The DVD Report #35

A traditional way to start the New Year is to review the prior year’s best, so without ado, here is my ten best list of DVD releases for 2007.

1. Ford at Fox. A massive 24-film set including: Pilgrimage, The Prisoner of Shark Island, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley and My Darling Clementine. It also features a documentary on legendary director John Ford, his World War II documentaries, a coffee table book and reproductions of the original souvenir programs for The Iron Horse and Four Sons.

2. Charlie Chan Collection – Vol. 3. Continuing the commitment they brought to the release of the first two sets of four films in 2006, Fox has lovingly restored the last four of the Warner Oland Chan films, complete with commentaries and documentaries. Charlie Chan Collection – Vol. 4, featuring the first four Chan films with Sidney Toler, who took over when Oland died, releases February 12.

3. If… and O Lucky Man! Lindsay Anderson’s respective 1968 and 1973 films with Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis were finally made available. The first was released by Criterion with their customary bells and whistles, the second by Warner Bros., as one of their prestige releases for the year. We have McDowell to thank for the latter, as his condition for doing a commentary on the Warner Bros. reissue of A Clockwork Orange was that he be allowed to do one for O Lucky Man! as well.

4. Warner Home Video Directors Series – Stanley Kubrick. Spruced-up special editions of some of Kubrick’s best: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. It also includes the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. Though I am not usually in favor of double dipping (re-issuing the same films over and over again), these titles were way overdue for an overhaul.

5. Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men and The Departed. Examples of the quick-release pattern of really great movies from theaters to DVD. It used to be that only box office bombs found their way to home video within a few months of their theatrical release, but these films were all made available shortly after their theatrical runs ended. This is a welcome trend that seems to be continuing unabated with such recent theatrical releases as Into the Wild, Gone Baby Gone, Amerian Gangster, Lust, Caution, In the Valley of Elah and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford all scheduled for imminent release on DVD.

6. The various John Wayne collections made available on the 100th anniversary of his birth, as well as the modest collections of Katharine Hepburn and Babara Stanwyck films made available for their centenary. Where, though, was the 100th birthday salute to Rosalind Russell? Sadly, Columbia, not Warner Bros., Fox or even Paramount, controls most of her unreleased films and they apparently couldn’t care less. James Stewart and Bette Davis are among those whose centenaries will be celebrated in 2008. There aren’t many James Stewart films that haven’t been released yet, but Warner Bros. is still sitting on a number of Bette Davis titles. This would be a great time to release them.

7. Forbidden Hollywood – Vol. 1. Though technically a December 2006 release, this is cause for celebration no matter which year it hit the shelves. The initial release in the Warner Bros. series dedicated to films made before Hollywood’s production code put creative brakes on movie frankness, it features Jean Harlow in Red-Headed Woman, Mae Clarke in Waterloo Bridge, and Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face. Volume Two is coming in March loaded with even more once-scandalous films. Norma Shearer in both The Divorcee and A Free Soul, Bette Davis in Three on a Match, Ruth Chatterton in Female, and Stanwyck again in Night Nurse. It will also feature a new documentary: Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood.

8. Robert Mitchum – The Signature Collection. It finally made available three of the most requested titles since the inception of DVD a decade ago: Home From the Hill, The Sundowners and Angel Face along with three others. Hats off to Warner Bros. Signature collections in general, which have also thrown worthy spotlights on Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Paul Newman, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster and others.

9. Fox Horror Classics. Though the three films included in this release, The Lodger, Hangover Square and The Undying Monster are more appropriately classified as suspense films, not horror films, any advertising ploy that draws attention to them gets my support.

10. Alfred Hirtchcock Presents: Season Three and all the great TV series DVDs out there. This series, which ran from 1955-1962, has lost none of its unique charm. The third season was one of its best with guest stars that included Vincent Price, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Peter Lorre, Fay Wray, Joseph Cotten, William Shatner, Jack Klugman and E.G. Marshall.

An Honorable Mention goes to Universal for finally releasing The Heiress. But where are An American Tragedy, Back Street (1932), Magnificent Obsession (1935), Private Worlds, Remember the Night, Hold Back the Dawn, Back Street (1941), Love Letters, To Each His Own, Magnificent Obsession (1954), The Tarnished Angels, This Earth Is Mine, Back Street (1962), Freud and all the other titles they are sitting on?

While I’m on the subject, although Warner Bros. remains the pre-eminent purveyor of classic films on DVD, there are still scores of titles they haven’t yet released. Where, for example, are Night Must Fall, The Mortal Storm, Waterloo Bridge (1940), Blossoms in the Dust, The White Cliffs of Dover, The Corn Is Green, The Valley of Decision, The Green Years, Green Dolphin Street, The Secret Garden (1949), The Blue Veil, Tea and Sympathy, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Sunrise at Campobello, A Majority of One, All Fall Down, America, America, Dear Heart, The Subject Was Roses and Rachel, Rachel?