UNIVERSAL HORROR: First Tier Coming in Wave 2

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

The Bride of Frankenstein (Blu-Ray) September 17th Universal Retail: 26.98, Our: $20.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Dracula (Blu-Ray) September 17th Universal Retail: 26.98, Our: $20.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Frankenstein (Blu-Ray) September 17th Universal Retail: 26.98, Our: $20.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

The Wolf Man (Blu-Ray) September 17th Universal Retail: 26.98, Our: $20.99

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For studios, timing is everything.

When Universal announced their first wave of horror titles on Blu in March (released on June 4th), many were surprised they didn't lead with the top tier in their horror library.

Some suspected that they were waiting for Halloween to release Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein and Bride of to bolster sales -- and it looks like they were right as the studio has announced a September 17th for the Blu-Ray debuts of the four coveted horror classics.

All will carry over bonus features from DVD releases with the exception of Bride which appears to have picked up a few new ones.

OLIVE: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Flat Top - DVD & Blu in August

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye August 27th Olive Films Retail: $19.95, Our: $14.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (Blu-Ray) August 27th Olive Films Retail: $29.95, Our: $21.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Flat Top August 27th Olive Films Retail: $19.95, Our: $14.99

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Flat Top (Blu-Ray) August 27th Olive Films Retail: $29.95, Our: $21.99

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Two titles previously released by Republic, and long out of print, have been added to Olive's August 27th slate: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) and Flat Top (1952).

Both will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray.

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FOX: A Letter to Three Wives (Blu-Ray) in September

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

A Letter to Three Wives (Blu-Ray) September 17th 20th Century Fox Retail: $24.99, Our: $19.99

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Fox has set a September 17th release date for A Letter to Three Wives (Blu-Ray).

Released on DVD in 2005, this HD upgrade includes all the previous bonus features (below). Fox is also releasing a repackaged DVD version the same day.


As three women head off on a boating trip with a group of children, they receive a letter written by a woman claiming to have stolen one of their husbands. Which one? The letter doesn't say. Faced with the prospect of a shattered life, each woman soul searches throughout the day.

Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) feels inadequate amidst her husband's (Jeffrey Lynn) country club set; everyone sees Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) as a gold digger, including her husband (Paul Douglas); and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) has a career that makes her husband (Kirk Douglas) feel neglected to the point of infidelity. All three endure the anguish of uncertainty until the boat trip ends - and the truth is revealed.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Commentary by Christopher Mankiewicz with Joseph L. Mankiewicz biographers Kenneth Geist and Cheryl Lower
• "Linda Darnell: Hollywood's Fallen Angel" as seen on Biography
• Movietone News Footage (Oscar Presentations)
• Restoration Comparison
• Theatrical Trailer

KINO: The Devil Bat (Blu-Ray) in September

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

The Devil Bat (Blu-Ray) September 17th Kino Retail: $24.95, Our: $19.99

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Kino has set a September 17th release date for The Devil Bat (Blu-Ray). Included as a bonus feature is audio commentary by Richard Harland Smith (film historian and TCM columnist).

It will retail for $24.95, but is available at ClassicFlix.com for only $19.99.

SYNOPSIS:
After brilliant scientist Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) develops an ingenious product for a cosmetics company, he is cheated out of his fair share of the profits by his greedy partners.

Hell bent for revenge, he decides to turn his laboratory of science into one of doom as he creates a giant race of bats that turn into ripping and shredding beasts of fury, designed to attack anyone wearing the very product he invented.

NOTE: Kino is also releasing a DVD version the same day, but we are sticking with the Roan Group release of The Devil Bat as the print is good it is a double feature along with The Corpse Vanishes.

COLUMBIA CLASSICS: Glenn Ford, Donna Reed & George Sanders

Some top-rank talent in some little-known films starring Glenn Ford, Donna Reed and George Sanders are coming from Sony's Columbia Classic line.

Other notables include Jon Hall, Rochelle Hudson, Jay Silverheels, Michael Ansara and Stewart Granger.

They are:

• Babies for Sale (1940) - Glenn Ford, Rochelle Hudson, Miles Mander, Joe De Stefani, Isabel Jewell
• Brave Warrior (1952) - Jon Hall, Christine Larsen, Jay Silverheels, Michael Ansara
• The Whole Truth (1958) - Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders

All three will be available at ClassicFlix on August 13th.

OLIVE: Penny Serenade, Only the Valiant Plus Hope & Kaye Comedies

Olive Films has announced a total of six new titles for late August, all of which are new to Blu-Ray. Of the pack, Penny Serenade (1941) and Only the Valiant (1951) will get both DVD & Blu releases.

Serenade, starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, will be most welcome as it should hopefully be the definitive release for the often abused public domain drama. Valiant, starring Gregory Peck and Barbara Payton, with a deep supporting cast, was previously released by Lionsgate.

The four below were released on DVD by Olive in 2010 & 2011 and are now scheduled for an upgrade to hi-def.

• Knock on Wood (Blu-Ray) (1954) - Danny Kaye, Mai Zetterling
• My Favorite Spy (Blu-Ray) (1951) - Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr, Francis L. Sullivan, Arnold Moss, John Archer, Frank Faylen, Marc Lawrence, Mike Mazurki
• Off Limits (Blu-Ray) (1953) - Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney, Marilyn Maxwell
• On the Double (Blu-Ray) (1961) - Danny Kaye, Dana Wynter, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Margaret Rutherford, Diana Dors

They can all be found in the recent additions section.

WARNER ARCHIVE: Bette Davis & Esther Williams

Three releases from the Warner Archive Collection this week with Bette Davis and the late Esther Williams headlining. They are: Front Page Woman (1935) - Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns & dir. by Michael Curtiz Jupiter's Darling (1956) - Esther Williams, Howard Keel, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, George Sanders, Richard Haydn, William Demarest, Douglas Dumbrille Winter Meeting (1948) - Bette Davis, Janis Paige, Jim Davis All will be available here at ClassicFlix on July 16th. These new DVDs add to the total of over 1,200 Warner Archive titles exclusively available for rent at ClassicFlix.com.

Stalag 17 (Blu-Ray) in October

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Stalag 17 (Blu-Ray) October 8th Warner Home Video Retail: $19.98, Our: $15.99

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Warner keeps their Paramount acquired titles coming as they have announced an October 8th release date for Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 (Blu-Ray).

Retail will be $19.98, but it is available at ClassicFlix.com for only $15.99. Bonus features should carry over from the previously released DVD, but confirmation is not forthcoming.

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Two worthy Academy Award nominees from 1950's Sunset Boulevard-actor William Holden and director Billy Wilder - re-teamed three years later for the gripping World War II drama, Stalag 17. The result was another Best director nomination for Wilder (his fourth), and the elusive Best Actor Oscar for Holden.

Holden portrays the jaded, scheming Sergeant J.J. Sefton, a prisoner at the notorious German prison camp, who spends his days dreaming up rackets and trading with the Germans for special privileges. But when two prisoners are killed in an escape attempt, it becomes obvious there is a spy among the prisoners. Is it Sefton? Famed producer/director Otto Preminger tackles a rare acting role as the camp's commandant; actor Robert Strauss won a Supporting Actor nomination for his role as "Animal."

BONUS FEATURES (NOT YET VERIFIED):

• Commentary by actors Richard Erdman, Gil Stratton and Co-Playwright Donald Bevan
• Stalag 17 - From Reality to Screen
• The Real Heroes of Stalag XVIIB
• Photo Gallery

CRITERION: 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: TITLES:

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman September 24th Criterion Retail $79.95, Our: $64.99 Stromboli (1950), Europe '51 (1952), Journey to Italy (1954)

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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: TITLES:

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (Blu) September 24th Criterion Retail $79.95, Our: $64.99 Stromboli (1950), Europe '51 (1952), Journey to Italy (1954)

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Criterion has announced 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman for release on DVD and Blu-Ray this September 24th.

The sets are listed as four and five discs respectively, and will have numerous bonus features as well as a booklet. Details below.


In the late 1940s, the incandescent Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman found herself so moved by the revolutionary neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini that she sent the director a letter, introducing herself and offering her talents.

The resulting collaboration produced a series of films that are works of both sociopolitical concern and metaphysical melodrama, each starring Bergman as a woman experiencing physical dislocation and psychic torment in postwar Italy. It also famously led to a scandalous affair and eventual marriage between filmmaker and star, and the focus on their personal lives in the press unfortunately overshadowed the extraordinary films they made together.

Stromboli, Europe ’51, and Journey to Italy are intensely personal portraits that reveal the director at his most emotional and the glamorous actor at her most anguished, and that capture them and the world around them in transition.

Stromboli (1950, 106 min.)
The first collaboration between Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman is a devastating portrait of a woman’s existential crisis, set against the beautiful and forbidding backdrop of a volcanic island. After World War II, a Lithuanian refugee (Bergman) marries a simple Italian fisherman (Mario Vitale) she meets in a prisoner of war camp and accompanies him back to his isolated village on an island off the coast of Sicily.

Cut off from the world, she finds herself crumbling emotionally, but she is destined for a dramatic epiphany. Balancing the director’s trademark neorealism (exemplified here in a remarkable depiction of the fishermen’s lives and work) with deeply felt melodrama, Stromboli is a revelation.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
• New interview with film critic Adriano Aprà
• Rossellini Under the Volcano, a 1998 documentary that returns to the island of Stromboli fifty years after the making of Stromboli

Europe '51 (1952, 114 min.)
Ingrid Bergman plays a wealthy, self-absorbed socialite in Rome racked by guilt over the shocking death of her young son. As a way of dealing with her grief and finding meaning in her life, she decides to devote her time and money to the city’s poor and sick. Her newfound, single-minded activism leads to conflicts with her husband and questions about her sanity.

The intense, often unfairly overlooked Europe ’51 was, according to Rossellini, a retelling of his own The Flowers of St. Francis from a female perspective. This unabashedly political, but sensitively conducted investigation of modern sainthood was the director’s favorite of his films.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
• New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
• New interview with film historian Elena Dagrada about the different versions of Europe ’51
• New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman
• My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini
• New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman
• The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman

Journey to Italy (1954, 85 min.)
Among the most influential dramatic works of the postwar era, Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy charts the declining marriage of a couple (Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders) from England while on a trip in the countryside near Naples.

More than just an anatomy of a relationship, Rossellini’s masterpiece is a heartrending work of emotion and spirituality. Considered a predecessor to the existentialist films of Michelangelo Antonioni; hailed as a groundbreaking modernist work by the legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma; and named by director Martin Scorsese as one of his favorite films, Journey to Italy is a breathtaking cinematic benchmark.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Archival television introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Laura Mulvey
• New visual essays about Rossellini by scholars Tag Gallagher and James Quandt
• New interview with critic Adriano Aprà
• Ingrid Bergman Remembered, a 1996 documentary on the actor’s life, narrated by her daughter Pia Lindstrom
• A Short Visit with the Rossellini Family, a six-minute film shot on Capri while the family was there during the production of Journey to Italy
• New interviews with Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, daughters of Roberto Rossellini and Bergman
• Rossellini Through His Own Eyes, a 1992 documentary on the filmmaker’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and actor Ingrid Bergman
• New interview with Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring home movies shot by Bergman
• My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film, directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini
• The Chicken, a 1952 short film by Roberto Rossellini, starring Bergman

PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Richard Brody, Fred Camper, Dina Iordanova, and Paul Thomas; letters exchanged by Rossellini and Bergman; “Why I Directed Stromboli,” a 1950 article by Rossellini; a 1954 interview with Rossellini conducted by Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut for Cahiers du cinéma; and excerpts from a 1965 interview with Rossellini conducted by Aprà and Maurizio Ponzi for Filmcritica

Dobie Gillis - Season 1 in September

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis - Season 1 September 10th Shout! Factory Retail: $29.95, Our: $23.99

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Just weeks before the Complete Series is scheduled to hit the streets on July 2nd, Shout! Factory has announced a September 10th release date for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis - Season 1.

The 5-disc set will retail for $29.95, but is available at ClassicFlix.com for only $23.99.


In Season One, we meet Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman), who is obsessed with impressing and winning over the girl of his dreams, the beautiful Thalia Menninger (Tuesday Weld). But he has to compete for her with the rich and snobby Milton Armitage (Warren Beatty) while keeping his beatnik buddy Maynard (Bob Denver) at bay and struggling with his parents (Frank Faylen, Florida Friebus) over money and his future. Meanwhile, the pushy and quirky Zelda (Sheila James) knows that she and Dobie are destined to be "a couple", whether Dobie realizes it or not.

Other guest stars this season include Jack Albertson, Rose Marie, Sherry Jackson, Ron Howard, Francis X. Bushman, and Richard Deacon. Season One also features the classic "Chicken From Outer Space" episode! 

Cavalcade (1933) DVD & Blu-Ray in August

WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE:

Cavalcade (Blu-Ray / DVD Combo) August 6th 20th Century Fox Retail: $29.99, Our: $23.99

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Fox has set an August 6th release date for Cavalcade (Blu-Ray / DVD Combo).

Released on DVD in 2010, exclusive to a gigantic 76-disc Anniversary Set, the studio finally makes the 1933 Oscar winner available as a single -- sort of. The release will come in a Blu/DVD combo pack and retail for $29.99.

Per the studio's specs, bonus features (below) will only be accessible on the Blu-Ray.


A British family’s triumphs and tragedies unfold across the decades of the early twentieth century. From World War I to the sinking of the Titanic, this sweeping saga captures the cavalcade of life like no film before.

BONUS FEATURES (Blu-Ray Only):

• Commentary by Film Historian Richard Schickel
• Fox Movietone News: Cavalcade Wins First Honors

WARNER ARCHIVE: Garbo's The Painted Veil, Plus Monogram Dramas

Greta Garbo is showcased in this week's Warner Archive Collection releases as 1934's The Painted Veil, co-starring Herbert Marshall, George Brent, Warner Oland and Jean Hersholt, is due.

Also coming are 3 Monogram Dramas:

• Black Market Babies (1945) - Ralph Morgan, Kane Richmond, Jayne Hazard, Teala Loring
• Don't Gamble with Strangers (1946) - Kane Richmond, Bernadene Hayes, Peter Cook
• Women in Bondage (1943) - Gail Patrick, Nancy Kelly, William Henry

All will be available here at ClassicFlix on July 9th.

These new DVDs add to the total of over 1,200 Warner Archive titles exclusively available for rent at ClassicFlix.com. 

FOX ARCHIVES: Confirm or Deny, Paris After Dark in Military Wave

A military themed wave is coming from Fox's Cinema Archives line as they have announced 6 more titles.

They are:

• Battle at Bloody Beach (1961) - Audie Murphy, Gary Crosby, Dolores Michaels
• Bird of Paradise (1951) - Debra Paget, Louis Jourdan, Jeff Chandler, Everett Sloane, Jack Elam
• Confirm or Deny (1941) - Don Ameche, Joan Bennett, Roddy McDowall, John Loder
• The Fighting Lady (1944) - Charles Boyer, Robert Taylor
• Marines, Let's Go (1961) - Tom Tryon, David Hedison, Tom Reese
• Paris After Dark (1943) - George Sanders, Philip Dorn, Brenda Marshall

They will be available here at ClassicFlix on June 28th and can easily be found in the recent additions section.