Topic: WB Premieres New Home Video Service

[BeAStooge]

Warner Home Video has premiered a new home video service, The Warner Archive.

On the studio's WBShop.com website, they list (@ today) 150 films NOT on home video, available for purchase on a direct basis. These are probably DVD-R copies, and being transferred from the most easily accessible master (i.e., not restoration prints).

Looking over the list of 150, there are no Stooge or Healy films. The closest is FORSAKING ALL OTHERS (1934), a Gable/Crawford comedy-melodrama that Healy worked on, but his scenes wound up on the cutting room floor.

[metaldams]

This is great, I hope studios do this kind of thing more often.  Might as well make those low risk titles available for the minority who want them in a way that won't break the studios.

[Sadistic Stooge]

Wow ! Very Nice    I  wish Columbia would do some thing like that ... 

[archiezappa]

That is a good idea for some films.  However, they should be taking advantage of all the publicity generated by these new Stooges releases.  They should release a DVD with restored prints of the Ted Healy & The Stooges shorts.  Don't you know they would sell like hot cakes?

Moe:  Hot cakes on one!

Curly:  Collision-max on one!

[BeAStooge]

Ron Epstein of The Home Theater Forum explains further...

For years Warner has resisted releasing small catalog titles in fear that they would not sell. There are too many obscure titles in studio libraries that never see the light of day simply because it costs too much to replicate them on a large scale only to see a small percentage of purchases.

All that is about to change in a huge way.

Warner is going to roll out a "made to order" program where they will be offering very rare and obscure catalog titles to the public that can be ordered online and will be replicated according to demand.

Every few months Warner will release a "wave" of new titles for this program. They will range from silent films, forgotten classics and even small films from the 70s-90s. They will not be mass replicated to be sold in stores. Instead, anyone that wants a title will go to  Warner's website, order it, and have it sent to their mailbox within
three days. The titles will only be replicated according to the amount of orders received.

The titles will arrive in regular packaging with artwork and a printed label on the DVD.

The quality of these DVDs (and I forgot to mention these are only DVDs) are as good as anything you would expect the studio to release. They will be in their proper aspect ratio, 16x9, and with the necessary audio codecs. Nothing will suffer when it comes to presentation quality.

The DVDs will cost $19.95 each

What this program will allow the studio to do is to release films it never was able to make previously available to the public.

Warner Home Video jumped the gun on this, sending out subscriber emails earlier today... HTF was supposed to have a Monday (3/23) exclusive of this news, preceding that website's annual chat with Warner Home Video's "classic theatrical" Senior VP George Feltenstein on Monday night.  The chat promises to have further details on this new program... and how it will work with the studio's normal retail distribution.

[metaldams]

For "Stooge related," you can kind of/sort of make an argument for MEN IN WHITE and IDIOT'S DELIGHT, both in this collection.

If I had to pick one film, I'd probably go with RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS, if only because I'm a John Barrymore fan, it's the only film with all three Barrymore's, and I hear it's a borderline horror movie (borderline being the keyword) from an era where I've pretty much seen all the major films of the genre.  I might order it simply to support this idea, because I think this is the direction studios need to go in with catalog titles.  Here's hoping to THE WALKING DEAD and THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS come Halloween time.  Again, Warner Brothers leads the way.

[archiezappa]

I always wanted to see "Idiot's Delight."  I saw a clip of it in one of those MGM compilation films from the '70s.  It looked like it would be a good movie.  And it has Clark Gable in it.

[BeAStooge]

The Warner Archive is progressing slowly, but up to 207 titles as of June 1.

June 1's additions include OPERATOR 13 (1934), starring Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, Jean Parker and Ted Healy. It's also made available in a "Warner Archive Gary Cooper 6-DVD Set."

Another Stooge connection... Curly Howard had a bit role in OPERATOR 13, but it wound up on the cutting room floor. See the cover of The Three Stooges Journal # 118 (Summer 2006) for a wardrobe test photo of Curly.

[archiezappa]

The Warner Archive is progressing slowly, but up to 207 titles as of June 1.

June 1's additions include OPERATOR 13 (1934), starring Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, Jean Parker and Ted Healy. It's also made available in a "Warner Archive Gary Cooper 6-DVD Set."

Another Stooge connection... Curly Howard had a bit role in OPERATOR 13, but it wound up on the cutting room floor. See the cover of The Three Stooges Journal # 118 (Summer 2006) for a wardrobe test photo of Curly.

The Warner Archive looks pretty cool.  One day, we may be able to get all of the movies we want on demand.