Videodrone MOD Movies: Columbia Pictures and Universal Classics from the TCM Vault Collection

The TCM Vault Collection is becoming a clever approach to the growing manufacture-on-deman​​d industry. Branded and managed by Turner Classic Movies and featuring movies from the Columbia and Universal archives (which also includes Paramount's early films), they release curated classics in themed collections, and like the recent Warner Archive "Forbidden Hollywood" sets, the initial releases are all on traditional pressed discs in digipak cases. When the initial pressings sell out, subsequent editions will feature burned discs

 

And speaking of "Forbidden Hollywood," you could call "Columbia Pictures Pre-Code Collection" (TCM Vault Collection) a companion set. The "Forbidden Hollywood" collections (numbering five sets now) are show what how Warner Bros. and MGM studios were pushing the envelope of sex, subject matter, and attitude in the years before the censorship hammer of the production code came down on Hollywood. Columbia films—with the notable exception of those from Frank Capra—did not have the energy and momentum that defined the Warner studio style in the thirties, but they did have a handsome sheen and sense of low-key production design that defined and contrasted the lives of the rich and poor very nicely.

 

They also had the ambition of studio head Harry Cohn, who pushed his smaller, poorer studio to compete with Hollywood powerhouses. This collection is carried by some of the most glamorous female stars of the day -- Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Mae Clarke -- and all but Stanwyck were on loan from other studios.

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