Earlier this year, George Feltenstein, the senior vice president of Warner Home Video said that a combination of shrinking retail space, the cost of restoration and the lack of disposable income due to the recession had all but rung the death knell for classic films on DVD. In order to continue utilizing their extensive back catalog, while making it financially feasible to release classic films, the studio launched the Warner Archive online store, which now makes hundreds of titles available to order as burn-on-demand DVD-Rs. The project was largely met with enthusiasm from cinephiles who saw long awaited titles, rare obscurities and forgotten gems finally made available for purchase.
Now, Turner Classic Movies and Universal Studios have teamed up to launch their own made-to-order DVD service under the lugubrious handle TCM Vault Collection Presented By Universal. Available on TCM’s website, the project is starting with a much slower rollout, with only nine titles scheduled through January 2010, and are priced identically – $19.99 per title – as the films available through Warner’s service. However, unlike the barebones releases from the Warners Archive, select films will contain an introduction by Robert Osborne, supplements compiled by TCM and additional material from the archives. In addition, TCM will premiere some of the films on their cable network.
The first release, the Universal Cult Horror Collection, was made available on Hallowe’en, featuring five rarely seen horror films from the vault. Available together for $49.99 or individually, the films include: “Murders In The Zoo” (1933, starring Randolph Scott, Charles Ruggles, John Lodge); “Mad Doctor Of Market Street” (1942, Lionel Atwill, Una Merkel); “The Strange Case Of Dr. Rx” (1942, Samuel S. Hinds, Shemp Howard); “The Mad Ghoul” (1943, George Zucco, David Bruce) and “House Of Horrors” (1946, Rondo Hatton, Martin Kosleck). Extras for each of these titles behind the scenes photos, lobby cards, publicity stills and more.
On November 22nd, the Preston Sturges penned, 1940 holiday classic “Remember The Night” makes its long awaited DVD debut. The film, the first of four films that would find Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck paired together, tells the tale of a prosecutor who falls in love with a shoplifter at Christmas. Extras abound on this disc including an introduction by Robert Osborne, interviews, behind-the-scenes galleries and more.
Finally, in early 2010 the Cary Grant Collection will arrive, with three early, largely unknown films including “The Eagle And The Hawk” (1933), “The Devil And The Deep” (1932) and “The Last Outpost” (1935). More collections and titles are planned for rollout in the new year including vintage releases from Douglas Sirk, Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert (dear god, hopefully, 1957’s very-hard-to-see “Interlude”)
While on the one hand we’re thrilled that the studios are finding new avenues to continue mining their extensive back catalogs, we think there are some dangerous precedents being made. We’re bummed that a title like “Remember The Night” is arriving via a burn-to-order service when it could surely stand a proper release on its own. It’s also troubling that an important director like Douglas Sirk is also relegated to second-tier status, but we can’t complain too much, knowing that at the very least, the films will be available.
We’re also not thrilled about the $19.99 price point. While we have yet to see the quality level of the TCM/Universal releases, in many cases, the Warner Brothers releases are direct rips from master tapes, and given are given (if at all) a very bare minimum of clean up work. And once you factor in the shipping, starting at $4.95 for US residents, and a staggering $15.95 for Canadians, suddenly it makes taking a chance on that rare Humphrey Bogart film an expensive proposition. At least with TCM/Universal, they are making an effort to give consumers bang for their buck with decent extras for many of the titles so far. All that said, we support these initiatives and hope that as they continue, shipping and pricing costs will fall allowing more people to explore the wealth of titles that are being made available.