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CRITERION: Brief Encounter and Only Angels Arrive in April
Criterion announced Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings and David Lean's Brief Encounter will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray in April.
Only Angels receives its introduction into the Criterion Collection. It originally dropped on DVD in 1999 from Columbia and recently debuted on Blu-ray via the TCM Vault last year.
Originally released on DVD via Criterion in 2010, this marks the debut of Brief Encounter on Blu.
Both will be single-disc Blus.
Bonus features are planned to accompany each disc (below).
Only Angels Have Wings arrives on April 12th and Brief Encounter on April 26th.
With its evocatively fog-enshrouded setting, swooning Rachmaninoff score, and pair of remarkable performances (Johnson was nominated for an Oscar for her role), this film, directed by David Lean and based on Noël Coward's play Still Life deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance, and has influenced many a cinematic brief encounter since its release.
- New high-definition digital transfer of the BFI National Archive's 2008 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2000 by film historian Bruce Eder
- Interview from 2012 with Noël Coward scholar Barry Day
- A Profile of 'Brief Encounter,' a short documentary from 2000 on the making of the film
- David Lean: A Self Portrait, a 1971 television documentary on Lean's career
- Trailer
Only Angels Have Wings
Electrified by the verbal wit and visual craftsmanship of the great Howard Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings stars Jean Arthur as a traveling entertainer who gets more than she bargained for during a stopover in a South American port town. There she meets a handsome yet aloof daredevil pilot, played by Cary Grant, who runs an airmail company, staring down death while servicing towns in treacherous mountain terrain. Both attracted to and repelled by his romantic sense of danger, she decides to stay on, despite his protestations.
This masterful and mysterious adventure, featuring Oscar-nominated special effects, high-wire aerial photography, and Rita Hayworth in a small but breakout role, explores Hawks's recurring themes of masculine codes and the strong-willed women who question them.
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio excerpts from a 1972 conversation between filmmakers Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich
- New interview with film critic David Thomson
- Howard Hawks and His Aviation Movies, a new program featuring film scholars Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
- Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1939, starring Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Richard Barthelmess, and Thomas Mitchell, and hosted by director Cecil B. DeMille
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Sragow