The Extras - Warner Archive April Release Announcement PLUS a May Sneak Peek

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Send us a textGeorge Feltenstein joins the podcast to announce six April Blu-ray releases, PLUS he gives us a sneak peek about a potential May release. George includes background on each film or TV series, the new HD master, and more clarification on the extras that will be included.  And he always drops some knowledge about what is being worked on for the future. There is no better way to learn about what is on the Warner Archive schedule than to hear directly from George.Purchase links:CHEYENNE-The Complete Series (1957-1962) Blu-ray 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

Hey, I'm Bonnie Spence, former vice president of special features at Warner Brothers, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Lard, your host, and joining me today is George Feldenstein from the Warner Archive. Hi, George. Hi, Tim. Great to be with you as always. As always. And this is our monthly announcement podcast, which is one of the favorites for everybody, because everybody loves to hear what the new titles are that you've been working on and are now ready to be released,

because I know you're working on so many at any given time. But before we get into the April releases, I think there was a little bit of a few titles that may be moved that we should talk about. Well, yeah, I wanted to clarify that the street date of Just Friends is moving to April 8th, and that's rock solid. We also just announced the street date for Cheyenne is moving to April 22nd. And I want to explain to everyone that disks are done. The reason why we have delayed the release is the packaging we intended to use is no longer being manufactured.

And so it was essential to me that when Cheyenne came out as a complete series on Blu-ray, that the packaging be sturdy and that discs aren't stacked on top of each other and discs don't fall out when you have so many discs in a set 30. There are some packaging options out there that really do a disservice to the consumer and the collector. So we'll be packaging each season of Cheyenne in its own Blu-ray elite case, and the seven seasons will be neatly packaged into a sleeve box. So you couldn't ask for more secure packaging. And when people make

an investment in owning a series on Blu-ray, I want them to have great packaging because that's the ethic of Warner Archive. And so that's the reason for the delay. I think it's worth it. And I hope people will really enjoy the release. I also wanted to mention a couple of other things. There has been some internet rumor going around about our release of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being a cut reissue version. Absolutely not true. I had this confirmed by the people

that did the photochemical restoration 30 years ago, Kevin Brownlow. The film had been re-released in a shorter version after Rudolph Valentino died, and that is not this version. This is the full version that opened in 1921. So I just wanted to clarify that. I also wanted to mention, and this is kind of a preview because it will be coming from Warner Archive probably in May, but one project I've been working on for a very long time has been announced to be shown at the TCM Film Festival. And that is a new restoration and a new version, basically,

to the public of the film Rhapsody in Blue. I had been working on this project for two years, three years. I had known that a longer version of the film had been shown to the soldiers overseas during World War II, and that the film opened at 140 minutes in the US in 1945. We found the footage that had been cut out, and we used the original camera negative and a nitrate fine grain to create this new master,

which I have the honor to introduce at the TCM Film Festival in April. And I'm very happy to say that if the schedule all goes right, it will be a May Blu-ray from the Warner Archive collection. And it will run 162 minutes, because it's 152 minutes of film and a 10-minute overture. And I just wanted to let everybody know how excited we are that TCM has chosen to include the film in the festival.

And people will see about 13 minutes of footage that has never been seen, unless you were fighting overseas 85 years ago. 80 years ago, I should say. And it's a wonderful salute to the music of George Gershwin and the audio sounds great, the picture looks beautiful and it's gonna be a beautiful blu-ray but you'll get to see it at the TCM Festival if you're in town in April and I'll be introducing it. Looking forward to that George and that's great

news for the fans to hear from you directly. And it's a great example as to why sometimes you have to shuffle your release dates because there are other parts of the company that need to fit things into their schedule. Exactly. And we were working on this and I spoke to my dear friend of 25 years, Charlie Tabish, who is the genius of programming at TCM. I called him and said, Charlie, we've got this great Rapsody in blue. We finally found this footage and he was all over it. I'm really looking forward to seeing the audience react to it.

People can look forward to the the audience react to it. And people can look forward to the beautiful Blu-ray, hopefully end of May release. So that was a nice preview. Let's get around now to the April release. Absolutely. And we'll start, we'll go alphabetical this month. So we'll start with a movie from 1988 actually, and that is Clean and Sober. Well, can you tell us about that release? This was a really important film when it came out,

and I think its message still rings true today. It deals with the horrors of chemical substance addiction. In this case, Michael Keaton plays a cocaine addict, and it's all about addiction and recovery. And most importantly, it was the first time the public got to see Michael Keaton in a serious role. And of course, he's since won a Best Actor Oscar in recent years. He's given so many amazing performances.

Even the film he did after this, the 1989 Batman, that was not a comedic performance. That was a remarkable performance. But this film was directed by Glenn Gordon-Karen, who is the creator of Moonlighting. And it's got a wonderful supporting cast, Kathy Baker, Morgan Freeman particularly. And it just rings true. It very much feels like the late 80s with the hairstyles and various other things, but the message is timeless.

And for those people who are dealing with any kind of dependency or addiction, the way that people can find recovery is really captured with true honesty here. These are the kind of movies that don't get made anymore, at least for the big screen. This has been requested for Blu-ray for, I would say, probably since the format began. And finally, it's now here and we're delighted about it. Well, Michael Keaton has had a real resurgence. He's such a fine actor and it's great to see all the success he's had and it's great that this is finally coming out on Blu-ray. Next, we'll step in the way back machine for a little bit to 1953, and that's the film

Lily. What can you tell us about this film? Well, this film was nominated for six Academy Awards. It was awarded one Oscar for best scoring. People call it a musical. It's really a film with music but this is a Charming wonderful story Leslie Cameron is wonderful in it. She plays a 16 year old orphan girl who Befriends a group of people running a carnival It's a love story.

It's beautifully directed with amazing technicolor photography. And of course, people know what we do with technicolor around here. And the DVD that Warner Archive released of this about 13 years ago was from an interpositive. It had dirt. The colors were not right. It was the best we could afford at the time. Thankfully, this has gotten a 4K scan and a recombination of the technicolor negatives. This film was not expected to be a box office success. Producer Arthur Fried,

who had made American in Paris with Leslie Caron, which is the film she was discovered for, said, why are you doing a silly film like this? MGM opened it in a very small theater in New York, not expecting much out of it. It absolutely got rave reviews. I believe it ran at a theater in New York for a year. It was re-released in the mid-60s, and the same thing happened all over again. It was hugely financially successful, but it is charming. It is moving. Mel Ferraro is particularly terrific in the movie. He plays a puppeteer who's disabled and falls in love with Lily, but he can only speak to her through his puppets. And the song, High Lily, High Low, became very popular. But it's a

charming, sweet, beautiful film, very unique. And that's why it got six Oscar nominations. I'm just thrilled we're finally able to do it justice because it was a knife in my heart that the best we could do was that DVD years ago. But thankfully our business is thriving and growing and we can re-approach these films just like you know we did Rhapsody in Blue years ago and now we're able to do it and restore unseen footage so it's very exciting but Lily is so charming and there's some very fun little 1953 cartoons on there. And I think people are really going to enjoy it. Well, next we have from 1950, the film Side Street. What can you tell us about this film?

Well, this is another film directed by Anthony Mann. And you know that I happen to think very highly of Anthony Mann as a director, big time. But what I love about this film is particularly is there's an unbuilt character and that's New York City. This film was shot on location in New York. The location photography is amazing. It has such a great pacing. It is a seminal film noir. Farley Granger and Kathy O'Donnell, they had previously co-starred together and they were reteamed for this film. It's just a non- thriller. And the New York locations have never looked so good, thanks to our beautiful new 4K scan off the preservation negatives.

This is another MGM black and white film where the negative burns in the fire. So a second generation fine grain had to be our source, but it looks and sounds wonderful. And we have a commentary that was recorded by the late Richard Schickel. We have a very, very short but very nice featurette that's called Where Temptation Lurks that takes you in the background of how this film was made. And then we have a Crime Does Not Pay

short and some great cartoons. It's a great disc and people are going to be really blown away, not only by the filmmaking, but by the quality of the disc itself. I'm really looking forward to that. You know how I love all the Noir releases and all the Anthony Manz that you've been pulling from the vaults and releasing on Blu-ray. Well next we have a Western from 1952, Springfield Rifle. What can you tell us about this one, George? Well, this is Gary Cooper really at the zenith of his stardom, but you kind of have to say that,

I mean, Gary Cooper was a superstar for almost 30 years. So, you know, anytime he made a film, it was usually very well received and successful. This is a really terrific Western, and it's directed by Andre de Toth of House of Waxfame. And he's a union officer during the Civil War who goes undercover and it's got a real kind of espionage sensibility to it. But it's beautifully composed and shot And it was shot in Warner color,

which was not a great color process. So we went back to the camera negative as well as the separations in order to rebuild the color in the film. So this film has not looked very good in prior iterations and now it looks terrific. And it's got a great cast. Phyllis Thaxter is his leading lady.

David Bryan's in the movie. Lon Chaney Jr.'s in the movie. It's a lot of fun, and it comes with two great Warner Brothers cartoons and a Joe McDonk short in the trailer. So I'm sure people will be happy with Springfield Rifle. It's been a best seller on DVD for years. So now we've upgraded into high definition at last. Yeah. I mean, Gary Cooper. What can you say? It's duper duper.

You want to own it. Well, you've been doing a lot of modern classics from the 70s recently, and many of them have been kind of the urban action films. And you have another one this month from 1974, Three, The Hard Way. What can you tell us about this one? Well, the most important thing I can say is that this has the three of the biggest urban action stars. Some people refer to these films as black exploitation films, because that was the variety speak of the era.

But these are films that really had a lot of fun and action and are such a snapshot of the 70s. Here you've got Jim Brown and Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly in a movie. And they're basically out to get a gang of white supremacists who want to come up with a formula that will annihilate the black race. And I know it sounds like a ludicrous idea formula that will annihilate the black race.

I know it sounds like a ludicrous idea and a horrible thing to even think about, but that's what the movie is about. These three people, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly, they're the superheroes who go after this white supremacist gang of evils and aim to be triumphant. The most exciting thing about this release is not only is it a fan favorite, but it's also been distributed for the last 20 years minus about seven to eight minutes. And it was one of our former colleagues here at the studio that brought this to my attention that what we had been distributing on DVD was 89 minutes and the film was supposed to

be 96 minutes and change. So we went to great lengths to find the missing footage and restored the film to its original theatrical lengths. It has good music by the impressions and it's just, it's a lot of fun. The plot is a little bit ridiculous, thankfully, but the charisma of those three guys together in one movie was irresistible and it did very well at the box office because of that. Yeah, I mean, you got a lot of testosterone there. Absolutely. You got a lot of action

potential and then you've got this and it's directed by Gordon Parks Jr. So yeah, what a team up of director and cast. After Superfly, this was a follow-up and it's just a it's a very it's very much the definition of a fan favorite. Yeah, yeah. I mean, those who like to collect these genres from the 70s are going to really enjoy having this one. It's a great grindhouse. Yes, exactly.

Well, I think that leaves us with only one more to talk about. And last but not least, it is a Hanna-Barbera complete series from 1968 called Wacky Races. What can you tell us about this release? Well, this was such a successful series that it actually led to spin-off series because this is where we first met Penelope Pitstop. This is where we first met Daster Lee and Mutley. Many people thought this was like a take on the great race and other films like it, but it was very much the mixture of a new concept and Hanna-Barbera's talent for always coming up with a different kind of show for Saturday morning cartoons. These are 17 half

hours. There's two segments in each half hour and they're presented with the two segments. And a lot of the television broadcasts in recent years have just been the segments and not that half hour shows. When I say half hour, that meant they were in a half hour time slot. But these are 4K scans off the camera negatives. They're gonna look a lot better than the old tapes that we were distributing on DVD. So this is a big deal.

And there are gonna be a bunch of special features on the disc, but we haven't finalized them yet. So we listed them going to be a bunch of special features on the disk but we haven't finalized them yet so we listed them as to be announced. Right well and this just continues your animation releases which have just been coming one after the other after the other and and you promise people and here they are and there is there are a lot lot more on the back burner right now. We're working on a whole bunch, but some of them require a great deal more detail. I think when they arrive, they will make people very happy. But Wacky Races has been requested on Blu-ray very heavily whenever people are asking for

Anna Barbera. Our next animation releases, I think, are going to make a lot of people happy. We're trying to please everyone and of course, we're always disappointing someone, but for every one person we're disappointing, there's a hundred people that are happy. Oh, of course. If you're disappointed out there, have patience. We're going to get to you with your favorites. Which you already told us about coming in May for some who...

Well, I don't usually leak things, but I wanted to let people know about Rhapsody in Blue in case they were going to be at the TCM Festival. It's already been announced for the festival. Otherwise, I wouldn't try to get in the way of TCM's promotion for the festival. But I did want to provide the little bit of extra background because we'll probably be able to do a whole podcast just on all the work that went into finding the missing footage and restoring it. So it's basically a world premiere unless you were in the armed services 80 years ago. Right.

Well, this podcast today, George, will wealth wealth of information. At the beginning, some updates, and then the announcements, and a sneak peek as well toward May. So, always great to have you on. And as I always tell people, listen to the podcast. Hear directly from George. He's going to tell you what you need to know. Don't listen to rumors on the internet. Hear from George directly, and you tell it the way it is for people so that they can get the right information from the Warner Archive. So thanks again George. Always a pleasure Tim, thank you. For those who would like more information about the films announced today be sure and check out our Facebook page in our Warner Archive Facebook group.

You can find the links to those and all of our Facebook page and our Warner Archive Facebook group. You can find the links to those and all of our social media sites in the podcast show notes. Facebook is also the best place to get the pre-order links for these titles when they become available. If you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider, you may wanna do that so that you don't miss anything

that's coming up. Until next time, you've been listening to 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 Bros. 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.