.jpg "Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Will Release The Handmaid's Tale: The Complete Series On DVD This Coming Dec. 2")
On Dec. 2, fans can purchase The Handmaid’s Tale: The Sixth Season (for those who have been collecting the series on physical media as available) or The Handmaid’s Tale: The Complete Series (the perfect Christmas-season gift for those who enjoyed the series).
This is a 20-disc collection, with bonus features including “Inside the Episode” details.
The magic? The film debut of director Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music.
The reported production budget was right around $8 million (1965 dollars). Ticket sales, domestically, were a whopping $163.2 million (again, 1965 dollars). It won Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Wise (as producer and director), which was a double-Oscar repeat for Wise — West Side Story in 1962.
Julie Andrews was nominated for Best Actress, but the members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences — perhaps — thought it was little much to give her Best Actress Oscars two years in a row (she won in 1964 for Mary Poppins), so they gave the little gold statue to Julie Christie for her performance as Diana Scott in director John Schlesinger’s Darling. Ask yourself these 60 years later which is best remember (not saying the Academy got it wrong, mind you).
The 4K Ultra HD disc has a “sing-along” viewing option and also has vintage commentary tracks from, first, filmmaker Robert Wise and second, Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charmian Carr (as Liesl Von Trapp), Dee Dee Woods (choreographer) and Johannes Von Trapp.
The first of two companion Blu-ray discs is a repeat of the 4K Ultra HD in terms of content.
The second companion Blu-ray disc contains a collection of featurettes, newsreels and vintage interviews, including documentary filmmaker Steven C. Smith’s 2015 film, The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg and the featurette titled “A City of Song.”
The Blu-ray collection is titled Lev Atamanov’s The Snow Queen, The Scarlet Flower & The Key: Treasures of Soviet Animation, Volume 2.
Following World War II, but behind the “Iron Curtain,” there was a filmmaker who specialized in animated fairy tales. His name was Levon “Lev” Atamanyan (Atamanov) and his work from the period is now widely regarded as excellent; superb; genius. Sadly, during the 1950s his work was virtually unknown in the United States because of the “Cold War” and political tensions at the time. Except for one film.
You may actually know Atamanyan’s most famous animated film and not realize it. In 1957 he made Snezhnaya Koroleva, which was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 story, “The Snow Queen.”
In early August of 1959, there is a short blurb in American newspapers from syndicated gossip columnist Louella Parsons that reads: “I didn’t know the Russians went in for anything as light as a Disney-like animated cartoon in full length. Most of their movies are overloaded with Communist propaganda.”
She continues, “But, not only has Universal-International bought from the Soviets a charming cartoon fantasy, Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Snow Queen,’ but the studio’s own teenage queen Sandra Dee will dub the title role in English.”
The film has its "World Premiere" on April 1, 1960 at the Colfax Theatre in South Bend, Indiana. There's a certain irony in having a "World Premiere" of a film that had been around since 1957 on April Fool's Day!
The credits says that The Snow Queen features the voices of Sandra Dee, Patty McCormack and Tommy Kirk. The credits also herald Art Linkletter as "starring" in the film's prologue (is that a unique credit in film history?). If you read the small print, Alan Lipscott and Bob Fisher were the writers and Robert Faber was the producer ... "Cartoons, Animation and Screenplay by Soyuzmultfilm Productions," but no mention of Atamanov.
Patty McCormack was the on-stage celebrity for the 8:30 performance ... and there was a big parade the next day at 9AM in downtown South Bend!
The Snow Queen arrived in the Los Angeles area in 13 theatres on July 6 … and expanded around the country with addition theatrical dates through December of 1960. The film was a hit for Universal-International … perhaps Atamanyan received some royalties (perhaps film historian Rolf Giesen’s commentary track on the Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray release on Nov. 11 will shed some light).
Bonus features include commentary on all three films by film historian Rolf Giesen and two newly-prepared video essays — “Written with Ice Crystals: Master Soviet Animator Lev Atamanov and The Snow Queen” (by film historian Evan Chester) and “Innocence & Cynicism: The Snow Queen and Hayao Miyazaki: (by “Animation Obessive” expert John Adkins).
After Kirk Alyn, George Reeves was the television Superman, but he also did one feature film in 1951, Superman and the Mole Men, and then there was a 27-year break until Christopher Reeve relaunched the series with four films, beginning with Superman in 1978 (’78 to 1987).
Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment has selected Sept. 23 as the street date for a full-spread physical media rollout of Gunn’s Superman. That yields an ARR of 74 days … the domestic box office haul stands at an impressive $349 million.
There will be four physical media purchasing options. There are DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD stand-alone selections, as well as a 4K Ultra HD SteelBook Combo Pack (with Blu-ray) edition.
Note: Atom Man vs. Superman is also available from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
The ARR is a swift-to-market 53 days — just 53 days from its theatrical debut to its arrival as stand-alone DVD and Blu-ray editions, as well as a 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack (with Blu-ray) purchasing option.
The domestic box office gross stands at $20.6 million.
Bonus goodies include eight deleted scenes and a pair of featurettes — “Nobody 2: The Fight Continues” and “Nobody Does Stunts Like Us.”
