This year would have been Jean Harlow’s 100th birthday (in March), so fans were hoping for some recognition in terms of a nice centennial DVD set. (The only significant release of her films on DVD previously was a TCM Greatest Classic Legends collection, but that was a repackaging of four movies previously available separately. While fine films, they weren’t her best-known or most significant to her career personally. And really, isn’t “Greatest Classic Legends” multiply redundant?) Now, Warner Archive has […]

Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is another teen favorite of mine recaptured on disc by Warner Archive. I really shouldn’t have been watching this murder-comedy-romance at that age, but that’s part of the fun of rediscovering something you think you know — the nuances are all more visible to me now. And still timely! A large, blustery, self-centered Robert Morley is a London food critic and magazine editor whose doctor has told him that due to his […]

It’s 1938, and Rollo (Cork Hubbert) dreams of making it to Hollywood. The good-heartedness underlying the slapstick goofiness is summed up early on, as Rollo, when told his dreams of making it in Hollywood are “just too big”, responds, “There’s no dream too big, and no dreamer too small.” He gets a chance when he becomes one of 150 little people rounded up to play munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Under the Rainbow purports to show what happens when […]

I enjoyed early-60s Jane Fonda in Sunday in New York so much that I figured I’d pick up another of her mainstream sex comedies when Warner Archive had a sale. Any Wednesday was made three years later (1966) than the previous, and accordingly, Fonda is now playing not a virgin, but a mistress. But first, she’s a kind of babysitter for art, a gallery employee sent to accompany paintings rented for ritzy parties. There she meets “business tycoon” John Cleves […]

Review by KC Carlson Interesting things were happening at Hanna Barbera in 1966. The largest provider of cartoons in the early days of original television programming was famous for its funny animal successes, notably Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and Quick Draw McGraw, as well as their prime-time shows staring humans, including The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Jonny Quest. The success of the latter led some at HB to start thinking more about adventure-type programming for Saturday morning. They began to […]

My latest Warner Archive DVD-made-on-demand acquisition is a doozy, one of those films you’ve never heard of but are still entertaining to watch today. Finishing School is a short (73 minutes) morality tale against snobbery. It’s basically an historical version of Gossip Girl, full of wickedness amongst the upper classes with more money than sense, although with a more ethical ending. Francis Dee plays Virginia Radcliff (and doesn’t that name say a bundle?), a girl sent off to school at […]

I was thrilled to get a copy of one of the Warner Archive’s newest disc-on-demand releases — Sunday in New York, a frothy, glossy sex comedy starring Jane Fonda. I’ve enjoyed this movie the several times before I’ve seen it on TCM, and now I can replace my homemade disc with an official one, especially since this one is remastered. The jazzy self-titled opening tune, gorgeously sung by Mel Tormé and written by Peter Nero, who provides the score, sets […]

This is the kind of unusual release the Warner Archive line of made-on-demand DVDs is perfect for. The 1941 Two-Faced Woman was Greta Garbo’s last movie, re-teaming her with Melvyn Douglas, who co-starred so memorably with her in one of my favorites, the two-years-earlier Ninotchka. Now you can order Two-Faced Woman and find out for yourself why she quit pictures after making it. (The studio provided a review copy.) George Cukor directs this misfire, intended to be a screwball comedy […]