Hello!

The thing about working a full week (Work!) is that I have to play catch-up on more than one desired title. I’m only just finding out that the Warner Archive’s Blu of the Jonny Quest TV series appears to have already been released as a big box store exclusive, so I’ll have to do some tracking down to get a screener, it appears. Will do my best… that animated series has a LOT of fans.

It’s also a favorite of reviewer/writer/artiste extraordinaire Charlie Largent, so I especially want to find out what he has to say about it. Personally, I think I left Hanna-Barbera behind after a couple of years of Huckleberry Hound… I defected to Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Still looking to score a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Blu-ray from Disney Club — it wasn’t on the Club’s website for ordering before, but I’m informed that it will pop up today, day and date, for sale.

I like the tagline on this poster art… it breaks the rule of ‘ascendency’ in hype words. “Mighty, Magnificent… Memorable?”   I figured that one out suggesting trailer copy for Superman IV, where the writer had something like, “Threatens the Peace! Threatens the World! Threatens the survival of the Daily Planet!” To explain, I offered a silly example: “Danger! Annihilation! Inconvenience!” The hype needs to ascend, not descend.

Twilight Time’s Michael Finnegan announced their titles for August 20th, only three this time instead of the usual four: Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men, Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool and Philip Dunne, Clifford Odets & J. R. Salamanca’s (!) Elvis Presley movie, Wild in the Country (pictured). I think I’ve been confusing that Presley title with Follow That Dream for at least fifty years. I guess it isn’t a prequel to this movie, either. I’m still hoping that TT gets around to a Blu-ray upgrade for its first release, the DVD-only disc of John Huston’s The Kremlin Letter. That ultra-cynical movie is getting better with each passing year.

And finally, more new announcements. The Warner Archive’s July Blu-rays, are all winners: The James Cagney / Busby Berkeley pre-Code winner Footlight Parade, the original The Thin Man, Clint Eastwood’s Bronco Billy and Samuel Fuller’s Merrill’s Marauders.

The Criterion Collection will give us Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown, John Waters’ Polyester, Ritwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star, Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket, Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, and, and… Bill Forsyth’s marvelous Local Hero (pictured).

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson