Blazing Saddles: 40th Anniversary (Warner, Blu-ray)
Years ago, when singer Frankie Laine was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, he confessed that when he was engaged to record the theme song to Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles (1974), he was not told that the film (and the song) was a spoof. He simply thought it was a bad song that he gave lines like “He rode a blazing saddle” a gravity that defies the painful lyric. Which was what Brooks wanted all along. It’s my favorite story behind one of the funniest movies ever made (it was in fact voted the sixth funniest movie of all time in an AFI poll) and one of the most audacious satires of racism to come out of Hollywood.
Mel Brooks came to Blazing Saddles on the success of The Producers, a film that also flirted with bad taste close to edge of offensiveness, but for this spoof he charged over the line with a brilliant staff of co-writers, including Andrew Bergman (The In-Laws), Norman Steinberg (My Favorite Year) and Richard Pryor (who was originally cast in the lead by Brooks but nixed by the studio, apparently nervous over the comedian’s reputation). They stirred racial humor into a broad parody of western movies with satirical lampooning, cartoon slapstick and bathroom humor. The sheer energy and anything-goes inventiveness of the film—quick costume changes, exploding candy boxes and a hulking brute named Mongo (Alex Karras)—suggests at times a live action Tex Avery cartoon. It was comic gold and a smash hit for Brooks.
Cleavon Little is a quick-witted railway worker saved from the gallows by corrupt governor’s aide Hedy (“That’s Hedley!”) Lamar (Harvey Korman) only to be offered up for a sure lynching as the sheriff of a conservative western town under siege from the Governor’s own gangsters. Madeline Kahn is a scream as a lisping Dietrich-like entertainer (she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance) and Gene Wilder provides amiable support and crack timing as the alcoholic ex-gunfighter who joins our stalwart hero. Brooks himself co-stars as the Governor and as a kvetching Indian chief in a brief flashback and Frankie Lane indeed sings the brilliant theme song without a trace of camp (it also received an Oscar nomination). Campfire meals have never been the same since. Watch it. You’d do it for Randolph Scott!
It’s been on both Blu-ray and DVD a number of times already but it turns 40 this year and that calls for an anniversary edition. New to this release is the half-hour featurette “Blaze of Glory: Mel Brooks’ Wild, Wild West,” built around a new interview the Brooks and featuring archival interview clips with Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn, and a collection of postcard-sized stills with comic-strip bubble lines from the film.
Carried over from previous releases is scene-specific commentary by director Mel Brooks, the 28-minute documentary “Back in the Saddle” (with new interviews with Brooks, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, writer Andrew Bergman and others, and plenty of clips from the alternate TV version), 1975 TV pilot Black Bart, inspired by the film and starring Lou Gossett Jr. and Steve Landesberg, ten minutes of deleted and alternate scenes (including the full versions of clips seen in the documentary), and the trailer.
Thunderbirds Are Go! / Thunderbird 6 (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) – Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation series action series about a private rescue organization with really cool vehicles was an inspired mix of Japanese monster movie mayhem and British stiff upper lip cool. It brought new meaning to the term “wooden performance”; its stars were literally puppets, a rather bland and interchangeable marionette family of clean living Hardy Boys, or in this case the Tracy boys. But those high tech toys were like big kid fantasies come alive, magnificently designed vehicles rolled out as lovingly detailed miniatures with a sense of awe and wonder, and the success of the spawned two feature films that upped the ante on the spectacle.
Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966) opens on the trademark majesty that marked the special effects of the series: a jet-shaped rocket to Mars is reverentially rolled out of its hanger and fired to life, then the launch is sabotaged in a bout of James Bond cold war shenanigans. The Tracy boys don’t even make an appearance for the first 20 minutes, which is a telling admission about the real stars of the show: those fabulous vehicles and the awe of the miniature effects execution (which was a major influence on the work done on 2001: A Space Odyssey). This film, however, has another inspired highlight: a dream sequence that takes Alan Tracy to a nightclub in space where a marionette version of Cliff Richards performs in a crazy music video with a rocket-powered guitar. Almost makes up for a listless story and an abstract conflict of stalwart American good guys versus vaguely Eastern European bad guys.
Fans of the show all knew that there were only five Thunderbird crafts, but Thunderbird 6 (1968) promises a new vehicles… as soon as Brains thinks one up that passes muster with team leader and patriarch Jeff Tracy. Meanwhile Lady Penelope and Alan Tracy are caught up in an elaborate scheme to ambush the Tracy boys while aboard the inaugural flight of Skyship 1, which provides the film with a travelogue of puppets in exotic art project sets. Amazingly, this is the first and only outing where characters are actually murdered by a villain! Each of the films is packed with plot and light on story and personality. With no dramatic color and heroes as interchangeable as puppet heads, they make for fun exercises in nostalgia and delightful showcases in sixties state-of-the-art space age miniatures, but flat adventures.
Both discs feature commentary by director David Lane and producer/voice actress Sylvia Anderson, originally recorded for the DVD releases a decade ago. Sylvia took the reins of the features while her husband and partner Gerry Anderson was spearheading the TV series. She’s not only more fun to listen to than Gerry (based on his TV show commentary tracks), but also full of amazing detail, including a Stanley Kubrick story almost worth the price of the disc (that story is also included in a very short featurette “A Call from Stanley Kubrick”).
New to this release is commentary by film historians Nick Redman and Jeff Bond, the 22-minute “Excitement is Go! Making Thunderbirds,” and the trademark isolated score track and an eight-page booklet with an essay by Julie Kirgo. Carried over from the earlier DVD release are six short featurettes, test footage of Cliff Richards and the Shadows in performance, and other brief supplements. Limited to 3000 copies, available exclusively from Screen Archives and TCM.
The Rodgers & Hammerstein Blu-ray Collection (Fox, Blu-ray) presents six beloved musicals by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II on Blu-ray in an eight-disc set. Two of the films (South Pacific and The Sound of Music) have been on Blu-ray before, the other four make their respective debuts in this set, all remastered from archival elements.
Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae romance in the verdant fields of corn and wheat of the Oklahoma territory in the screen adaptation of Oklahoma! (1955), co-starring Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Charlotte Greenwood, Eddie Albert, and Rod Steiger as the sulky, hulking farmhand Jud. The original Broadway production redefined the style of the stage musical and one of the unique innovations to make it to the screen is the ballet dream sequence, choreographed by Agnes DeMille. The disc features both the CinemaScope and high-definition Todd-AO versions of the film, which were shot simultaneously but with different takes and separate cameras.
MacRae and Jones reunite for Carousel (1956), a somber drama (adapted from the play “Liliom”) about a smooth talking carny who impulsively marries a naïve millworker and then is given a chance to redeem himself after he dies in a failed robbery and goes to heaven. The musical, which features the classic “Soliloquy,” is the favorite of composer Rodgers. The disc also includes the 1934 French version of the play Liliom, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Charles Boyer.
The King and I (1956) stars Deborah Kerr as an English schoolteacher who travels to Siam with her son to become governess to the many children of the King (Yul Brynner). South Pacific (1958), starring as the Midwestern girl turned American nurse romanced by elegant French planter Rossano Brazzi during World War II, is a musical about racism in paradise adapted from James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific.” And Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer star in The Sound of Music (1965), a romanticized take on the true story of the von Trapp Family Singers who rose to fame in Germany during the rise of the Nazis and then escaped the country. It won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Robert Wise). Filling out the collection is State Fair (1945), a slice of homsespun Americana that the team wrote directly for the screen, starring Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, and Charles Winniger (as the patriarch with a prize pig).
Almost every supplement from the original DVD “Collector Edition” releases are included here: commentaries, featurettes, interviews, archival footage, optional sing-along karaoke subtitles and other supplements. South Pacific features the general release version of the film in HD and the extended “Roadshow” version of the film in standard definition (the same as the earlier Blu-ray release). Unfortunately missing is the 1962 remake of State Fair (from the earlier DVD release) and a full disc of supplements featured in the previous two-disc Blu-ray edition of The Sound of Music.
Also new and notable: 
Countess Dracula (Synapse, Blu-ray+DVD Combo), the 1970 Hammer vampire film, stars Ingrid Pitt as a sexy female bloodsucker inspired by the real life Hungarian Countess Bathory, who believed that bathing in the blood of virgins would restore her youth, a vampire of sorts, but more insidiously human. Director Peter Sasdy plays the story as a supernatural tale with Pitt as the bloody Countess, so obsessed that she’s willing to sacrifice her own daughter in the service of eternal youth, and Nigel Green as her devoted servant and man Friday. There’s a new featurette on and archival interview with Ingrid Pitt and commentary carried over from the earlier DVD release with director Peter Sasdy, co-writer Jeremy Paul, and star Ingrid Pitt, moderated by Jonathan Southcott.
The Women (1939) (Warner, Blu-ray), directed by George Cukor and adapted from the Clare Booth play by Anita Loos, is a film where men are usually the topic at hand but never seen on screen. Norma Shearer is a happily married woman whose husband is having an affair with Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell is the incorrigible gossip in this society of women, and Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Ruth Hussey, Marjorie Main and Lucille Watson co-star. Features the original Technicolor fashion show sequence inserted into the film for its 1939 release, and supplements include featurettes, alternate footage and a cartoon.
Two Steven Spielberg film debut on Blu-ray. The Terminal (Paramount, Blu-ray) stars Tom Hanks in the longest airport layover in the history of mankind (with six featurettes) and Amistad (Paramount, Blu-ray), starring Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, and Djimon Hounsou, arrives in the wake of 12 Years a Slave (with a featurette).
Also making their respective Blu-ray debuts: Clint Eastwood’s The Bridges of Madison County (Warner, Blu-ray) with Meryl Streep, and The Deep End (Fox, Blu-ray) with Tilda Swinton and Goran Visnjic.
More from Twilight Time: John Ford’s western Two Rode Together (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), which stars James Stewart, Richard Widmark and Shirley Jones and makes an interesting companion piece to The Searchers; Rollerball (1975) (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), with James Caan as the superstar in a death sport of the future (with commentary and featurettes); Fate Is the Hunter (Twilight Time, Blu-ray), an airline crash drama with Glenn Ford and Nancy Kwan (with commentary and the documentary To Whom it May Concern: Ka Shen’s Journey), and the 2009 British drama The Firm (Twilight Time, Blu-ray) (with commentary, featurettes and deleted scenes). All include the label’s trademark isolated musical score and an eight-page booklet with an essay by Julie Kirgo. Limited to 3000 copies, available exclusively from Screen Archives and TCM.
From Olive comes the World War II dramas Flying Tigers (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD), with John Wayne leading a volunteer band of American fliers in China, and Home of the Brave (1949) (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD), with James Edwards and Frank Lovejoy as shell-shocked soldiers in a stateside hospital. James Cagney stars in Johnny Come Lately (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD) and the Marx Bros. star in the comedy Love Happy (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD), featuring an early appearance by Marilyn Monroe.
The recent slate of original Godzilla Blu-ray releases will be covered this weekend. Here’s the list (in chronological order):
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (Kraken/Section23, Blu-ray, DVD)
Godzilla Vs. Hedorah (Kraken/Section23, Blu-ray, DVD)
Godzilla Vs. Gigan (Kraken/Section23, Blu-ray, DVD)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah / Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (Sony, Blu-ray)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II / Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (Sony, Blu-ray)
Godzilla vs. Destroyah / Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (Sony, Blu-ray)
Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. / Godzilla: Final Wars (Sony, Blu-ray)
More releases:
Ultimate Gangsters Collection Volume 2 (Warner, Blu-ray, DVD)
Ocean’s Trilogy (Warner, Blu-ray)
The Big Red One (Warner, Blu-ray)
Ace In The Hole (Criterion, Blu-ray+DVD Combo)
Overlord (Criterion, Blu-ray)
Death Occurred Last Night (Raro, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Godfather Part III (Paramount, Blu-ray)
Memphis Belle (Warner, Blu-ray)
“Crocodile” Dundee / “Crocodile” Dundee II (Paramount, Blu-ray)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (Paramount, Blu-ray Combo)
Evilspeak (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)
Final Exam (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)
White Zombie: Cary Roan Signature Edition (VCI, Blu-ray)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volume 8 (Warner, DVD)
Wolverine Weapon X: Tomorrow Dies Today (Shout Factory, DVD)
Jungle Blue (Vinegar Syndrome, DVD)
Bijou (Vinegar Syndrome, DVD)
Werewolf (1977) (One 7 Movies, DVD)
Savage Vengeance (Massacre Video, DVD)
The Real Decameron (1977) (One 7 Movies, DVD)
The Chambermaids (Impulse, DVD)
Honey Buns (Impulse, DVD)
LA Maniac (Troma, DVD)
Bad Mouth (Troma, DVD)
Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD
https://qgp.ykq.mybluehost.me/cinephiled/2013/11/12/coming-soon-blu-ray-dvd-digital/