The Extras - Warner Archive February Announcement: The First Noir, Tarzan, a Technicolor, Hanna Barbera, Film Collections, PLUS A Look Ahead

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Send us a textGeorge Feltenstein joins the podcast to announce four February releases from the Warner Archive and explain why each restoration matters, from pre-code thrills and early Technicolor to the first film noir. We also unveil another Hanna-Barbera release and outline three new Film collections, with a look ahead to a packed 2026. Warner Archive Store on AmazonSupport 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 page The Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group Join 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, I'm Gregory Orr, grandson of Jack Al Warner, and producer of the documentary Jack Al Warner The Last Mogul, and you are listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Malar, your host, and joining me is George Feltonstein to announce the February Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George. Hello, Tim. Great to be with you, as always. As always. It sounds like a broken record, but it's always great to be with you.

Here we are now, you know, almost mid-January, the year. is already a couple weeks in, and we're already talking about February, which is fantastic. We have four titles to talk about today, and I thought we'd start oldest first, partly because I want to talk about this first as well. It's very exciting, and that is Tarzan and his mate from 1934. A lot of people have been waiting for this. When we released Tarzan the Eighth Man, which was the first in the series of Weissmuller's MGM features as Tarzan. People were immediately saying, well, you know, this is great, but where is Tarzan and his mate?

That's actually a better film. And I happen to agree with them. They're right. Because they were not constricted by the origin story, if you will, of Tarzan. The screenplay and the storytelling, is a lot more broad. The film's a little longer, and most notably,

this is the original cut before the sensors got a hold of it. This was made right on the cusp of the enforcement of the production code in the late 80s. I'm not sure exactly when the, quote, quote, uncut version surfaced.

But it was a big deal. at the time, because of course it has what is perceived as Morino Sullivan as Jane in a nude swim underwater with Tarzan. It wasn't Morino Sullivan, it was a double. And I think there is even some thought that she may have been wearing a body suit. I don't really know.

But the point is it was very edgy, risque for the time, and it made a lot of noise when that version finally surfaced. This is the first time, I would say, in 32 years that any work has been done on this film. So this new 4K scan from the preservation elements, actually, when we timed it out, we found that we had about a minute more footage to work with than. than we had previously. So this is, I mean, it's not of significance other than it's a little more of what got snipped. What's great about this film is it's very action-packed.

It has moments of pathos and poignancy. Weismaner is much more comfortable in front of the camera because he was an Olympic swimmer. Tarzan 8thman was his first movie. by the time they made the follow-up, Tarzan and his mate, he was definitely more comfortable on the screen. The relationship between he and Moreno Sullivan is actually quite charming. And Commissioner Gordon, being Neil Hamilton, returns to the storytelling as he was in the first movie.

And they can't believe that Jane is happy in the jungle with Tarzan, but it's obvious to them when they get there. So a lot of really fine filmmaking here in addition to the salacious swimming scene. People have been asking for this probably as long as the Blu-ray formats have been around because these 1994 standard definition masters left a lot to be desired,

and now we can finally better them. I'm really excited about this because I know the fans have really wanted it. Yeah. The last TARDAN looked great, the restoration and everything. And it looks like here you've got 4K scans from the best preservation elements. It should look really good. And this additional additional footage is a nice little. The extra minute is not even anything I put in the copy or anything because it's not of substance. I just think it's an interesting trivia that we actually found more. We're very fortunate that MGM in their preservation program in the 1960s preserved both versions. I just think that based on how well received Tarzan the eight-man Blu-ray was two, three years ago, whenever we put that out, I think it will follow the model of prior format sales where Tarzan and his mate always did.

a little better than Tarzan the Eighth Man. This is probably the best seller of the six MGM Tarzan, Weissmler-O-Sullivan films. So it's a wonderful way to start the new year because I think the curse of titles not being available at Street Date may finally be lifting because I have held finished goods, packaged goods in my hands with corrected discs inside them so people will be able to get their red dust on street date and all the other great stuff we have for this month, for January.

And we're hoping to keep that going with February. And that, in fact, is why the February release slate is about half of what we would normally provide, because there have been two big television. projects going on at Warner Brothers' Motion Picture Imaging, which kind of pushed other things out so that this could be done. I won't say what that television project is, except to say that we will be releasing it on Blu-ray when it's done. George, we should probably mention the extras on this release as well. Yes, indeed. There are two shorts on this release.

that I think are really worth discussing. One of them has a very interesting history to it, and that is a short called The Spectacle Maker. And what makes this short interesting is, I think it was the first MGM live-action short shot with three-strip technicolor. It was made and released in 1934, same year that Tarzan and his maid was released.

That's why it's on this disc. But it's very often said that the first use of three-color technicolor in a live-action production was a short film called La Cucaracha. I think they actually came out around the same time, and I don't know which one was made first. but it was probably put into production around the same time. If it isn't the first full-color live-action, three-color, technical color short, spectacle maker was a quick follow-up.

And for people who love Walt Disney's Pinocchio, you'll find that the actor who is not only the voice of Geppetto, but also the figure model of Geppetto, an actor by the name of Christian Rube, he plays the spectacle maker, and the spectacles he makes are magical. I'm not going to give away anything other than that, you know, because I don't want to give away the story.

But this is really a lovely story in and of itself. This was directed by John Farrow, who would eventually graduate to making feature films, including one of my favorites that we've only released on DVD. I wish we could get it out on Blu-ray. Maybe we will. Five came back in 1939 with Lucille Ball and lots of other really great performers.

Farrow had a very impressive career as a director and made some very interesting films. But the spectacle maker was probably in production around the same time as La Cucaracha. I think they were released like a month apart. But it's really the first use of technicolor at MGM. What had happened with that process was Walt Disney had a two-year exclusivity on the three-color technical color process.

And that began with the animated short flowers and trees. So this is representative of three-color technical color being used by other people besides Walt Disney and being used for something other than animation. So, and then the other short on the disc is called What Price Jazz, which is just a silly fun, too real musical. And that and the trailer make up the disc, and I think people are going to be very happy with it. Yeah, yeah, this one, a lot of excitement already.

Well, next we have a very interesting film, Stranger on the third floor from 1940. What can you tell us about this groundbreaking film? Well, this is considered by experts to be the first official film noir. Now, I have a feeling that the people making the movie at the time didn't know that. This was just another B programmer coming out of RKO for the 64-minute running time. but by the time we started Warner Archive and began to, on very constricted budgets,

remaster films, we created a new master for Stranger on the third floor for DVD because what was in-house prior to that was something that was done in 1983. So by 2010, that was pretty ragged. and this film is really important in its place in film history, and it stars the amazing Peter Lorry. It's a really interesting film.

Boris Inkster is the director. The visual use really has a taste of German expressionism to it, and there's been a lot written about the film, a lot of analysis. But now people can see a 4K scan from the camera negative, which is revelatory. That's always a plus on an RKO movie because so many RKO original negatives bit the dust. This one didn't, and we were able to give it the Warner Archive treatment. I think people are going to be very happy with the release.

Yeah, I'm excited to see this one. Great cast. And then you have some nice extras on here as well. There's no trailer. I should be really clear about that. I've mentioned it before, I'll say it again. When the RKO library was sold off, trailers didn't come with the deal because RKO did not have a trailer department the way MGM and Warner Brothers did. Right.

So whenever we have an RKO trailer, it's the exception rather than the rule. So I wanted to find something we could accompany the film with, especially since it's so short, although it's very worth every moment. The filmmaking is very efficient. It really brings you right in. It's very entertaining. But I wanted to do something a little different.

So Peter Lorry did a lot of radio work in the 1940s, and there was a series' mystery of the air. And so we have three episodes of that series with Peter Lurie as audio bonus extras on this FISC, which makes it just a little more fun. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to that one. I know this next one as well has a lot of fans. And this is Mogombo from 1953. What can you tell us about this technicolor film? Well, you just said it.

It's three-color technical color. It's one of those last uses of the process before they switch to single strand eastman color negative. They brought those technicolor cameras to Africa because this was shot on location. And this is also one of the rare examples of an actor playing basically the same part he played in a previous film version. of the underlying literary work 20 years before, Clark Gable plays the lead in this, and it's basically a remake of Red Dust, which is an end of January Warner Archive Restoration release

that we're very excited of. The timing just worked out that Magambo was ready, and we had it follow Red Dust by a month. We thought there would be a little bit more time in between the two of them, but as soon as things are ready, we want to release them and get them out to the public that wants them. This has been probably on most of the want lists of serious centiphyls. Yeah. Because you've got John Ford directing.

We've got, I would say, shockingly magnificent technical or imagery. I've never seen this movie look so incredibly good. And it's the difference with coming off interpositive versus what we can do with the original technical or negatives. This is safety film. And the performances in this film, particularly Ava Gardner, and Grace Kelly is no slouch either. This is really the first time

as a contract player at MGM that she really got noticed. I believe she won the Golden Globe for supporting actress for her performance in this film. I think I'm right about that. But I know that both Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly got Oscar nominations for their respective performances. Ava Gardner is best actress and Grace Kelly as best supporting actress. So you've got the combination of John Ford, the location photography. The story has been very much updated, but there's a caveat to that, and that is, well, Gamma was made in 1953 when the production code was in full force, whereas 21 years earlier,

red dust was made when the production code was not being enforced, and red dust is a very underlined. very pre-code movie. So there's a lot more reality in the older film in that sense, but then you have this added dimension of John Ford's sense of filmmaking. This is really a solid adventure film. Gable is terrific in the film. He's just, he does what Gable could do that nobody out there. No one else like Clark Gable.

This was a big hit at the box office and a very famous film of its time. And it was just a natural that we needed to bring our magical technical wizardry at Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging to the Technicolor Negatives, recombine them and create a gorgeous master. I think people are going to be very happy. Yeah, yeah. And we've added a Fitzpatrick Travel Talk and a Tom and Jerry cartoon to give you that 1953 going to the movie's feeling.

And I think it's a great disc and people are really, really going to enjoy it. It's always great to get another John Ford that so many people, you know, want to get all of his films and then, of course, this cast. Wow. What a cast. So looking forward to that. Well, you also have more Hanna Bar. Barbera releasing this February.

What can you tell us about the loopy-de-loop theatrical cartoon series? Well, a lot of people who are really, I would say, you know, big animation fans, they might look at this. What is this loopy-de-loop? I've never heard of it. And it was a byproduct of Anna Barbera's production. company, when they started Hanne Barbera Productions, they had partial ownership and distribution for television syndication through Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures had an ownership stake

in Hanne Barbera. They also were distributing through their syndication division, Screen Gems. It was also part of the deal at some point after the success of Huckleberry and so forth. They came up with the idea of creating cartoons for the theaters, theatrical, animated short subjects of six to seven minutes in length because Warner Brothers was still distributing Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies to theaters. Paramount was still distributing cartoons.

MGM had shut down their animation department where Anna and Barbera had been employees. so they were fine to release reissues. They eventually did make Newtown Jerry's with other people, which we could talk about another time. But Columbia didn't have much going on in the theatrical animation area. They had previously through UPA productions that they distributed, Gerald McVoing Boing and Mr. Magoo.

So it was kind of a natural fit that they'd go to Hannah Barbera and say, hey guys, you're making these great shows for us like Cockcobury Hound and Rough and Ready. How about some theatrical cartoons? And so they came up with the French Canadian, I believe he's a French Canadian wolf, Louie de Lou. Dawes Butler, of course, does his voice. It's really nicely animated. And they made 48 of the cartoons, which were distributed to theaters over a, five or six year period.

And it wasn't until the very early 70s, if my memory is correct, that loopie de loop was put together as a TV syndication package. And the cartoons eventually came to television. But they

wanted to keep it purely a cinema experience. And the cartoons are terrific. All the best writers and animators that were at, Hannah Barbera, the voice, It's all shown in these cartoons, and they've all been scanned from their original negatives. There are 48 of them. They look and sound terrific.

People seem to have appreciated what we've been doing with Anna Barbera productions and want to keep continuing to make them available. And this seemed like a good fit for this time of year. We put Loopy-D-Loop on DVD many years ago, and those were not very good-looking masters. They're made off prints and internegatives. People will experience these cartoons in a much more colorful way. The artwork that went into them, they just look so good. And they're very funny and very entertaining. And just to give a few more details, there's 48 of these theatrical shorts on two discs.

So that running time of 315 minutes, so you have quite a bit of content. Once again, you're releasing at retail at the normal 2498 price, so a terrific value on these. And I'm sure a lot of people aren't as familiar with this. So this is really, really fun to do this kind of deep cut of the Hannah-Barbara library. I just think Loopy is about to develop a new fan base. Yeah. Because if you're a Hannah-Barbara fan, particularly of this era, their first decade, when they were coming up with all sorts of interesting new characters, they were like,

well, we're going to put this in theaters. They're going to be more adults watching, you know. I think the cartoons are very good. I think you're very well made. And if you're a Hannah-Barbara fan, this is something you absolutely need to pick up for your life. Yeah. And I think I forgot to mention that this is from 1959 to 65, so that's the range of years. The way that cartoons were distributed to theaters by studios was very flexible. So the 48 different episodes, they would call them on television shorts, we call them as they were shown in theaters.

They have a consistent high level of good artwork. good storytelling, exceptional voice characterization. You got June 4A and Don Messick, a lot of Hannah Barbarra Stalwarts. It's going to make people very happy if they haven't already discovered. The Good Wolf, Mr. DeLoop. Well, I thought we would, before we wrap up, George, mentioned the film collections with which continue. these are releasing a little earlier in February on the 17th.

I mentioned the first one here, the Fred Astaire for film collection. These collections are designed not for the diehard fan, but for people that may not be as committed to building a classic library. And the point of entry in terms of price point, It's four films for 3998, so it's $10 a movie. The Fred Astaire Collection contains two of his finest films

in which his leading lady is the glamorous hitteries, the bandwagon, which is one of my top favorite MGM musicals. We've got Vincent Melley directing, a common green screen play. how do you follow singing in the rain? You make the bandwagon. There are some people I've even discussed who think the bandwagon is even better than singing in the rain.

I love them both. So it's like saying, which one of your children do you prefer? The bandwagon is an exceptionally good movie, and it's all about the theater. Common Green is the screenwriters. Got an Oscar nomination for their original screenplay, also in the movie of Jack B. Cannon.

and Nanette Fabre, great movie. Fred and Sit were teamed again four years later by same producer, Arthur Freed, director Rubin Mulian, directing adaptation of a Broadway show with this Cold Porter Score, Silk Stockings, which is a remake with music of Ninochka, which had Greta Garberl. And that was in our Greta Garberle collection. So you get those two movies. and then you also have

Fred Astaire in his I would say last film musical which is Finney's Rainbow and Fred was 68 when the movie was made it's based on the Broadway show from 1947 it's a fantasy it's an allegory and I should mention it's also directed

by Francis Ford Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola loves musicals, and he wanted to make a very different kind of musical. Leading Lady is Petula Clark. I like this film very much. The stage play on which it was based became a little dated between 1947 and 68, especially if you think about what was going on in the world in 1968. But this film deserves to be better known,

and this gives us the opportunity to do so. The fourth movie in the collection is Fred in his only on-screen pairing with Judy Garland in Irving Berlin's Easter Parade. This is a perennial favorite, Ann Miller, Peter Laffert, co-star. There's some spectacular numbers in the movie. And the film was originally supposed to be Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. And Gene broke his ankle, I think a couple of days or weeks before shooting. was to begin. He was in rehearsal. And they called Fred Astera in a panic and he came out of retirement and was an Easter

parade with Judy and it was a smash. And Fred was no longer retired. He was back in action, which is great. So this shows a lot of dimension in the, I would say, the second chapter in Astera's green career and a great value at 3998. And we also have Broadway and on the big screen. And this is a six film collection with Broadway hits that made it to Hollywood and the screen translations were all quite remarkable and entertaining. You've got Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando and Guys and Dolls. You have the Bob Fosse choreographed coupling, also the same composer and lyricist

in Dan Yankees and Pajama Game. Rosal and Jipsy with Natalie Wood. We have The Boyfriend with Twiggy, directed by Ken Russell, which was made in 1971, which is a London musical that transferred to Broadway in the 50s. And leading lady was a young lass from England

who had been in the London production named Julie Andrews. So MGM bought the screenwrights in the 50s. They were going to make it with Debbie Reynolds, like in 1957, but it never got made. And Ken Russell approached MGM in, like, the late 60s, the early 70s saying,

I have a vision of how we could make the boyfriend into a great screen musical. It's very entertaining, and the very tall and very talented Tommy Toon is in the cast, and there's a great cameo from Glenda Jackson. I highly recommend the movie. And last for not,

least we have Gene Kelly starring with Sid Chorice in the Vincent Minelli's green adaptation of Lerner and Loz Brigadune, which has a wonderful score and it's a fantasy. There's also Vincent Manoli's first film in Cinemascope. It looks great. Van Johnson appears in the movie also, and Gene did the choreography. The master is actually quite stunningly beautiful, and the sound is 5.1 from the original four-track master. So it's very, very entertaining. The Spencer Tracy Collection shows his versatility as an actor. You've got 1936 being, I think, the second year he had moved to MGM from Fox.

And he stars along with William Powell, Jean Harlow, and Myrna Loy in the comedic libeled lady, which is just fantastic, great film. And then at the same time in 1936, he did a very powerful, shocking film, still shocking today. 90 years later, Fury. And he's an innocent man who is wrongly accused of murder and the townspeople are ready to lynch him without any proof. And it's deeply disturbing.

Olivia Sydney is the leading lady. It is a fantastic film. Then we have in 1940s Northwest Passage, which is a Technicolor spectacle directed by King Vidor. And last but not least, you've got Spencer Tracy and Cinemascope in a very powerful statement against prejudice called Bad Day at Black Rock with an amazing cast.

Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgne, and the lovely Anne Francis. And a great score by Andre Previn. So these multi-feature packs are all a phenomenal way to broaden your collection without earning your wallet too much. Yeah. You know, I'm always a little surprised that people see these packs and many people who are pretty avid collectors find that they're a great value that they want to pick up, you know,

because there's focused on one actor or a theme. they may be a lot of movies in those that they do not own. And so it's great to kind of just get that and have four or, in the case of the Broadway one, six films that you can just get at such a great price. And certain retailers have been putting them on sale. So that reduces your cost on, I've seen them for like $6 a movie. Yeah. It's amazing.

So they've been very popular. It's something we started before the pandemic. we had to kind of take a back seat on it for a while. Now we're back in the game, and I've been coming up with a whole bunch of new ones that I think people are going to really enjoy. Yeah, yeah. Well, that does it for February, George,

but I did want to ask you, just kind of briefly looking out at the rest of the year. You mentioned a big TV series, but what are some other thoughts about the rest of the year and what people can look forward to? Well, I don't like to promise anything. I really am not comfortable until the disc is done because we've been burned a few times.

But I will say that there are going to be a lot of titles, I would say of the same marquee value as Tarzan and his mate and Mugambo. well-known films, classic films, why haven't they been on Blu-ray, why weren't they on Blu-ray 15 years ago, 70 years ago? The format has been around for 20 years.

In the first couple of years, people were staying away from classic movies because the early adopters usually don't go for older films. But by the latter part of the aughts, that would have been an opportunity for there to be more classics on Blu-ray from this company. And unfortunately, at the time, we had people here who were more interested in taking that money and making sleazy made-for-video slasher movies.

So that kind of put a crimping in the catalog group moving ahead with some very interesting projects. So with Warner Archive taking the lead in populating, people's collections with Blu-rays and doing it with new masters and highest level of quality being the goal. We're able to move forward now. I think I mentioned this last time that over 100 films have been approved and are in process. And there will be more television, there will be more animation, theatrical and television. and the films will span from the 1930s to, let's see, I think we get into the 2000s a little bit,

but it's mostly going to be core classics. Right. And a lot of films that, if people reacted to Tarzan and his mate, and Mugambo would finally, that's what a lot of people say. And I'm one of those people, too, because I've been trying to get a lot of things greenlit. And when a distribution master was considered okay, even though it didn't look very good,

it made it harder for me to get the approvals needed happily. Many, many, exciting projects have been approved. I think 2026 is going to be a very satisfying year to the serious film collector. Yeah, yeah. Well, as always, George, thanks for coming on and taking us through these. This is a very exciting month.

There may be a few less than some other months, but the value, the high quality value of these is fantastic, and I'm looking forward to seeing these films. And subsequent months will be the six to eight, maybe even more. Right. I didn't want to not have a February release late. Last year, I think, and in other years before, I think 2023 as well, we skipped February. Yeah. Because there is naturally always a.

clog in the system as the holidays hit. So this is what we have for this month. I'm very proud of it and really excited about what's to come. A lot of things are going to make people very happy. Yeah, for sure. Looking forward to this year. Thanks, George. Thank you, Tim.

If you'd like more information about the films announced today, be sure and check out our Facebook page and our Facebook group. We have the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers, catalog group that I think you may enjoy if you haven't joined that group. A lot of good information about the things we talk about in the podcast and all of the releases. Pre-orders are not available yet, so we'll have those up on our page and in the groups when those become available. If you haven't yet subscribed or if you're not yet following this show at your favorite podcast provider, you may want to do that. And as George mentioned, there are over 100 films that are currently

being worked on and planned for release. So you don't want to miss the announcements and the other podcasts that we do for the Warner Archive. That's not counting the animation and TV. I'm really looking forward to hearing what this big TV one is that Georgia mentioned. Well, until next time, you've been listening to Similar, stay slightly obsessed. Hey, are you a fan of the Warner Archive animation releases? Do you want to get the latest updates and news right away? If you're on Facebook, we have just created a brand,

new Facebook group called the Warner Archive Animation Fans Group. Now, we celebrate past releases, but really, we created this group because of all of the great releases that have come in this year and are anticipated in the coming years. So there have been a lot of great releases from the Looney Tunes Collectors Vault series. There's the Tom and Jerry releases. There's all of the Hanna-Barbera releases. I mean, there's just a wealth of animation coming from the Warner Archive. So we celebrate all of it.

It's a community with other people who enjoy these releases and want to talk about them and share the latest news, reviews, and updates from the Warner Archive. So if that sounds interesting to you, check out the link here in the podcast show notes. And we hope to see you soon.