Hello!

A highly anticipated restoration has a release date: as reported back in February, ClassicFlix has been working on a remastered Blu-ray of Sam Wood’s 1940 film of Our Town, a brilliantly performed and beautifully visualized version of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. We’ve been chasing down a decent copy of this show ever since film school — it’s one of many United Artists releases that reverted to its producers and fell between the cracks, like John Cromwell’s So Ends Our Night.

ClassicFlix reminds us that Our Town earned six Academy Award nominations including best picture. It stars Martha Scott as Emily Webb, with a young William Holden, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter and Guy Kibbee. One speech from the ‘Stage Manager’ Frank Craven transports us into a film blanc afterlife that brings the important issues of life into relief. “My, isn’t the moonlight terrible?”

ClassicFlix’s remaster of Our Town is set for release on November 7. The extras have just been announced and include an audio commentary by Ray Faiola, plus two radio performances from 1939 and 1940. One of them is produced by and stars Orson Welles.

We just reviewed ClassicFlix’s Blonde Ice and hope to review their disc of the TV show World of Giants, coming on October 24.

Blue skies, reviews to write and a new Blu-ray just in the door from Germany … good timing too, the disc got here in record time. Am counting my bulbous, crawling blessings today.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson