Olive Films

[Cash Flagg]

Release date for first wave now July 27th.

[Cinephrenic]

Horrible cover art. I hope they go with original poster work on The Savage Innocents and Sands of Kalahari.

[Jeff]

In general, Olive Films is a source for films from a variety of boutique labels. Try wrapping your head around their mission statement.

In addition to selling a selection from other distributors, Olive releases their own line of independently acquired films. They are "interested in obtaining copyrights to films that match [their] criteria." This line is known as Olive Films Opus, apparently to distinguish it from the larger Olive Films brand. Five months ago, Olive hired Frank Tarzi as their director of sales and acquisitions. Prior to that, Tarzi had held that same position at Kino for 13 years, and before that he was the head buyer at Kim's. It looks like Olive Films Opus has become much more aggressive under Tarzi, and they intend to follow the Criterion model: combining a selection of films licensed from major studios with a group of mostly foreign films for which they could pick up the U.S. copyright and distribution rights. The former began with a selection of 27 Paramount films found in the first post of this thread, while it looks like the latter is really just getting underway. They have picked up several titles that have found some success at European festivals over the past few years, but have otherwise not found U.S. distribution. This includes Berlinale 2009 Golden Bear winner and Academy Award nominee The Milk of Sorrow and this year's Golden Bear winner Honey (along with the other films in The Yusuf Trilogy). Earlier acquisitions which may be known to some members here are Iran's The Day I Became a Woman and Russia's The Thief. More recent titles include Spain's Me Too, Denmark's Brotherhood, and Sweden's The Girl.

I applaud Olive's bravery to enter an already-limited niche market with such an esoteric selection of titles. I haven't picked up anything from them yet. Their relatively high MSRP coupled with a general lack of supplements are discouraging, but I'll certainly be checking out some of their Paramount titles. Hopefully they've put more effort into the transfers than they have the cover art. In a thread at Home Theater Forum, Tarzi said, "All of these films will be released on DVD first and some of the key titles will eventually be released on Blu-ray (Titles and dates will be determined at a later time). All titles will be remastered in high-definition from an original 35mm print or negative. They will all be released in their original aspect ratio (16x9)." I'd be especially interested in picking up The Savage Innocents, Face to Face, and the Premingers (Skidoo!) on Blu-ray, but I imagine that Tarzi's comments indicate that the titles that get that treatment will be the ones that sell best on DVD. Their first round of Paramount titles (Union Station, Appointment With Danger, Dark City, Crack in the World, and Hannie Caulder) are due on July 27. In the meantime, I might use their store to pick up a couple of out-of-print Criterions (if anyone doesn't have the excellent Straw Dogs set yet, now's the time) or a cool Olive Films t-shirt.

[Ashirg]

Next two titles announced at Classic Flix for September 28:
Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr in My Favorite Spy (1951) and Danny Kaye's Knock on Wood (1954).

[AfterTheRain]

They've added two more for future release: Where Love Has Gone (1965) and Harlow (1965 - Carroll Baker version).

[Minkin]

Excellent find Jeff! This raises my hope of other retailers magically still having OOP titles in stock.

Now that Olive Films Opus is really picking up, this is looking like quite an attractive deal

[domino harvey]

Now that Olive Films Opus is really picking up, this is looking like quite an attractive deal

How can they possibly make any money with such a plan?

[domino harvey]

DVDBeaver reviews:
Crack in the World
Dark City (Uh, does this look compressed to anyone else?)
Appointment With Danger
Union Station

[Steven H]

Doesn't look compressed to my eyes. God those transfers look great. I recently watched (an admittedly awful looking version of) Appointment With Danger and could barely make it through, though. The others will be sitting on the top of my Netflix queue with the WB Noir 5 set.

[Jeff]

I believe that Paramount created these masters themselves and simply farmed them out to Olive for distribution. Even though they seemingly don't have any interest in manufacturing and distributing DVDs anymore, they've taken good care of their library. When they got the Republic titles, they quickly began a massive restoration and preservation project. I think that their contract with Criterion gives them ownership of the masters Criterion makes too. The Beaver caps of these first few titles are very encouraging, and hopefully bode well for The Savage Innocents, Face to Face, and the Premingers.

Once is Not Enough has been added to the September 28 roster, bringing the total number of titles released that day to five. There are five due on July 27 too. I think that since the masters are likely already done, we can probably count on around five titles every other month. That would mean that Olive would be done with this first batch by May of 2011.

[Titus]

Now that Olive Films Opus is really picking up, this is looking like quite an attractive deal

So they're essentially offering this entire batch of films (provided they're all released within the next year) for a total of around $110 -- that's 27 DVDs, each of which will presumably retail at $25, for about $4 each? Am I missing something?

[domino harvey]

Actually, they release more than the Paramount titles, so it'd be an even-more absurd deal. I've just sent an inquiry looking to get confirmation on all this, I'll let the thread know once I hear something back

[htdm]

Beaver on Hannie Caulder

[Titus]

I sent Olive an email asking them about the subscriptions and received a reply confirming that subscribers receive free copies of their releases (pressed DVDs, with cover art, etc.), and so long as you subscribe prior to the 27th you'll get the five Paramount films released that day.

Unless Domino or somebody else has discovered a catch, that seems like a too-good-to-pass-up deal for anyone interested in at least a handful of these releases. You could sell the ones you're not interested in on Amazon/ebay and probably make back the cost of the subscription.

[domino harvey]

They never got back to me but let's hope they told you the truth. I still don't understand how they make any money on this at all, but their folly is our good fortune! I just subscribed

[mfunk9786]

How many films will that amount to altogether? It seems weird: you could sell one per month on eBay and make back that month's subscription fee... is there a catch?

[domino harvey]

How many films will that amount to altogether? It seems weird: you could sell one per month on eBay and make back that month's subscription fee... is there a catch?

Dunno, we only know the release schedule through September, but they licensed twenty-plus films. The only thing I can think of is that it's immediate and dependable money for the new label for the next year-- perhaps some sense of security is worth selling these to us at what amount to at or a little below distributor costs when averaged out over a year? I can confirm that they've only charged my card $8.95 too, so it's not even one of those shady "We charge you for the year in advance" things

[knives]

I'll wait until some one else says it's legit, but damn if that subscription isn't a hell of a way to make money.

[domino harvey]

I'll wait until some one else says it's legit, but damn if that subscription isn't a hell of a way to make money.

Another user got confirmation from the label in the Olive Films thread... if you wait beyond the 27th, the deal gets a whole hell of a lot worse

[knives]

What I meant is I'm waiting until someone actually gets discs from the mail. Though, out of worrying, how is it worse after the 27th? I would think I'd only be missing the eleven announced titles, which I'm not savvy enough on to plunck down hundred dollars blindly for.

[domino harvey]

If you order after the 27th, you don't get the five titles coming out that day. There's some sketch risk here, sure, but personally I'd feel worse if I sat it out and it turns out great than if I somehow get burned going for it. Your mileage may vary

[mfunk9786]

DECISIONS! Knives is right though, if some of the films are duds, it's one hell of a way to make money. Though my only reservation at this point is the fact that I've placed one order with the site so far - it was a week ago, and my card was charged but there was no shipment notification or replies to my e-mails. So I've got some concerns not pertaining to the quality of the releases at this point.

[swo17]

You know, I was just thinking today--I really need to spend more money on DVDs.

[Svevan]

Do we not even know which films constitute the "first batch?"

[domino harvey]

Do we not even know which films constitute the "first batch?"

Dark City, Appointment With Danger, Union Station, Hannie Caulder, Crack in the World