The Bottom Shelf by Adam Jahnke

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Site created 12/15/97.

page created: 3/22/05

Adam's 12 and America's Most Wanted:
An Open Letter to DVD Studios and Producers
(continued)

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So those, dear studios, are the dozen titles I'd like to see gracing my shelf this year. As I mentioned earlier, I asked some friends (namely, everyone who reads this column) to let me know what movies they'd most like to see you re-release as bona fide special editions. And boy, did they ever respond. I heartily agree with their requests. And by the way, you might choose to ignore my wish list, assuming that my choices are too obscure and I'd get 'em for free anyway, so there's no real incentive in this for you. You'd be wrong (I actually end up paying for way more discs than I get sent for free) but that's fine. You can believe what you'd like. But the requests below come from actual 100% cash-paying consumers. So if you're interested, there's free money to be had here if you'd care to put in the time and effort. Up to you.

(By the way, some of these are rumored or have been announced to be coming out soon... I include them here so you don't forget to do a good job on 'em!)

First off, I should smugly point out that all of the movies I asked to be re-released back in 2003 received endorsements from readers. This means that special editions of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Jerk and The Road Warrior would sell, sell, sell! I can't believe I have to spell this out for you but...

To the surprise of no one in particular, the big vote-getter was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. What you might not know is that to satisfy fans, whoever ends up releasing this will have to include both the director's cut and the original theatrical version. Movie buffs don't like having directors pretend their original memories of films never existed. So Ridley can't pull a George Lucas on this one. The same goes for Apocalypse Now, which folks would like to see released with the original cut, the Redux version and the Hearts of Darkness documentary, please. At the other end of the spectrum, please allow Terrence Malick to reinstate all the footage he had to cut from The Thin Red Line.

Other multiple vote getters included James Cameron's True Lies and Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. Perhaps the most unexpected recipient of multiple votes was Outland. I had no idea there was so many love for Sean Connery's High-Noon-in-space. On the other hand, I was not surprised at the number of people who wrote in asking for a special edition of Superman II (there's been a fairly vociferous movement demanding that Warner release a Richard Donner-approved version). Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was also requested (nobody asked for Superman III but for the sake of symmetry, I will).

Brian De Palma fans wrote in to say they'd shell out for upgrades of Blow-Out and Carlito's Way. Roman Polanski supporters want better editions of Chinatown, Frantic and Repulsion. Michael Cimino also had several of his movies requested. His Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter could use an extreme makeover, including a new anamorphic transfer and some extras. While it isn't as acclaimed, Year of the Dragon is a solid movie that deserved better treatment. And if you like Walter Hill, you're not alone. Folks (including me) are looking for special editions of The Warriors and Extreme Prejudice (which I watched recently and can vouch for the fact that it looks like crap). Marlon Brando only directed one movie, the western One-Eyed Jacks, and its fans would like to see a special edition. Other big name directors whose movies we'd like to see given better treatment included David Cronenberg's The Fly, Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, John Carpenter's They Live, and John Sayles' Matewan and one of my favorite Shakespeare adaptations, Richard Loncraine's 1995 Richard III.

The idea that studios can skimp on extras and/or transfers when it comes to family films has been roundly disproved. New anamorphic transfers of both The Bear and The Secret of NIMH would be much appreciated. Jim Henson's Muppet features are loved by just about everybody and I got specific requests for upgrades to The Muppet Movie and The Muppet Christmas Carol. Ninja Turtle fans don't understand why New Line skimped on one of their first really big hits, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And while it isn't strictly a kids' movie, the family-friendly Big with Tom Hanks ought to be spruced up.

Next to family films, comedies seem to receive the least respect on DVD. Fans have noticed, are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. They want to see new special editions of Fletch, Raising Arizona, Wes Anderson's debut Bottle Rocket, the Steve Martin/John Candy buddy movie Planes, Trains And Automobiles, the Bob and Doug McKenzie feature Strange Brew, and the terrific, underrated Grosse Pointe Blank.

I had plenty of people writing in support of musicals and music-related films. Miramax didn't do Beatles fans any favors with their two-disc collector's edition of A Hard Day's Night. We'd all like a better version, without the horrific 5.1 remix and with extras that are slightly relevant. And while you're at it, Help! has been out-of-print for a long time now and should be given a second chance on disc. Alan Parker's Evita was given the Criterion treatment on laserdisc but received no such love on DVD. And fans of the Oscar-winning musical Oliver! would love to see Columbia give it a Superbit re-release.

The classics were as much in demand as newer films. Columbia, your customers would like to see Superbit upgrades of David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai and A Passage to India, not to mention a special edition of Lawrence of Arabia that combines the extras and packaging of the original release with the recent Superbit release. Hitchcock devotees want to see better versions of Sabotage, Young and Innocent and North by Northwest (which already isn't bad but really oughtta be two discs). If we don't see a re-release of Double Indemnity soon, noir fans are gonna lose it over at Universal. Classic horror fans feel that the 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum deserves a disc of its own, not just a release as an extra on the DVD of its remake, House of Wax. I also got requests for The Maltese Falcon, The Naked City, How the West Was Won, My Little Chickadee (Universal's recent W.C. Fields box set annoyed more fans than it pleased), The Quiet Man, This Island Earth, Cool Hand Luke, Sabrina (both the original and the remake), 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Oscar-nominated Sounder and Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

There were also several requests for movies that, as far as I knew, had been treated fairly well on DVD. I didn't get any elaboration on what fans didn't like about these DVDs but they asked for them, so I'll report them here. Your customers would like new versions of A League of Their Own (already released at least twice by Columbia), The Most Dangerous Game (part of the Criterion collection), and White Zombie (available on countless public domain labels but the one I have and enjoy is from the Roan Group).

There were more than a few requests for movies that maybe aren't universally loved but still command the devotion of a good-sized cult. Some folks referred to them as guilty pleasures but hey, if they enjoy them, I say they've got nothing to feel guilty about. So how about giving them special editions of Commando, Jackie Chan's Supercop, Congo, Event Horizon, The Gate, Fright Night, Part 2, Clive Barker's Nightbreed and Red Dawn?

Finally, while I didn't ask specifically, plenty of people wrote in with their own wish lists of movies that have never been released on disc. There are plenty of good choices here, too, many of which (to the best of my research) have never been released on any home video format at all. There is an audience for these movies, folks, so pay attention:

Across the Wide Missouri (1951 - directed by William Wellman)
The Adams Chronicles (1976 - made-for-TV miniseries)
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975 - Gene Wilder)
The African Queen (1951 - John Huston... I got multiple requests for this one)
Along the Great Divide (1951 - Raoul Walsh)
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957 - Roger Corman)
The Bad Sleep Well (1960 - Akira Kurosawa)
Batman (TV series)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970 - Russ Meyer... multiple requests for this, too)
The Blue Dahlia (1946 - George Marshall)
Blues in the Night (1941 - Anatole Litvak)
The Boy Friend (1971 - Ken Russell)
The Boys in the Band (1970 - William Friedkin)
The Brasher Doubloon (1947 - John Brahm)
Chosen Survivors (1974 - Sutton Roley... killer vampire bats!!!)
Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972 - Mark Warren)
The Conformist (1971 - Bernardo Bertolucci)
Convicts 4 (1962 - Millard Kaufman)
Cracking Up (1983 - Jerry Lewis... I can't believe nobody asked for The Day the Clown Cried, so I guess I'll have to... Jerry, please... let us see it!)
The Cube (1969 - Jim Henson... made-for-TV... and based solely on this reader's description, now I'm dying to get my hands on this myself)
Dark of the Sun (1968 - Jack Cardiff)
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978 - Leo Penn... made-for-TV)
Detective Story (1951 - William Wyler)
Dr. Cyclops (1940 - Ernest Schoedsack)
Doctor X (1932 - Michael Curtiz)
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1972 - John Newland... made-for-TV)
Drunken Angel (1948 - Akira Kurosawa)
Ed (TV series)
Eleanor and Franklin (1976 - Daniel Petrie... made-for-TV)
Flaxy Martin (1949 - Richard Bare)
Flickers (1980 - Cyril Coke... BBC miniseries)
Flower Drum Song (1961 - Henry Koster)
The Fox (1968 - Mark Rydell)
From Hell It Came (1957 - Dan Milner... killer walking tree!!!)
Gentleman Jim (1942 - Raoul Walsh)
The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle (1980 - Julien Temple)
The Green Slime (1969 - Kinji Fukasaku)
The Grey Fox (1982 - Phillip Borsos)
The Gunfighter (1950 - Henry King)
Harry and the Hendersons (1987 - William Dear)
Homicide (1991 - David Mamet)
Howard the Duck (1986 - Willard Huyck... yep, multiple requests for this one)
Husbands (1970 - John Cassavetes)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957 - Jack Arnold)
Invitation to the Dance (1956 - Gene Kelly)
It Conquered the World (1956 - Roger Corman)
It's Always Fair Weather (1955 - Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen)
Jane Eyre (1944 - Robert Stevenson)
Johnny Cool (1963 - William Asher)
King Kong (1933... which is coming but can't come soon enough for Kong fans!)
Kiss Me Goodbye (1982 - Robert Mulligan)
The Landlord (1970 - Hal Ashby)
The Last Voyage (1960 - Andrew L. Stone)
Latin Lovers (1953 - Mervyn LeRoy)
Le Samourai (1967 - Jean-Pierre Melville)
Lifeboat (1944 - Alfred Hitchcock)
Lonely Are the Brave (1962 - David Miller)
Lust for Life (1956 - Vincente Minnelli)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942 - Orson Welles)
Making Love (1982 - Arthur Hiller)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1977 - Mike Newell... made-for-TV)
The Man Without a Country (1973 - Delbert Mann... made-for-TV)
The Marriage-Go-Round (1960 - Walter Lang)
Megaforce (1982 - Hal Needham)
The Monolith Monsters (1957 - John Sherwood... I've never seen this but the description I got makes it sound really, really cool)
Murder in Texas (1981 - William Hale... made-for-TV)
Murder, Inc. (1960 - Burt Balaban & Stuart Rosenberg)
The Music Lovers (1971 - Ken Russell)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 - Lewis Milestone)
Night of the Generals (1967 - Anatole Litvak)
Night of the Lepus (1972 - William F. Claxton... naturally, there were multiple votes for... killer bunnies!!!)
Nightwing (1979 - Arthur Hiller... more killer vampire bats!!!)
The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca (Disney TV series)
1900 (1977 - Bernardo Bertolucci)
Ninotchka (1939 - Ernst Lubitsch)
O Lucky Man! (1973 - Lindsay Anderson)
The Oscar (1966 - Russell Rouse)
Out of the Fog (1941 - Anatole Litvak)
The Phantom of the Opera (1962 - Terence Fisher)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945 - Albert Lewin)
The Power (1968 - Byron Haskin)
Prince of the City (1981 - Sidney Lumet)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 - John Cromwell)
The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983 - anime)
Prospero's Books (1991 - Peter Greenaway)
Quo Vadis? (1951 - Mervyn LeRoy)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964 - Byron Haskin)
Ryan's Daughter (1970 - David Lean... multiple requests here, too)
Samson and Delilah (1949 - Cecil B. DeMille)
The Seven-Ups (1973 - Philip D'Antoni)
Sinbad the Sailor (1947 - Richard Wallace)
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931 - Ernst Lubitsch)
Soldier in the Rain (1963 - Ralph Nelson)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956 - Robert Wise)
Song of the South (1946... unbelievably, Disney seems to be letting this one out of the vault soon)
St. Louis Blues (1958 - Allen Reisner)
Starcrash (1979 - Lewis Coates, a.k.a. Luigi Cozzi)
Stormy Weather (1943 - Andrew L. Stone)
The Stranglers of Bombay (1960 - Terence Fisher)
Strategic Air Command (1955 - Anthony Mann)
Street Fight (1975 - Ralph Bakshi)
Tales from the Crypt (1972 - Freddie Francis)
The Tarnished Angels (1958 - Douglas Sirk)
Terror of the Tongs (1961 - Anthony Bushell)
The Treasure of Pancho Villa (1955 - George Sherman)
The Uninvited (1944 - Lewis Allen)
Valley of the Dolls (1967 - Mark Robson)
The Victors (1963 - Carl Foreman)
Voyagers! (TV series)
What's New, Pussycat? (1965 - Clive Donner)
While the City Sleeps (1956 - Fritz Lang)

Whew! So that's it. Remember, releasing some long-awaited fan favorites is a good way to engender a lot of good will... and make some spending cash while you're at it! Thanks for listening, studios, and thanks for all your hard work. Hey, I wouldn't trade places with you guys. I'm happy to reap the benefits of all your labor. Like they say, it's easy to criticize. Fun, too.

Love and kisses,

Adam Jahnke
ajahnke@thedigitalbits.com

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