For the past couple of years Olive Films has been providing a steady stream of home video releases culled from the Paramount library. In 2012, the company began offering most new titles also on Blu-ray, including a quartet of Frank Tashlin-Jerry Lewis collaborations (Rock-a-Bye Baby/1958, The Geisha Boy/1958, It’$ Only Money/1962, Who’s Minding the Store?/1963), and Nicholas Ray’s little-known western Run for Cover (1955). With the release this week of two seminal 1950s titles, the western High Noon (1952) and the sci-fi Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), an additional mother lode begins to be explored by Olive. Both films are part of the Republic library, also controlled by Paramount, which holds not only the entire output of the spunky little company that specialized in westerns and serials, but also a number of bona fide American classics produced outside the majors. Indications are that at last quality transfers will be bestowed upon some prized titles. Later this month, Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul (1947) and Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil (1948) will appear, followed by Raoul Walsh’s Pursued (1947), John Ford’s Rio Grande (1950), Don Siegel’s Private Hell 36 (1954) and Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954) in August. The latter, in particular, is deserving of note, for it never received a DVD release in the U.S. and its color scheme (shot in the less-than-perfect Trucolor process) has yet to be rendered satisfactorily. September will bring Robert Siodmak’s The Dark Mirror (1946), George Cukor’s A Double Life (1947), Orson Welles’ version of Macbeth (1948), Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door (1948) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), starring José Ferrer. October’s lineup includes Max Ophuls’ Letter from an Unknwon Woman (1948), Robert Wise’s Three Secrets (1950) and four Three Mesquiteers adventures with John Wayne: Red River Range (1938), Overland Stage Raiders (1938), Thee Texas Steers (1939), and The Night Riders (1939),
