RIP Olive Films
 

Olive Films is shutting down. They put out a number of great titles but some of them had issues. I reviewed Fatal Beauty and Cheech and Chong’s Corsican Brothers here and they both mistakenly had mono audio. A lot of their earlier titles had compression artifacts also but they ended up fixing those.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

That’s too bad, although it feels like it’s been years since their last releases (and maybe literally has been). Glad to see other labels are picking up some of the titles they’d licensed.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Yes, it has been a while since they released any new titles but they just now formally announced they are shutting down. Wondering now which titles are going to be hard to find later. Kind of glad I got The Whoopee Boys on Blu-ray even if it is an incredibly stupid movie.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Isn't Sandpiper Pictures the new defacto Olive Films anyway?

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Not a label that will be missed. Shoddy presentations, rarely any extras and a ton of them with no subtitles. I do own many but from EHB mostly at clearance prices.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

They did decent jobs with their signature editions. Always a shame when we lose a media label serving the catalog space, there are only so many titles an outfit like Shout Factory or Kino can reliably service by themselves.

Their transfers weren't always perfection but generally were quite serviceable.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Agree that their signature editions were pretty solid, but the rest were hit and miss, and often barebones. Nice to see other boutiques get a shot at doing them right, at least by some of them (Olive also put out a lot of deservedly forgotten stuff). My biggest regret with them was when they declined an easy opportunity to work with Bob Furmanek of the 3D Archive on a 3D edition of MONEY FROM HOME. The fact that Furmanek announced it as an upcoming title fairly recently makes me wonder if he already knew the title was available again and Olive was toast.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I don't believe I ever got an Olive release due to their reputation.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I’m happy that Olive Films came along and released the remaining seasons of King of the Hill. Although I still need to buy the last few of them. Otherwise I don’t think I have any of their releases.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I own about a dozen Olive titles and just panic purchased a few more after seeing the news. Not one of the better labels, but they have a lot hidden gems unavailable anywhere else. Men in War with Robert Ryan and directed by Anthony Mann is one of my favorite "new to me" discoveries of the last couple of years.
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Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Looks like the only Olive title I own (via review screeners) was Operation Petticoat, which they released twice. The initial Blu-ray had a garbage transfer that looked like the film print had been dragged across a gravel road. Olive later reissued the movie as an "Olive Signature" disc priced at $39.95 that was almost exactly the same transfer but with letterbox bars added (the first disc was open-matte 16:9, the new one matted to 1.85:1) and some very minor digital tweaking to the color. Everything else about it still looked awful.

The audio also dropped out of sync for a fairly long stretch in the middle of the movie on both discs.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I have/had a bunch of Olive titles. Many from reviewing, but that's not always the case.

Antitrust
A Black Veil for Lisa
High Noon (both editions!)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Johnny Guitar
Mannequin
The Men
Night of the Scarecrow
Project X
The Quiet Gun
The Quiet Man
Rio Grande
Shack Out on 101
The Shanghai Story
Soul Plane
The Space Children
Student Bodies
The Thing with Two Heads
Thrashin'
Voodoo Man
Yours, Mine, and Ours

...and some of the Three Mesquiteers movies with John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, and Max Terhune, though I forget which. Perhaps a few others I'm forgetting too, but... There's some good stuff in there, especially if you like noir, John Wayne, or horror/sci-fi of a certain vintage.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

So here's my dilemma with Olive Films. Charles Bronson has a couple of titles on that label. Kinjite Forbidden Subjects and Messenger of Death. Both are quite overpriced at about $20 each for the quality of that label. And also the transfer likely isn't great either and neither has any extras. I have pretty much all his movies from his Cannon Films era on BD except those two titles. I wonder what are the chances another label picks them up like Kino Lorber? I don't have any immediate need for them, but I would feel stupid getting those and then 6 months later KL announces new masters on BD.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I don't think I ever got anything from them, were they putting out the 4K release of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Going off memory, their Johnny Guitar BD and The Quiet Man S.E. is pretty good.

Some pressings of Night of the Scarecrow have a serious audio issue where it won't play the correct soundtrack.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Although I only own a handful of their titles, I've enjoyed them quite a bit.

Deadly Prey (1987)
Hammer (1972)
Killer Workout (1987)
Mankillers (1987)
Night of the Demons 2 (1994)
Shock 'Em Dead (1991)
Stone Cold (1991)

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

I think the only one I own is the Quiet Man and thought it was a good release. Was happy to have it on BD.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Their Hannie Caulder was a solid release.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

Some of their releases, like Killer Workout, look like VHS rips.

When I want to sell some of their stuff on eBay that I no longer wanted, I remember being slightly nervous because the quality was so bad that I was afraid people thought I was selling bootleg copies. :lol:

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

An Olive title I forgot about — The Boogens — had a KL Studio Classics release announced today.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

If I remember correctly, many of their releases with Slasher//Video had awful video quality.

I got all of mine pretty cheap through Best Buy, which even with terrible transfers, was better than paying $45-100 each for the same titles on VHS.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

The Slasher Video stuff did look awful from what I remember.

Re: RIP Olive Films
 

The lack of subs on some of those earlier Olive Blu's bug me more than anything.