'The Big Sleep' and 'Key Largo' Announced for Blu-ray

Two classics starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall will be getting the Blu-ray treatment in 2016.

In an early announcement to retailers, Warner Archive will be releasing 'The Big Sleep' and 'Key Largo' on Blu-ray sometime later this year.

'The Big Sleep' -- L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a blackmail case…and follows a trail peopled with murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues, the spoiled rich and more. Raymond Chandler's legendary gumshoe solves it in hard-boiled style – and style is what The Big Sleep is all about. Director Howard Hawks serves up snappy character encounters (particularly those of Bogart and Lauren Bacall), brisk pace and atmosphere galore. This Blu-rayTM doubles your pleasure, offering two versions of this whodunit supreme: the familiar 1946 theatrical version, full of reshot scenes of incendiary Bogart/Bacall chemistry, and the less-familiar 1945 prerelease version, as a special feature, whose plot and resolution are more linear in fashion.

Specs have yet to be revealed, but supplements will include: Original Theatrical Trailer; Alternate 1945 Pre-release Version with previously unissued introduction by UCLA Film Preservation Officer Robert Gitt; and The Big Sleep 1945/1946 Comparisons - Uncut Robert Gitt "Lecture" Version (30 Minutes). Nearly twice the length of the Comparisons feature as seen on DVD.

'Key Largo' -- A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) holes up - and holds at gunpoint hotel owner Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall), her invalid father-in-law (Lionel Barrymore) and ex-GI Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart).

McCloud's the one man capable of standing up against the belligerent Rocco. But the postwar world's realities may have taken all the fight out of him. John Huston co-wrote and compellingly directs this film of Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play with a searing Academy Award-winning performance by Claire Trevor as Rocco's gold-hearted, boozy moll. In Huston's hands, it becomes a powerful, sweltering classic.

Specs have yet to be revealed, but the Blu-ray will include the original theatrical trailer.

You can find the latest specs for 'The Big Sleep' and 'Key Largo' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it is indexed under PENDING.

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