From Deseret News archives:

Film-buff heaven: DVDs of many classic movies are being released in earnest

Published: Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 12:35 p.m. MST
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Fans of older movies have been sounding off about what they want to see on DVD. And the studios are starting to listen.

Especially Warner Home Video, which, last year, released an enormous number of older films on DVD. Other major studios dusted off some great titles, too, but in terms of sheer numbers of classic movies, Warner seems to have taken the lead.

Among them were multiple film "collections" — featuring Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney, Humphrey Bogart and the "Looney Tunes" gang — as well as such oft-requested titles as "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "What's Up, Doc?" "Giant," "Silk Stockings," "The In-Laws," "Day For Night," "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Mildred Pierce," and the horror films "The Thing from Another World," "The Haunting" and "Wait Until Dark," among others. And many of them were chock-full of enticing "extras."

Then, to cap off the year, Warner (in conjunction with AOL Movies and Turner Classic Movies) also put up a Web site for movie fans to vote for their favorites. Twenty titles were listed, some 160,000 people voted and the five titles that received the most votes were released this week (actually six, since one disc has two film versions of the same title):

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"The Postman Always Rings Twice" (Warner, 1946, not rated, b/w, $19.98). This excellent melodrama/thriller remains a masterful film about passion, deceit and murder, with John Garfield superb as an aimless drifter who makes a pact with the devil . . . er, a femme fatale (Lana Turner) . . . to kill her husband.

In the spirit of such great film noirs as "Double Indemnity" (1944) and "Out of the Past" (1947), "Postman" is as gripping as ever — and far surpasses the later remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange.

The story has amiable but aimless Frank (Garfield) taking a job at a remote roadside diner owned by Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway), and being blinded by the beauty of Nick's wife Cora (Turner). It isn't long before Frank and Cora begin an affair, which leads to their plotting Nick's murder. But there's a lot more to this one, and in the end, an ironic twist of fate. The postman does indeed ring twice.

Excellent from beginning to end, with nice support from Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames and Audrey Totter. And the bonus features include a very good biographical documentary about Garfield.

Extras: Full frame, Garfield documentary, introduction (essentially a brief making-of featurette), trailers, photo gallery, etc.

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