- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,316
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
The 1952 Fred Zinnemann, Carl Foreman, Stanley Kramer High Noon has been one of my favorite films since I was a kid. I was a huge Gary Cooper fan, and this is a film that seemed so simple, until you really take a close look at it, and found that there was far more going on than what was on the surface.
With stellar performances, cinematography, the music score by Dimitri Tiomkin. It all fits together to form one to of the greatest films ever created.
Why, then, is it so difficult to release it on home video in a "stellar" state?
Always prepared from dupes...
The earlier DVD releases were some of the worst ever created.
And I was hopeful that Olive Films would finally get it right.
They didn't.
And it's a pity.
From the very opening, the main title sequence is so far away from original, that the hi-con information is soft.
After the opening dupes, we're at what appears to be fine grain level, and that should be fine, but they've given the film a wonderfully electronic look.
If you like that sort of thing.
I don't.
Grain is sticky. It sticks to people. It hangs, motionless, in the air. There are occasional scratches, but I can live with that.
While this new release is a far cry from the old DVDs, which were worse than horrific, and to many it will seem very acceptable, it's just not there.
It would have been so easy to do an image harvest -- where is the original nitrate? -- in 4k, down-rez it, leave the grain where it was, do a clean-up, and get it out there. We're not talking about a lot of expense here to do it right.
Yours truly is not a happy camper.
The gray scale is fine. Good blacks. Decent shadow detail.
Electronic sharpening. Naturally.
Aliasing. A bit.
All in all an embarrassing Blu-ray, considering how easily it could have been something very special.
There are many films for which we can say, "they deserve better." This is one of them.
Image - 2.5
Audio - 4
RAH
With stellar performances, cinematography, the music score by Dimitri Tiomkin. It all fits together to form one to of the greatest films ever created.
Why, then, is it so difficult to release it on home video in a "stellar" state?
Always prepared from dupes...
The earlier DVD releases were some of the worst ever created.
And I was hopeful that Olive Films would finally get it right.
They didn't.
And it's a pity.
From the very opening, the main title sequence is so far away from original, that the hi-con information is soft.
After the opening dupes, we're at what appears to be fine grain level, and that should be fine, but they've given the film a wonderfully electronic look.
If you like that sort of thing.
I don't.
Grain is sticky. It sticks to people. It hangs, motionless, in the air. There are occasional scratches, but I can live with that.
While this new release is a far cry from the old DVDs, which were worse than horrific, and to many it will seem very acceptable, it's just not there.
It would have been so easy to do an image harvest -- where is the original nitrate? -- in 4k, down-rez it, leave the grain where it was, do a clean-up, and get it out there. We're not talking about a lot of expense here to do it right.
Yours truly is not a happy camper.
The gray scale is fine. Good blacks. Decent shadow detail.
Electronic sharpening. Naturally.
Aliasing. A bit.
All in all an embarrassing Blu-ray, considering how easily it could have been something very special.
There are many films for which we can say, "they deserve better." This is one of them.
Image - 2.5
Audio - 4
RAH