filmlover

Wow, Web, I will so be all over this sale. I have two serials from them, Mandrake the Magician and Drums of Fu Manchu, and while the quality is far from perfect, I can see they do care. Mandrake looks good. Drums fair less well BUT it is a very rare serial from Republic and considered one of the best Republic ever made. And each has a well-illustrated booklet. I was looking at the catalogue on line and if I read it correctly, $14.98 seems to be the price right now on their serials but those are marked down from $19.99. If it 40% off $14.99, that would bring them down to $10 each and I will be buying a lot. (Sigh, will I even get out the door for a Black Friday sale??!!!) However, if they are $19.99 and then discounted, I will be more selective. I do recommend the film, And Then There Were None, too. A genuine classic.

Price drops on Amazon for Fox Film Noir bundle and the Fox Studio Classics set!!! The Film Noir bundle is down to $109 from about $139 (already a bargain, and now works out to about $6.40 each for its 17 DVDs) and the Studio Classics set at $199, down from about $240 (40 DVDs, so that is $5 each!!!). What a great way to get some of the best of Fox! LOL, and who knows Fox may try to put these in a fancy binder and charge $500 for it, ala Ford at Fox or United Artists set. Hey, what if we took the discs and a $10-$20 book about Fox and made it into a gift set? Hmm, possibilities. I went ahead and got the film noir bundle because I only have two of those and I can always resell my two. But I have almost all of the Studio Classics, so I passed on that but, boy, what a steal!!!

There's a thread saying Happy Thanksgiving to others on the board, but I noticed there isn't one thanking the people at TCM for making every day a day of thanks for us! Thank you for all the great movies you bring us each and every day of the year. Thank you for having Robert Osborne and Ben as hosts. Thank you for finding rare gems for the Lost & Found series. Thank you for the great tributes you do, including 31 Days of Oscar, Summer Under the Stars, etc. Thank for you for EVERYTHING that is Turner Classic Movies! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

It may slip through the cracks, but Kino has a 25%-30% off sale right now. I know with deepdiscount's sale and Dvdplanet's sale the discount are higher there, but there are are titles Kino sells that dvdplanet and DD don't carry. (For example, The Gaucho and The Iron Mask, two Doug Fairbanks silent films.) Here's a link: http://www.kino.com/video/

Happy Thanksgiving to all! And I think I now know why Thanksgiving dinner is served around 2 PM or 3 PM...it's so we can get to sleep early in order to get up for the 4 AM opening Black Friday sales. I expect people to be lining up around midnight. I intend to go to one - and figure I will only be able to choose one ocnsidering the madhouse - but haven't made up my mind yet. plus I am very broke from all the pre-sales that have been going on!!!

So far, I have ordered from DVD Planet: Ox-Bow Incident Orchestra Wives The Rains Came The Snake Pit Anna Karenina The Razor?s Edge Desk Set River?s Edge 2001: A Space Odyssey (Blu-ray) The Shining (Blu-ray) Eyes Wide Shut (Blu-ray) The Lone Ranger ? The Legend Begins (contains the first serial plus Clayton Moore shows) From deepdiscount: Huh?Hush, Sweet Charlotte A Christmas Carol 4 Film Favorites: John Wayne 4 Film Favorites: Draculas Superman the Movie (Blu-ray)

I've also been ordering a bit, but I'll list those in a separate post. What I wanted to let you know about is if you are in the greater Los Angeles area, go out to the Warner Bros. studio store off of Riverside Drive or Street near the studio. (You have to go in the store itself, no phone orders, because they call these prices studio employee discounts, even if you're not). The prices there are usually about 40% less than street. And I was in there today and discovered that there is an extra 20% for fall clearance or something. Here's what I picked up: Classic Comedy Teams Collection - their usual store price: $17.61 - today was $14.09 Broadway Melody - their usual store price: $10.83 - today was $8.66 Lucille Ball Film Collection - their usual store price: $30.58 - today was $24.46 Driving Miss Daisy - their usual store price: $6.57 - today was $5.26 The Iron Giant - their usual store price: $7.35 - today was $5.88 4 Film Favorites (Comedy) - their usual store price: $8.72 - today was $6.98 Million Dollar Baby (Blu-ray) - their usual store price: $17.15 - today was $13.72 Batman Begins (HD-DVD) - their usual store price: $17.15 - today was $13.72 AND I was shocked to see the following there at the price because I paid about $40 for it at Ameoba: The Jazz Singer Three-Disc Deluxe Edition Box Set - their usual price: $23.50 - today was $18.80 !!!!!! I picked up that extra set because it can always make a good gift, or sell my other one. Even with the special DVDPlanet and Deepdiscount.com specials on right now, they can't match that!

Good point. I had switched to TCM during that sequence and forgot about the trip on the train. I should have remembered. Dang, somehow deep down I knew when I typed it he wasn't in NY by that time. but it sure would have been a nice touch.

Much has been made about the title "North by Northwest" not really being a direction, and how it is likely based on a Shakespearan quote from "Hamlet," "I am but mad north-north-west"...but tonight while watching the scene at the airport in "North by Northwest" where Leo G. Carroll tells Cary Grant about Eva Marie Saunt being their agent, I may have found a justification for the title (no, this isn't in any history of the film's making, just an amusing observance). In the scene, an airline name, Northwest, can be seen in the background. And since a trip to South Dakota (Mt. Rushmore) from NYC would be in a very slight northerly direction, and since we never know which airline he and Carroll do get on, it could very well have been Northwest. So he would be going "North by Northwest." LOL! This may be the most outrageous example of a product endoresment in a film, getting it right in the title (no, probably "Boeing, Boeing" may be the most blatant). And in the scene where Martin Landau drops the statue after being shot, the statue breaks into pieces on the ground, exposing the microfilm that was hidden within it. However, when comparing the size of the film to the size of the head of the statue, it looks to be more a section of a roll of regular 35mm movie film, not tiny microfiilm.

As Kyle said, it is just for November, but I absolutely love every day. These series were a regular staple of movie going back in the Thirties and Forties. (The concept of sequel after sequel is not new tot he present day; just as maing movies from TV shows isn't new, because movies took radio series and made them into films, too.) Personally, I love the B series of private detective type films that TCM is running. There is absolutely nowhere else you can find these. Most of these are not on DVD (or even VHS). They are a lot of fun and I would love to see more. tristanrobin, if you get a subscription to TCM's Now Playing magazine, you will see that each month's programming has some special theme. Just like the different Guest Programmers each night in this month.

LOL, people, take a step back and look at the other threads on this page. Web is just having fun because there is a thread in this forum entitled, "Why is TCM Showing Modern Movies???"

Oh, I agree about time compression in films, but considering that the theater was likely in Times Square, and the Empire State Building is a few blocks away, and the size of Kong...well, unless he was on a tour...

Tonight, I turned on TCM just as the people were going into the theater to see King Kong near the end. I figured it was a great spot to start watching it again, so I stuck around through the end. But even though I have seen it MANY times before, I noticed some things I hadn't paid that much attention to: 1. When Kong climbs the first building and sees the woman with the dark hair sleeping, he reaches in and grabs her. Seeing it is not Ann Darrow, he lets her go and she falls. While I have seen this scene so often before, I never felt the real horror of the scene. I mean, here is a woman peacefully sleeping. She never suspects in her slumber that in a few seconds, she will be awakened as a giant ape's hand grabs her, will be pulled out of the window far above the street below and then will be dropped to her death. Could anything be so horrible as to be asleep, then wake to incredible fright, then die all in a few seconds, without a chance to even think about it? That was not only true horror back then, it still is today. 2. Likewise, the passengers on the train. They are talking or reading the paper, totally unaware they are about to be killed for no reason, other than they were just on this particular train. And those who survive the crash briefly are then murdered mercilessly by Kong pounding his immense fist down oin them until there is only silence in the car. (One thing I also spotted for the first time, one man does manage to drop free from the car near he end of it.) 3. Kong escaped at night and heads to the Empire State Building. It all looks to be done within minutes of real time. But when the planes come after him, it is daylight. Taken that the theatre show owuld have been no later than 9PM, and he tore apart NYC for a biut shortly after, where was he all those hours to dawn? It would be hard to think he was hiding. So, anyway, I was wondering what have you noticed in a film after some time you didn't see the first time?

It is going to be so great to see Wings! And there are so many fantastic films throughout the month. When I was looking at the list, a thought occured to me... So many times in the past, during the month of February we will get naysayers hating the Oscar theme or the choice of titles. But looking at the list reminded me of something very important, 31 Days of Oscar presents the greatest amount of true film classics at one time in one place. Many of the films in February are the very best of the best the cinema has ever produced in its entire history.

Barnes & Noble must have caught on about that 50% discount code being used by a lot of people. It expired on Nov. 11th and now discounts have increased. Ford at Fox just went back up from 15% off to 20% off. Well, at least we got our orders in under it, already. That one is going under the tree this year, from me to me.

I don't want to unnecessarily worry anybody about the Ford at Fox set but I have a sudden concern about the delivery from Barnes and Noble. I just received a package via UPS from them containing the Barbara Stanwyck Signature Collection and the new Three Stooges two disc set. The Stooges set was fine because it is tight with two thin sleeves. However, the Stanwyck had four of the five discs rolling around loose in their individual DVD boxes. Each developed scratches. B&N included no padding nor bubble wrap in the package. Luckily, a call to them a few minutes ago was easy, and they are sending me a replacement box set and a postage-paid label for the bad one. However, what does this portend for the 21 DVDs in the Ford at Fox set??? I am now going to be living in utter dread until it gets here in December.

The Gold Box (looks like a treasure chest icon) appears near the top of the home page. You can sign up to be notified on a daily basis what the new item is, and usually you get the email right after midnight when the item take effect. However, for the Monday and Thursday deals that run only for a few hours, you have to check yourself by clicking on the front page Gold Box. They will usually feature three different items on those Monday and Thursday deals on the right side of the page that comes up when you click on the Gold Box, and they will tell you the category but not the item itself until the time starts for it (for example, the Frank Capra started at 6 AM PST). I think each special runs 4 hours or until they run out of stock, like the Capra set did this morning.

I am so happy these were on. I just got through seeing them all over the weekend (had them on my DVR til then). I'm so glad that Dix wore a regular tie in the second to last of the films aired. I couldn't figure out why he always had to wear a bow-tie in so many films. A bit of trivia: the whistling for the films was done by a woman named Dorothy Roberts, who also did it live each week when the series ran for many years on the radio (the show ran for 13 years).

Here's the artwork for the El Cid release:

I know the El Cid release has been mentioned before here but here is some fresh news from Digitalbits.com: "Genius Products and The Weinstein Company have finally announced the DVD release of Anthony Mann's El Cid on 1/29/08, as part of Weinstein Co's new Miriam Collection label... yes, named after Bob and Harvey's mother. The Miriam Collection is meant to highlight "the best of contemporary and classic cinema." The 2-disc DVD will be issued in two versions - a deluxe edition and collector's edition. The deluxe edition will offer the film digitally remastered and will feature an introduction by Martin Scorsese, 1961 radio interviews with stars Charleton Heston and Sophia Loren, audio commentary by historian Neal M. Rosendorf and Bill Bronston (the son of producer Sam Bronston), a documentary on film preservation/restoration, featurettes on the producer, director and composer, and the Hollywood Conquers Spain documentary. The collector's edition will include all that, plus reproductions of the original 1961 program, a comic book and 6 production stills. Fans have been waiting for the DVD release of this film for a long time."

LOL, sorry but Nashville is a film I wish I had missed.

Re: Fanny. Very glad to hear this. The film gets me every time. I get choked up by it.

I've tried doing several searches by keywords or even by my screenname and nothing comes up. Is it working correctly?

ziggy, TCM is doing what they can, but you also have to factor in the amount of time they have to run them in. They start usually at 6AM EST, but have to be finished prior to the evening's Osborne showings at 8PM. And, actually, TCM is running ALL the Hardy films. You forgot to look at the 22nd. They start then during the daytime, I think the first was called "A Family Affair," go until 8PM, then resume on the 23rd at 6AM. Below is a list I compiled back when they first announced the schedule a few months ago (there might be slight programming changes since then): 1. Torchy Blaine (8 of the 9 in the series) (only missing ?Fly-Away Baby?) 2. Rusty (7 of the series) + Nancy Drew (all four in the series) 3. Jungle Jim (2 films) 4. regular features 5. The Whistler (6 of the 8 in the series, with 5 having Richard Dix) + 5 Ken Maynard teamed with Hoot Gibson movies 6. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (8 movies; most edited together from TV episodes and released theatrically) (one has Joan Crawford) 7. The Crime Doctor (8 of the 10 in the series) + I Love a Mystery (3 movies) 8. Philo Vance (6 of 14 Vance films) + 4 Penrod films (contains all 3 of the Billy Mauch series from WB) 9. Carry On series - replaced by Western series 10. Jungle Jim (2 films) 11. regular features 12. Dick Tracy (all 4 of the 1940s series) + The Saint (7 of the 9 in the series) 13. Lassie (6 films) + Arsene Lupin (2 films) 14. The Lone Wolf (7 of the 14 LW films) + Five Little Peppers (all four in the series) 15. East Side Kids/Bowery Boys/etc. (11 films) 16. Sherlock Holmes (4 films) + The Thin Man (5 films) 17. Jungle Jim (2 films) 18. regular features 19. The Falcon (11 of the 13 RKO Falcon films) 20. Flipper (both 1960s? movies) + The Great Gildersleeve (7 films ? 4 of his own series (complete) and his three appearances in the Fibber McGee and Molly movies) 21. Mexican Spitfire (all 8 of the series ? stars Lupe Velez, and there are two other Velez movies thrown in for good measure) 22 and 23. Andy Hardy (ALL 16 films in the series) 24. Jungle Jim (2 movies) 25. regular features 26. Maisie (9 of the 10 films in the series) 27. Four Daughters (all three of the Lemp Family series)(Daughters Courageous had the same basic cast but was a different family) + Perry Mason (all six in the series) 28. Dr. Kildare (all 9 Kildare films with Lew Ayres) 29. The Durango Kid (12 films out 15?) 30. Miss Marple (all 4 films) + Boston **** (6 films)

I think it took me about a day before my membership # was activated, even though I got an email right away with the #. If you haven't placed the order yet, try entering the MC info on the bottom of the page first and then the 50% discount code up above. You may have to remove the 20% code first for it to accept. But I would think the 50% should still work since it is supposed to be good until 11/11. My final price before the taxes was $95.