News From the Lake for the Week of July 17th, 2013

In this week’s News From the Lake we have a bit of TCM news and a mess of Blu-ray/DVD news including some amazing information on the October releases from Criterion.  Let’s dive on in!

NEWS

Tomorrow”s a good night to stay in and watch TCM (then again, isn’t every night?).  Frank Rich is tonight’s guest programmer as well as a leading writer of political and cultural news.  Co-hosting with Robert Osborne, Rich is presenting four films worth watching: The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Rules of the Game (1939), and Petulia (1968). The fun starts at 8pm Eastern, so settle down with a bowl of popcorn and have fun!

During the TCM Classic Film Fest, I reported on an upcoming auction TCM was curating in conjunction with Bonhams auction house.  The auction, entitled “What Dreams Are Made Of: A Century of Movie Magic at Auction as Curated by Turner Classic Movies” is gearing up to go on this fall with a portion of the proceeds going to the Film Foundation.  Starting October 22nd-27th in Los Angeles a special preview of the auctioned items will be presented.  (If you live in New York, you can see the special November 20th-25th.)  Items slated to bid on include the legendary maltese falcon from the Humphrey Bogart noir of the same name; the polk-dot dress worn by Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce; Theda Bara’s tiara and earrings from the silent version of Cleopatra; and a nude portrait of Clara Bow commissioned by former lover Bela Lugosi.  There’s far more where that came from and you can pre-order the catalog of items now at Bonhams.com/TCM.  The actual auction is being held November 25th at Bonhams in New York.  If you want to bid and can’t attend they will have live online bidding.

NEW ON BLU-RAY AND DVD

Fox’s Cinema Archives has announced a few titles coming to DVD on August 6th; Hilda Crane (1956) starring Jean Simmons, Mardi Gras (1958) with Pat Boone, and Romance of the Rio Grande (1941) starring Cesar Romero.  Not big titles, but worth it if you like obscure titles.

Criterion will close us out and boy have they made me a happy girl.  I Married a Witch has been on the Criterion Hulu channel for over a year, but there had been no movement on DVD/Blu-ray release of any kind.  Sadly, this is one of Veronica Lake’s famous roles and it’s been bootlegged endlessly along with her other films.  All of that changes on October 8th, when you can own I Married a Witch on DVD and Blu-ray (have I mentioned that I adore the cover art?).  Also on the 8th, Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey are siblings who go to a haunted house in The Uninvited which I believe was on my TCM Top 12 in October.  Both movies will have limited features including trailers and the standard Criterion essay.  While I’m sad I Married a Witch won’t have the full packed supplemental features, I’m happy it’s getting release at all.

That’s all from the Lake this week!