This French DVD is a serviceable transfer with *optional* English or French subtitles. There is also a French Blu-ray from Sidonis but it has *forced* (non-removable) French subtitles. This item's entry on the newly reformatted Pinterest Board (one has to click on the image to find the complete or recently added information) has been updated. Here is ordering information on the DVD:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00VX2HJ62/dvdbeaver-21/ref=nosim
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Recently posted to the CC's Pinterest Board of Most Wanted Titles on DVD or Blu-Ray include:
None Shall Escape
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Abandon Ship!
If Bob has information on any of these he can share with us, I'd be most grateful.
Here is the CC's Pinterest Board as it now stands: https://au.pinterest.com/TheCinemaCafe/the-community-chest-most-wanted-by-fans-on-dvd-or-/ Please note that all of the Pinterest Boards have (unfortunately) had their formatting changed. In order to view the complete or any updated information on a title, one must click on the individual image.
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Recently posted to the CC's Pinterest Board of Most Wanted Titles on DVD or Blu-Ray include:
None Shall Escape
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Abandon Ship!
If Bob has information on any of these he can share with us, I'd be most grateful.
I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF is controlled by Susan Hart, the widow of the late James H. Nicholson of American International Pictures. Hart, age 75, is in no rush to put out the eleven former AIP films she owns on video. For more information, see my post of February 24, 2016 in this thread.
NONE SHALL ESCAPE is still controlled by its producer and distributor, Columbia Pictures.
ABANDON SHIP! is still controlled by Columbia Pictures, which released it on VHS in the U.S. in 1997. It has also been released on a Region 2 DVD out of Spain.
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Waves-Abandon-NON-USA-FORMAT/dp/B006NQDCAK/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1472933917&sr=1-2&keywords=Abandon+Ship
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And there's the feature film "Gunn"
GUNN is still controlled by Paramount Pictures. But I wonder if there isn't some rights issue related to the character or the original series that is holding up release of the film. Paramount had no role in the original series, which seems to have been last copyrighted by the International Creative Exchange way back in 1993. But that outfit seems to be defunct. Someone who owns the complete series set that was released by Timeless Media Group can perhaps check to see from whom it was licensed.
In the 80s, Gunn was shown on pay movie channels very often (don't remember if it was HBO or Cinemax, etc.). Never got to see it which is a shame because I've just now completed watching the entire Peter Gunn series on DVD, and I really want to see the Blake Edwards theatrical film...
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 1:28 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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ST. LOUIS BLUES was based on the life and music of noted blues composer and musician W. C. Handy. Born on 16 November 1873 in Florence, AL, William Christopher Handy was educated in public schools and by his father and paternal grandfather, both of whom were clergymen. He left home at age fifteen to begin a career as a cornet player with a traveling minstrel show. In 1893, Handy formed a quartet that performed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After working as a music teacher at the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Huntsville, AL, Handy turned to composing in 1907, and his first published song was "Memphis Blues," which was based on a campaign song he had written for Edward "The Boss" Crup, the mayor of Memphis, TN. Most notable among his sixty-plus compositions are "St. Louis Blues" (1914), "Beale St. Blues" (1917) and "Loveless Love" (1921).
Although he lost his eyesight in 1903, Handy continued to conduct his own orchestra until 1921. His eyesight was partially restored for a time, but then was completely lost again after a fall from a New York City subway platform in 1943. Handy died in New York on 28 March 1958, just a few weeks before the premiere of ST. LOUIS BLUES.
No official soundtrack album for this 1958 musical film was ever released. Because stars Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, and Pearl Bailey were each under contract to a different record label, each of them released an LP of songs based on the film. ST. LOUIS BLUES has never been released on any home video format. Paramount has the rights to the film, but there's a good chance that the music rights are holding up the film's release on home video.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 2:38 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Ann-Margret starred as "Laurel," the former fiancee of ex-G.I. "Bus Riley" (Michael Parks) in BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN, a 1965 drama originally shot based on a screenplay by American playwright and novelist William Inge.
But then the film was significantly altered. In a interview published in the January 1976 issue of "Films and Filming," Ann-Margret explained what happened: "You should have seen the film we originally shot. After the alterations were made, William Inge had his name taken off of it. His screenplay had been wonderful. So brutally honest. And the woman Laurel, as he wrote her, was mean...and he made that very sad. But the studio at that time didn't want me to have that kind of an image for the young people of America. They thought it was too brutal a portrayal. It had been filmed entirely using William Inge's script, but a year after it was completed they got another writer in, and another director. They wanted me to re-do five key scenes. And those scenes changed the story. That's when Inge took his name off. There were two of those scenes that I just refused to do. The other three...I did, but I was upset and angry. They'd altered the whole life of the story and made the character I played another person altogether. To put it mildly, they'd softened the blow that Inge had delivered. If only everyone could have seen that film the way he wrote it."
Universal hastily changed the film's advertising to delete the touting of "William Inge's most searing story," and replaced his screenplay credit with one citing the pseudonym of "Walter Gage." The film had a VHS release around 2000 but has never been on DVD. Richard Markowitz's score has not been released.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2016 - 5:02 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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John Frankenheimer's THE FIXER told the story of "Yakov Bok," an impoverished Jewish handyman in Czarist Russia, who is wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime. Dalton Trumbo's screenplay for the film was based on the 1966 novel by Bernard Malamud. Alan Bates was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the lead role, a part for which director Frankenheimer had sought Richard Burton.
The film was made in Hungary, then a Communist satellite country. The cast and crew were obliged to work six days a week under considerable pressure, and Frankenheimer was very unpopular. Co-star Dirk Bogarde always referred to him thereafter as "Frankenstein", while Ian Holm reported in his memoirs of nearly forty years later that the director had had, during filming, a very obvious extra-marital affair with the daughter of screenwriter Trumbo, even though his wife, Evans Evans, was in attendance.
Silva Screen and Tadlow have recorded a 7-minute suite from Maurice Jarre's score. It was Jarre's third score for a Frankenheimer film, after THE TRAIN (1964) and GRAND PRIX (1966). They would work together one more time, on the 1969 flop THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN. THE FIXER was released on videocassette in 1994, but has never been on DVD.
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I cannot remotely imagine Richard Burton in THE FIXER.
Even Bates was a stretch, playing a kind of blockhead laborer, but he was a good enough actor that he pulled it off.
I saw this film when it first came out, and it wasn't bad, though pretty relentlessly depressing. At the time, I couldn't figure why it was made. I don't remember it being much of a success at the time, though it did get Bates an Oscar nomination.
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And there's the feature film "Gunn"
GUNN is still controlled by Paramount Pictures. But I wonder if there isn't some rights issue related to the character or the original series that is holding up release of the film. Paramount had no role in the original series, which seems to have been last copyrighted by the International Creative Exchange way back in 1993. But that outfit seems to be defunct. Someone who owns the complete series set that was released by Timeless Media Group can perhaps check to see from whom it was licensed.
In the 80s, Gunn was shown on pay movie channels very often (don't remember if it was HBO or Cinemax, etc.). Never got to see it which is a shame because I've just now completed watching the entire Peter Gunn series on DVD, and I really want to see the Blake Edwards theatrical film...
I wonder if the film uses the same 4 cues that the tv series used ad nauseum
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