The Extras - Warner Archive January 2022 Releases plus The Top Releases of 2021

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Warner Archive executive George Feltenstein takes us through the first releases of 2022.  On January the 18th, the Blu-ray release of “Song of the Thin Man” starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, completes the last installment of the “Thin Man” series.  Also releasing that day are the DVDs of the popular television series, “Riverdale” Season 5 and “Animal Kingdom” Season 5.  On January 25th, the lesser-known Alfred Hitchcock classic “Stage Fright” starring Jane Wyman, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, and Marlene Dietrich, is released for the first time on Blu-ray.  George provides background on all of the titles and insights into the restoration process for the classic films.And as a special bonus, George Feltenstein takes a look back at 2021, and he details the top 5 Warner Archive Blu-ray releases of the year (with a few extra releases added in).  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.  www.otakumedia.tvThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify 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. Today, I'm sitting down with George Feltenstein to talk about the Warner Archive releases kicking off the new year of 2022.

It's not a long list, so after we discuss each of the titles, we will take a fun look back on some highlights from 2021, including the top five Warner Archive releases of the year, So you'll want to stick around for that segment later. George, the beginning of a new year always comes with some excitement. The busyness of the holidays is behind us, and we're all looking forward to the possibilities ahead. So how are you feeling about the new year with the Warner Archive? Well, I'm very, very excited, very grateful to be back in the saddle and steering the ship towards hopefully new horizons.

And that will be expanding the kind of thing that we're doing. But we're getting off to an unusually slow start. And that is not intentional. It's the way that things work when you run into delays and people not being in certain positions and so forth. So we had a kind of mad rush crush to try to get as much out in 21 as we could, which is why we even released titles in December, which we usually don't like to do. Thanksgiving has passed. Everything becomes sort of, you know, Black Friday and sales and things like that. And traditionally, it was a month we have avoided and maybe had one release, but mostly no releases. This year, we had two Blu-rays and a television series. But January, we will have two Blu-rays, which have already been announced. Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright, which is restored from the original negative.

Another 4K scan off the original negative, another 4K scan off the original negative. The DVD did not look very good, and this is a huge improvement. And that's been announced. And the last of the six Thin Man features, Song of the Thin Man from 1947, that's been announced. And those will be our two Blu-ray releases for January. But we also are looking into some special event kind of films. kind of films. Specifically, it has already been made public for anybody who reads through places like the Home Theater Forum or Blu-ray.com. We've been working on a restoration with the people that are the owners of what was Cinerama Inc.

And a wonderful gentleman by the name of Dave Strohmeyer, who first I encountered about 20 years ago when he had this dream of working with us to help put How the West Was Won back in its Cinerama format, which, of course, we ended up doing in 2008. And subsequently, Dave has restored all the other Cinerama films. But the only other Cinerama movie that we own, and it's the only one of two that is a narrative film, is The Wonderful World of

the Brothers Grimm. And whereas How the West Was Won was a box office smash, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was not nearly as popular or successful. And as we looked at the film and said, can we bring this to DVD, no less Blu-ray, we realized that the original negative had gotten water damaged in the tunnels under the MGM lot decades ago. So from a photochemical perspective, before we started scanning negatives digitally, it seemed like an impossible prospect. But we now have scanners that are so amazing at dealing with film that has damage,

whether it's water damage, warping, or let's say there's torn splices or rocket hole damage. Right. The scanners today don't actually touch the film. It's really amazing how it works. And so because of that, we met with the people at Decurion Corporation, which is the parent company of Cinerama about three years ago. And we made a commitment to bring in all of the film, And we made a commitment to bring in all of the film, all the film the earlier part of the year for a two-disc Blu-ray release. It will be released in both

letterbox form, traditional, but it will also be released in the Smilebox format. And that was something created by Dave Strohmeyer that has the movie kind of in an ellipse. So if you're watching it on a big screen, it is the home version of reconstructing what it was like to see a Cinerama movie that basically enveloped you with almost 180 degree curved screen. So we did How the West Was Won that way almost 13 years ago. And Brothers Grimm has been done that way as well. So it's going to be a very deluxe double disc. It will be also accompanied by quite an abundance of both archival and new little pieces about the restoration.

the restoration. It's going to be one of the biggest releases we've ever had in terms of, you know, the work that went into it. MPI did all the scanning. So it was a really joint effort. It will be pretty substantial compared to our usual releases where we invest everything in the feature master, but don't always have the ability to create new extras. It's very rare that we have that ability. I'm hoping that will be one of the things that we'll be able to change this year. able to change this year. There is still a lot of what next year will be looking like. There are still a lot of issues kind of hanging in the air, but I'm staring right now at five 2022 Blu-rays that are already done and ready to go. So we're very well prepared. I'm just putting out there to be completely transparent

that the earlier part of the year will probably seem a little light compared to how strong 2021 was. But my feelings are that by the end of the year, we'll look back at the end of 2022 and see hopefully that 2022 will have been even better than 2021 has been. So that's the hope. 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. shoot, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Well, I recall going 13 years ago to the Cinerama Dome here in Hollywood to see the release of How the West Was Won, George. I mean, it was a big event. It was packed. People really came out to see it because it had been so many years, obviously, since it had ever been on the Cinerama screen. So looking forward to very much the Brothers Grimm and that release later this year. And hopefully we'll be able to have a nice little podcast about that release. Oh, you can count on it.

Sounds good. Well, why don't we now talk about the January 2022 titles that are going to be coming out? There's only four and three of them release on January 18th, including a couple of TV titles. Maybe you can take us through those. Well, there are two series that we have been releasing prior seasons of, which we will continue to do on DVD. The first of them is Animal Kingdom, which is a great show. This is the fifth season

that we're bringing to DVD and fans of the show know that it has continued to have twists and turns and it continues to build on prior storylines. Fifth season was really great, and we're delighted to be bringing that out. And then switching networks, as it were, because this is a CW show,

Riverdale, which continues to gain a cult audience, that season five DVD will also be released. And then we will have the... George, before you move past Riverdale season five, I did want to just add that there is an extra on that release. It is called A New Riverdale. And the big storyline for season five was a time jump of seven years where they skip kind of over the college years and that is a nice 13 minute extra

that the fans can hear from the cast and producers about just that change to the show and the mythology and how that impacted everything so the fans of Riverdale will want to keep a lookout for that. Absolutely. of the great MGM film series, The Thin Man Films, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. And this is Song of the Thin Man from 1947. And like its predecessor Blu-rays, it has been meticulously restored and remastered with a 4K scan from our best preservation elements.

And it looks and sounds magnificent. And we had a huge battle to get the first Thin Man film out on Blu-ray because that was in the worst shape of all of them. All of them were pretty worn because the popularity of this series of films has never really waned. With every new generation that discovers Nick and Nora Charles, there is excitement and popularity. Nick and Nora Charles, there is excitement and popularity. And I remember seeing them in revival theaters, you know, 20 years ago that were back.

And we had a very famous box set of DVDs that had some really old masters used in it. And people really weren't as caring about the quality at the time. Whereas, you know, it was really Blu-ray that brought the nitpicky connoisseur consumer, you know, to the forefront. And for my money, Blu-ray used to use a phrase promotionally throughout the industry, the look and sound of perfect. Well, of course, now we have 4K Blu-rays, which are even better. But the difference between a regular Blu-ray and a 4K Blu-ray depends on the film and when it was made. And I think a lot of older classics from the 30s and 40s don't, especially if they're in benefit from a new 4K disc, whereas a 4K scan for a new master on a Blu-ray disc and the television will up convert if you've got a 4K television.

They look magnificent. But to have finished all six films and brought the entire series, that is a great thing. And then the next week on January 25th, we have a film that we had tried to release in 2016 when we released a whole bunch of Alfred Hitchcock movies. And we were not able to release Alfred Hitchcock's to get access to the camera negatives because of internal politics. But as we are now embarking on a joint venture with the preservation team, we are going back to original negatives where they still exist. And thankfully, Stage Fright, the negative, the nitrate negative is stored at UCLA, where we keep most of the post-1949 Warner Brothers nitrate negatives, as well as all the nitrate studio prints. And UCLA has been a partner of Warner Brothers in protecting our nitrate materials for over

40 years. And we're very grateful to them for the great work that they do in working with us. And so we got the original negative and created a first-class master and a first-class disc. And there is a Warner-created vintage featurette. I have to say vintage now because it was done in the early aughts.

But it's the story of stage fright. And it's a good featurette. It really gives you the background on the story because you've got Jane Wyman, Marlena Dietrich, Michael Wilding, and a host of British actors all doing some really, really fine work. And the film is usually overlooked and isn't better known. And a lot of people really, really love it. So it's another one of those films where, when are you going to release Stage Fright? Well, the answer is January 25th. And so we're very, very excited about that.

And with that, that will have brought all of the Hitchcock films that are in the Warner Library to Blu-ray with the exception of one. And the one that we haven't released yet is an out-and-out comedy. There are no thrills. There's no suspense from the master of suspense. And it's a very delightful comedy. It's called Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And it stars Robert Montgomery and Kara Lombard.

And I think all Hitchcock films deserve to be on Blu-ray, including his foray into comedy. That's not to say that there isn't humor in a lot of his films. Some of the humor is of a different nature, but this is an out-and-out, you know, kind of screwball romantic comedy completely at odds with his normal way of filmmaking. But that is something that probably will be coming in a future year that will not be coming in 2022. stage fright and starting the year with stage fright and the last of the thin man movies i think considering the fact that we're limited in how many titles we can release until we make up for the that occurred during 2021. And there was also a basically a traffic jam at Warner Brothers

motion picture imaging, because there was so much work that needed to get done. And they were working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So we had to adjust our schedule a little bit, but it means it's only going to get more robust as the year goes on. So that's exciting. Well, George, 2021 was a huge year for the Warner Archive. So I think it's definitely worth taking a look back, doing a little year in review so that we can highlight some things for the fans. So I have some questions I wrote up for you and I'm looking forward to hearing your answers. Let's start off with my toughest question. Which release was the most challenging to bring out in 2021?

Oh, Lord. challenging to bring out in 2021? Oh, Lord. That's a really tough question because we had so many complicated and difficult releases. I don't think I can single out one that was more problematic. All of the Technicolor films that we did were a challenge

because you got to get those three camera records exactly aligned. I also think that it's probably fair to say that we wanted Tech Savory Volume 3 to be as close to perfect as possible. And that was a challenge in the sense that the very first cartoon, which is called Blitzwolf, and it won the Academy Award, there only exists one color reversal internegative on that film. There are no other 35 millimeter elements of a more direct lineage to the original negative, which burnt up in the fire.

And the first minute and 30 seconds of that cartoon somehow got damaged decades ago. So you were opening up this really, really important program of cartoons with a cartoon that doesn't look so great. And that's the reason, in fact, why it wasn't on volume one. I didn't ever think we'd be able to get it to the level of quality that we require. level of quality that we require. But fortunately, our folks were able to do the best they could with that minute and 37 seconds or whatever it is. And then the rest of the cartoon looks terrific. We also put a lot of work into making sure the audio was better and up to the level of

the cleanliness of the picture. And I'm very happy with the results. The sales have been terrific. And we're looking into the possibility of a fourth volume of Tex Avery that might not only contain more of the MGM cartoons, of which there are a few left that we haven't put out, but also some of his cartoons made at Warner Brothers before he went to MGM. So that's something we're still considering in terms of content. So that's not, when I talk about something coming, everybody says, you promise.

People on the Internet have a way of making their comments, twisting the truth. Some people, some people are delightful and very nice and honest, and other people just like to create uh havoc so um i'll be very upfront about it that you know this is still under consideration but it's something that we're thinking of doing and we've we've said as much i think even the last time jerry and i were on the extras we we probably indicated that. For fans who want to catch a little bit more about the volume three release, there is a podcast where you, George, and Jerry Beck go in-depth into the cartoons that are on that release.

So fans, you can check that out in the extras. Well, George, no year in review would be complete without a top 10 or best of list. And since some of the releases just came out in December, we won't necessarily focus on sales, but maybe you could take us through five of the most successful releases from this past year. year. There have been so many home runs this year. We've been very fortunate and things that we're exceptionally proud of. I'd start off in the fifth position with actually two films that are almost conjoined at the hip. And that is the release of Damn Yankees and the Pajama Game. And the reason I put them together is they were based on Broadway shows that were put together by the same creative team, the same music and, you know, music composer and lyricist,

the same producer, the same director, the same choreographer, the director being George Abbott on the stage who co-directed the movies with Stanley Donnan and the choreographer on stage and on screen being Bob Fosse. So it's the pajama game and Damn Yankees. Those have been so asked for and they were completely unavailable legally until they came out at the early part, the beginning of 2020. And it had taken me probably five or six years to finally get a deal because we own the movies, but every so often we've had to negotiate new agreements with the owners of the underlying rights to the Broadway shows on which the film is based.

So I've been involved in a lot of those negotiations over the years. over the years. And we were back and forth and we finally got a deal together that made everybody happy. And then there was the tremendous challenge of these films were both shot at a time when the Eastman color negatives were susceptible to very bad fading and the DVDs

were ugly. And these were both, one of them was done off the original negative because we could use that as the best source. And the other one was done from preservation separations. The Amienkis came off of preservation separations because that negative had faded so badly that the grain was just too much to deal with. And we compared it to the original negative. Pajama Game was the one that I thought the negative was too far gone and we wouldn't be able to use it. But that turned out wonderfully and to be better than using the preservation separations.

So that would be my number five. my number five. And I think my number four would probably be a film that we just talked about, Prince of the City. Sidney Lumet's really groundbreaking anti-police corruption drama, which a lot of fans really, really wanted. And I'd give an honorable mention in the middle there, since it's dealing with social issues.

We also released Fury in October with Spencer Tracy, which is more prescient right now, 85 years after his maid, because it deals with social unrest, people kind of going crazy and not having respect for the law and taking it in their own hands. So sound familiar? Unfortunately, it does, unfortunately, it does, even though it's 85 years old. So, packs a powerful punch. And like so many of the other films, these were all restored and given beautiful new discs. So, that's what I would give to the number four slot. And I'm giving it to Two Pictures because it's so hard to pick.

Right. I think the next one for me would be Showboat, which was another Technicolor restoration. We did so many of them. But this had the benefit of also a gorgeous stereophonic soundtrack that was created by myself and others quite a long time ago. It was done for the Laserdisc release. And it wasn't used for the DVD. The DVD of Showboat looked god-awful.

And this was a restoration off the camera negative with this gorgeous stereo track. And Showboat is the 1951 version of the 1927 Broadway musical. And there are three films of Showboat. There was the Hart-Tockey version in 1929, which is not available on DVD or Blu-ray at the moment. There's the 1936 remake of Showboat, which is available from the Criterion Collection. And they made a beautiful disc of that. And we had had that available as a DVD that looked pretty good through the Warner Archive collection. But there's a great sentimentality for Showboat at Criterion because the 36 version they released years and years ago as a laser disc. And they really, really wanted to do that for Blu-ray because they had so many archival materials. So that was part of the licensing agreement. But the 51 version. The 1936 version of the film is more faithful to the stage play

in that some of the original Broadway performers are in that, but the plot tends to get very hackneyed and corny. But, you know, film aficionados will argue about this and most tend to lean on the side of the 36. I like both films and I think the 1951 version is wonderful. And when we were doing the stereo track for the 1951 version. We also recorded a commentary by the late director, George Sidney. And George has been, George passed away over 20 years ago.

So to have his commentary on our new Blu-ray was a real, you know, gift to be able to have him be able to speak about his film. So that takes us to number three. Number two, I would have to say would go to Dr. X, which was a collaboration with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Film Foundation and the George Lucas Family Foundation. They all contributed along with the studio to collaborate on this restoration of a two-color

technicolor film, which was also shot in black and white at the same time. They would shoot the black and white version at night. So we have both versions on the disc. And the restoration work was overseen by UCLA, and they did a gorgeous job. So it was a real collaboration within the film community. And this is a film a lot of people grew up watching in black and white on television. And two- color technicolor is very hard to reproduce effectively you know on contemporary uh screens because it used only

green and red and there was no real blue or yellow you you know? So there's a very decided look to it and you need to know how to do it right. And I think that that probably really came out phenomenally because this was put together from a beat up print that had belonged to Jack Warner. And it's meticulously done. And a lot of people can be very proud of their work on this. We're very grateful to Todd Weiner and Scott McQueen. Todd is the really head curator, archivist at UCLA Film and Television Archive. And Scott is now retired, but this was his swan song under UCLA's employment.

And we all worked together very hard on this. And we're very, very proud of it. So how many have I gone through? I think that's four. That was number two. Yeah. So. So to pick the number one release. I think that as it's kind of predictable what I'm going to say, it would have to be Tex Avery volume three. The release of the Avery cartoons has been so important to us. We ran into some problems in that our the work on the second volume wasn't done at Warner Brothers motion picture imaging because of the beginning of the pandemic and we got our a team back on

the third volume and the cartoons look and sound fantastic and the fact that now most of Avery's work is available on Blu-ray, that's been an over 20-year quest for me to get them remastered. 20 years ago, there was not high-definition in the home yet. Unless you had the special Japanese high definition laser discs, which I've never seen when I've always seen pictures of them. But the tech savory cartoons were released in Europe, in France where tech savories as big as, you know, the Simpsons or South Park and there's merchandise all over the place.

And why that happened to happen in France, I really don't know. But in the U.S., the following started growing in the 80s. And we talked about this on the podcast. I don't want to be repeating things I said there. But long and short of it is, it's an achievement I'm very proud of, very happy about. I also want to give an honorable mention to a film we released early last year as well that was highly requested and really was a monster in terms of sales and that's Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater. This is a film New Line made in 1990 and hadn't been around. It was on DVD but it was not available digitally.

It wasn't streaming and there was no Blu-ray. This should have been a Blu-ray, you know, 12 years ago. Right. Well, we righted that wrong and people really loved that we released the title. So I just had to mention that for all you Christian Slater fans out there. Well, I remember that title well. It had a lot of impact when it came out. And so there are a lot of fans of that movie and Christian Slater, of course.

Well, that kind of sums up, I think, 2021 very well. And I take it that Tex Avery most likely is probably your personal favorite. Am I wrong in that? I would have to say just in terms of the meaning of it, but it's like, for me, which of your children do you love more? Right. Now, I can't say that about everything we release, because we release a lot of films that I don't particularly care for.

But we are not in business to release movies George likes. We are here to release movies and television programs and animation that the fans want to own. And there are some films that we have released that I don't particularly care for, but they've been hugely successful. And that's why they're releasing. I don't go by my own taste. I go by what I think is going to do well and what has done well previously in other formats and what seems like the right time to do something.

So it's a mixture of multiple factors. And there are also situations where we can't release a film because there's a rights issue or we can't release a film because the film elements are like we're missing a reel. a lot of people will know what it is because I've referred to it before, not in podcasts, but I think we've talked about it on our Facebook page. But there's one film that exists in multiple versions, all of which are different. And when it comes to the original camera negative, And when it comes to the original camera negative, there's a reel missing. And that reel is not a Warner Brothers film and it's not an MGM film. It's not an RKO film. It comes to us via the Laura Murray Allied Artist Library. And that was a very poorly maintained library.

So this is also a film that opened as an X-rated film. And within, in New York City, within two or three weeks of its release, it was cut to be an R. And then it was cut again to be a GP, which was the predecessor of the PG rating. And then there's a television version. So we have been working literally since 2010 trying to get this film released. trying to get this film released.

And we're opening up every can when we can. And so far we've had no luck, but we will continue looking. But that's what's exciting about what we do is we're always finding things and things that we've wanted to do for so long that we couldn't do, we will do. I would love, love, love for us to start being able to release classic films where it's appropriate in the 4K format. But that is four times the cost, literally, because it shows four times the dirt and it shows four times the damage. And it's just too expensive for us to manage right now. But back in 2012, when we started doing Blu-rays,

I never thought that was possible. Right. Well, George, thanks for coming on the show and taking us through the January releases. And it was a fun look back at some of the favorite releases of 2021. Oh, it's my pleasure. And Tim, as always, it's great to spend time with you on the extras. And I wish you and your listeners, I wish them a very happy new year. Thanks again to Warner Brothers executive George Feltenstein for coming on the show today. I hope you've enjoyed his review of the January 2022 Warner Archive DVD and Blu-ray releases and our fun look back at some of the top Warner Archive releases of 2021. 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. where we also have a complete listing of all of our Warner Archive episodes. Also, follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at TheExtrasTV or Instagram at TheExtras.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.