Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will be celebrating the 70th Anniversary of director Stanley Donen’s 1952 musical classic, Singin’ in the Rain, with a new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack edition on Apr. 26.
By any standard, Singin’ in the Rain, starring Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, is one of the greatest musicals ever made, and for that, one of best films overall … time has been the judge of that.
Bonus features included with this new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack are both a vintage commentary track featuring actors Debbie Reynold, Donald O’Connor, Cyd Charisse and Kathleen Freeman, director Stanley Donen, screenwriters Betty Camden and Adolph Green, plus filmmakers Baz Lurhmann and Rudy Behlmer, as well as documentary filmmaker Gary Leva’s feature-length film, Singin’ in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation.
In other release news from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment this week, three new-to-Blu-ray films from the studio’s vast movie library will be making their respective debuts during the month of March.
Arriving on Mar. 29 as a double-disc “Special Edition” is a 4K film restoration (from the original Cinerama film negatives) of the directing team of Henry Levin and George Pal’s 1962 biopic extravaganza, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm.
Consumers will have two viewing options. Disc one will feature the restored Cinerama letterboxed presentation, while disc two is presented in the “Smilebox” format (think: the Cinerama curved screen). This will be the 140 Roadshow version, which includes the Overture, an Intermission, Entr'acte and finally the exit music that continued after the curtain was drawn.
There are two newly-prepared bonus featurettes — “The Epic Art of The Brothers Grimm” and “The Wonderful Career of George Pal” — plus documentary filmmaker Harrison Engle’s 2021 film, Rescuing a Fantasy Classic, which had its debut at the Museum of Modern Art in January of this year.
Also heading home on Blu-ray on Mar. 29 is director William A. Wellman’s original 1937 film production of A Star is Born, starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor.
This is a new 4K scan from the original nitrate Technicolor camera negative.
In addition to the story itself, this 1937 production is like a time capsule of Hollywood (and Los Angeles in general) at the time, with such locations as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Ambassador Hotel, the Hollywood Bowl and the famous Sunset Strip night spot, Cafe Trocadero (which closed up shop in 1947) used as shooting locations (in glorious Technicolor).
The film itself was nominated Best Picture, plus Best Director for William A. Wellman (his first of three Best Director nominations — also Battleground and The High and the Mighty), and both Fredric March and Janet Gaynor were nominated for acting Oscars.
Bonus features include the Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon, A Star is Hatched, plus three theatrical short films from the period, Mal Hallett & His Orchestra, Taking the Count and Alibi Mark. There are also two Lux Radio broadcasts of A Star is Born, one featuring Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery from 1937, and a second from 1942 with Judy Garland (who would go on to star in the 1954 remake) and Walter Pidgeon.
Rounding out the new-to-Blu-ray selections from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in March is director Michael Curtiz’s 1942 World War II flying film, Captain of the Clouds, starring James Cagney (street date is Mar. 22).
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