KAZAN AT FOX: 8 New to Blu-Ray Including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Exclusive to their site (FoxConnect), 20th Century Fox has released two Elia Kazan sets on Blu-Ray -- but we have them for rent! They are:

Kazan at Fox, Vol. 1 (Blu-Ray)

Kazan at Fox, Vol. 2 (Blu-Ray)
Volume 1 consists of titles that were released before as singles on standard DVD. Most of the bonus features carry over and Panic has two new ones.

Volume 2 titles were released on standard DVD in the 18-disc Elia Kazan Collection, but were never released as singles (and are not likely to be soon). Details below.



Hailed as one of the most acclaimed and influential directors of all time, Elia Kazan remains a true Hollywood icon. This collection presents four of his finest films, available for the first time on Blu-Ray with authentic high-quality picture and sound.

Boomerang (1947)
Director Elia Kazan won critical acclaim for this vividly portrayed, suspenseful 1947 true crime drama set in Connecticut, where the events actually happened. When a beloved priest is gunned down, the local police chief (Lee J. Cobb) is under enormous pressure to find his murderer, and, based only on vague descriptions, he undertakes a massive manhunt, eventually arriving at both a suspect (Arthur Kennedy) and a confession.

But the state’s attorney (Dana Andrews) is determined to convict only if it’s right to do so. Also starring Jane Wyatt, Cara Williams, Sam Levene, Ed Begley and Karl Malden, Boomerang is gripping noir entertainment from start to finish.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio Commentary by film historians Alain Silver and Jame Ursini
Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
Director Elia Kazan and producer Darryl F. Zanuck caused a sensation with "the most spellbinding story ever put on celluloid" (Hollywood Reporter), which won three Academy Awards including Best Picture. One of the first films to directly tackle racial prejudice, this acclaimed adaptation of Laura Z. Hobson's bestseller stars Gregory Peck in an Oscar nominated role as a journalist assigned to write a series on anti-Semitism.

Searching for an angle, he decides to pose as a Jew - and soon discovers what it is to be a victim of religious intolerance. Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield, Dean Stockwell and June Havoc also star in this riveting World War II classic.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio Commentary by Celeste Holm, June Havoc and Film Critic Richard Schickel
  • AMC Backstory Episode: Gentleman's Agreement
  • Fox Movietone Newsreels
Pinky (1949)
Pinky, a young nurse (Jeanne Crain), returns to her small southern hometown, but the trip is bittersweet one: Educated in the North, Pinky is engaged to a doctor who doesn't know that she is part black. Her grandmother (Ethel Waters) is a proud black woman who is less than happy to learn that Pinky's fiancee is white. Then, Pinky's friendship with a southern aristocrat, Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), is cause for more scandal - and a lawsuit - when she dies and leaves her house to Pinky.

Shunned by both blacks and whites, Pinky's choices make her the unfortunate target of bigotry in this compelling classic. This deeply moving drama features three indelible Oscar-nominated performances from Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio Commentary by film historian Kenneth Geist
Panic in the Streets (1950)
In this suspenseful melodrama, a bullet-ridden corpse turns up in the water off the New Orleans docks. To the police, he's a John Doe...until a public health doctor (Richard Widmark) discovers he carries a virulent strain of bubonic plague. Hundreds of officers are mobilized to track down the killers and all who had contact with the dead man in a desperate race against the clock before the highly contagious disease spreads far beyond the port area and puts the entire country in peril.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Audio Commentary by authors and historians James Ursini and Alain Silver
  • Jack Palance: From Grit to Grace
  • Richard Widmark: Strength of Characters

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
This poignant and heartwarming story, Elia Kazan's directorial debut, is based on the best-selling novel about life in Brooklyn's Irish tenements at the turn of the twentieth century.

BONUS FEATURES:

  • Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel with Elia Kazan, Ted Donaldson and Norman Lloyd
  • The Making of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
  • An Appreciation of Dorothy McGuire
  • Fox Movietone News Segments
Viva Zapata! (1952)
Marlon Brando stars as Emiliano Zapata, the hero of the 1920 Mexican revolution. Anthony Quinn's portrayal of Zapata's hard-living brother earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

NO BONUS FEATURES

Man on a Tightrope (1953)
The legendary Fredric March plays Karel Cernik, who courageously leads his traveling circus in a desperate run for the German border to escape from 1950's communist Czechoslovakia.

NO BONUS FEATURES

Wild River (1960)
Montgomery Clift is a government agent who must evacuate lands to make way for a new dam. When an elderly woman refuses to leave, Clift falls for her granddaughter (Lee Remick).

BONUS FEATURE:

  • Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel

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