The Extras - EXCLUSIVE: Warner Archive May Part 1 Release Announcement: Border Incident, Clash By Night, Looney Tunes Collector's Choice Vol. 1

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive announces two films in PART 1 of the May  2023 Blu-ray releases.  First up is the 1949 film noir BORDER INCIDENT, starring Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, and cinematography by John Alton.  Second is CLASH BY NIGHT, the 1952 film noir directed by Fritz Lang and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, and Marilyn Monroe.  George previews both films and provides background on the restoration on these releases.  Then special guest animation historian Jerry Beck joins for an exclusive announcement of the new LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S CHOICE VOLUME 1 Blu-ray.  You don't want to miss George and Jerry's preview of the cartoons in this release.  A full release of the names of all 20 cartoon shorts will be announced at a later time.A separate podcast will announce the rest of the May Blu-ray releases.The Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Warner Archive Store on Amazon Support the podcast by shopping with our Amazon Affiliate linkDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.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 enlarger host well recently we had an announced podcast for the five warner archive april releases and so many of you enjoyed that format that george has agreed to come back

to announce part one of the may warner archive blu-ray releases and he has brought with him a very special guest who will join us for part of this announcement a little bit later. And just a reminder, there are more releases planned for May. So this is just the first group that is releasing and they're releasing a little earlier in May and the rest will be a little later in the month. So we'll have another podcast to announce those later May titles. Now, before I bring on George and our special guest, I just want to take a moment to encourage everyone who listens to the podcast to be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button at your favorite podcast provider. And if you're just finding out about the podcast through these

announcement episodes, I encourage you to follow as well so that you don't miss any of these special announcements in the future. So please take a moment to do that as soon as you get the chance. And just so you know, I will be posting some preliminary images and artwork for the titles that we discussed today on our Facebook page and in our Facebook group when those are made available. So you can look for that either toward the end of this show or in the next day or two. Well, let's get to the announce. Well, let's get to the announce. Well, hi, George.

This is very exciting to have another announcement episode so soon after the April announcement podcast. And I realize this is just part one for May, but it's very exciting. We're very excited about it, too. And I'm, as always, so grateful to be here on the extras to get the word out to the folks of what we're doing at Warner Archive. Well, I know we have a special guest who's going to join us maybe a little bit later in our discussion here. Did we want to let the listeners know who that is, or should we save that as a bit of a surprise? We'll save that as a true surprise as soon as he comes in the door. Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. Well, before we get into the discussion of the films, I did want to ask you just a little bit about the fact that on the 23rd, last Thursday,

it was the 14th anniversary of the Warner Archive. And I wanted to congratulate you for a wonderful 14 years. And I know that in our Facebook group, so many people wrote congratulations and thanks to you and the team there at Warner Brothers and all the people who have worked at the Warner Archive over the years for all the great work that you've done. Did you do anything special to celebrate? I just kept working. How much better can that be to just continue to look to the future and how we continue to grow the business and make more films available and programming available to the consumers that

want to own it. So that couldn't be a more fitting tribute to the fact that we're now starting year 15, you know, as of today, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Well, everybody's very excited about the April releases. And I know they're going to be very excited to hear about these May ones as well. So shall we go ahead and dive in? Absolutely. What we're going to do is I'm going to talk about two releases that are going to become available early in the month. early in the month. And then if you don't mind, I'll come back for another episode to talk about the rest of the releases for May. May is going to be a very big month for us. And it's indicative of the kind of things that we have in store. And what I like about these two films and why I'm going to talk about them together, aside from the fact that they're being

released early in the month, is they're both, to some degree, I'd say, film noir-related. On the cusp, we released both of them on DVD as part of film noir collections, both of them on DVD as part of film noir collections. But not everyone would necessarily consider them traditional film noir. The first film that I'm really excited that we're upgrading on Blu-ray with a brand new 4K scan off preservation elements is Anthony Mann's Border Incident from 1949. And Anthony Mann is one of those really amazing directors who has a deserved cult following. And he's best known for his film noir and his westerns, too.

We released his The Naked Spur a year and a half ago, and it was a gorgeous technicolor western with Jimmy Stewart. It was one of our best-selling releases at the time. And I just find his work continually fascinating. But this film, it doesn't quite fit into a genre, but I'd say that it's truly a crime film and a suspense film and a thriller. And it has man's directorial fingerprint all over it. And it was released by MGM and produced by MGM, released by them at the toward the end of 1949. And it's very timely, even though it's almost 75 years old, because it deals with people trying to cross the Mexican border to earn a living and all the crime and corruption that was going on on both sides of the border.

And the film stars Ricardo Montalban, who we talked about here on The Extras not that long ago, because another one of his MGM 1949 films, Neptune's Daughter, came out in March. And this is a very different film. Ricardo plays the lead who's basically working with an American cop played by George Murphy to try and really deal with the horrible treatment of these people who are trying to enter the country legally and several are entering illegally and people are robbed and stabbed. And it's just a horrible situation. And that horrible situation continues to be a point of great concern for a lot of people, even today. And what I really like about the film is that it is not the kind of film one would expect to be coming from MGM.

And it really began at a little studio that couldn't afford to make it. It began as an Eagle Lion production, the idea for it. And Eagle Lion couldn't afford to make it. So they sold the nascent production idea, as well as the directorial services of Anthony Mann to MGM so that MGM could make it properly. And it was quite well received when it came out. And not only that, but it has the pedigree of one of my favorite cinematographers, John Alton, and it has amazing use of light and shadow. That's why we did put it in a film noir collection

when it came out on DVD. But as you can tell by the subject matter, there's no tragic femme fatale and what have you. It's a dark story that deals with thrills and crime. So that's why it's kind of not a noir, but yet it has noir aspects to the way the story is told and the way the characters are developed. And because it was made at MGM,

it does have the hallmark of all the great people that MGM had under contract. It has a definite A-picture feel, as opposed to if it had been made by Eagle Lion, where it most definitely would have had a B picture feel because they were a B picture outfit. It's also notable that the original music score was written by Andre Previn, who I think was either 19 or 20 at the time. And it wasn't his first music score. I mean, this man started working in the MJ music department at age 16. And I'm still overwhelmed by all the great work he did in film and then wrote popular music and eventually headed towards classical conducting and composing.

Just passed away recently, but incredible genius. And his early scores like this one are really, really impressive. So I think people are going to be very excited that this film is being released on Blu-ray. It hasn't been mastered in over 25 years. This is sorely needed, and it has been oft requested, too. So I'm particularly tickled about that. And it should be noted that George Murphy having this second lead, usually he was in lighter films, many musical comedies, and yet he could really handle

dramatic roles. And he sort of became an ambassador for MGM, if you will. And he had kind of a leadership quality that ended up having him becoming a senator from California in the 60s. So he was one of those actors that moved from performing to politics. But he's terrific in the movie. James Mitchell is in the movie. He is a supporting part. And he's best known for his dancing ability. He was the Dream Curly in the movie Oklahoma several years later. And he plays a choreographer in the

bandwagon and his roots are in the musical theater on Broadway, and yet his MGM contract gave him several opportunities to play non-musical roles. He was a really, really good actor. And then contemporary soap opera fans may recall him. For many, many years, he played Palmer Cortland on All My Children, really up until his death. And that show's been off the air now for over 10 years, 12 years, I think now. A couple of years before the show went off the air, he passed away. But he had a very substantial screen career being under contract to MGM, and the fact that they gave him the opportunity to

be in this movie. Howard De Silva is also in this movie, phenomenal actor whose career was basically eviscerated because of The Blacklist. So this was one of the films he made right before then. And then a noir favorite has a relatively small role in this movie, Charles McGraw, and he would go on to lead several films at RKO shortly thereafter. So Border Incident is a taut, tight thriller, and it looks gorgeous on Blu-ray, and I think it's a very worthy upgrade in the Warner Archive collection. So that's release number one for me that we're going to sneak today. Now, the second release is, I would say, more closely categorized as a noir. And yet some people might say, well...

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. Maybe not. You know, I tend to feel more comfortable calling it a noir. It's directed by the great Fritz Lang, whose ability to manipulate shadow and light and create the perfect aura for noir is well known. And this is Clash by Night,

a 1952 RKO release that was produced by the team of Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna. And Wald and Krasna came together at RKO to produce a fairly impressive group of films. And Clash by Night was an adaptation of a play that was written by Clifford Odets, one of the great playwrights of the 20th century. And when the play opened on Broadway, it starred Tallulah Bankhead and Lee J. Cobb. When the play opened on Broadway, it starred Tallulah Bankhead and Lee J. Cobb. So the film version took liberties with the original stage play, but the end result was really, really impressive. It was initially considered that RKO was going to try to borrow Joan Crawford from Warner Brothers to star in this movie, but that never came to be. They ended up not having to settle by having an

equally phenomenal leading lady, that being Barbara Stanwyck. And she plays the really central character of this movie. She plays a woman who is not particularly happy in her marriage to a character played by actor Paul Douglas. And she ends up having an affair with Robert Ryan. And it's set against a fishing village, kind of on the edge of town. Most notably in this film, which was shot up in Monterey, they did a lot of location shooting. The second lead, there's like a younger couple in the movie played by Keith Andes and a woman that was borrowed from 20th Century Fox. Her name is Marilyn Monroe. And you may recall that when we talked about The Prince and the Showgirl not too long ago on one of your extras podcasts, I said that there would be another Marilyn Monroe movie coming

from Warner Archive. And people kind of figured out by my insinuations what that movie was. And indeed, it is Clash by Night. And it's a beautiful new master from our best elements. Looks sensational. And I've always really been a strong, fervent supporter of this movie. I think it's very edgy and it's very realistic. And it has all the characteristics that show Lange behind the camera, one of our great directors in the history of cinema. And it has melodrama that feels very, very real. And it kind of keeps you on the edge of your seat. And I talked about how Border Incident was shot by a great cinematographer, John Alton, who had also done the cinematography for the ballet sequence in An American in Paris after the border incident.

Well, here you have, I would say, the quintessential RKO film noir cinematographer, Nicolas Moussouraka. They did so many great noirs at RKO and Musuraka could be a great cinematographer for any movie but the noirs he shot at RKO are

renowned and you have that same feeling here so it's truly a first class production it was very well received by the critics it did good business and it very much had the censors on the tail of RKO wanting to make sure they didn't go too overboard with the themes of infidelity and so forth and so on. But I really like this film a great deal.

And again, this also was in a previous Warner Home Video film noir collection that we had put together. This new master is so much of an improvement over what we had before, which is what we aim for when we create these new sources for Blu-ray. And you got Robert Ryan in there, who along with Robert Mitchum, they really split the noirs at RKO between the two of them. And sometimes they work together.

So this is a real Class A addition to the Warner Archive collection. I'm very, very excited about it. And people will find that Marilyn Monroe's performance shows what a good actress she was even before she became so famous. She became so famous. She was about six months to a year prior to entering into that superstardom phenomenon. And this film did a lot to help her career. And she got, you know, second billing under the under the stars. So, you know, she's on the movie poster. I know that in the April releases, there was a lot of partnership with the Film Foundation.

Does that apply to any of these, George? No. These, what the Film Foundation did was support Warner Brothers in the 100th anniversary by offering their insight and support and recommendations on what films Warner Brothers should restore for the 100th. And all the restoration work was done at MPI internally by our talented team. And the Film Foundation blessed those titles. And so the same people that worked on those titles worked on these titles, except there was no outside involvement in terms of

promotion. But I will say that I would venture to guess that most of the people that make up the Film Foundation, who are primarily film directors, who span generations and talents and styles, I think they would all be thrilled that we've restored these movies, because I'm sure that they are emphatically supportive of them, because they both are works of excellence. Well, as a noir fan myself, I'm very excited about these two. I love anything by Anthony Mann and of course, Fritz Lang as well. So, and then you got the Marilyn Monroe, as you mentioned, a lot of people already guessed it, but that's created a lot of excitement. So these are two great ones. And do you have a street date yet for these yet,

George? No, I just want people to know that they're going to be seeing them for sale very soon. Okay. For pre-order. And then there'll be another group of titles that will be offered for later in the month. So May is going to be a packed month with a lot of excitement and a lot of different kinds of films for different audience tastes. We're always trying to please everyone. And, you know, I see often the question asked, you know, well, how do these films get chosen and what is the criteria. We're working on several dozen films at any given time. So when things are complete and ready for release, they get released. And then there are some films that we have to spend six months, a year, in some cases, two or three years of a delay until we can get it right because there's problems with elements or what have you. So we try to have as diverse a schedule as possible. And I can guarantee you that no matter what we do, there will be somebody

complaining about something. We're used to that. We can't please everybody all the time, but we surely do try. And if your favorite kind of film isn't available now, that doesn't mean it won't be available next month or next year or whenever it's possible to do so. So I think people are going to see a very diverse group of films that span a greater period of time as the year progresses. And we hope we're going to make our dedicated customers very happy. our dedicated customers very happy.

Well, George, I think now it's time that you introduce our very special guest for this announcement episode. Well, it's my delight. And frankly, no one in their right mind could ever even think that we would have this special guest on this podcast. There's just no possible way. But in fact, my dear friend and co-conspirator when it comes to classic animation, the master, the maestro,

the most revered and beloved fan and creator and purveyor and writer about classic animation, Mr. Jerry Beck has joined us for this podcast. Welcome, Jerry. Thank you, George. Thank you, Tim. Great to be here. That's all I can say right now.

What are we going to announce, George? We're announcing the 8K release of Johnny Cipher in the Dimension Zero. Be still my heart. I know. Longed for. There are no 8K players, but that hasn't stopped us. We've spent $30 billion on this restoration. Just kidding, folks.

No, we have something that is long anticipated by fans, We have something that is long anticipated by fans, and I'm delighted to confirm that we will be releasing Warner Archive Blu-ray Looney Tunes Collector's Choice Volume 1, featuring 20 uncut theatrical cartoons from the hallowed halls of Warner Brothers, all restored from their original 35mm Successive Exposure Master negatives, in many cases nitrate. And this is meant to be a potpourri of great classic cartoons featuring a multiplicity of characters. And the great hope is that if this release is successful and people support it, Volume 1 will be succeeded by several more volumes so that we can get more cartoons onto the shelves of the fans that want them on Blu-ray.

I think this is the beginning of a new series, a series that's part of our lifelong efforts to get all the cartoons out from the vaults in our hands, in the collector's hands. You know, we have been advocates for physical media for a long, long time. And this set is proof positive why you need to collect these on physical media. It's the only way you're going to get them on Blu-ray. Your only way you're going to see them the way they should be seen uncut. We know that the cartoons are now out there in several sources streaming, but don't give up on the collection because we've got some great, great stuff in ways that you've never seen them before. great, great stuff in ways that you've never seen them before.

And I think that what's really terrific about it is that it spans decades. It's really 40s and 50s. We don't have anything from the 30s and we don't have anything from the 60s. It's 40s and 50s. So it's really, I would say, mostly golden age cartoons. We've got cartoons on here from Chuck Jones for his Freeling, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimpson, and Arthur Davis. Arthur Davis in particular, who's been often neglected by us even, because he did like a year or two in the late 40s. And then his unit was completely shut down, the unit that was his. And then it became the three, you know, McKimpson, Freeling, and Jones. But there's some just fantastic cartooning here.

I've been collecting, George, you've been collecting cartoons since our ancient days in 16 millimeter. Or even eight millimeter things have never looked this good ever to us they look like they were when they were originally released in fact they might even look better than when they were original originally released in most cases like you said i really hope this is the beginning of a series. We went out of our way to keep our ear to the ground, to hear what the fans want, cartoons that we wanted out that we hadn't gotten around to. I'm going to mention at least one title, if you don't mind.

I think you should mention two. I'll mention, okay, for example, the oft-requested Beanstalk Bunny is one of our cartoons. Chuck Jones classic that just hasn't made it to any of the medium that we'd been involved with before. No DVD, no Blu-ray. Every cartoon here is making its Blu-ray debut. Yeah. Some were on DVD, and there's a couple that weren't on DVD or Blu-ray. That's what's so cool about this set. which is a great 40s cartoon in terms of the animation, in terms of an early cartoon with Sylvester with a completely different voice,

caricatures of Crosby and Sinatra. I mean, just perfection. You know, here it is. Enjoy. Absolutely. I'm kind of frustrated because I want to just plow into a whole podcast where we talk about every cartoon in detail and what we want to do in the future. But that will be for a future podcast where we'll really get into details of this release. But it will become available shortly for pre-order. And

we wanted to get the word out now so that people knew they could protect the golden day when street date happens and the disc will arrive at their door. And I think that's going to be an exciting day. And there's a lot I want to talk to you about, Jerry, about a lot of these specific cartoons. Not the most famous ones, but some of the less famous ones have some intricate questions that I have for you. And that's going to have to wait till a whole other podcast on the extras. You know, I want to mention, since we're really just plugging the set in general and not getting into specifics, but I was going through the list of the ones we chose,

in general and not getting into specifics, but I was going through the list of the ones we chose, and I'm actually surprised by this, but we didn't really choose any of the miscellaneous cartoons. What I mean by that is this is 20 cartoons on here, and it's Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Roadrunner, Tweety, Sylvester, Foghorn. I think the most obscure cartoon, oh, well, the three bears from Chuck Jones. And the Goofy Gophers. Goofy Gophers. I guess the most obscure cartoon, oh, the Three Bears from Chuck Jones. And the Goofy Gophers. Goofy Gophers. I guess the most obscure characters are the Babbitt and Castello. Yeah. You know, we have one on there.

It's very, very rare. It's a Frank Tashlin one. You know, it's just a great, great set that if you don't care about the obscurity of the title, or if you don't care about, you know, how rare it is, if you're just a normal person, and we don't know if any normal people are actually listening to this, but if you're a normal person, it's just a hilarious set of 20 cartoons. So it's just perfect.

And I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm really hoping that the sales will lead to us doing volume two and volume three and more that we have in our minds. And I think another thing to mention is that for a very long time, Warner Archive was really out of the ballpark or not allowed in the country club, I should say, of handling main library cartoons, specifically Looney Tunes. And we got a little taste of it with Porky Pig 101, which was a very dedicated concept that was DVD oriented.

And we certainly had our share of problems. and we certainly had our share of problems. So for us, Porky Pig 101 was a major endeavor, but it was also very frustrating for us because at that point, we really wanted to be able to afford to be able to do Blu-ray restorations. And that disc was well-received, but it was only a drop in the bucket of what we dreamed of being able to do. This disc is what will be, I hope, the first of many discs to come

to enrich people's Looney Tunes Blu-ray collections. And we know that the fans and the collectors, you know, come to enrich people's Looney Tunes Blu-ray collections. And we know that the fans and the collectors, you know, really aren't crazy about double dips and all that sort of thing. You guys know what we're doing over here. We're giving you good, good material so that you have the best possible collection of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies. you have the best possible collection of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies. So we'll talk about these in great detail and some of the challenges we faced.

It's a very interesting story because when you've got 20 cartoons, that's 20 separate films. I mean, they're short films, but they are films. They're not episodes. They weren't made for television. They're theatrical shorts. I was so happy when I saw the menu for this, and it was addressing them as shorts, not episodes. That's the dead giveaway of people who don't respect theatrical cartoons. So 20 shorts, lovingly restored from the original 35 millimeter successive exposure masters. That's basically a dollar and a few pennies per cartoon. If you pay suggested retail price, which I hope you will, because the more people support this and don't wait for a sale and just buy it when it comes out, the more we can go to management and say, look how popular this is. You've got to let us do more.

And I'm certainly hoping that will be the case. And George, can I ask you, have any of these 20 been on streaming channels? Streaming channels? Some of them have been, but the two that are making their Blu-ray and DVD debuts, meaning that they were never on anything but a LaserDisc, those have not been streaming. And I also would like to say that even the ones that have been on streaming channels on this disc, these look better. Well, just the nature.

When you're watching something streaming streaming the file is so compressed and just by the nature of the beast you're not going to get that kind of robust quality that a blu-ray has to offer and you know even if these were and, and this is kind of important, if these were 4K discs, I don't think they could look that much better. Because if you've got a 4K setup, you play the disc, the Blu-ray up converts. The difference between that, since these come from 4K scans, there's just not that much information in the original photography. scans. There's just not that much information in the original photography. And it will only make the dust that we have carefully, meticulously left alone. And you'll see plenty of it. It will only exacerbate that anyway. But they look great. We think you're going to enjoy them. And we're delighted to be able to announce them here. Well, thanks Jerry for coming on. I mean, this is, this has been long awaited. I mean, people have been asking, when are we going

to get some more Lonely Tunes? And so I'm excited. I'm sure the fans are as well. Yeah. No one should ever doubt that George and I, you know, want to get more and more and more of that library out to you. And we want to, you know, want to get more and more and more of that library out to you. And we want to, you know, support physical media. Well, as I mentioned earlier, this is only part one of the May releases from the Warner Archive. So you can look forward to another episode announcing the rest of the robust May schedule. And as George and Jerry mentioned, they will return for a podcast dedicated to the new Looney Tunes Collectors Choice Volume 1 releases. And there they'll be able to go into detail about each

cartoon. So there'll be lots of fun discussions about all of the great releases for both the month of April and May in the weeks ahead. So again, you'll want to subscribe so that you don't miss any of those. And I know many of you are waiting to see the full list of the 20 cartoons in the collector's choice release. We were not able to go into those today, but when those are available, I know Jerry will be posting them and we'll also have them on our Facebook page so that you can see the names of those cartoons. It's all kind of being released as we speak. So for those of you who are members of our private Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog group, you can find that information there. And by the way, everyone is

welcome to join that group. So look for the link in the podcast show notes. And the Facebook page is also where I will post the links for pre-orders, and I believe those should be available very soon. And I did want to promote in our next podcast that we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of Warner Brothers. So if you weren't aware of that, that will be coming up, and it's an episode you don't want to miss. And again, it's part of our overall celebration of Warner Brothers for this 100th year anniversary, which we've been doing here in March. We'll continue in April and throughout the rest of the year. All right.

As always, look for our social media links in the podcast show notes. And for our long-term listeners, please leave us a review at your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, I'm Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. 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.