Kino Lorber have confirmed that they are preparing a Blu-ray release of director Edward Dmytryk's western Shalako (1968), starring Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, and Peter van Eyck. The release is expected to arrive on the market later this summer.
Euan Lloyd’s first stint as primary producer for a commercial feature came with the 1968 western SHALAKO. The British-American production starred Sean Connery (who replaced Henry Fonda), Brigitte Bardot, and Stephen Boyd. Edward Dmytryk directed the film, which had location scenes filmed in Almería, Spain. The screenplay was based on a 1962 novel by Louis L'Amour. At about $2 million, the film was modestly budgeted, considering the cast. Although it only had $1.3 million in U.S. receipts, the foreign box office put the film into the black. The film’s score by Robert Farnon was released on a Philips LP, but it has never been reissued on CD.
In looking at the records, it appears that soon after MGM issued its DVD of SHALAKO in 2004, it licensed the film to Sony Pictures Entertainment for 10 years. During that time Sony did nothing with it, at least as far as physical media was concerned. Perhaps it was available for television/cable or streaming. That license ended in 2014, and now comes this Blu-ray announcement.
At the time of the film's DVD releases in 2001 (by Anchor Bay) and 2004 (by MGM), it was reported that both releases had been under license from Disney, who had acquired the film as part of their purchase of ABC. Those DVDs were made from an old non-anamorphic transfer of the film. I wonder who has prepared this new Hi-Def transfer, MGM or Disney?
I hope they're doing an adequate restoration. The last time I saw parts of this movie on TV it looked pretty bad. I can't recall if I ever saw the DVD but here's an old review that tells you the problems:
SHALAKO is set for an 11 July 2017 release, and can now be pre-ordered. Reportedly, the disc will contain an audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox, as well as trailers.
