What started as an attempt to boost catalog sales based on the release of a new film in the franchise has expanded into a two-way street with catalog releases including trailers and other promotions for the new release and advertising campaigns that work for the entire franchise.  Case in point is Paramount’s re-release of the first three Indiana Jones movies on DVD along with the final box set of The Adventures Young Indiana Jones TV series—all released just weeks before the opening the fourth Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Later this summer The Dark Knight movie will be preceded by the release of the Gotham Knight anime compilation along with Batman Begins on Blu-ray and the live action Birds of Prey TV series (see “Birds of Prey DVD in July”).

 

The Indiana Jones movies are available separately (at $26.98) and in a box set, Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection ($59.98), containing all three films.  In addition to sparkling transfers of all three movies, the new editions come with a dozen new special features including new introductions to all three films by Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas, “On Location With Indy,” “Indy’s Women Reminisce,” “Indy’s Friends and Enemies,”etc.  All the new extras are interesting but “The Mystery of the Melting Face,” “Snakes Alive! The Well of Souls,” and “Hold on to your Hat! The Mine Cart Chase Sequence” are among the best.

 

In addition to the Indiana Jones movies Paramount is also releasing the final box set of the Young Indiana Jones TV series.  The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones Vol.3 ($129.98) is a mammoth 10-disc set with over 660 minutes of stories about the early years of the archaeologist-hero (played here by Sean Patrick Flannery).  The Young Indy series was filmed all over the world and features the eponymous hero interacting with all sorts of historical figures including (in this set) Ernest Hemingway, Louis Armstrong, Ben Hecht, John Ford and Eric von Stroheim to name just a few.  The adventures are superbly photographed and carefully mounted with great period detail, but in many cases the short historical films that provide the context for the adventures are even better.  This is definitely a series for the historically-inclined, and it really delivers the goods.