The Andrea King Message Board

My Wild Irish Rose (Warner Bros. 1947)

Thought I would mention this, since the Warner Archive features a nice handful of Andrea King’s films available for the first time on DVD! If you buy five movies, they’re $11.00 each, and come with free shipping!

Currently, you can order God Is My Co-Pilot, My Wild Irish Rose, Roughly Speaking, The Man I Love, Darby’s Rangers, and Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting.

For those of you curious about the Warner Archive, I was a little skeptical at first. These are on-demand discs. They’re DVD-Rs, meaning they’re burned to a disc when you order them. They’re not replicated from a glass master for 1,000s of copies and stored in a warehouse, waiting for shipping.

They’re also not restored or remastered for DVD. But they are generated from the current broadcast masters, and come from the “best quality source” available (short of a full restoration).

So, how good are they?

Better than I thought. At least so far. I have purchased several.

The quality is just fine! Sound and picture are solid, and they look better than they do when airing on TV (probably because TV signals are compressed to some degree, and there isn’t much if any noticeable compression flaws on these DVDs). They have labels on the discs, but they are either super-thin, glossy labels or they’re burned onto the DVD-Rs. I can’t quite tell (which is a good thing). I’ve had bad luck with paper labels on DVDs. After multiple plays in a hot player, the labels can start to separate ever so slightly from the discs and cause skipping issues during playback.

I recommend trying them out, if you find titles you like.

I’m also hoping the other movie studios start similar on-demand disc services. I understand that Warner Archive has been very successful as a business model, and they’re making money when so many now in the Home Entertainment (DVD/BD) industry are not.

Warner Archive Link

If you’re interested, don’t delay! The sale runs from March 24 to March 31, 2010.

Peter Graves and Andrea King starring in "Red Planet Mars" (1952).

So sad to hear that he passed away yesterday at 83.

Andrea starred opposite Peter in the early sci-fi movie “Red Planet Mars” (1952). Peter was a relative newcomer at the time, but she said he was a real pro, even at the beginning of his career. She kept in touch with him over the years, and he remained one of her favorite leading men.

Andrea used to joke with me that all her character Julie did was scream like a nitwit through this entire film. I don’t believe that is the case, and she grew to appreciate her performance over time. It became her most popular film through the years, due largely to the creepiness factor and a stellar performance by screen villain Peter Lorre. The special effects were pretty spectacular, too, especially for 1946! It’s a bit of clever, trick photography, involving a split screen in the overhead shots. The matted image splits right at the front edge of the piano, hiding the pianist’s arm (in a black shirt) as his hand, with a fake disembodied wrist attached to the top of it, glides over the keys and plays the music.

I also discovered this second gem of a video on YouTube: a performance by Anatol Ugorski of the Bach Chaconne as it was transcribed for piano, by Brahms, for the left hand. Bach had originally written it for solo violin.

This music was beautifully arranged to great effect by composer Max Steiner for Warner Bros.’ “The Beast With Five Fingers.”

You have to turn the volume WAY up to hear it, but it’s worth the trouble. Enjoy!

… to our lovely Andrea, who would have turned 91 on February 1, 2010.

Andrea King in "Ride the Pink Horse," 1947.

Gone, but not forgotten!

Thought I would share this with you here … since I can. Enjoy! Andrea is featured very nicely in it, although they seem to have used a different take in her “good-bye” scene with Dennis Morgan. It’s not the one from the movie. Fascinating! Incidentally, this 1945 film was just made available via the Warner Archives on DVD!

Andrea King, 1945.

After much frustration, trying to figure out a way to host an interactive forum for Andrea’s fans via the Message Board on her website, I have launched this all-new board! There are just too many clever “spammers” out there in Cyberworld, and I couldn’t find a way to fend them off on her site.

Although I don’t know exactly how much “blogging” I will be doing here, this all-new Andrea King Message Board is the place for anyone and everyone to post comments, ask questions, or share memories about Andrea, her career, and her films.

It’s easy! All you have to do is register a user name and secure password with WordPress, log in, and you’re off and running!

Hope to hear from you soon,
— Paul Miles Schneider, The Official Andrea King Web Site