The Oregon Trail (1959), a color and CinemaScope picture made by Lippert/Regal for 20th Century Fox, was announced as part of the Fox Cinema Archives collection — with a release date of September 11 (this coming Tuesday). However, there was a bit of controversy with the first batch of FCA releases — mainly aspect ratio issues — and news has been a bit sketchy since. So who knows. Fred MacMurray’s late-50s Westerns have been a hot topic around here lately, so this would be a welcome addition. 
Maury Dexter was part of the Lippert team cranking out Regalscope pictures for Fox. He mentioned The Oregon Trail in his memoirs, Highway To Hollywood, which are available here.
Maury Dexter: “We shot a film entitled The Oregon Trail starring Fred MacMurray and directed by Gene Fowler, Jr… Lou Vittes wrote the screenplay (with Fowler). Anyway, we had a last-minute script meeting on a Saturday afternoon, just prior to principal photography. The following Monday morning, several of the scenes that were altered or completely rewritten were scenes that had been scheduled to shoot on the first day. MacMurray was heavily involved with some of these scenes, so late Saturday, the mimeo company picked up the revised scenes and promised to have them printed by early Sunday morning. I was concerned about MacMurray getting late changes, so I instructed the mimeo company to hand deliver the new scenes to Fred’s home on Sunday morning. I personally called Fred and apologized for the late changes and told him that he would receive them on Sunday, in time to study them for the following day. He was very nice and said the following: ‘Don’t worry about it. For the amount of money you people are paying me… I’d ride a bicycle down Hollywood Boulevard in the nude!’ My kind of guy… nothing pretentious about him.”
If I find out anything further about the DVD release, or lack thereof, I’ll update this post accordingly. And if you come across anything, please let us know.
Toby,
Its getting harder to track down release dates at the moment.
With the sad recent passing of Barrie Maxwell from The Digital Bits
their vintage movie info seems to be on hold,for the time being at least.
DVD Aficionado have stopped giving out info on MODs.
Sadly Fox Cinema Archives do not have a website detailing their MODs
unlike Warner Archive and Sony. (speaking of Sony no news yet on the
November MODs which are often announced well in advance)
The Fox MODS just seem to suddenly appear!
Lou Luminick from The New York Post announced the September
Fox MODs a few days ago. Home Theatre Forum are normally ahead
of the game to some extent. Its most odd that the September Fox MODs
are not yet on Amazon USA but then thats often the case as these things
appear out of nowhere!
I am sure the info will be “out there” sooner rather than later;like I have mentioned before the Spanish DVD of THE OREGON TRAIL is beautiful
anamorphic Cinemascope so I cannot see any reason why the USA
version will not be either!
My sincere apologies to Mr Lumenick for the wrong spelling of his name
in the above post!
What I haven’t seen in ages are any announcements about MGM MODs. John, have you seen anything?
Paula,
Sorry,I cannot help regarding the MGM MODs I do not even know if the
series is still “live”
I would have thought it would make more sense to issue the remaining
films under the Fox Cinema Archives imprint. The MGM MODs were
almost all United Artists or American International releases so the MGM
tag is hardly an issue.Also Fox is,after all the parent company.
The Warner Archive not only release Warner titles but also MGM,RKO,
Allied Artists and Monogram.
I do hope that Fox get their act together regarding releasing Cinemascope
titles as pan & scans. I am sure most people would rather they never
release titles that they cannot find a scope version of.
It does mean that the buyer has to be careful when ordering films that
were made in Cinemascope;now out as Fox MODs.
A good reliable source for info is the Oldies website who always include
the ratios information;in any case they have never let me down yet.
As a matter of interest they have all the October 2 Sony MODs listed-
and have the three Fifties Westerns in this batch listed as widescreen.
(Toby,please note this includes MASTERSON OF KANSAS)
According to the Movies Unlimited website ( I CANNOT vouch for any
accuracy with this company) THE OREGON TRAIL is listed as Widescreen.
Sadly; THE WIZARD OF BAGHDAD and SON OF ROBIN HOOD are listed
as pan & scans. If this is the case Fox must be out of their minds cos nobody
is going to want these titles in this useless format. Furthermore if this is
the case it proves Fox are oblivious to all the bad press they have received
regarding this issue. At this rate the whole thing will be dead in the water!
Oddly enough there are now THREE threads on the Home Theatre
Forum relating to Fox Cinema Archives.
There is a new just started thread entitled “NEW FALL 2012 RELEASES
FROM FOX AND CBS ON MOD”
I thought I would mention this because the cover art for THE OREGON
TRAIL appears on the above thread………and its dire!
We have mentioned before all the great minor films and B movies
released by Fox in the late Fifties early Sixties all made in Cinemascope.
If however they continue with this dreadful pan & scan practice whats the
point of releasing them anyway. At least THE OREGON TRAIL would
appear to be Widescreen. My hopes of finding a widescreen version
of SIERRA BARON would appear to be very unlikely.
Wow, you’re right. That’s some unsightly packaging.
Still no word on widescreen, huh? Or a concrete release date?
These old western posters are a joy … and some of them are well recognized as a worthy artform.
This title is now up on Oldies website as released today (Sept 18th)
AND is listed as Widescreen!
Its interesting that other widescreen films issued as 4 x 3 are now noted
by Oldies as Pan & Scan. This is a wise move so as to avoid complaints
from angry customers. I wonder how many people actually buy pan & scan
versions of Cinemascope titles. One things for sure;the avalanche of
negative feedback has not meant a thing to the cats at Fox.