Universal Home Video is a peculiar outlet, I gotta tell you. It more or less sits on one of the richest American film archives extant, often giving the impression it doesn't even know what it's got, and being at the very least perverse-seeming about what it's willing to sub-license. (Ask me some time about a DVD label of my acquaintance that's dying to do something with Forman's Taking Off and can't get a single phone call returned.) Then every now and then there's a break—the label will release a series of "Studio Classics" or a box of star-driven, obscure gems—how awesome was, say, that Carole Lombard "Glamour Collection"?—and then...nothing for a while.
Things are stirring up again, though; there's word that Criterion is working on an edition of McCarey's incredible Make Way For Tomorrow, a Paramount picture in the Uni library that's been crying out for the red-carpet treatment; and Universal itself just started yet another series, this one called "Backlot," a designation that encourages a certain looseness of interpretation, which I suppose is pretty apt, given that the first four picture they're releasing don't have a hell of a lot in common with each other. They are The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Henry Hathaway's groundbreaking 1936 Technicolor sort-of Western; Lonely Are The Brave, a particular apotheosis of Kirk Douglas; Wellman's Beau Geste, 'nuff said; and this:
...which title I can rarely verbally articulate without lapsing into Beastie Boys-style chant. And how's that for a nifty opening credit concept, by the way? The entirety of the titles are so done.
"The 'Universal Backlot Series' is an ongoing collection of rare gems, overlooked groundbreaking work and films of historical and cultural importance—many for the first time on DVD. Each motion picture has been digitally remastered from original film elements and is presented in its original aspect ratio to help preserve its place in cinema history," reads a note on the back of each disc. That's cool—the rationale is certainly more tenable than Sony's rather ridiculour "Martini Movies" rubric, under which quite a few better-than-intriguing titles have been popping up. (Just got Arch Obeler's Five.)But as far as I'm concerned, they could call this series "Scabies" and I wouldn't care, just as long as the stuff is getting out there. I'm a little swamped with other work at the moment, but I hope to have some more to say about some of these titles. In the meantime, some more screen caps, including one of the other MM...
Recent Comments