Film It's Warner Brothers 100th anniversary so I decided to celebrate by watching a selection of films from this grand old studio. Except with over three thousand titles to choose from, or at least a quarter of that available on home media or streaming, I needed to find a limit. I needed to find a list.
In 2013, Warner Home Video released the "Best of Warner Bros 100 Film Collection" which looks suitably impressive from the list available on Amazon and although I've seen a few of them recently would offer enough ideas to work through over the next couple of months.
Except, I very quickly began to notice some discrepancies in that Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane and Seven certainly weren't originally Warner Bros films, hailing from MGM, RKO and New Line respectively. What's going on?
Over the years, through a series of complicated purchases, mergers and licensing deals, Warners has acquired the film libraries of those studios plus dozens more including the pre-1982 Orion Pictures library, Lorimar productions, United Artists and post-1987 Cannon films.
In other words what they claim on the box to be the "Best of Warner Bros" is actually the "best" of Warners, MGM, RKO and a few others. Here is a break down of the films in the set by the originating film studio:
Best of Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Pictures (59) 300, 42nd Street, A Clockwork Orange, A Face in the Crowd, A Star is Born, All the President's Men, Batman, Blazing Saddles, Bullitt, Caddyshack, Casablanca, Cool Hand Luke, Dark Victory, Dirty Harry, Dog Day Afternoon, Driving Miss Daisy, East of Eden, Enter the Dragon, Full Metal Jacket, Giant, Goodfellas, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Interview With the Vampire, L.A. Confidential, Lethal Weapon, Mildred Pierce, Million Dollar Baby, National Lampoon's Vacation, Natural Born Killers, Rebel Without a Cause, Risky Business, Sherlock Holmes, Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Big Sleep, The Blind Side, The Bodyguard, The Color Purple, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Exorcist, The Fugitive, The Goonies, The Hangover, The Jazz Singer, The Life of Emile Zola, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Outsiders, The Public Enemy, The Right Stuff, The Searchers, The Shining, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (24) Broadway Melody of 1929, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Night at the Opera, The Great Ziegfeld, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, The Philadelphia Story, Mrs. Miniver, Gaslight, Anchors Aweigh, An American in Paris, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gigi, North by Northwest, How the West Was Won, Viva Las Vegas, Doctor Zhivago, The Dirty Dozen, 2001: a Space Odyssey and Clash of the Titans.
New Line Cinema (4) Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King and Seven.
RKO Pictures (3) Best Years of Our Lives, Cimarron and Citizen Kane.
United Artists Around the World in 80 Days and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Paramount Pictures Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Allied Artists Cabaret
Allied Stars Ltd / 20th Century Fox Chariots of Fire (Note: Distributed in the US by WB through The Ladd Company)
Orion Pictures Amadeus
Columbia Pictures The Shawshank Redemption
A few notes. The studio now owns New Line but when those films were produced it was a separate company. Warners acquired Willa Wonka and Shawshank when the distribution rights lapsed at those originating financing companies.
Nevertheless, of the 100 films in the set, only 59 are full blood Warner Brothers films. The rest originated with other studios. If you were someone who's not really interested in such things, this was excellent value with a great number of canonical films included.
Why does this matter? Because it erases film history. Warner Bros now owns the film libraries of two of its rivals in the original "big five", MGM and RKO and in this set are acting like the victors in many similar conflicts and passing those assets off as their own.
Why does this matter? Because it erases film history. Warner Bros now owns the film libraries of two of its rivals in the original "big five", MGM and RKO and in this set are acting like the victors in many similar conflicts and passing those assets off as their own.
It would be like Disney producing a boxed set celebrating their hundred years and including the Fox musicals from the 1950s, Planet of the Apes, The French Connection and Independence Day. Except they keep everything separate. When Heat was released on 4K last year, the Fox logo was on the spine.
That was at the 90th anniversary. What about ten years later? Warners have release a number of boxed sets in various configurations and I've itemised those too. Although the results are somewhat better - different Warner titles have been introduced, some are still hanging around.
That was at the 90th anniversary. What about ten years later? Warners have release a number of boxed sets in various configurations and I've itemised those too. Although the results are somewhat better - different Warner titles have been introduced, some are still hanging around.
There are fifteen films included the three "5 film collection" released in the UK. Here they are amalgamated together:
5 Film Collection
Warner Brothers (10) Casablanca, Rebel Without A Cause, The Goonies, Gremlins, Enter The Dragon, The Lost Boys, Goodfellas, Unforgiven, Elvis and Training Day.
MGM The Wizard of Oz and Singin in the Rain.
RKO Citizen Kane
Paramount Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Columbia The Shawshank Redemption (Columbia)
There is also a 30 film collection, "100th Anniversary Studio Collection" which promotes itself as being the first time many of these titles have appeared in 4K
100th Anniversary Studio Collection
Warner Bros. Pictures (23) A Star is Born, Argo, Batman, Beetlejuice, Blade Runner, Casablanca, Cool Hand Luke, East of Eden, Elvis, Enter the Dragon, Goodfellas, IT, Mad Max: Fury Road, Rebel Without a Cause, Rio Bravo, Superman: The Movie, The Exorcist, The Goonies, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Shining, Training Day, Unforgiven,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (4) 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Singin’ in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz.
RKO Pictures Citizen Kane
Paramount Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
Columbia Pictures The Shawshank Redemption
Now the big kahoona, this anniversary's equivalent of the 100 DVD boxset, four sets of 25 films separated across "genres" - Award Winners, Comedies, Dramas & Musicals, Fantasy, Action & Adventure and Thrillers, Sci-Fi & Horror.
WB 100th 25-Film Collection
Warner Bros (74) 300, A Clockwork Orange, A Star is Born, A Streetcar Named Desire (the Original Restored Version), All the President's Men, Annabelle, Aquaman, Argo, Batman, Birds of Prey, Black Adam, Blade Runner: the Final Cut, Bonnie and Clyde, Bullitt, Casablanca, Constantine, Cool Hand Luke, Crazy Rich Asians, Dune, Empire of the Sun, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Full Metal Jacket, Goodfellas, Gravity, Gremlins, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Her, Inception, Interview With the Vampire, Invictus, It, Joker, Judas and the Black Messiah, Justice League, Key Largo, Lethal Weapon, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of Steel, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Natural Born Killers (the Director’s Cut), Ocean's Eleven, Pan's Labyrinth, Practical Magic, Purple Rain, Rebel Without a Cause, Risky Business, Selena, Shazam!, Supergirl *, Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Bodyguard, The Color Purple, The Conjuring, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Exorcist (Extended Director’s Cut), The Goonies, The Green Mile, The Hangover, The Iron Giant, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Neverending Story, The Outsiders (the Complete Novel), The Shining, The Suicide Squad, Twister, Unforgiven, V for Vendetta, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Wonder Woman.
MGM (11) 2001: A Space Odyssey, 42nd Street, A Star is Born, Ben-Hur, Children of the Damned, Doctor Zhivago, Grand Hotel, Mrs. Miniver, Mutiny on the Bounty, Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz.
United Artists One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
New Line Cinema (10) A Nightmare on Elm Street, Boogie Nights, Dumb and Dumber, Elf, Friday, Hairspray, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King and Seven.RKO Citizen Kane and King Kong
Columbia Pictures The Shawshank Redemption
* Although Supergirl was produced by Warner Bros, the Salkinds fell out with them after the underperformance of Superman III and they ultimately gave the distribution rights to Tri-Star.
As you can see, this isn't as negligent as 2013 list, although it leans heavily on recent releases, particularly from the DCU. Including Dune in there, which is effectively half a film is pretty ridiculous and either of the Justice Leagues are noticeable by their absence.
But they're still pretending they originated the Lord of the Ring films, and King Kong now too. The whole thing seems based on the premise of having a bunch of good films even if it doesn't accurately represent the history of the Warner Brothers studio.
None of which would matter if the text on the box didn't include the phrase "join us in celebrating 100 years of Warner Bros" which should more accurately says "join us in celebrating 100 years of Warner Bros along with the other film libraries we've acquired".
With everything which is happening at the company right now, film history seems like its the least of their worries. I'd be fascinated to know how the accompanying booklet squares all of this, although I'm not prepared to shell out the hundreds of pounds to find out.