It’s hard to believe this is my 200th DVD article for CinemaSight. It’s still harder to realize how much DVD and home movie delivery in general has changed since May 2007 when I started this.

Despite the availability now of streaming, i.e. downloading films over the internet, having a physical DVD in your possession is still the best way to be able to enjoy a film anytime you want. There probably never will be a time when you can download anything at any time. Studios can and do put films out there and then withdraw them at will.

One trend that is good for home viewers is that the window between theatrical releases and home video availability continues to shrink. All studios now make their latest films available on Blu-ray and DVD within a few months of their theatrical debuts.

It’s not surprising that DVD sales have slumped in the wake of the downturn in the worldwide economy, and that DVD production as a consequence has fallen. Not only are studios making fewer copies of their new films, they are for the most part not interested in delving into their vast libraries of old films.

What is surprising is that given the opportunity to derive profits from those old films though the sale of MOD (movies on demand) hasn’t whet more studio appetites than it has.

Warner Bros., which owns all of its own films as well as the complete film libraries of RKO and several small studios, along with films made by MGM prior to 1991, introduced movies on demand two years ago. Rather than pressing DVDs by machine and making them available for distribution through retail outlets, they copy their films on computers and sell them to customers via their on-line store. They now release a minimum of four titles per week.

The Warner Archive releases have run the gamut from silent classics of the 1920s to pre-Code gems of the early 1930s to forgotten films noir of the late 1940s to restored cinemascope epics of the 1950s and 1960s to classic TV movies and mini-series of the 1970s and 1980s to an occasional more recent, albeit neglected film of interest. Many of their releases have been restored versions of films that have only been previously available, if at all, in battered, difficult to watch versions.

Some of this stuff is really fascinating. For example, this year they have already given us a double disc set of the two versions of The White Sister; several synchronized sound films that bridged the gap between silents and talkies; four long sought after Vincente Minnelli films and most recently, several long requested musicals.

I had seen the 1933 version of The White Sister with Helen Hayes and Clark Gable years ago and remembered it as being pretty good for an old tearjerker. It still is, but the 1923 original with Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman is so much more than that, filmed on location in the wake of Mt. Vesuvius.

The synchronized sound films, Don Juan with John Barrymore and Mary Astor and The Merry Widow with Mae Murray and John Glbert give you a sense and feel of what it must have been like in that brief period between silents and talkies when films hasn’t yet spoken but were very much alive with the sound of the worlds around them.

Minnelli’s The Cobweb; Tea and Sympathy; The Reluctant Debutante and Two Weeks in Another Town, like all of Minnelli’s cinemascope films from the 1950s and early 1960s, are nothing if not beautifully designed and composed films, showing a true mastery of the then still new widescreen process.

Among the recently released musicals are Minnelli’s 1945 under-appreciated Yolanda and the Thief, which failed to make Lucile Bremer a star, but did give us Minnelli’s glorious compositions and his first collaboration with Fred Astaire. Also finally available is Little Nellie Kelly, with Judy Garland in a dual role as mother and daughter.

Warner Bros. has also been a leader in releasing their classic films on Blu-ray. They’ve already made available special limited editions of Gone With the Wind; The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca, as well as released these beloved films in stand-alone single Blu-ray disc editions. They’ve also released The Maltese Falcon; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and the original King Kong with more to come.

Their standard DVD releases of classic titles seem to be limited to repackaging previously released films in four packs under the TCM banner.

Fox, which was the first to release a bounty of their classic films in the early days of DVD in the late 1990s, has been a real disappointment in recent years. True, they gave us the monumental Ford at Fox collection, but the failure of the even more fabulous Murnau, Borzage and Fox collection to sell kind of put a damper on things. They’re since been content mainly to reissue the same title over and over. A rare recent exception was The Elia Kazan Collection which along with the reissues gave us five previously unavailable Kazan films including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Wild Riverand America America.

Fox still has a number of classics that they have not released, but seems content to just repackage the same films over and over. They have, however, stepped up their Blu-ray releases schedule of classic films. Recent releases include The Robe; South Pacific and The Sound of Music, but seem to be concentrating on the release of MGM (actually United Artists) film in their library before they lose distribution rights to Lionsgate later in the year. Films such as the original The Manchurian Candidate, presently Best Buy exclusives, will be given wide release before their contract expires.

In the meantime they have licensed a number of lesser known titles to Screen Archives, a CD manufacturer and distributer. Their first release is 1970’s The Kremlin Letter.

At the other end of the spectrum, Paramount continues to be the worst of the major studios at releasing the wealth of films they own. They don’t seem to have much interest in putting their classics out on DVD either. A rare exception was made for the 1969 version of True Grit to capitalize on the release of the remake last December, but the only classic scheduled for imminent release is The Ten Commandments. 

Disney continues to slow release its classic titles for limited periods, then place them on moratorium and re-release them roughly in seven year intervals. Bambi, which was just released on Blu-ray, is the latest to re-emerge. One wonders how long this can go on.

The class act of home video, the Criterion Collection, continues to grow. Recent releases include superb Blue-ray renditions of Paths of Glory; Sweet Smell of Success; Au Revoir, les Enfants and Yi Yi. Blow Out; the original 1955 version of Diabolique and Deadly Kiss Me Deadly are coming.

Both Universal, which owns all pre-1949 Paramount films, as well as its own vast library and Sony, which owns Columbia films, have set up MOD programs similar to those of the Warner Archive, but releases are slow in coming. Hopefully this will improve.

In the meantime there are still a few of the old independent shops, sometimes referred to as bootleg sites, where you can obtain a copy of a rare old film at a reasonable price if you look hard enough. Many of these are films that have fallen out of copyright, and are considered to be in the public domain.

A film that has fallen into in the public domain can still have a major restoration if the original elements, which are still for the most part owned by the studio that produced it, if demand is there or the studio or DVD company cares enough about a particular film to spend the money. Rescued and restored public domain titles include It’s a Wonderful Life; the title 1951 version of A Christmas Carol and Charade, all of which are now available on Blu-ray as well as standard DVD. Public domain titles that been restored for standard DVD include the 1936 version of My Man Godfrey and His Girl Friday. Make sure you seek out the superior restored versions if you want to see these classics in all their glory.

Happy hunting!

New DVD releases this week include recent Christmas releases The Tourist and How Do You Know and the Blu-ray releasse of Robe Reiner’s Stand By Me and John Huston’s The Bible.