Here are some highlights of the recent releases to the Warner Archive Collection. DVD’s and Blu-rays are manufactured on demand. They also have a streaming service. Before you visit Warner Archive to check out their selection, check out the selections below an a few of my thoughts.

Oscar Nominees & Winners

Our primary reason for highlighting each week’s selections is to showcase new and reprints of Oscar nominees and winners. Below are the Archives most recent releases in this class.

Possessed (1947)
Joan Crawford solidified the career renaissance begun with her masterful turn in Mildred Pierce with her electrifying performance in Possessed. Much like the heroines she portrayed, Crawford triumphed over an industry that too often disposed of its leading ladies at the first hint of maturity by reforging herself as a star via her indefatigable will, talent, and fight. Here she stars as a woman found wandering the streets of Los Angeles and taken to a mental hospital where she weaves a harrowing tale of insanity, murder and the passion by which she became possessed. Louise Howell’s (Crawford) psychiatrist learns that she is a nurse hired to care for a dying woman and rekindled a former romance with her patient’s neighbor, David Sutton (Van Heflin). But the suicide of her charge and rejection by the man she loves drive Howell to madness‹and murder. Or do they? Is her harrowing story true or the misperception of a deranged mind? And is Howell guilty of murder or an innocent victim of something far more sinister? This Film Noir classic, all shadows and suggestion, has never looked better on home video than on this chiaroscuro-clear 1080p High Definition Blu-ray Disc.

Special Features: Commentary by Film Historian Drew Casper; Featurette: “Possessed: The Quintessential Film Noir”; Original Theatrical Trailer

The film was nominated for one Academy Award for Joan Crawford as Best Actress.