20th Century Fox Entertainment has revealed that it is planning to bring to Blu-ray three classic films: Elia Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and Wild River (1960), and John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941). The three releases will be available for purchase on January 15th.
Exact technical specs, region coding status and supplemental features to be included with these releases are unknown at the moment.
Gentleman's Agreement
One of the first films to directly tackle racial prejudice, this acclaimed adaptation of Laura Z. Hobson's bestseller stars Gregory Peck as a journalist assigned to write a series of articles on anti-Semitism. Searching for an angle, he finally decides to pose as a Jew - and soon discovers what it is like to be a victim of religious intolerance. Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield, Dean Stockwell and June Havoc also star in this post-World War II classic.
Wild River
Montgomery Clift stars as a government agent who must evacuate a small town to make way for a new dam. When an elderly matriarch refuses to leave, Chuck Glover (Clift) falls in love with her granddaughter, played by Lee Remick. Boasting superb performances and stunning imagery, this acclaimed classic is one of Elia Kazan's finest films.
How Green Was My Valley
Produced by the legendary Darryl F. Zanuck, How Green Was My Valley is a winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography (Arthur C. Miller). Director John Ford's classic tale of a childhood spent in a turn-of-the-century Welsh mining village. Focusing on one family and their six sons, the action is seen through the eyes of young Huw (McDowall), and charts the everyday struggles of the local community.
Great news about all three!! "Wild River" is an exceptional Kazan film that was almost lost. It sports stunning performances from all concerned, Clift, Remick.....but the film's highlight for me is a scene between the great Jo Van Fleet, topping her Oscar-winning performance as Dean's mother in "East of Eden," and an African-American actor who will seem rather familiar-- even though the film is a half-century old. He is Robert Earl Jones, father of James, and his work proves that old adage that an apple doesn't fall far from the tree!! Superb film! I'll be picking up all three of these!!
And what are Fox bothering to release in the UK out of this little lot? The dismal, interminable, parochial tosh of "How Green was my Valley", quite John Ford's worst film, and a hot contender for the title of worst Best Picture Oscar ever awarded. Trust me on this: whilst Americans might have found its depiction of working-class Britain uplifting, no-one here has ever viewed it as anything other than cringe-making, inauthentic rubbish. And in getting the Oscar, it beat Hitchcock's Suspicion, Huston's Maltese Falcon and, er, Citizen Kane. Seriously.
But this, Fox will give us. The Kazans are "not being considered for UK release". Someone needs whacking...
I'll definitely be picking up How Green was my Valley and Gentlemen's Agreement. I agree Blu, glad it's Fox and not TT, the'll actually be priced decently. Now bring on Cavalcade, my cheap Chinese bootleg that I have in my collection doesn't cut it.
