The Criterion Collection Announces Its April Slate Of New Film Restorations For Delivery On DVD And Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection announced its April slate of new film restorations destined for release as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings during the course of the month.

Topping the list of new films getting a new 4K digital restoration (Universal Pictures teaming up with auteur filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s preservation and restoration of cinema organization, The Film Foundation) is director George Marshall’s 1939 Western, Destry Rides Again, teaming James Stewart with Marlene Dietrich.

Both DVD and Blu-ray editions will be available on Apr. 14.

When the production was first revealed by Universal Pictures in 1938, Joel McCrea was to be in the lead and William K. Howard (Fire Over England, The Power and the Glory) was to handle the direction … and there were even rumors that Paulette Goddard would be Frenchy.   

Obviously none of that happened as Stewart wrapped up Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and pivoted into the role of Thomas Jefferson Destry, Jr., who is called upon by the town’s drunk, Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger) — who has been given the job of sheriff as a joke — to put an end to the corruption in Bottleneck.

A Western comedy, with Marlene Dietrich getting the best of the Hays Office with her now famous signature song, “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.”   

As to bonus goodies, there are newly-prepared video sessions with author Imogen Sara Smith (“In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City,” “Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy”) and Donald Dewey, author of “James Stewart: A Biography,” plus excerpts from The American Film Institute’s 1973 oral-history interview with director George Marshall.

Also included with Destry Rides Again is the 1945 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation with James Stewart and Joan Blondell.

Also included on the April release calendar from Criterion are director Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 World War II drama, Army of Shadows (double-disc DVD and Blu-ray available on Apr. 7); Czech filmmaker Juraj Herz 1969 film adaptation of the Ladislav Fuks’s novel, The Cremator (Blu-ray and two-disc DVD selections available on Apr. 21); and the month concludes on Apr. 28 with double-disc DVD and Blu-ray releases for director Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (with a new commentary option) and director Miranda July’s 2005 film, Me and You and Everyone We Know.