The Warner Archive has announced seven new titles to debut on Blu-Ray in October: Night Shift (1982), The Ghost Ship/Bedlam: Val Lewton Double Feature (1943 & 1946), Mad Love (1935), Dinner At Eight (1933), Children of the Damned (1963), Eye of the Devil (1966) and Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933). Details on these amazing films can be found below:
Night Shift (1982)
Street Date: October 5, 2021
Synopsis: The world of Wall Street drove Charles Lumley III up the wall. His new job at the New York City Morgue is quieter – until Billy “Blaze” Blazejowski shows up with a cool idea on how to liven things up. Directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), Night Shift is a breakneck farce rife with hysterical ideas thanks to veteran comedy writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Parenthood, Fever Pitch). Henry Winkler (Happy Days) is low-key Lumley in a delightfully offbeat performance. Shelley Long of Cheers also scores as a hapless happy hooker. But the casting triumph is film-debuting Michael Keaton as Billy Blaze, launching a career rich in comedic and dramatic highlights. Is this a great country or what?!
Technical Details
- New 2021 1080p HD master
- Aspect Ratio: 16×9 1.85:1 WIDESCREEN.
- Special Features: Theatrical Trailer
Street Date: October 12, 2021
Synopsis: This double-feature disc brings together two of producer Val Lewton’s classic RKO horror films, newly restored and remastered. In 1943’s The Ghost Ship, Tom Merriam (Russell Wade), the young third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia, witnesses the murder of a crewman by the ship’s captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix). Merriam realizes Stone is going insane, but the rest of the crew won’t believe him…or that he may be the mad captain’s next victim!
Boris Karloff reunites with Lewton for a third and final time in 1946’s Bedlam, set in 1971 at a London asylum. Karloff gives an unforgettable performance as the doomed overseer who fawns on high-society benefactors while ruling his mentally disturbed inmates with an iron fist. Newly restored from their original nitrate negatives, both showcase Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography under the inspired direction of Mark Robson.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p HD masters from 4K scans of the original nitrate negatives
- Aspect Ratio: B&W. 16×9 1.37:1 WITH SIDE MATTES
- Special Features: Commentary on Bedlam by Tom Weaver • Theatrical Trailers
Mad Love (1935)
Street Date: October 19, 2021
Synopsis: In his American feature-film debut, Peter Lorre turns in one of his creepiest performances as a renowned plastic surgeon whose sadistic obsession with an actress drives him over the edge of sanity.
Dr. Gogol (Lorre) is in love with Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake), an actress whose appearance in a Grand Guignol-like horror theater has mesmerized him. She quits the theater to travel with her concert pianist husband, Stephen (Colin Clive), enraging Gogol. But when Stephen’s hands are crushed in a train accident, Yvonne turns to Gogol as a last resort. Motivated by sadistic intentions, Gogol secretly replaces Stephen’s hands with those of a guillotined murderer, hoping that the operation will send Yvonne rushing into his arms as the murderer’s hands take on a life of their own. Mad Love is one of the most chilling horror stories ever put on screen, lending a macabre twist on themes of unrequited love and jealousy.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p HD master from 4K scan of best preservation elements
- Aspect Ratio: 16×9 1.37:1 WITH SIDE MATTES
- Special Features: Theatrical Trailer
Dinner At Eight (1933)
Street Date: October 26, 2021
Synopsis: Dinner at Eight, a vastly entertaining behind-closed-doors glimpse into the lives of the troubled and troublemaking who’s who of people invited to a posh Manhattan party, is served with ample helpings of humor and melodrama. Buoyed by the success of the studio’s multistarred, multistoried Grand Hotel the year before, producer David O. Selznick aspired to something grander – and found it in this George Cukor-directed adaptation of the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber stage hit. Highlights include Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery’s bitter battle of the sexes, hostess Billie Burke’s hissy fit and Marie Dressler’s grande dame worldliness. Of course, there’s only one way to catch all the great moments. Dinner at Eight. Don’t be late.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p HD master from 4K scan of best preservation elements
- Aspect Ratio: B&W. 16×9 1.37:1
- Special Features: Documentary Profile Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell, Hosted by Sharon Stone • Parody Comedy Short Come to Dinner • Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Children Of The Damned (1963)
Street Date: October 26, 2021
Synopsis: Six gifted children are found to pose a threat to the world in this chilling horror story from the makers of Village of the Damned. The children, who all live in England but are from different parts of the world, are normal in all respects except that they are geniuses with acute psychic powers. They have more in common than their IQs, however: None of them have fathers, and no one seems to know where they came from. When a psychologist (Ian Hendry of TV’s The Avengers) attempts to find out more, he unlocks a mystery that could lead to the destruction of the universe.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p master
- Aspect Ratio: B&W. 16×9 1.85:1 WIDESCREEN.
- Special Features: Commentary by Screenwriter John Briley • Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Eye Of The Devil (1966)
Street Date: October 26, 2021
Synopsis: A forbidding French chateau and its surrounding vineyards are the setting for Gothic thrills in this haunting excursion into the occult. Deborah Kerr and David Niven, costarring for the first time since Separate Tables, lead an exceptional cast (Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasence, Flora Robson, David Hemmings, Edward Mulhare, Emlyn Williams) in a chiller reminiscent of the later The Wicker Man (1973), in which an innocent outsider to an enclosed world peels back layers of mystery to reveal a shocking truth. Kerr plays the outsider, the wife of a troubled marquis (Niven), who discovers – perhaps too late – that her husband’s ancestral chateau is home to witches, warlocks, a sinister priest, 12 hooded figures…and terror.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p master
- Aspect Ratio: B&W. 16×9 1.66:1 WIDESCREEN
- Special Features: Theatrical Trailer
Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933)
Street Date: October 26, 2021
Synopsis: New doctors Mary Stevens (Kay Francis) and Don Andrews (Lyle Talbot) launch their practices in the same medical building, where Mary dedicates herself to her patients while facing constant prejudice for being a woman. Despite Mary’s love for him, Don falls for Lois Rising (Thelma Todd), the daughter of a powerful politician, and the two eventually marry, leaving a brokenhearted Mary to move on and focus on her work. As Mary becomes a successful pediatrician, Don’s marriage deteriorates, driving him to drink and eventually threatening his career. Escaping to a resort, he unexpectedly runs into Mary, and the two rekindle their old love. But when Mary finds herself pregnant while scandalously unwed, she’s faced with a dilemma that could destroy everything she’s achieved. What follows is pure vintage Warner pre-Code melodrama, with a shining performance from Francis at her very best.
Technical Details
- NEW 2021 1080p HD master from 4K scan of original nitrate camera negative
- Aspect Ratio: B&W. 16×9 1.37:1 WITH SIDE MATTES
- Special Features: Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
