Warner's Astaire & Rogers Collection, Vol. 1 Box Set
 

No official release information yet, but DavisDVD.com has the artwork up
(UPDATE: Street Date: 8/16/05 -- MSRP: $59.92, credit to post #8 below):

http://www.davisdvd.com/images/cover...erogersbox.jpg

Films in the first volume are Top Hat, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, Follow the Fleet and The Barkleys of Broadway. Classic film fans: if you haven't already, start forwarding your pay checks directly to Warner Home Video.

I may have to take the plunge. I've always been interested in Fred Astaire.

Warner hates my wallet.

count it sold

Obviously volume 1 means another box will be released at a later date. Maybe I should buy stock in Warner and use the profits to help pay for the DVDs and box sets.

So many good memories. I used to love Top Hat and Follow the Fleet when I was a kid. This is a most definite buy for me!

Ive only seen Swing Time. But this puppy is a definite buy!

FYI...

Street Date: 8/16/05
MSRP: $59.92

So glad I held off buying the releases from other regions - this is terrific news!

Vol. 2 is planned for release sometime next year.

thanks josh....great stuff

Another of my Holy Grails arrives

I'm only going to buy Top Hat and Swing Time; two of my favorite movies!!! The boxset is too expensive, priced at $59.95 much like the Warner Gangsters Collection.

Msrp.

DVDTimes has just posted release details, as well as additional cover artwork at the thread below:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=57013

It is likely to be around $41 at Costco release week which with tax is only $7 a movie. If you can wait, they will eventually have them for even cheaper. The Warner Noir Box was selling at $29.99 a while back.

Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of Astaire & Rogers: The Signature Collection Volume 1 for 16th August 2005. You'll Love The Way Fred and Ginger Look Tonight in the 5-film, 5-Disc Astaire and Rogers Collection Volume One, including the highly acclaimed Top Hat and Swing Time.

All five films will be available separately priced at $19.97 SRP each or as part of the signature collection box set, priced at $59.92 SRP. We're still waiting on the final press release but do have early details and artwork for each and every film...

Shall We Dance - To keep musical-comedy star Linda Keene from retiring to marry, her manager Arthur Mille, suggests to the press that she's already married to Petrov, the ballet dancer. The two ultimately decide to marry so that they can have very public divorce and clear the air, but true love blossoms between them.

Features include:
Commentary by Kevin Cole and Hugh Martin
They Can't Take That Away from Me: The Music of Shall We Dance featurette
Musical Short Sheik to Sheik and Classic Cartoon Toy Town Hall

Swing Time - It's Swing Time anytime Fred and Ginger slip on their dancing shoes. Here, Fred's a gambler with a fiancée back home...but one look at Ginger and all bets are off! He pursues, she resists, and it's all tied together by a series of breathtaking dances.

Features include:
Commentary by John Mueller, Author of Astaire Dancing
The Swing of Things: Swing Time Step by Step featurette
Musical Short Hotel a la Swing and Classic Cartoon Bingo Crosbyana

Top Hat - Perhaps the best remembered of the 10 Astaire/Rogers musicals, Top Hat has it all: Art Deco elegance, a wonderfully addled storyline, loopy support from skilled farceurs and the incomparable chemistry of the two leads cheek-to-cheeking to Irving Berlin's finest film score.

Features include:
Commentary by Fred Astaire's Daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie and Film Dance Historian Larry Billman
On Top: Inside the Success of Top Hat featurette
Comedy Short Watch the Birdie with Bob Hope, Classic Cartoon Page Miss Glory

Follow the Fleet - In the fifth of 10 Astaire/Rogers pairings, Fred trades his top hat for a sailor's cap, Randolph Scott gets the girl (pre-Nelson Harriet Hilliard), Ginger gets a tap solo and viewers get the unending delight of seven sparkling Irving Berlin numbers, including Let Yourself Go, We Saw the Sea, the Duo's zany I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket skit and their sublimely powerful Let's Face the Music and Dance.

Features include:
Follow the Fleet: The Origins of Those Dancing Feet featurette
Musical Short Melody Master: Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra and Classic Cartoon Let It Be Me

The Barkleys of Broadway - The last Astaire/Rogers movie, about a show-biz team divided by career ambitions, is also the duo's only color film.

Features include:
Reunited at MGM: Astaire and Rogers Together featurette
Vintage Short Annie Was a Wonder and Classic Droopy Cartoon Wags to Riches

Vol. 1 looks to be a nice primer to their films, as they jump around chronologically. But these are all good films and a hefty set of features on each title which they seem to be doing a good job with each new WB set.

I think they also came to the conclusion that people like [good] old movies that come in boxsets.

OMG omg it's so beautiful.... I'm so glad this turned out to be more than a rumor... and then the Thin Man set... it's too much... sigh.

*faints*

I have way too many of these Warner Boxes:
Hitchcock Signature
Film Noir Vol. 1
Warner Gangsters
Classic Comedies
Classic Musicals: Broadway to Hollywood
Controversial Classics is already in the mail from DDD.com

Plus, I'm gonna pick up the Steve McQueen Boxset and probably this.

Thank God I have a new job now.

I have most of those as well. But I have just the right amount. 1 each. :shrug:

hey i'm happy to see that

just got interested in the old ginger/fred movies a couple weeks ago. And I haven't seen anything regarding release dates till your post. Top Hat and Swing Time seem to get the most mention by people in the know so i'm glad they'll be in there.

Thx for posting that.

Ditto with all of what you said, plus I have the Grant and Flynn signature collections and the Marx bros box, and I'll be grabbing both the Noir Vol. 2 set and the Crawford and Davis sets, and now this. Grrr.

I have them all, and will buy all of the box sets again and again and again. I would quadruple dip. I will rebuy them again on hd-dvd and what ever comes after that.