Martin Scorsese has curated a retrospective of Republic movies, for February and August at the Museum Of Modern Art, from the restored material at Paramount.
There’s some great stuff in February’s lineup, including Trigger, Jr. (1950), Stranger At My Door (1956) and one of my all-time favorite films, Hellfire (1949). Three of my favorite directors are represented: William Witney, George Sherman and Allan Dwan.
Working with the fine folks at Kino Lorber on commentaries for some of their Republic releases, the quality of the material coming out of Paramount is incredible. (I’m in the middle of Singing Guns right now.) So glad to see these films are being treated with the respect they deserve.
Thanks to Laura for the news!
About time.
Has it been mentioned on here that both seasons of The Californians (50’s TV series) are being released MOD as both DVD and Blu-ray? They’re up for pre-order on Amazon.
Here are links to the actual MOMA press release and a list of the films to be shown in the February part of the program:
Click to access fil…ngschedule.pdf
Click to access fil…se_final75.pdf
The press release indicates that Paramount has preserved 800 Republic films, and the schedule indicates that Andrea Kalas, head of “Paramount Pictures Archives” will do a presentation before the showing of Trigger Jr. It would really be interesting to ask her if Paramount has been able to restore the full running times of the Roy Rogers features from the ’40s and 50’s (especially after having heard previous rumors that full-length prints were submitted to the Library of Congress in connection with copyright submittals by Republic). Many of those those films were originally between 66 minutes and 72 minutes, but Republic chopped the original negatives to 54 minutes when the films were re-printed for television distribution in the 1950’s.
The press release also indicates the 800 Republic films will be returned to ‘wide distribution’, whatever that means. Hopefully Kino (and maybe others) will license the films for blu-ray distribution.
I wonder if a remote chance at last exists that “RIDE THE MAN DOWN” is among the 800 and that a restored print might become reality???
Don’t ask how I know, but that film is being worked on as we speak. A film print of the restoration is highly unlikely, as they’re expensive, and not in high demand. Cross your fingers that Kino Lorber picks up the title.
Thanks Terry for the link.
At least there are high hopes that HELLFIRE and
THE PLUNDERERS will possibly get released by Kino-at least
decent material exists.
Let’s hope enough people support Kino’s forthcoming SINGING GUNS.
I’m pretty excited about ACCUSED OF MURDER an ultra rare
Trucolor/Naturama Noir from Joseph Kane….one heck of a supporting cast
including Greta Thyssen how sadly passed away only a few days ago.
I wonder if they have a color print of WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY.
Paramount have preserved 800 Republic films, that is big news that they have kept quiet about.
Paramount gave us a few teaser Republic films on their Paramount Vault streaming site. Except for the limitations of streaming quality, the films looked really very good.
I hope Paramount chooses to release some of the films themselves, as their DVD quality was always excellent.
I thought I knew all of James Stewart’s westerns ,and amongst the films in the Japanese box sets I bought recently was a film called OF HUMAN HEARTS ,a civil war drama .Many will say it’s a civil war film rather then a western ,but I don’t want to get into a debate about that .It will get put into the western section of my cabinet for convenience ,even DISTAN DRUMS is in that section and it’s set on the East coast .Go figure.Anyway ,OF HUMAN HEARTS is a great film,so if you get a chance ,watch it.With a title like this one and similar ones like GARDEN OF EVIL you have to investigate a little bit more to see if they’re westerns or not .
Sounds like exciting things are in the works if you’re one of the very few that can get to the Museum Of Modern Art theater where-ever. But 100% more exciting is when then announce these films to be released on DVD, yes, DVD, blu ray if you must, but at least DVD.
I’ve been listening to ’30’s-’50’s music since I was in Jr. High in the ’70’s (also used to still listen to all the ’70’s music that was current then) at any rate, I remember hearing that Vaughn Monroe was called at the time “the man with the Iron Lungs” because with his powerful loud deep voice. That made me want to buy his “Greatest Hits” album that was available then. Since I’ve transferred that album to CD and then onto my computer, so now I still can hear Vaughn pop up and play when I listen to music on the computer’s music downloads of my CDs. My own personal radio station when I set it to “random” I never know what song is coming but it’s always a song I like since it’s all from my years of collecting. Love today’s technology, only wish I had this back in my 20’s. But we had 8 Tracks and cassettes then and we were all happy too!