Displaying items by tag: Warner Archive

Before we get to this week’s new releases, I’d like to draw your attention to a worthwhile documentary project on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo.  If you’re reading this column, you probably have some interest in classic Hollywood and the history of Los Angeles.  If so, check out After 68, a documentary on the rise and fall of L.A.’s historic Ambassador Hotel.

The Ambassador and its adjacent nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, was one of the key hot spots in Los Angeles, particularly throughout the 30s and 40s.  It hosted two Academy Award ceremonies, was frequented by pretty much every major star you can think of, and was used as a filming location for everything from The Graduate to Tobe Hooper’s Toolbox Murders, which is how I was able to visit it.  [...]

This will be a quick one, updating you all on the week’s newest releases from Warner Archive, so let’s dive right on in.

The Frozen Dead (1966) – An early JET’s Most Wanted pick finally makes its official DVD debut!  Mad scientist Dana Andrews had the forethought to cryogenically freeze the heads of some of the top Nazi leaders of WWII.  Now it’s time to bring them back and get the old Third Reich going again.  Your Nazi Zombie collection isn’t complete without this one, folks.  [...]

This week’s Burnt Offerings include titles from Paramount returning to print courtesy of Warner Archive and a quartet of classics from 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives.

Let’s kick things off with the latest from the Warner Archive Collection.

WARNER ARCHIVE – NEW THIS WEEK

Going Hollywood (1933) – Marion Davies and Bing Crosby star in this musical from director Raoul Walsh.  Crosby plays a radio crooner (quite a stretch, I realize) who goes to L.A. to make his movie debut.  Davies is a schoolteacher with a crush who follows him, determined to win him over.  Evidently restraining orders weren’t around back in 1933.  [...]

Time for this week’s round-up of what’s new in MOD from the Warner Archive Collection. In addition, Sony last week quietly added some new titles to their own MOD program, the Sony Pictures Choice Collection. Don’t forget that the Warner Archive website offers one-stop shopping for Warner, Sony and MGM releases.

WARNER ARCHIVE – NEW THIS WEEK

Black Market Babies (1945) – Another ripped-from-today’s-headlines exploitation expose from Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures. Ralph Morgan stars as a disgraced, alcoholic doctor who teams up with lowlife Kane Richmond to create a “private maternity ward” for new mothers to dump off their unwanted brats.

Since the Warner Archive Collection introduced the concept of Manufactured On Demand DVDs, I’ve written a number of times about my enthusiasm for the format.  As a longtime champion of forgotten and obscure movies with my JET’s Most Wanted project, I immediately recognized that MOD was the best way for many of these movies with an admittedly limited appeal to finally be released on DVD.  For awhile now, we’ve been trying to figure out a way to increase our coverage of MOD discs on The Bits.  This column is the result of these efforts.

Every week, Burnt Offerings will take a closer look at what’s newly available from Warner Archive and other MOD programs from Sony, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and Universal.  I’ll run down what’s new and take a look at what’s coming down the pike.  I’ll also be digging through the Warner Archive Collection and reviewing titles I think are particularly exceptional, noteworthy or unusual.  Some of these will be recent additions to the collection, others will be titles that have been available for awhile.  There are over 1,500 titles available on Warner Archive alone, so it’s easy for stuff to fall through the cracks.  Burnt Offerings will try to catch them.