The Extras - Warner Archive July 2022 Releases

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Warner Bros executive George Feltenstein takes us through the July 2022 Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive.  We kick  off the discussion with the release of “Adventures of Don Juan” (1948) starring Errol Flynn and Viveca Lindfors, and directed by Vincent Sherman.   Beautifully restored in Technicolor, this film is another in the long line of swashbuckler roles for Flynn, though with a lighter touch.  Next George details “The Frisco Kid” (1979) starring Gene Wilder as a Polish rabbi who is traveling to San Francisco and Harrison Ford as a bank robber who befriends him along the way. This underrated comedy showcases Wilder in a more serious and sweet role, while fans of Harrison Ford get to see him in a rare western from earlier in his career.And since this is July, George shares his review of the ultimate 4th of July film from the Warner Archive, the 1942 musical "Yankee Doodle Dandy" starring James Cagney and directed by Michael Curtiz.  And we finish with a discussion of some other patriotic films released by the Warner Archive that make for great 4th of July viewing options, including "The Clock", "For Me and My Gal," "Captains of the Clouds" and "The Big Parade."Purchase on Amazon:The Frisco Kid Blu-rayAdventures of Don Juan Blu-rayYankee Doodle Dandy Blu-rayOtaku 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 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 Millard, your host.

Today, George Feltenstein from Warner Brothers joined the show to take us through the July 2022 Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. George, it's good to talk with you today. Tim, it's great to be back with you. Always a pleasure. I hear you are back in the office office and now you're on the lot. Yes. I have to say I'm a bit jealous because our offices were always just off the lot when we worked together. How is that? I'm overwhelmed and a little odd because in the many, many years that I've been here, I've always been in an office building across the street.

And sometimes it was further away from the lot, but the lot was still not where I worked from. And I was given the opportunity to move into what is probably the biggest office I've ever had here. So not only did I get a bigger office than I've ever had before, but I'm on the lot in one of the original administration buildings that was built when this was First National Pictures in the late 20s before Warner Brothers bought First National and moved from Sunset Boulevard to Burbank. And I am awed by the fact that I'm walking in the hallways that Bogart and Cagney and Betty Davis were walking in. and Cagney and Betty Davis were walking in. And it's a great honor. And I'm so grateful to the management of the company for giving me this opportunity. And it's a wonderful place to talk about Warner Brothers history, which we'll be doing today. Yes. Like I said, being in that office with you where we were just off the outside the gate, it was wonderful to be able to walk over.

But to be able to be there day in and day out, that's a real privilege. And I'm I'm excited for you. And I am definitely going to take you up on the offer to come over and see you. You have to. It's just it's really I can't even find the right words to describe how thrilling it is for me. And also really quite productive because I'm more involved in various aspects of the studio. And also, it's much closer for me to get to Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging and look at the new masters we're making. And I did that yesterday.

I'll be doing it again today. And it's literally a three-minute walk. And I'm an ex-New Yorker, so I walk very fast. I love walking that lot, too. It's very... Oh, it's amazing. And it never gets old. And I've been here a long time, thank goodness, and want to keep it that way. And I just look forward to all the excitement that the future holds. And today we're going to be talking about the Warner Archive releases for July. So why don't we dive into the first title?

Well, the first title is gorgeous. And I have to talk about that because this is one of many that we've done in the last, I'd say, year or two, where we've been going back to the nitrate technicolor negatives, doing a recombination and a realignment of the three negatives for a sharpness, clarity, and beauty that was heretofore basically impossible. And I've talked with you about many of these Technicolor restorations, and each one seems to top the next. And this month, the Technicolor restoration is Adventures of Don Wan, which stars Errol Flynn and Vivica Lin-Fors and Robert Douglas. And it was directed by Vincent Sherman, who was a legendary Warner Brothers director,

not in the way that like Michael Curtiz was or Raoul Walsh was, but Vincent Sherman started directing at Warner Brothers in the 30s and continued working at the studio really up through the 50s. And he lived to be almost 100 years old, and he was sharp as a tack up until the very end. Because of that, we approached him to record commentaries for movies that we hadn't even released yet because we did not know how long he would be with us. on DVD has a commentary from the director, Vincent Sherman, as well as the late Rudy Bellmer, who is one of the great Warner Brothers historians, a great friend to the company,

great friend to me. And the commentary, which was originally on the DVD release, which was back in, I think, 2006 or 5, somewhere around there. Now you're, you know, we're revisiting this 16 years later, and the DVD looked pretty good for a DVD. You know, the colors were not that out of alignment, and it was a good DVD as opposed to some of the DVDs we had where you thought you needed to get glasses because things were out of focus, because the Technicolor records weren't aligned properly. That wasn't the case with Adventures of Don Juan. It looked good, but now it looks, oh my God. And this was also the first swashbuckling movie that Errol Flynn did in many, many years. What made him a star was slipping into the role of

Captain Blood in 1935. And then that led eventually to The Adventures of Robin Hood, which is probably his most famous movie, I would say, and also his most famous swashbuckler, to say the least. So there were others that followed afterwards, but for most of the 1940s, he did a lot of westerns, a lot of war pictures, a few comedies even. But this was an opportunity for him to do a big Technicolor costume, swashbuckling epic. And yet this one, I feel the filmmakers had their tongue planted firmly in cheek because it seems that everybody's having a lot of fun. It's certainly not a satire. It is certainly not anything that was intentionally like a goof on that kind of thing. But it is just a delightful movie. You can tell everybody in the cast is having a great deal of fun. And that makes all

the difference in the world. It really does. And so I really was looking forward to this Technicolor restoration being done. And we've got a lineup of them, really. There's a lot of nitrate Technicolor in surrounding storage areas because we can only keep a limited amount of it on the lot. And there are more of these to come in the future. But this one has been in the works for a long time and it's really quite wonderful. And it also has Max Steiner music. And I know that's something that you've been talking about a lot lately. Yeah. The theme that Max wrote for this one is very memorable. As he did so many times, I'm always fascinated by his body of work. And I would say he's like in my top three film composers of all time. But the diversity and what he was able to do is really quite amazing.

And this film really, you know, Don Juan, of course, was the great lover. And they don't take that part of it so seriously. And Flynn doesn't take himself too seriously. And as a result, it's really a great deal of fun. And you also have some Warner supporting stalwarts like Alan Hale, who is in so many Errol Flynn movies. And he's in this one. And this is 10 years plus after The Adventures of Robin Hood. And Flynn at the time was, I guess, about 36. And I don't think it's a secret that Errol Flynn lived life to the fullest.

And he looked a lot older than his age because he lived hard. I think he also enjoyed his life. But the film was really, he had had a couple of misfires at the box office. And it was a big success. And even Bosley Crowther in the New York Times, who is a hard critic to please, he would give bad reviews to movies that everybody else liked. He liked this movie. He said that it wasn't an epic,

but it's a terrific Christmas tree. And this movie came out right around Christmas time in 1948 and leads to the often found confusion about what is the aegis year of this movie. Because when a movie opens so close to Christmas at the end of a year, very often you'll find that it's referred to by the subsequent year, which is when most of the country got to see it. It's the same thing with On the Town. On the Town opened like right before New Year's in 1949. opened like right before New Year's in 1949. Almost everywhere you look, you never know if a book is going to refer to it as a 1949 movie or a 1950 movie. Well, Adventures of Don Juan,

I've seen listed as 1948 and 1949 in many, many different places. And this film was so successful, especially because the Technicolor made it an event. It wasn't used that often by Warner Brothers, in fact, most studios, because it was so expensive. You needed three times the amount of film. And it was much easier to make a film where the camera didn't weigh, you know, 300 pounds and so forth and so on.

So if they were going to make a movie in Technicolor, they were going to put a lot behind it. And it's usually a big picture. And in this case, this one did not disappoint. It was a big success for Flynn. It was a big success for Flynn. It was a big success for Warner Brothers. And it was a nice Christmas present for all of Flynn's fans. You know, Errol Flynn died tragically very, very young, more than 60 years ago. years ago. And yet his films enchant and he's got a huge fan base. And I think when we were doing DVD box sets built around stars, I think we did five different Errol Flynn box sets, more than any other one star where it was substantial like that through Warner Home

Video. I'm not talking about Warner Archive, but in the DVD days, the glory days when we still had things like video stores. And we also had the opportunity to make a documentary called The Adventures of Errol Flynn. And we did that with filmmakers David Healy and Joan Kramer, lovely people who we worked with quite often in the past. And they did some really terrific documentaries that precede me. They did the Spencer Tracy Legacy, a tribute by Katharine Hepburn. They did Jimmy Stewart's, it was basically his video biography with Jimmy Stewart and Johnny Carson. You know, I mean, they were able to get

such amazing people for their shows. And they made documentaries in the 80s and the 90s. And they made documentaries in the 80s and the 90s. And we hired them, I think, around 2005 to do Errol Flynn. And that was going to be a little tricky because there was a lot of scandal in his life. And he had a lot of wives. And we were very fortunate to be able to get Patrice Wymore, who was, I believe, his final wife, I don't think they were necessarily physically in the same space when he passed away because he had a heart attack and died unexpectedly. And there was a lot of confusion around his death. But that documentary we made in partnership with TCM and it was in one of the box sets. And it was really a very, very rewarding process to explore

his life and to see the legacy he left behind in cinema. And the thing is with people like Errol Flynn, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Betty Davis, Edward G. Robinson, these are people who are associated with Warner Brothers. When you mention their names, you think Warner Brothers. Did Errol Flynn end up making films at other studios after he left Warner Brothers? Yes. Did Bogart and Cagney and Betty Davis and Avery C. Robinson work at other studios when they left Warner Brothers? Yes. But when you hear their names, if you're a film buff, that's what you think of. At least that's what I think of. They are what built the DNA of this fine organization. And every time we're able to restore one of their films and release it on Blu-ray and give it that extra special treatment, it's quite rewarding. And we do a Warner night,

rewarding. And we do a Warner night, the movies on this disc, there's a cartoon with Bugs Bunny, which is in high definition. There's a Joe McDowell short, which is George O'Hanlon, the voice of George Jetson playing Joe McDowell. So he's behind the eight ball, which is a very popular comedy short series. There's Calgary Stampede, which is shot in Canada in color. And of course, the film's trailer has been remastered in HD. So it's a wonderful Blu-ray and we're very proud of it. And I think fans are really, really going to enjoy it. Yeah, I was not really familiar with the film, but I watched it and it looks terrific. It's a lot of fun, you know, grab some popcorn. It's one of those kinds of movies and it holds up pretty well, I thought. And it comes highly recommended, especially with all the extras you put on it and the restoration of the Technicolor.

Yeah. I'm, I'm so glad that you got to enjoy it. Because a lot of people, it's not the first film that comes to the forefront of the mind. When they think of Errol Flynn, they think of Adventures of Robin Hood. They think of The Seahawk. They think of Dodge City. He did so many different kinds of films. He did so many different kinds of films, and I'm hoping that we have more in store because we've barely scratched the surface on Blu-ray. There are so many to go, and I know the fans out there are dying for them. It isn't done overnight. And that's partially why our release schedule has been on the more reduced side is, you know, we have supply chain issues just like every other industry. And we're trying to get these done, but get them done right.

And as an aside, a film which I won't mention, but that is due to come out later on in the year, toward the end of the year, we were looking at the final master today, just before we were about to send it out, and we noticed two or three frames that had a defect. And that's why we were watching it one more time before it went out to the factory to be made into a disc. And that will be fixed. And to get as many eyes on these things as possible so that we can avoid any kind of error.

And occasionally there have been mistakes made and we've corrected them. error. And occasionally there have been mistakes made and we've corrected them. And, you know, we're hoping that by putting as many eyes on these things as we can, we can deliver something worthy of the work these people put into this movie more than 70 years ago, almost 75 years ago. It's quite remarkable because you've watched it on Blu-ray, you've listened to it, you've heard the sound, heard the music, seen the Technicolor. And what I'd have to ask you, did you feel like you were watching something that old? No, I mean, that's the beauty of the Blu-ray and the Technicolor restoration. All of the ones we've talked about this, you know, this last stretch have all been just beautiful.

And, you know, me, I'm always saying that the sound also is coming across terrifically well in my surround sound. I mean, 48, it doesn't feel like it's 1948 that it's that old. Right. And it really, I mean, color certainly makes a difference. Today, I was watching a film that's like 87 years old, but it came off the original negative and has been very carefully cleaned. And yet, you know, there's grain there because there's grain in film. That's exactly the way it's supposed to look.

And yet we were all looking at ourselves saying, I've never seen this film look so good. And it's because nobody ever went back to the original negative, scanned it at 4K, the work that all of our, as I say, the wizards of ours, I don't get tired of making that joke, but it's really true. Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging is just an amazing group of people. They're artists and they do great work. And I just feel lucky to be able to be colleagues with such talented individuals. And the winner is the consumer getting to own these movies in ways never thought possible. Because when I first saw this movie, I saw it on TV, 16 millimeter print, faded color, scratches, splices, footage cut out, which was a norm.

This is the way these movies need to be seen. And I'm looking forward to what consumers think when they get this disc. It's really going to be a treat. Well, next, we have another very popular film. Well, next we have another very popular film. It seemed like reading things online that people are very much looking forward to The Frisco Kid. 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. Well, this takes you at Warner Brothers 30 years later and a very different kind of film. This is a comedy directed by one of the great directors, I would say, from the 50s, 60s and 70s. He actually made his last film in 1981 and passed away in 1983. But he's made some of my favorite films. He didn't have a huge filmography, but he made some really wonderful films. And this is certainly one of them. The director's name is Robert Aldrich, and the film is The Frisco Kid. Not to be confused with the James Cagney film from the 30s called Frisco Kid. This is The Frisco Kid, and it stars Gene Wilder and a young man who had just, after 10 plus years in show business, finally become a big star because of a movie called Star Wars, Harrison Ford.

Basically, it's a very sweet comedy where Gene Wilder plays a rabbi from the old country who ends up in the old west on his way from Philadelphia to San Francisco to take his post at a synagogue there. And on his journey from the East Coast to the West Coast, where he meets Harrison Ford on the way, is basically the basis of the story. It's actually quite an entertaining movie, and it's got a big following. It wasn't a huge smash at the box office. It was also not like a failure, but it was not a blockbuster. However, it was also one of those films that became a staple on home box office, just as HBO was starting to penetrate into homes all over the country and cable television was really exploding. And just as videocassettes were starting to become popular. So as a result, I think more people became very familiar with this movie

by seeing it on HBO or on home video or on another television network than who saw it in the theater. than who saw it in the theater. But it has developed a reputation that it is one of these films from the 70s and 80s where we get requests all the time, why isn't this movie on Blu-ray? And you can say that about, you know, easily over a thousand films in our library, if not more, because there's such

an embarrassment of riches in the library. And a lot of films were overlooked by prior management for the upgrade. And we're trying to make up for those errors because if this had been in another studio, it might have come out on Blu-ray in 2009 or 10, not 2022. We have a lot of catching up to do, and that's what the Warner Archive has been about. When we don't have as robust a release schedule as we had had, it makes it all the more difficult. But we're trying to gear back up to the time of the past where we'll be able to offer more. But in the meantime, what we're offering is Prime. And this is a delightful, entertaining movie. It's very different. And I think particularly Harrison Ford is great in it. You know, he's terrific. And it was a nice change of pace for him to show what he could do aside

from being on solo. But Gene Wilder's performance is very unlike anything I think I really can't think of anything he did that was quite like this. Brother and other films where he was, you know, in broad satire, inspired by the success of, you know, after Young Frankenstein, he started doing other kinds of films that were spoofs like World's Greatest Lover. And he did pictures with Richard Pryor, like Silver Street. But this is really a character, you know, set in another time period. And it wasn't a spoof. It was more heartfelt, a little more serious. And therefore, you know, I think his, the rabbi he plays is named Avram. And I think his portrayal of Avram is one of his finest performances.

And the film really deserves to be seen in this beautiful brand new transfer. It's not the first time the film's been in HD. There's an HD master that's been floating around television and digital distribution for years. But we went back to original elements and created a brand new master because that's the Warner Archive way. We won't go out with a B plus master.

It's got to be A plus. And we're really, really happy with how this turned out. And I think it's, you know, it's a film I never get tired of watching because I always enjoy it every time I see it. What did you think of it? I see it. What did you think of it? Well, I was watching this and I thought, how am I not more familiar with this movie? Because it really fits right into the kind of tickle my funny bone kind of a thing. I mean, it's a buddy film, right? Comedy, but it's not hit you over the head comedy, but it kind of just starts to grow on you. I mean, he starts off as this very innocent, you know, showing up and he, you know, he he thinks that people are befriending him.

And of course, they rob him. And this is the story of of the film that he starts to slowly become a little bit more understanding that you can't just be blindly trusting everybody. But then along the way, he makes his friend of a bank robber. I mean, which played by Harrison Ford. But then along the way, he makes his friend of a bank robber, I mean, which played by Harrison Ford. You know, that's the kind of the stuff you need for comedy, right? You put two very, you know, fish out of water people together like that. And a Polish rabbi in the Old West, sure. You know, it's got all of the elements and it really grows on you. I had a smile on my face, I think, the whole time I'm watching it. You know, it just, it has its sweet moments and it has, you know, enough action and, you know, to keep you going.

And of course, you also enjoy the kind of the, it's a road movie in the sense of they have to get from Philadelphia to San Francisco. And along the way, they have all of these adventures. So I think it's something that could catch on with even a younger audience because it's just got all those elements that could make for really fun viewing. And and it is in many circles, it's not, you know, it doesn't have that fall of your tongue reputation that, you know, it didn't get seen by as many people as some of Wilder's other pictures did. And if you want to see Harrison Ford in something, you know, from that era, that's very different. As you just mentioned earlier, it's a it's a good one for, you know, he's a bank robber. earlier. It's a, it's a good one for, you know, he's a bank robber.

Yeah. And the thing is, you know, Harris, Harrison Ford, you know, for those people who don't know this, he started acting in the mid sixties and got a contract at Columbia Pictures that basically took him nowhere, um, with little bit parts and he was just about to, you know, it's got to go by carpenter, wasn't he? Or something. Yeah. He was about to give up show business and focus on being a carpenter. And then, uh, he got offered that part in American graffiti by George Lucas and that eventually led to Star Wars.

And we all know what happened after that. But there were a few films before he really established himself outside of, you know, Star Wars and Raiders. And there are certain films of his that I really, really enjoy a great deal. And this is the first film I remember seeing of his where I was impressed with him, aside from him being a swaggering hero, you know. And it's great for fans to see what he was doing 40 plus years ago that wasn't in our space or, you know, with a big ball chasing him down like as an archaeologist, you know. So, of course, he's shown his versatility in the decades since then. But this was like really an early opportunity

to see him in a different light. And I love their chemistry together. I think it's really terrific. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And I can't get the image sticking in my mind after watching it is Gene Wilder riding a horse, holding the reins and his hands are like eight feet apart it feels like it and of course if you ride a horse you're always taught to uh keep them tight yeah it's it's just hilarious uh to watch him riding the horse you're horsey you're horsey it's movie magic you know one piece of uh trivia that i i read here is that in Gene Wilder's autobiography, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, My Search for Love and Art, he mentions in there that that role that Harrison

played was originally planned for John Wayne. Yeah, I've heard that. I don't know if it's actually true, but it's very possible because Wayne passed away the year this movie was released and had been battling cancer. And, you know, I remember very well how he was supposed to be on the Oscars and he wasn't. And they, you know, said some kind of, you know, we know you're watching Duke, you know, from the hospital. And the following year he came out on the Oscars and he was very, very thin. But he was he was John Wayne. And, you know, there are very few people that still have such an enormous fan base decades after their passing.

He's one of them. And I would have loved, it would have been a very different movie. It sure would have. Two of them. But John Wayne had a great sense of humor. You know, he used to appear on Laugh-In and various other television specials, and all you have to do is see him on

I Love Lucy or The Lucy Show. He really had an ability for comedy. And I think it would have been great in this movie, but as the movie is, it's quite a fine bill of fare.

Yep. Well, it's just two releases this month, but we are kind of entering the summer. And to me, the summer really kicks off with the 4th of July. And I was curious what your favorite Warner Archive release from over the years is that might have something to do with the Fourth of July or American history. Well, it's a pretty obvious choice, but it is one of the most one of our best selling titles and one of our most popular. And it's been out now for eight years on Blu-ray and it looks gorgeous. But it's also one of the most popular films in Warner Brothers history, and that is Yankee Doodle Dandy. What movie personifies July 4th more than Yankee Doodle Dandy? Because it's the story of George M. Cohan, and he was allegedly

born on the 4th of July, as the song says. There's always been that rumor that maybe he was born on July 3rd, not July 4th. But George M. Cohan was a great showman who came to fame around the turn of the 20th century and came from a show business family. family. And this biography of him was outrageous star turn by Jimmy Cagney and earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. And I don't think anyone else had a chance that year, frankly, because it's almost a 180 degree turn from the usual kind of Cagney performance because he's usually playing a tough guy or a gangster. Here he's playing a lovable musical comedy talent, because in real life, George M. Cohan wrote his own music, starred in his own shows, became a huge producer. He was incredibly prolific and he wrote many, many famous songs. So he was very much still alive when the movie was made. And he was, for several years, negotiating with various studios of who he would grant the rights to make his biography into a film. And there was talk of it being Fred Astaire. And there was talk of him

doing it with Samuel Goldwyn for a while and nothing ever quite worked out. And they finally settled on making a deal with Warner Brothers. Jack was very integral in making that happen and making the film something that George M. Cohan could be proud of. And Cagney's casting was genius. Now, Warner Archive fans and movie fans should know that almost a decade earlier, 1933, Cagney showed us what a great and unique dancer he was in Footlight Parade because he showed off his unique style. Nobody danced like Jimmy Cagney. There's no way to describe it. You have to see it. But he started out in vaudeville and he brought that unique dance style to this performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy. And it has so many famous sequences. But the thing that's really remarkable about the film was they were just going into production at the time that Pearl Harbor was attacked and America was brought into World War II.

I don't know the chronology exactly. If we had Alan K. If we had Alan K. Rohde here, he would. But I believe they started shooting right after December 7th. I could be a little wrong about the timing, but it was basically, you know, already in the works. But they started shooting right then. And of course, it was a horrifying time. But it also was a time where the country was united in its patriotism. And I always brag that no other studio did as much for the war effort.

All the studios did, but none more than Warner Brothers. And I defy anyone to watch your grand old flag sequence and not get a little moist in the eyes for the love of country. This is when politics didn't get involved with patriotism. And it is just I always get chills every time I see that. And there are so many other parts of the movie that are terrific. But the Yankee Doodle Dandy Warner Archive Blu-ray disc is so much more than the movie. How appropriate to bring this up on the extras than to talk about the extras on this Blu-ray disc because we have a documentary about the making of the film

that's close to an hour long and is quite substantial. It's also one of the first times where we had my good friend Leonard Maltin hosting Warner Night at the Movies where we had short subjects and cartoons and trailers and recreating what it was like to go to the movies back in 1942. And we filmed Leonard here on the lot because the whole concept was brand new for disc owners to be able to have the option to just watch the movie or to watch the movie like it would have been in 1942. And what I'm particularly tickled about was we had originally prepared all these extras in this movie for a prior transfer master that was being made for its DVD debut. And just as we were about to lock that DVD release, we found out that we could get John Travolta to talk about his friendship

with James Cagney. It turned out that, and I knew nothing about this, but one of our colleagues brought this to my attention that John Travolta was very vocal about the fact that Cagney was his inspiration to go into show business as a child. and memorize all the dance steps and the songs. And after he became famous with Saturday Night Fever in Greece, you know, the world was his oyster. And he got to meet Cagney and got to befriend Cagney and stayed friendly with him until Cagney passed away in the mid to late 80s. And John Travolta talked about their friendship. And he did this for no compensation. He was honored to be a part of our disc. And that little piece, I don't think it's more than five or 10 minutes, but that is the most special thing for me because it's so heartfelt and it so speaks to Cagney's amazing performance. One of the greatest film performances of all time. And I would be remiss if I didn't, of course, mention

it if I haven't said already that it was directed by Michael Curtiz, who had just finished directing Casablanca. Pretty good track record. The story was pretty much fictionalized. In real life, he had more than one wife. He got divorced and neither one of his wives were named Mary, but he did come from a vaudeville family of the four Cohans. That is true. And they had just enough factual information in there to give it dignity. But a lot of work was done on the screenplay. And I learned all this when I was researching, writing the liner notes for the CD, which I had produced and we put out a couple of years before the DVD came out.

So I have a long personal history with this movie, but it is a big seller for us all year. But come July 4th, all of a sudden, you know, a couple of weeks before and several weeks after, you know, the sales numbers start growing. And it is just a film that just doesn't get old. I never get tired of it. And I know a lot of people share the same love for it that I have. And it defines Cagney. It defines Curtiz. It defines Warner Brothers. And it defines American patriotism at its finest. And who could ask for anything more? Well, just looking at some of the titles that have been released in the last six months, there are a lot of great titles that people could watch in celebrating the 4th of July. Even just in June, those two Judy Garland ones, The Clock and For Me and My Gal.

Right. Absolutely. And then earlier in the year, we had Captains of the Clouds with Cagney. There's just a wealth of titles that you've put out under Warner Archive that are terrific options for the 4th of July. We would be here for a year if I talked about all the different films that reflect a very beautiful patriotism for love of country. reflect a very beautiful patriotism for love of country and spanning almost 100 years of filmmaking, going back to the silent days, right up to recent times. We have The Big Parade from 1925, almost a hundred year old movie that is a World War I film that is incredibly patriotic. And it is also has a pacifist message that was reflective of its director, King Vidor. That was an MGM film. And we're proud to be the owners of all MGM films made up through April 1986. But the choices from the Warner Archive are,

on Blu-ray specifically, are so varied and unique. And we are proud to be able to continue to add more titles to the collection as the months go by. And Tim, you make an excellent point that if people haven't seen Captains of the Clouds or they haven't seen, for me and my gal, I mean, we've been talking about a lot of patriotism all along. And of course, the last podcast we had when we were talking about the clock, that was a look at World War II unlike anything else, because it was the home front and a love story. And set against the backdrop of knowing that Robert Walker's character falls in love with Judy Garland and on his 48-hour leave, and then he's got to go back to the war. These are many different ways of looking at our history.

and he's got to go back to the war. These are many different ways of looking at our history, and that was filmed as it was still happening. I always urge people, quite honestly, to look at all the films that we've made available because there are so many surprises and new things to learn from films people may not know about, as well as things like Yankee Doodle Dandy, which are incredibly famous. Well, George, as always, I'm just so thankful to you for coming on The Extras and talking about

the Warner Archive releases. The two for July are terrific. And the other ones we discussed that people can either pull off their shelf if they already own it or order Yankee Doodle Dandy and some of the others we discussed for the 4th of July are all great options. So thank you for coming on. Oh, it's always a pleasure. I look forward to the next time and have a great 4th. For those of you interested in listening to more episodes on the Warner archive releases,

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