Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[Walter Kurtz]

Fun Film Fact: My grandpa's original Criterion Citizen Kane laserdisc box set has a typed letter from "Jon Mulvaney" inside.

[therewillbeblus]

So a Criterion Forum account shared by a group of “interns” is sharing a fun fact that one of their family members has a letter from a Criterion account shared by a group of interns. That is fun

[Walter Kurtz]

Well played!

[Ribs]

Unless something has changed, word was that BBC retained the home video rights to this and Amazon only has the streaming rights.

Chris has Amazon listed as the licensor on the site, so presumably that's who was listed as the licensor on the sell sheet.

No sell sheets were included in the materials this month.

[cdnchris]

Yes, last couple of announcements haven't had sheets, but it was my understanding it was Amazon that had North American rights.

[FrauBlucher]

I have a distribution/licensee question... I was going through Chris' 'list of licensors' that raised my question. As an example...Under the 20th Century Fox section there are listings that are originally distributed by other companies that Fox took over distribution at some point. Now does that change when Disney purchased Fox or now Disney is the distributor of said titles. It seems like a title can go through many hands of licensors like many of the MGM titles have. Does Criterion update the packaging when the licensor changes hands?

[EddieLarkin]

The MGM titles never changed licensor, but unlike other major studios MGM have long relied on someone else to distribute titles for them. Until 2020, that was Fox. Now it's Warner Bros., so Disney have nothing to do with the arrangement anymore.

Warner had the same deal with Paramount a few years back, you may remember a great many Blu-rays that had been released previously by Paramount were re-released under Warner Bros. Like the current MGM/WB deal, that wasn't a case of WB licensing stuff from Paramount, but instead agreeing to act as a distributor for them.

I assume it's effectively the same arrangement that Criterion have with Sony, in that all Criterion titles are distributed by Sony. See also Arrow and MVD.

Personally I think it would be less confusing to just have all those MGM titles listed as MGM licenses only, and not list them under Fox too, who are only mentioned on the packaging because of their distribution agreement with MGM. They never owned any of the titles nor had any say in their licensing to Criterion.

[ntnon]

It is interesting how CC chooses which titles to delay after securing rights. Although, they must have various reasons. But take for instance the Harold Lloyd films. Is his estate put off that his titles have come out at a snails pace?

Doesn't the Lloyd estate keep a tight grip on releases - could they be the motivating force behind delays, and not Criterion?

In any case, it has been - and continues to be - my sincere hope that after a long delay, CC will release a "complete" "Glasses Boy" megaset with synopses & photos for the lost shorts in a manner similar to the phenomenal Murnau, Borzage & Fox set of years past.

I imagine it would take a considerable amount of effort, care and work to scour archives and do the man justice. So I live in hope..

[jheez]

I always figured Criterion helped pay for the restorations for the Lloyd estate. I'm surprised his best work, Girl Shy, never got released. I'm worried at this point in it may be too late to be financially feasible to restore and release in HD.

I wonder what's going on with the estate. As recently as a year ago they had all the works from the big DVD box set on YouTube, even in HD for the Criterion titles. Looks like they all got taken down for some reason.

[Shrew]

I think the Lloyd estate considers the 4 released films to be the "major" works, or at least those are the ones that got highlighted in the old DVD box set from New Line and had commentaries. I do wonder if there's just less pressure from the estate to release anything else and/or if Criterion Channel has come to satisfy any expectations of availability. There were those rumors years ago of a box set of Lloyd's talkies, but that always would've been a hard sell (certainly none of those sound films, save maybe Diddlebock, would sell on their own), and the Channel may make more sense as a way of putting those out.

But I agree that Girl Shy is a masterpiece and really deserves its own release.

[Hogfather]

Just checked the release dates for the other four Harold Lloyd films, and there's an almost four-year gap between Speedy and The Kid Brother. Before that, there was always about a year between releases. We'll probably see a new Lloyd release later this year, though I think it'll be sometime in the fall at earliest. As for the YouTube channel, maybe they took the films down when the Criterion Channel started streaming them.

[jbeall]

So is Small Axe so unexpected or unpopular that it's not getting a dedicated thread, or is this just an oversight?

[Matt]

I see one

[swo17]

It was created from the original discussion thread but never got an announcement bump (until now)

[jbeall]

Okay, thanks. I went to the alphabetical list of titles and found it there, but the link went nowhere, hence my confusion.

[DarkImbecile]

That’s my fault — created a new thread at first before remembering the small bit of existing discussion, forgot to update the link. Apologies, but it’s tough picking up the slack when a so-called “Member of the Year” thinks he’s too much of a big deal to cover new announcements.

[yoloswegmaster]

Don't worry DI, I will vote you for member of the year next time!

On a completely random note, it looks like Issa Clubb and Russell Smith were part of the layoffs since their LinkedIn pages show that they left the company in October

[swo17]

Apologies, this month's announcements just happened to show up during the 15 minutes a year that they let me out of my hamster wheel

[dwk]

On a completely random note, it looks like Issa Clubb and Russell Smith were part of the layoffs since their LinkedIn pages show that they left the company in October

Jason Altman was also one of the people let go in October.

[hearthesilence]

Don't worry DI, I will vote you for member of the year next time!

On a completely random note, it looks like Issa Clubb and Russell Smith were part of the layoffs since their LinkedIn pages show that they left the company in October

Ugh. I’ve met Issa through mutual friends - really good guy, obviously didn’t give away any trade secrets but he was more than happy to talk about cinema and what he tries to do with his reissues and the varying challenges people in his line of work face. They all generally seem like good people at the company to be honest - hope they land on their feet very soon.

[Black Hat]

Yeah, Issa is a really solid guy. Very sorry to hear about this.

[swo17]

He was there for almost 28 years and responsible for a lot of Criterion's flagship releases, yes?

[Black Hat]

He's a producer. No idea how long he worked there.

[swo17]

I got the 28 years from his LinkedIn page

[Michael Kerpan]

Is it possible he simply retired? (Hoping this might be the case).