(Note: This is a repeat post–an economy chapter, if you will–but when I updated the Home post today, I wanted to preserve it for future reference)
VCI president Robert Blair, via Tom Weaver, is soliciting serial-fan input in prioritizing the release schedule of VCI’s Universal serial restorations, on this thread. Continue reading
Restorationist Eric Grayson, also known as “Dr. Film,” is working on restoring the 1929 Mascot part-silent/part-sound serial King of the Kongo (starring Walter Miller and Boris Karloff). The serial has long been missing the soundtrack for its talking portions–some of which, however, still exists separately from the film print, having been recorded on disc. Eric is working on reuniting all that remains of the soundtrack with the best possible print; his latest update is here:
April 18th, 2019: More big news from VCI via Tom Weaver, even more exciting than the previous announcement, and so important that I’m reposting in full Tom’s latest announcement on the Classic Horror Film Board: Continue reading
April 17, 2019: A tip of the hat and another big thanks to Clifford Weimer, the webmaster of the old-movie site In the Balcony, and a contributor to special features on past VCI serial DVDs. He has provided some more concrete details on the upcoming VCI releases at this link. Particularly exciting is his hint that nine more Universal serials, never before available on video, may be in play; I’m having visions of a good and complete print of The Lost Special finally becoming available, or–even better–some of the long-lost early Universal titles like The Airmail Mystery and Danger Island surfacing for the first time since their original release. Let us wait and see.
April 5th, 2019. The estimable Tom Weaver–serial, B-film, and horror-movie expert extraordinaire–has broken some great news for serial buffs over in two threads on the Classic Horror Film Board Forum. Robert Blair of VCI has informed him that Universal is going to give VCI access to the original film elements for its serials; VCI plans to use these for new DVD releases of those serials (the linked threads refer to Blu-Ray, not DVD, but as you can see from a second post on the second thread linked, at least the first two announced releases, The Roaring West and The Red Rider, are DVD and not Blu-Ray). Continue reading
Note, August 14, 2021:
My planned updates have been delayed again due to circumstances beyond my control, but in the meantime I wanted to announce that VCI has come out with excellent restored DVD and Blu-ray prints of Wild West Days and Pirate Treasure, neither of which have ever been available on commercial home video before and both of which are among Universal’s most entertaining and action-packed 1930s serials. Wild West Days is available on the VCI website (https://www.vcientertainment.com); Pirate Treasure was only released this week, so it isn’t listed there yet, although it can be found on Amazon, Movies Unlimited, and similar outlets.
