Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Arrow Video Prepares New Blu-ray Edition Of Director William Wyler's The Desperate Hours For Release On Oct. 17

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey, @dvdblurayreport

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new “6K Scan” of the original VistaVision negative of director William Wyler’s 1955 film adaptation of the Joseph Hayes’ best-seller, The Desperate Hours, ready for the Blu-ray marketplace on Oct. 17.

First published in 1954, Hayes novel was based on actual events that occurred in 1952.   Wyler, apparently, got wind of the book before it was published and as a result pushed Paramount to make the acquisition. 

Once that was accomplished, all sorts of names were floated to star as the two key characters in the story — escaped convict and hostage taker, Glenn Griffin, and family man Daniel Hilliard.  

On the list from various reports compiled by the AFI site were the likes of Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, James Dean and Spencer Tracy.  

Ultimately it would be Humphrey Bogart as Griffin and Frederick March as Hilliard.

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey, @dvdblurayreport

Of note, Hayes adapted his book for the screenplay and also did a Broadway play about the same time, featuring Karl Malden and Paul Newman.

As to bonus materials, film archivist and historian Daniel Kremer provides a newly-prepared commentary plus there are three featurettes — “Trouble in Suburbia,” “The Lonely Man” and “Scaled Down and Ratcheted Up.”

 

 

DVD & Blu-ray Release Report, Ralph Tribbey, @dvdblurayreport

 

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