Warner Archive Plans Improvements

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post has interviewed George Feltenstein of Warner Home Video.

Feltenstein reports that the company is going to be setting "a higher bar for quality" for Archive releases due to fan complaints.

The lovely film OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES (1945), starring Margaret O'Brien and Edward G. Robinson in one of MGM's finest pieces of mid-'40s Americana, was released to the Archive yesterday in a remastered print which Feltenstein says is "beautiful."

Curiously, the Archive listing for this film says it has not been remastered.

Which leads me to wonder A) if in the future remastered films will be labeled on the Archive website so that consumers know what's what (they need to fix that inaccurate OUR VINES listing!); and B) if they will be overhauling their dreadful website, which is hard to navigate and at times is slow as molasses.

One also wonders if the planned changes are in response to TCM's new Universal On Demand program, which promises remastered prints and extras.

I continue to believe the Archive's goal of making everything in their vault available to consumers is a good idea, but especially for the high prices they're charging, it just doesn't make sense to purchase many of their unremastered films. I have bought four Archive films this year -- three at a discounted price -- of hard-to-find movies I really wanted to see which have not aired on TCM recently. Otherwise, if I already have recorded a movie from TCM to tape, I can't see a reason to buy the DVD since it's probably going to look just like what I recorded from TV; the DVD's don't even have the convenience of chapter selections, which are a must for musicals, in particular.

Feltenstein says again that Warner has a "robust" schedule planned for regular DVD releases, but all that's mentioned in this particular article are projects which were disclosed many months ago, such as the long-awaited Film Noir Volume 5 and another set of Errol Flynn films.

I think the fact that the program for regular DVD releases has been dramatically scaled back needs to be addressed honestly. Warner's regular customers aren't blind (or "myopic," a curious comment which appeared in quotes in the article). We also know the current DVD market is undergoing changes. So why not simply address what's going on directly rather than continue to pretend things are still "robust"?

Circling back to the beginning of this post, I applaud Warner for taking steps to remaster more films. Mr. Feltenstein is a great friend to classic movies on DVD, and that fact should not be lost amidst the constructive criticism.