Universal Backlot Series / Universal Studio Selections

[domino harvey]

Pre-code beaver

[filmnoir1]

This first volume of Paramount's Pre-Code catalogue is fantastic. While Universal continues to neglect these films with special features, perhaps it is enough to just have the films. Torch Singer is a marvelous example of an early "woman's drama" with Claudette Colbert. Her performance as a woman of the streets who struggles to find her daughter and her heart is a breath-taking example of the subtle qualities that these early films could embrace.
Equally fascinating in this set are the films Hot Saturday, with Cary Grant as a notorious millionaire who corrupts beautiful young women in small towns, and Search for Beauty that lays bare the sex obsessed consumer driven elements of America's fascination with health and beauty in the age of ballyhoo. Overall, these films are a fascinating look into how Paramount dealt with issues of sex, morality, vice, and adult themes in a way that is often more invested in a good time and displaying a life of luxury rather than the hard realities of the street, i.e. Warner Brothers' pre-code period. Let's hope that Universal sees that there is a real interest in seeing these early Paramount films, because Paramount's catalogue has been the one that has lacked real stewardship in this period of classic dvd releases.

[souvenir]

DVD Times on the Pre-Code Hollywood set

[Tolmides]

Amazon is now allowing pre-orders on a 'Remember the Night' DVD. RRP is given as $19.98, but no street date yet.

[jaredsap]

Amazon is now allowing pre-orders on a 'Remember the Night' DVD. RRP is given as $19.98, but no street date yet.

Nice catch. I really hope this is not an error. REMEMBER THE NIGHT is an amazing film imo -- a perfect fusion of Sturges and Leisen's sensibilities (blissfully, the screwball never overwhelms the romanticism) and the best rewatch-every-Christmas movie ever made. It's also, by far, Stanwyck and MacMurray's greatest teaming. I can't believe it fell off the cultural map.

[Finch]

If Amazon's correct, I wonder if this is going to be in the Cinema Classics line-up like the previous two Leisens, the brilliant Midnight and the fairly good Easy Living. Hope they find room for To Each His Own as well.

[Jeff]

Hope they find room for To Each His Own as well.

And Hold Back the Dawn.

the best rewatch-every-Christmas movie ever made.

Don't be silly, Jared. Everyone knows that Die Hard is the best rewatch-every-Christmas movie ever made.

[jaredsap]

Don't be silly, Jared. Everyone knows that Die Hard is the best rewatch-every-Christmas movie ever made.

Don't worry. Whenever exhibitors ask me for Christmas ideas, I always suggest DIE HARD (even though it's owned by Fox, not Sony).

[Cash Flagg]

Claudette Colbert Legacy Collection: 11/3/09

[Perkins Cobb]

A Lubitsch and a Leisen ... can't go wrong with that. But still no street date on Remember the Night.

[HerrSchreck]

This looks cool-- anybody know anything about Maid of Salem?

[HarryLong]

-- anybody know anything about Maid of Salem?

Aside from it being a kind of dry-run for THE CRUCIBLE ...?

[HerrSchreck]

Have you seen it Harry?

[HarryLong]

Have you seen it Harry?

Yeah.
Back in about 1999 or so I responded to an ad in CLASSIC IMAGES (I was writing for them back then) from a bootlegger who was going out of business & was selling his "ahem" master tapes. Some of them were 3 or 4 movies crammed onto the 6 hour running time, so you can imagine the quality of any tape you might have bought from him.
That's probably too much info, but it explains how I stumbled across this obscure film. MAID was one of the titles on one of those "anthology" tapes & I hadn't a clue who was in it or what it was about until I watched it.
It's based on the same historical records of the witch trials that Arthur Miller used for his play which might account for some of the character names & situations repeating, but as I watched it I kep thinking that Miller must have seen the film, there's just a few too many similarities.
I haven't watched it in about a decade, so my memories aren't what you'd call fresh, but I recall it being a pretty good film.
Odd, isn't it, that anything headlining Claudette Colbert from that period could fall into obscurity...

[HerrSchreck]

Agreed-- buit since Uni has still not seen fit to release Island of Lost Souls or Stranger On The Third Floor or City Streets, I'm not surprised there's still some Claudette laying around.

Another great early Paramount I wish they'd get out in a decent edition is Murder By The Clock. Way obscure, and dripping with good atmosphere.

[myrnaloyisdope]

Glad to see Bluebeard's Eighth Wife come out. I would like to have seen some earlier Colbert pre-codes like Manslaughter get an official release though.

[HarryLong]

Another great early Paramount I wish they'd get out in a decent edition is Murder By The Clock.

Agreed. It's notexactly obscure among horror film afficionados, but I'd lay odds a good percentage of them have only read about it (I have yet to see it).
Universal could easily release a Paramount pre-code horror box with SOULS and CLOCK and a few other titles.

[Props55]

MAID OF SALEM had a brief exposure on the "old" AMC network around ten or a dozen years ago. I only saw it piecemeal over several telecasts (frankly, it never quite grabbed me enough pop a tape in and catch the whole show)but it was enough to notice the similarities to the Miller play that Harry mentioned. Print quality looked at least as good as comparable Para/Colbert historicals (CLEOPATRA) of the period and she looked quite fetching in cap and apron!

Great news about BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE! I haven't seen this since 16mm university screenings circa mid-70's. I don't recall this one ever being telecast by TBS/Turner/Supersation 17 or by AMC despite long term Uni/Para library contracts by both. And yes David, I do recall it beginning so perfectly and then unraveling as it progresses. I was not very aware then of precode Hollywood and subsequent reissue cuts. WIFE and NINOTCHKA, THE MERRY WIDOW and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER were my introduction to Lubitsch!

[HerrSchreck]

Murder by the Clock is certainly notable for yet another "looney" performance from Irving Pichel whose greatest turn in this vein must be as Manservant to Sapphic Gloria Holden in Dracula's Daughter.

Murder does have that very stagey static look about it with rigid blocking and movment etc but the material sort of suits that, as it does the hammy delivery of most of the actors (including Irving.)

This box is a mixed bag really - I dont remember Maid with any great affection, but the Leisen is welcome, as is the Lubitsch Bluebeard which came out on a very attractive French DVD last year. The latter is a very underrated picture, so often left to drift in the "ruined by censorship" label, and although there's no doubt the ending had to be rewritten and the last twenty minutes looks like it's been rushed through the mincing machine after the clasically timed first hour, the leads are wonderful. She's great with Cooper, and the pajamas routine is pretty classic.

Irving is positively LOONY in this film! When whosis (the bottle blonde and evil vamp pulling the manstrings, forget the actress' name) goes to jail to get him all amped up with a boner for killing, the looks on his face are with the price of admission alone. Apparently with the rise of Bela and Boris, Paramount had the idea (for about five minutes) that Irving would be their guy.

Though he is far more horror-ific in the magnificent Drac's Daughter. I still from time to time mutter his sublime one-word reply to Gloria Holden's inquiry ("Look at me Sandor, tell me what you see..") after she's been playing the piano, whenever somoene asks me something like what time it is or what I'd like to have for brunch:

"Death."

[HerrSchreck]

She truly was perfect casting for that film. Incredible that aspects of it made it thru the recently erected Code.

[HerrSchreck]

Agreed on Invisi Ray. It's a great role for Bela, and one of our last glimpses of him adorned in Full Hungarian Dignity, his 1930's charm and charismatic sex appeal and powerful presence still in tact. His Ygor in Son of Franky is a magnificent character, but I'm talking about the proud, dashing nature of Bela, which we catch the last vestiges of running up to the mid-30's. The combination of his advancing age, his drug addiction, and the descent into Banner Productions and PRC schlock reduced the man rather quickly from dashing fellow to crashing jello... but of course I love him in just about everything he did. Even nonsense like The Phantom Creeps. Part of the problem of course is that like Boris, he was getting on in years already by the early 30's and the start of his stardom.

Gloria's elusive nature: the rare vintage makes the wine that much more exquisite! Hail Gloria! Surprised schreckian (the real one) legends haven't sprung up around her, theorizing that she really was a vampire.

[domino harvey]

Two titles in and I'm very pleased with Universal's Pre-Code set. The Cheat is a clear b-picture, but wow, what a scuzzy little number it is! The box warned that even modern audiences might be shocked, and I really was-- I seriously didn't think the film would go as far as it went. One question-- was the heavy supposed to be part-Japanese? I thought he was just a prototype of those white men who fetishize Asian culture to a pretty ridiculous extreme, but the box mentions miscegenation and that's the only way it'd make sense. Would certainly add another level to the weirdness if nothing else. And Merrily We Go To Hell was a very enjoyable, somewhat apologetic treatment of functional alcoholism with great performances and a very fluid camera. I'd heard some grumblings that this was a pretty weak set, but I already feel like I've gotten my twenty bucks worth with four more films to go.

[Matt]

Two titles in and I'm very pleased with Universal's Pre-Code set.

I'm two titles in from the other end of the set (Search for Beauty and Murder at the Vanities) and...uhhh.....

Maybe I'm just disappointed because I spent the entirety of Search for Beauty waiting in vain for just the tiniest glimpse of Buster Crabbe's succulent haunches. I'll start from the other end (of the set, not of Buster) with sunnier expectations.

[souvenir]

Two titles in and I'm very pleased with Universal's Pre-Code set. The Cheat is a clear b-picture, but wow, what a scuzzy little number it is! The box warned that even modern audiences might be shocked, and I really was-- I seriously didn't think the film would go as far as it went. One question-- was the heavy supposed to be part-Japanese? I thought he was just a prototype of those white men who fetishize Asian culture to a pretty ridiculous extreme, but the box mentions miscegenation and that's the only way it'd make sense. Would certainly add another level to the weirdness if nothing else. And Merrily We Go To Hell was a very enjoyable, somewhat apologetic treatment of functional alcoholism with great performances and a very fluid camera. I'd heard some grumblings that this was a pretty weak set, but I already feel like I've gotten my twenty bucks worth with four more films to go.

I think those first two are the best films in the set, though Search for Beauty is the most nonsensically fun. Surely Irving Pichel isn't supposed to be Asian in The Cheat. The earlier version directed by DeMille did have Sessue Hayakawa in that role, but I think having a white actor play it here intentionally toned the film down. The miscegenation mention on the box is probably just there as part of the laundry list of what couldn't be shown after the Code.

[domino harvey]

Hot Saturday was a step down. Thankfully the general dopiness is somewhat salvaged by the still-green Cary Grant, who is game fun and even gets off at least one really good one-liner amidst the amateur hour histrionics of his co-stars. Despite being defanged almost immediately by the ludicrous finish, the twist at the end is pretty slick as well, but not quite enough to save the picture.