DVD is dead. Or so it is prematurely suggested by many Internet bloggers — even as DVDs and Blu-rays of recent theatrical films and A-list vintage titles continue to flood video-sales venues week after week.
True, these days technology changes at an amazing — some might say alarming — rate. And downloads and streaming are becoming more viable. And more and more free movie-viewing sites are popping up all over the Internet.
Yet studios continue to dust off elusive but frequently requested titles for DVD release — and there seems to be a major upswing in that trend right now.
In a column a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Warner's new DVD-on-demand Web site for 150 vintage titles (with many more to come) and mentioned that Miramax's "Enchanted April" will finally make its way to DVD sales/rental outlets next month.
In addition, Warner continues to release to retail stores such new-to-DVD vintage titles as these, scheduled for next month:
The '60s-'70s Western comedies "Catlow," with Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna and Leonard Nimoy, and "The Great Bank Robbery," with Zero Mostel, Kim Novak and Clint Walker (the latter on a disc with the non-Western "The Great Bank Hoax").
The "Charles Bronson Collection," which is actually just two of his not-on-DVD '70s thrillers, "Telefon" and "St. Ives."
And in June, Warner will release Michaelangelo Antonioni's '70s survey of '60s American counterculture, "The Zabriskie Point."
Fox/MGM is doing the same, with some new-to-DVD titles coming out next month:
A pair of Westerns, "Young Billy Young" (1969), with Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson, and "The King and Four Queens" (1956), starring Clark Gable.
The India train adventure "Northwest Frontier (1959, aka "Flame Over India"), with Lauren Bacall.
And two military thrillers, Richard Widmark in the courtroom drama "Time Limit" (1957), and "Man Hunt" (1941), with Walter Pidgeon attempting to assassinate Hitler.
Then there's the pricey but high-quality Criterion Collection label, which is once again dipping into the past for "Alexander Korda's Private Lives," with four of the filmmaker's hard-to-find '30s historical dramas:
"The Private Life of Henry VIII," starring Charles Laughton; "The Rise of Catherine the Great," with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; "The Private Life of "Don Juan," starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr.; and "Rembrandt," with Laughton, Gertrude Lawrence and Elsa Lanchester.
Criteron also has "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (1973), a Robert Mitchum thriller, on the cusp, as well as John Huston's quirky 1979 dark satire on Southern religion, "Wise Blood."
If that's not enough, in June Sony will release a box set of five new-to-DVD Jack Lemmon comedies from the 1950s and '60s. The "Jack Lemmon Film Collection" will feature one film that has never been on home video and four that were once on VHS but are frequently asked about by fans:
"Phffft!" (1954) is Lemmon's second movie, and it reteams him with Judy Holliday (they costarred in Lemmon's first film, "It Should Happen to You," which has been on DVD for some time). This one is a marriage-and-divorce farce with Kim Novak in support.
"Operation Mad Ball" (1957) is a frantic military comedy co-starring Ernie Kovacs and Mickey Rooney, the lone title that is new to home video.
"The Notorious Landlady" (1962) is a mystery-comedy with Lemmon in London trying to determine whether Kim Novak killed her husband. Fred Astaire costars.
"Under the Yum Yum Tree" (1963) casts Lemmon as a lecherous landlord who pursues a tenant (Carol Lynley) who is living with her boyfriend (Dean Jones). Co-stars include Edie Adams, Paul Lynde and Imogene Coca.
"Good Neighbor Sam" (1964) is easily the most-requested of these, with Lemmon as a harried ad executive who is happily married to Dorothy Provine but gets roped into pretending he is neighbor Romy Schneider's husband. Edward G. Robinson and Michael Conners (TV's "Mannix") costar.
Even if your favorite film, the one you've always hoped would come to DVD, is not among these, at this rate it may not be far off.
That is, of course, if DVD can just hang in there.
E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com