Just in time for Easter, Cecil B. DeMille’s “Samson and Delilah” (1949) has finally made its very belated debut on DVD, while another popular ’40s religious epic whose style couldn’t possibly be different from DeMille’s grandiosity — Henry King’s “The Song of Bernadette” (1949) — gets a handsome Blu-ray upgrade.
It’s certainly a mystery of Biblical proportions why Paramount didn’t release a Blu-ray of “Samson,” which has undergone an expensive 4K digital restoration and emerged as the most eye-popping example of a film in three-strip Technicolor I’ve seen on DVD. It’s deeply saturated hues and strongly detailed images on my Blu-ray player (which, of course, upconverts to near-HD) make Universal’s DVD of “A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court” — a state-of-the-art transfer of a contemporaneous Paramount film from a decade ago — pale by comparison. Perhaps Paramount has licensed the Blu-ray rights to Warner Home Video, which has just announced a high-def upgrade for Paramount’s “Shane” will be released June 4 (more on that below).
Campy even by DeMille’s extravagant standards, “Samson” stars beefcake superstar Victor Mature as the Biblical strongman (after the director reportedly passed on Paramount sub-contractee Burt Lancaster because of the actor’s bad back) and Hedy Lamarr as Delilah, who in this version snips Samson’s locks at the behest of Philistine ruler George Sanders (who’s terrific) because Samson preferred her “older” sister Angela Lansbury (who, of course, was several years younger than her former MGM teammate Lamarr).
There is much to savor here, not including Samson’s battle with a lion, which is obviously doubled because Mature refused to wrestle even with a toothless beast. But that’s Big Vic himself bringing down the temple in the rousing climax, which later got him cast in “Androcles and the Lion,” “The Robe” and “Demetrius and the Gladiators.” The superb new transfer lovingly lingers over the Oscar winning art direction (Hans Drier and company) and costumes (Edith Head et al) as well as the Oscar nominated cinematography by George Barnes, Victor Young’s bombastic score, and the state-of-the-art (for the era) special effects.
There are regrettably no special features on what was Paramount’s bigger grosser to date. Here’s hoping the eventual Blu-ray will include Kevin Brownlow’s 2004 TCM documentary, “Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic,” which includes a great interview with Lansbury, and has never been available on video.
It’s actually kind of amazing that a film as hugely popular as this looks so great — “Samson and Delilah” got a theatrical re-release in 1959, and didn’t show up on TV until it premiered on NBC in 1970.
Compare that with “The Song of Bernadette,” which got re-releases in 1954 and 1958 — the latter the 100th anniversary of the miracle of Lourdes celebrated in this very sober epic, which as far as I can tell became the only pre-1948 Fox film to debut on network television instead of in syndication (on ABC in 1966).
The Blu-ray, from the boutique label Twilight Time, appears to be derived from the same photochemical restoration used for Fox’s 2003 DVD. The original, much-used camera negatives for this black-and-white film no longer exist and a dupe negative was used to create a new fine-grain master. The high-definition transfer is cleaner and much more detailed than the DVD, but it’s still far from pristine and a bit on the dark side. But those are minor quibbles.
The main attraction here is newcomer Jennifer Jones in the title role, who rates an “and introducing title” card, supposedly because her employer (and eventual husband) David O. Selznick (who loaned her to Fox) was unaware she had made a couple of appearances at Republic under her birth name, Phyllis Isley (One of them, the 1939 western “New Frontier” with John Wayne, recently made its Blu-ray debut from Olive Films). Jones won an Oscar for her luminous, star-making performance in the title role, an ignorant French peasant who riles the authorities when she claims to see a vision of a “Beautiful Lady” who is ID’d as others as the Virgin Mary (played by an unbilled Linda Darnell, erstwhile mistress of studio chief Darryl Zanuck — then pregnant, presumably by her husband, ace cinematographer J. Peverell Marley, who would collaborate with Loyal Griggs on DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”).
Aside from second-billed William Eythe as Bernadette’s extremely nominal love interest, the film boasts one of the decade’s strongest supporting casts, including Vincent Price as the film’s main villain, the local prosecutor. There are three Oscar nominees for this picture: Charles Bickford (as a crusty priest), Anne Revere (as a nun) and Gladys Cooper (as Bernadette’s mom); plus Blanche Yurka, Charles Dingle and Sig Ruman(n) just for starters. Also on hand is Marcel Dalio, who overlaps in the film that beat “Bernadette” in that year’s Best Picture race, “Casablanca.” Director King, a superb visual stylist and veteran from the silent era, may have lost to that film’s Michael Curtiz, but “Bernadette” cinematographer Arthur Miller and composer Alfred Newman triumphed over their “Casablanca” counterparts, Arthur Edeson and Max Steiner.
Clocking in at a hefty 158 minutes exclusive of overture and exit music, “The Song of Bernadette” holds your interest because of the performances and an unusually nuanced (for the era) George Seaton script (from a best-seller by Frans Werfel, a Jewish Holocaust refugee) that soft-pedals the religion. “For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible,” reads the opening title card. An excellent commentary track with Donald Spoto, Jon Burlingame and Edward Epstein is ported over from the DVD but not the Fox-produced “Biography” segment on Jennifer Jones. Like most Twilight Time releases, this one includes an isolated musical track showcasing one of Newman’s best scores, which hugely influenced the wave of Biblical films that began with “Samson and Delilah.”
It wouldn’t be Easter without Charles Walters’ “Easter Parade” (1948), which ranks high in the second tier of producer Arthur Freed’s MGM musicals and recently made its Blu-ray debut. This what what we now call a jukebox musical, drawing on Irving Berlin’s extensive catalogue after earlier films at Fox (“Alexander’s Ragtime Band”) and Paramount (“Holiday Inn” and “Blue Skies”). The vaudeville-oriented script by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich (“The Thin Man,” “The Diary of Anne Frank”) was reportedly lightened up co-credited Oscar winner Sidney Shelton (“The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer”).
This was the only teaming of Judy Garland with Fred Astaire, who was officially retired at the time and stepped in to replace originally cast Gene Kelly after Kelly was injured in a touch football game. Ann Miller filled in for the injured Cyd Charisse and Walters himself was a last-minute replacement for Vincent Minnelli, whose faltering marriage to Garland made their collaboration problematic. This was her last completed film for the Freed unit; she worked for producer Joe Pasternak on “In the Good Old Summertime” and “Summer Stock,” before her abortive appearance in “Annie Get You Gun” for Freed ended her MGM career.
WHV’s high-definition transfer looks and sounds a treat (though nobody, in all fairness, could do much with Peter Lawford’s vocals). Then copious features, including a feature-length “American Masters” documentary on Garland, are ported over from the 2005 two-disc special edition.
As for that June 4 release of George Stevens’ “Shane” on Blu-ray from WHV, Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere reports the film will be available for the first time on video in the 1:66 ratio. That’s how it was presented in 1953 at Radio City Music Hall and other premiere engagements — Paramount’s first widescreen release. As this was more than a year before Paramount unveiled VistaVision, “Shane” (shot in 1:33 ratio in 1951) is one of those cropped versions that other studios presented to compete with Fox’s CinemaScope. Wells quotes George Stevens Jr., the American Film Institute founder who oversaw the 4K restoration, as saying he believes his dad would opt for the 1:66 Blu-ray presentation of a film that’s generally been shown at 1:33 since its initial release 60 years ago, including Paramount’s DVD. Wells, of course, is having none of it and is petulantly demanding a 1:33 option on the Blu-ray. Which obviously isn’t going to happpen. No word on special features at this point.
WHV will also be releasing a Blu-ray upgrade of Gene Saks and Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” (1968) on June 2. Presumably it will port over the special features from Paramount two-disc “Centennial Collection” DVD.
Fox and MGM have announced another major new 4K restoration, of John Sturges’ “The Great Escape,” will be released in celebration of its 50th anniversary on May 3, days after it premieres at the TCM Classic Film Festival. The release ports over most of the special features from the DVD special edition.
Kino Lober will be releasing a pair of Bette Davis films long trapped in public domain hell on Blu-ray June 18. They are John Cromwell’s adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” (1934) with Leslie Howard and Frances Dee, and Howard Higgin’s far more obscure, poverty-row juvenile delinquency drama “Hell’s House” (1932) co-starring Pat O’Brien and Junior Durkin.
No new releases this week from the Warner Archive Collection. But they’re taking pre-orders for the April 6 release of “Forbidden Hollywood: Volume 6.” Included titles are Victor Fleming and Upton Sinclair’s “The Wet Parade” (1932) starring Dorothy Jordan, Walter Huston and Jimmy Durante; Monta Bell’s “Downstairs” (1932) with John Gilbert and Paul Lukas; Michael Curtiz’s notorious “Mandalay” (1934) starring Kay Francis, Ricardo Cortez and Lyle Talbot; and Alan Crosland’s “Massacre” (1934) with Richard Barthlemess and Ann Dvorak.
For April 23, WAC is promising “Nick Carter Mysteries Triple Feature,” the trio of MGM Bs starring Walter Pidgeon as the prototypical sleuth: Jacques Tourneur’s “Nick Carter, Master Detective” with Rita Johnson and Henry Hull; Tourner’s “Phantom Raiders” (1940) with Florence Rice and Donald Meek; and George Seitz’s “Sky Murder” (1940) with Kaaren Verne and Tom Conway.
The next round of releases from the Fox Cinema Archives includes a pair of Clifton Webb titles, the long-awaited “Sitting Pretty” (1948) and “The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker” (1959). Other much-sought titles slated for release on April 15 via the manufacture-on-demand program include Otto Preminger’s Ernst Lubitsch-produced comedy “A Royal Scandal” (1945) starring Talullah Bankhead; George Cukor’s “The Model and the Marriage Broker” (1951) with Jeanne Crain and Thelma Ritter; Sidney Lanfield’s elusive “The Meanest Man in the World” (1943) starring Jack Benny, Priscilla Lane and Eddie (Rochester) Anderson; and Harry Lachman’s “The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe” (1942) with Linda Darnell and Sheppard Strudwick (billed as John Sheppard for the duration of World War II).
Plus a brace of musicals: Roy Del Ruth’s “Thanks a Million” (1935) starring Dick Powell, Ann Dvorak and Fred Allen; Lanfield’s “Wake Up and Live” (1937) with Walter Winchell and Alice Faye; William Seiter’s “Sally, Irene and Mary” (1938) with Faye, Allen, and Gypsy Rose Lee; Lloyd Bacon’s “The I Don’t Care Girl” (1953) starring Mitzi Gaynor, David Wayne and Oscar Levant. And for Betty Grable fans, Bacon’s “Call Me Mister” (1951) co-starring Dan Dailey and Danny Thomas, and Richard Sale’s “Meet Me After the Show” (1951) with MacDonald Carey and Rory Calhoun.
The MGM Limited Edition manufacture-on-demand program stopped releasing titles last July, but MGM (presumably with the blessing of their official distributor, Fox) has quietly licensed a brace of titles previously available on pressed DVDs (and a few from the Limited Edition) for MOD release via a company known as TGG Direct, which previously specialized in public-domain fare. A bunch of double and triple features came out in February, and some are available for as little as $6 at Amazon — far less than other studio-sanctioned MOD program are charging.