The Extras - Warner Archive August 2021 Release Highlights

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

This podcast is one of a series looking back at some highlights from the 2021 Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive.Warner Bros executive George Feltenstein takes us through the August 2021 Blu-ray releases of three films, providing information on the preservation and restoration of the films and insights into the storylines and production.  First is the 1986 whacky comedy, "One Crazy Summer,"  starring John Cusak and Demi Moore.  Next is the 1949 MGM musical "In the Good Old Summertime," starring Judy Garland in her second to last film for MGM.  And finally, the underrated and highly requested 1981 NYC cop corruption drama "Prince of the City " directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Treat Williams. 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 their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Allard, your host. This podcast is one of a series looking back at some highlights from the 2021 Blu-ray releases

from the Warner Archive. In this episode, Warner Brothers executive George Feltenstein takes us through some of the August 2021 releases, including One Crazy Summer, In the Good Old Summertime, and Prince of the City. So George, the August titles include a few from my era of the 1980s. That's when I kind of grew up. And anyone who grew up in the 80s remembers just how huge stars John Cusack and Demi Moore were. What can you tell us about the 1986 comedy One Crazy Summer? One Crazy Summer is not that well known a movie except to the

loyal fans that I think grew up watching it on HBO and having a VHS cassette is directed by a gentleman known as Savage Steve Holland. And he's also known for another John Cusack movie called Better Off Dead. But One Crazy Summer has been highly, highly requested by the consumers that communicate with us. So we decided to give it a brand new master. And it's very much a product of its time. The way we talk about movies from the 30s and 40s being representative of a certain sensibility, we can say the same thing about One Crazy Summer, because there are some things about 80s comedies that don't meet with the social mores acceptability of 2021. Right.

But everything is good natured. The film is very funny. It's very well written. And it really lets you see how talented John Cusack is. John Cusack is, but when he was younger, you know, his breakout films, as he is transitioning from like a teen actor into an adult, it's charming to look back at this now and scary to think of it, to think of it as a film that's 35 years old, because it just doesn't feel like that much time has passed, but it has. Right.

But thankfully, our release was very well received by the fans. It sold really well, and the reviews were really terrific. And a lot of people who didn't know the movie picked it up because of the reviews and because of the way people were talking about it on social media and whatnot. And we figured that they'll continue to do so because just the initial release period of a movie is not when we're promoting it. We're always promoting all 3,500 of them in one way or another. But that's why I wanted to shout out for this particular film, that it was a highlight of the titles we released during the summer.

And for fans of that era of comedy, there's a lot of wackiness in it. I'm not sure I have the pronunciation of his name correctly, but Bobcat Goldthwait, he's that screechy voice comedian i mean he's just so iconic of the 80s era i think he was in one or two of the police academy films which you know also had just great kind of wacky laughter and fun uh and then it also co-star joel murray and curtis armstrong who were you know also pretty well-known faces of that era. So it's fun to see that it's finally out on Blu-ray. Curtis Armstrong has his base in Revenge of the Nerds movies and also being that supporting character on Moonlight 8.

Right. But he still pops up occasionally where you don't expect him on television. I see him a lot. And it's good that he's still working at his craft. But Bobcat Goldthwait even starred in his own Warner Brothers movie, Hot to Trot. So I know there are people that probably want us to release Hot to Trot. Who knows? We could.

We put it out on DVD. Maybe we'll put it out on Blu-ray. Well, I was like a lot of young people in the 80s and, of course, in love with Demi Moore. And she's also a star in this movie and has had quite a career. But I was, you know, I have a daughter now. And I was just noticing that Savage Steve Holland has kept busy, of course, directing, but he's written and directed some episodes of a show that's currently on Netflix that my daughter watches. It's called Malibu Rescue. So it's good to see everybody from those eighties still busy and working and putting out entertainment.

Yeah. He, he moved, he came from television, made a couple of movies, and then went back to television. And now the lines are blurred. And there also isn't this, I don't like using this word too much, but I don't mean it in a

pejorative way, ghettoization, if you will, of, well, this person is a television actor and therefore they can't do movies until they become so big on television that they move into movies and don't appear on television again. That's kind of the way it was for Bruce Willis. He was on Moonlighting. He made one movie.

It was a hit and then Die Hard. And then he had a big movie career for quite some time. But he ended up in the middle of that appearing on Friends. And I found out that he ended up appearing on Friends because he lost a bet with Matthew Perry when they were making either the whole nine yards or the whole ten yards. And that's how he had his little character arc there. You know, now there is no there isn't this like, oh, your career is over on the big screen.

Now you have to go to TV. Yeah, we have the most prominent actors and directors in both forms of entertainment moving from one to the other. And I like that. I like the fact that people have that freedom. Yeah. Because it's different kind of storytelling, the big screen versus the small screen. a small screen. Well, next we have, we'll kind of go back a few decades back to the year that you've highlighted already, I think 1949 for the MGM musical starring Judy Garland in the good old summertime. I'm sure a lot of fans were very excited to see this come out on Blu-ray. very excited to see this come out on Blu-ray. Very much so.

And this is a film which has its roots in a film that was made only nine years before. It was The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. And the same story ended up being turned into a Broadway musical in 1963 called She Loves Me. And it was supposed to be a movie with Julie Andrews in 1969 that was quickly canceled when Kirk Krikorian became the controlling stockholder of MGM and began his destruction of the studio, in my opinion. But they never made a movie of She Loves Me, the musical, the stage. But it's been revived on Broadway, I think, twice since the 1960s when it opened. And then the story was used again in 1998, I believe, with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks for You've Got Mail.

And this is all based on a play called Parfumery. And as they took the story from the shop around the corner, which was set in, I believe, Hungary. And it was contemporary. It was set in, let's say, 1939. It didn't deal with World War II. Film came out in 1940. But it was like just a little bit before the breakout of the war. So basically a contemporary story, but set in Europe. basically a contemporary story, but set in Europe. They moved the location for the film, for the remake,

with Judy Garland and Van Johnson. They moved the remake to turn of the 20th century Chicago as a location. Chicago as a location. And instead of being a perfume shop, they made it into a music shop, therefore giving Judy the opportunity to sing songs. This film doesn't have a tremendous amount of music in it. It was also one of the films

that Judy Garland made at MGM toward the end of her career there. This is the second to last movie she made there. Unlike some of the other films that she made in the later years at MGM where she

was late, She was fired from two films, I believe. And then the third film she was fired from ended her contract. But making In the Good Old Summertime, they had no problem with her being late. They had no problem with her on the set. She was just so happy to be making this movie, loved working with Van Johnson, and loved Joe Pasternak, the producer, who had a very warm relationship with her. And the film was a big hit with critics and audiences.

And the film was a big hit with critics and audiences. The fact that the story had been made as a big hit comedy, sophisticated comedy, only nine years before, didn't seem to bother anybody. And adding the music and changing the locale made it for a nice touch. And you have the beauty, once again, of Technicolor adding to the proceedings. And not only do you have Van Johnson and Judy Garland making very good chemistry together on screen, telling this story, which very quickly is about two shop workers who have a kind of unfriendly relationship as co-workers with neither of them knowing that they're actually pen pals who are in love via their correspondence. That's why when it was remade as You've Got Mail in 1998, the whole thing was based on how people were starting to communicate. Now it's 23 years

later and charming to think of You've Got Mail coming out of People's America online accounts, but that seemed like a very progressive thing at the time. And of course, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had been such a great team in Sleepless in Seattle. Warner Brothers was excited to team them in this remake. But in the good old summertime remake, you know, has a charm all its own and a good supporting cast. Spring Byington, S.C. Sakal, who usually you'd see in Warner Brothers movies, but MGM borrowed him for the occasion. And there's even a small guest appearance toward the very, very end of the film. Small guest appearance toward the very, very end of the film,

the Garland character and Van Johnson character are shown at the end of the film as having married and walking with their little girl in the park and the music in The Good Old Summertime swells. A little girl is being played by a two-year-old by the name of Liza Minnelli. And she made her film debut in that very small scene. She's only on screen for about a minute. But she remembers having done that. And, of course, people wouldn't realize that, you know, 20 plus years later, she'd take home a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Cabaret and become a legend herself. part of the negative burned in the tragic Eastman house fire and we don't have the whole original

type of color negative so as a combination of protection elements and the original negative to create the beautiful new blu-ray master so if you notice a slight change in the image it's because of that but most people wouldn't even be able to tell because the disc looks and sounds terrific and i'm sure for a lot of people who buy every mgm musical that is released that's just a terrific one to add to their collection. Yeah, and this is a little off the beaten path in that there isn't a lot of music in the film. Probably only a handful of songs. And it's not the kind of musical where the songs are integrated with moving the plot forward. I like to almost refer to it as a comedy with music. But it's a delightful story, and it's a story that's held up.

And now we have this beautiful new Blu-ray disc of it, and it celebrates the very talented cast and really a timeless story i bet there's another remake coming with the next technology you know virtual reality you know combination of total recall and you've got mail in the metaverse yeah well going to our next film is the gritty hard-boiled thriller by the brilliant director sydney lumet prince of the city from 1981 i'm not as familiar with this film as lumet's other classics serpico and network what can you tell us about this release sydney lumet was a new york filmmaker i don't i could be wrong about this,

but I don't think he ever made a film on a Hollywood soundstage. I think he made all his films in New York. Not sure about that. I think he may have made some films overseas, but he was very much a New York filmmaker, had his roots in live New York television. And he's one of my favorite directors

because he made films that had a statement. Well, you're from New York, George. So the fact that he's a New York filmmaker, you know, must mean a lot to you. 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. Very much so, because, you know, I grew up with his films, even though a lot of them I was not allowed to see because they were rated R. And I was way too young to see them in the theater. But somehow I managed to get in. There were certain theaters where I grew up where they, it was very weird.

If a film was rated R due to violence or profanity, they really didn't monitor, you know, if a kid was going in. If it was a film that was like sexual in nature, then they were, you know, watching who was going in. But I always found that to be very funny because, you know, you could have an R-rated film that's incredibly violent and the local theater owner would let the kids in. But, you know, if a woman bore her breasts or bared her breast or whatever, they wouldn't let them in. But it did give me the chance to get to see a lot of movies at a younger age that were coming out.

And this is in the mid to late 70s. And my favorite of Lumet's films without question is Network. I think Network is one of the greatest films ever made. But I guess we're going to have to wait until that becomes a 4K to talk about Network. But Prince of the City was the second film Lumet made about police corruption. And it's based on a true story. The first film he made about police corruption in New York was Serpico with Al Pacino, which was a big, big hit. And Prince of the City was made eight years later. And it was based on a book.

eight years later, and it was based on a book. And it was really all built around a bravura performance from Treat Williams, the actor who was also in Milos Forman's film version of Hair. And Treat Williams never really had a big career. And this film shows you that he was underappreciated because he's a tremendous actor. And the film is, when I watch it, it's so evocative of the New York I remember growing up as a teenager. I didn't grow up in the city. I moved into the city when I was about 20, but I grew up in the suburbs and I would take the train into the city. And the city was really scary at that point. It was dangerous. And this film deals with one cop's willingness to take on the corruption and expose it. And it was brave filmmaking and shocking filmmaking. The screenplay is by Jay Preston Allen and Sidney Lumet.

And nobody else but Sidney Lumet could have made this film. And nobody else but Sidney Lumet could have made this film. And not unlike One Crazy Summer, this is a film people were constantly saying, oh my God, when is this film coming out on Blu-ray? We got so many requests for it. And it is the kind of film that it's so much benefits from the greater clarity of Blu-ray and a spotless master. The dirt that you see is the grime of what Manhattan was like at the time. But the image is quite beautiful and the film is shot really wonderfully. And this is a testament to really great filmmaking. It was not a box office hit. There was just something about it that didn't attract an audience really outside of major metropolitan areas.

But in subsequent years, people have come to look upon it as, you know, one of Lumet's best. And it's nearly three hours long. It is a commitment of time, but the time flies by because the filmmaking is so great. And it's very, very highly recommended. And we're very proud to have finally brought it to Blu-ray. It happened a long time ago. Hey, George, you just mentioned the runtime and it made me curious. Does the runtime on a film like this and the cost and because of the runtime does that impact the the whole ability to fund the blu-ray versions of these it depends on the film i mean like when we work on gone with the wind every few years you're basically working on two movies because it's double the length, almost four hours long.

Usually, depending on whether it's a contemporary film versus a classic film, on a contemporary film, if the film elements are in good shape, which this was, it wasn't a factor at all or a problem at all. But something that is being worked on right now, which is quite long, and the film elements are quite beaten, that does become a cost factor and it does create problems for us in being able to approach certain projects because they're so long and it's extra hours of color correction extra hundreds of hours of dirt cleanup that can put a film on the bench for a while until we can find a way to bite the bullet and hope that enough people will buy it to justify it coming out.

So it's when the fans support our releases and they don't wait for a sale, they buy it as close to street date as possible. And our product is reasonably priced, I believe. But that support from the consumer is what will lead to our ability to reinvest in new masters and bring new titles out to the market. in new masters and bring new titles out to the market. So it's the support of the fans from prior films that enabled us to be able to do films like Prince of the City and films like One Crazy Summer that were not necessarily a slam dunk as a big moneymaker,

but we have a responsibility to the shareholders of the company to do our very best and make our division profitable. And I have to keep my eye on the profits as well as the quality of the releases. And it's that delicate balance that allows us to be able to do the work that we do. Thanks again to Warner Brothers executive George Feltenstein for coming on the show today. I hope you have enjoyed his review of some of the August 2021 Warner Archive Blu-ray releases. For those of you interested in learning more about the show, please check out our website at www.theextras.tv, where we also have a complete listing of all of

our Warner Archive episodes. Also, follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at The Extras TV or Instagram at The Extras.TV to stay up to date on the latest episodes and for exclusive images and behind the scenes information about the episodes and upcoming guests. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider that will ensure you don't miss any of your favorite guests. Until next time, you've been listening to The Extras with Tim Millard. 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.