I couldn’t believe it…a whole series of boxes and boxes of NEW DVD’s for only 99 cents each!
Granted, they are not exactly the newest blockbusters, but today I bought:
The House On Haunted Hill with Vincent Price
The Last Man On Earth, also with Vincent Price
Dark Journey with Vivien Leigh
D.O.A. with Edmond O’Brien and Pamela Britton
Mr. Motto’s Last Warning with Peter Lorre
White Zombie with Bela Lugosi
Mr. Wong - Detective, with Boris Karloff
David Copperfield with Lawrence Olivier and Richard Attenborough
and for pesonal nostalgia reasons, a disc with 4 episodes of The Lone Ranger
They also had some Kung Fu films, a whole bunch of Dick Van Dyke shows, some Petticoat Junction, Andy Griffith, Lucy Show…etc etc.
You can stream or download D.O.A.here, at the Internet Archive. Some of your others may also be available there, I don’t know. It’s an excellent resource.
Yeah, I picked up some cheap DVDs at the dollar store recently, including His Girl Friday (with Cary Grant) and Road To Bali (Hope & Crosby). The quality isn’t bad at all—certainly watchable—the packages say “digitally remastered” for what that’s worth. Of course you get nothing in the way of special features, but for a buck, it’s a great deal.
I also got some of the old TV shows they had (if only out of curiousity) like Burns & Allen and You Bet Your Life (Groucho Marx). The picture & sound quality wasn’t great, of course, but maybe at least as good as if you were watching them on TV when they were originally broadcast.
Road to Bali is still under copyright, so that’s probably an authorized DVD you got, hence the good quality (that’s the only Hope-Crosby “Road” picture in color). The Burns & Allen and Groucho Marx shows, on the other hand, were probably taken from kinescope films, which were films made off television monitors in the days before videotape was available.
Funny, the dollar stores I’ve seen contain pretty much exactly those same DVDs. Are dollar stores franchised, or what? Do all of the “Everything $1.00” stores carry exactly the same merchandise?
I think those are the only DVDs that get that treatment. I know there are other companies (Brentwood comes to mind) that make a living selling these in packs, but they’re substantially more expensive (tho’ priced significantly less than a new release).
Consider this a WAG, but I wonder about “Road to Bali.” My wife gave me the movie (along with “Road to Rio”) for my birthday. On the back of both, there was a message to the effect that Bob Hope does not endorse, nor does he have any connection, with this product. Odd. It make me wonder if there was a time when either a company acquired the right to this movie (which was adequate, picture-wise, but had no goodies), or it fell into public domain briefly.
The reason I say this is because of “Zulu.” I saw it for sale at Media Play for under ten bucks. It’s one of my favorite movies, so I picked it up, and then noticed that the packaging looked . . . off. Can’t remember now, but after buying 80+ DVDs from the majors, the eye notices when something’s off.
Then, at the register, I found the real “Zulu.” What gives? The manager speculated that there was a time when “Zulu” fell into the public domain, and it was picked up for a quick buck by another company. Then, its current owner put out their edition with the goodies included.
Again, this is speculation, so if anyone has the word, I’ll appreciate hearing it.
I’ve watched three…so far so good. The quality is the same as if I were watching them on TCM or AMC channels…there are, of course, no additional features, and no scene selection. But like I say, for 99 cents I will overlook some lack of features.
I burn DVD’s at work and the blank DVD’s cost more than 99 cents!
And sure the films are not on the AFI top 100 or top 1000 or top anything, but if you enjoy seeing obscure old films with matinee plots, this is the route to go!
