Does anybody know what films will be included in the upcoming Vivien Leigh "AMC Movies" collection from American Movie Classics?

A good guess is whatever Vivien Leigh films are in the public domain. Probably a set involving some combination of Dark Journey, Anna Karenina, Sidewalks of London, or Fire Over England.

All of the AMC DVDs announced so far are public domain titles already available from dozens of companies (Madacy, Roan, Alpha, Delta/Laserlight, etc.) Pretty lame, in my opinion.

Hmm... will they put commercials in the middle of the DVD?

Are Sidewalks of London (St. Martin's Lane) and Fire Over England still public domain? Kino recently released St. Martin's Lane on DVD and Fire Over England was released a few years ago in a restored version.

I know Anna Karenina, Dark Journey, and Storm in a Teacup are still public domain.

God...I hope not!!! I truly cannot believe AMC could not find a better way for raising money then to begin airing commercials. I wonder how many viewers they have lost due to the airing of commercials?

As far as the dvds go....hopefully they will be of good quality and not junk transfers.

Found this at DVDfile...


"AMC (American Movie Classics) has just announced a new self-branded line of classic movie and TV collections, in association with a Falcon Picture Group. The network will release varied lines of classic programming, the first slate of which will debut on November 21st. Dubbed MonsterFest, this six title lineup will include four flicks per disc plus extras to be announced: Roger Corman Classics (Bucket of Blood, Little Shop of Horrors, The Terror & The Wasp Woman), Boris Karloff Classics ( The Ape, The Ghoul, The Terror and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome), two sets of Bela Lugosi Classics (The Ape Man, Devil Bat, The Human Monster and White Zombie and The Corpse Vanishes, Invisible Ghost, Phantom Ship and Scared to Death), and two sets of Cult Classics (The Atomic Brain, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Carnival of Souls and Night Tide, and Dementia 13, Frozen Alive, The Screaming Skull and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter). Retail price has not yet been set, and stay tuned for more info.."

I hardly ever watch AMC anymore because of the commercial interruptions and also because they only show p&s movies.
As for their upcoming Dvds, i'm not expecting much..guess we will just have to wait and see.

Davey M.

Ugh. That line up sounds really lame. All of these are avalible already from budget companies. With 4 movies per disc, I can't see tham doing any restoration, but I do forsee a lot of compresion artifacts. How many DVDs of Little Shop of Horrors or Carnival of Souls do we need?

AMC lost me as a viewer when they started adding commercials.

-Videophile

I love AMC and these dvds sound awesome to me.

Turner Classic Movies is going to be launched on October 28th with a 2-disc set of Lon Chaney silents (3 films, plus a documentary).

I think AMC won't offer any competition to TCM Archive, but rather a replacement for Madacy and GoodTimes.

AMC is so pitiful.... "TV for drooling idiots" should be their slogan.

Well, AMC is no match for TCM but if AMC gives some of these public domain titles the right treatment, I would upgrade. If nothing else the prices should be reasonable.

You didn't include a smilie to indicate sarcasm, so I'm going to assume you are serious... so I must ask: What, exactly, sounds so 'awesome' about these DVDs? Especially considering:

(a) they are all public domain titles
(b) they have been released dozens of times througout the history of home video, at bargain prices
(c) most of the movies, frankly, aren't that great
(d) there is no indication that there is going to be any sort of work put into restoring the films... they are likely going to slap the same prints we see over and over again onto a disc.

So, again, I ask what makes this sound "awesome". My reaction was brief interest that AMC was releasing DVDs, followed by dismissal when I saw that they appear to be raiding Madacy's catalog for the titles...

R.I.P. AMC

How I miss those days with Bob Dorian as host. Really is sad to see what's become of that channel.

Speaking of MONSTERFEST, I was disappointed to see they weren't having another contest this year. Last year's was painful with all the horrible movies but the chat aspect was kinda fun. In any case I won a DVD player from them a few years back and still use it to this day so I'm darn appreciative for that.

AMC should be forced to change their name. They no longer show any American Movie Classics. Plus all the damn commercials. TCM has all the classics.

I've read elsewhere that AMC is remastering these movies, which should put their quality well above the current Madacy/Diamond releases. While I definitely agree that the current batch of films is nothing to get excited about, I think there may be some promise in the future.

I believe AMC is doing this to subsidize the restoration of the films for their own broadcasts. Not a bad idea, really. They get nice exclusive prints for their viewers by reselling them on inexpensive DVD's. I have no problem with a company restoring old films, especially if they release them at low prices.

But we already have good quality releases of these, at least:
Bucket of Blood, The Ape, The Ghoul, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, White Zombie, Phantom Ship, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Carnival of Souls, Night Tide.

If they really do a nice job on these, I'll be stunned, but appreciative. I just don't expect it. I mean, does anyone really think they'll put out a better, or even comparable, quality release of The Ghoul or The Brain That Wouldn't Die or Carnival of Souls than the MGM, Synapse and Criterion releases out there?

Hmmm... interesting. Where did you read this?

Exactly where? I don't remember. I read a lot. I know it wasn't online, it was in a magazine, or possibly press release. I read between 30-40 magazine/trades a month, so while I remember information, I usually don't remember the exact source.

I just got an email from Falcon Picture Group. The Vivien Leigh set will include Dark Journey, Fire Over England, 21 Days, and Sidewalks of London.

Last week's Entertainment Weekly had a brief item on this, mentioning digital remastering.

AMC = America's Mediocre Cinema

I hope this doesn't sound biased, but even if it does, I don't care.

AMC will be doing the DVD community a disservice by re-releasing many of these titles, not the least of which being the following:

The Ape
Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome
White Zombie
The Corpse Vanishes
Invisible Ghost

These titles have previously been released by the Roan Group in carefully remastered editions that are exclusive to us. Being as AMC will undoubtedly be releasing these as bargain titles, one can only assume that they won't be dumping tons of money into restoration of these films. So, what we'll get are half-hearted attempts at releasing films that have already been done better. Sigh.

I'll be interested to hear your opinions of these releases once they're out, and compared to the Roan releases, especially White Zombie.

Like I said, Chris:

MGM's DVD of The Ghoul is a Lowry Digital Images restoration, too. How exactly do you top THAT?

Every ten minutes.

Oh, and it will be edited to fit your screen and for content.