This is apparently ancient news (from February), but I completely missed it. I'm posting it now in case anybody else shares my lack of timeliness. As part of a press release about Warner Bros.'s 85th Birthday, Warner Home Video announced that a new classic horror box set would be forthcoming in the fourth quarter of this year (between October and December). Only one of the titles is known -- Robert Florey's The Beast with Five Fingers -- but the release also promised that Boris Karloff would feature in at least one of the movies (my money is on Michael Curtiz's The Walking Dead).
There are quite a few titles that could possibly show up here. Not taking into account what's been lost (because that's a headache and a half), but keeping in mind that Warner has access to the Golden Age (1896-1948) libraries of MGM and RKO as well, here's a few other titles that could show up: The Mad Genius (1931), Kongo (1932), They Drive By Night (1938), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and Zombies on Broadway (1945). If the set expands out to the 1950s, they'll also have Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) and Frankenstein 1970 (1958) to choose from.
Speculate away, folks.
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Florey and Lorre, a winning
Florey and Lorre, a winning combination, just a shame that Warners don't have access to "The Face Behind The Mask" to package this with (Columbia I believe, so we'll have to wait for one of Sony's pretty anorexic Icon collections I imagine for a remastered DVD of the latter) Though anything that promises the possibility of one of the most criminally neglected Karloff performances "The Walking Dead" (co-incidently prefiguring the resurrection tales he did with Nick Grinde for Columbia) would be more than welcome, especially considering the reasonably high standard of commentaries provided on Warner's first "Legends of Horror" box.
I suppose the expressionistic "Svengali" could be a possibility.
When will it be out?
At this point, without a
At this point, without a firm announcement, I think we may be waiting until next year (or until never). The Picture of Dorian Gray is still coming out as an individual release, but I'm hearing murmurings that Warner doesn't see the profit margin in the full set right now.
Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep
Classic-Horror.com
"He went for a little walk! You should have seen his face!"