It’s always nice to discover an old movie you didn’t even know existed. This week I found one that Kino Lorber released on Blu-ray five years ago. Called 13 Washington Square, the film was released in early 1928 making it eligible for the first Academy Awards but did not receive a single nomination.

It’s a shame that supporting awards weren’t given out by the Academy in the first six years of the Oscars, or it might have garnered a nomination for ZaSu Pitts at her hilarious best as the maid in this comic melodrama.

Silent screen star Alice Joyce had the lead as a high society matron riding roughshod over her son’s choice of a fiancée. Jean Hersholt, fresh from his acclaimed performance as the beloved teacher in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1927 hit, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, had top billing as a resourceful thief hiding out in her home. George J. Lewis, later Guy Williams’ father in TV’s 1950s version of Zorro, played Joyce’s son.

The film starts off with Joyce and Pitts boarding a steamship to take them to Europe when Joyce gets word of her son’s intention to marry while she is on her voyage. She swaps hat and coat with her cousin Helen Jerome Eddy who has boarded the vessel to say goodbye and sneaks off the ship with Pitts in tow.

The rest of the film plays out something like the 1947 comedy classic, It Happened on 5th Avenue with Hersholt something of a forerunner to Victor Moore in that film.

Pitts, already a master of startled reactions, steals every scene she’s in. She also regales the audience with her malapropisms, which, because this is a silent film, draw late laughs as they must be shown on title cards for the audience to appreciate them.

Joyce and Pitts would team in Joyce’s first talkie, 1929’s The Squall in which Joyce was also billed over Loretta Young and Myrna Loy who steals the film as a wicked gypsy.

Pitts’ subsequent films include Monte Carlo, The Guardsman, Ruggles of Red Gap, It All Came True, Life with Father, and The Thrill of It All, as well as the 126-episode TV series, Oh! Susanna with Gale Storm.

Alice Joyce retired from the screen after making just three more films in 1930. She married third husband, director Clarence Brown, in 1933 whom she would divorce in 1945.

By coincidence, I had hoped to be reviewing Clarence Brown’s long lost 1932 film, Letty Lynton this week, but the Warner Archive release was delayed due to another lost film in their latest batch of releases, 1969’s Last Summer, which had to be reprinted. I expect to receive both tomorrow and will be reviewing them next week.

Letty Lynton was a pre-code film in which Joan Crawford stars as a society dame who gets away with murder. The film was withdrawn from distribution in 1936 due to a plagiarism lawsuit and couldn’t be shown in the Hollywood code era anyway because of its main character having gotten away with the murder. The film, which was released from legal limbo after 90 years, was recently shown at the 2026 TCM Film Festival prior to its Warner Archive release.

Warner Archive, which holds the distribution rights to classic MGM and RKO films as well as old Warner Bros. titles, has been slowly releasing its vast library on Blu-ray upgrades, a few of which have even been released in 4K UHD.

Also, among the titles from the delayed June releases are 1936’s Rose-Marie with Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, and James Stewart; 1940’s Strange Cargo with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable; 1944’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo with Spencer Tracy, Van Ohnson, Robert Walker, and Robert Mitchum; and 1946’s Night and Day with Cary Grant and Alexis Smith.

Late this month the Warner Archive will release 1951’s Captain Horatio Hornblower with Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo along with several other minor films on Blu-ray. The brunt of July releases, though, which have been delayed until August 4, include 1935’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Mickey Rooney, and Olivia de Havilland; 1938’s The Sisters with Errol Flynn and Bette Davis; 1942’s Random Harvest with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson; 1943’s Presenting Lily Mars with Judy Garland and Van Heflin; 1944’s The Seventh Cross with Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and Agnes Moorehead; and 1952’s Macao with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, and William Bendix.

August will be an even bigger month with the release of 1937’s Broadway Melody of 1938 with Robert Taylor and Eleanor Powell; 1940’s Torrid Zone with James Cagney, Ann Sheridan, and Pat O’Brien; 1942’s All Through the Night with Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Jane Darwell, Peter Lorre, and Judith Anderson; 1943’s The Human Comedy with Mickey Rooney and Frank Morgan; 1950’s Montana with Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith; 1956’s The Bad Seed with Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, and Eilen Heckart; 1957’s The Wings of Eagles with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara; 1960’s Sergeant Rutledge with Jeffrey Hunter and Woody Strode, 1981’s Pennies from Heaven with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters; and 1997’s Wag the Dog with Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.

Still to come are two 4K UHD restorations that were also unveiled at the 2026 TCM Film Festival.

First up in late August is 1958’s comedy classic, Auntie Mame starring Rosalind Russell with a top-notch supporting cast that includes Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Patric Knowles, Peggy Cass, Connie Gilchrist, Yuki Shimoda, Fred Clark, Henry Brandon, Robin Hughes, Roger Smith, Joanna Barnes, Pippa Scott, Willard Waterman, Lee Patrick, and Jan Handzlik (young Patrick) whose interview at the festival is included on the disc.

Coming in early September is 1947’s film noir masterpiece, Out of the Past with Robert Mitchcum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, and Dickie Moore heading the cast.

Happy viewing.