The Criterion Collection announced its February slate of new film restorations this past week that will be making their way to the home entertainment packaged media marketplace as DVD and Blu-ray product offerings during the course of the month.
Arriving on Feb. 1 is a new 2K digital restoration of director Douglas Sirk’s 1956 film adaptation of Robert Wilder’s 1946 novel, Written on the Wind, which was “inspired” by actual events that took place in 1932.
The film stars Rock Hudson and Robert Stack as Texas oil playboys, Mitch Wayne and Kyle Hadley, Lauren Bacall as Kyle’s wife Lucy (a strange courtship if there ever was one) and Dorothy Malone (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) as Kyle’s sister, Marylee.
The film opens with a “bang” … an event takes place that will come full circle. We learn that both Kyle and Marylee are weak, privileged and prone to drinking. Marylee has always wanted the level-headed Mitch, but he will not succumb to her endless advances. In turn, Mitch falls for Lucy, but respects her decision to marry Kyle, whom she appears to reform. Pure soap, and wonderfully done!!
Bonus features include the 2008 documentary titled Acting for Douglas Sirk and a newly-prepared video session with film scholar Patricia White.
Shifting to Feb. 15, we find a new 4K film restoration (The Museum of Modern Art along with Serge Bromberg’s Lobster Films) of director Leo McCarey’s 1939 shipboard romance, Love Affair, starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer.
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Original Script and acting nominations for Irene Dunne (Best Actress) and Maria Ouspenskaya (Best Supporting Actress), Love Affair almost didn’t get made.
Tensions were high in Europe in 1938 and the French government wanted to keep the American public on its side, so it was a no-no for a Frenchman to be having an illicit love-affair with an American woman. The entire first script had to be junked and instead of a French-based romance, the action was moved to a ship-board romance.
The problem that both France, and later the Production Code, had with the film was that both Irene Dunne’s character and Charles Boyer’s character were already engaged to be married to other people. With all of these problems, it somehow all worked out … so much so that the film was remade in 1957 as An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.
Bonus features include two silent short films from director Leo McCarey, Looking for Sally (1925) and Mighty Like a Moose (1926), two separate radio adaptations of the film and newly-prepared video sessions.
Rounding out the February release calendar from the Criterion Collection are the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing (Blu-ray only on Feb. 8) and director Ann Hui’s 1982 film, Boat People (Feb. 22).
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