This past Tuesday we were excited to
pass along the first official info about the contents, cost and release date -
August 31st! - of Image Entertainment's 14-DVD set of Boris Karloff's
Thriller - The Complete Series. Later that day, in response to our news report (which was mentioned in the post which set this off!), we got the following e-mail from Rich Krauss, one of our readers:
I can't wait for this one! I'm a member of an online Night Gallery group, and Mr. Gary Gerani (author of some vip tv book) just posted the message below. He's doing commentary tracks for this release, and he wants everyone to know about the other extras, esp. the isolated music scores.
So, fyi, here's a copy of his post from the Night Gallery group:
Believe it or not, we're still doing some final editing on the commentaries. Even so, there are a few dumb mistakes that probably won't be corrected (I confused Oscar Beregi with Theo Marcuse at one point...the shame of it all!). BTW, does that current TV SHOWS ON DVD announcement also mention those isolated Jerry Goldsmith musical tracks, as extras? If it doesn't, it should... those classic Goldsmith/Morton Stevens scores have never been released before on CD, and we all agreed that their inclusion in this set represented a tremendous commercial plus that should be flagged on the package, and in all advertising. Just saying "we have an original promo and some cool still galleries" doesn't quite cover the truly amazing extras we've unearthed for this mega-release (a ton of commentaries, isolated music, "next week" trailers, bumpers, art from the comics, all kinds of wonderful stuff).
But hey, here's the all-important bottom line: THRILLER is finally coming out on DVD in its entirety, looking better than ever. So hold your breath for just four more months, fans; it's gonna be worth the wait!
Best regards, Gary G.
As you can see, Rich didn't tell us where on the internet to find this post by Gerani (
NOTE [5/8]: we've now learned it was at the Yahoo! Groups page for Night Gallery), but naturally we still followed up on our end. While Image's official information still only refers to a "Series Promo" and "Still Galleries" as being the extras for this collection, one of our industry sources informs us that the information we were given is indeed correct! We're told that the extras are still being edited and finalized (which may be why Image isn't including the entire list of supplements yet), but we're told that "
all of Goldsmith's scores will be there as isolated music and effects tracks." We're also told to look for LOTS of Audio Commentary tracks (perhaps around 35!), with participation by Gerani confirmed, but other names mentioned include Tim Lucas, Ernest Dickerson, Arthur Hiller, Patricia Barry, Jim Wynorski, Richard Anderson and Lucy Chase Williams, among others.
Great news - THRILLING, actually - for fans who have waited a long time for this release. It sounds like Image is working hard to make sure nobody is disappointed with
Thriller - The Complete Series. Keep in mind that the info about this bonus material is not officially provided by the studio, though, and could be subject to change. We'll have the finalized list of extras for you just as soon as we can, so stay tuned! Our thanks again to Rich Krauss for the heads-up, as well as to our in-the-know friend for the verification.
