Flicker Alley

[swo17]

So they've had to drop:
Motion Painting No. 1 (1947) by Oskar Fischinger
A MOVIE (1958) by Bruce Conner
Re-Entry (1964) by Jordan Belson

But have added:
An Optical Poem (1937, MGM release 1938) by Oskar Fischinger
Four in the Afternoon (1950-51) by James Broughton
Eaux d’artifice (1953) by Kenneth Anger
Bells of Atlantis (1952-53) by Ian Hugo, Anaïs Nin, Len Lye
Evolution (1954) by Jim Davis
Gyromorphosis (1954) by Hy Hirsh
9 Variations on a Dance Theme (1966/67) by Hilary Harri
Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter (1968) by Owen Land
Sappho and Jerry, Parts 1-3 (1977-78) by Bruce Posner
Ch’an (1983) by Francis Lee
Plus a new score for Manhatta (1920-21) by Charles Sheeler, Paul Strand

Those three losses hurt, especially A MOVIE, but those are some good additions.

They really are! Several of these were new to me and ended up being highlights of the set. My only complaint really is that the set is only 7 hours long. I could watch this stuff for days.

[zedz]

I've just started watching Flicker Alley's release of the French / emigre Russian serial The House of Mystery (ten episodes, over six hours), and it looks to be terrific. In the first episode, there's an astonishing wedding sequence done entirely in silhouette. Seriously, it's like a live action Lotte Reiniger film, even though Reiniger herself had barely started making films in 1921, and it's one of the most gorgeous things I've seen this year.



The rest of the film ain't too shabby either, with Ivan Muzzhukhin pitted against scheming frenemy Charles Vanel, right at the start of his seventy year screen career.

[bearcuborg]

Does anyone know if BFI will release Chaplin's Essanay films on blu? I'm debating about taking advantage of the Flicker Alley sale going....

[Timec]

Flicker Alley will be releasing a Blu-ray of Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine next February.

For this brand-new restoration, Lobster Films – with the support of Marie-Ange L’Herbier (the director’s daughter), the French CNC, SACEM and Maison Hermès – utilized the original nitrate negative, scanned at a pristine 4K resolution, and restored the original tints for the first time since the film’s release. The Blu-ray features two audacious new scores, one from percussionist Aidje Tafial and the other by the Alloy Orchestra. With optional English subtitles to the original French intertitles, Flicker Alley and Lobster Films are proud to present L’Inhumaine in an edition that does justice to the dazzling beauty of L’Herbier’s landmark vision.

[swo17]

Return of the Lost Noir Classic: Too Late for Tears/Woman on the Run

[pointless]

Too Late for Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949)

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary Track - By writer, historian, and film programmer Alan K. Rode.
  “Chance Of A Lifetime: The Making of Too Late For Tears” – Produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation and featuring Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan, and Julie Kirgo, this mini-doc offers a behind-the-scenes examination of the film’s original production.
  “Tiger Hunt: Restoring Too Late For Tears” – Produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation, this is a chronicle of the multi-year mission to rescue this “lost” noir classic.
  “Noir City” – A short documentary directed by Joe Talbot about the annual Noir City Film Festival presented by the Film Noir Foundation at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre.
  24-Page Souvenir Booklet – Featuring rare photographs, poster art, original lobby cards, and an essay by writer and noir-expert Brian Light.

(Scooped! It looks like I posted a few seconds after swo17.)

[pointless]

Woman on the Run (Norman Foster, 1950)

Bonus Materials Include:

• Audio Commentary Track - By author, historian, and “noirchaelogist” Eddie Muller.
  “Love is a Rollercoaster: Woman on the Run Revisited” – Produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation, this mini-doc offers a look into the making of the film, from script to noir classic.
  “A Wild Ride: Restoring Woman on the Run” – Produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation, this stranger-than-fiction document of the film’s restoration is a thriller in itself.
  “Noir City” – A short documentary directed by Joe Talbot about the annual Noir City Film Festival presented by by the Film Noir Foundation at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre
  24-Page Souvenir Booklet – Featuring rare photographs, poster art, original lobby cards, and an essay by the one and only Eddie Muller.

[domino harvey]

Look like great packages. I have no idea why studios aren't tripping over themselves to release more noir on Blu-Ray since we know they sell well

[pointless]

Look like great packages. I have no idea why studios aren't tripping over themselves to release more noir on Blu-Ray since we know they sell well

Perhaps they will be.

I was curious about the Film Noir Foundation logo on these two upcoming releases so I checked them out and found they've been funding restorations and new 35mm prints for over ten years.

Since 2005, the Film Noir Foundation has saved the following films:

Restorations

• The Prowler (1951) – Funded by the FNF in conjunction with the Stanford Theatre Foundation
  Cry Danger (1951)
  High Tide (1947) - Funded by the FNF in conjunction with the Packard Humanities Institute
  Try and Get Me! (1951)
  Repeat Performance (1947) - Funded by the FNF in conjunction with the Packard Humanities Institute
  Too Late for Tears (1949)
  Woman on the Run (1950)
  The Guilty (1947)

New 35mm Prints - Funded by the FNF

• No abras nunca esa puerta (Don't Open That Door) (1952)
  Si muero antes de despertar (If I Die Before I Wake) (1952)
  El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) (1953)
  The Underworld Story (1950)
  The Window (1949)
  Nobody Lives Forever (1946)
  High Wall (1947)
  Loophole (1954)
  The Hunted (1948)
  Down Three Dark Streets (1954)
  Cry Tough (1959)
  Three Strangers (1946)
  Southside 1-1000 (1950)
  Roadblock (1951)

New 35mm Prints - Fostered and screened by the FNF, funded by film studios

• I Love Trouble (1948)
  Night Has 1000 Eyes (1948)
  Alias Nick Beal (1949)
  Strangers In the Night (1944)
  Naked Alibi (1954)
  Slaughter on 10th Avenue (1957)
  The Great Gatsby (1949)

Rescues

• Woman on the Run (1950) (digital copy from 35mm before only print was destroyed)

Olive has released Cry Danger and Strangers in the Night on Blu-ray. VCI has released The Prowler on Blu-ray and it bears the FNF logo.

[Gregory]

Look like great packages. I have no idea why studios aren't tripping over themselves to release more noir on Blu-Ray since we know they sell well

Perhaps they will be.

Assuming that domino mainly meant the major studios, there's no indication that they're about to start rushing to release noir on Blu-ray.
Fox, for example, released Laura years into Blu-ray's mature phase (and took criticism from many for a cover that manipulated Tierney so that she was virtually unrecognizable and looked like a dyed blonde) and judging from their actions since were not blown away by the sales of it, even though it seemed like it should have sold well by any reasonable standard. Since then they've treated their noir titles much like those from the Studio Classics DVD line, sidelining plans to revive them on Blu-ray and instead trickling out just a few via licenses to Twilight Time and other small labels.
Warners finally released one of their major noir titles, Out of the Past, in 2014 via the Warner Archive series, making it available through limited outlets, then last year Murder, My Sweet via same, and then this year we finally get a couple more Bogart noirs (Maltese Falcon came out back in 2010). At this rate, via all labels combined, it's taken years to see only a smattering of film noir on Blu-ray.

[danieltiger]

I just saw a new restoration tonight from the Film Noir Foundation. It was for the 1956 Argentinian film Los tallos amargos, which won Argentina's Silver Condor for best film of that year. Hopefully Flicker Alley will release a Blu-ray, the restored transfer was pretty phenomenal, and it's a cool film.

[swo17]

Manufactured-On-Demand (MOD) BLU-RAY is Coming to Flicker Alley!

Bringing Film History to New Audiences on More Platforms than Ever Before.

When we launched our Manufactured-On-Demand (MOD) DVD program last year, we affirmed our commitment to making cinematic gems accessible and affordable to the public on as many platforms as possible. Today, we're excited to announce that we will be expanding our MOD catalog to include select titles on Blu-ray.

Two HD World Premieres Will Kick Off MOD Blu-Ray Program:

Timothy's Quest

Poet and Publisher

Timothy's Quest (1922) is charming pastoral about two unwanted children finding acceptance and love. This rare, cinematic gem is based on a novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm), who was then known as "America's best loved author of stories about children." Director Sidney Olcott - a true pioneer who was General Manager of Biograph - went on to direct many important productions starring the likes of Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, George Arliss, Richard Barthelmes, and Marion Davies. In the film, Joseph Dew plays the orphaned Timothy. In a touching and coincidental act of 'stranger-than-fiction' kindness, Olcott actually adopted and raised the handsome, young Joseph Dew, whose parents were killed in a boarding house fire when he was about 7-years-old.

Poet and Publisher includes Robert Frost (1961) and A Publisher is Known by the Company He Keeps (1961): two documentaries that present an intimate look at two luminaries of the literary world.

The lovely color film Robert Frost was shot over the course of a year, mostly in the region of Robert Frost's solitary mountain cabin in Vermont. Probably the most celebrated American poet of the twentieth century, Frost in his mid-eighties is seen in three seasons walking the landscape while he is heard reading from about twenty-five of his poems inspired by what is shown.

Alfred A. Knopf and his wife Blanche founded the publishing house bearing his name in 1915. He claimed that he never published an unworthy book, and the Knopf catalog includes 17 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature and 47 Pulitzer Prize winners. Knopf (1892-1984) maintained a close personal friendship with many of his authors, and in 1926 he bought a Bell & Howell 16mm camera and began to film them. These home movies form the heart of A Publisher is Known by the Company He Keeps.

[McCrutchy]

Something tells me these won't be pressed, which will only confuse consumers more when it comes to Warner Archive BDs. Needless to say, if that is the case, I won't be buying any of them.

[L.A.]

Hopefully those Argentinian noirs arrive soon. A box set including those three would be nice.

[Ashirg]

Film Noir Foundation said that any future releases depend on how well the first 2 films sell...

[Noiradelic]

Film Noir Foundation said that any future releases depend on how well the first 2 films sell...

"First 2 films" means Too Late for Tears and Woman on the Run? It's not like these are the first FNF restorations on BD. Those two would sell better if they were being released on another label than Flicker Alley. The Flicker Alley packages look nice, and Olive and VCI leave something to be desired, but at least the latter two labels are affordable.

[swo17]

Eh, I don't even really buy films so much to watch them anymore, but to invest in the labels putting them out. Flicker Alley deserves the support.

[Ashirg]

"First 2 films" means Too Late for Tears and Woman on the Run?

Yes, they were talking about the Flicker Alley releases. Here is the direct quote from FNF's Noir News - July 2015

The release of more FNF titles will largely be dependent on sales numbers for these first two packages. Repeat Performance (1947), High Tide (1947), and The Guilty (1947) are other candidates for future release, as are some of the Argentine noir films recently resurrected by the FNF.

[jazzo]

I really want to order those two noir titles, but good fucking christ, altogether, with shipping and shitty rate of exchange, those two discs would cost me more than $100, Canadian.

In Canada, it looks like their going to retail for $60 each, which is just stupid.

[tenia]

Beaver review for L'inhumaine : http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Same huge macroblocking issues than for the French Lobster release of the Charley Bowers movies and Gance's J'accuse, and the same than for the French and the US set of Man with a Movie Camera (I hope MoC will be able to fix that) : see capture 5, 8, 11 & 12. Weirdly, no pink tinted or blue tinted cap shows the issue.
I sincerely hope it's not baked-in the restoration, because that would be highly incompetent for anybody to let such an intense digital flaw slip.

[What A Disgrace]

According to their 2016 calendar, upcoming Blu-ray releases include Best of Cinerama, the Gary Cooper + Clara Bow film Children of Divorce, and a collection entitled Early Women Film Makers.

[Roscoe]

Will they ever get around to that BIRTH OF A NATION release they promised in their last calendar?

[captveg]

The Lost World was another that was mentioned in the 2015 calendar

[essrog]

Got this email today regarding Woman on the Run and Too Late for Tears:

Thank you again for your pre-order of one or both of our upcoming Blu-ray/DVD Noir titles: Too Late For Tears (1949) and Woman on the Run (1950).

We want to let you know that we are pushing back the release date of these highly-anticipated publications to Tuesday, May 10th. The pre-release sale will also be extended during this time, and you will now have until May 17th to order at the discounted price of $29.95. We understand and appreciate the excitement for these films, and that's why we are taking the extra time to offer the kind of high-quality product you've come to expect from Flicker Alley. We will now be shipping out your order no later than Tuesday, May 10th.

These deluxe Blu-ray/DVD dual-format editions will feature brand-new restorations, never-before-seen bonus materials, and, due in part to the feedback we've received from our audience, optional English subtitles for the hearing-impaired.

Rest assured we are working diligently with our partners to get you these releases as soon as possible. If you any questions, please feel free to reach out to us via e-mail at info@flickeralley.com. Thanks again for your patience.

Sincerely,

The Flicker Alley Team

[Ashirg]

Woman on the Run @ DVD Beaver

Too Late for Tear @ DVD Beaver