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Beaver reviews Tobor the Great.

Even though most of the Allied Artists catalog ended up at Warner, Republic got this one, and now Lionsgate is releasing it.

Never Love a Stranger

due 8-19-08



Frankie Kane (John Drew Barrymore) is brought up in a Catholic orphanage and befriends Martin Cabell (Steve McQueen), a Jewish law student whose sister Julie (Lita Milan) becomes Frankie's sweetheart. At sixteen, Frankie learns that he is himself Jewish and therefore has to be moved to a Jewish home. That prospect proves so awful that he runs away - and goes bad. Years later, he returns to the district and gets involved with a crime syndicate that his old pal Martin, now assistant district attorney, has pledged to clean up. Frankie however, bumps in to Julie again and, finding he still loves her, decides to help the straight-shooting Martin smash the syndicate.

Woman Times Seven due 9-16-08



Widow, seductress, model wife or passionate lover, Shirley MacLaine stars in the seven roles of a woman's life in seven sketches - a tour de force performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical/Comedy.

Lionsgate will bring De Sica's vision of seven Shirleys to DVD on September 16

Excellent.

Pro-B

On his blog, justeleblanc wrote:Did Lionsgate acquire all of Embassy's titles or just a select few that MGM passed on?

StudioCanal actually owns the rights to all of what used to be referred to as "The Epic Library." This includes hundreds of films produced by the various permutations of the Avco-Embassy-Nelson chain and a few smaller unrelated studios. MGM has a long-term license (which I think they renewed very recently) from StudioCanal to release most of these in North America. Of course they picked up the well-known titles like The Graduate, The Producers, and several early Rob Reiner films. You will note that the MGM discs of all of these carry a StudioCanal copyright. Woman Times Seven must be one of the Embassy films that got left out of the MGM license, and was therefore part of the huge package that StudioCanal licensed to Lionsgate.

Thanks for the scoop!

DVDActive has specs and cover art for the 15th Anniversary release:

Title: Chaplin
Starring: Robert Downey Jr.
Released: 14th October 2008
SRP: $19.95

Further Details:
Lionsgate Home Entertainment has announced a 15th Anniversary edition of Chaplin which stars Robert Downey Jr. The Richard Attenborough directed film will be available to own from the 14th October, and should retail at around $19.95. As well as a newly remastered anamorphic widescreen presentation, the disc will include a "Staring Into the Sunset" retrospective with cast and director Richard Attenborough, a "Chaplin the Hero" featurette on Charlie Chaplin's contributions to film, a "The Most Famous Man in the World" featurette on Chaplin's status as a pop culture icon, and the films theatrical trailer.

No deleted scenes? or the rumored 4 hour cut?

I know the original DVD is terrible, but no upgrade for me.

Severely underrated film though.

I like this film as much as anyone else, but I have no desire to see a 4 hour version of it.

I am curious just to see what they chose to cut. I don't think anything added to it would improve the film at all. That's wasn't what I was getting at, but I know I was unclear.

How about the whole little girls thing?

aox wrote:I am curious just to see what they chose to cut.

Maybe some more nudity. All the more reason to buy.

No Blu Ray? No sale.

One Touch of Venus (Seiter, 1948)

Coming on October 14



Fantasy comedy about a young window dresser (Robert Walker) who kisses a statue of Venus, which then comes to life in the form of Ava Gardner. The problems begin, however, when Venus falls in love with him...

Arch of Triumph (1948)

Coming on October 14



Set in pre-WWII Paris, the film stars Charles Boyer as Dr. Ravic, a brilliant German surgeon who has fled to Paris to escape the growing power of the Nazis. There he meets Joan Madou (Ingrid Bergman), a depressed, unemployed cabaret singer. Ravic finds her a job and they fall in love. Suddenly, after being unable to produce his passport, he's deported. When he's finally able to return to Paris, matters come to a crisis.

Lionsgate is certainly becoming one of the more eclectic DVD labels.

domino harvey wrote:Lionsgate is certainly becoming one of the more eclectic DVD labels.

Agreed, between their Embassy, Republic, Studio Canal, and Artisan titles, not to mention their plethora of Mexican films, I would say they have most of their art house bases covered.

I understand Fuller´s CHINA GATE (1957), produced by Fuller´s own Globe Enterprises and distributed by Republic, would now be with Lionsgate. I think Fox released it on VHS in USA. Comments?

Stefan Andersson wrote:I understand Fuller´s CHINA GATE (1957), produced by Fuller´s own Globe Enterprises and distributed by Republic, would now be with Lionsgate. I think Fox released it on VHS in USA. Comments?

That may be correct. It was posted here that Paramount was supplying the theatrical prints of China Gate. Paramount actually "owns" the theatrical and video rights to the Republic catalog, but has licensed them to Lionsgate for DVD. I suppose that China Gate being a Republic property would make a lot of sense.

Studio Canal France has released a lot of Italian masterpieces
-Ettore Scola's C'eravamo tanto amati
-Dino Risi's A difficult life, In the name of the Italian people
-Luigi Comencini's The card player (with Bette Davis), La ragazza di Bube (with Cardinale)
-Duvivier's Don Camillo and the sequel

In the UK they have released Casanova 70 by Mario Monicelli.

When did put all togheter in a super Italian pack ?

From the list above, I noticed that Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, High Noon, Sands of Iwo Jima, and Julius Caesar have been released.

dx23 wrote:From the list above, I noticed that Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, High Noon, Sands of Iwo Jima, and Julius Caesar have been released.

And some others, like Indiscreet, Doctor in the House, Strange Impersonation, Wake of the Red Witch, House By The River, and Young at Heart. The problem is some these, like Quiet Man and Julius Caesar, are such wholly unacceptable discs that you might as well count them as unavailable.

Boy was this awful. Whoever edited the film together top-loaded the three worst segments, so it at least gets better in the second half. Christ though, some of these sketches have really good ideas that just never go anywhere, but even the best segment out of the seven is still completely unfunny. Also the third sketch, the one where MacLaine walks around inside her apartment nude and reads poetry while horny Scot and Italian UN delegates try to impress her, is so spectacularly tone-deaf that it almost makes me want to recommend the film just so someone else can see it and tell me what the hell that was all about. Even though the film is essentially 105 minutes of Shirley MacLaine playing dress up, it probably would have been better if they had just literally filmed her playing dress up for the same amount of running time

EDIT: This originally appeared in the now-aborted Woman Times Seven thread