이 기자는 [The High and the Mighty] DVD를 이미 봤단 말인가.
'많은 사람들이 선주문을 했다'고 했는데, 내가 바로 그 중의 한 사람이다 ^^;

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050611/SCENE03/506110341/1011/SCENE

'High and Mighty' is golden

By Vince Staten
Special to The Courier-Journal

The No. 3 DVD on Amazon's best-seller list is a 50-year-old movie that won't even be released for two months. How's that for pent-up demand? Hundreds of people have placed advance orders.

It ranks just behind the "Star Wars Trilogy" and ahead of such better-known fare as the two-disc "Phantom of the Opera" set and the two-disc widescreen set of "The Aviator."

That much-anticipated DVD is the now-legendary John Wayne film "The High and the Mighty," which has never been on video -- VHS or DVD -- because of legal wrangling over the Duke's estate.

The film, an early disaster movie about a trans-Pacific jetliner with engine and pilot problems, was produced by Wayne's company, Wayne-Fellows Productions, in 1954 and was shown on TV for years. But then the Duke died in 1979, and this film, along with several others, including "McLintock!" and "Hondo," produced under the auspices of Wayne's various production companies, were stuck in legal limbo, denying Duke fans an opportunity to see what they remembered as classics.

As the films have slowly made their way to video, they have proved to be less classic in practice than in memory.

"The High and the Mighty" is the exception. It really is a top-notch film, as you can see for yourself in, oh, two months.

The film features one of those "all-star casts" that includes Robert Stack, Claire Trevor, Jan Sterling, Laraine Day, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer and the other Regis, Regis Toomey.

Since "McLintock!" was released in an estate-approved VHS edition in 1993, "The High and the Mighty" has moved up on everybody's most-requested list, and for the past decade has ranked second to Disney's "Song of the South."

Its second spot on the most-requested DVD lists will probably be taken by "McLintock!" or "Hondo," neither of which has been released on DVD. Both are part of a deal between Paramount and Wayne's old production company and will be released in the not-too-distant future in deluxe editions.

"The High and the Mighty," which arrives wherever DVDs are sold on Aug. 2, is getting the deluxe treatment that an unreleased classic deserves: a two-disc collector's edition with oodles and oodles of extras.

Let's see, there's the obligatory introduction by "Entertainment Tonight's" Leonard Matlin, the obligatory audio commentary tracks by Maltin, a second commentary by the son of director William Wellman (who's been dead for 30 years), and commentary by surviving cast members Karen Sharpe and Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales (a fellow so nice they named him twice).

There's a boatload of those little featurettes, including "The Batjac Story" (Batjac was one of Wayne's production companies); "The Music and World of Dimitri Tiomkin" (Tiomkin won an Oscar for his score); "Ernest K. Gann, Adventurer, Author & Artist" (Gann wrote the screenplay based on his own novel; "Flying in the Fifties"); a mini-documentary about air travel at the time of the movie's setting; the theatrical trailer; the television commercial; and news footage of the movie's premiere.

More Wayne
On the same day -- Aug. 2 -- Paramount Home Video will also release a collector's edition of a lesser-known Wayne film, "Island in the Sky," which was made the year before "The High and the Mighty."

It's another airplane disaster movie and it features many of the same folks, director Wellman, screenwriter Gann, actors Alfalfa and Regis, plus an uncredited Fess Parker, soon to be famous as Davy Crockett, and another cowboy star, Bob Steele.

Wayne's plane has crashed in Labrador and he must keep his motley crew and passengers alive while awaiting a rescue that seems imminent for 109 minutes.

Plus five
Paramount also has plans to release five more Wayne-produced films from the '50s: "Plunder of the Sun" (1953), "Ring of Fear" (1954), "Track of the Cat" (1954), "Seven Men from Now" (1956) and "Man in the Vault" (1956). The best of this bunch is probably "Seven Men from Now" with Randolph Scott, Lee Marvin and Stuart Whitman.

The Duke didn't appear in any of these, but you can feel his big loping gait in every one of them.