January 7, 2025 • 61 mins
George Feltenstein joins the podcast for our review of the Warner Archive’s six Blu-ray releases for December. We also provide a brief overview of THE SEARCHERS (1956) 4K release and what other reviewers are saying about the Warner Archive’s first 4K release. We wrap up our discussion with a look back at 2024, and what collectors can look forward to in 2025.
Purchase links:
MR. LUCKY (1943)
NORA PRENTISS (1947)
THE SPANISH MAIN (1945)
THE TALL TARGET (1951)
BLACK EYE (1974)
A NIGHT FULL OF RAIN (1978)
THE SEARCHERS (1956) 4K + Blu-ray
THE SEARCHERS (1956) BLU-RAY Remastered
REVIEW - THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE with Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Tim Mellard, your host and joining me is George
Feldstein of the Warner Archivefor our first podcast of 2025.
Hi, george.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Tim, Happy New Year.
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Happy New Year and I hope you had a good holiday.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I had a very good holiday.
I only worked half the time, sothat was good, but the discs
must continue to be maderegardless of the holiday season
.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Well, and that's a challenge for you, of course is
that the holiday is a big time,so stepping away is not easy
because there's so much tomonitor for you.
You know, with all these titlesreleasing in December which
we're going to talk about andall the way through to the end
of December, some of them thathave only come out recently,
this last week.
Well, today we're going to gothrough the December Blu-ray
(00:54):
releases from the Warner Archiveand then we'll spend some time
looking back at some of thehighlights from this last year.
I think people enjoy when wekind of look back and talk about
some of the high points of theyear.
But we'll start with the reviewsand I thought we'll go
alphabetically, starting withthe four classic films.
(01:18):
And that puts Mr Lucky as thefirst one from 1943, and that
puts Mr Lucky as the first onefrom 1943, starring Cary Grant
and Lorraine Day.
And this film is terrific fun.
It starts off, you know, withthat kind of more traditional
(01:39):
gangster film, feel before wemeet socialite Dorothy Bryant,
and then the film really takeson some steam and gets going.
It's clever, it's funny andit's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And it's really beautiful to look at now, which
is really kind of critical toour mission statement.
This was one of the earliestWarner Archive DVDs when we
started and it was a really bigseller.
(02:06):
So we knew the popularity wasthere for the film and Cary
Grant fans were.
You know people were sayingconstantly when are you going to
get this in HD on Blu-ray?
So these things take time.
But we did get the cameranegative Again a rarity when we
(02:27):
have an RKO film where thecamera negative survives and
another meticulous restorationdone by Warner Brothers Motion
Picture Imaging.
And it's really a delightfulfilm.
He's terrific in it.
He plays a little bit offcharacter, a little different
than his normal characters.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And I think it has a nice edge to it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
A nice edge.
Yeah, I mean, he's the bad boy.
You know the gangster or the,you know the one that has a play
going on, and then he meetsthis.
You know this woman, thissocialite, who he fools but in
doing so he falls for her too,and that's the delight of it.
You know clever roles.
And then also the romancethough he's a very reluctant
(03:30):
romance for him in this one, butyeah, it's really fun.
I enjoyed it a lot, and I thinkto your point about the
restoration.
The film looks and soundsterrific, and that always adds
to the enjoyment of these.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It creates a different experience and being
able to watch it and enjoy itand not be distracted by lines
and dirt and scratches andthings that played a lot of our
earlier DVD releases when we didnot have the budget, when we
did not have the budget.
But thank you to all of thefans and people who supported
(04:09):
Warner Archive as we head to our16th birthday in March.
You know it's because of theconsumer support, which is
happily growing, as we see.
You know physical media salesfigures declining.
That's not what's happening forus and it's due to the fan
(04:33):
support of the work we put intothese releases and I have
nothing but gratitude andfeeling quite fortunate that our
efforts are appreciated by somany people and that leads to us
being able to revisit thesetitles and bring them into the
21st century.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, this one is loaded too.
You loaded it with extras.
You've got the Lux RadioTheater Broadcast with Cary
Grant and Lorraine Day and theScreen Directors Playhouse with
(05:19):
HC Potter and Cary Grant.
Thank you, like most people are, it's always great when titles
from the catalog come out in HDso that you can revisit them
Looking and sounding so terrific.
Well, next we have NoraPrentiss from 1947.
And this one stars Kent Smithand Ann Sheridan, and both of
(05:39):
them are terrific.
Kent Smith plays a very I guessyou would say repressed or
regimented, but successfuldoctor, and he just goes off the
rails after he treats NoraPrentiss, after she's been hit
by a car, and falls hard for her, and that leads him down the
(05:59):
spiraling.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Down, down, down, spiraling, and that's the noir
of it.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All the fun journey as you see him spiraling into
this love that tears hisregimented life apart.
And Sheridan is delightful asthe nightclub singer.
And it's this very, you know,opposites attract in this story
because she finds the doctor andthe, the successful person,
(06:25):
very attractive for her.
So it's solid, it's really good, it delivers the goods and
that's no surprise when youconsider all the A-list people
behind the camera on this one aswell.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Absolutely.
And my friend Eddie Mueller,who's now a TV star thanks to
TCM, he would often speak ofthis as one of his many favorite
noirs.
You know, it is the power ofAnn Sheridan as Nora Prentiss
that leads Ken Smith to throwaway his entire life and family
(07:01):
because of obsession and familybecause of obsession.
And I remember seeing thismovie when I was quite young and
being just amazed.
It was unlike any movie I'dever seen where a normal, you
know, happy family man suddenlyjust throws away his career, his
(07:23):
marriage, his children,everything because of the power
of Ann Sheridan, his marriage,his children, everything because
of the power of Anne Sheridanas Nora Prentiss.
It's a lot of fun and it's alsojust a little bit almost.
It almost has a quality ofabsurdity because the story is
somewhat implausible thatsomeone would do that.
(07:46):
And yet if you read the newsyou hear stories like this all
the time.
Crazy things happen, but theperformances are strong, the
direction amazing and just likeMr Lucky Noir Apprentice was a
very early Warner Archive DVDthat looked.
(08:09):
How else can I put?
it wretched our journey fromtrying to backfill and make
titles available to remasteringfor DVD, then Blu-ray, then
(08:31):
remastering for Blu-ray.
Now, of course, we've just comeoff this new adventure with our
first 4K.
I mean just being able to makethese things look and sound
tremendous.
I mean just being able to makethese things look and sound
tremendous.
The improvements are staggeringwhen it comes to a film like
Noir Apprentice, and it's got agreat musical score and the
(08:54):
Warner Orchestra is just inthere, you know, tugging at your
heartstrings as things just getworse and worse for Ken Smith.
Things just get worse and worsefor Ken Smith and Anne Sheridan
(09:33):
is completely befudd.
Brothers at the time, uh,people really at the top of
their craft.
And again we went back to thecamera negative for this Scandit
4k really beautiful master.
So every time we can take one ofthese films that exists as a
35-year-old standard definitionmaster, and suddenly you pull
off all the horrible things thathave happened to the movie in
(09:56):
the last several decades andmake it look fresh and new.
It's somewhat miraculous in asense.
So anytime we can do that,there's a big, big difference.
And of course, this all buildsupon taking care of our library
film preservation.
I usually will coordinateefforts with our preservation
(10:19):
department and say you know,this is what I'm interested in.
Can we get this on the schedule?
And sometimes it takes two orthree years before we have a
master to make available to thepublic, because we never know
when we bring the negative in.
Are there problems with thenegative?
Do we need a secondary elementto replace bad shots?
(10:42):
You can open up a can ofnitrate that's been cared for by
an archive and yet when youexpose it to oxygen you're
subjecting it to the imagedisappearing under bad
conditions, and we've seen thathappen before.
So every time that we can dothis, we're saving another film,
(11:03):
protecting another film at itsbest.
So I'm very, very happy withthis and I think we talked about
this before when we announcedthat this was going to be coming
out.
But you know, I did find thatone of the cartoons that opened
with the film we put on the deskwhich was a lot of fun because
(11:26):
we knew that the film had openedwith the cartoon and it's
creating that night at themovies sensibility that always
adds a little fun to the proceed.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And I'll just go back for a second just to throw out
some of the names that we'vebeen talking about.
We didn't mention him, and thatis director Vincent Sherman,
and I know he's one of yourfavorites and he's done so many
great films over the years.
And then also cinematographerJames Wong Howe, and this is a
(11:56):
beautifully shot film.
No surprise there.
And then the music that is sogood from Franz Waxman.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, I mean we could do a whole program or two just
talking about the music of FranzWaxman in our library, not
downing the work he did at otherstudios.
He did some amazing work atParamount and Fox, but what he
did at Warner Brothers and MGMand before that I think his
(12:23):
first work in the United Stateswas at Universal.
He wrote the music for Bride ofFrankenstein, died at a
relatively young age and wroteso many magnificent scores.
You know I could talk endlesslyabout the genius of him as a
composer and that would take awhole different show.
Maybe someday we'll do that.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, it's so great that you know the people who
worked at Warner Brothers thatwe get to revisit their work and
highlight their work like we'redoing here with this one.
So the next film I thought we'dtalk about George is the lone
Technicolor release I believethat you have in December,
outside of the Searchers, whichwe'll hold on to for a little
bit later, but of the classicfilms from 1945, and that's the
(13:07):
Spanish Main starring Paul Henryas the pirate Barracuda and
Maureen O'Hara as the lovelyFrancesca this swashbuckler is.
I mean, it's very entertainingand I know a lot of people were
looking forward to seeing theremaster and watching it.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And I think it looks terrific, just like all of your
other Technicolor films.
Well, anytime we get theopportunity to work with the
three strip Technicolornegatives, in many cases they
haven't been fooled with thatmuch because the original
Technicolor printing processused dye matrices to make the
(13:52):
prints.
They didn't make prints off thenegatives and very often that
leaves us with negatives thathaven't been touched and
subjected to as much wear.
But what we're able to do andI've talked about this endlessly
, given the proprietarytechnology that we have in terms
(14:17):
of that pixel down to the pixelalignment of the three records,
bringing the negative together.
And fortunately this was thefirst RKO production that used
the three-strip Technicolorprocess and Maureen O'Hara's
(14:39):
blazing red hair was made forTechnicolor.
She was one of those few peoplethat she was beautiful in every
film she ever did, even whenshe was older.
But Technicolor and MaureenO'Hara were kind of made for
each other and the film was agreat deal of fun.
Paul Henry was under contract toRKO and yet made very
(15:03):
significant impressions when hewas loaned out by RKO to Warner
Brothers because 1942 he hadthat one-two punch of now
Voyager and Casablanca and youknow people think he was a
Warner contract player.
He was actually under contractto RKO and borrowed frequently
by Warner Brothers.
I think he enjoyed having thatkind of dashing swashbuckling
(15:30):
role, and Walter Slazak is veryentertaining as the villain.
And then of course, you've gotthe great Frank Borzeghi
directing, and Mr Borzeghi has agreat fan following out there.
So when we make his worksavailable, I always know that
people who appreciate his workare very grateful for that.
(15:52):
And this is one of those filmswhere what we had been working
with in standard definition werereally awful elements that had
been made poorly and cheaply andto finally have this looking
great, it just adds to theentertainment value.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, I was looking at, you know, clips online or
images from the DVD, and thenyou watch this new restoration
and it's like people are goingto really really appreciate how
much the colors pop and just howmuch better it looks and how
that's going to add to theirenjoyment of this film.
(16:33):
It's a huge, huge, hugeprogression forward.
And then you have a nice amountof extras in here as well.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I thought it would be fun to stay in the seafaring
here as well.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I thought it would be fun to stay in the sea ferry.
Yeah, yeah, you've got aclassic technicolor short
subject movie land magic, andthen the classic cartoons
buccaneer, bunny and captainhair blower, plus the trailers
well, those give yosemite sam achance to be, you know, a pirate
, so I thought it was a goodcombination.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
For the cartoons, the short is enjoyable and it's a
great deal of fun, and I'mhoping that we will be able to.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know it's a popcorn movie, george, right?
So that's the kind of film itis.
You just have a lot of fun withit.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I'm hoping we will have more of the Technicolor
Squashbucklers, because I knowthere's a big fan base out there
For sure, and we have many morein the library that are waiting
to be rescued.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, next up we have the Anthony Mann-directed crime
drama the Tall Target from 1951, starring Dick Powell and the
lovely Paula Raymond.
And the Tall Target, of course,is President-elect Abraham
Lincoln, and Dick Powell playsNew York City Police Sergeant
John Kennedy, who gets on atrain bound for Washington and
(17:55):
he's hoping to thwart what hesuspects is an assassination
attempt on the newly electedpresident at his inauguration.
This is a tense president athis inauguration.
This is a tense.
It's atmospheric and it reallymoves along and is highly
entertaining.
The action is mostly on thetrain, which gives it, I thought
, a bit of that claustrophobicfeel, and then you've got the
(18:16):
train whistles and the steampouring from the rails.
That really adds to the tensionand I'm guessing guessing based
on you know, some of the stuffyou mentioned earlier that this
remaster also is a vastimprovement yes the new look,
how much better it looks andsounds.
It really adds to all of thisatmospheric elements of this
film and really makes itenjoyable it brings you more
(18:39):
into the action.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And this has kind of been a good year for Anthony
Mann fans at the Warner Archivebecause we've brought out
several of his really superbworks vault into the hands of
(19:09):
the magicians at Warner BrothersMotion Picture Imaging so we
can go forward with therestoration.
Most of these films haven'tbeen mastered in 30, 35 years
and technology's come a long waysince then and it's about time.
This film is so taut, there'snot a wasted frame, it just gets
(19:29):
you from the very beginning andthere's no Hollywood music
underscoring or anything, it'sthe movement of the train.
It just takes on a wholedifferent sensibility and I
attribute a lot of that toAnthony Mann because he brought
a sense of style to the filmsthat he made and I'm glad that
(19:53):
MGM borrowed him as much as theywere able to get it so that we
have so many of his fine works.
It was a particular treat to beable to bring this film out in
a new 4K scan of thepreservation elements.
(20:13):
This is one of those films wherethe camera negative burned in
the tragic fire.
So fortunately our secondgeneration safety elements were
made before the negative burnedand it looks terrific.
And we put a radio show onthere, an episode of a series
(20:34):
called Mr President with EdwardArnold.
That kind of deals with thissame period of time and the
potential assassination ofLincoln, and that's a real.
It's not like a luxe radiotheater or something where you'd
expect there could possibly bea radio show.
This is a little different.
(20:55):
But I wanted something thatwould give a little more color
and a little more background,and it's rare, so that just adds
to the value of the disc.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and then you also have the two cartoons on
here.
You get Jerry's Cousin andSlicked Up Pup, which were
really fun to watch, and theylook terrific in HD as well,
plus the theatrical trailer.
And then you mentioned itpreviously, george, but it's
very timely because this isJanuary and we have the
inauguration coming up herelater in January here in the
(21:30):
United States, so that's alsotimely for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Absolutely.
That was not intentional interms of timing of the release.
It's just when the master isfinally done.
You know like we have Gabrielover the White House coming out
in the end of January after theinauguration, so I had hoped it
(21:58):
would be ready before.
But I have no control over, youknow, over when things get
completed.
I can put them in early and seeif people will bless my request
and give us the funding that weneed to make these things
happen.
But it's close enough for goodcomfort and it just gives people
(22:22):
more of an opportunity tobasically be thought provoked by
what they're seeing in thesefilms, especially a film like
the Tall Target.
It's not as much in the oldHollywood style, a progression
towards a little moremodernistic, the sense of
(22:44):
post-war modernism that enteredinto American filmmaking very,
very slowly.
After the war, hollywoodstarted to grow up and get a
little more audacious in itsstorytelling.
This is a terrific film andpeople are very pleased that we
(23:05):
released it.
The initial sales have beenterrific, so that only leads to
more great things to follow whenpeople support these releases.
So gratitude to all those whodid and do.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Well, the next film is also kind of a crime drama,
obviously detective story, andwe're going to jump ahead a
couple of decades to the 70s andthat's the Black Eye from 1974.
And it stars football starturned actor Fred Williamson,
george.
I really enjoyed this film.
(23:40):
Williamson's pretty good inthis role.
He's understated, he's likable.
The action keeps the storymoving forward.
I love the filming locations inVenice.
I used to live in Ocean Parkand the old Ocean Park, which is
part of Santa Monica, thoselocations where I guess it was
shot on location down there,down there.
(24:06):
Now you go down there it'sbeautiful, but in this film it's
seedy, it's rundown.
It's what it looked like in the1970s and then you have that
contrast with the beaches andthe boardwalk and all the great
parts of Venice.
The action is very good.
That car chase through theVenice canals is especially
noteworthy and then it has thejazzy music.
It's the style, the look of the70s.
I just thought this was areally entertaining film.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It is a modern of the 70s direction that tells a
solid detective story.
That's not to negate otherfilms that are in the more urban
action drama.
Those are equally compellingand attractive.
But this is a detective filmand Fred Williamson's screen
(25:16):
persona was really.
It made him one of the mostpopular in terms of both box
office and audiences popularscreen performers, certainly of
the early to mid-70s, withoutquestion.
And he continues.
(25:37):
I think he's still working.
I'm not sure about that, but Iknow he has appeared in films in
the last maybe 10, 12 years.
I know I've seen him in otherfilms.
He continued to work.
I think he's in his mid-80s, sohe may be now retired, but he
(26:00):
was great on the football fieldand that led him to his screen
career.
And that doesn't always workout that way, but he's one of
the people that movedsuccessfully from football to
the big screen, as did Jim Brown.
I remember seeing this film whenI was in college.
It was in the film series.
I was too young to see it whenit came out, but I caught it in
(26:24):
college and just thought it wasa lot of fun.
And this is another one wherewe went back to the camera
negative and were able to do a4K scan of the camera negative
and make it look really, reallywonderful and keep the grainy
quality of 1974 films.
(26:47):
Yeah, so if people see grain onthe screen that's because grain
is part of film and I like theorganic feel of the way this
film looks.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, and I can't help but think of, you know,
your recent release, black BeltJones.
Same kind of era, similarstorytelling style.
I mean that's a total martialarts film, but they both look
terrific, you know, they havethe grain in them and they both
have the action stars.
And I think it's terrific thatyou're able to bring out these
(27:19):
seventies films.
Some of them are, you know, notas well known, but they are
very good when you break themdown and you watch them, they're
really solid films, especiallyin that action genre.
This is kind of like a neo-noirstyle of filming.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yes, absolutely, and there won't be more.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, so I think it's great.
All those people out there whohave been wanting more 70s films
, this is terrific news for them.
Well, there's one more 70s film, and that's from 1978.
That is uh I'll give it thefull title here george a night
full of rain go for it.
It'll take a while well, whenyou watch a film, you you
(28:01):
understand the title.
But a night full of rain, alsoknown as the end of the world,
in our usual bed in a night fullof rain, from director lena
vert muller, and and I wasn'tfamiliar with her films, but
this is a fascinating, dreamlikekind of meditation on life, on
love, on politics.
(28:22):
You have these two characters,this very chauvinistic Italian
man and this feminist Americanjournalist.
I guess they're bothjournalists, they're battling
each other, but they also have alove story in there.
It's complicated, but it'sunique and interesting as well,
(28:46):
and just like a lot of the 70sItalian cinema from that era,
and I thought that this newremaster really showcases the
beauty of the cinematography inthis film, because the locations
are amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And I sound like a broken record, but once again we
went back to the cameranegative and scanned it.
4k and Burt Muller's I talkedabout this when we announced it.
She was an extremely globallypopular filmmaker, had two huge
(29:25):
hits that not only were popularin Europe but had crossed over
to the United States and madebig bucks at the box office,
swept away and then followed bySeven Beauties, and that led
Warner Brothers to sign LenaWehrmüller to a three-picture
contract.
This was the first of the threeand the other two never
(29:49):
followed.
This film did not click at thebox office and I think that it's
not the film.
I think it may have been the wayit was marketed, and one of the
ways that sometimes there's alittle bit of a disconnect is
the foreign films of that era,in the 70s and even in the 60s,
(30:13):
were best handled by smallindependent companies that
really got behind them and knewwhat theaters to put them in and
knew how to market them.
And when studios tried to do it,it didn't always work out, and
I think that that was the casewith this film was the case with
(30:36):
this film.
I'm very pleased that we'vebeen able to bring it out in a
proper aspect ratio and a newmaster of high quality.
Because Lena Verdmuller was ararity in her time in the 70s,
one of the few female filmmakerswho could translate her name to
equating box office.
(30:57):
And it was the success of SweptAway and Seven Beauties that
led to a lot of her earlierfilms that hadn't come to the US
being brought here later bysmall companies, and that's what
led up to the Warner Brothersdeal.
So we do have the one film andwhether you're a fan of Burt
(31:20):
Muller or Giancarlo Giannini orCandice Bergen, it's a lot of
fun and quite interesting andvery much of its time yeah, I, I
think the fans who want to ownher films.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
This is a great remaster, looks and sounds
terrific and it's so great thatthe One Archive could bring this
out for all of those fans.
Well, that's the main body ofthe film's release in December,
george, but there's one kind ofmammoth name we haven't really
gotten into and we're not goingto do a full review today
(31:56):
because I think it's worth adiscussion on its own.
But you did release theSearchers in 4K in December.
It looks terrific, it soundsterrific, it's amazing.
You and I have talked aboutthis a little bit earlier when
it was announced.
The reviews are pouring in andthey're fantastic the reviews
(32:17):
and people are still gettingthem in the mail.
This is still kind of anunfolding, evolving story, but I
just want to say, hey, look, ifyou waited, get your order in.
This is a fantastic film andit's a fantastic release on 4K.
But we'll get into some detailsabout the restoration and other
(32:37):
things later on, anything youwanted to kind of say about this
.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I'm just.
I am so grateful that peopleappreciate all of the work that
went into this from many, manydifferent people.
We wanted our first 4K releaseto be of great substance and
when you're working with one ofthe greatest American films ever
(33:05):
made and one of the mostimportant films in Warner
Brothers history, and to treatit with the best possible care
in all areas, it's an honor andthat's why we're so fortunate to
be the people who are taskedwith the care of the legacy of
(33:29):
the studio, as well as the otherlibraries that we own.
It's a very, very hugeresponsibility.
So anytime that we're able tobring our this is our a plus
game because we entered into newterritory films.
(33:50):
4k hdr is really the ideal wayto view a wide format film,
especially if it was shot invista vision, which not very
many films were vista vision andtechnorama.
Both were similar formats wherethe film went through the
(34:12):
camera sideways and doubled theframe, which gave you this
amazing depth of field andclarity.
The nice thing about thisrelease is we also had a
remastered Blu-ray.
We have two hours of specialfeatures.
We had wonderful compressionand authoring from Fidelity and
(34:32):
Motion, because they're the bestin the business, and we wanted
this disc to be something thatpeople would want to own, and
the incredible positive feedbackwe've gotten, both from
consumers as well as reviewers,is heartening.
And 4K will not be our primaryfocus it can't be just because
(34:59):
of economics, but when the filmdeserves it, maybe we'll get a
chance to be able to make thathappen, and as a company, we're
committed to the physical discas the best way for people to
watch their films at home.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Well, I'll just give one review.
That's very brief, but let mesay that it takes you all of one
shot to know the quality ofthis remaster.
That you've done, George, youand the team there.
The very first shot opens onthat doorway and the camera goes
(35:42):
through and you see thecontrast between the interior of
the cabin and the exteriorLooks terrific.
Camera moves out and you seethat vista the mountains, the
orange it's stunning.
And as you're doing that, thesound of that score from Max
(36:04):
Deiner, so crisp and clear,You're brought in.
Obviously that's John Ford'sdirecting, but the remaster, the
sound, the visual, you'reabsorbed and you're in for the
next iteration creation of thelast master that made it to
(36:36):
Blu-ray.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
But when I saw it I was deeply disappointed and,
frankly, a little bitembarrassed that I didn't think
that we as a company had donethe film any favors.
The initial Blu-ray had yellowsky.
Frankly, it just was arevisionist approach.
People involved with that arenot the people who were involved
(36:58):
with creating this, the peoplewho were involved with creating
this, but colorist Jan Yarbroughand mastering supervisor
extraordinaire Miles Del Ollothey're chiefly responsible for
that and our sound departmentwho, wisely, this was not a film
(37:20):
that needed a Atmos track or a5.1.
There was nothing organicpossible.
There was no stereophonicrecording involved in the making
of this film.
It was monaural and it neededto stay that way because it
would have been fakery otherwise.
(37:41):
When we do have originalproduction elements to go back
to, if you look at North byNorthwest, that music was
recorded three-channel stereo.
Creating an Atmos track wasorganically possible.
You weren't introducing 2024sound elements to a 1959 movie.
(38:04):
When you do that, it'sridiculous.
Job on North by Northwest and Ihope we've done an awesome job
with the Searchers it certainlyseems from what everybody is
saying we succeeded in what wewere trying to do.
I certainly feel incrediblyproud and very emotional about
(38:26):
it because it's a terriblyimportant film in the history of
American cinema and, comingfrom John Ford and John Wayne
and John Ford's cast ofcharacters and the
cinematography, everything iscaptured so beautifully and we
(38:58):
had a lot of obstacles toovercome, working with that very
inferior film stock that wasprevalent in 1956, kodak 5248.
The yellow layer collapses andfades and what went into the
restoration, as you so wiselymentioned earlier, tim, that's
really enough of a story for awhole other podcast, so we
(39:19):
should best discuss it atanother time.
But if you have ordered thesearchers and you haven't got
your copy yet, we're in themiddle of our third reorder and
trying to get copies because theorders keep coming in and
everybody's working over timeand over the holidays,
(39:39):
especially to get people theirdiscs.
We anticipated that it wasgoing to be a strong seller, but
this release is very, veryempirical evidence that physical
media is alive and well.
Within a big studio, it doesn'ttake a third party to make it
(40:01):
magic.
We can make it magic right here.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Well, I look forward to talking about that a little
bit more, but I thought now wewould take some time to look
back at this last year of 2024.
I think it's been a stellaryear, but I thought maybe we'd
focus in on a few standoutmoments, and I'll.
I'll start with mine and, and,and you can put your thoughts in
(40:27):
, george, as to as to that aswell.
But I did want to go back toMarch as a moment that I thought
was really special and I know alot of people who are major
supporters of the Warner Archivefelt that way as well and that
was the 15th anniversary thatyou had in March.
(40:48):
That was a real outpouring ofsupport for the work that you do
, george, and just yourcommitment to the Warner Archive
and these classic films and tobringing them out on physical
media.
And, you know, making it 15years, quite a milestone, and
there were a lot of challengesfor you, especially in the last
(41:09):
five.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
That is the understatement of the century.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
But you got there and so we had a terrific
celebration of it, and then itended up that this year 16 or 15
, I don't know how you count itbut has been, I think, maybe one
of your best yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
This is year 16.
I was grateful that we wereable to broaden the canvas a
little bit by doing things thatwe had done in the DVD realm in
terms of bringing in moreHanna-Barbera animation,
bringing in TV shows like Gold45 and the Alaskans, which
(41:53):
people hadn't been able to seeat all they were never on DVD
and for them to come off thecamera negatives and look so
good.
And we've got Cheyenne coming.
You know in this, now thatwe're in 2025.
People know we're working onthat and it's going to be a very
exciting complete series fromthe original elements and there
(42:18):
were so many releases.
We were able to continue onwith Looney Tunes and we will be
continuing on with Looney Tuneseven more in 2025 in a
different way.
That, I think, is going to bevery, very pleasing to the fans.
We're going to build on thesuccess we had in prior years
(42:39):
and take it a step further, andwe'll be able to make
announcements about thatprobably in about two, a month
and a half, maybe two months.
And I think one of the thingsthat we were part of that
because it was basicallyreconstructing a movie and that
was the new master of that'sEntertainment, which we had to
(43:01):
rebuild an entire film and matchwhat had been done down to the
frame in 1974.
Had been done down to the framein 1974.
And the response for people whohave purchased it and those who
have reviewed it has beenincredibly rewarding, given all
(43:21):
the work that we put into it.
And then we had so manywonderful Technicolor
restorations.
All of them looked amazing.
Wonderful Technicolorrestorations.
(43:42):
All of them looked amazing.
And we were able to makeinroads with great filmmakers,
even bringing that final AlfredHitchcock films in the Warner
library out on Blu-ray.
That's a big deal.
Now they're all available andwe have so much work ahead of us
.
I'm thankful to say, and I'mhoping that the support will
(44:02):
continue.
If everything works out the wayI'm hoping, 2025 will easily
eclipse 2024, which is a hugestatement to make.
But I believe and again, Ican't promise that, because I'm
still waiting for people to comeback and say, yes, george,
(44:23):
we're going to do what you'dlike, but what I'd like to do is
ultimately something that'sgoing to be very, very
profitable for our company andits shareholders, and that's my
primary job here.
So, to make the fans happy, getthem what they want.
With one release, there's boundto be somebody who's
(44:46):
disappointed that it isn't adifferent release and we just
can't make everybody happy atthe same time.
We're trying to hit all theright notes Overall, based on
the response we're getting viapeople who send in.
Some people actually still sendletters via snail mail, but
(45:09):
most of the correspondence isthrough social media.
At the end of the day, theresults are in the sales and
we've had a lot of really,really impressive performances
by some really great films thatdeserve to be on people's
shelves.
As one of our biggest supportersout there, constantly makes the
(45:34):
point you don't need theinternet to watch a movie from
Warner Archive and if yourinternet is out, you put the
disc in your player and you'regoing to get the best possible
quality, especially if our nameis on it.
And I take personalresponsibility for making sure
that that happens.
But it isn't me by myself.
(45:58):
I couldn't be the steward ofthis work without all the
support that comes from ourpreservation team people at
Warner Brothers Motion PictureImaging, the people at Warner
Brothers Post Production,archival Sound.
All of them work with me, ourmastering department especially.
(46:18):
We're all I would considerourselves soldiers in the battle
against time to preserve,protect time to preserve,
protect and release great motionpictures, whether they be short
animated motion pictures orlong feature motion pictures or
(46:40):
motion pictures made fortelevision.
We want to give something toeveryone, and I'm hoping that
this will be a year that willmake our fans happy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Well, this last year sure was, and I'm sure that that
will happen again in thiscoming year.
George, you have a track recordthat says that's exactly what's
going to happen.
But before we wrap up, I had afew specific questions that I
wanted to ask you.
It's more just for fans'interest level.
(47:14):
There's not necessarily hugeimportance in these things, but
sometimes people like a littleend of the year thing and you
may have already answered it inyour recap here that you just
had but what was the best sellerof 2024 for the Warner Archive?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Well, I don't think it would come as any surprise.
It's only been available forthree weeks and it already is
the 4K of the Searchers.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, I figured that's probably what it was.
And then, beyond the Searchers,would it be an animation title
after that?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Would it be an animation title?
After that?
We have, I would say, probablytwo dozen releases that are all
very strong, solid sellers.
We have really been blessedbecause we've had such wonderful
films to bring to the publicand we did, I think, a little
(48:16):
bit of a better job at bringingsome more contemporary titles,
some films actually made in thismillennium you know, just
broadening the horizons a littlebit was very welcomed by people
who felt that they were beingexcluded.
They didn't want films from the30s and 40s, they wanted films
(48:41):
from the 90s and the aughts orthe 70s.
So we're trying to hit all thepoints, keep ourselves
profitable and makeentertainment available to the
people that want it.
That has been our mission fromthe very beginning.
And rare and hard to find isstill.
You know, it's very differentif you say rare and hard to find
(49:03):
and you've got a 4K of thesearchers.
There's kind of an oxymoron,that kind of conflicts there.
But when we were given theopportunity to take this on, we
felt that we could bring our Agame to the proceedings and I
(49:24):
think we did and I'm hoping itwill be the beginning of more.
But to clarify again, ourprimary focus is going to
continue to be Blu-ray and formost of the older films that
gives you really the closestapproximation of what is there
(49:47):
in the negative of the filmitself, of what is there in the
negative of the film itself,because a lot of older films
don't have 4K's worth ofinformation in the frame.
It's a little bit of acontroversial point of view, but
I have been counseled byseveral mentors and experts that
(50:11):
this is the right approach andwhen we get the opportunity to
take something that just screamsthat it was made for 4K, like
the searchers we'll certainlytake up the gauntlet and give
our A game to that, should thenext one arise.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Well, George, I counted like 67, I think, titles
released over the year.
If you add the 10 from theHanna-Barbera Superstars 10,
that pushes us up into like 77or whatever.
I may have missed one or two,but that's a lot of titles.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Was there one of those that kind of surprised you
in terms of the you know, in apositive way, in beyond your
expectations?
My expectations are kind ofaligned with what a film is and
how it has been received inprior iterations, and that
iteration may be a theatricalrelease.
(51:20):
But having worked with thislibrary for a substantial amount
of time, I know it well and Ialso have my ear to the ground.
I know what the consumers want.
I also know that, no matterwhat we do, as soon as what we
do comes out, it's like great,thank you.
(51:42):
Now here's what else I wantEndless ridiculous lists, and it
surprises me at times thatpeople don't realize that we
actually don't look at it as alist.
But every film is its ownanimal and needs to be treated
according to what kind oftreatment it deserves.
(52:05):
There are so many films outthere that need help, that are
missing a reel of the negativeor that are having some other
distress, and then we eventuallycan find the answer.
I can tell you that, if allgoes well, the plans are to
(52:25):
release in 2025 two films thatwill actually be longer versions
than what was released intheaters, and I'm talking quite
older films from the nitrate era.
So we've got some big surprisesup our sleeve, and we also have
(52:46):
a lot of things that we'reasking for that we don't know if
they're going to happen or not,but we hear you, we listen to
all of the positive advice andwe look upon what has been very
successful and try to rebuild orI should say we try to build
(53:07):
from that.
I'm excited for the Tom andJerry Cinemascope collection.
We want to continue more withclassic animation, theatrical
animation.
There will be moreHanna-Barbera some big surprises
in store in that department.
And one thing is not at asacrifice for the other.
There's room for all.
(53:28):
We're blessed to have thegreatest film library of any
corporation.
In the other, there's room forall.
We're blessed to have thegreatest film library of any
corporation in the industry, andwith that comes a
responsibility to make thosefilms available to the people
who want to own them.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Well, it's fun to kind of look back with you,
george, and to hear your take onit, and it's really good to
hear about the successful yearthat 2024 was for the Warner
Archive and looking forward into2025.
And we're well into this yearwith you, george, in terms of
what you have on the slate andit feels like just a strong
(54:04):
continuation of last year withall of these.
Some of my favorite things werethese classic TV box sets,
which I think are real gems, andthen the other collections that
you had with the Thin manCollection, the fact that you
were able to put volume one andone through four of the Looney
Tunes into a collection.
(54:24):
I just think that's great forthe fans.
I know it's not always new, buthaving collections is great for
fans who can do catch up.
The Hanna-Barbera superstars,as we mentioned.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Absolutely, and the thing is that you give the
consumer a choice.
We wouldn't have been able toafford to remaster and restore
all the Thin man movies if theywere going into a box set
without the box set or I shouldsay it's basically a six-disc
(54:59):
Amory but in order for us tohave put that out and made our
money back on the incredibleinvestment because we make this
investment by ourselves, it'snot that money comes from
another division or another areait's up to us to have a profit
(55:20):
and loss statement that'll lookgood to the finance people.
So that's part of myresponsibility is to show them a
profit.
We restored each Thin man movie, released it.
The audience for those Thin manmovies ate them up and after a
(55:41):
certain period of time wethought okay, now we can make
this available with a valueproposition at a lower price for
people who didn't buy thecollection.
But it is not at the expense ofthe people who originally
bought when the films came out.
They made that possible andthere are some people who would
(56:04):
rather wait three or four yearsand buy a lower-priced
collection than buy individually.
Everybody's dealing withfinancial struggles of one way
or another, or certainly a lotof people are.
(56:25):
We're very mindful of that.
That's why we want to try tokeep our product reasonably
priced.
We don't like it when we seeretailers charging over list
price for our product.
Our single discs have been$21.98 since our very first
Blu-ray and that hasn't changed.
And yet retailers are chargingmore than that.
(56:45):
We have no control over it.
It's a free country.
People are able to charge whatthey want, but it's certainly
not what we want.
We want the customer to havevalue.
We're doing our very best towork with our partners to make
certain that they understand howimportant it is to stay at the
(57:06):
manufacturer's suggested listprice.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's just been a terrificyear and, George, I want to
thank you for all the timeyou've given to the listeners of
the Extras and all the fans ofthe Warner Archive out there
over the 2024 year.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
It's been a very rewarding year and we look for
this year upon us as anopportunity to make more fans
happy with more releases.
They're the Warner Archive name.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Well, what a great year 2024 was.
I hope all of you listeningfound some titles that you're
just so grateful to add to yourlibrary this year, and I want to
thank you for listening,especially to the podcast with
George.
Those are always a lot of fun.
I know everybody enjoys them,but thank you for your support
over this last year.
(58:02):
If you are interested inpurchasing any of the films that
we talked about today, therewill be links in the podcast
show notes so you can alwayslook for those there and on our
website.
And if you enjoyed the podcast,please think about following
the show or leaving us a review,or you can also send us a quick
text message for those who areinterested in sending me a note
(58:24):
or feedback on the show, and wealways appreciate those who
leave reviews at your favoritepodcast provider.
Until next time you've beenlistening to Tim Millard, stay
slightly obsessed.
Tim Mellard, your host and joining me is George
Feldstein of the Warner Archivefor our first podcast of 2025.
Hi, george.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Tim, Happy New Year.
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Happy New Year and I hope you had a good holiday.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I had a very good holiday.
I only worked half the time, sothat was good, but the discs
must continue to be maderegardless of the holiday season
.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Well, and that's a challenge for you, of course is
that the holiday is a big time,so stepping away is not easy
because there's so much tomonitor for you.
You know, with all these titlesreleasing in December which
we're going to talk about andall the way through to the end
of December, some of them thathave only come out recently,
this last week.
Well, today we're going to gothrough the December Blu-ray
(00:54):
releases from the Warner Archiveand then we'll spend some time
looking back at some of thehighlights from this last year.
I think people enjoy when wekind of look back and talk about
some of the high points of theyear.
But we'll start with the reviewsand I thought we'll go
alphabetically, starting withthe four classic films.
(01:18):
And that puts Mr Lucky as thefirst one from 1943, and that
puts Mr Lucky as the first onefrom 1943, starring Cary Grant
and Lorraine Day.
And this film is terrific fun.
It starts off, you know, withthat kind of more traditional
(01:39):
gangster film, feel before wemeet socialite Dorothy Bryant,
and then the film really takeson some steam and gets going.
It's clever, it's funny andit's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And it's really beautiful to look at now, which
is really kind of critical toour mission statement.
This was one of the earliestWarner Archive DVDs when we
started and it was a really bigseller.
(02:06):
So we knew the popularity wasthere for the film and Cary
Grant fans were.
You know people were sayingconstantly when are you going to
get this in HD on Blu-ray?
So these things take time.
But we did get the cameranegative Again a rarity when we
(02:27):
have an RKO film where thecamera negative survives and
another meticulous restorationdone by Warner Brothers Motion
Picture Imaging.
And it's really a delightfulfilm.
He's terrific in it.
He plays a little bit offcharacter, a little different
than his normal characters.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And I think it has a nice edge to it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
A nice edge.
Yeah, I mean, he's the bad boy.
You know the gangster or the,you know the one that has a play
going on, and then he meetsthis.
You know this woman, thissocialite, who he fools but in
doing so he falls for her too,and that's the delight of it.
You know clever roles.
And then also the romancethough he's a very reluctant
(03:30):
romance for him in this one, butyeah, it's really fun.
I enjoyed it a lot, and I thinkto your point about the
restoration.
The film looks and soundsterrific, and that always adds
to the enjoyment of these.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It creates a different experience and being
able to watch it and enjoy itand not be distracted by lines
and dirt and scratches andthings that played a lot of our
earlier DVD releases when we didnot have the budget, when we
did not have the budget.
But thank you to all of thefans and people who supported
(04:09):
Warner Archive as we head to our16th birthday in March.
You know it's because of theconsumer support, which is
happily growing, as we see.
You know physical media salesfigures declining.
That's not what's happening forus and it's due to the fan
(04:33):
support of the work we put intothese releases and I have
nothing but gratitude andfeeling quite fortunate that our
efforts are appreciated by somany people and that leads to us
being able to revisit thesetitles and bring them into the
21st century.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, this one is loaded too.
You loaded it with extras.
You've got the Lux RadioTheater Broadcast with Cary
Grant and Lorraine Day and theScreen Directors Playhouse with
(05:19):
HC Potter and Cary Grant.
Thank you, like most people are, it's always great when titles
from the catalog come out in HDso that you can revisit them
Looking and sounding so terrific.
Well, next we have NoraPrentiss from 1947.
And this one stars Kent Smithand Ann Sheridan, and both of
(05:39):
them are terrific.
Kent Smith plays a very I guessyou would say repressed or
regimented, but successfuldoctor, and he just goes off the
rails after he treats NoraPrentiss, after she's been hit
by a car, and falls hard for her, and that leads him down the
(05:59):
spiraling.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Down, down, down, spiraling, and that's the noir
of it.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
All the fun journey as you see him spiraling into
this love that tears hisregimented life apart.
And Sheridan is delightful asthe nightclub singer.
And it's this very, you know,opposites attract in this story
because she finds the doctor andthe, the successful person,
(06:25):
very attractive for her.
So it's solid, it's really good, it delivers the goods and
that's no surprise when youconsider all the A-list people
behind the camera on this one aswell.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Absolutely.
And my friend Eddie Mueller,who's now a TV star thanks to
TCM, he would often speak ofthis as one of his many favorite
noirs.
You know, it is the power ofAnn Sheridan as Nora Prentiss
that leads Ken Smith to throwaway his entire life and family
(07:01):
because of obsession and familybecause of obsession.
And I remember seeing thismovie when I was quite young and
being just amazed.
It was unlike any movie I'dever seen where a normal, you
know, happy family man suddenlyjust throws away his career, his
(07:23):
marriage, his children,everything because of the power
of Ann Sheridan, his marriage,his children, everything because
of the power of Anne Sheridanas Nora Prentiss.
It's a lot of fun and it's alsojust a little bit almost.
It almost has a quality ofabsurdity because the story is
somewhat implausible thatsomeone would do that.
(07:46):
And yet if you read the newsyou hear stories like this all
the time.
Crazy things happen, but theperformances are strong, the
direction amazing and just likeMr Lucky Noir Apprentice was a
very early Warner Archive DVDthat looked.
(08:09):
How else can I put?
it wretched our journey fromtrying to backfill and make
titles available to remasteringfor DVD, then Blu-ray, then
(08:31):
remastering for Blu-ray.
Now, of course, we've just comeoff this new adventure with our
first 4K.
I mean just being able to makethese things look and sound
tremendous.
I mean just being able to makethese things look and sound
tremendous.
The improvements are staggeringwhen it comes to a film like
Noir Apprentice, and it's got agreat musical score and the
(08:54):
Warner Orchestra is just inthere, you know, tugging at your
heartstrings as things just getworse and worse for Ken Smith.
Things just get worse and worsefor Ken Smith and Anne Sheridan
(09:33):
is completely befudd.
Brothers at the time, uh,people really at the top of
their craft.
And again we went back to thecamera negative for this Scandit
4k really beautiful master.
So every time we can take one ofthese films that exists as a
35-year-old standard definitionmaster, and suddenly you pull
off all the horrible things thathave happened to the movie in
(09:56):
the last several decades andmake it look fresh and new.
It's somewhat miraculous in asense.
So anytime we can do that,there's a big, big difference.
And of course, this all buildsupon taking care of our library
film preservation.
I usually will coordinateefforts with our preservation
(10:19):
department and say you know,this is what I'm interested in.
Can we get this on the schedule?
And sometimes it takes two orthree years before we have a
master to make available to thepublic, because we never know
when we bring the negative in.
Are there problems with thenegative?
Do we need a secondary elementto replace bad shots?
(10:42):
You can open up a can ofnitrate that's been cared for by
an archive and yet when youexpose it to oxygen you're
subjecting it to the imagedisappearing under bad
conditions, and we've seen thathappen before.
So every time that we can dothis, we're saving another film,
(11:03):
protecting another film at itsbest.
So I'm very, very happy withthis and I think we talked about
this before when we announcedthat this was going to be coming
out.
But you know, I did find thatone of the cartoons that opened
with the film we put on the deskwhich was a lot of fun because
(11:26):
we knew that the film had openedwith the cartoon and it's
creating that night at themovies sensibility that always
adds a little fun to the proceed.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And I'll just go back for a second just to throw out
some of the names that we'vebeen talking about.
We didn't mention him, and thatis director Vincent Sherman,
and I know he's one of yourfavorites and he's done so many
great films over the years.
And then also cinematographerJames Wong Howe, and this is a
(11:56):
beautifully shot film.
No surprise there.
And then the music that is sogood from Franz Waxman.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, I mean we could do a whole program or two just
talking about the music of FranzWaxman in our library, not
downing the work he did at otherstudios.
He did some amazing work atParamount and Fox, but what he
did at Warner Brothers and MGMand before that I think his
(12:23):
first work in the United Stateswas at Universal.
He wrote the music for Bride ofFrankenstein, died at a
relatively young age and wroteso many magnificent scores.
You know I could talk endlesslyabout the genius of him as a
composer and that would take awhole different show.
Maybe someday we'll do that.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well, it's so great that you know the people who
worked at Warner Brothers thatwe get to revisit their work and
highlight their work like we'redoing here with this one.
So the next film I thought we'dtalk about George is the lone
Technicolor release I believethat you have in December,
outside of the Searchers, whichwe'll hold on to for a little
bit later, but of the classicfilms from 1945, and that's the
(13:07):
Spanish Main starring Paul Henryas the pirate Barracuda and
Maureen O'Hara as the lovelyFrancesca this swashbuckler is.
I mean, it's very entertainingand I know a lot of people were
looking forward to seeing theremaster and watching it.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
And I think it looks terrific, just like all of your
other Technicolor films.
Well, anytime we get theopportunity to work with the
three strip Technicolornegatives, in many cases they
haven't been fooled with thatmuch because the original
Technicolor printing processused dye matrices to make the
(13:52):
prints.
They didn't make prints off thenegatives and very often that
leaves us with negatives thathaven't been touched and
subjected to as much wear.
But what we're able to do andI've talked about this endlessly
, given the proprietarytechnology that we have in terms
(14:17):
of that pixel down to the pixelalignment of the three records,
bringing the negative together.
And fortunately this was thefirst RKO production that used
the three-strip Technicolorprocess and Maureen O'Hara's
(14:39):
blazing red hair was made forTechnicolor.
She was one of those few peoplethat she was beautiful in every
film she ever did, even whenshe was older.
But Technicolor and MaureenO'Hara were kind of made for
each other and the film was agreat deal of fun.
Paul Henry was under contract toRKO and yet made very
(15:03):
significant impressions when hewas loaned out by RKO to Warner
Brothers because 1942 he hadthat one-two punch of now
Voyager and Casablanca and youknow people think he was a
Warner contract player.
He was actually under contractto RKO and borrowed frequently
by Warner Brothers.
I think he enjoyed having thatkind of dashing swashbuckling
(15:30):
role, and Walter Slazak is veryentertaining as the villain.
And then of course, you've gotthe great Frank Borzeghi
directing, and Mr Borzeghi has agreat fan following out there.
So when we make his worksavailable, I always know that
people who appreciate his workare very grateful for that.
(15:52):
And this is one of those filmswhere what we had been working
with in standard definition werereally awful elements that had
been made poorly and cheaply andto finally have this looking
great, it just adds to theentertainment value.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, I was looking at, you know, clips online or
images from the DVD, and thenyou watch this new restoration
and it's like people are goingto really really appreciate how
much the colors pop and just howmuch better it looks and how
that's going to add to theirenjoyment of this film.
(16:33):
It's a huge, huge, hugeprogression forward.
And then you have a nice amountof extras in here as well.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I thought it would be fun to stay in the seafaring
here as well.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I thought it would be fun to stay in the sea ferry.
Yeah, yeah, you've got aclassic technicolor short
subject movie land magic, andthen the classic cartoons
buccaneer, bunny and captainhair blower, plus the trailers
well, those give yosemite sam achance to be, you know, a pirate
, so I thought it was a goodcombination.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
For the cartoons, the short is enjoyable and it's a
great deal of fun, and I'mhoping that we will be able to.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know it's a popcorn movie, george, right?
So that's the kind of film itis.
You just have a lot of fun withit.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I'm hoping we will have more of the Technicolor
Squashbucklers, because I knowthere's a big fan base out there
For sure, and we have many morein the library that are waiting
to be rescued.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, next up we have the Anthony Mann-directed crime
drama the Tall Target from 1951, starring Dick Powell and the
lovely Paula Raymond.
And the Tall Target, of course,is President-elect Abraham
Lincoln, and Dick Powell playsNew York City Police Sergeant
John Kennedy, who gets on atrain bound for Washington and
(17:55):
he's hoping to thwart what hesuspects is an assassination
attempt on the newly electedpresident at his inauguration.
This is a tense president athis inauguration.
This is a tense.
It's atmospheric and it reallymoves along and is highly
entertaining.
The action is mostly on thetrain, which gives it, I thought
, a bit of that claustrophobicfeel, and then you've got the
(18:16):
train whistles and the steampouring from the rails.
That really adds to the tensionand I'm guessing guessing based
on you know, some of the stuffyou mentioned earlier that this
remaster also is a vastimprovement yes the new look,
how much better it looks andsounds.
It really adds to all of thisatmospheric elements of this
film and really makes itenjoyable it brings you more
(18:39):
into the action.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And this has kind of been a good year for Anthony
Mann fans at the Warner Archivebecause we've brought out
several of his really superbworks vault into the hands of
(19:09):
the magicians at Warner BrothersMotion Picture Imaging so we
can go forward with therestoration.
Most of these films haven'tbeen mastered in 30, 35 years
and technology's come a long waysince then and it's about time.
This film is so taut, there'snot a wasted frame, it just gets
(19:29):
you from the very beginning andthere's no Hollywood music
underscoring or anything, it'sthe movement of the train.
It just takes on a wholedifferent sensibility and I
attribute a lot of that toAnthony Mann because he brought
a sense of style to the filmsthat he made and I'm glad that
(19:53):
MGM borrowed him as much as theywere able to get it so that we
have so many of his fine works.
It was a particular treat to beable to bring this film out in
a new 4K scan of thepreservation elements.
(20:13):
This is one of those films wherethe camera negative burned in
the tragic fire.
So fortunately our secondgeneration safety elements were
made before the negative burnedand it looks terrific.
And we put a radio show onthere, an episode of a series
(20:34):
called Mr President with EdwardArnold.
That kind of deals with thissame period of time and the
potential assassination ofLincoln, and that's a real.
It's not like a luxe radiotheater or something where you'd
expect there could possibly bea radio show.
This is a little different.
(20:55):
But I wanted something thatwould give a little more color
and a little more background,and it's rare, so that just adds
to the value of the disc.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and then you also have the two cartoons on
here.
You get Jerry's Cousin andSlicked Up Pup, which were
really fun to watch, and theylook terrific in HD as well,
plus the theatrical trailer.
And then you mentioned itpreviously, george, but it's
very timely because this isJanuary and we have the
inauguration coming up herelater in January here in the
(21:30):
United States, so that's alsotimely for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Absolutely.
That was not intentional interms of timing of the release.
It's just when the master isfinally done.
You know like we have Gabrielover the White House coming out
in the end of January after theinauguration, so I had hoped it
(21:58):
would be ready before.
But I have no control over, youknow, over when things get
completed.
I can put them in early and seeif people will bless my request
and give us the funding that weneed to make these things
happen.
But it's close enough for goodcomfort and it just gives people
(22:22):
more of an opportunity tobasically be thought provoked by
what they're seeing in thesefilms, especially a film like
the Tall Target.
It's not as much in the oldHollywood style, a progression
towards a little moremodernistic, the sense of
(22:44):
post-war modernism that enteredinto American filmmaking very,
very slowly.
After the war, hollywoodstarted to grow up and get a
little more audacious in itsstorytelling.
This is a terrific film andpeople are very pleased that we
(23:05):
released it.
The initial sales have beenterrific, so that only leads to
more great things to follow whenpeople support these releases.
So gratitude to all those whodid and do.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Well, the next film is also kind of a crime drama,
obviously detective story, andwe're going to jump ahead a
couple of decades to the 70s andthat's the Black Eye from 1974.
And it stars football starturned actor Fred Williamson,
george.
I really enjoyed this film.
(23:40):
Williamson's pretty good inthis role.
He's understated, he's likable.
The action keeps the storymoving forward.
I love the filming locations inVenice.
I used to live in Ocean Parkand the old Ocean Park, which is
part of Santa Monica, thoselocations where I guess it was
shot on location down there,down there.
(24:06):
Now you go down there it'sbeautiful, but in this film it's
seedy, it's rundown.
It's what it looked like in the1970s and then you have that
contrast with the beaches andthe boardwalk and all the great
parts of Venice.
The action is very good.
That car chase through theVenice canals is especially
noteworthy and then it has thejazzy music.
It's the style, the look of the70s.
I just thought this was areally entertaining film.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It is a modern of the 70s direction that tells a
solid detective story.
That's not to negate otherfilms that are in the more urban
action drama.
Those are equally compellingand attractive.
But this is a detective filmand Fred Williamson's screen
(25:16):
persona was really.
It made him one of the mostpopular in terms of both box
office and audiences popularscreen performers, certainly of
the early to mid-70s, withoutquestion.
And he continues.
(25:37):
I think he's still working.
I'm not sure about that, but Iknow he has appeared in films in
the last maybe 10, 12 years.
I know I've seen him in otherfilms.
He continued to work.
I think he's in his mid-80s, sohe may be now retired, but he
(26:00):
was great on the football fieldand that led him to his screen
career.
And that doesn't always workout that way, but he's one of
the people that movedsuccessfully from football to
the big screen, as did Jim Brown.
I remember seeing this film whenI was in college.
It was in the film series.
I was too young to see it whenit came out, but I caught it in
(26:24):
college and just thought it wasa lot of fun.
And this is another one wherewe went back to the camera
negative and were able to do a4K scan of the camera negative
and make it look really, reallywonderful and keep the grainy
quality of 1974 films.
(26:47):
Yeah, so if people see grain onthe screen that's because grain
is part of film and I like theorganic feel of the way this
film looks.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, and I can't help but think of, you know,
your recent release, black BeltJones.
Same kind of era, similarstorytelling style.
I mean that's a total martialarts film, but they both look
terrific, you know, they havethe grain in them and they both
have the action stars.
And I think it's terrific thatyou're able to bring out these
(27:19):
seventies films.
Some of them are, you know, notas well known, but they are
very good when you break themdown and you watch them, they're
really solid films, especiallyin that action genre.
This is kind of like a neo-noirstyle of filming.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yes, absolutely, and there won't be more.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, so I think it's great.
All those people out there whohave been wanting more 70s films
, this is terrific news for them.
Well, there's one more 70s film, and that's from 1978.
That is uh I'll give it thefull title here george a night
full of rain go for it.
It'll take a while well, whenyou watch a film, you you
(28:01):
understand the title.
But a night full of rain, alsoknown as the end of the world,
in our usual bed in a night fullof rain, from director lena
vert muller, and and I wasn'tfamiliar with her films, but
this is a fascinating, dreamlikekind of meditation on life, on
love, on politics.
(28:22):
You have these two characters,this very chauvinistic Italian
man and this feminist Americanjournalist.
I guess they're bothjournalists, they're battling
each other, but they also have alove story in there.
It's complicated, but it'sunique and interesting as well,
(28:46):
and just like a lot of the 70sItalian cinema from that era,
and I thought that this newremaster really showcases the
beauty of the cinematography inthis film, because the locations
are amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
And I sound like a broken record, but once again we
went back to the cameranegative and scanned it.
4k and Burt Muller's I talkedabout this when we announced it.
She was an extremely globallypopular filmmaker, had two huge
(29:25):
hits that not only were popularin Europe but had crossed over
to the United States and madebig bucks at the box office,
swept away and then followed bySeven Beauties, and that led
Warner Brothers to sign LenaWehrmüller to a three-picture
contract.
This was the first of the threeand the other two never
(29:49):
followed.
This film did not click at thebox office and I think that it's
not the film.
I think it may have been the wayit was marketed, and one of the
ways that sometimes there's alittle bit of a disconnect is
the foreign films of that era,in the 70s and even in the 60s,
(30:13):
were best handled by smallindependent companies that
really got behind them and knewwhat theaters to put them in and
knew how to market them.
And when studios tried to do it,it didn't always work out, and
I think that that was the casewith this film was the case with
(30:36):
this film.
I'm very pleased that we'vebeen able to bring it out in a
proper aspect ratio and a newmaster of high quality.
Because Lena Verdmuller was ararity in her time in the 70s,
one of the few female filmmakerswho could translate her name to
equating box office.
(30:57):
And it was the success of SweptAway and Seven Beauties that
led to a lot of her earlierfilms that hadn't come to the US
being brought here later bysmall companies, and that's what
led up to the Warner Brothersdeal.
So we do have the one film andwhether you're a fan of Burt
(31:20):
Muller or Giancarlo Giannini orCandice Bergen, it's a lot of
fun and quite interesting andvery much of its time yeah, I, I
think the fans who want to ownher films.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
This is a great remaster, looks and sounds
terrific and it's so great thatthe One Archive could bring this
out for all of those fans.
Well, that's the main body ofthe film's release in December,
george, but there's one kind ofmammoth name we haven't really
gotten into and we're not goingto do a full review today
(31:56):
because I think it's worth adiscussion on its own.
But you did release theSearchers in 4K in December.
It looks terrific, it soundsterrific, it's amazing.
You and I have talked aboutthis a little bit earlier when
it was announced.
The reviews are pouring in andthey're fantastic the reviews
(32:17):
and people are still gettingthem in the mail.
This is still kind of anunfolding, evolving story, but I
just want to say, hey, look, ifyou waited, get your order in.
This is a fantastic film andit's a fantastic release on 4K.
But we'll get into some detailsabout the restoration and other
(32:37):
things later on, anything youwanted to kind of say about this
.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I'm just.
I am so grateful that peopleappreciate all of the work that
went into this from many, manydifferent people.
We wanted our first 4K releaseto be of great substance and
when you're working with one ofthe greatest American films ever
(33:05):
made and one of the mostimportant films in Warner
Brothers history, and to treatit with the best possible care
in all areas, it's an honor andthat's why we're so fortunate to
be the people who are taskedwith the care of the legacy of
(33:29):
the studio, as well as the otherlibraries that we own.
It's a very, very hugeresponsibility.
So anytime that we're able tobring our this is our a plus
game because we entered into newterritory films.
(33:50):
4k hdr is really the ideal wayto view a wide format film,
especially if it was shot invista vision, which not very
many films were vista vision andtechnorama.
Both were similar formats wherethe film went through the
(34:12):
camera sideways and doubled theframe, which gave you this
amazing depth of field andclarity.
The nice thing about thisrelease is we also had a
remastered Blu-ray.
We have two hours of specialfeatures.
We had wonderful compressionand authoring from Fidelity and
(34:32):
Motion, because they're the bestin the business, and we wanted
this disc to be something thatpeople would want to own, and
the incredible positive feedbackwe've gotten, both from
consumers as well as reviewers,is heartening.
And 4K will not be our primaryfocus it can't be just because
(34:59):
of economics, but when the filmdeserves it, maybe we'll get a
chance to be able to make thathappen, and as a company, we're
committed to the physical discas the best way for people to
watch their films at home.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Well, I'll just give one review.
That's very brief, but let mesay that it takes you all of one
shot to know the quality ofthis remaster.
That you've done, George, youand the team there.
The very first shot opens onthat doorway and the camera goes
(35:42):
through and you see thecontrast between the interior of
the cabin and the exteriorLooks terrific.
Camera moves out and you seethat vista the mountains, the
orange it's stunning.
And as you're doing that, thesound of that score from Max
(36:04):
Deiner, so crisp and clear,You're brought in.
Obviously that's John Ford'sdirecting, but the remaster, the
sound, the visual, you'reabsorbed and you're in for the
next iteration creation of thelast master that made it to
(36:36):
Blu-ray.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
But when I saw it I was deeply disappointed and,
frankly, a little bitembarrassed that I didn't think
that we as a company had donethe film any favors.
The initial Blu-ray had yellowsky.
Frankly, it just was arevisionist approach.
People involved with that arenot the people who were involved
(36:58):
with creating this, the peoplewho were involved with creating
this, but colorist Jan Yarbroughand mastering supervisor
extraordinaire Miles Del Ollothey're chiefly responsible for
that and our sound departmentwho, wisely, this was not a film
(37:20):
that needed a Atmos track or a5.1.
There was nothing organicpossible.
There was no stereophonicrecording involved in the making
of this film.
It was monaural and it neededto stay that way because it
would have been fakery otherwise.
(37:41):
When we do have originalproduction elements to go back
to, if you look at North byNorthwest, that music was
recorded three-channel stereo.
Creating an Atmos track wasorganically possible.
You weren't introducing 2024sound elements to a 1959 movie.
(38:04):
When you do that, it'sridiculous.
Job on North by Northwest and Ihope we've done an awesome job
with the Searchers it certainlyseems from what everybody is
saying we succeeded in what wewere trying to do.
I certainly feel incrediblyproud and very emotional about
(38:26):
it because it's a terriblyimportant film in the history of
American cinema and, comingfrom John Ford and John Wayne
and John Ford's cast ofcharacters and the
cinematography, everything iscaptured so beautifully and we
(38:58):
had a lot of obstacles toovercome, working with that very
inferior film stock that wasprevalent in 1956, kodak 5248.
The yellow layer collapses andfades and what went into the
restoration, as you so wiselymentioned earlier, tim, that's
really enough of a story for awhole other podcast, so we
(39:19):
should best discuss it atanother time.
But if you have ordered thesearchers and you haven't got
your copy yet, we're in themiddle of our third reorder and
trying to get copies because theorders keep coming in and
everybody's working over timeand over the holidays,
(39:39):
especially to get people theirdiscs.
We anticipated that it wasgoing to be a strong seller, but
this release is very, veryempirical evidence that physical
media is alive and well.
Within a big studio, it doesn'ttake a third party to make it
(40:01):
magic.
We can make it magic right here.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Well, I look forward to talking about that a little
bit more, but I thought now wewould take some time to look
back at this last year of 2024.
I think it's been a stellaryear, but I thought maybe we'd
focus in on a few standoutmoments, and I'll.
I'll start with mine and, and,and you can put your thoughts in
(40:27):
, george, as to as to that aswell.
But I did want to go back toMarch as a moment that I thought
was really special and I know alot of people who are major
supporters of the Warner Archivefelt that way as well and that
was the 15th anniversary thatyou had in March.
(40:48):
That was a real outpouring ofsupport for the work that you do
, george, and just yourcommitment to the Warner Archive
and these classic films and tobringing them out on physical
media.
And, you know, making it 15years, quite a milestone, and
there were a lot of challengesfor you, especially in the last
(41:09):
five.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
That is the understatement of the century.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
But you got there and so we had a terrific
celebration of it, and then itended up that this year 16 or 15
, I don't know how you count itbut has been, I think, maybe one
of your best yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
This is year 16.
I was grateful that we wereable to broaden the canvas a
little bit by doing things thatwe had done in the DVD realm in
terms of bringing in moreHanna-Barbera animation,
bringing in TV shows like Gold45 and the Alaskans, which
(41:53):
people hadn't been able to seeat all they were never on DVD
and for them to come off thecamera negatives and look so
good.
And we've got Cheyenne coming.
You know in this, now thatwe're in 2025.
People know we're working onthat and it's going to be a very
exciting complete series fromthe original elements and there
(42:18):
were so many releases.
We were able to continue onwith Looney Tunes and we will be
continuing on with Looney Tuneseven more in 2025 in a
different way.
That, I think, is going to bevery, very pleasing to the fans.
We're going to build on thesuccess we had in prior years
(42:39):
and take it a step further, andwe'll be able to make
announcements about thatprobably in about two, a month
and a half, maybe two months.
And I think one of the thingsthat we were part of that
because it was basicallyreconstructing a movie and that
was the new master of that'sEntertainment, which we had to
(43:01):
rebuild an entire film and matchwhat had been done down to the
frame in 1974.
Had been done down to the framein 1974.
And the response for people whohave purchased it and those who
have reviewed it has beenincredibly rewarding, given all
(43:21):
the work that we put into it.
And then we had so manywonderful Technicolor
restorations.
All of them looked amazing.
Wonderful Technicolorrestorations.
(43:42):
All of them looked amazing.
And we were able to makeinroads with great filmmakers,
even bringing that final AlfredHitchcock films in the Warner
library out on Blu-ray.
That's a big deal.
Now they're all available andwe have so much work ahead of us
.
I'm thankful to say, and I'mhoping that the support will
(44:02):
continue.
If everything works out the wayI'm hoping, 2025 will easily
eclipse 2024, which is a hugestatement to make.
But I believe and again, Ican't promise that, because I'm
still waiting for people to comeback and say, yes, george,
(44:23):
we're going to do what you'dlike, but what I'd like to do is
ultimately something that'sgoing to be very, very
profitable for our company andits shareholders, and that's my
primary job here.
So, to make the fans happy, getthem what they want.
With one release, there's boundto be somebody who's
(44:46):
disappointed that it isn't adifferent release and we just
can't make everybody happy atthe same time.
We're trying to hit all theright notes Overall, based on
the response we're getting viapeople who send in.
Some people actually still sendletters via snail mail, but
(45:09):
most of the correspondence isthrough social media.
At the end of the day, theresults are in the sales and
we've had a lot of really,really impressive performances
by some really great films thatdeserve to be on people's
shelves.
As one of our biggest supportersout there, constantly makes the
(45:34):
point you don't need theinternet to watch a movie from
Warner Archive and if yourinternet is out, you put the
disc in your player and you'regoing to get the best possible
quality, especially if our nameis on it.
And I take personalresponsibility for making sure
that that happens.
But it isn't me by myself.
(45:58):
I couldn't be the steward ofthis work without all the
support that comes from ourpreservation team people at
Warner Brothers Motion PictureImaging, the people at Warner
Brothers Post Production,archival Sound.
All of them work with me, ourmastering department especially.
(46:18):
We're all I would considerourselves soldiers in the battle
against time to preserve,protect time to preserve,
protect and release great motionpictures, whether they be short
animated motion pictures orlong feature motion pictures or
(46:40):
motion pictures made fortelevision.
We want to give something toeveryone, and I'm hoping that
this will be a year that willmake our fans happy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Well, this last year sure was, and I'm sure that that
will happen again in thiscoming year.
George, you have a track recordthat says that's exactly what's
going to happen.
But before we wrap up, I had afew specific questions that I
wanted to ask you.
It's more just for fans'interest level.
(47:14):
There's not necessarily hugeimportance in these things, but
sometimes people like a littleend of the year thing and you
may have already answered it inyour recap here that you just
had but what was the best sellerof 2024 for the Warner Archive?
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Well, I don't think it would come as any surprise.
It's only been available forthree weeks and it already is
the 4K of the Searchers.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, I figured that's probably what it was.
And then, beyond the Searchers,would it be an animation title
after that?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Would it be an animation title?
After that?
We have, I would say, probablytwo dozen releases that are all
very strong, solid sellers.
We have really been blessedbecause we've had such wonderful
films to bring to the publicand we did, I think, a little
(48:16):
bit of a better job at bringingsome more contemporary titles,
some films actually made in thismillennium you know, just
broadening the horizons a littlebit was very welcomed by people
who felt that they were beingexcluded.
They didn't want films from the30s and 40s, they wanted films
(48:41):
from the 90s and the aughts orthe 70s.
So we're trying to hit all thepoints, keep ourselves
profitable and makeentertainment available to the
people that want it.
That has been our mission fromthe very beginning.
And rare and hard to find isstill.
You know, it's very differentif you say rare and hard to find
(49:03):
and you've got a 4K of thesearchers.
There's kind of an oxymoron,that kind of conflicts there.
But when we were given theopportunity to take this on, we
felt that we could bring our Agame to the proceedings and I
(49:24):
think we did and I'm hoping itwill be the beginning of more.
But to clarify again, ourprimary focus is going to
continue to be Blu-ray and formost of the older films that
gives you really the closestapproximation of what is there
(49:47):
in the negative of the filmitself, of what is there in the
negative of the film itself,because a lot of older films
don't have 4K's worth ofinformation in the frame.
It's a little bit of acontroversial point of view, but
I have been counseled byseveral mentors and experts that
(50:11):
this is the right approach andwhen we get the opportunity to
take something that just screamsthat it was made for 4K, like
the searchers we'll certainlytake up the gauntlet and give
our A game to that, should thenext one arise.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Well, George, I counted like 67, I think, titles
released over the year.
If you add the 10 from theHanna-Barbera Superstars 10,
that pushes us up into like 77or whatever.
I may have missed one or two,but that's a lot of titles.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Was there one of those that kind of surprised you
in terms of the you know, in apositive way, in beyond your
expectations?
My expectations are kind ofaligned with what a film is and
how it has been received inprior iterations, and that
iteration may be a theatricalrelease.
(51:20):
But having worked with thislibrary for a substantial amount
of time, I know it well and Ialso have my ear to the ground.
I know what the consumers want.
I also know that, no matterwhat we do, as soon as what we
do comes out, it's like great,thank you.
(51:42):
Now here's what else I wantEndless ridiculous lists, and it
surprises me at times thatpeople don't realize that we
actually don't look at it as alist.
But every film is its ownanimal and needs to be treated
according to what kind oftreatment it deserves.
(52:05):
There are so many films outthere that need help, that are
missing a reel of the negativeor that are having some other
distress, and then we eventuallycan find the answer.
I can tell you that, if allgoes well, the plans are to
(52:25):
release in 2025 two films thatwill actually be longer versions
than what was released intheaters, and I'm talking quite
older films from the nitrate era.
So we've got some big surprisesup our sleeve, and we also have
(52:46):
a lot of things that we'reasking for that we don't know if
they're going to happen or not,but we hear you, we listen to
all of the positive advice andwe look upon what has been very
successful and try to rebuild orI should say we try to build
(53:07):
from that.
I'm excited for the Tom andJerry Cinemascope collection.
We want to continue more withclassic animation, theatrical
animation.
There will be moreHanna-Barbera some big surprises
in store in that department.
And one thing is not at asacrifice for the other.
There's room for all.
(53:28):
We're blessed to have thegreatest film library of any
corporation.
In the other, there's room forall.
We're blessed to have thegreatest film library of any
corporation in the industry, andwith that comes a
responsibility to make thosefilms available to the people
who want to own them.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Well, it's fun to kind of look back with you,
george, and to hear your take onit, and it's really good to
hear about the successful yearthat 2024 was for the Warner
Archive and looking forward into2025.
And we're well into this yearwith you, george, in terms of
what you have on the slate andit feels like just a strong
(54:04):
continuation of last year withall of these.
Some of my favorite things werethese classic TV box sets,
which I think are real gems, andthen the other collections that
you had with the Thin manCollection, the fact that you
were able to put volume one andone through four of the Looney
Tunes into a collection.
(54:24):
I just think that's great forthe fans.
I know it's not always new, buthaving collections is great for
fans who can do catch up.
The Hanna-Barbera superstars,as we mentioned.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Absolutely, and the thing is that you give the
consumer a choice.
We wouldn't have been able toafford to remaster and restore
all the Thin man movies if theywere going into a box set
without the box set or I shouldsay it's basically a six-disc
(54:59):
Amory but in order for us tohave put that out and made our
money back on the incredibleinvestment because we make this
investment by ourselves, it'snot that money comes from
another division or another areait's up to us to have a profit
(55:20):
and loss statement that'll lookgood to the finance people.
So that's part of myresponsibility is to show them a
profit.
We restored each Thin man movie, released it.
The audience for those Thin manmovies ate them up and after a
(55:41):
certain period of time wethought okay, now we can make
this available with a valueproposition at a lower price for
people who didn't buy thecollection.
But it is not at the expense ofthe people who originally
bought when the films came out.
They made that possible andthere are some people who would
(56:04):
rather wait three or four yearsand buy a lower-priced
collection than buy individually.
Everybody's dealing withfinancial struggles of one way
or another, or certainly a lotof people are.
(56:25):
We're very mindful of that.
That's why we want to try tokeep our product reasonably
priced.
We don't like it when we seeretailers charging over list
price for our product.
Our single discs have been$21.98 since our very first
Blu-ray and that hasn't changed.
And yet retailers are chargingmore than that.
(56:45):
We have no control over it.
It's a free country.
People are able to charge whatthey want, but it's certainly
not what we want.
We want the customer to havevalue.
We're doing our very best towork with our partners to make
certain that they understand howimportant it is to stay at the
(57:06):
manufacturer's suggested listprice.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's just been a terrificyear and, George, I want to
thank you for all the timeyou've given to the listeners of
the Extras and all the fans ofthe Warner Archive out there
over the 2024 year.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
It's been a very rewarding year and we look for
this year upon us as anopportunity to make more fans
happy with more releases.
They're the Warner Archive name.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
Well, what a great year 2024 was.
I hope all of you listeningfound some titles that you're
just so grateful to add to yourlibrary this year, and I want to
thank you for listening,especially to the podcast with
George.
Those are always a lot of fun.
I know everybody enjoys them,but thank you for your support
over this last year.
(58:02):
If you are interested inpurchasing any of the films that
we talked about today, therewill be links in the podcast
show notes so you can alwayslook for those there and on our
website.
And if you enjoyed the podcast,please think about following
the show or leaving us a review,or you can also send us a quick
text message for those who areinterested in sending me a note
(58:24):
or feedback on the show, and wealways appreciate those who
leave reviews at your favoritepodcast provider.
Until next time you've beenlistening to Tim Millard, stay
slightly obsessed.
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