Links of Interest: The Warner Archive

Word is spreading across the WWW about the trove of Warner Bros. films now for sale or digital download from its website . Warners is offering currently almost 150 new discs to the public, each going for $19.95, or $14.95 for a download,  the titles ranging from the 1930s to the '80s and beyond. The offerings are not at the top end of Warner product. There are no Casablancas or African Queens in the list. Instead, Warner has ransacked its back catalog (or what one might call the Turner Movie Classics back catalog) for minor works that plug holes in the consumer's collection. I took a look at the site in search of old noirs and came up with a list of near-noirs that includes A Lion in the Streets, The Beast of the City, The Big House,  Convicts Four,  and Mr. Lucky.  Also on hand are two Joan Crawford titles, This Woman is Dangerous  and Goodbye My Fancy,  the unusual late social protest title Lost Boundaries  (about a man passing as white), two paired titles, I Was an American Spy and I Was a Communist for the FBI  and two auteur masterpieces, King Vidor's The Citadel  and Minnelli's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Each page offers a 30-second clip indicating the quality of the transfer. As a rarity in my film book collection, The Warner Bros. Golden Anniversary Book, published by Dell in 1973, suggests, there are plenty more, over 1500,  to offer where those came from.