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Per Home Theatre Forum, the first releases of 2023 will be:
Our Dancing Daughters
Wife Versus Secretary
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
Rancho Notorious
The Long, Long Trailer
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During a discussion of a potential restoration of Porgy and Bess, Robert Harris gave a rather disheartening overview of the state of the Samuel Goldwyn library, which could explain why we’ve had so few Goldwyn releases:
My apologies for not being aware. Your passion for fillum will keep you going.
Just so that you fully understand - the black & white nitrate original negatives, fine grains and lavenders were all junked decades ago. The only silent film preserved on safety was Barbara Worth.
The Technicolor negatives are rotting.
The majority of the Goldwyn reference prints, inclusive of dye transfer, were stolen. As were the majority of safety fine grains held in the UK, after they made their way back to the Colonies.
It isn’t a pretty picture.
The reality is that Porgy & Bess is the least of their problems.
A good start would be repatriating what was purloined.
Post 86 below:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/omg-just-received-this-from-gershwin-estate-1959-porgy-and-bess-they-want-it-restored.377943/page-5
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THE LONG, LONG, TRAILER is such a wonderful movie. I've seen it many times and it still makes me laugh. Minnelli's direction of Lucy and Desi was inspired.
Agree! Can’t wait for this one too!
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A new Extras podcast with George Feltenstein is now online. A user on the Blu-ray.com forum made a transcript of a portion talking about the timeline between a film’s approval and it’s actual release, which contains some potentially good news for lovers of sword and sandals epics:
Varies a lot, so George cannot give an exact timeline: some are either in scanning, color correction, sound restoration, or frame by frame picture restoration at any moment. George says as a good example (he won’t be title specific but feels people can guess), but about two-three years ago, we commissioned a release of a “very well-regarded sword and sandals CinemaScope film from the 1950s.” They brought in an unfortunately problematic interpositive, and then the secondary element they brought it was also problematic, so it needed to be put on hold, and now it will hopefully finally happen from the OCN and B & W separation positives to get it released in hopefully 2023. Every time they work with an OCN or master element, it must be scanned at 4K for preservation purposes. It’s a “conga line” at the scanners, with sometimes 6-20 films in the queue to be scanned. Amidst that, they could also be doing “14 seasons of a classic TV series with 30 episodes each”, for example. Some titles are a breeze, and have no issues. Some have issues – there was 1 movie they wanted to remaster for DVD 13 years ago that they still haven’t been able do do anything with because a reel of the OCN is missing. It’s not WB’s fault, but that of the company before that made it. George says he should have never said it was coming back in 2010 on Facebook, it was a huge mistake, as then he knew it was, but then complications happened. This is why they “play things close to the hip”, as they don’t want to have disappointment follows. George mentions he said something offhand on an HTF chat 17 years ago, about a release that looked like it was going to happen, until a week later when George’s boss at the time slashed their release schedule to use the profits from catalog titles to make direct to video horror/slasher films. Years after though, George says he got complaints like “you promised!”, but George says we only share info, and if we get “kicked in the caboose”, we apologize. People are very passionate about this (George says he understands, he is too) but we don’t want to promise what we can’t deliver. There were so many films just this year where George thought the elements were great, then go to inspect and that the preservation elements made in the last decade weren’t so hot.
https://www.theextras.tv/podcasts/blog-post-wacmailjan-010223
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Yeah, nothing for me there, Gold Diggers Of 1933 was the last Archive film I bought, but I'm sure they'll be a few gems released this year. The sword & sandals film is probably Land Of The Pharaohs (1956) or just maybe Helen Of Troy (1956), I'll be happy with either of them (happier still with both), both are in Warnercolor which I understand is a bit problematic now, but the Warnercolor, Mister Roberts (1955) turned out just fine.
Yeah, I’m absolutely convinced that the sword-and-sandals film is one of those two. The only other CinemaScope sword-and-sandals films in Warner’s possession that I can think of are The Silver Chalice and The Prodigal, neither of which are really “well regarded.”
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April releases have been announced via The Extras:
Safe in Hell
One Way Passage
The Strawberry Blonde
Storm Warning
A Lion is in the Streets
https://www.stitcher.com/show/632049/episode/300663547
The podcast also confirms that The Roaring Twenties will be coming at some point.
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Per Home Theatre Forum, June’s releases are:
The Damned Don’t Cry
Caged
Angel Face
Dangerous When Wet
Land of the Pharaohs (particularly happy about this one!)
The Old Man and the Sea
Hopefully, we’ll have Helen of Troy in July’s release batch.
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