Older Movies (from before 1980) on Blu-Ray

                                     (last updated 5/15/13)

 

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While the vast majority of Blu-ray releases since the format’s commercial debut in 2006 continue to be films and video programs produced during the past decade, there has been a slow but steady increase in the number of older films transferred to high definition video masters for HDTV broadcasts, and a limited but growing number receiving Blu-ray releases. The selection of both major and obscure “catalog titles” on Blu-ray expanded substantially in 2011, with even more released in 2012. And the first three months of 2013 alone saw more older films show up on Blu-ray or announced for release than the entire first three years after Blu-rays were introduced. Many of these releases, especially since 2012, are from small distributors licensing the rights from the major studios who prefer to concentrate only on their recent productions except for a few token classics with widespread name recognition (such as The Ten Commandments, Psycho, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sound of Music, etc.). A number of notable titles are available only outside of the U.S., but several are either not region-locked or support both regions A and B, and may be easily ordered from overseas (e.g. Sunrise, Great Expectations, Shadows, Faces, Cleopatra, Zulu, et al.).

 

The majority of older releases showing up on Blu-ray so far are from the 1980s, 70s, and 60s, perhaps not coincidentally the years many current Blu-ray and Home Theatre enthusiasts grew up, as well as a period after widescreen film formats had become firmly established and color photography had replaced black-and-white as the standard. Predictably, the more recent the decade, the more titles are available, with more than 200 each from the 1970s and 1960s. Nevertheless, there is already quite a respectable and growing selection of well over 150 titles from the 1950s, a modest sampling from the 1940s (including multi-disc sets of Sherlock Holmes films and U.S. Govt. World War II documentaries), several key classics from the 1930s (especially the “magic” year of 1939) and a few dozen major titles from the 1920s (including most of Buster Keaton’s silent comedies), and even a few features from the 1910s. (The first was an added bonus feature on a 1939 title, but an official release of a 1915 film finally happened in November 2011, with several others in 2012). A few more 1910s films and more 1920s silents are scheduled to appear on Blu-ray in 2013. Two of the classic 1950s 3-D films came out in 3-D Blu-ray editions in October 2012 (Dial M for Murder and Creature from the Black Lagoon), with House of Wax and others planned to follow if sales are good. Selected classics from throughout the 20^th century are being released by Universal and Paramount, as both film studios are marking their centennials in 2012. Also since late 2011 and early 2012, several small distributors (notably Olive and Twilight Time) have been licensing and releasing many off-beat or lesser-known pre-1980 films (mostly 1950s and 1960s) from the Paramount, Columbia, and 20^th Century Fox collections. In November 2012, Warner Brothers’ Archives Collection began making limited-run Blu-ray editions of several of its less mainstream catalog titles known to have devoted fans but not expected to sell in large numbers on the mass market.

 

As more people adopt HDTV and acquire Blu-ray players, demand for a wider variety of films beyond recent theatrical hits has increased. More pre-1980 films have shown up on Blu-ray just during 2011-12 than during the first five years Blu-ray discs were on the market.

 

Among the older movies already available or coming soon on Blu-ray are:

- Several genuine all-time classic films, American and foreign, silent and sound

- Approximately three-fourths of all the “Best Picture” Oscar-winners

       (including the very first from 1927 and selected titles from the 1930s through the 1980s)

- A number of notable genre pictures, primarily from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s

      (especially war, western, sci-fi, horror, action, film noir, some musicals, and some animated cartoons)

- Most of Buster Keaton’s silent comedies

- A few Charlie Chaplin features

- Selected silent features by major stars or directors

- A wide sampling of films by John Ford, Elia Kazan, Fritz Lang, John Huston,

      Otto Preminger, David Lean, Jean-Luc Godard, and other noted directors

- Over 20 Alfred Hitchcock films

- All of Stanley Kubrick’s features

- Most of the major Marilyn Monroe films

- Well over two dozen John Wayne films

- All of the “James Bond” films

- All of the “Sherlock Holmes” films starring Basil Rathbone

- The eight most iconic classic Universal horror films

- Several box office hits from their eras

- Several widescreen epics, “roadshow” releases, and early CinemaScope films

- Three films made to be shown in the 3-panel “Cinerama” process

- A number of “cult classics” and “grindhouse” exploitation films

- A number of routine program pictures, especially genre titles

- A few TV series, mainly sci-fi and fantasy, and one major sit-com

 

 

 

MOVIE TECHNOLOGY THEN AND NOW: How good can it be?

  --  There are still people who question why movies over 20 years old, let alone 40 or 75 years old or older should even be transferred to Blu-ray, since “HD wasn’t even available back then.” Well, it’s true that HD video was not available back then, but those films were not shot on any of the video formats that have been the only way most people have ever seen them for at least an entire generation now. They were shot on film, a completely different technology that records actual visible images photochemically instead of encoding them electronically or digitally, and uses precision mechanical devices instead of sophisticated electronics to recreate the illusion of motion. Compared with the standard television technology that was used from the late 1930s until the mid-2000s, film has always been high-definition, whereas until the so-called “HDTV” standards were gradually introduced to the public in the 1990s and early 2000s, consumer video has always been low-definition. Television sets and video recording/playback formats often could not even reproduce more than about a quarter of the “standard-definition” image resolution that commercial television stations were capable of broadcasting. (Even the current HDTV broadcast television and streaming HD formats have higher audio-video compression rates and lower quality than properly-encoded Blu-ray versions of the same content, while the best Blu-rays are still more compressed than the HD files used for digital cinemas, which are still compressed versions of the original digital movie files transferred from film or shot with professional HD digital cameras.)

 

  -- Film has been an effective medium for photographing, projecting, and storing motion pictures for nearly 120 years now, since the early 1890s. Although during 2008-2013 the major studios shifted largely away from distributing movies on 35mm film prints in favor of cheaper digital technology, many movies continue to be shot on film. And due to rapidly-changing digital standards, film copies remain the only reliable archival medium for long-term preservation of any movies (even if they were shot digitally). The 35mm film format was used in the 1890s as the smallest, most cost-effective medium for recording a high-quality image. As the photographic emulsions of film continued to improve in both image resolution ability and light sensitivity, by the 1920s the smaller 16mm film could look as sharp as 35mm images of a decade or two previous, whereas 35mm film remained four times sharper than 16mm. When originally photographed, all film looks brand-new, so a good high-definition Blu-ray transfer of an old movie that has been perfectly preserved will look just as good as it did when the film was shot. However, repeated use can introduce damage and eventually will cause a film to wear out. Film breaks that have been repaired often result in missing footage, from a few frames to several seconds or minutes. Poor storage conditions can cause film to deteriorate or even decompose into dust. And every time a film is copied (including new preservation negatives made from other prints and then reprinted) the duplicate never quite reproduces all the clarity of the copy it was copied from, and usually increases the contrast so that bright and dark areas of the image lose detail, as well as increasing the graininess. Old movies that are transferred to Blu-ray from old, beat-up film prints, or copies of other copies, will look just as bad as those copies in an accurate, high-quality HD transfer. Trying to improve them digitally may erase some dust and scratches, but without extreme care such “noise reduction” can also soften or smear fine details. Attempts to smooth out film grain or do major readjustments to contrast levels usually obliterate even more detail. The grain of the film is what contains the image information, so any misguided attempt to remove the appearance of grain always makes the picture look less sharp than it did before. Attempts to sharpen such a softened image by introducing electronic edge enhancement (a halo-like highlight around all objects) will provide an illusion of sharpness on very small or low-resolution video monitors, but when seen on a large, high-definition monitor will look more like a “ghost” image and obscure even more detail. Compounding image degradation in digital transfers is the use of digital compression to save storage space. Highly compressed and/or poorly compressed digital copies, whether high-definition or standard-definition, will introduce even more image anomalies and digital artifacts that are compounded by or intensify the image distortions resulting from the use of digital noise reduction and edge enhancement. Because of this, it is quite possible for a good standard-definition copy on a DVD to look substantially sharper and display more detail than a poorly compressed, overly processed, and otherwise incompetently made high-definition transfer on a Blu-ray.

 

  -- Older films tend to look better when transferred directly to an HD format that reproduces what the film looks like, rather than artificially readjusting it to look like video. Different films, both old and new, have different grain structures inherent to the types of film stock used to shoot them and the film stocks used to make prints. The more times a film is copied from other copies, the coarser the grain structure becomes. Thus, older films with optically-printed visual effects (even simple dissolves between shots that are not done in-camera) will suddenly get extra-grainy for the duration of the optical effect and then become less-grainy for the other parts of the film. If all that survives is a copy of a copy rather than the original negative or an original print from the original negative, the entire film will look grainier still. A growing number of people have never seen many movies projected from real film, especially older titles, and since standard-definition video does not have enough resolution to reproduce the original film grain structure, they’ve never been able to see the original grain patterns or can only notice it on the multi-generation copies of copies. Other people sit in the back half of the theatre where they are too far away from the screen to see the natural film grain that makes up the image. These are the people who are surprised to see grain in “high definition” video transfers of films, and mistakenly assume that erasing the film’s original grain somehow “improves” the image, whereas it actually degrades the image and imitates the video look.

 

  -- While certain types of film damage, like scratches, tears, and dirt accumulation, can be very effectively “repaired” or erased digitally, any details already lost in film-to-film duplication and reduplication (“dupe” prints made from dupe negatives) can never be regained in a digital transfer. Digital technology can excel, however, at compensating for image jitter resulting from old film negatives or prints that are shrunken or have damaged sprocket holes, and it is especially effective at recombining the separate black-and-white color records of two-color and three-strip Technicolor films in ways that may actually look better than original color prints would have looked. In certain cases, missing footage can be restored by painstakingly inserting it from multiple incomplete prints, and digital manipulation can attempt to match the picture quality with varying results, depending on the quality of surviving copies.

 

  -- If original film negatives still survive in good condition, and if a digital transfer from that original material is done properly (i.e., without obvious Digital Noise Reduction or Edge Enhancement), old movies often look as good as and sometimes even better than Blu-ray copies of recent movies. If the actual negative no longer survives, a high-quality print made directly from the original camera negative can also yield an excellent high-definition video transfer. The reason for this is that (if they were properly manufactured, exposed, developed, and printed) standard 35mm film stocks for the past 100 years, and even many 16mm film emulsions, have always had higher resolution capability than the current 1920 x 1080p so-called “full HDTV” standard. And of course films shot on larger format negatives like VistaVision, Super Technirama, 56mm, Todd-AO, 65mm, Cinerama, and especially IMAX are many, many times sharper than HDTV can reproduce. In other words, home video quality is only now just catching up to where 35mm film was about a century ago, while modern film stocks keep getting better and are substantially sharper than those of 40-50 years ago. It must also be remembered that HDTV and Blu-ray images may appear to approach the resolution of film, but the images are digitally compressed to a high degree: each pixel of each frame is NOT a one-to-one reproduction of what’s on the film, but is a cleverly-reconstructed approximation from a limited amount of data to save storage space. Thus, “high definition” video may look impressive but still has a long way to go before it can replace film!

 

  -- Audio quality of films made before the 1990s, on the other hand, may have more obvious differences when compared to modern digitally-recorded multitrack stereo films. However, they can still sound extremely impressive if the original magnetic recordings survive in good condition rather then merely the optical sound negatives that were used to make standard release prints. In fact, many major films from about 1953 and after were actually recorded in 3-track, 4-track, or 6-track magnetic stereo, even if they were often shown with mono optical sound (or after the late 1970s with stereo optical sound). Films made in the 1930s and 1940s were originally recorded with optical rather than magnetic sound technology, so will never quite have the wide frequency response and dynamic range possible with magnetic or digital recording. Most sound films from the 1920s were recorded with electro-mechanical technology onto wax discs. But even they can sound amazingly good if the original recordings or soundtrack masters survive, were well taken care of, and can be digitally restored. The quality of the audio actually recorded was often substantially better than could be reproduced in most theatres at the time, especially after the release-print soundtracks had started to wear out. If the individual music, dialogue, and sound effects tracks happen to survive for films never released with stereo sound, they can actually be remixed into a genuine stereophonic soundtrack rather than the simulated stereo “echo” effect sometimes added digitally to mono soundtracks. With great effort and elaborate specialized computer software, a plain mono soundtrack can be painstakingly reprocessed to create a reasonably effective stereo soundtrack (as was done with Hitchcock’s Psycho) but obviously original multi-track audio and stereo music recordings will be much easier to repurpose into a modern-sounding stereo soundtrack.

 

  -- The convenience and relatively low expense of Blu-ray technology has made it possible for us to see and hear films from the past at home with at almost the same quality they would have been seen during their first showings in the best theatres. Old movies may actually look and sound better now than during their initial releases (especially in later showings in lesser theatres after prints began to wear out), or at revival showings copied from dupe negatives instead of the original camera negatives. In cases where original film elements have been well-preserved, it becomes obvious that the older standards of 35mm film image quality (printing, processing, and projecting) often equal or exceed the hastily-made film prints projected in today’s modern multiplexes. And of course, like DVDs, Blu-rays can be stored and played with a convenience undreamt of just a generation ago when a film collection (especially on 35mm) required not only a huge expense but a huge storage space, along with more labor-intensive exhibition procedures. Nevertheless, all Blu-rays are not created equal, with HD transfers by major studios and small independent distributors alike varying in their faithfulness to the original film images -- some crisp and clear, with others soft and fuzzy due to over-application of digital “cleanup” techniques. Already several films first released to Blu-ray back in 2006-2009 have been remastered with more careful attention paid to preserving the quality and original appearance of the film, rather than digitally erasing grain and/or adding artificial halo-like edge enhancement. Such DNR and EE processes were once standard to give the illusion of sharpness on small, standard-definition TV sets but now result in obvious degrading of the image on a high-definition TV monitor or projector.

 

 

 

TV TECHNOLOGY THEN AND NOW:

Why are most older TV shows so much sharper than many newer ones?

 

  -- Many TV programs were originally shot on 35mm film, and (again, assuming the original negatives have survived in good condition) when they are scanned to HD masters for HDTV and Blu-ray they will look drastically better than they ever did on the best televisions or studio monitors at the time they were made. They’ll look about as good as the 35mm film prints would have appeared in studio screening rooms. However, all those TV programs that were originally shot on videotape, or those broadcast live and recorded by “kinescope” (filmed by a movie camera aimed at a TV monitor), can never look as good as the Blu-ray format is capable of, although they will look more or less the same as they did when first seen on television (once again, depending upon the condition of the surviving material). By the 1990s, many TV shows, even those that were shot on film, were edited on video, so the edited masters exist only in standard-definition video formats (even though they were broadcast-quality at the time they were made). To make these look as good as they potentially could, the original film negatives to the programs would have to be scanned in high definition and re-edited, with all special effects redone to match the original completed programs. In many if not most cases it is economically unlikely that this would ever happen. Over the past 10 years or so, a number of TV programs (as well as theatrical movies) have been shot on high-definition video. These should normally equal the sharpness potential of current HDTV and Blu-ray, although depending upon their original formats and shooting styles they may or may not exhibit the contrast range and color subtleties possible with film (which is still the preferred shooting format for the majority of theatrical films and most dramatic TV shows).

 

 

 

-- North American Region A or multi-region releases

available or announced by mid-May 2013 --

(*Selected European releases - smaller light font Region B only - bold titles also playable in Region A) Numerous other films, including both American and International productions, classic and relatively recent, are available on Blu-ray in Region B-locked releases only.

 

Note that some Region A players may not be able to play the PAL standard-definition content sometimes used for bonus features on European discs, even if it is region-free, but the 1080p HD content will still be compatible, while other Region A players can play PAL content with no problem as long as it’s not region-encoded.

 

 

TITLE	DATE	ORIGINAL STUDIO	Blu-ray Distrib (if different)
====================== 1900s =====	======	====================	================================
Trip to the Moon, A	1902	Méliès Star	Flicker Alley (includes new HD documentary & 2 other Méliès shorts in SD)
====================== 1910s =====	======	====================	================================
Inside of the White Slave Traffic, The	1913	Samuel H. London	Kino (half-hour abridgement, same disc as Devil’s Needle)
Birth of a Nation, The	1915	Griffith-Epoch	Kino - also includes 7 bonus Biograph shorts in SD
Children of Eve, The	1915	Edison	Kino (same disc as The Devil’s Needle)
Vampires, Les	1915-16	Gaumont	Kino
Devil’s Needle, The	1916	Triangle/Fine Arts	Kino (same disc as The Children of Eve)
Intolerance	1916	Griffith	(mid 2013) Cohen Film Collection
Bucking Broadway	1917	Universal	Criterion (on Stagecoach BluRay)
Poor Little Rich Girl	1917	Paramount	Milestone 3-disc Mary Pickford set
Fall of Babylon, The	1919	Griffith	(mid 2013) Cohen Film Collection (bonus w/Intolerance)
Hoodlum, The	1919	First National	Milestone 3-disc Mary Pickford set
Mother and the Law, The	1919	Griffith	(mid 2013) Cohen Film Collection (bonus w/Intolerance)
====================== 1920s =====	======	====================	================================
Penalty, The	1920	Goldwyn	Kino
Saphead, The	1920	Metro	Kino
Way Down East	1920	Griffith	Kino
Buster Keaton shorts (3-disc set of 19 shorts)	1920-23	Metro	Kino - also includes bonus shorts
Phantom Carriage, The	1921	Svensk	Criterion
Foolish Wives	1922	Universal	(7/30/13) Kino
*Loves of Pharaoh, The (Das Weib des Pharao)	1922	UFA/Paramount	Alpha-Omega gmbh (Ger.)
Nanook of the North	1922	Pathe	Flicker Alley (incl. The Wedding of Palo)
Sherlock Holmes	1922	Goldwyn	Kino
Our Hospitality	1923	Metro	Kino (includes early alternate cut & HD short)
Safety Last!	1923	Pathe	(6/18/13) Criterion
Ten Commandments, The	1923	Paramount	in box set w/1956 remake
Three Ages, The	1923	Metro	Kino (same disc as Sherlock Jr)
*Great White Silence, The	1924	Herbert Ponting	BFI (U.K.) includes 90 Degrees South
Navigator, The	1924	Metro	Kino
Niebelungen, Die – Siegried, Kriemhild’s Rache	1924	Ufa	Kino
Sherlock, Jr.	1924	Metro	Kino (same disc as Three Ages)
Thief of Bagdad, The	1924	United Artists	Cohen Film Collection
Big Parade, The	1925	MGM	(late 2013) Warner
Go West	1925	Metro-Goldwyn	Kino (same disc as Battling Butler)
Gold Rush, The	1925	United Artists	Criterion (includes 1942 sound reissue)
Seven Chances	1925	Metro-Goldwyn	Kino
Strike	1925	Goskino	Kino
Battleship Potemkin	1926	Goskino	Kino
Battling Butler	1926	MGM	Kino (same disc as Go West)
Black Pirate, The	1926	United Artists	Kino
Metropolis	1926	UFA	Kino
General, The	1926	United Artists	Kino
Late Mathias Pascal, The	1926	Films Armor (France)	Flicker Alley
Sparrows	1926	United Artists	Milestone 3-disc Mary Pickford set
College	1927	United Artists	Kino Keaton box set (individually in 2013)
Jazz Singer, The	1927	Warner Bros
Last Performance, The	1927/1929	Universal	Criterion Fejos set
*Seventh Heaven	1927	Fox	Carlotta (Fr.) (NOTE: piano score instead of Movietone)
*Sunrise	1927	Fox	Eureka MoC (U.K., incl. European cut)
Wings	1927	Paramount
In Old Arizona	1928	Fox	(6/4/13) 20th Century Fox
Lonesome	1928	Universal	Criterion Fejos set
*Street Angel	1928	Fox	Carlotta (Fr.)
Steamboat Bill, Jr.	1928	United Artists	Kino (incl. 2 different cuts)
Broadway	1929	Universal	Criterion Fejos set
Phantom of the Opera, The	1929	Universal	Image Entertainment (incl. 1925 cut in SD) (NOTE: 1st pressing had authoring errors)
*Lucky Star	1929	Fox	Carlotta (Fr.)
====================== 1930s =====	======	====================	================================
Abraham Lincoln	1930	United Artists	Kino
All Quiet on the Western Front	1930	Universal	(includes silent version in SD)
Big Trail, The	1930	Fox	(includes both 70mm & 35mm versions in HD)
Blue Angel, The (Die Blaue Engel)	1930	Paramount/Ufa	Kino
*City Girl	1930	Fox	Eureka MoC (U.K.)
People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag)	1930	Siodmak/Ulmer	Criterion
Dracula	1931	Universal	in monsters box set (includes Spanish-language version)
Frankenstein	1931	Universal	in monsters box set
Gow The Head Hunter (aka Cannibal Island)	1931	Edward Salisbury	Flicker Alley w/Most Dangerous Game
Little Caesar	1931	Warner Bros	(5/21/13)
M	1931	Nero	Criterion (incl. English language version in SD)
Public Enemy, The	1931	Warner Bros	(5/21/13)
Bird of Paradise	1932	RKO	Kino
Farewell to Arms, A	1932	Paramount	Kino
Grand Hotel	1932	MGM	Warner
Hell’s House	1932	Capitol	(6/18/13) Kino
Island of the Lost Souls	1932	Paramount	Criterion
Most Dangerous Game, The	1932	RKO	Flicker Alley w/Gow the Headhunter
Mummy, The	1932	Universal	in monsters box set
White Zombie	1932	United Artists	Kino (NOTE: 2 copies on disc, one w/heavy DNR, one “raw”)
Cavalcade	1933	Fox	(8/6/13) 20th Cent Fox
Design for Living	1933	Paramount	Criterion
Invisible Man, The	1933	Universal	in monsters box set
Lady for a Day	1933	Columbia	Inception Media Group
*90 Degrees South	1933	Herbert Ponting	BFI (U.K.) (same disc as The Great White Silence)
King Kong	1933	RKO	Warner
Perfect Understanding	1933	United Artists	(6/4/13) Cohen
Babes in Toyland	1934	MGM	Legend
L’Atalante	1934	Argui	Criterion (Jean Vigo set, incl. Zero for Conduct and shorts)
Lost Keaton: 16 Comedy Shorts	1934-37	Educational	Kino
Man Who Knew Too Much, The	1934	Gaumont	Criterion
Of Human Bondage	1934	RKO	(6/18/13) Kino
Our Daily Bread	1934	United Artists	(4/16/13) Inception Media
Wedding of Palo, The (Palos Brudefaerd)	1934	(Denmark)	Flicker Alley (incl. Nanook of the North and HD shorts)
Bride of Frankenstein, The	1935	Universal	in monsters box set
Call of the Wild, The	1935	20th Century/UA	(12/3/13) 20th Cent Fox
Mutiny on the Bounty	1935	MGM	Warner
New Frontier, The	1935	Republic	Olive
*Ruggles of Red Gap, The	1935	Paramount	Eureka (U.K.)
She	1935	RKO	Legend (with Things To Come)
The 39 Steps	1935	Gaumont	Criterion
Westward Ho	1935	Republic	Olive
King of the Pecos	1936	Republic	Olive
Lawless Nineties, The	1936	Republic	Olive
Little Lord Fauntleroy	1936	Selznick	Kino
Lonely Trail, The	1936	Republic	Olive
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: vol. 1	1936-66	Warner Bros	Warner 3-disc set of 50 HD cartoons, more as SD bonuses
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: vol. 2	1936-66	Warner Bros	Warner 3-disc set of 50 HD cartoons, more as SD bonuses
Modern Times	1936	United Artists	Criterion
Petrefied Forest, The	1936	Warner Bros	(5/21/13)
Things To Come	1936	London	(6/18/13) Criterion;  Legend (with She) (NOTE: mediocre transfer of so-so print)
Three Stooges in 3D – 4 colorized, 3D-converted shorts	1936-49	Columbia	Legend (NOTE: converted to 3D and colorized only)
*Edge of the World, The	1937	Pax	BFI (U.K., includes shorts in HD)
Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion)	1937	World	Lionsgate
*Make Way for Tomorrow	1937	Paramount	Eureka (U.K.)
Nothing Sacred	1937	Selznick	Kino
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	1937	Disney	incl. 8 Disney cartoons 1928-37
Star is Born, A	1937	Selznick	Kino
Adventures of Robin Hood, The	1938	Warner Bros
Lady Vanishes, The	1938	Gaumont	Criterion (includes Crook’s Tour)
Overland Stage Raiders	1938	Republic	Olive
Pals of the Saddle	1938	Republic	Olive
Red River Range	1938	Republic	Olive
Santa Fe Stampede	1938	Republic	Olive
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes	1939	20th Century Fox	MPI box set
Four Feathers, The	1939	London	Criterion
Frontier Horizon	1939	Republic	Olive
Gone With the Wind	1939	Selznick-MGM	Warner
Gulliver’s Travels	1939	Fleischer/Paramount	Koch (NOTE: extremely poor and distorted transfer)
Hound of the Baskervilles, The	1939	20th Century Fox	MPI box set
Jesse James	1939	20th Century Fox	(12/3/13)
Mikado, The	1939	Universal	Criterion (includes HD silent short)
Night Riders, The	1939	Republic	Olive
Rules of the Game, The	1939	Janus	Criterion
Stagecoach	1939	United Artists	Criterion
Three Texas Steers	1939	Republic	Olive
Wizard of Oz, The	1939	MGM	Warner (includes 5 silent Oz features in SD)
Wyoming Outlaw	1939	Republic	Olive
====================== 1940s =====	======	====================	================================
Dark Command	1940	Republic	(5/28/13) Olive
Fantasia	1940	Disney	set w/Fantasia 2000
Grapes of Wrath, The	1940	20th Century Fox
Great Dictator, The	1940	United Artists	Criterion
Pinocchio	1940	Disney
Rebecca	1940	Selznick-UA	MGM-Fox
Santa Fe Trail, The	1940	Warner Bros	Film Chest
Second Chorus	1940	Paramount	Film Chest HD Cinema Classics
Three Faces West	1940	Republic	(April 2013) Olive
Tom & Jerry: The Golden Collection vol. 1	1940-48	MGM	Warner 2-disc set of 37 cartoons
Wolf Man, The	1940	Universal	in monsters box set
Blood and Sand	1941	20th Century Fox	(7/9/13)
Buck Privates	1941	Universal
Citizen Kane	1941	RKO	Warner
Crook’s Tour	1941	British National	Criterion (same disc as Lady Vanishes)
Devil and Miss Jones, The	1941	RKO	Olive
Dumbo	1941	Disney	incl. The Flying Mouse (1934) & Elmer Elephant (1936) in HD
How Green Was My Valley	1941	20th Century Fox
Lady from Louisiana	1941	Republic	(5/28/13) Olive
Maltese Falcon, The	1941	Warner Bros
Man Betrayed, A	1941	Republic	Olive
Swamp Water	1941	20th Century Fox	Twilight Time
Bambi	1942	Disney
Black Swan, The	1942	20th Century Fox	(12/3/13)
Casablanca	1942	Warner Bros
Gold Rush, The	1942	United Artists	Criterion (included with original 1925 silent cut)
Holiday Inn	1942	Paramount	(sometime in 2013?) Universal
In Old California	1942	Republic	(5/28/13) Olive
In Which We Serve	1942	British Lion	Criterion (Lean/Coward set)
Lady for a Night	1942	Republic	Olive
Les Visiteurs du Soir	1942	(France)	Criterion
Mrs. Miniver	1942	MGM	Warner
Saboteur	1942	Universal	Hitchcock box set
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon	1942	Universal	MPI box set
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror	1942	Universal	MPI box set
To Be or Not To Be	1942	United Artists	(8/27/13) Criterion
In Old Oklahoma (a.k.a. War of the Wildcats)	1943	Republic	Olive
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The	1943	General Film	Criterion
Phantom of the Opera, The	1943	Universal	in monsters box set
Shadow of a Doubt	1943	Universal	Hitchcock box set
Sherlock Holmes Faces Death	1943	Universal	MPI box set
Sherlock Holmes in Washington	1943	Universal	MPI box set
Song of Bernadette, The	1943	20th Century Fox	Twilight Time
December 7	1943	U.S. Govt.	Topics Entertainment WWII in HD box set
*Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves	1944	Universal	Eureka (U.K.)
Cover Girl	1944	Columbia	Twilight Time
Double Indemnity	1944	Paramount	(sometime in 2012 or 2013) Universal
Fighting Seabees, The	1944	Republic	Olive
Laura	1944	20th Century Fox
Meet Me In St. Louis	1944	MGM	Warner Bros.
Memphis Belle, The	1944	U.S. Govt	Periscope Film (availability?)
Ministry of Fear	1944	Paramount	Criterion
*Henry V -- Region B --	1944	Two Cities
On Approval	1944	Eagle Lion	Inception Media Group
Pearl of Death, The	1944	Universal	MPI box set
Scarlet Claw, The	1944	Universal	MPI box set
Spider Woman, The	1944	Universal	MPI box set
Strangers in the Night	1944	Republic	Olive
This Happy Breed	1944	Two Cities	Criterion (Lean/Coward set)
Blithe Spirit	1945	Two Cities	Criterion (Lean/Coward set)
Brief Encounter	1945	Eagle-Lion	Criterion (Lean/Coward set)
Chldren of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis)	1945	Janus	Criterion
Flame of Barbary Coast