Posted Wed Dec 21, 2016 at 08:00 AM PST by Steven Cohen
Four newly restored Buster Keaton classics are heading to Blu-ray in February.
In an early announcement to retailers, Kino is preparing 'The General/The Three Ages' for Blu-ray on February 7 and 'Steamboat Bill Jr./College' for Blu-ray on February 14.
Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL is not simply one of the greatest silent comedies ever made, it is one of the greatest films of any era. In restaging the true story of one man's journey behind enemy lines to reclaim his captured locomotive during the Civil War, Keaton stages a series of complex chases, using lumbering trains as comedic props. Keaton's inventive mind is matched only by his physical athleticism, making THE GENERAL a truly breath-taking experience. Keaton's first foray into making feature films, THREE AGES is a parody of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, dramatizing man's quest for love in three parallel settings a modern city, the Stone Age, and ancient Rome and loading each plotline with amazing stunts and hysterical sight gags.
The Blu-ray will feature a new 2K restoration and supplements will include:
- Orchestral score by Robert Israel
- Orchestral score by Joe Hisaishi
- Audio commentary by film historians Michael Schlesinger and Stan Taffel
- Introduction by Orson Welles
- Introduction by Gloria Swanson
- Return of The General, a vintage short film on the restoration of the legendary locomotive/New 2K restoration by Lobster Films
- Music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
- Music by Robert Israel
- Vintage Alka-Seltzer commercial starring Buster Keaton
- Candid Camera television segment starring Buster Keaton
- Man's Genesis (1912) a prehistoric drama by D.W. Griffith, parodied in Three Ages
Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $29.95.
You can find the latest specs for 'The General/The Three Ages' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under February 7.
STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. was Buster Keaton's last independent silent comedy and also one of his finest. He stars as the effete son of a gruff riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence), who struggles to earn his father's respect (and the love of beautiful Marion Byron). But the film is best remembered for the climactic cyclone sequence a slapstick tour-de-force in which Keaton's comedic stunts are performed amid the full-scale destruction of an entire town. A stone-faced response to Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, COLLEGE follows a frail scholar as he tries to win the heart of a girl (Anne Cornwall) through athletics. Keaton used his own physical agility to brilliant comic effect, as his character suffers a series of crushing failures. But the greatest surprise comes at the end, when the scrawny intellectual finally releases the physical tiger within.
The Blu-ray will feature a new 2K restoration and supplements will include:
- Orchestral score by Timothy Brock
- Organ score by Lee Erwin
- Audio commentary by film historians Michael Schlesinger and Stan Taffel
- Introduction by Serge Bromberg
- Vintage Alka-Seltzer commercial starring Buster Keaton
- Music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
- Organ score by John Muri
- Audio commentary by Rob Farr
- Tour of filming locations, by John Bengtson, author of Silent Echoes
- Introduction by Serge Bromberg
- Introduction by Lillian Gish
- Run, Girl, Run, a 1928 collegiate comedy starring Carole Lombard
- The Scribe (1966), Keaton's final on-screen performance
Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $29.95.
You can find the latest specs for 'Steamboat Bill Jr./College' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under February 14.
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