Happy Halloween!

This crazy still is taken from Riptide (1934) in which Norma Shearer and Herbert Marshall don ridiculous bug costumes for a party. Swell!

DVD Boxed Set Review~ Humphrey Bogart - The Essential Collection

And the angel sing on high...

Now I've reviewed quite a few boxed sets but this one trumps them all. This one puts all the others to shame. This is a veritable masterpiece. It is the stuff that classic film enthusiasts salivate over. It is by far one of the most beautiful things I have ever beheld. I feel like it is a privilege to be in its presence.

Enough with my gushing. Let's get on to talking about this boxed set. Humphrey Bogart: The Essential Collection is a 24-movie/12-disc set which contains a selection of Bogie's films with Warner Bros. The movies include:

The Petrified Forest (1936)

Marked Woman (1937)

Kid Galahad (1937)

Black Legion (1937)

San Quentin (1937)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Dark Victory (1939)

Virginia City (1940)

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938)

Invisible Stripes (1939)

High Sierra (1941)

They Drive By Night (1940)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Across the Pacific (1942)

Brother Orchid (1940)

Action in the North Atlantic (1943)

Passage to Marseille (1944)

To Have and Have Not (1944)

The Big Sleep (1946)

Dark Passage (1947)

Key Largo (1948)

Casablanca (1942)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Chances are you own some of these movies already. That's probably why Warner Bros. beefed up the set with a ton of extras. There is a 13th disc which contains The Brothers Warner documentary. A companion book and a package of goodies. Each DVD is given a great menu design and each film comes with extras. 16 of the films have commentaries and there are bonus newsreels, short documentaries, radio shows, cartoons, etc. that beef up the set.

Other than Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, I don't own any of these films on DVD. I have some on VHS, recordings from TCM including The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse which my friend Kevin is still holding hostage. I've seen 10 out of the 24 films so this is a real treat for me. I really love Humphrey Bogart as an actor. He had great delivery and range and was just plain cool.

I think my only complaint about the set is that it came with a duplicate DVD so I'm missing 2 of the movies. If you buy this set, make sure you check all the DVDs so that you have all 24 movies. If you don't, ask for an exchange!

Purchasing Information: Warner Bros. told me that the street date is October 5th. Trouble is Amazon.com, Classicflix, WBShop, TCM, etc. are not shipping it right now. My guess is that they caught some kind of mistake and are either reworking stock or reprinting new boxed sets. Or they sold out really quickly and are reprinting. So there may be a delay if you order it. If I find out anything, I'll make sure to let people know.

Now it's not enough for me just to tell you about this delightful boxed set. Let me SHOW you. Here is my first ever Vlog. Enjoy!

Special thank you to Warner Bros. who sent this boxed set to me for review (which I would have purchased anyways because it's so awesome). And stay tuned to this space because I'll be reviewing the documentary and will be hosting a 24 Bogie Movie Marathon with short reviews of each of the 24 films.

And the winner of King Kong (1933) on Blu-Ray is...

Ron!

His fact: Blu-Ray discs are specially clear coated with a special sealant to help avoid against scratches that would otherwise cause play-back issues of the Blu-Ray disc.

Thank you to everyone who participated and provided great facts. Here are the other ones! Enjoy.

• 191 Movies ~ "Blu-Ray players, even expensive ones, have been sold without providing enough physical memory. Which often means basically you can't stop the movie, shut off the player and then hope to find the scene you were watching without going back to the menu - an annoying waste of time! On the other hand (there's always another hand) Blu-Ray is still worth it for some films. The Godfather, for instance, the Bourne movies, Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, Zulu. The studios have taken a great deal of time and effort to get the images right on Blu-Ray and the effect is amazing and makes buying the Blu-Ray worth it!"
• John ~" The sound used for King Kong's roar was the combination of a lion's and a tiger's roar played backwards." 
• Amanda ~ Blu rays can be played on my hubby's PSP3.  I think King Kong's big doors were burnt in the Gone WIth The Wind scene of Atlanta burning.  And to qote IMDB "The 56-cm-high model of King Kong used in the film sold at auction in 2009 for about $203,000 (US). It was originally covered in cotton, rubber, liquid latex, and rabbit fur, but most of the covering has decomposed over the decades"
• Tom ~ I wouldn't exactly call this a fact, but I feel that the 1926 edition of The Lost World was a test run for King Kong.
• Tommy ~ Blu Ray is cool because of the storage capacity of 50gb that allows so many extras and much better sound and video quality than DVD. 
• Arnold ~ King Kong was the film which inspired a 13-year-0ld Ray Harryhausen to enter the film industry.  Harryhausen's fascination with Willis O'Brien's masterful visual effects led him to seek out O'Brien and, eventually, work alongside him on 1949's Mighty Joe Young.
• Adam ~ Blu-Ray films typically run at 24 frames per second, the same as film.  So unlike DVDs, you're only seeing pictures that the director shot.
• David ~ The difference between blu-rays taken from 35mm sources and 70mm sources is stunning.  Sleeping beauty and 2001 are the demo discs - even above the Pixar ones.  Seriously, put in Sleeping Beauty and skip to "Briar Rose in the Woods" and tell me if ytour jaw doesn't drop.
• Jeff ~ Blu-Ray is a fantastic technology and when classic films are released in a proper manner, this format is the best way to seem them! But you need to be careful which BD player you buy, as not all are created eaul regarding their firmware. As to KING KONG itself, well it's a seminal film that launched many a kid's monster-feuled fantasy in the decades since it premiered. There's something about the tactile nature of Willis o'Brien's special effects (you can see the hairs on the Kong model flicker from o'Brien's (and others) fingers manipulating it for each stop-motion shot. This classic handmade effect  is totally endearing in the age of CGI.