Cleopatra Entertainment Preps Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Of The Life and Times of Steve Marriott For Release On Nov. 8

Cleopatra Entertainment, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that fans of Humble Pie will have a lot to look forward to come Nov. 8.    

That’s the street date for documentary filmmaker Gary J. Katz’s 2000 film release of The Life and Times of Steve Marriott, who was the Brit-rocker who gave the world the super star band, Humble Pie. 

What’s super cool about this release, not only will Cleopatra be bringing this documentary to Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack, but they’ve the gone extra mile an included the complete May 6, 1973 Humble Pie concert at San Francisco’s Winterland.

Wait!   Wait!!  There’s more.   The package also includes a bonus CD.

As to documentary, the story of Steve Marriott (Small Faces), Peter Frampton, Gred Ridley, Jerry Shirley and Clem Clempson coming together to form Humble Pie is presented here.   The film includes interviews with Peter Frampton, Jerry Shirley and Greg Ridley (Marriott died in 1991), plus contemporary recording artists, Chris Robinson (Black Crowes), Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick), John Waite (Bad Company) Kevin Dubrow (Quiet Riot) and Marriott historian John Heller (among others).

These are mixed with home movies, photos and performance footage of both Small Faces and Humble Pie — these include “Tin Soldier,” “Itchycoo Park,” “Lazy Sunday,” “Paradise Lost,” “Take Me Back,” “Natural Born Woman,” “Alabama 69,” “Sad Bag of Shaky Jake,” “Stone Cold Fever,” “For Your Love,” “4-Day Creep,” “30-Days In The Hole,” “I Don't Need No Doctor” and “Hot N’ Nasty.”

The bonus 1973 concert present is a nine song set that includes “Up Our Sleeve,” “4-Day Creep,” “C’mon Everybody,” “Blues I Believe to My Soul,” “30-Days In The Hole,” “Road Runner,” “Hallelujah, I Love Her So,” “I Don’t Need No Doctor” and “Hot N’ Nasty.”

Arrow Video Restores Director Joseph Pevney's Man Of A Thousand Faces For Blu-ray Release On Oct. 29

The opening credits say it all.   The entire motion picture industry went quiet on August the 27^th in 1930 to honor the passing of a screen legend, Lon Chaney.   He was the “Man of a Thousand Faces” and in 1957 his career was honored in a film of the same name, Man of a Thousand Faces, directed by Joseph Pevney (Tammy and the Bachelor, Torpedo Run, The Midnight Story … plus 14 episodes of the original Star Trek television series) and starring James Cagney as Lon Chaney.

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that a new 2K restoration from the original camera negative is planned for distribution on Oct. 29 as a new Blu-ray edition.

This film project was the baby of James Cagney and famed Hollywood publicist Ralph Wheelwright (MGM and the Samuel Bronston Film Company … his career included a stint as a reporter for William Randolph Hearst, which in turned had him assigned to supervise the public relations for Marion Davies, Hearst’s long-time lover and companion).     Wheelwright provided the story (which was nominated for an Oscar) … filmmaker Joseph Pevney came to the project when producer Robert Arthur worked out a deal with fellow-producer Ross Hunter for Pevney to direct Debbie Reynolds in the film adaptation of the Cid Ricketts Sumner novel, Tammy and the Bachelor).

Other production tidbits include Robert Evans as Irving Thalberg, in real life he could have passed for Thalberg’s twin (so said Norma Shearer, Thalberg’s widow) … he would go on to become a major film producer for Paramount Pictures, delivering such gems as Chinatown (nominated for an Oscar as producer), Urban Cowboy and Marathon Man.   And, the film has another one of those little twists, Carrie Chaney, Lon Chaney’s sister, is played by none other than Jeanne Cagney, James Cagney’s real-life sister.

As to bonus goodies, film scholar Tim Lucas (“Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark”) provides commentary and there is newly-produced featurette featuring film critic Kim Newman that is titled “The Man Behind a Thousand Faces.”

Mill Creek Entertainment Adds Two New Priced-To-Collect Blu-ray Releases To Its Sept. 17 Release Calendar

During all the excitement of last week’s big announcement from Mill Creek Entertainment we misplaced the Blu-ray details for two additional Sept. 17 releases.    

No excuses, except it was a really, really big deal that Mill Creek had pulled off.  The acquisition of the entire Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd Ultraman library for distribution — some 50 years worth of programming, which includes over 1,100 broadcast episodes and 20 feature films — and the immediate street date assignments for Blu-ray collections of Ultra Q: Complete Series 01 and Ultraman: Complete Series 02 on Oct. 15.    

We simply got caught up in the buzz of it all and the new Sept. 17 titles fell through the cracks.   So let us fix that oversight right now.

As a reminder, already in place on Sept. 17 are two new Blu-ray additions to the popular “Bullets, Bombs and Boobs” series of eye-candy action films from iconic filmmaker Andy Sidaris … Guns and Do or Die.   Already out on Blu-ray from Sidaris are Picasso Trigger and Savage Beach (July 9) and Hard Ticket to Hawaii and Malibu Express (Apr. 16).

Joining Guns and Do or Die on Sept. 17 are director Betty Thomas’ 2002 buddy action/comedy film, I-Spy, teaming Owen Wilson with Eddie Murphy, and writer/director Tony Gilroy’s 2009 romantic thriller, Duplicity, co-starring Clive Owen and Julia Roberts.

There!   All caught up.

VCI Entertainment's 2K Restoration Of Bela Lugosi's The Human Monster Ready As DVD And Blu-ray Product Offerings On Oct. 29

VCI Entertainment announced this past week that The Human Monster will be available just before Halloween — Oct. 29 — as both newly-prepared DVD and Blu-ray product offerings.  This is a new 2K restoration from a combination of a fine grain print and a duplicate negative.

One of the oddest films in the lexicon of Bela Lugosi films — and the iconic actor certainly has his share of “odd films” — is director Walter Summers’ 1939 (domestic 1940) film adaptation of Edgar Wallace’s 1924 novel, “The Dark Eyes of London.” 

Lugosi’s career had hit the rocks around 1937/38 when he became “typecast” as a strictly horror actor, but during the summer of 1938 a theatrical revival of Dracula and Frankenstein suddenly got his film career going again.   Typecasting tossed aside, he shot Son of Frankenstein later that year under a renewed contract with Universal Pictures, which was released in early 1939.   

It’s a little sketchy, but Lugosi got an offer to shoot a film on location in London shortly after production on the Son of Frankenstein wrapped — which in retrospect seemed a little chancy with the drum beats of war and all.  Nevertheless he made his way across the pond to film The Dark Eyes of London before the year was out in a grueling eleven-days shooting schedule … and then sailed back home. 

The summer of 1939 slips by and there is no theatrical release of the film.   September of 1939 begins and war breaks out in Europe … still no trace of the film.    The Dark Eyes of London finally opens theatrically in November of that year in England.

A distribution deal was cut with Monogram Pictures for a domestic theatrical release.   Somehow the studio got a print across the Atlantic before World War II began … retitled the film to that of The Human Monster and released it nationwide in April of 1940.   In the meantime, Lugosi had appeared in not one, but three films — The Gorilla, Ninotchka and the 12-chapter serial, The Phantom Creeps (in addition to the aforementioned Son of Frankenstein).

Wallace’s original story was about an elaborate insurance scheme involving two brothers who used a blind charity as a front for a series of murders.   The routine Scotland Yard murder mystery is upped several notches to an out-and-out horror tale as Dr. Orloff (Lugosi) has mastered a unique method of “drowning” his insurance victims.

Greta Gynt (The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, Two for Danger, Shadow of the Eagle) plays Diana, the female lead, who lands a job as a “seeing” secretary at the Dearborn Home for the Destitute Blind, which is run by the kindly Dearborn, a blind man himself (guess who).   Hugh Williams (One of Our Aircraft Is Missing) plays a detective hot on the case.

Bonus goodies for The Human Monster include not one, but two commentary options.  The first features Bela Lugosi expert, author and scholar Gary Don Rhodes (“The Perils of Moviegoing in America, 1896-1950,” “Lugosi,” “White Zombie: Anatomy of a Horror Film,” “No Traveler Returns: The Lost Years of Bela Lugosi” and “Tod Browning's Dracula”) and the second teams film historian David del Valle with author Phoef Sutton.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainent's Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Stomps Home On Aug. 27

The “Kaiju” is back.  Big time!!  Only last week Mill Creek Entertainment announced that the Japanese Kaiju-based television series (and subsequent movies) Ultra Q and Ultraman would be delivered as Blu-ray collections on Oct. 15.

This week Warner Bros. Home Entertainment got in the action with the announcement that a three-SKU helping of writer/director Michel Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters would be available for fans to savor on Aug. 27.

Not only did Godzilla stomp to $109.2 million in domestic ticket sales in June (overseas another $275 million in box office receipts), but the beast of lore brought with him Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah.   That is quite the ensemble.  For the record, the ARR comes in at 88 days.

As to bonus features, Godzilla: King of the Monsters comes with commentary from writer/director Michel Dougherty (Krampus, Trick 'r Treat), screenwriter Zach Shields (Krampus) and actor O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), deleted scenes and a stunning collection of 14 featuettes — “The Isla de Mara Volcano,” “Millie Bobby Brown: Force of Nature,” “Reimagining Rodan,” “Monster Tech: Monarch Joins the Fight,” “Godzilla 2.0,” “The Yunnan Temple,” “Castle Bravo,” “Monsters are Real,” “The Antarctic Base,” “Mothra: Queen of the Monsters,” “Making Mothra,” “Creating Ghidorah,” “The Undersea Lair” and “Welcome to the Monsterverse.”

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment Looks To Sept. 17 For The Home Entertainment Launch Of Writer/Director Simon Kinberg's X-Men: Dark Phoenix

20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment looks to the post-Labor Day period for the home entertainment packaged media launch of writer/director Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix.   The date selected for a three-SKU release blitz is Sept. 17. 

The ARR for that mid-September street-date Tuesday works out to 102 days and domestic box office receipts currently register $65.1 million.

Planned for distribution are Combo Pack editions for the 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) and Blu-ray (with DVD) formats, plus consumers can also select a single-edition DVD of the film as one of their purchasing choices.

The only bonus feature common to all release SKUs is the featurette titled “How to Fly Your Jet to Space with Beast.”

Exclusive to the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Combo Pack editions are commentary by filmmaker Simon Kinberg (his feature-film directing debut after being a long-time producer, with a Best Picture Oscar nomination for his co-production of The Martian … other film production credits include Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, Murder on the Orient Express), who is joined by co-producer Hutch Parker (The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, etc.), plus there are deleted scenes (with optional commentary) and the five-part production documentary titled “Rise of the Phoenix: The Making of Dark Phoenix.”

Criterion Collection Announces It October 2019 Slate Of New Film Restorations Destined For DVD And Blu-ray Release • John Sayles' Matewan Tops The List

The Criterion Collection announced its October slate of new film restorations destined for release as DVD and Blu-ray editions this past week.

Topping the list is a new 4K digital restoration of writer/director John Sayles’ 1987 film release of Matewan (restoration supervised by Sayles), which will be available on Oct. 29 as a double-disc DVD edition, as well as a single-disc Blu-ray SKU.

John Sayles is a master storyteller, nominated for Oscars twice for his scripts — Lone Star (1996) and Passion Fish (1992).   His characters are flushed-out two and three levels deep … small, seemingly insignificant roles take on a life of their own, even if the screen time is limited.   This is what makes his films so marvelous.

The backstory on how this film came to be is terrific.   Sayles, as he tells it, hitchhiked all through West Virginia during the summer of 1970, taking in the tales and stories of those who gave him rides and befriended him.   The legend of the Matewan Massacre (locals), or as it is officially known, “The Battle of Matewan,” which took place on May 19, 1920, struck a chord with him.   He spent the next 17 years researching and writing a screenplay for what would come to be Matewan.   17 years!!

In the meantime, he honed his screenwriting craft on such films as director Joe Dante’s Piranha and The Howling, director Lewis Teague’s The Lady in Red and Alligator … and then his own films, Return of the Secaucus Seven, The Brother from Another Planet and Baby, It’s You.  

Matewan also includes several John Sayles collaborators, his college classmate and long-time friend, David Strathairn (Return of the Secaucus Seven, The Brother from Another Planet, Eight Men Out and Limbo, among others), Chris Cooper, whose performance in Sayles’ Lone Star is nothing short of brilliant, and Mary McDonnell (Passion Fish).

Filmed on location in West Virginia, with the mining town of Thurmond doubling for Matewan (which had been destroyed by flooding of the Tug Ford River and was subsequently rebuilt), Sayles recruited locals for roles in the film — 31 of which had speaking parts!!!   It was a seven-week shoot and the result was Matewan.

Despite glowing reviews, the film did not do well at the box office during its theatrical rollout in late August of 1987 (the film had debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in April of that year).   History, however, has elevated Matewan to be among some of the best films from Sayles.

Bonus features include a vintage commentary with Sayles and cinematographer Haskell Wexler (who was nominated for the Oscar for his work here), a new documentary on the making of the film and two newly-prepared video sessions with composer Mason Daring and production designer Nora Chavooshian.

Rounding out the October calendar of film restorations on the way to the home entertainment marketplace are: 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg (a three-disc collection on Oct. 8), which includes Underworld (1927), The Last Command (1928) and The Docks of New York (1928); Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 film release of Haxen (available on Oct. 15, which includes the 1968 re-work titled Witchcraft Through the Ages) and documentary filmmaker Leon Gast’s Oscar-winner for Best Documentary in 1996, When We Were Kings (available on Oct. 22).