The Extras - Warner Archive April Announcement: 7 Classic Films, a 4K Documentary, PLUS An Update on Last Summer

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Send a textWe break down Warner Archive’s packed April slate and explain what makes each Blu-ray worth owning, from new 4K scans and rescued film elements to the shorts, cartoons, and radio extras that turn discs into time capsules. We also tease a hard-won restoration update on Last Summer and why preservation work often takes years longer than anyone wants. • 20,000 Years In Sing Sing as a pre-Code prison drama with a new master and deep extras • Crack Up as a tight RKO noir upgraded from a rough DVD era transfer • King Richard And The Crusaders as a colorful CinemaScope remaster with Max Steiner score and bonus cartoons • Monogram Matinee Volume Two as a preservation win for Louisiana and Song Of The Range with high-quality 4K scans • Captain’s Courageous as an MGM classic rebuilt from preservation elements with standout Spencer Tracy performance • Private Benjamin finally getting a proper widescreen HD presentation plus TV series episodes • George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey arriving as a 4K HDR Dolby Vision combo pack • Arrowsmith restored by the Library of Congress and The Film Foundation plus a Lux Radio Theater bonus • Last Summer restoration hurdles including missing reels, version mismatches, and plans for release For more details on the screening, visit the AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE websiteThere are no pre-order links yet, but we will post those on our Facebook page and in our different social media sites when those become available.  The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupJoin our new public Facebook Group for Warner Archive Animation Fans and get the latest update on all the releases.As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links.  There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast.  Thanks in advance.Otaku 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.  [e-mail]

Hi, this is Alan K. Rode, author and film historian, and you are listening to Tim Millard's podcast, The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Malard, your host, and joining me is George Feltenstein, who announced the April releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George. Hello, Tim. Great to be with you again, as always. Well, this is a packed April. You told us this was going to happen. You've got eight films. You've got a 4K release. a long-awaited 1980s film. And we'll also touch a bit later here on a ninth film that you announced for later in the year, but we won't get too much into that now. But there's a lot to talk about here for April. And I'm really excited. Let's dive in with our first Blu-ray. And that is 20,000 years in Sing Sing from 1932. What can you tell us about this pre-code prison drama?

This is a pure pre-code Warner Brothers drama, just as you say. But what makes it kind of remarkable is you've got a director by the name of Michael Curtis, so you know you're in for something special when he is behind the camera. It is a no-hold barred kind of expose of the prison system. It stars Spencer Tracy, who was not under contract to Warner Brothers. He was under contract to Fox, Fox Film Corporation, as it was known then. Warner Brothers borrowed Spencer Tracy specifically to play the lead in this film. And opposite him is a young actress who had just signed at Warner Brothers and was just starting out.

And this is one of her more prominent early roles at the studio. And her name is Betty Davis. So ironically, Spencer Tracy and Betty Davis never worked together again, but having both come from the New York stage, they hit it off as friends. This is very much a hard-hitting drama based on a book written by the warden of Sing Sing Prison in Austin, in New York, which I believe is still there. I assume it's still an active prison. Having grown up in Westchester County outside New York City, that's where Ossining is. And I remember as a kid being driven by the prison, you know, a few times of being like really scared. Oh, it's sing-sing.

It's very much a look at the prison system the way the same years I'm a fugitive from a chain gang looked at the penal system down with chain gangs in the south of the country. It is a powerful film that still packs a punch. We've gone back to the original negative, the original camera negative, was in fine shape. It looks amazing because we had not created a new master for this film in over 30 years. So it looks great, it sounds great,

and we added some fun extras to this. There is a spoof short subject that Warner Brothers made, and they did this a lot around 1932. They made a short spoofing both I'm a fugitive from a chain gang and 20,000 years of Sing Sing, and it's called 20,000 years for the chain gang. That's on here. And then there's another short called That Goes Double

with singer Russ Colombo. And then speaking of Russ Colombo, there's a cartoon, Crosby, Colombo, and Valley, who were the big singers of the time that women were swooning over, and another cartoon, The Queen was in the parlor and the original trailer for the feature.

So it's a great package. It's superb entertainment that holds up really well. And when you're working off the original negative of a 94-year-old movie, the results can be remarkable. If you've not seen the film before, you'll be surprised how powerful it is.

It is pre-code, so they don't hold back in terms of uncomfortable subject matter. Yeah. And it is a real treat to watch this film. And the disc will be a lot of fun with all the extra stuff that we provide. This is very early on in Eddie Davis, Spencer Tracy, and Curtis in their career. And so I'm really, really interested to watch this.

I'm fascinated by that fact. So looking forward to it. Well, next up, George, we have a noir from 9th. 1946, and that is crackup. What can you tell us about this film? Well, here again, and I don't want to sound like we're being spoiled, but we kind of are. This is yet again another 4K scan off the nitrate camera negative. And it's an RKO film, and with RKO films, we don't always have that luxury.

This is a really tight, well-scripted noir. It's not that well known. And it stars Pat O'Brien, who isn't necessarily a name you associate with noir the way you would, Peter Lorry or Lawrence Tierney or Robert Mitchum. But he's very effective in this movie, and opposite him is Oscar winning actress Claire Trevor, and also in the cast is Herbert Marshall.

And it's a real thriller. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. And it's the kind of noir because it isn't always at the top of people's lists of, oh, this is essential noir viewing. It's exactly the type of movie that will provide a surprise. And the storytelling is very, very tight. The new master looks gorgeous. And this is something that was only available as a ratty-looking DVD for many years.

So the improvements will be quite notable to those who haven't seen the film. It's kind of a rediscovery noir, really. We have a trailer on the disc, and we have a crime does not a short subject called Purity Squad, which comes from the same year. All in all, it's a very nifty package. I think that every time we release a film noir, it's definitely, a reason for enthusiasm in the cinephile community. And I think people are really going to want to add this to their collection.

Yeah, I echo what you just said. Every time I can put another noir on Blu-ray, knowing that it got a 4K scan from the original nitrate camera negative, I'm excited about that because restoring and making sure these films are preserved and then bringing them to a new audience, or if you know the film looking better than you've ever seen it, whether you saw it on TCM or somewhere else, I always think is a huge, huge plus for the fans.

So looking forward to that. Well, going to a different genre here, we have a historical drama, King Richard and the Crusaders from 1954, George. What can you tell us about this film? Well, this film is a lot of fun. got a cast of Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Virginia Mayo, and a very young Lawrence Harvey. We did a remaster for DVD about 12 years ago, often intrepositive. And it was great that it was 16 by 9 Cinemascope and had stereo sound, but it was also

shot in Warner Color. and the colors were not particularly lovely, and this needed to be remastered in HD. We scanned the negative at 4K, the camera negative. And this was shot at a time before the Eastman color negative film stock changed its chemistry, which led to the yellow layer failure that creates face. So the color that we were able to get out of this new master is gorgeous.

Never would think of calling this film gorgeous. This is based on a Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, myth, basically. It's not based on any truth. King Richard versus, as they say, a Muslim leader. And it's Rex Harrison in makeup. There's a book out there about people being put in makeup to look like their Middle Eastern and that this is one of the less offensive uses of makeup. When you watch it, you don't find anything to be offended by, I don't think.

When you watch it, you're watching a, you know, a swords and sandals, costume epic, you know, taking place centuries ago with a fair lady played by Virginia Mayo, and both George Sanders and Rex Harrison have romantic eyes towards Virginia Mayo. And she was pretty much the sultry blonde of Warner Brothers in the early 50s. And they made great use of it. One of the greatest things about this movie is it has a phenomenal musical score. by none other than Max Steiner. The film was very much a product of this studio, our wonderful studio,

and all the various people under contract coming together to make a film that's a lot of fun. Rex Harrison was not under contract here. He was specially selected. And Lawrence Harvey was a young man just starting out in his film career. he had made Roneo and Juliet in the UK. This is eight years before the Manchurian candidate. Our

DVD that we released was a big seller. So we're hoping that the people who hadn't enjoyed the DVD will definitely want to make the upgrade because it looks so much better. And it does have a stereophonic soundtrack

which adds to the joy of early Cinemascope. And we've got two classic Looney Tunes on here, Satan's Waitin, which is a fun cartoon, and Baby Buggy Bunny, which is a personal favorite of mine, that's where Bugs is dealing with the criminal babyface finster, you know, and is a baby who's really a criminal. It's a very, very funny cartoon. And then there's a Joe McDoke short on there, so you want to be a banker and the trailer. So it's a nice package and a very, very fun film.

and the new master is gorgeous. You know, George Sanders and Rex Harrison are basically hamming it up. There's just no other way around saying that. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It's fun. Yeah, yeah. Well, next, George, I'm very happy to see that we have a volume two in your monogram matinee series. That was one of my hidden gems from last year, the volume one.

So I'm really happy to see volume two coming out. You told us we could maybe expect more. So here we get this in April. What can you tell us about the collection of two films in this one? Well, the last monogram matinee, Volume 1, had three films on it. Yeah. And we didn't make this a three film collection because the first kind of the primary film is 85, minutes long. So adding another, one of the monogram cowboy classics to this, put you at two and a half

hours. And I didn't want to put another movie on the disc to compromise having an awesome bit rate. We're all about having awesome bit rates here. That's kind of a rule that I always insist upon. So what's really remarkable about this because I've talked about even worse than RKO, the monogram library was just given such disrespect by allied artists. Basically, monogram changed its name eventually to allied artists. And then allied artists was bought by Lorimar. And most of these films from the 40s especially were among the earliest films sold to television. because Monogram and Allied artists were not part of the major studios that were being threatened by the theater owners,

hey, if you sell your films to television, we won't win your movies in our theaters. So companies like Monogram and other independents sold their films to TV in the very early days of television. And because of that, they became perceived as kind of word. When bigger eight pictures from the major studios were flooding syndication. So for many years, you couldn't see a lot of these films, and they weren't actively being distributed.

So we've got two here on this volume two. And I'll also tell people who really did what we're doing with Monogram that there's a volume three around the corner. I mean, it's in production right now. So it'll be soon. But this volume two has a feature called Louisiana, which for monogram, it runs a whopping 85 minutes. And it's very unique in that it is directed by Phil Carlson, who's known as a really great filmora director. For Phil Norbees, he's got an impressive filmography as a director.

and he also directed, I think he directed one or two Valerie Boy's movies, if I'm not mistaken. But he's the director here, and the star of this movie is Jimmy Davis, the composer of You Are My Sunshine. I'm afraid to sing it because it might be a copyright violation. But that was a very big hit song, and Jimmy Davis made a second monogram film, Mississippi Rhythm, which was in our first monogram matinee collection.

Yes. This preceded that by two years is a 1947 film, and it is a semi-autobiographical film about Jimmy Davis, playing Jimmy Davis, how he rose from being a sheriff to a mayor and eventually becoming the government. of Louisiana, and it is said that this movie helped him get reelected. But he had this whole other side of his life as a songwriter and country music performer.

So this story of Jimmy Davis being a hero against crime and a beloved leader of the state, Louisiana is also filled with songs and a very impressive group of talents, not famous people, but they're really good at what they do. And the film was very, very entertaining. People were kind of surprised that Jimmy Davis could, you know, he wasn't particularly stiff in front of the camera and that he was very appealing. And this was a very big hit for Monogram at time and that's what led to the production of Mississippi rhythm which we had in volume one yeah so I think people will really enjoy this and as the second feature we have the first of many monogram westerns with singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely and it's called

Song of the Range it has a very basic monogram cowboy plot Jimmy's part of the good guys who are going after the outlaws and there's enough time for singing with his saddle pals. The running time is 55 minutes and they managed to get probably four or five songs in there. You know, Jimmy Wakely was not the only singing cowboy, but he was the only singing cowboy that I'm aware of at Monogram. And he had made a couple of pictures before this, but it was really at monogram that he had a long run. And we put out many Jimmy Wakely Cowboy movies in the monogram Cowboy collections that came out on DVD.

But the difference between the monogram Calvoy collections on DVD and these Blu-ray releases are the fact that these are full-on 4K scan restorations. And they look and sound incredible. We had not original negatives, but we had nitrate fine grains, which is a second-generation protection element on both Louisiana and Song of the Range. So the quality is quite outstanding and remarkable. When all of these lesser-known monogram films were looked upon by Allied artists syndication, TV people, and Loram are TV syndication people as worthless. It's okay if they rot.

And there are some that we own and have proper copyrights where we have no film elements. They're gone. You know, I'm always on the lookout to see if we can find a 16mm print on eBay, and then I'll buy it for the company. Unfortunately, the last time I did it, the print turned out to be vinegar. So we were able to scan it, but it's not something I would release. but generally we have most of these film elements and it's part of our desire to try to protect everything in the library

and I've kind of singled out the ones that I think would be good Blu-ray entertainment material and we don't discriminate between various libraries that we own. We try to take care of everything and it's just when there's, The features exceed 8,000. There are a lot of titles that need to be taken care of. I'm happy that we have not only this release, but that we have another one in the offing that will be arriving during 2026. I think people will really enjoy this.

Louisiana particularly is very different than the usual monogram picture. And I think it's just interesting footnote in history, a singing governor who also made a movie about if so. Yeah. I thought the last one was thoroughly enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to this one. And I'm really excited that there's another one because I just think that without the work you're doing and the Warner Archive there, that these could easily be forgotten. Well, next, George, we have a movie that has created quite a bit of excitement.

It's from 1937, Captain's Courageous. What can you tell us about this film? Captain Scourageous is representative of MGM's filmmaking at its finest and why they were the Tiffany of movie studios. You've got incredible director, Victor Fleming. We just talked about Victor Fleming a few weeks ago with our release of Red Dust. Victor Fleming went on to direct Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. He was just a terrific director. The book by Rudyard Kipling is pretty faithfully,

adapted for the story of this movie. And after Freddie Bartholomew kind of burst on the scene with this amazing performance in David Copperfield, the studio was looking for other vehicles for this incredibly talented child actor. So they bought the rights to captains courageous and thought this is a perfect vehicle for Freddie Bartholomew. Now, in the rhetoric, Kipling book, the leading character of the story is a 19-year-old boy, Harvey Cheney, who is a spoiled, rich kid but with no relationship with the father and kind of out at sea. And literally, he is out at sea with his father when he falls off a ship and is rescued in the middle of the water by a schooner of fishermen, meanwhile his father is heading off to Europe. And the boy is

taken in by the people on the ship and the captain of the ship is crusty Lionel Barrymore. He's wonderful in the movie. And there is a fisherman on the boat who is Portuguese and his character is Manuel. The poignant energy of the captain, of Manuel transforms the little boy. And he becomes a part of the team of people on the boat, which also includes a slightly older youngster played by Mickey Rooney, who's sassy, and just like they become a little family on the boat. Spencer Tracy won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Manuel in Captain's Courageous. The story is that when he got this role,

he was not particularly enthusiastic about it because he was not comfortable with the characterization he was creating because he had an accent, and they also curled his hair very tightly. And it took him a while to get comfortable in the role, role, but he certainly did. There are so many memorable performances in this, but he walked away with the Oscar against very heavy competition for the 1937 year of performances.

And ironically enough, he won best actor the following year for Boys Town. He was just such a remarkable actor and the relationship between Manuel and Harvey, Mr. Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew in the movie is incredibly poignant. This is a movie that runs almost two hours, but it goes by so quickly. It's so well done and so timeless. And that's probably why it was re-released so many times. And 35 years later, they thought it was still something they could put in theaters for kids to see.

And that's how I got to see it as a little kid. Yeah. So our new master is a 4K scan off our best safety preservation elements that were made in the 60s that were made off the camera negative at the time. The camera negative was a victim of the tragic fire that took away most of the MGM black and white nitrate negatives. So we're very lucky the preservation was done the way it was done photochemically at the time. And our new 4K scan is the source for our new Blu-ray master. and the film looks terrific. And I should also mention,

the music is by one of my favorite film score composers, Franz Waxman. And Franz Waxman emigrated to the U.S. from Europe because of the threat of Nazis. And he began his film scoring at Universal, and he wrote the score for the bride of Frankenstein. and from Universal he went to MGM where he was probably there for five, six or seven years before he went to a place called Warner Brothers. The scores he wrote, he worked at many studios over his very short career.

He died relatively young. I love his film scores. And I think this is one of the very best film scores he did during his MGM tenure. The music is really quite moving. The music is actually called out in one of the extras that is on this release, which we'll talk about in a minute. But I just can't say enough good things about this film and how grateful I am that management gave the go-ahead for a real impressive swarth of very important films that hadn't been. touched in over 20 years and needed this kind of work to capture how beautiful the films look and good sound. And with a music score like that, the sound is exceptionally important. So I'm very

excited about this disc. We have some very, very entertaining extras on this release. We have a 1937 Happy Harmony's cartoon called the Wayward Pups. We have a Robert Benchley short made at MGM called How to Start the Day. And I love the Benchley shorts.

They're always a lot of fun. We have a Leo is on the air radio promo. They usually run between 12 and 15 minutes. And the one for Captains Courageous is particularly notable because not only do they have some excerpts of

dialogue from the film, but they specifically have a few minutes of Franz Waxman's amazing musical score, and they attribute it to Mr. Waxman, who is then very young and very early in his career. That's of particular note. And then we have the original theatrical trailer. So when people see how great the film looks compared to what they've been seeing on television, and certainly, you know, our DVD, which was acceptable for the day, but now it's gotten the proper treatment, and I can't wait for people to see how great it looks and how great it sounds. Yeah, yeah, a lot of excitement for that one.

Next, we have one that has created a lot of excitement. It's a film from 1980, and that is Private Benjamin. What can you tell us about this comedy? Well, this film is important for so many reasons. and this basically should have been on Blu-ray when the format hit about almost 20 years ago. Right. But it was not. This has only been available as a DVD and I had been, I don't want to sound like I'm always begging and complaining.

I'm not. But I had been making the pitch for years that this needed to be done. It was one of those things that almost happened and then didn't happen. The interpositive that we were going to work from a few years ago had some problems, and we didn't have the ability to access camera negatives the way we do now. The years passed, finally people said, yeah, okay, we could do it. So we did a 4K scan up from the camera negative and used that as the source for our new master.

It looks gorgeous. But as gorgeous as it looks, it retains the entertainment and comedic quality that made it a box office hit when it came out. It's really the evolution of Goldie Hawn from the kooky character that she developed in her very early, career coming off of

Laugh-In and movies like Cactus Flower, which she won an Oscar for his supporting actress. And her character really is, it's a whole different kind of comedy. The director is Howard

Zeif. I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly. He is no longer with us, but he directed some very good comedies in the 70s, notably House calls and a film that isn't that well known that is part of our library that I like a lot called Slither with James Kahn and Sally Kellerman. He really had a flair for comedy, and he brought

his directorial talents here, and the screenplay is by Nancy Myers and Charles Shire and Harvey Miller, and Goldie Hawn shows her acting chops, basically. That's a good way to put it. Playing comedy in a whole different way. She is a spoiled young lady. The film opens with her Jewish wedding and the night of her honeymoon. Let's just say things don't go as planned.

And she ends up enlisting in the army. And the laughs come from there. The picture was a huge box office hit at the time and began I can't exactly put the years on it, but I'd say at least five, if not six-year period, where Goldie Hawn, who was the executive producer of this film, called Warner Brothers her home.

And she made many films here during the 80s, including Wildcats and Protocol and Best Friends and Swing Shift. She loved working here. This is under the administration of wonderful executives who gave people creative freedom. Private Benjamin was like a breath of fresh air. It's a sophisticated level of film comedy that became more common in later years. You're coming off of a period where, you know, there were Animal House, which is one of my favorite films of all time.

And Caddyshack, which is one of my favorite films of all time. This is a different kind of comedy that's a little bit more sophisticated and nuanced. And I think it's because it's brilliantly written. And Goldie Hawn really showed her acting chops so much so that she was nominated for Best Actress Oscar. And that was a tough year because among other losers were Mary Tyler Moore for Ordinary people who like how can you not you know but cissy space like one that year for coal miners daughter another amazing performance yep iileen brennan i think she appeared on laughing very briefly at the

beginning the same time that goldie haunted but uh she had actually begun her career on the new York stage and was the second lead on Broadway and Hello Dolly. She plays the commanding officer of Private Benjamin, and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She was tremendous in this film, and the film holds up. I can't believe it's 46 years old, but it is. And it is so, it's just so funny. And to be able to give it this long overdue, people have been asking for this for a very long time. And it led to a TV series that it had one full season,

a short preseason, and then the third season was also short. It was Lorna Patterson took over the private manager-in-roll, but Eileen Brennan returned in the role of the sergeant. The show actually was very entertaining. So we've put two episodes from the TV series, which has never had any kind of home video release. We've put two episodes on this disc

just to make it a little more special, along with the theatrical trailer. There are many, many movies where people have been fervent in their request, why is this not available? We're trying to whittle that list down and Private Benjamin's arrival, I think when people look at it and see the quality of it, they'll be knocked out. And they'll be totally engrossed in the wit and sophistication of the comedy writing.

It holds up beautifully. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to introduce a whole new generation of people to the film. I mean, just how good it is. It's been neglected and not. consciously so. It's been a many, many years long battle for me to get the remaster it deserves and to have to make the kind of financial investment that was necessary. What has been circulating was not meant to be shown as a high-definition master. It's not very attractive.

And this will be the way for people. to enjoy the movie and really, really embrace what a good film it is. Right. Well, I'm very excited about this next one because we have your first 4K of 2026, and that is George Stevens, a filmmaker's journey from 1984. I know a lot of people are very excited about this release, so I'm curious to hear the story behind this. I thought given that our ability to release 4K titles

is constrained by the significant incremental expense to releasing a 4K disc versus a Blu-ray disc. And here we come out with a documentary in 4K HDR with Dolby Vision and all that. There was a quote on the back of our, DVD release and our VHS release, which has been superseded by a new quote that I won't speak to now. But it was a quote from Roger Ebert that said, this is the best film made about a filmmaker. I'm paraphrasing poorly.

But that is what George Stevens, the filmmaker's journey is. It's quite remarkable. And we at Warner Brothers have had a very meaningful relationship with George Stevens, Jr., primarily around our distribution of giant, of which he is a part owner of his father's movie. We have more George Stevens films than any other studio, and we've tried to give all of them various degrees of love. and he's appreciated that. You know, last year we had, I remember Mama, and a very important one of his films is undergoing quite an impressive restoration

that we will be releasing later this year. But George informed me about a year ago that he wanted his film, a filmmaker's journey, to be upgraded to for, And to do so, he went back to not only his camera negative for the feature itself, but he also went back to all the respective studios that provided clips and got new film sources. So he created a very expensive new 4K HDR Master that we are the distributor of.

This is not a Warner Brothers owned production. So the cost to create this 4K release were primarily George's expense. We are his distributor. And I wanted this to be under the oversight of myself and the Warner Archive so that it would get the attention and treatment it deserves as a film in its own Right. And George was very happy about that. George Stevens Jr. is the founder of the American Film Institute, the founder of the Kennedy Center Honors when it was the Kennedy Center honors and has made some wonderful films, both documentary and narrative on his own. This film has been available to be seen. We have a DVD available. It's on television. It's shown on TV. It's shown on TV. but it really is remarkable how this new 4K HDR Master looks. George is very proud of it and a lot of very important people are thanked at the end of this new master

for their help in helping George make this a reality. This is his testament to his father's work as a great director. director, and it was very important to him that it made the leap from being a basically old standard definition master to something that looked terrific. So I think people will really enjoy the film if they're not familiar with it. This was made in 1984. He was able to get interviews with people who were still alive, like Fred Astaire, talking about swing time and Catherine Hepburn talking about Alice Adams and even Rock Hudson talking about giant that was made right before he passed away.

So the interviews from the creative people are wonderful. What makes this new 4K disc even more special is that George was able to obtain events that were held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences theater. that are part of the George Stevens series on directing. And Christopher Nolan was there, I think, two years ago, to interview Giant and talk about George Stevens' work. Germal Del Toro and Martin Scorsese both spoke about the greatest story ever told. In the case of Mr. Del Toro and Mr. Nolan, and they're very substantial pieces of length

that take 15, 20 minutes, talking about George Stevens as a director, Mr. Scorsese's pieces about five minutes. But in the film, you get to hear another generation of filmmakers, people like Fred Zinamund, Ruben Mumulian, people that were alive in 1984, you know, when George was making this film. So the new 4K HDR disc that we,

are happy to be the distributor of. I hope now it will make sense to the people that were quizzical about why this choice for your next 4K. This is something in a different lane, a different category. I do feel fully convinced that anyone who purchases this disc will feel it's a worthy addition to their collection if they care about the history of classic and in cinema. Yeah, yeah. And I think we just want to reiterate that this is a combo pack. Right. Very important. Yeah, very important. There was never a Blu-ray standalone on this, but we have a very

reasonably priced combo so that people who have both formats can use it in whatever room they want to watch it in, but those people who haven't made the leap to 4K yet can still enjoy the beauty of this new remaster in Blu-ray. And I think combo packs are very, very important to give people more choice. And I'm really hopeful that people will see this for the TLC that's gone into the presentation. Well, you just mentioned John Ford, interestingly enough, and the next film that we're going to talk about is Aerosmith from 1931. What can you tell us about this film? Well, the perfect segue, because this is, again, a distribution arrangement. The Samuel Goldwyn Classic Library, the film's produced by Samuel Goldwyn theoretically between 1924 and 59.

Those films are part of the Samuel Goldwyn Jr. Family Trust. Samuel Goldwin, Jr. was a producer and distributor in his own right. He has six children. Mr. Goldman passed away about a decade ago, and the trust of the six children have the ownership of their grandfather's film library. And we have been the home entertainment distributor of that library, Warner Brothers, since 2012. The Golden Library is in need of a lot of upgrading and improvement in terms of what is being distributed out there. So we were fortunate in that the Library of Congress and the Film Foundation were able to get the funding to perform a restoration on John Ford's 1931 feature Aerosmith, which until

today has been only available as a DVD and a DVD from a master made in probably either the late 1980s or early 1990s. So this film has not looked very good until now. I believe this restoration was completed by the Library of Congress and the Film Foundation in 2023. The restoration was done from a 35-millimeter nitrate print that had belonged to the star of the film, Ronald Coleman, who donated that print to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1947. And in 1970, the Academy donated it because they did not have a restoration and preservation division, as they subsequently did, they sent it to the Library of Congress for care.

And so the Library of Congress and the Film Foundation joined forces to perform this restoration from Mr. Coleman's print. My understanding is that this film was edited for reissue after the implementation of the production code. And the film was just a little over 90 minutes. subsequently earlier video incarnations added some of that footage back and got it to 99 minutes. I think the DVDs run 99 minutes. This runs 101 minutes and should represent the film as it originally opened.

Now where it gets a little tricky is there are certain publications which attributed the release, running time to 108 minutes. I don't trust IMDB, so I went back and looked at variety and some trade publications. I don't know if that was a preview length. I don't have the instant familiarity of every little detail the way I do with our own library, but based on what I've been able to garner, this was the film is ultimately distributed before the code. There may have been some changes between, like, initial engagements and general release.

A Ford scholar out there, and there are many of them, and I salute them all, may know more about this than I do. So we're happy to be enlightened if anybody can take us beyond 101 minutes as fact. But the reality is that nothing exists. And when the Library of Congress teams with the Film Foundation to create a new restoration, I believe that the acumen of both fine institutions are putting their best foot forward to have something that is worthy of the name John Ford. The film Aerosmith itself is quite a remarkable and compelling film. It's based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Sinclair Lewis. And Ronald Coleman plays a doctor, Martin Arrowsmith, who's dealing with the conflicts of social norms of the era. And he leaves the United States to go to the West Indies to help people.

And there is Helen Hayes as his loving wife. And that was a very early modern screen appearance for her. she appeared in some silence as a child, I believe. But this was like her first sound feature. I would say in the early 30s, mostly at MGM after Aerosmith. She gave some fine performances on film before deciding that she was most comfortable on stage and then coming back to Hollywood to make Airport, which was released in 1970 and getting an Oscar, or second Oscar.

Because she got her first Oscar for the sin of Madeline Claudé, which was made right after Aerosmith. And that was her first picture at MGM. You've got a wonderful cast. And when a film was directed by John Ford, one is rarely disappointed. The announcement of this release led to a flurry of people who were also very happy that we released seven women last summer. They want more John Ford. Well, I'm seeing all these different John Ford movies in our library requested, and I'm happy to say that virtually every one I see requested is in the works right now.

There are some of his films that we released on DVD, which we lost rights to a long time ago, so those won't be coming from us. but if we still own it and Mr. Ford directed it, not all, but a large group of them, a very large group of them, are currently in our queue of titles being worked on, which is in excess now of over 125. Oh, wow. Which is really exciting. George, the number keeps jumping up. Well, I've been able to get more support because our business, I can't speak to other companies, physical media businesses in terms of being up or down or sideways or what. Our net revenue for our business is significantly higher last year than the year before and higher than the year before that.

So management is spurred by growth and performance. and profitability. And thankfully, we've been able to deliver. And I feel that this next tier of new releases will amplify that. Lots to look forward to. Not happening as fast as I would like, but I had to kind of get pushed to the side for some more pressing projects for the corporation.

But I think we'll see even more than eight new releases in May. It's looking that way. So more from the Warner Archive in the future, but we're celebrating what we're releasing this month and what we're talking about today. And Aerosmith is several people were aware that this restoration had occurred two, three years ago,

and wondered why we hadn't released it. And I was happy to synchronize with the people within the Golden Family Trust to make the arrangements that we could access the master and bring it to people

as a beautiful Blu-ray. Considering that the movie is 95 years old, it looks remarkable. And that it came from a print. You know, I mean, that doesn't make things easy. But it was a nitrate print

and well cared for. I'm sure people will enjoy the film and want to add it to their collection. We should probably talk about the extra that's also on this release as well, George. Yes, I tried to find a trailer. No one has a trailer in this film, but I was able to find a Lux Radio Theater broadcast that was on CBS 37, six years after the movie was made. And the roles that Ronald Coleman and Helen Hayes take in the feature are taken over by none of them than Spencer Tracy and Faye Ray in the Lux Radio Theater broadcast.

And the quality of the transcription of the broadcast is quite good, which you don't always get on these old radio shows. Sometimes they are really hard to listen to because they come off discs that are pretty worn. These are in good shape, and I think they make a nice addition to the release. Well, that wraps up the eight titles for April. And I did want to let people know there are no film collections in April and there is no animation in April. So just wanted to let people know these are the eight releases.

But I assume, George, that there will be more animation coming before too long for. Yes, animation fans have nothing to fear. There's a lot of animation coming this way. And there will be some bona fide feature-length films of importance arriving from the Warner Archive this year on 4K UHD discs with HDR 10 and Dolby Vision and slip sleeves and everything else that people deserve in a high-class production. Yeah. So lots to look forward to, but much to celebrate for April. And I hope people enjoy this varied group of entertaining releases. Yeah. Well, George, just before we go, there's one last film I did want to ask you about briefly. You posted it on Facebook for a specific reason that maybe you can explain.

And that is last summer from 1969. Last summer from 1969 was supposed to be a DVD release from the Warner Archive in 2010. 2010 was the year that we made a segue from using already existing masters to having a tiny budget, emphasized tiny,

to create new masters for DVD release. And we, very early on, had selected last summer as one of the first titles to get the treatment. So we moved in the interpositive. We moved in the audio. And the interpositive wasn't syncing with the audio. And so we moved in another interpositive. And that interpositive was yet a different version that didn't sync with the audio. and for many, many years, it was just one of these projects,

and there were still some others like that, where we're missing things. The thing we were missing the most here was the fifth reel, these are double reels, 5AB, of the original camera negative. So if I went to the people that were overseeing preservation at the time, they had records that proved that when Lorimar bought Allied artists, the fifth real AB was already missing from the camera negative. And that was in 1979, so 10 years after the movie was made.

So off and on, ever since then, we had been trying to find a way to have a worthy and uncut presentation of this film. And this film existed in at least three different versions. And all of the work and research is finally enabled us to put the film together, have it look really, really good, and put it back into design. distribution. When it would be shown on TCM, it was shown in the incorrect aspect ratio, because that's all we had a tape up. And it was like a GP version or a TV version. It was highly censored. So there's been a need within the company to solve this issue. And we were

able to engage the incredible help of an expert on the film. And we're premiering the new master as a DCP at the Arrow Theater as part of the American Cinemate. There will be cast members in attendance. And thereafter will follow, I'm hoping we'll be able to release this by the end of May, the Blu-ray. And when we do, I can get into more of the details of all the incredible problems we had to overcome in this 16-year period. I do want to clarify that we did not use any prints of the movie to construct it properly.

If anybody had a print of this movie, it was shot in Eastman color. There were no dye transfer prints made anything anybody would have if it was from the original release version would be a thick purple. So we did not rely on release prints. There have been screenings in other places where there's an alleged complete version that turned out to not be a complete version. So it's been an incredible process, the results of which people will see at the end of this month in a theater, and hopefully a month later, we'll be able to make the announcement formal. Yeah. Well, I know there's a lot that we want to talk about later on that release, but it is out there that this event will be happening. So that was put on the Facebook.

Anybody who's on Facebook can find more information about that. I'll also put a link in the show notes here so you can get more information about that as well. I wanted to make sure that when the theatrical engagement happened, that people knew this was coming from the work of Warner Archive Collection and that a disc was on the way. Yeah, yeah, the word was going to get out, George, very soon. So it's better to get in front of that. So I know there are a lot of questions fans have about last summer. You're going to have to wait until it's officially announced and George can tell us everything that we want to know about that release later on. George, as always, It's fantastic. I love this month of April and the eight releases and all the great information

that you've provided. So thank you. As always, Tim, it's a pleasure. Thank you. Well, as always, it's great to have George on to take us through these releases each month. There are no pre-order links yet, but we will post those on our Facebook page and in our different social media sites when those become available. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed about physical media. 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.