The Extras - Warner Archive March Announcement: 5 Classic Films Starring Astaire & Rogers, Gable & Turner, Sheridan & Bogart, Bette Davis, Deborah Kerr PLUS Scooby-Doo!

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

Send a textWe unveil our March Warner Archive slate and dig into how fresh 4K scans, original nitrate elements, and careful audio work can change the way classic films feel. Along the way, we share stories behind Astaire and Rogers, Lana Turner’s rise, Bogart’s pre-stardom turns, and Minnelli’s delicate craft.• Why The Gay Divorcee matters to the Astaire and Rogers legacy• How a 4K nitrate scan restores RKO’s sound and sheen• Honky Tonk’s rare surviving MGM negative and its glow-up• Ann Sheridan’s star power and Bogart’s supporting spark in It All Came True• The Man Who Came to Dinner’s full restoration and ensemble brilliance• Tea and Sympathy’s coded themes and CinemaScope mono reality• What’s inside the Bogart and Tennessee Williams collections• Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics finally complete in HD 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 March Blu-ray releases from the Warner Archive. Hi, George. Hello, Tim. Nice to be with you again. Well, it's always exciting to do these monthly announcements. And this March, you have five classic films, which we'll be talking about one animated title and two film collections, which we'll talk about at the end of our podcast today. So stick around for all of those.

But let's dive right in. I'm very excited about this very first one. And it's a pretty old film. It's 92 years old. Ninety two years young. Ninety two years young. And that is the gay divorcee from 1934. Tell us about this one. Well, this. This is not the first Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' film appearance. The year before this was made, Estarin Rogers had supporting roles in a film called Flying Down to Rio, 1933. But in that film, they stood out far more than the leading man, Gene Raymond and the leading lady Dolores Del Rio. and when Astaire and Rogers did the karaoke, it was a sensation.

Ginger Rogers was establishing herself at Archael already, having come from a little place called Warner Bros. And putting her together with the stair, they found the chemistry was irresistible, especially with the audience's reaction to flying down to Rio. So the next film they planned to do to give them starring appearances was an adaptation of a

musical that Fred Astaire had done on Broadway before he came to Hollywood called The Gay Divorce and that had a score by Cole Porter and the standout score from that Broadway show was night and day when Fred and Ginger caught fire with flying down to Reel

RKO moved forward with adapting the gay divorce into the gay divorcee film. Now, why the title change? Because the production code was already being enforced or was on the cusp of enforcement during filming. And they said there's nothing happy about a divorce. And at the time, you had to do what the production code said. The gay divorce turned into the gay divorcee. The other thing is that none of the Cole Porter songs in the Broadway show were used in the film except night and day.

And night and day as the poddive between Astaire and Rogers really was their first amazing dance caught on film. and the real standout production numbers for the two of them in this film are the beautiful night and day. And then towards the end of the film, there's a production number that runs 17 and a half minutes, the Continental, because they had to do the blank. and they wanted to follow up the karaoke with the Continental, and the Continental ended up being the first Academy Award winner for Best Song. This was setting the tone for most of the Astaire Rogers films that would follow through the end of the decade, the way they would meet, the way their characters were defined.

It changed from film to film, but you have supporting players in this movie, Eric Bloor and Eric Rhodes, who appear in subsequent movies. So you can't quite say they were a series because there were certain differentials, but the ones that really resonate with audiences and are remembered as the favorites, they made nine films at ArcaO between 1933 and 1939. And then they reunited almost a decade later to do the Barclos of Broadway, MGM. But during those nine Arkell films, there wasn't that much differentiation in the style. The very last one they did, the story of Vernon and Irene Castle, which was in 1939,

that was different. And it was also not particularly successful. And then Fred went off to do other things and Ginger got to win her Oscar for Kitty Foyle. But during that prime time at RKO, they were a source of great entertainment and almost all their films were incredibly successful. The great success of a lot of these films, including the gay divorcee, is one of the reasons why, due to many theatrical reissues, these films have been subject to so much wear and tear. And we had thought that there was only one Astaire Rogers film where the original negatives survive. There's actually more than one because we did a little further digging, but there are also some where the best elements are third or fourth generation. And certainly

that's going to impair what we can do in terms of quality. And that's why it's taken so long. I would say about 20 years ago, we did the first friend of Stere and Ginger Rogers DVD collection. And that was a very expensive undertaking. And it enabled us to do five movies, and it was so successful that we did five more, and all 10 were out. At the time, we were working off of, you know, fine grains and whatever we could put together.

And those masters were put together for DVD. But they were done in high definition, even though they weren't meant to be seen that way. But that's what everybody's been seeing on television for the last 12, 15 years are these kind of beat-up, ratty movies. There's one film that are partners and friends at Criterion release, Swing Time. That's been available on Blu-ray. But as there are with so many particular performers or groups of films, people have been clamoring. Where are Fred and Ginger on Blu-ray? So to start with this one, which is one of their most famous, and a lot of people, this is one of their favorites,

I think it's going to introduce a whole new group of people, I hope, to the delights of these great Astaire Rogers pairings that were done at RKO. I was shocked when I finally saw the first pass at the new master how great it looks, because I've never seen, frankly, any of the films from the Archaeo period looking particularly wonderful. This looks wonderful. and I feel like the folks at Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging have outdone themselves in the restoration. It looks and sounds tremendous.

And the sonics are, of course, as important as the visuals, especially with a musical. And RKO's music and sound department during the 1930s had some very notable people. There was a sound mixer, Murray Spivak, who later did, I think you won an Oscar for the Sound of Music in the 60s, but he was part of the RKO sound department. And Max Steiner was the creative head, if you will, of the music department. So Max Steiner didn't write songs for Fred and Ginger, but he conducted some of the earlier pictures and was very involved. and there is a specific sound to the RKO films

that you lose the quality of that sound when you go down generation to generation to generation. And a lot of people are used to seeing these films not look good and have a very limited frequency response in the audio. That's not the case here. I think Warner Brothers' archival mastering did a fantastic job with the sound and the picture is beautiful, and it does justice to how wonderful and entertaining the gay divorcee is as a timeless piece of cinematic entertainment.

I'm excited to see what people think when they finally get their discs. It's worth waiting for, I'm sorry it's taken this long, but we had to make sure we were doing it right. Yeah, and this is a 4K scan of the original nitrate. That's right. And I just want to reaffirm that because these films over 90 years old that we keep talking about very frequently here, when they're from that original nitrate, it's amazing how much better they look than the DVD. And I think we've mentioned it before. You feel like this can't be that old.

This looks so good in terms of this restoration. So this should be a real treat for fans, whether they know. of this film and it's one of their favorites or if it's new to them. I mean, there is never will be another Fred Astaire. To that matter, there will never be another Ginger Rogers. They were so unique and their pairing was perfect chemistry. I get very excited when I think of young generations who have never seen these films, finally getting to see them.

And they get to see them in a way that's as close to what you would have experienced if you were in a movie theater in 1934, possibly even better. One thing that's a little shocking is the clarity is so good now that you really can see how scuffed the floors are during their dancing. And of course, we would never even think of touching that. There's a nice, beautiful patina of grain just as there should be. It's sharp. The, blacks are pinky black and the lights are perfect. Well, we haven't even talked about how you are packing this one with a bunch of extras as well. I don't think I've ever talked about this, but if I have, forgive me, or it's still a notable thing,

RKO had a very, very impressive short subjects department. We don't own any of the RKO short subjects. They were spun off to, I don't even know where. to be honest with you, because to try to figure out who owns that library of shorts has been a question for a lot of people. It's not us. We only have the last year's worth of nonfiction shorts. So we can't put RKO shorts with an RKO film, even though we would like to. So we have Warner Brothers shorts and cartoons with this. We have two shorts, one called Art Trouble, which has an appearance by a very young, then unknown James Stewart.

And a musical short called Masks and Memories. And these are both in HD. And then we have two Warner Brothers cartoons in HD. I like mountain music and shake your powder pop. So that kind of stuffs a lot of the goodies that are there to make it like a night at the movies. That's always our intention. We also have a radio promotional broadcast.

They're often called air trailers, if you will. They were recordings on transcription discs that were sent to radio stations all over the country. And they run around 10, 15 minutes apiece. And they were very prominent from the mid-30s all the way to the late 40s from every studio. And it gives you a little bit of a preview of some of the songs that are. in the movie and it's nice to hear how they sold it. And then we also have, and this is very odd, the Screen Guild Players broadcasts, which started in the late 30s and went until the early 50s, which was really a byproduct of

the Screen Actors Guild doing a show on radio to raise money for the Guild. And they did all sorts of adaptations, and we've included many of them on discs for years. but the adaptation of the gay divorcee is with Frank Sinatra, who was at the beginning of his Bobby Soxer fandom and was under contract to RKO. So someone at RKO had the idea, oh, let's take the basic story of the gay divorcee and have Frank Sinatra and also someone who was under contract to RKO at the time,

Gloria De Haven, have them star in this radio adaptation. The only carryover from the movie is that Edward Everett Porton, who is, again, one of those perennial favorite supporting players that's in most of the Astaire Rogers movies, he's also in the radio adaptation. And last but not least, we have an actual RKO trailer, which I've spoken about before, they're very, very hard to find. This one came from a collector friend of mine. We borrowed his print.

And this is a gentleman that I've been friendly with since I was in ninth grade and he was in 12th grade. And we became friends because we were amongst a group of people who like to collect movies. So thanks to my good friend who was very generous, he gave us access to. to his 16mm trailer, and that's what you'll see on this disc. I think the trailer's probably not the same length

that was originally, but just to have anything at all with an RKO trailer is always like, wow, we got another trailer. Yeah, yeah. They can do a whole story on the lost trailers of RKO and other studios that, you know, their trailers are lost. Yeah.

But this is a full package, and something that's, in the artwork that we have on the cover is it is a reproduction of one of the original RKO posters and the billing is backwards because the billing for this film is Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, in the gay divorcee. And on the film, it's Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, in the gay divorcee. On our artwork, it's Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, and, uh, Sometimes when we run into that, we try to kind of fix it. But this is one standard piece of very famous art.

So we left it alone. But I don't want anybody to think Fred didn't get top billing from the beginning because he did. Right. That is an interesting little trivia, though. I don't know how it happened, but obviously Ginger didn't object. And there's a lot of rumors about this, but they had a very good friendship with each other. and they got along very well. There's always this, oh, there was this rivalry.

And no, not at all. They had a very special bond and you could see it in the movies. That's why they were such an audience favorite and remained. So 92 years after the movie was made. Pretty exciting. Well, this release, it's got a lot of great things going forward. obviously the restoration and just how popular it is and what a great amount of extras you put together on this. So, so exciting for that one. Well, let's jump to the next one, George, and it's from

1941, and it is Honky Tonk. What can you tell us about this MGM Western? Well, I've talked about this before, about how the tragic fire in the 1970s destroyed most of the MGM nitrate negatives. Honky Tonk is one of the few that survived, and this is coming from a 4K scan off the original nitrate camera negative. Wow. That is rare for an MGM movie. So this looks amazing.

And the last time it was mastered and what everybody's been seeing up till now, 38 years old, one inch type C video master, look horrible. And it really bothered me for a long time because Honky Tonk was a huge hit when it came out. It was MGA's biggest hit of 1941, and I think it was the second highest grossing movie of that year,

and MGM re-released the movie theatrically, several years later, and a big national theatrical reissue of a movie was not very common in those days. It took a special film to succeed in that kind of a marketing attempt. Aside from things like Gone with the wind or the animated Disney features, theatrical re-releases were very sparse, and Honky Tunk have a very successful theatrical reissue because the combination of Clark Gable and Lana Turner on screen was quite magical. And this is a Western comedy, if you will. And it's very well written. It's very witty. It's nicely directed by Jack Conway. Lana Turner was 18, I think, when she did this movie, maybe 19. I mean, she started in her career very, very,

very young. So by this time with Honky Tonk it really established her as an eight-tier MGM leading lady. As the leading ladies from prior years, Greta Garbo made her final MGM movie the same year that

Honky Tunk came out. Norma Shearer made her last MGM movie the next year. Joan Crawford made her final MGM movie two years later. That was the old guard The new guard coming in included Greer of Garson, Hetty Lamar, Lana Turner. And Lana Turner was under contract to MGM for over 15 years.

And this was one of her biggest hits. And she ended up reuniting with Gable three more times on the screen. So this was a very major movie that we hadn't given its proper due to. the DVD was not very attractive. This makes up for it. It looks gorgeous. And most of all, it is rollicking entertainment, great supporting cast. You've got Frank Morgan, who everybody knows as the Wizard of Oz.

Claire Trevor is in it. Playing a character kind of like she played in Stagecoach, but I happen to like her very much in everything that she did. This movie is just a lot of fun. and it proves what star quality was, what MGM star quality was, what they did in positioning their stars, probably better than any other studio. You know, they were the best at transmitting star quality. And I can't imagine anybody watching this film, which is a mere 85 years old, and not loving it.

It's just great entertainment. So I was very, very excited that this finally came to pass. And that the original negative, you know, sometimes the original negative still exists, but is filled with all sorts of decomposition or anything. And every time you open the can of a nitrate film, you're expediting the decomposition. The exposure to oxygen is very,

destructive. So it has to be done with great care. And that's again where I call out our scanning people at Warner Brothers Motion Picture Imaging know how to handle nitrate film with the utmost care so that

there is a preservation of that element. And with this 4K scan, we're also preserving it so that hopefully we don't need to go back to it again. So it's all very exciting. It's a beautiful disc.

I didn't load this one up with too much. We have a Tom and Jerry cartoon from 1941, The Midnight Snack. There were only two that year. The other one was the night before Christmas. And then I put an our gang comedy on there, Fighting Fools. Spanky was still with our gang. He was close to getting ready to shave, but he was still a part of the gang. The MGMR gang comedies are not to the level that the How Roach produced comedies were, but they're still very entertaining.

And we have a radio broadcast on here from 1946, a Lux Radio Broadcast, with Lana Turner. But taking the gable role is John Hodeak, who also had a mustache. And I think MGM was very much trying to prepare him as the next. next Clark Gable. Well, there is no next Clark Gable. But he had a very respectable career and is a very fine actor. So the radio show is a lot of fun to compare to what is in the film. So it's a very, very nice disc. And of course, being an MGM film, we usually have the trailer and the trailer seals the deal for this release. I'm excited. I mean, not only is this a fantastic cast and film, but just talking about the fact that it's been 35 years since it's been restored.

And so we're talking about what, the late 90s. I mean, it should just wow everybody who sees it because it's been, you know. You've never seen it look good unless you were around in 1941. This is what it's about. It's when you can do this. Yeah. It's devastating to think of all the films that went up in that fire. but when there are a few that were saved,

it's always a double blessing, if you will. Yeah. So, and it happens to be a great film, well known. There was even an attempt to, uh, they did a TV movie remake in the 70s with James Brolin, you know, trying to establish him as the next Clark Gable.

He was, he had a, a deal with MGM, television and theatrical because he was in Westworld and he was in skyjacked and terrific actor. But when he left Marcus Welby, MGM was really behind him, but MGM itself was falling apart. So fortunately, he did get to do a lot of the things. And I thought of putting the TV movie on here and then found out that the music wasn't clear. So it'll have to wait till another day.

And we really need to focus on the feature because you just got such a great movie and it's going to be a terrific disc. Yeah. Well, next we have another film from that same era from 1940. This one's called It All Came True. What can you tell us about this crime comedy? Well, I would put the emphasis more on comedy than crime. I mean, this film has a very interesting history. because it was one of many films that Humphrey Bogart appeared in,

but was not the star of. It was really High Sierra, which was released later in 1940, that made Bogart a star after floundering in the industry for 10 years. And he'd had some substantial parts in prior movies, but what did it take to take him from that second tier to suit? superstar and from High Sierra and Maltese Falcon kind of doubleheader with each other, there was nowhere to go but up for Bogart. This is a very entertaining film, but the star of the movie is Anne Sheridan.

The trailer for this movie, which is on the disc, is very, very reflective of the era because Anne Sheridan had this, I don't know who came up with the expression, She was called the umph girl. O-O-O-M-P-H. And the trailer for the movie actually starts with oomph. There's actually a, Warner Brothers cartoon where they have a parody of oomph. I think it's one of the caricature cartoons.

I can't remember which one. So this was really like Anne Sheridan. She's on the main poster. She was really the draw. and her romantic love interest isn't Humphrey Bogart. It's Jeffrey Lynn. Bogart had like the first, I would say, supporting role. He's third build.

But as I went back and read the original reviews of the movie, it got really good reviews. And there was more than one critic that took note. Humphrey Bogart, who we usually see playing the same kind of role. There's something different. There's something special going on here. So what ended up happening was Bogart's career took off. And in the middle of the 40s, Warner Brothers decided to re-release the movie.

They changed the titles of the Prince. So it said, Humphrey Bogart in, it all came true. And there are classic movie posters that, you know, they're positioning in like it's a Humphrey Bogart starring vehicle. It's not. But he is so entertaining in his character playing chips. That's the name of his character. He's kind of, I would like to say, unforgettable in a sense. So there's a boarding house where, you know, he lives with these character actresses and

including Zazu Pitts and Uno O'Connor. And the story surrounds a nightclub that's set in the turn-of-the-century kind of music. So Anne Sheridanhood, a wonderful voice, gets to sing in the movie, and it has a very happy ending. And Bogart's really a good guy. He's not the bad guy. It's witty. It moves quickly. And it represents everything in the Warner machine coming to a nice,

entertaining film. It has a song that was written for it called Angel in Disguise, which is the theme throughout the movie. And I think it's sung twice in the movie, including by Anne Sheridan. But I knew the song first as a kid from none other than Bugs Bunny, you know, because the Warner Music Department would make so much use of,

throwaway uses of their new songs just to get them into a car, tune. That's where Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies got their name initially. It wasn't about characters. It was about ways to promote the songs. Well, as character grew, they moved away from that model, but they worked it in. So when I finally saw it all came true many, many years ago, I was like, oh, so that's where that Bugs Bunny song came from. People will be surprised. This is not a well-known movie, but people who are really serious film buffs, they know it, and people who discover it really like it. So when you take a film like this and you get the original negative and you scan it in 4K and you make a beautiful Blu-ray, you're suddenly presenting people

with a surprise, a hidden gem, if you will. You know, people, as we're working on this, They said, why isn't Bogart on the cover? And then they showed me the reissue advertising. I said, because that's misleading, that's misrepresentation, that's false advertising. Yeah. It's not starring Humphrey Bogart. It's with Humphrey Bogart under Jeffrey Lynn. Right.

In any case, it's very entertaining. People will find it to be a delight and probably a discovery because probably most people have not seen the movie. We've added two Warner Brothers cartoons to the disc, both from 1940. They're both in HD. The Saurapus has been available previously on one of our collections, animation collections. But Circus Today, which guess what is about a circus, that's never had a disc release. It probably will end up on a compilation at some point.

But right now it's available on it all came true. And the trailer is there too. Yeah. And it's not a reissue trailer. It's an original trailer. That's why it has the emphasis on the oomph. Right. So I highly recommend it all came true.

Fascinating story, George. This is why I so enjoy going through these with you because, I mean, we could sit here and I could just say, this is coming out and this coming out. But it's this bag story. I love all these little stories that. that you tell us. So it makes it that much more interesting. I don't know this film very well. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Of course, I love this cast, but I'm really looking forward to seeing this. And this, again, it's going to have another great scan and everything as well. One of the things I find so enjoyable about joining you on the extras is to discuss these things

after these films, these works, these classics, after you've seen them. I'm excited to see what you have to say and that we can share this with people so that if people don't know it, if it's a film that they are not familiar with, I get excited that, wow, this is a great discovery.

And it's like we talked about, we picked five films from the last year. You know, both of us did that we wanted to shine a little more light on. Let's shine the light on it all came true now. Yeah. It will be a worthy addition to your shelf and no one can take it away from you, the beauty of physical media. That's right.

Well, this next one we're going to talk about, I think, has a lot of classic film fans here, George, and that is the man who came to dinner from 1941. What can you tell us about this very star-studded comedy? Star-studded comedy adapted from a hit Broadway play. it has been revived on the stage many times. There was a TV version of it, I think, in the 70s with Orson Wells. George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart, for those who don't know, were very talented playwrights. And when they worked together, they created some magical plays, comedic plays. And the man who came to dinner was a huge sensation on Broadway.

You have to tip your hat to Jack Warner. he really had such a sharp skill at knowing great works on Broadway musicals a little later, but in terms of comedies and dramas, he was on it from the 30s on. And I think more than any other studio, Warner Brothers took the great honor of presenting so many great stage successes as films and almost always to great success. Now, with the man who came to dinner, it's basically about this, how do I describe Sheridan White's side? I believe he's a portrayal similar to the persona of a gentleman that nobody probably knows who he is now called Alexander Wolcott, who was an effusive.

and acerbic critic commentator of the time. And Monty Woolley played the part on Broadway of Sheridan Whiteside, this very famous person who goes to a little small town for some event, and he ends up breaking his leg, wounded, something that puts him in a wheelchair. and he is the unexpected house guest of this little suburban couple who really want to be more Utre and, you know, in high society than they really are. And so you've got this obnoxious, totally self-focused, totally self-obsessed character who's in this position of can't leave. And he just drives everybody crazy.

Monty Willie played the part on Broadway and was just uniformly praised for it. The initial intention was the hope that they could put John Barrymore in that part for the movie. But that never happened due to Barrymore's problems with drinking. Barrymore was very much on the decline by that point. so they couldn't move forward with him. And they said, well, he's not famous and nobody knows him aside from in New York, but we're going to cast Monty Woolley. And everybody is the beneficiary of their choice

because they get to see Monty Willey recreate this role that he did so wonderfully on Broadway. And the fact that Warner Brothers chose to cast, as the two women who are very important in his life. One actress played by Anne Sheridan and his secretary played by none other than Betty Davis. This isn't just a normal Betty Davis movie. She's part of the ensemble.

And she's really the leading lady, but it's all about the man, the man who came to dinner. And there are not so thinly disguised versions. of famous people of the era. Jimmy Durante plays a character that is a sort of resemblance of harpo Marx. I mean, it's not the definitive.

He's got curly hair, and he plays the harp and everything, but Harpo was very good friends with Kaufman and Hart. So they were making fun of their friends lovingly by portraying them in this movie, in the play, I should say. The film screenplay was written by the Epstein brothers, who along with Howard Koch, wrote the screenplay for Casablanca. Julius and Philip Epstein were, you know,

incredible screenwriters for Warner Brothers during the 1940s. And the film was directed by William Keely. The supporting cast is overwhelming because there's so many great people in the movie. I mentioned Jimmy Durante. Billy Burke, who a lot of people know as Glinda, The Witch of the North. Billy Burke is wonderful as the wife,

who suddenly has this house guest and she doesn't know what to do, but her fluttery little persona fits perfectly. The movie is just nonstop, Wham-Bam Comedy Entertainment. And we planned to put out a Blu-ray in 2019. I was all ready for it. What happened was that

when we were releasing a lot of these films from the golden era of Hollywood and there were all these DVD sets coming almost once a week. You know, all of those, for those who don't know, that was me, those were all my little projects. We wouldn't ever work from original negatives.

We couldn't. It was too dangerous at that point because something could get damaged. So we would spend a lot of money making a new secondary element, fine grain, and that's what we would work from. And that's what we did for the man who came to dinner DVD. And these

masters were completed in high definition, but not intended for viewing in high definition. And there's dirt and scratches and damage, like a lot of it. So in 2019, we thought we could proceed with a Blu-ray working from the fine grain. And there was so much damage built in to the negative that we didn't have the tools to address at that time. And that damage got printed into the fine grain. So the whole project was put on hold. Basically, for the last several years, I've been begging, campaigning. We need to do a full restoration of the men who came to dinner.

We need to get the camera negative. We need to start from scratch and make it look amazing and sound amazing with that definitive Warner Bros. And it's very hard for me to get support to make a new high-definition master when the high-definition master we had was serving other markets. And so this has been a process. And that's what is now opening the possibility for so many films to get a new master and to get upgraded. Because people are now seeing the need. You can't take a master that was made 20 years ago for a DVD and think it's going to look great on a 4K monitor. It's just not.

So we now have the support within the company. to take on more preservation, more restoration, more mastering. And so this great film can be viewed as it was meant to be seen. The old HD Master has been around and it's been on television. And people say, oh, that looked good enough to me. Why don't they put that on Blu-ray? Well, other people might do that. We're not going to do that.

We're not going to put something on Blu-ray that isn't worthy. of the format, and it shows the warts and all. And we want the presentation to be filmic, and we want it to be pristine. And pristine means expense. So slowly but surely, and the pace is accelerating, we're getting to these. What's funny to me is people think of it as a Christmas movie. it did get a couple of days early release before the end of 1941. I think the first screening we know of was on Christmas Eve,

but the general release was actually in January of 1942. So many people hoped the man who came to dinner would have been ready for Christmas because a lot of it takes place around Christmas. So this is one of those cusp movies. There are a lot of them that came out, very end of a year. And that's when they were copyrighted. That's when they were initially seen.

But they often get attributed to being from the year after. So the most famous case of that is really a disparate difference. It is Casablanca, which opened in the middle of November, rushed into release in New York. But it didn't open in Los Angeles until January of 1943. and that's why it's the best picture Oscar winner of 1943 because it got most of its play dates in the country except for New York, which got it early, in 1943.

So most people saw the man who came to dinner in 1942, yet it is a 1941 movie, and most people saw it after Christmas. So I think we're okay to put it out in February. Oh, March, I should say. We're talking about it now in February. I had hoped it would be ready. It's always on people's minds for, you know,

their celebrated holiday films and there aren't that many. And this is a movie that can make it Christmas every day when you want to watch it. Because everybody's so good in it. I think it's one of Betty Davis's more remarkable performances because she handles herself. I mean, she never didn't, but she blends in with the storytelling and the ensemble. She doesn't pull focus.

She doesn't turn it into a Betty Davis central role. She knows how to be part of the ensemble. And her repartee with Anne Sheridan, who is also fantastic as the actress Lorraine Sheldon. Everybody in the movie is wonderful. And I should note that a wonderful supporting actress whose career went on for, I'd say five decades after, Mary Wicks. She plays Miss Preen, the nurse of Sheridan Weisside. And I think Mary Wicks' last film appearance was in sister actress, sister act too.

I mean, she had a long career. Everybody knows her. She was on I Love Lucy. She was in so many movies. She's in Now Voyager. But she was in the stage play, if I am remembering correctly, and was brought out to Burbank to be in the film version and got a contract at Warner Brothers.

So this is a very, very happy release. Now, the other thing about this release is it's stuffed. We usually are lucky if we can find a radio show. In this case, we have two radio shows. There is a Hot Point holiday hour that is from 1949, and the amount of famous people in this portrayal is mind-blowing. It's introduced by John Garfield. He opens it up.

Jack Benny plays Sheridan Whiteside. Rosalyn Russell is fantastic in this. Gregory Peck is in it. I mean, it's just superstar after superstar. And the Hot Point holiday hour wasn't exactly the most famous radio show of all time. So it's very special to have this on here. But not to be outdone. We have Lux Radio Theater from 1950 and Clifton Webb, who,

people know from Laura and of course more famously as Mr. Belvedere in Sitting Pretty he was very apt casting for the role of Whiteside in that adaptation.

So that's the Lux Radio Theater. Then we have a featureette that was made here at Warner Bros. Went for the DVD that we're happy to represent here. It's called Inside a Comedy Classic or I should say Inside a classic comedy. I want to get the title correct.

And then we've got our Warner Brothers musical short with Glenn Gray and his Casaloma orchestra. And I had to put, even though it's not from the same year, the Wabbit who came to supper since it's a play on

the man who came to dinner. But there is another tie. And that is in the Wabbit who came to supper, that's the cartoon where Bugs Bunny sings and Sheridan's song, Angel and disguised. So everything is very incestuous with this release.

We also have the trailer. It's stuffed and it has this fantastic new restoration. So again, I sound like a broken record. MPI, my colleagues, they are just amazing.

They've pulled so many rabbits out of the hats. And this is yet another gem. You're going to have to add this to your library if you care about classic comedy on the big screen. Yeah. Yeah. What a, what a packed disc this is. And the feature itself is fairly long. Yeah. Well, so you've got a lot, a lot on that Blu-ray. And the radio shows will be, it's such an interesting thing to hear different performers interpret roles differently. Yeah.

So I think people are going to be really happy to have those as a comparison. Yeah, and I think you might have mentioning that Lucille Ball is in that one with Clifton Webb. Isn't that odd that I forget to talk about Lucy? Yeah. Yeah. Lucy Ball is, she was a big radio star at the time. This is a year before I love Lucy. Yeah.

Yeah. So she's terrific in both radio shows. I had so much fun listening to them as we were preparing this release. And I think everybody out there will like them as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been a fantastic lineup so far. We've got one more classic film, George, and that is Tea and Sympathy from 1956. What can you tell us about this Vincent Manelli

directed film? Well, a lot of people have, you know, contacted us and said, we want more Manelli. They know, obviously, I've spoken that he's one of my favorite directors. my personal preference doesn't necessarily influence what we release really to a very modest degree. I just think his filmography is amazing, and this is an adaptation of a play that ran, I think, for a year and a half, maybe two years on Broadway. and the stars of the play, Deborah Carr and John Carr, K-E-R, No Relation. That was always a big thing. It deals with the subject that no one talked about in 1956 when this movie was made. Basically, it takes place at a prep school, and John Carr's character is a sensitive young man.

he's not like the other jocks. The other boys make fun of him and call him sister boy. And the wife, like the house mother, who's married to the coach, looks fondly upon the young man and cares about him and sees him being treated poorly. She comes to his defense. And the play was even very delicate for its time. the movie had to sanitize a lot of the references that implied homosexuality.

In going through the production files, I read all the memos going back and forth between MGM and the people at the production code. You can't do this and you can't do that. So it's been watered down from what people saw on Broadway. But the storytelling still comes through very powerfully. Deborah Carr in 1956 had two amazing screen performances. She was Anna and the King and I, and then recreating her Broadway role from Teen Sympathy. Play was written by a gentleman named Robert Anderson, who wrote other plays,

but this is the one that he's best known for. It is really a great testament to Manelli that just like, he could direct comedies like the Long, Long trailer and musicals and then costume pictures like Madame Bovary to then be able to take this very, very complex and tender story because the love that Deborah Carr feels for this young man and the way she takes him under her wing. I don't want to spoil any of the plot, but there's just something so meticulously caring about the way this film was made

in being able to tell the story without provoking the production code. So there are some elements that were far more blatant in the play that they couldn't include in the screenplay, but that doesn't take away from the importance of the film, not only in Minelli's filmography, but also really in the history of cinema. And I should note that the producer of this film was Andrew S. Berman, who worked frequently with Minelli,

but who really made his mark 20 years earlier, 20 or more years earlier, as head of production at RKL. He was responsible for most of the Fred and Ginger movies. So there's a tie-in in that way, too, that I had to mention. I also want to clarify something about T and Sypathy. It is in Cinemascope, and it was released at the time that Cinemascope rules were changing. And one of the things that was changing was the requirement of magnetic stereophonic sound. If you go to IMDB, you'll see it says, you know, four-track magnetic stereophonic sound.

Not true. I know this will shock a lot of people that IMDB can be wrong about something, but they're frequently wrong about a lot of things, especially technical things. This film was a monoral film. It did get released with a fake stereo process that we've talked about before, Perspecta sound, which was optical mono, moved around the theater within audible bass tones. We don't even have those tracks anymore and we wouldn't do anything with them if we did.

Now, that's just a choice of staying true to how the film was marketed and released originally. We did a lot of deep digging to see, you know, was this really stereo or not? And we found out that this is just when MGM stopped trying to do everything in stereo that was Cinemascope. And that tied into the people that invented Cinemascope was basically 20th Century Fox. They licensed the technology and made four-track magnetic stereo

requisite. If you wanted Cinemascope, you had to have for track magnetic stereophonic sound. Theater owners complained because not everybody could afford that expense. And eventually, Fox changed the requirements and allowed for monaural audio that was not magnetic and that would be optical. And it made things better for theater owners. It was the National Association of Theater Owners that pushed Fox for two years to finally

lessen up about that. So when people say, well, why is it the audio stereo? Now, there are some times where a film was stereo, where the tracks deteriorated and we don't have them anymore, that's more of a Warner Brothers thing than an MGM thing. MGM was much more careful about taking care of their audio. But we've repatriated years ago. People here repatriated a lot of Warner Brothers' magnetic,

stereophonic prints in order to make a lot of Warner Brothers' movies from the 50s stereo that hadn't been for 20, 30 years. But with MGM, almost everything that was released with the stereo track, the stereo track remains. This was a mono film. And I don't want people to think that we didn't do our homework or we're delivering less. This is always the way it's been.

And we even went back to the movie ads to see if anybody said that there was nothing that indicates that. And further to that, the studio documentation. is completely all about Mineral. So there's your little technical update, folks. That's terrific. And you have a couple of extras on here we should probably mention. I have one Tom and Jerry cartoon, Downbeat Bear,

which is what opened with the film here in Los Angeles. I go back to the movie ads when the film opens to see what cartoon played with what movie. And I try to align them. And of course it was different for different cities. Sure. But here in Los Angeles, it was that cartoon. I believe only it opened to two theaters, and I think only one ran the cartoon.

And it's a little odd to have a jovial cartoon with subject matter that's so frank and dramatic. But if you went to see the movie in Los Angeles, when it opened, you would have seen this Tom and Jerry cartoon downbeat bear, which is, of course, in Cinemascope. and we have the trailer on the disc as well. It looks beautiful. It's a 4K scan of the original camera negative.

I almost forgot to mention that. People will notice a huge difference from this and the DVD we released in 2010, which came from an interpositive. And this is the era of bad negative fading from the Eastman color negative of that stock, the 5248. Fortunately, the color is,

beautiful on this disc. Thanks again to Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging and our talented colleagues. Yeah. So a great film that deserves to be observed and enjoyed by a new generation. Yeah. Well, George, that wraps up our classic films for March. However, I did want to go through. You have two film collections, which you've been releasing these every month. So why don't we just let folks know what are in those collections. And the first collection we'll talk about is the

Humphrey Bogart Collection. And the four films here are they drive by night, passage to Marseilles, conflict, and chain lightning. What would you like to tell folks about these four films? These multi-film collections, as I've said before, offer the consumer an opportunity to add films to their collection with a very, very attractive price. It's exactly the same disc we released singularly in previous years. And what I like about this collection is a Bogart collection on Blu-ray already exists with Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Trader Sierra Madre. we also have done our own four film collection of the films Humphrey Bogart made with his beloved Lauren Bacall.

That was one of the first four film collections we did several years ago. So this fills in a lot of holes, and they're not exactly the most prominent Brogart films. The first film, they drive by night, which I love. The star of the movie is George Raft, and Humphrey Bogart. plays his younger brother. He's got a very prominent role in the film. And there are two leading ladies in the movie, Anne Sheridan and Ida Lipino. But it's a terrific film. And Bogart, this is again, not unlike it all came true. He really was proving his ascension and getting recognition. It's a terrific movie. Passage to Marseille is post-Caselblanc,

So he's already a superstar and it's a wartime film dealing with the Nazis. It is pure Warner World War II entertainment. Then we have a very interesting change of pace from 1945. We have conflict, which is Bogart. And is he the bad guy or is he not? That's the question of the movie. Sidney Green Street's in it along with Alexis Smith. its terrific entertainment.

And then the last film that Humphrey Boggart did at Warner Brothers under his contract was Chain Lightning, where he played opposite the wonderful Eleanor Parker. And that was released just the end of 1949, but got most of its play in 1950. So it's one of those movies that gets attributed to both years. It's terrific entertainment. And the four films together really show lots of diversity and the very impressive talents of Mr. Bogart. Well, this next film collection, George, you went with the playwright, Tennessee Williams, for this collection, which is kind of fun how it's just not one actor. And I know you've also done that thematically with film to Broadway, I believe, or Broadway to film.

And we're going to do that again for certain. with film noir and we'll probably have another film noir collection down the road. Yeah, yeah. But to take three of Tennessee Williams' greatest stage works, streetcar named Desire with Vivian Lee and Marlon Brando, Cat in a Hotson roof with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, sweet burn of youth with Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. I mean, what more can I say?

Those films speak for themselves. They're very famous. They really show off the genius. sub-Williams. And then we have Baby Doll, which is technically an adaptation of a very little-known stage work that Williams wrote called. I think it's 27 wagons full of cotton. I have the title possibly wrong. But it was an adaptation of that. And it was condemned, I think, by the Catholic Church and the Legion of Decency. It was considered just too shamefully dirty. and Carol Baker plays Baby Doll list.

Nimfet was in a relationship with older Carl Malden. It was very controversial at the time, which means it did a lot of business at the box office. So it also is a reflection of Tennessee Williams' ability as a writer to deal with all sorts of themes. And so this collection together, especially for a 3998 list price, It's a bargain and it's a keeper.

And these collections, especially for people who don't have a substantial Blu-ray collection yet or classic collection, there are a wonderful entry point into the wide world of the Warner Archive collection. And we're very proud that they're becoming very, very popular. Word is spreading. Right, right. Well, George, for animation fans, you do have more Hannah Barbera. coming this month. What can you tell us about Scooby's All-Star Laugh Olympics, the Complete Series? Well, this was a very different kind of approach for Hannah Barbera. They had been the

kings and remained so for at least another decade. They had been the kings of Saturday morning television for over a decade at this point, 1977. And Scooby-Doo had instantly become, from his debut in 1969, the most popular Hannah-Barberic character ever, kind of been a whole other pantheon. So Hannah-Barberic came up with this unique idea. I can't tell you who developed it, but what I can tell you is it represented their sensibility and had the ability to bring the classic characters of the initial era of Hannah Barbera, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, all the favorites from the what I call the pre-Johnny Quest era, and bringing them together with Scooby and the mystery gang. There was also bad people. They're really rottens. They had basically

challenges set all over the world in different locations. This was such a success that it ran across two seasons. So there's 24 episodes. However, this Blu-ray is the first time that all 24 episodes have been released to home entertainment. And it's been remastered in high definition, and they look terrific. It's just very, very entertaining. There were DVD releases that had some episodes, but not the whole series.

Now, Hannah and Barbera had the idea of bringing together all of their old favorite characters earlier in the decade for a TV movie called Yogi's Ark Lark. and it was only about 45 minutes in actual running time. But that was part of basically served as a pilot to the series that became known as Yogi's Gang. Yogi's Gang was very, very focused on being somewhat educational, as well as pursuing an environmental friendliness. They were trying to achieve something in Saturday morning television because there had been assertions of too much violence and too much selling sugared cereals and whatnot.

So this was their attempt to use their all-time favorite characters to educate kids and send them the right messages. That series was not particularly successful. Five years later, they went back to the idea of bringing all the characters together again with the Scooby Gang and with the Really Rotins in order to tell stories set all around the world in different cities. And so every episode is very different and a great deal of fun. And these shows were smushed together with other shows and presented differently in different ways over the years, but this gives you all 24 half hours

as they were seen 1977 and 78. And then as a special feature, we have something called spooky games, which is only Scooby and the gang, no classic Hannah-Barberic characters, but it was done by Warner Brothers animation a mere 14 years ago, which seems like yesterday. But it's 16 by 9 widescreen and stereophonic sound

and very, very different looking than the classic old Hannah-Barbera style. But I wanted to put everything together that related to the Laf Olympics, and here you have it. What's also nice is that it's a three-disc set. It's priced at 2998, which is very, very reasonable. and the quality is going to be just to the delight of any Blu-ray owner. So we're very excited about this release. Well, George, this is great timing because, of course, it's the Winter Olympics here on air.

So it's fun to have this. The timing is great. And just for those who don't remember what some of the events were, there are skateboard polo, three-legged kilt race. I mean, there's just a lot of different fun. And they go all around the world, too. That was, you know, they were different levels of creativity in how they approach this. I think it's really a remarkable show.

It's, of course, dear to Scooby fans, but also dear to the Hannah-Barbera universe, the fantastic world. Yeah, yeah. Well, and it just seems like there's a huge audience for anything with Scooby-Doo, and especially those from the 60s, 70s, you know, the classic stuff. So this is very exciting. So animation fans, I think, are already coming out of the woodwork saying they're very excited for this release. Well, George, that wraps up our month.

So thanks for coming on and giving us the great news of what's coming in March. Thank you, Tim. It's always a pleasure. And I'm always grateful to be on the extras to discuss the Warner Archive collection with the fans. For those who'd like more information about the films we announced today, be sure to check out our Facebook page and our Warner Archive Facebook group. You can find the links to those and all of our social media sites and the podcast show notes. Facebook is also the best place to get the pre-order links for these titles when they become available.

If you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider, you may want to do that so that you don't miss anything that's coming down the line here in 2026. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. 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. And 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.

There have been a lot of great releases from the Looney Tunes Collector's 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.