Announcing the Universal Vault Series, Part 1: Schrader, Huston, Leisen, Schumacher

After releasing Mitchell Leisen's Remember the Night and a couple of B horror flicks through the Turner Classic Movie Vault, Universal has taken a cue from Warner and their Archive Collection by partnering with Amazon.com to release DVD-R's of catalogue titles. The Universal Vault Series unveiled the first 25 titles, all available for $19.95, which include Paul Schrader's directorial debut Blue Collar, John Huston's star-studded mystery The List of Adrian Messenger, Bruce Beresford's A Good Man in Africa and Mitchell Leisen's Death Takes a Holiday, which was made available previously on Universal's "Ultimate Edition" of the epic bore Meet Joe Black. I've highlighted the titles making their Region 1 debut in bold. I'll try to keep you updated on the newly available Vault titles as I hear of them.

- 40 Pounds of Trouble, 1962, d. Norman Jewison, w. Tony Curtis
- The Black Shield of Falworth, 1954, d. Rudolph Maté, w. Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh
- Blue Collar, 1978, d. Paul Schrader, w. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Ed Begley Jr.
- The Brass Bottle, 1964, d. Harry Keller, w. Tony Randall, Burl Ives, Barbara Eden
- A Bronx Tale, 1993, d. Robert De Niro, w. De Niro, Chazz Palminteri
- The Chalk Garden, 1964, d. Ronald Neame, w. Deborah Kerr, John Mills, Hayley Mills
- Death Takes a Holiday, 1934, d. Mitchell Leisen
- Dragnet, 1954, d. Jack Webb
- Gambit, 1966, d. Ronald Neame, w. Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Herbert Lom
- Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain, 1995, d. Kevin James Dobson, w. Anna Chlumsky, Christina Ricci, Diana Scarwid, David Keith
- A Good Man in Africa, 1994, d. Bruce Beresford, w. Sean Connery, John Lithgow, Diana Rigg, Louis Gossett Jr., Joanne Whalley-Kilmer
- The House of the Seven Gables, 1940, d. Joe May, w. Vincent Price
- The Incredible Shrinking Woman, 1981, d. Joel Schumacher, w. Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty
- Kitten with a Whip, 1964, d. Douglas Heyes, w. Ann-Margret
- The Last Remake of Beau Geste, 1977, d. Marty Feldman, w. Ann-Margret, Michael York, Peter Ustinov, James Earl Jones, Trevor Howard
- The List of Adrian Messenger, 1963, d. John Huston, w. Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, George C. Scott
- The Perfect Furlough, 1958, d. Blake Edwards, w. Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh
- Pure Luck, 1991, d. Nadia Tess, w. Danny Glover, Martin Short
- Resurrection, 1980, d. Daniel Petrie, w. Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard, Richard Farnsworth
- Ruggles of Red Gap, 1935, d. Leo McCarey, w. Charles Laughton, Mary Boland
- Shoot Out, 1971, d. Henry Hathaway, w. Gregory Peck, Susan Tyrrell
- Shout, 1991, d. Jeffrey Hornaday, w. John Travolta, Heather Graham, Linda Fiorentino, Gwyneth Paltrow
- Spawn of the North, 1938, d. Henry Hathaway, w. Henry Fonda, Dorothy Lamour, John Barrymore
- Stick, 1985, d. Burt Reynolds, w. Reynolds, Candice Bergen, George Segal
- Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, 1969, d. Abraham Polonsky, w. Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Robert Blake

So, maybe, IFC will be releasing DVDs for purchase again

Thanks, as usual, to Eric for paying attention when I was not, but it looks as if IFC may have finally stepped away from their sinking ship of a distributor, Genius Products, as there will be three of their titles released through MPI in August. I've read no official confirmation of this, but things are looking likely in that IFC has found a home with MPI, who currently releases DVDs from both Music Box Films and Dark Sky Films. While I would have been more excited to see The Last Mistress or The Duchess of Langeais as one of the three, I'm still glad to see that (maybe) they will be making their films availablefor purchase in the US after six months of no new announcements. The three titles are Gaël Morel's Après lui (11 August), with Catherine Deneuve and Élodie Bouchez; Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig's Nights and Weekends (25 August); and Duane Graves and Justin Meeks' horror flick The Wild Man of the Navidad (11 August). I've also heard that Bruce McDonald's Pontypool will be out on 21 July, but that's from a different source that hasn't been confirmed yet.

And here are a few other DVD announcements:

- Serious Charge, d. Terence Young, 1959, VCI, 30 June
- Visioneers, d. Jared Drake, 2008, Virgil Films, w. Zach Galifinakis, Judy Greer, 21 July
- The Astonishing Works of Tezuka Osamu, 1962-1988, Kino, 28 July
- Phil Mulloy: Extreme Animation, 1991-1995, Kino, 28 July
- The Garden, d. Scott Hamilton Kennedy, 2008, Zeitgeist, 18 August
- Adam Resurrected, d. Paul Schrader, 2008, Image Entertainment, w. Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, 22 September