Kind of off topic, but with all the b-movies we pine to see on dvd it kind of makes me think about all the trully great films not on dvd. I mean when the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is out in a 2-disc deluxe format and mediocre tv shows are availiable in complete season sets how can films such as the original Magnificent Ambersons and Chimes at Midnight not be availiable in any form outside of perhaps bootlegs or an outdated foreign release with no bonus material, In this thread post the dvds that you think must be out along with what features you would like to see. I'll start...
Stanely Kubrick's Fear and Desire
*A selection of Kubrick's early short films
*Commentary by a film historian explaining how the movie relates to Kubrick's earlier work.
The Magnificent Ambersons
*Welles' original scenes digital recreated and stored in a "deleted scenes" menu
* Commentary by Roger Ebert since he did a pretty good job with commentary over Welles' Citizen Kane
*Documentary on Welles original intention for the film versus that of the studio
Chimes at Midnight
*Restoration demonstration
*A documentary detailing Welles work on the film, which first began as a play in 1939.
Miramax currently owns the rights to countless asian action flicks that they won't release. I mean, they have them.... but they won't let us have them. At least the Magnificent Ambersons is available on VHS. All the stuff that Miramax is holding isn't available anywhere in the US..... unless, like you said, it is a bootleg.
I personally want Eraserhead out on a DVD asap. Hell, it's hard enough to find a regular VHS copy anywhere. There is a Japanese DVD print, but it isn't very good, and it's hard to get a hold of. It is too late, however for a full DVD release. Jack Nance, who played Henry in the movie, died a few years back, and so his commentary on the movie is lost forever. I would love to here Lynch's commentary on making the movie, especially due to the fact it took him 4 years to complete, was done using no funds, and is an excellent movie. And, even though he probably won't talk about it, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE FETUS BABY!! Damnit, I just want to know how he made it! That's all! What the hell is it??? Come on Criterion. This is one you shouldn't pass up.
Scott H.
I actually have a pretty good copy of Eraserhead on dvd bootleg I got from a comic convention. Bootlegs from conventions have come along way their all very good quality, well the ones I have anyway. I do agree I need a commentary though.
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You can’t give it, you can't buy it, and you just don't get it!-Aeon Flux
David Lynch actually has a DVD of Eraserhead for sale on his website, along with a disc of his early shorts. Still haven't bitten the bullet and ordered it (expensive little bugger), but word on the street is it's great; Lynch spent a couple years cleaning up the transfer, and it features an hour-long conversation with him (as well as, IIRC, a deleted scene).
Doubt there's much chance of Fear & Desire coming out anytime soon-- I hear Kubrick was pretty strongly against it being released in any form.
Monster Squad and Freaked come to mind
Okay, the titles I am going to mention may not be considered to be THE GREATEST FILMS, but since we are Cult Film admirers here these titles may be of interest on a wish list.
FROM BEYOND
-original 1.85:1 widescreen, hi-def and original Director's Cut!
-audio commentary with Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Ken Foree!
-original theatrical trailer
-interview or commentary with producer Charlie Band discussing the history of the defunct Empire Pictures!
EQUINOX (2 Disk Set)
DISK 1:
-the original Dennis Muren 76 min student film "The Equinox: A Journey Into the Supernatural"
-audio commentary with Dennis Muren and co-writer Mark Thomas McGee
-interview with Frank Bonner
-interview with Fritz Leiber
DISK 2:
-the theatrical release version "Equinox"
-interview with producer Jack H. Harris
-intervierw with director Jack Woods
-theatrical trailer
-stills and photo gallery
-reproductive pressbook
THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN (3 DISK SET)
DISK 1:
-original Spanish release version "La Marca Del Hombre-Lobo" in it's original 70mm 2.35:1 Techniscope, stereophonic sound, and 3-D format complete with English Subtitles.
-Spanish theatrical trailer
-interview with actor Paul Naschy
-stills and photo gallery
DISK 2:
-original English Language international version titled "Hell's Creatures" in it's original 70mm 2.35:1 Techniscope, stereophonic sound, and 3-D format.
-original English international trailer.
-original West German trailer
-stills and photo gallery
DISK 3:
-U.S. theatrical cut version titled "Frankenstein's Bloody Terror" in it's original 70mm 2.35:1 Techniscope, stereophonic sound, and 3-D format.
-original U.S. theatrical trailer.
-interview with U.S. distributor Samuel M. Sherman
-stills and photo gallery.
Yet, this is all one big pipe dream, but we can dream right?
Ooh, good call on Equinox! Love that movie. "Wait, I just remembered-- Asmodius is another word for devil!"
I'm still waiting for THE SEVEN-UPS and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, as well as PUPPET ON A CHAIN, CONVOY, ROLLING THUNDER, and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. Maybe not great films, but I'll definitely buy them. (Some are available outside the U.S., but I'll wait for the U.S. releases).
I'd love to see a good transfer of Twice Upon a Time. I've read that it won't happen until one of the two producers dies; they argued over the film and neither side will give in, so the movie can't be rereleased. I've got the VHS, but a good DVD treatment would be outstanding.
The Friends Of Eddie Coyle is a great movie that I've only been able to see on TV. I first stopped to watch it because the late Richard Jordan was playing one of the cops. Mitchum was in another movie at that time that isn't in print anymore called Going Home (1971). I saw part of it once about 2 years ago or so on TCM. The print was uncut and letterboxed of course. It was about this young guy (Jan-Michael Vincent), who isn't drafted because he has asthma, and his turbulent (non) relationship with his estranged dad who has been serving time for killing his wife (the guy's mom). Has anyone else ever seen this? If TCM ever shows it again, I'm definitely going to record it.
Speak of the Devil, I got a bootleg version of Monster Squad on DVD today
Also add Alligator on the list
I love Freaked, it's hilarious, revolting and bizarre at the same time. I'm glad it's finally getting a delux treatment on DVD this year. They should do the same thing with the Idiot Box tvseries Winter and Stern made for MTV in the early 90's.
The Incredible Shrinking man....arghhhh! i'll have to wait until someone makes a hideous remake for the remote possibility of a release on dvd
Night of the comet - purely for educational purposes ;-)
ROBOCHIC . . .
peter johnson/denny crane
Good thread.
There used to be a number of these for me, like Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Once Upon a Time in the West... Guess what? :-P
There are a lot of great AIP titles that are in limbo due to rights issues (the current rights holder seems reluctant to release them to ANYbody):
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED
IT CONQUERED THE WORLD
I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF
TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN
BLOOD OF DRACULA
HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER
EARTH VS. THE SPIDER
THE SHE CREATURE
THE UNDEAD
THE BRAIN EATERS
VOODOO WOMAN
WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST
THE HEADLESS GHOST
and a few others I think as well. A few of them have been released in R2 PAL editions in the UK (pretty decent ones too), but no sign of a domestic release on the horizon.
I have a copy of "Twice Upon A Time" taped from Cartoon Network, that I am holding onto until it ever gets a DVD release. Even though I accidently taped about two seconds of an episode of "Due South" over part of it when I forgot which tape I had in the machine. My father, my sister and I discovered this movie on cable years ago and loved it. I've always thought it was a shame that it is mostly unknown.
I would love a box set of "The Idiot Box" series. Would love a DVD set of "Due South", the season box sets are available now, but are apparently awful with defective discs being common and s**tty transfers.
Something to note, "Going Home" was on the late movie on Turner South last night/this morning. I'd never heard of it before and hadn't seen this thread until now. But I watched it, very gritty and moody drama. I liked the performances by the main cast (especially Mitchum) but it really didn't go anywhere for most of the movie. Very 70s ending, but would definitely leave most viewers unsatisfied or angry.
I'd love if the three 60s Dr. Mabuse crime thrillers from Germany that I've seen would get DVD releases. I hope some day to see all the films from the 1920s up through the 1970s Jess Franco nail in the coffin last film. But so far I've only caught three from when the series was revived in in the 60s: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, The Invisible Dr. Mabuse, and I think The Return of Dr. Mabuse. I'd love kitted out versions with German and English language tracks and appropriate subtitles. I know a guy has been restoring and releasing some of the other films in the series ("Thousand Eyes of ..." and another one I think) and Criterion did the 1933 versions of "Testament", I just hope that the other lesser (but still great fun) films get released some day. I'd love to see the dramatic end of "Invisible" again, when his scheme falls apart and how he is discovered, yets still screams, "Victorious!" insanely as everything burns around him.
I thought of one. How about Song of the South, which Disney refuses to release in America because of how p**sy groups like the NAACP get over it?
Didn't I hear they were finally releasing Song of the South?
Cemetery Man
The Sect
Riot on the Sunset Strip
The Glory Stompers
tv shows, I'd pick sifl and olly
Post Edited (06-21-05 17:41)
I second that Robo-CHIC DVD release.
PETER!! tell us a story from the set of Robo-CHIC!! Pleeeeaaasssee. We want to hear some of the atrocities that occured and what loss of life and limb it took to keep people from walking off the set in disgust. Pleeease.
I'm going to just echo a few I've already read... I was a Teenage Werewolf I saw once, but would looooove to see again. Robo-Chik just cuz it sounds horrible... and I'm going to echo Tazz and Yaddo call for IdiotBox and Freaked. I don't really understand why the IdiotBox hasn't found its way onto DVD yet, but I sure am excited that Freaked has finally found the light. I couldn't be more excited to retire my crappy VHS copy of that movie and see that amazing title treatement on my flat screen. I'm gonna crank up that Henry Rollins so loud my mother is gonna Freak herself! Whatever. It's better than my Thriller video (just kidding)...
There's rumors of a fall 2006 release (for the 60th anniversary), but it still isn't out on DVD *yet*.
speaking of the soundtrack, I get so p**sed, I CAN NEVER FIND ANY OF THE SONGS FROM FREAKED ANYWHERE!
it's got such a great soundtrack
"FREEKS! THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL US! CAUSE A MAD SCIENTIST f**kED WITH OUR DNA!"
Jeez Louise . . .
As far as people walking off goes, Kathy Shower DID walk off when the producers wouldn't give her permission to turn the whole project over to Paramount for a rumoured $18million buy-out -- some genius over there thought it would be the next "Airplane" -- if that had happened, I no doubt would have lost my job, but one DOES wonder what would've happened -- Ditto the approach by USA Network to do an in-house series based entirely upon the biker gang Satan's Onions. Once Orion trotted out the lawsuit, both offers evaporated like the morning mist --
A good drinking game to play while watching ROBO is to take a shot every time you notice that the gal beneath the wig ain't Shower no more, but her replacement Jennifer Estrada (Eric Estrada's wife).
We shot a very very lengthy scene at an abandoned sheep-rendering/slaughterhouse factory/plant, that had all these ultra-cool machines inside. Many of us got bored between takes and wandered around exploring. We found this one gigantic room/pit piled from a floor 10ft. below to the ceiling with rotting sheep skins. Seen in the half-light of an unpowered building, I have nothing to compare that to --
Jack Carter was an absolute scream on set, dipping his finger into various pools of unhealthy oils & whatnot & sniffing his finger & then giving forth with these grand vaudevillian retching scenes -- never the same way twice. Where does one go today to study fake-puking like that?
There is this one girl in a bar scene, who at the time was Burt (Robin the Boy Wonder) Ward's real life girlfriend. You can spot her -- she's the only one hanging out with the bikers who has long dark hair. Anyway, her pet project was to wear no panties beneath her short skirts, and then bend over at opportune moments in front of the cast & crew -- especially the crew -- to "tie her bootlace" or "look at something interesting on the ground". Burt lectured her about this a few times, but did no good that I could tell.
I must say, we had the time of our lives on the set -- hey, nobody involved would have walked away -- You have to remember that much of the film was ruined in post -- Ed Hansen took over from Jeff Mandel. Mandel, who was the original writer/director, should have been left in charge. We all really believed we were making a real screwball farcical parody/comedy.
I also got to meet and work with Phil Proctor for the first time, and through that initial association, got to work with John Goodman, Phyllis Diller, and Anntte Bening, among others, on later projects. I still hope to direct/produce David Ossman's latest stage adaptation of Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, in Colorado -- and it all came about through ROBOCHIC!!
peter johnson/denny crane
Those are some great little stories there Peter, thanks for telling them...though I have no idea what this means.
I saw 'No Blade Of Grass' on TCM lastweek (letterboxed) and should have taped it, but didn't because I thought it was inprint at least on VHS, and it isn't. I'd been wanting to see it for years, and thought it was pretty good.
Peter, you rock! I hope to have some cool stories like that once I get my career going. As for movies I'd love to see get the DVD treatment: Night Of The Creeps, Encounter Of The Spooky Kind 2(well pretty much Sammo's entire back catalogue that isn't on DVD yet), Cemetery Man....... Damn my minds blanking out on me.