Warner Bros. Archives have announced 12 new made-to-order releases.
Warner Bros. Archives Double Feature – Girl Missing (1933) / Illicit (1931) – Independent women take center stage in a twin bill showcasing the range and moxie of pre-Code filmmaking. The pace leaps and lines snap in Girl Missing as gal pals Glenda Farrell and Mary Brian set out to solve the mystery of a gold digger who disappears during her honeymoon. Not even murder will stop these sassy sleuths. Married love or illicit: which does the modern girl prefer? the studios ad for Illicit asks. Barbara Stanwyck portrays a woman who, devoted to her man but not to the norms of her time, prefers cohabitation over marriage. Yet the two marry just the same, leading to jealousies and temptations that could destroy their love. Co-stars include Ricardo Cortez and blonde bundle-of-talent Joan Blondell.
Warner Bros. Archives Double Feature – Merry Wives of Reno (1934) / Smarty (1934) – Until divorce do us part. The solemn institution of marriage gets a swift kick in the pants from two frisky farces that mix sophistication with slapstick. In Merry Wives of Reno, New York society dames head west to shake loose spouses they think are unfaithful with the misunderstood husbands (and a scene-stealing sheep) in hot pursuit. A galaxy of comic actors keep the slightly-naughty fun spinning along. Joan Blondell, Warren William and Edward Everett Horton change partners in Smarty, until Blondell wants hubby #1 back. But the marital trouble that began with a definitely un-PC slap across the mug ends in a slaphappy comedy of manners as domestic order is restored. In pre-Code Hollywood, breaking up was fun to do.
Warner Bros. Archives Double Feature – Side Streets (1934) / Stranger in Town (1932) – Hard times some romantic, some financial are the focus of two films made in the depths of the Depression. Aline MacMahons (Dragon Seed, All the Way Home) expressive face reflects the joys and sorrows of devotion in Side Streets, the tale of a shopkeeper (MacMahon) who marries an easygoing sailor (Paul Kelly) for love. But hes marrying for a meal ticket. Stranger in Town stars Charles Chic Sale, the vaudeville comic renowned for playing cantankerous old-timers decades his senior. Here, hes small-town coot Ulysses Crickle, whose tiny grocery faces ruin when a national chain opens a store right across the street. Look out, corporate fat cats: you dont know what competition is until you take on Ulysses Crickle!
Warner Bros. Archives Double Feature – Big Hearted Herbert (1934) / Merry Frinks (1934) – Talented, sad-eyed Aline MacMahon excelled in maternal and sisterly roles, giving them comedic grace or soulful earnestness as the situation required. Both qualities are showcased in this twinbill of MacMahon starrers. Blustery and domineering pop (Guy Kibbee) gets his comeuppance and goes from narrow-minded patriarch to Big Hearted Herbert, thanks to his loving wife (MacMahon). In The Merry Frinks, the comic tale of a whack-a-doodle family that has elements similar to the later You Cant Take It with You, Mama (MacMahon) and her selfless love hold her eccentric household together. But the glue of her resolve may dissolve when worldly Uncle Newt (Kibbee) wills her $500,000 if shell leave the crazy-maker family.
Our Modern Maidens (1929) – With kohl-rimmed eyes and rouged lips, flapper fatale Billie Brown demands to live life on her terms, not societys. So she brazenly vamps a handsome diplomat in hopes of furthering her fiancés career. Its a perfect plan until Billie loses her heart to the diplomat. In a follow-up to her trendsetting silent Our Dancing Daughters, Joan Crawford returns to the role of a reckless Jazz Age baby getting her kicks with torrid kisses and wild parties. Crawford is joined by her Daughters co-star Anita Page and by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who would soon wed his leading lady. An extra treat for film buffs: Fairbanks hilarious impersonations of John Barrymore, John Gilbert and his own swashbuckling dad.
Falcon Crest: The Complete Second Season (6 DVD Set) – A toast to greed to lust to deception! And make sure your glass is filled with elegant Falcon Crest pinot noir. Here is the Complete 6-Disc, 22-Episode Season 2 of Falcon Crest, the long-running saga of the fortunes and misfortunes of a great California wine dynasty headed by ruthless matriarch Angela Channing (Jane Wyman). This season murder takes center stage after someone offs Carlo Agretti. A tantalizing trail of clues to the killers identity weaves throughout an emotional minefield of adultery, divorce, weddings, death threats, paternity disputes and battles over control of the wine empire. Whodunit? Youll discover the truth in the seasons final episode as the killer is revealed and kills again!
Prisoner of Zenda (1922) – Of all tales of gallantry and romance, few are as durable as Andrew Hopes beloved swashbuckler. There are at least seven screen versions, including this 1922 adaptation featuring some of the eras most luminous players. Lewis Stone, no stranger to leading-man roles in the 1920s, plays the dual role of a kidnapped king and the look-alike Englishman recruited to fill in for him. The cast includes Barbara La Marr, the exotic and ill-fated looker hailed as The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful. And Ramon Novarro, then named Ramon Samaniegos, gives his breakthrough performance as villainous Rupert. Because of his rising stardom, Novarro was top-billed in re-releases of the film, as is the case in this print.
Violence – REMASTERED (1947) – How would World War II veterans adjust to life on the postwar home front? Hollywood looked at various aspects of that question in major films like The Best Years of Our Lives, Pride of the Marines and Till the End of Time. And it would look at it through the prism of B-movies like Violence, a trim, noir-edged thriller wrapped around a then-topical story of a racketeering organization that recruits angry war veterans into its violent agenda. Jack Bernhard of the previous years applauded film noir Decoy directs. And future megahit TV producer Sheldon Leonard brings his snarling, tough-guy demeanor to the role of the rackets chief muscle. When he says We got ways of makin people talk, its best you should listen.
Thirty (-30-) – REMASTERED (1960) – EXTRA! SEE ALL ABOUT IT! From The Front Page to All the Presidents Men to State of Play, movies have long found a newspaper office to be a lively source of colorful characters and human drama. Its ideal for the brisk style of Jack Webb (Dragnet) a world Webb explores in a film taking its title from the -30- reporters place at the end of a story. In -30-, newshounds race against the clock to fill the empty page with stories that will become part of Americas next morning alongside a cup of coffee. Webb leads the way, playing the night editor of a big-city paper whose staff includes William Conrad, David Nelson, Joe Flynn and Richard Deacon. From 3 PM till midnight, theyll ride the adrenaline rush of dramas that shape the world and their own lives. Come next day, theyll gladly do it again. -30-
Stranger on the Third Floor – REMASTERED (1940) – Critics and fans agree: Stranger on the Third Floor is the little B picture that launched one of the greatest movements in cinema history: film noir. Peter Lorre plays the eerie title role in this once-neglected gem about a reporter (John McGuire) whose testimony sentences a small-time loser (Elisha Cook Jr.) to the electric chair for murder. When the reporter himself is fingered in a second murder, he realizes both crimes are the work of a furtive stranger but will anyone believe him? All the shadowy, shivery, angled angst of German Expressionism is here, married to the hard-boiled moral ambiguity that marks the genre. The highlight: a suspense-and-sweat-drenched dream sequence that jolted 1940 audiences into an exciting new way of looking at the movies.
Our Dancing Daughters (1928) – In Our Dancing Daughters, Joan Crawford stripped to her teddy and tore into a Charleston powered by a zillion watts of sexual energy and shocked the corsets and cravats off parents whod heard disturbing rumblings of what their children were up to. But the younger generation couldnt get enough: theyd found their icon of Flaming Youth. Crawford became a star in this milestone silent about a good girl who hides her heart behind a party-girl mask and loses the man she loves to a gold digger. The films portrait of a fascinating (and a bit frightening) breed of young women who match men drink for drink and vice for vice was so popular it bred two similarly themed movies: Our Modern Maidens and Our Blushing Brides.
The Magician (1926) – The heart blood of a virgin. Thats what deranged medical student Oliver Haddo needs for his malevolent scheme to create life. He finds it in a lovely sculptor he hypnotizes and spirits off to an ancient sorcerers tower, preparing to rip her heart from her living body. Filmmaker Rex Ingram (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) cast his wife and frequent leading lady Alice Terry and Paul Wegener, who terrified movie audiences in The Golem, in this seminal horror-fantasy film based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Bizarre, nightmarish, enhanced by top production values and elegant European locations, The Magician is a must for any fan of the horror genre or of imaginative moviemaking.