Criterion in August

Criterion's newly announced titles for August range from "well, finally" to "thanks, but..." The most obvious "finally" is a three-film set of Josef von Sternberg silents–Underworld, The Last Command and The Docks of New York–which had been speculated to be on their way for years. Still under the "finally" category is Maurice Pialat's L'enfance nue. After Criterion released Pialat's amazing À nos amours in 2006, we might have expected a number of the director's other films to surface, but so far only a crummy disc of Loulou and an out-of-print one for Van Gogh are the only other Pialat's on home video in the US (Masters of Cinema in the UK have been putting out most of his oeuvre on DVD over the past couple years). While I wouldn't necessarily throw Terry Zwigoff's Crumb or his first film, a documentary called Louie Bluie, into the "no thanks" category, as long as these releases don't lead to Criterion putting out any of his fiction features. And, well, as there's only one other title left (on the main line), you can guess my feelings toward Marcel Camus' Black Orpheus [Orfeu Negro], which will get a remastered reissue DVD release as well as a Blu-ray on the 17th. The Eclipse set will be the First Films of Akira Kurosawa–Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata 2, The Most Beautiful and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail–all four of which were first issued last December in the AK 100 box set. Aside from Black Orpheus, Crumb will be the only other Blu-ray release in August. I have a non-Criterion DVD update coming up soon.

Tourneur, Lamarr, Penn & Teller and Kathy Bates in the Warner Archive

With just over 300 titles now included in the Warner Archive Collection, Warner has certainly kept its promise from earlier this year to keep bulking up their selection and, shockingly, have actually been listening to their customers by offering bundle packs and discounts on the DVD-R releases (I remember someone joking in regard to Little Darlings that $20 was pretty steep for a film starring Kristy McNichol).

A few titles you can look forward to being added, hopefully, by the end of the year: Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull, with James Mason, Vanessa Redgrave, Simone Signoret and David Warner; Robert Z. Leonard's The Bribe with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton and Vincent Price; King Vidor's Comrade X, with Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr; and Kenneth Branagh's A Midwinter's Tale [a.k.a. In the Bleak Midwinter], with Joan Collins, Jennifer Saunders and Julia Sawalha.

Below you'll find a list of the titles recently added to the collection. All are available now at the Warner Archive homepage. Highlights include a pair of noirs from Jacques Tourneur, Roger Ebert's favorite 90s teen comedy Angus, a number of Hedy Lamarr flicks including I Take This Woman (which went through the hands of Josef von Sternberg and Frank Borzage before being completed by W.S. Van Dyke), King Vidor's silent The Patsy with Marion "Rosebud" Davies, Peter Glenville's Term of Trial and Paul Brickman's remake of Moshé Mizrahi's La vie continue, Men Don't Leave, Arthur Penn's Penn & Teller Get Killed and the little-seen, much-hated fantasy Lionheart.

- Airborne, 1993, d. Rob Bowman, w. Seth Green, Edie McClurg, Jack Black, Alanna Ubach
- Angus, 1995, d. Patrick Read Johnson, w. Kathy Bates, George C. Scott, Rita Moreno, Anna Thomson, James Van Der Beek
- Bad Ronald, 1974, d. Buzz Kulik
- Berlin Express, 1948, d. Jacques Tourneur
- Crossroads, 1942, d. Jack Conway, w. William Powell, Hedy Lamarr
- Experiment Perilous, 1944, d. Jacques Tourneur, w. Hedy Lamarr
- The Heavenly Body, 1944, d. Alexander Hall, w. William Powell, Hedy Lamarr
- Highway 301, 1950, d. Andrew L. Stone
- Hot Millions, 1968, d. Eric Till, w. Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Karl Malden, Bob Newhart, Cesar Romero
- How Sweet It Is!, 1968, d. Jerry Paris, w. James Garner, Debbie Reynolds
- I Died a Thousand Times, 1955, d. Stuart Heisler, w. Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin
- I Take This Woman, 1940, d. W.S. Van Dyke, Frank Borzage, Josef von Sternberg, w. Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr
- Ice Palace, 1960, d. Vincent Sherman, w. Richard Burton
- Killer McCoy, 1947, d. Roy Rowland, w. Mickey Rooney
- Kisses for My President, 1964, d. Curtis Bernhardt, w. Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen
- Lightning Strikes Twice, 1951, d. King Vidor
- Lionheart, 1987, d. Franklin J. Schaffner, w. Eric Stoltz, Gabriel Byrne, Nicholas Clay, Dexter Fletcher, Paul Rhys, Sammi Davis
- Men Don't Leave, 1990, d. Paul Brickman, w. Jessica Lange, Arliss Howard, Joan Cusack, Kathy Bates, Chris O'Donnell
- Not with My Wife, You Don't!, 1966, d. Norman Panama, w. Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott
- The Patsy, 1928, d. King Vidor, w. Marion Davies
- Pay or Die, 1960, d. Richard Wilson, w. Ernest Borgnine
- Penn & Teller Get Killed, 1989, d. Arthur Penn
- The Plunderers, 1958, d. Joseph Pevney, w. John Saxon
- Quantrill's Raiders, 1958, d. Edward Bernds
- Return of the Frontiersman, 1950, d. Richard L. Bare
- The Search, 1948, d. Fred Zinnemann, w. Montgomery Clift
- Speedway, 1929, d. Harry Beaumont
- Suspense, 1946, d. Frank Tuttle
- The Tall Target, 1951, d. Anthony Mann
- Term of Trial, 1962, d. Peter Glenville, w. Laurence Olivier, Simone Signoret, Sarah Miles, Terence Stamp
- Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, 1993, d. Randa Haines, w. Robert Duvall, Richard Harris, Shirley MacLaine, Sandra Bullock, Piper Laurie