Films not yet on DVD

It's very frustrating to look at the new DVD releases week after week and see crap like American Pie 2 or Shrek but never some of the films I'm most anxiously awaiting. Making this list will do absolutely nothing to make these DVDs come out quicker, but I still find it oddly comforting. Maybe at some point I'll add some useful information, like why these films aren't out yet. At the very least, I'll try to cross them out as they're released. Links are to the respective IMDB entries.

• Naked Lunch (1991)
  Cronenberg's best film, which seems meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with William S. Burroughs but brilliant to most everyone else. Available in Germany, but the single audio track is the German dub (!).

• A Day at the Races (1937)
  The Marx Brothers' second-best film, and Groucho's best.

• Eraserhead (1977)
  David Lynch apparenly doesn't want anyone to actually see his movies. Eraserhead was allegedly supposed to be on a Criterion DVD that would feature the 20 minutes of footage that was cut after its first showing, but Lynch pulled the plug on the project. A Region 2 DVD is available from France, which includes a cheaply made "Making of..." featurette in French.

• The Killers (1946)
  Burt Lancaster's first film, and one of the best-ever noirs.

• Trouble in Paradise (1932)
  Ernest Lubitsch's elegant film was never on VHS, much less DVD, so I'm not holding my breath. It used to pop up on American Movie Classics back before that channel sucked.

• The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
  Criterion released a beautiful laserdisc of this years ago which is one of my prized possessions. I still wish they'd rerelease it on DVD.

• Greed (1925)
  Both the standard and the "filmstrip" remix (where they try to approximate the pre-cut version by adding production stills and dialog cards in the appropriate places) are on VHS from Warner; it'd be nice to see them combined on a DVD.

• Dial M for Murder (1954)
  One of the few American Hitchcock films not yet on DVD. Owned by Warner Brothers, I believe. Perhaps they're trying to figure out what to do about the 3-D? To the best of my knowledge, there's no good way to reproduce a color 3-D movie on television (or a computer monitor).

• Down by Law (1986)
  Essential Jim Jarmusch film is out of print on VHS, and was never available on DVD in the U.S. There is a Region 2 out in England.

• The Power and the Glory (1933)
  I've never seen this early Preston Sturges-scripted historical drama, but it sounds interesting with its Citizen Kane- like flashback structure. Also never released on VHS.

• Alice in Wonderland (1933)
  This early (though far from the first) version is rather dull, but it's still worth owning for the cast: W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Charlie Ruggles as the March Hare, Gary Cooper as the White Knight, and—best of all—Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle (he sings "Soup of the Evening").

Corrections, additions, updates, and arguments should be sent to @unknown.nu?Subject=Unreleased DVDs"> Kim Scarborough.