Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Goes To The Film Vaults For The DVD Debut Of Humphrey Bogart's 1942 Film Release Of The Big Shot

WOW!   Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has gone to the film vaults and dusted off some tasty selections for delivery to DVD during the month of March.   Film buffs, collectors and even those that are just plain curious for the opportunity of a new-to-DVD film viewing option will all be in line for these “lost treasures.”

The first group arrives on Mar. 3 and leading the parade is the new-to-DVD releases of not one, but two of Humphrey Bogart’s pre-Casablanca films, director Lewis Seiler’s 1942 film production of The Big Shot and the 1938 musical comedy, Swing Your Lady (an interesting cast that includes Penny Singleton and future president, Ronald Reagan).  

After the Maltese Falcon and High Sierra, The Big Shot must have seemed like a bit of a letdown, but for Bogart fans it is one of those “who cares” moments … just to have this seemingly lost film available on DVD is nothing short of wonderful.   Irene Manning (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Shine on Harvest Moon, etc.) and Richard Travis co-star.

Also on the Mar. 3 release calendar is the 1936 Best Picture nominee, director Mervyn

Leroy’s film adaptation of Hervey Allen’s 1933 novel, Anthony Adverse.   This all-star cast sports the likes of Fredric March (five times nominated in the Best Actor category … two wins: The Best Years of Our Lives and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Olivia de Havilland (five Oscar nominations … two wins: Best Actress for The Heiress and To Each His Own), Louis Hayward, Claude Rains (four acting Oscar nominations), Edmund Gwenn (Oscar-winner for Miracle on 34^th Street) and Gale Sondergaard, who won the Oscar here for her performance in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Rounding out the Mar. 3 new-to-DVD selections are: Bad Men of Tombstone (1949, Barry Sullivan, Broderick Crawford and Marjorie Reynolds) Black Midnight (also from 1949, Roddy McDowall) and Seven Angry Men (1955, Raymond Massey is teamed with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter).

On the Blu-ray release front on Mar. 3, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has added a three-disc SKU of Longmire: The Complete Third Season … that should please fans of this Robert Taylor, Lou Diamond Phillips and Katee Sackhoff modern Western television series (a 10 episode re-boot is promised for later this year).

Mar. 10 brings to DVD director Frank Tashlin’s 1955 film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s whodunit, “The A.B.C. Murders,” which was retitled for the screen as The Alphabet Murders with Tony Randall as none other than Hercule Poirot.   Robert Morley and Anita Ekberg are his co-stars.

Dirk Bogarde is front and center in a pair of new-to-DVD product offerings, director Jack Clayton’s 1967 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion nominee, Our Mother’s House and director Anthony Asquith’s 1958 film adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play, Doctor's Dilemma (opposite Leslie Caron).

Rounding out the Mar. 10 DVD additions are David Niven as Dr. Love in the 1966 film release of Where the Spies Are and Sir Alec Guinness is Captain William Horatio Ambrose, the seasick mariner, in the 1957 film release of All at Sea (with Irene Browne).

Added to the Mar. 31 release calendar are director Albert Brand’s 1959 drama, Face of Fire, starring Cameron Mitchell as the shunned hero (James Whitmore, Bettye Ackerman and Lois Maxwell co-star) and the 1956 D-Day war thriller, Screaming Eagles, with a cast that features Tom Tryon, Paul Burke, Martin Milner, Edward G. Robinson Jr., Robert Blake and Spaghetti Western legend, Mark Damon.