Tweet Columbia MOD program

Columbia's answer to the Warner Archives:

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/columbiaclassics/the-films/?filter=mod

I have had a look at the site and there are a lot of titles, some of which I have thru normal release via UK(as some Warner Archive have come too, but not in an archive series). So some titles are new to DVD in US but not anywhere else the way it works. 10 Rillington Place(The Rillington Place Murders, US title) & Footsteps in the Fog have been UK releases with Fog just released there & I have both. I saw some of the final filming of Rillington Place near the scene of the c1950 events by chance in London & went to a screening on first release. Richard Attenborough played real-life killer John Christie in this film. The original house was demolished.

There are a few titles that have been on 'gray' area lists for a longtime which I guess should be withdrawn now. I refer to titles like A Song to Remember & Song Without End & the Johnny Weissmuller titles.

There are titles listed as remastered which is starting to appear on some WB Archive packaging lately, whatever they are trying to tell us this means.

There is no indication that they will not export outside USA but there is mention they won't send to PO boxes or accept money orders. As they are going to use US Post services I can't see why PO boxes cannot be used and it is usually safer for this method, no fear of packages being stolen at the door or out of the mailman's vehicle. But it does look like it is US only like Warner unless they too use some of the on-line stores like an Amazon.

But the idea is good. There are a lot of pre-1940 titles I would like to see made available but time will tell. They are even talking Blu Ray in their FAQs but that might be a long way off, particularly Blu Ray MOD. That would be a first.

Now for Fox/TCF MODs.

Columbia's answer to the Warner Archives:

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/columbiaclassics/the-films/?filter=mod

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This is great news...perhaps this is the way we will finally get the Columbia Charley Chase shorts released. (And other Columbia shorts too....please!)

Columbia's answer to the Warner Archives:

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/columbiaclassics/the-films/?filter=mod

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This is great news...perhaps this is the way we will finally get the Columbia Charley Chase shorts released. (And other Columbia shorts too....please!)

Stan Taffel did make an announcement at Cinecon that the Chase set was "back on" at Columbia. Not sure if this will be a Columbia Classics release or a regular DVD.

[/quote]Stan Taffel did make an announcement at Cinecon that the Chase set was "back on" at Columbia. Not sure if this will be a Columbia Classics release or a regular DVD.[/quote]
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Thanks Jim.
As long as it really happens...and relatively soon, I hope!

I'm very happy to hear of Columbia's on-demand system and the clips posted at their site look wonderful indeed. Even the oldest pictures now listed--Forbidden Trail (32), No Greater Glory (34) and City Streets (38)--look quite amazing.

Some additional titles that I wouldn't mind seeing in the future:

Mexicali Rose (29)
Tol'able David (30)
The Good Bad Girl (31)
Lover Come Back (31)
The Pagan Lady (31)
Ten Cents a Dance (31)
Three Wise Girls (32)
Virtue (32)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (32)
Below the Sea (33)
Child of Manhattan (33)
The Most Precious Thing in Life (34)
The Social Register (34)
any of Grace Moore's musicals

and of course any Columbia silents, though I suppose most are score-less at the moment. Still, we have a promising start and I hope this program allows some rare gems to find a wider audience.

-Harold

Columbia MOD. The place to buy outside of Sony themselves & the only place for outsiders is DeepDiscount who have priced them under $18 from $25. I ordered some with other items but I have a problem with changing cards due to a possible scam with PayPal(unrelated to how I buy from DD) and there is no way to change the cards like at Amazon. 48 hours later & my e-mail remains unanswered. They will probably cancel the order and some backorders I have with them. Amazon is still the best to communicate with & it was a simple few seconds to change the card there which also changed the details across their world-wide sites at the same time. Plus an instant e-mail confirming the change.

I'm very happy to hear of Columbia's on-demand system and the clips posted at their site look wonderful indeed. Even the oldest pictures now listed--Forbidden Trail (32), No Greater Glory (34) and City Streets (38)--look quite amazing.

Some additional titles that I wouldn't mind seeing in the future:

Mexicali Rose (29)
Tol'able David (30)
The Good Bad Girl (31)
Lover Come Back (31)
The Pagan Lady (31)
Ten Cents a Dance (31)
Three Wise Girls (32)
Virtue (32)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (32)
Below the Sea (33)
Child of Manhattan (33)
The Most Precious Thing in Life (34)
The Social Register (34)
any of Grace Moore's musicals

and of course any Columbia silents, though I suppose most are score-less at the moment. Still, we have a promising start and I hope this program allows some rare gems to find a wider audience.

-Harold

I'd buy Child of Manhattan and Virtue like that (snaps fingers). Also:

Love Affair (32)
Cocktail Hour (33)
The Party's Over (34)
She Couldn't Take It (35)

and some Lone Wolf and Crime Doctor pictures, too, please.

Imagine if Fox jumped on the MOD bandwagon next--or Universal got serious about it.

Sigh.

A SONG TO REMEMBER arrived today and the quality is very good. The clip shown on the website looks a bit sharper than the dvd, perhaps because of the postcard size of the image.

Hopefully Sony will finally release THE COMIC in this form.

Hopefully Sony will finally release THE COMIC in this form.

It's scheduled on TCM on December 30 (for those who can't wait for an official release and don't mind recording it themselves).

I still have my laserdisc of The Comic. It's held up very well.

I got the two discs I ordered from the Columbia Classics program. The Man Who Turned to Stone and The 27th Day. Hoping to watch them this weekend.

I got the two discs I ordered from the Columbia Classics program. The Man Who Turned to Stone and The 27th Day. Hoping to watch them this weekend.

Hey, I have to admit I like those, too (got a bunch of stills from the former). Enjoy them...wish I could join you!

Hey, I have to admit I like those, too (got a bunch of stills from the former). Enjoy them...wish I could join you!

The 27th Day is a fun sci-fi, The Man Who Turned to Stone I haven't seen since I was a kid. Looking forward to seeing if it's as good as I remember. C'mon over Rich! I still have soft drinks and snacks left over from the last movie night.

Imagine if Fox jumped on the MOD bandwagon next--or Universal got serious about it.

This from Lou Lumenick's column in the New York Post on September 13:

"Now that the Warner Archive Collection has proved MOD is a viable business model, I'm hearing rumblings that Fox may join the fray next year."

Entire piece at http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/movies/dv ... LGKYbPv0tO

I'm very happy to hear of Columbia's on-demand system and the clips posted at their site look wonderful indeed. Even the oldest pictures now listed--Forbidden Trail (32), No Greater Glory (34) and City Streets (38)--look quite amazing.

Some additional titles that I wouldn't mind seeing in the future:

Mexicali Rose (29)
Tol'able David (30)
The Good Bad Girl (31)
Lover Come Back (31)
The Pagan Lady (31)
Ten Cents a Dance (31)
Three Wise Girls (32)
Virtue (32)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (32)
Below the Sea (33)
Child of Manhattan (33)
The Most Precious Thing in Life (34)
The Social Register (34)
any of Grace Moore's musicals

and of course any Columbia silents, though I suppose most are score-less at the moment. Still, we have a promising start and I hope this program allows some rare gems to find a wider audience.

-Harold

I'd buy Child of Manhattan and Virtue like that (snaps fingers). Also:

Love Affair (32)
Cocktail Hour (33)
The Party's Over (34)
She Couldn't Take It (35)

and some Lone Wolf and Crime Doctor pictures, too, please.

I'd add-

SONG OF LOVE (29)
NIGHT CLUB LADY (32)

...just to name 2.

I'm very happy to hear of Columbia's on-demand system and the clips posted at their site look wonderful indeed. Even the oldest pictures now listed--Forbidden Trail (32), No Greater Glory (34) and City Streets (38)--look quite amazing.

Some additional titles that I wouldn't mind seeing in the future:

Mexicali Rose (29)
Tol'able David (30)
The Good Bad Girl (31)
Lover Come Back (31)
The Pagan Lady (31)
Ten Cents a Dance (31)
Three Wise Girls (32)
Virtue (32)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (32)
Below the Sea (33)
Child of Manhattan (33)
The Most Precious Thing in Life (34)
The Social Register (34)
any of Grace Moore's musicals

and of course any Columbia silents, though I suppose most are score-less at the moment. Still, we have a promising start and I hope this program allows some rare gems to find a wider audience.

-Harold

I'd buy Child of Manhattan and Virtue like that (snaps fingers). Also:

Love Affair (32)
Cocktail Hour (33)
The Party's Over (34)
She Couldn't Take It (35)

and some Lone Wolf and Crime Doctor pictures, too, please.

I'd add-

SONG OF LOVE (29)
NIGHT CLUB LADY (32)

...just to name 2.

I'd add Air Hawks 1932. It's a sci-fi/airplane film screened in 2007 at Cinecon. Edward Van Sloan as a mad scientist who develops a ray that knocks planes out of the air. He gets mixed up with folks trying to put an airline out of business. Fun film.

[silentfilm]

Dangerous Blondes (1943) with Allyn Joslyn!

Two more titles from the 30s have finally been added, both from 1934: Black Moon with Jack Holt and Fay Wray and The Captain Hates the Sea with Victor McLaglen, John Gilbert et al. Two of Warren William's Lone Wolf pictures, Counter-Espionage and Passport to Suez, are also available.

-Harold

The Captain Hates the Sea with Victor McLaglen, John Gilbert et al.
-Harold

NICE! Been waiting for a good copy of that one forever!

Two more titles from the 30s have finally been added, both from 1934: Black Moon with Jack Holt and Fay Wray and The Captain Hates the Sea with Victor McLaglen, John Gilbert et al.

-Harold

TCM ran a nice print no too long ago. I had wanted to see this film for decades, ever since I first heard Moe Howard and Arthur Treacher reminiscing about working on it together when Moe was a guest on the Merv Griffin Show back in the late 60's. He brought along a photo of them together on the set. Gotta say, when I finally got to see it I was more than disappointed by the minimal amount of screen time the Stooges get, especially considering they were working at what was now their home studio. As a new addition to their roster of contract players you'd think they would have wanted to give them a bit more screen time. As I recall, Larry is the only one who has any dialogue and even that was minimal.

Two more titles from the 30s have finally been added, both from 1934: Black Moon with Jack Holt and Fay Wray and The Captain Hates the Sea with Victor McLaglen, John Gilbert et al.

-Harold

TCM ran a nice print no too long ago. I had wanted to see this film for decades, ever since I first heard Moe Howard and Arthur Treacher reminiscing about working on it together when Moe was a guest on the Merv Griffin Show back in the late 60's. He brought along a photo of them together on the set. Gotta say, when I finally got to see it I was more than disappointed by the minimal amount of screen time the Stooges get, especially considering they were working at what was now their home studio. As a new addition to their roster of contract players you'd think they would have wanted to give them a bit more screen time. As I recall, Larry is the only one who has any dialogue and even that was minimal.

A disappointment to Stooges fans, but otherwise it's a really good little film with an excellent performance by Gilbert. And besides, the idea of seeing John Gilbert and Moe Howard in the same shot is really mind-blowing.

greta

I'm surprised the Stooges got as much screen time as they did considering all of the little sub plots floating around on board that ship. What I like about such unconventional casting is that the filmmakers are telegraphing ahead to the audience that this is going to be a more offbeat film than the norm. So they populate the ship with the likes of Leon Errol, Walter Catlett and Alison Skipworth (who I rarely found amusing in her various comedic parts over at Paramount but is great in this role).

As a side note, the great Joe August is the cinematographer for this film. He also shot the Stooges first short for Columbia, WOMAN HATERS (34), that same year. I always found it odd that a top line talent like August was used in that way, but I just assumed that the studio was in a bind and he was helping out....or he owed Cohan big time over something or other. Now I'm wondering if there was more of a connection between August and the Stooges. Did he enjoy their antics and lobbied to get them a part in this film? It's possible since he spent the thirties in collaboration with John Ford so he could had lost his sense of humor by this point.

The great Joe August is the cinematographer for this film (THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA). He also shot the Stooges first short for Columbia, WOMAN HATERS (34), that same year. I always found it odd that a top line talent like August was used in that way, but I just assumed that the studio was in a bind and he was helping out....or he owed Cohan big time over something or other. Now I'm wondering if there was more of a connection between August and the Stooges. Did he enjoy their antics and lobbied to get them a part in this film?....

I think one reason he did the photography for WOMAN HATERS was the timing. He had just been the cinematographer on TWENTIETH CENTURY from February 22 to March 24, 1934 and since WOMAN HATERS was about to start production a few days later, on March 27 and since some of it was to be shot on the same sets they just kept August on board to shoot the short, too.
There are other connections between TWENTIETH CENTURY and WOMAN HATERS:
A scene of the train at the station from the feature is used in the short, and actor Fred Toones ("Snowflake") is in both films as the train porter.

THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA by the way, was filmed later than these two. It was in production from June 20 to Sept. 11, 1934.

Just received an e-mail regarding the latest additions to the Sony MOD system--the October slate will include three films (as singles) previously available only as part of collections: American Madness (1932), The Black Room (1935) and Before I Hang (1940).

-HA

As far as I can see nobody had pointed out that the Columbia MOD titles are also available at the Warner Archive site at WBSHOP.COM. Price $19.95 each.

As far as I can see nobody had pointed out that the Columbia MOD titles are also available at the Warner Archive site at WBSHOP.COM. Price $19.95 each.

Yes and cheaper elsewhere with world-wide distribution. Oldies.com being one of them who also have WAC titles on special at $14.98 currently plus delivery.

Keep an eye out for sales at Warner Archive's site---I recently bought some titles for around $11 each with free shipping.

It helps if you have bought from them before--you get first word on their sales!