Street Dude wrote: What factors determine if Janus distributes prints?
Answer: whether or not they buy the rights to the film, plain & simple... and this predicated of course on whether or not those rights are being made available to third parties for theatrical/home-vid distribution in the first place.
I know that Kit Parker holds the rights to some of the Fullers (i e the early stuff on the E set, at bare minimum), and may reserve the distribution rights for the cinema, but may have sold the vid rights exclusively to Janus/CC for R1 dvd. I'd add I know nothing about the current rights- scenario for this film.. I'm only speculating because it sounds like you think Jaanus has not been the party exploiting it for the cinema, whereas we know the disc is forthcoming. So if this were true, that might be the case.. i e vid rights were let, but not theatrical exposition.
Paramount owns White Dog. It is one of the block of titles that Criterion licensed from them for DVD. Paramount's repertory department is responsible for distribution of the theatrical print.
Ah, there you go. So it is the general scenario indicated.. CC acquired the vid rights, but not the theatrical. Common to many arrangements between CC & big studios, I'm sure.
There are only a few Fuller titles I know of that are actually in a weird rights holder situation. The Naked Kiss is one of them (although vid rights are probably PD). I also don't know what the situation is with Run of the Arrow. I don't think Universal owns a print of this, so I'm not sure who currently owns the rights. The last I heard, the best circulating print was bequeathed to the University of Miami (!!!) of all places, and I don't know what its current status is. As it stands:
Kit Parker I Shot Jesse James The Baron of Arizona The Steel Helmet
Fox Fixed Bayonets!
Pickup on South Street
Hell and High Water
House of Bamboo
China Gate (according to MomI, the print they showed came from, of all places, Paramount!)
Forty Guns
United Artists Park Row (Theatrical confirmed - video rights as well?)
Universal/RKO teleradio pictures (limbo) Run of the Arrow
Columbia (confirmed) Crimson Kimono Underworld U.S.A.
Columbia (limbo) Verboten! (I believe the 35mm print MoMI showed also came from Paramount?!)
Warner Bros. Merril's Marauders The Big Red One
Public Domain The Naked Kiss (video) Shock Corridor (video, may also be theatrical)
Paramount White Dog
I don't think it's surprising then that, with the exception of the Columbia (confirmed) titles, the titles in rights limbo are the only ones that have yet to be released on DVD, White Dog excepted.
Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but in an article in Courant, they mentioned that Lisa Dombrowski, author of "The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You!" will be doing a commentary for this release.
"Dombrowski, whose next project is doing audio commentary for the Criterion Collection DVD release of Fuller's "White Dog" "
Lisa Dombrowski wrote:Criterion has just announced a release of the DVD version with lots of special features for the end of this year. I’m going to be doing the audio commentary for that, which I’m pretty excited about.
Lisa Dombrowski wrote:Criterion has just announced a release of the DVD version with lots of special features for the end of this year. I’m going to be doing the audio commentary for that, which I’m pretty excited about.
Maybe the commentary turned out to be no good. But that's never stopped Criterion before (and Lisa is a very entertaining and engaging person). Maybe the dog ate it! HA!
So glad to finally be able to own this remarkable film. While I was going to buy this no matter what, the prospect of an Armond White essay on this film has me salivating.
Lisa Dombrowski wrote:Criterion has just announced a release of the DVD version with lots of special features for the end of this year. I’m going to be doing the audio commentary for that, which I’m pretty excited about.
Maybe the commentary turned out to be no good. But that's never stopped Criterion before (and Lisa is a very entertaining and engaging person). Maybe the dog ate it! HA!
Strange that this ended up being Criterion's first Paramount-licensed movie to be part of the lower price tier...
At least we're getting Fuller's interview with the titular dog(?)
I was really hoping that the "Bow Tie" episode from season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm -- the one featuring Larry David's racist dog -- could have been included as a supplement to this release.
Seriously though, praise the lord that Paul Haggis was kept away from this release and that Armond's contribution was limited to an essay.
Tom Hagen wrote:I was really hoping that the "Bow Tie" episode from season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm -- the one featuring Larry David's racist dog -- could have been included as a supplement to this release.
I was thinking the same exact thing when I read the synopsis for this film.
My neighbour's cat has a genuine terror of black people and living in east London, that's not exactly an uncommon encounter. I can only assume it was mistreated at some point before my neighbour took it in as it's a very happy-go-lucky animal otherwise. It doesn't attack anyone, incidentally, just bolts away to hide.
That's all we need--a rambling and incoherent Armond White essay about racism in the movies. Here's betting that he mentions Spielberg films like Amistad, and zings Spike Lee in the same breath.
I can't believe CC is giving Armond White real estate in a fricking booklet-- on any subject, let alone a "controversial" film about race furchrissakes.
What, were there no fuckin relevant people left in the world?
kaujot wrote:Does anyone off-hand know what Armond thought of Crash?
He hated it, surprisingly, for the same reasons that we hate it. But don't worry, he managed to drag actual good films/filmmakers through the mud throughout his meandering review.
