The Extras - Warner Archive Part 2 August Announcement: 5 Classic Films & Looney Tunes

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Send us Fan MailIn Part 2 of the Warner Archive’s August Announcements, we review 4 Blu-ray and one 4K UHD release and explain what makes each upgrade worth owning, from nitrate negative scans and Dolby Vision to packed discs with shorts, cartoons, and commentaries. Pre-order links are not yet available. Moviezyng Affiliate LinkThe Extras Facebook pageThe Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupJoin our new public Facebook Group for Warner Archive Animation Fans and get the latest update on all the releases.As an Amazon and Moviezyng 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. Hi, Tim Millard here. And recently, I spoke with George Feldstein and he announced the August Blu-ray and 4K releases from the Warner Archive. Well, it's such a long discussion because there were so many releases that I've broken it up into several podcasts. So you could look for that first one that's already been released. And this is part two of my discussion with George, where we go through the rest of the August and early September. releases. Well, next, we have a very special 4K release that we're going to talk about,

and that is anti-mame. What can you tell us about this 1958 comedy? Wow. Where do I start? Yeah. Well, first of all, we were very proud, I guess it was about nine years ago. We were very proud to bring anti-mame to Blu-ray because it had been on DVD for so long, and Blu-ray didn't come along until 2017. And at the time, we worked from an interpositive, and it's a very, very good-looking Blu-ray. I stand behind it, good-looking Blu-ray. But the film was shot in Technorama. So not unlike other horizontal processes like VistaVision, Technorama went through the camera sideways for greater depth of field. And Ante Mame had to be able. been a hit novel written by a gentleman whose pen name was Patrick Dennis. And he's telling this

story in the book about his madcap aunt. After his parents died, he went to live with his mad camp aunt, the wealthy woman in New York City. The author's real name, I can't remember, I think was Edward Tanner. I know his last name was Tanner. That was his real name. And he was quite a character himself in real life, but I don't know that much about him. But his book was a big success. It was turned into a Broadway comedy play that was a huge hit starring Rosalind Russell. And after Rosalind Russell left the Broadway company to make the movie, a lot of very famous actresses replaced her, including Greer Garson. And the play is often, like, in dinner theaters and Summerstock. It's just a very well-written play. So the playwriting team of

Lawrence and Lee adapted the book to the play. And then for it to make its journey to the big screen, Jack Warner had an incredible knack for going after good theatrical properties. And so he bought the screenwrights to Antimam and had the wisdom to not only cast Rosal and Russell had been so great on Broadway as anti-mainman the film, but he also had the stage director, Morton DeCosta, direct the film. So it's very cinematic, but it also has a theatricality to it. The screenplay was written by two amazing writers. They were like the third level of writers involved with this material, but they were not only screenwriters and authors who I had enormous respect for, but I actually got to become friends with them before they passed

away, which I still can't believe. Betty Comden and Adolf Green did the screenplay. And there wasn't that much that they had to do to adapt it to the screen, but you can feel a little bit of their touch his hair and there, for sure, that have their signature on them. And they had worked with Rosalind Russell a few years before on Broadway when she did the musical Wonderful Town, which itself was a version of my sister Eileen, a play that Rosalind Russell had been involved with prior. So there's all this interaction, but Antimam was a monster hit movie all over the world. It later became a stage musical with Angela Lansberry in 1966 called Simply MAME, and that launched Angela Lansberry's musical stage career in a big way.

And of course, there was a movie made of that with Lucille Ball, which we have available on Blu-ray, but I don't want to talk about the musical incarnation. I want to talk about this film, this 1958 film filmed in Technorama. that's one of the reasons why this 4K disc exists is because we're going in a very methodical way through our various wide format films. So we went back to the original negative in technorama as well as use of the separations in order to rebuild color. So although the Blu-ray of 2017 looked great,

this is like jaw-droppingly better. The clarity is incredible. The colors are beautiful. The colorist Sherry Eisenberg at Warner Brothers Bush Picture Imaging, who's an artist of the highest order. She did a wonderful job. I also should mention that Forrest Tucker, if you only know him from F-Troup,

he has a relatively minor park. He's only in the film for a small, portion as the man who eventually marries anti-mame. The plot, for those who don't know, is a young heir to a fortune. Young Patrick Dennis is suddenly orphaned when his parents are dead and he goes to live with his madcap aunt who lives on Beekman Place on the east side of New York. And, you know, you wouldn't believe that there could be a real person this crazy. But the wit in the storytelling is just infectious. This film has retained its popularity for, you know, over 65 years.

It was a big hit all over the world, and it was re-released theatrically in the mid-60s before it eventually ended up on television. It's such an important film in the history of Warner Brothers, because in the late 50s, the studio was struggling. The studio was profitable because of all the things they were doing on television. But most of the feature films they were releasing didn't necessarily, you know, earn a lot of money. Antimame was one of those that was different. It was a huge box office success.

And Jack Warner was very proud of his investment. and I think we've done right by the film. The 4K disc, which also comes with a Blu-ray remaster in the combo, the 4K disc has the benefit of HDR Dolby Vision, and that you can't experience in the theater. But when this was shown at TCM, the young boy who played Mame's nephew in the play and the film Jan Hanslich was at the TCN,

festival this year. He's 80 years old now. And he was interviewed by Dave Carger at the TCM festival before the movie began. And again, our good friends at TCM were so kind to provide us with the recording of that interview and introduction to the film. It's very heartfelt. It's a wonderful perspective of how the film was made and what the differences were between the stage in the film and how he experienced this as a young man who did not go into acting for his primary profession and adult life. But he was charming and wonderful. The audience loved what he had to say. And if all goes well, our intention is to include a reproduction of the original Warner Brothers Press book for the release of the film. And something like that would go for big bucks on the

collector market. This is obviously reduced in size so it can fit inside the elite case, but I think people are going to love having that as a little extra added piece of anti-mame history. So we're very proud of the release. We've been very excited about it. People naturally concluded that, well, if Warner Brothers has invested in 4K restorations of out of the past and anti-mame and it's going to show up someplace, but I'm happy that it's coming through us here at the Warner Archive Collection. Yeah. And as I said before, 4Ks will be the exception rather than the rule, but I stand by the quality of everything we release, and I think people are going to just love this, along with everything else we have coming. Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. Big fan of

Rosalind Russell. It's looking forward to this one. Well, next we have Broadway Melody of 1938. What can you tell us about this MGM musical? 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, I think this film is most famous for a sequence within the film in which 15-year-old contract player Judy Garland was given an opportunity to put on film something that happened in real life. Judy was signed to a contract at MGM in 1935, and the studio didn't really know exactly what to do with her. For her first feature film, she was actually lent out to 20th century box. She appeared in some B films, but during all of this, the studio had a birthday party for Clark Gable on the lot. And musical Wunderkind, I guess I could say, for the era, musical genius, Roger Edens, a name that needs to be better known, who really took Judy under his wing in terms of writing special material for her.

and was her accompanist, I believe, at her audition, if I had that correct. But he latched onto her right away and created a version of the song You Made Me Love You with a preliminary introduction, Dear Mr. Gable. She sang this to Clark Gable at his birthday party on the lot, and it blew everybody away so much. They said, oh, we got to figure out how to get that song into the new Broadway melody movie. So the first Broadway melody film was released in 1929 called The Broadway Melody, and we released that on Blu-ray a few years ago. We restored it. Looks wonderful. But it was also the first sound film to win the Oscar, and it also was a very prehistoric use of the sound technology. The studio decided to revisit Broadway melody as a potential for. franchise when they made Broadway Melody of 1936, which was released in 1935.

So great, it's a year ahead. That's how they promoted it. Well, accordingly, Broadway and Melody of 1938 was released in 1937. So great, it's a year ahead. But both Broadway and Melody of 1936, Broadway and Melody of 1938, and something we've had out on Blu-ray for a few years, which I'm very proud. out of Broadway and Melody of 1940, those three films have one thing in common.

The leading lady is Eleanor Powell, who was known as the Queen of Tap during that period of time. And MGM's reputation for making musicals really came later, really with the Arthur Freed unit beginning, and that started with Babes in Arms in 1939 and went on for another 20-some odd years.

But it was really warm, Warner Brothers, that was, Winter Brothers in RKO, RKO had Fred and Ginger, Warner Brothers had Busby, Berkeley, and Warner Brothers were doing Gold Diggers of 1933, Gold Diggers of 1935, gold diggers of 1937. So MGM's like, Broadway melody of 1936, Broadway melody of 1938. And what the three Broadway melodies had in common, the first and 36 and 38, the music was written by Nacio Herb Brown lyrics by Arthur Freed, the same Arthur Freed that would go on to be the greatest producer of musical films in history. And a good friend of L.B. Maris.

But his songs, his lyrics to Nacio Herb Brown's music are kind of the bedrock around Broadway Melody of 1938. By the time this film was made, Broadway Melody of 1936 had been a huge hit. It was followed by Born to Dance. which was a Cole Porter score that had Eleanor Powell and is a wonderful film. And then the next film really made gangbuster money at the box office was this. Robert Taylor is the male lead here, as he also was in Broadway and Melody of 1936. But this has a great cast.

George Murphy, British actress Benny Barnes, Buddy Ebson is in this film. The Last of the Red Hat Mamas, Sophie Tucker, plays Judy Garland's mother in this movie. And Judy just doesn't sing Dear Mr. Gable. She's got some other production numbers here. This was a good opportunity for the studio to showcase her. It's a delightful film. This is a 4K scan of our best preservation elements. This is another one where the negative burnt in the fire.

but the elements that we have are really quite good. The blacks are inky, the whites are white, the master is gorgeous looking. The sound is terrific. It's a very entertaining film, and it deserved to be on Blu-ray, and now it is. And you've got some nice extras on here as well, George. Yes, we have the extras that were on the DVD. We had a short subject called That Mothers Might Live and an MGM cartoon called Pipe Dreams, which is one of the harmonizing cartoons,

it's kind of surreal. And we also have audio-only musical outtakes and alternate takes of recordings, pre-recordings made for the film. All that's being carried over. There's a radio trailer, Leo is on the air. We also have the premier broadcast of MGM's short-lived radio series. Maxwell House presents Good News of 1938.

So they were dealing with a lot of Broadway melody of 1938, elements within that first broadcast. And it's kind of a salute to MGM and the musical format. And there are all sorts of performers that contribute to the broadcast. So it's fascinating to listen to. What we have added as new are the short subjects of Fitzpatro Travel Talks, glimpses of Peru, and the very first romance of celluloid short, which we we have used before.

The reason I put them on this disc is these are the shorts that opened with the film here in Hollywood in 1937. So you get to see exactly what the people saw opening night here in Los Angeles. And I always love to be able to do that so that we're being pinpointed our accuracy. So it's a loaded disc, but a wonderful movie and a great presentation. I think people are really going to enjoy it. Yeah. I always love it when these come out.

It's great to see them in HD. Yeah. It makes a big difference. Well, next we have a 1981 film, and it's creating a lot of excitement. What can you tell us about pennies from heaven? How much time do you have? This is a remarkable film that was a box office failure when it came out. It is based on a BBC miniseries about a song peddler, if you will, a salesman of sheet music during the Depression in the 1930s.

The writer of the series, Dennis Potter, was hired by MGM to create a film version of the story. And it's all about the depression. It's a very, very dark film that is remarkable in so many ways because Steve Martin plays the lead. And everybody had known him at that point for being the wild and crazy guy and being in the jerk. And this was his second film. And he had to learn how to dance. And it was certainly not. a comedy in any way, shape, or form.

And he was being very brave in taking on this film assignment. His leading lady, who I believe was his leading lady in real life, his girlfriend at the time, Bernad Peters, who was the leading lady in the jerk. She's the leading lady in this movie. She's one of the great legends of the musical theater on Broadway and was already well known to audiences going back to being on the Carol Burnett. in the 70s. I mean, she was really well established. The concept behind this film is that the

songs live in Arthur Parker's head. He's the song salesman. And he thinks of the world in the context of the songs. So the performers actually lip sync to records from the 1930s, commercial records from the 30s. I've always thought of this as a very brave film because it dared to use the musical form, if you will, for irony. And this is like two years after all that jazz, which wasn't a musical either but had, was all about making musicals for the stage. And so Fossey was using music for irony there. This is a whole different thing with lip syncing to the records. And there's something like mind bending about

Bernda Peters having this great voice, but we don't get to hear her sing. She's lip syncing too. They stayed very close to that. Herbert Ross directed this. He had many successful comedy films that he had directed right before this, like the goodbye girl and the Sunshine Boys.

Both of those are, they're ours. I shouldn't forget that. But he had directed Funny Lady. He was a very commercial, popular director. He had directed The Turning Point, which was not a lighthearted film, a really good film that today you can't see. That's a whole other story.

But he and his wife, who had been a ballerina, Nora Kay, she was a producer. They made this very brave film, that used some tropes of the musical form to try to have storytelling and deal with the devastation of the depression. Critics were mixed on it. Some critics really liked it and thought it was a brave work of genius. Other critics, not so much. The movie is now 45 years old, and in the ensuing years, it has gained a huge amount of respect because it was more akin to the kind of bravery

you would see in cinema and choices therein in decades that were to come than you would have seen in 1981. So while it was considered a failure upon release, its reputation has changed to some degree. I think there are still some people that don't think much of the film at all, and that's their right. I don't think it is a perfect film. I think it is somewhat flawed,

but just the bravery of it and what's on screen. Gordon Willis was the cinematographer, and one of the things that drove me crazy about it not being on Blu-ray was the old master just was God awful. We need to go back to the camera negative, and we needed to create a beautiful Blu-ray.

And I think we've honored Mr. Willis's cinematography. And there are amazing dance numbers in this film that were choreographed by Danny Daniels, but particularly what got the most notoriety, aside from Steve Martin's ability to tap dance, which was like blew everybody's mind. Christopher Walken has almost a can. cameo role as basically a pimp. He does a whole number to Cole Porter's Let's Misbehave. They were very clever in doing this.

He lip sync to the record, but for his big dance number, he does kind of like a strip tease on top of a bar. And a lot of people didn't know that Christopher Walken got his start as a Broadway chorus boy. So his dancing was magnificent. This is 20 years before the Fat Boy Slim weapon of choice video is one of my favorite things. But he's awesome in this. If the film doesn't completely work, it's not to be diminished by what it achieved. Steve Martin and a lot of the creative people who worked on the movie did a Q&A talking about the film.

20 years later at the academy. And we had that on our DVD. We've carried it over here. And it puts a lot of context into the whole background of how this movie got made and how the people that made it really were passionate about their work. And I think it's a really fascinating discussion. We also have a commentary from film critic Peter Rayner. It is a scene-specific commentary, but it is quite,

informative and very, very good. And then did you have the trailer as well? Yes, we have the theatrical trailer. It's interesting to see how they sold the movie. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm really looking forward to this. I know it's getting a lot of excitement online already. Next, we have the Human Comedy from 1943.

What can you tell us about this heartwarming film? This is a film that really tugs at your heart. and what's so important about it is, it's adapted from a story that was written by the great writer William Soroyan. His story was later turned into a best-selling novel, but it initially was the story that was going to be the basis of this film.

It's directed by Clarence Brown, who we've talked about a lot recently. It is really one of the best films to capture what was going on in the home front during World War II. Mickey Rooney is basically the guy that delivers telegrams around the little small town, and a lot of those telegrams have very bad news in them. And it deals with the whole lifestyle of Americana, when the home front was beleaguered by knowing whether their sons and daughters were going to come home alive or not.

But it was told and made in such a way that it touched the hearts of audiences, and it was a film that everybody was so proud of. It was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director and Mickey Rooney, not his first Best Actor nomination. and cinematography, but it won the Oscar for Best Story, for Soroyan. Allegedly, this was Louis B. Mayor's favorite movie of all time. I've heard that about a lot of films, so I don't know if that's accurate, but it certainly represented the way he felt.

He was a very sentimental guy. He was very patriotic about the country, and he was very much a man who was promoting, and I don't mean this to be implied in the wrong way, family values, how important it was for him to be able to be behind a film like this. It serves as a timepiece to really let people know 85 years later almost what it was like to be an American living during this horrific World War and with so many lives at stake. It captures all of that.

And I defy anybody to watch this film and not get a little misty. It's incredibly moving, but never saccharin, never maudlin. It's beautifully made. And Rooney is really, really amazing. in the sensitivity in his performance. So once again, 4K scan, best elements, negative burned in the fire, looks amazing, sounds great. I put two different radio versions on here,

both of which are a half hour long. But Mickey Rooney's in both of them. In the first Screen Guild Theater, he's with Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz himself. He's in the movie, obviously. And they do a very scaled-down highlighted version. And then six years later, when Mickey Rooney was almost 30 years old, he recreated his role on screen director's playhouse. And what was cool about screen director's playhouse was the director of the film collaborated with the performers who would do these radio versions.

The beginning screen director's playhouse was only a half hour long. That's what this is here. but the situation changed and eventually became an hour-long series, which became more meaningful. We've released some of them before. We also have a classic MGM cartoon from Mr. Texavery, Blitz Wolf,

which is very much a product of World War II Homefront Thinking. Yep. And also an MGM short called, Don't you believe it? And the trailer. So it's a nicely loaded disc, beautiful presentation.

But for people who have, not seen this movie. They're in for a memorable experience. Well, next we have the 1956 film The Bad Seed. What can you tell us about this cult classic? Well, this is not the first time the Bad Seed has been on Blu-ray. The Bad Seed came out on Blu-ray with a very ugly cover because there was this thing going on around here where everybody tried to make old movies look new, which is not my way of thinking. But worse than that, the master was awful. It was ugly.

It looked terrible. And I don't know how that happened. This film had kind of been cursed on home video because before it got to Blu-ray, when it was on DVD, it was open mat, the incorrect aspect ratio. It was 137. And one of the people involved didn't know that Warner Brothers had moved to 185 years earlier than he believed. So that went out wrong. And then when the Blu-ray came out, it was off of a film element that wasn't very good. So I said, we need to make this film look good because it was a huge hit, very popular, been remade twice.

It was a Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson. And it's about a little girl who is playing. plain evil. And it's a shocker. We use the original one sheet on the cover so that people will think that it is what it is, a 1956 film, and it says the bad seat is the big shocker, and it really is. Patty McCormick, who had played the role on the stage of the little girl, Rhoda Pennmark, recreated her role for the film. And she actually is a participant in the commentary, along with stage actor Charles Bush. It's a great commentary. Then we have a little feature at Enfant Terrible, which is basically more focused on Patty McCormick herself. And it's very well done. And we have

the trailer too. So it's a nice disc. But most important, this is a 4K scan off the camera negative. So all that murkiness of the old Blu-ray, we now have a much nicer rendition. I think people will really appreciate the upgrade. We don't usually do this. Yeah. Because usually we get it right the first time, but this was definitely a snafu. Yeah. Yeah. And it took a long time. It's now 15 years later, but we're correcting the snafu and making a Blu-ray that the company can be proud of. Well, I noticed this is 130 minutes. This is a very long film. Yes, it's a stage adaptation, but the 130 minutes kind of fly vibe because the writing is just arresting. The performers are terrific.

This is a film not unlike whatever happened to baby Jane, you know, where it's developed a cult following because the little girl is so, so evil. Yeah. You know, there weren't things like that, especially during the Eisenhower era. I'd say we didn't see a little girl on the screen as evil until like the Exorcist 18 years later. Right. Yeah, looking forward to this. I mean, it's just a little early for Halloween, but it's going to be perfect leading us right. This is a popular Halloween title.

Yeah, I bet. And the TV movie remakes were not anything to write home about. This is the real deal. Yeah, and I don't know. Maybe you already mentioned the director, Mervyn Leroy, but always usually. Well, we have to mention. Mervyn Leroy because Mervyn Leroy played such an integral part

at Warner Brothers in the 1930s then migrated to MGM in 1939 to produce the Wizard of Oz and tried to step into the shoes of Irving Thalberg. That was the goal to bring a producer of such renown.

And Mr. Leroy did wonderful work at MGM, but Jack Warner never forgot his friends. and when they were having problems, when John Ford took ill during the filming of Mr. Roberts, Mervyn Leroy stepped in and helped finish the movie. When it was time to make this huge hit play into a movie, Jack Warner wanted Mervin Leroy,

and Mervyn Leroy did not disappoint. Yeah. Well, you do have another animated release coming out in early September. We're not going to go into it here because we're going to have a whole other podcast. Right. But I think we should probably mention it, George. You want to tell us about that one?

Looney Tunes Collectors Vault, Volume 3, a two-disc set. And let me clarify, because some people still don't understand, the first disc contains cartoons that have been remastered and have never been part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection. in remastered form. The reason I have to be so specific about the wording is that when some of the golden collections were being put together,

a decision was made that I was not involved in where someone thought they were doing a nice thing by putting non-remastered cartoons on as a bonus. Well, they looked terrible, and that was really not a wise decision, but it is also caused confusion because not everybody understood why non-remastered cartoons were on a collection that was all about remastered. So, Disc 1 represents 25 cartoons that have never been released in remastered form as part of a WB animation collection.

Disc 2 contains cartoons that were on DVD, but, have never been on Blu-ray before as part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection. Hence, we bring 50 more cartoons into the market. The SRP is 2498, so it's basically 50 cents a cartoon. A lot of work has gone into this. There are several commentaries that accompanies some of the cartoons. and I think it's a very nice, diverse group of cartoons going back all the way to the beginning to the first Looney Tunes cartoons sinking the bathtub with Bosco and Lady Player Mandolin,

which was the first Mary Melodies cartoon, and it goes into the 1960s. So there is a lot of diversity there. There's also several cartoons that have been completely. out of sight for quite a long time. So I think it's a terrific set. We'll talk more about it when we do the separate podcast, but I did want to clarify because there's so much confusion around bonus cartoons.

That's not part of what these collections are about. And a lot of work has gone into it, and I hope the fans will be happy. And we look forward to a volume four. So if volume three sells well, we'll have a volume for her. Well, what a terrific month coming up here in August that you have so many great releases. You've got 10 Blu-rays.

You've got 2 4Ks. You've got animated releases. And it's just a wonderful variety. And forever. Yeah. Well, as always, George, thanks for coming on the podcast and taking us through these announcements. Thanks, Tim. My pleasure.

Well, this is just amazing. I can't believe the number of releases that are coming out in August. in early September. It's just been a joy over the last three, four months to see the increase of the output from the Warner Archive. And George has been talking about it, and here it's all coming to fruition. Prouters are not yet available. We will have those available when those are made available by the retailers. Until next time, stay slightly obsessed about physical media. Hey, are you a fan of the Warner Archive animation releases? Do you want to get the latest updates and news right away. If you're on Facebook, we have just created a brand new Facebook group

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