The Fox box

I've mentioned a few times now how Fox is getting into the manufacturing on demand game. Warner Home Video more or less started it with the Warner Archive collection, and have since also been putting our those TCM box sets that you see being hawked on TCM between movies. Their latest is a Kirk Douglas set which I think is only being released next Tuesday (June 26) according to a blurb I came across on TCM's website.

TCM has also been cooperating with Universal in advertising similar box sets; you may have seen the recent promos for the box set of four Joel McCrea westerns. There's also one with leading actresses from the 50s including a Joan Crawford Film (Woman on the Beach, I believe) and an Esther Williams movie (The Unguarded Hour or some such, which TCM showed last year when Esther Williams was Star of the Month and which is a riot). I strongly suspect that such promos are in exchange for getting broadcast rights to movies from the other studios, which is of course a good thing.

And so I wonder how long it will be before we start seeing similar box sets coming out from Fox. Back in October 2010, I wrote a post that I think has a lot in common with the idea of box sets from Fox, about what actors Tom Rothman should spotlight on Fox Legacy. This of course was before the change in programming format, but the ideas I think still hold true, only with putting out box sets instead of getting a cable channel spotlight. In the 2010 blog post, I mentioned James Stewart, Bette Davis, and Henry Fonda. One person I didn't mention was Cary Grant. He made Born to Be Bad at Fox early in his career (in fact, it's airing tomorrow at 6:00 AM on FMC); later in his career he made comedies like I Was a Male War Bride and Monkey Business. That last one, having Marilyn Monroe in a supporting role, would be ideal for a DVD release. In fact, it has gotten one, with Monroe on the front, even though she's not the star. I believe co-star Ginger Rogers, though, did make enough movies at Fox to get a box-set: We're Not Married! is another film Rogers made at Fox that got a DVD release because of Monroe's presence in the cast, while I don't think Dreamboat has gotten one -- apparently Clifton Webb doesn't merit a DVD or something.