Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Readies Eight New Blu-ray Releases For Delivery During The Month Of February

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has gone to its vast film library for new Blu-ray product offerings — eight to be precise — that will be heading home during the month of February.

The place will be rocking on Feb. 16 with the Blu-ray debut of director W. S. Van Dyke’s summer of 1936 blockbuster, San Francisco, starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy.   Arriving in theatres on the 30^th anniversary of the devastating quake, the film would be nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screen Play (Robert E. Hopkins) and Spencer Tracy would be nominated for Best Actor (his first of nine Oscar nominations … he won for Captains Courageous and Boys Town) … ironically, the film’s icon title song, “San Francisco,” sung by Jeanette MacDonald, was not recognized.

Bonus goodies include the alternate ending (“modern San Francisco), the featurette titled “Clark Gable: Tall, Dark and Handsome,” two FitzPatrick Traveltalks — Cavalcade of San Francisco and Night Descends on Treasure Island — and the theatrical cartoon titled Bottles.

Newly remastered and making its debut on Blu-ray on Feb. 9 is another 1936 Best Picture nominee, director Jack Conway’s film adaptation of the Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities (San Francisco and A Tale of Two Cities both lost out to The Great Ziegfeld).

Producer David O. Selznick invested an incredible 18 months in pre-production work on the film, “borrowed” Ronald Coleman from 20^th Century-Fox for the lead role of Sydney Carton and then a search began for a look-alike.   Donald Woods (who was cast for his close resemblance to Coleman) was brought on board as Darnay and Elizabeth Allan (Mark of the Vampire, Camille, David Copperfield) got the key role of Lucie.

Bonus features include the short film titled Audioscopiks (1935 on the “future” technology of 3D), a pair of theatrical cartoons — Hey, Hey Fever and Honeyland — and the 1946 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation, also featuring Ronald Colman, with Heather Angel as Lucie.

Rounding out the new-to-Blu-ray selections in February from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment are Six by Sondheim (Feb. 9), director Elia Kazan’s 1956 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams one-act play, “27 Wagons Full of Cotton,” which was titled for the screen as simply Baby Doll (Feb. 16) and all arriving on Feb. 23 are My Dream is Yours, On Moonlight Bay, Pump Up the Volume and Show Boat.