I’ve lamented in the past about the dearth of classic films on Blu-ray from any studio but Warner Home Entertainment. But that will be changing soon.

On June 3, Fox will release its standard World War II trio of Patton, The Sand Pebbles and The Longest Day on Blu-ray, and MGM (distributed by Fox) will issue Battle of Britain and A Bridge Too Far in the high-def format.

Of course, Warner can always be counted on to keep pace on Blu-ray, with the Dirty Harry collection also coming June 3 and Cool Hand Luke planned for Sept. 9. On Aug. 26, Warner will release the landmark western How the West Was Won in high-def, a release that will use the revolutionary smilebox presentation – a kind of curved widescreen display — to mimic the film’s original three-screen Cinerama exhibition. 

The best news, though, might be the fact that the venerable Criterion Collection will start issuing its catalog in Blu-ray starting in October. The initial films planned by the company for high-def include:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

Now, that is cool. It sounds as if most of these will largely be high-def versions of the previous DVDs, but Criterion has said that Walkabout will be a new edition with new extras.

Incidentally, Kino on Video, which also specializes in vintage films, including many silents, has also announced plans to go Blu-ray. But its initial releases will be the newer foreign and indie films in its catalog, not the older fare.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm and is filed under DVDs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.