A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Great Race -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Peter Apruzzese]

I believe this was fixed, the HD version that the Warner Archive streamed was correct.

 

[John Morgan]

The dvd edition of this had a huge, glaring error in the main titles. The wrong "reaction chorus" tracks were used as each star's name came onscreen. There are supposed to be cheers for Tony Curtis, whistles for Natalie Wood, and booing for Jack Lemmon. All of this was wrong on the dvd 5.1 track. The cheers came for Jack, the villain, the whistles came for Tony and Natalie got the cheers. OK, but not correct. If you switch to the French soundtrack, you hear the correct placement of these effects. My concern is that this has not been fixed for the blu-ray. I will hold out a little bit of hope that it did get corrected, although, I am not certain if the powers at be even knew it was incorrect in the first place. Fingers crossed.

This was corrected in subsequent DVD pressings. I even re-bought the DVD when I learned about this. Look forward to the Blu ray.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Yes this was corrected about a year after the DVD came out. I got mine replaced through WHV.

This was corrected in subsequent DVD pressings. I even re-bought the DVD when I learned about this. Look forward to the Blu ray.

 

[John Morgan]

As I understand it, Warner's had all the separate audio stems from the film and when they did their 5.1 configuration, they basically a remix of the film. I guess those cheers and jeers track wasn't conformed to the film itself.

Another thing that I may very well be misremembering is at the festivities before the race starts, the old cameras that had those flash thingys were mute at that scene, but earlier where those cameras were shooting that bullet train sequence they made that wonderful POP sound effect. I don't remember if my old TV vhs tape from local televsion...I assume 16mm, had them or not, but I certainly missed them on the first 5.1 mix available. And at the race, the camera was very close in the scene, so I missed the sound effect, but even trying the various language versions, it seems to be missing. So, I live in wonder.

 

[ahollis]

Yes this was corrected about a year after the DVD came out. I got mine replaced through WHV.

That was good customer service. WAC and WHV have always been at the top of their game in replacing discs as is Disney.

 

[mdnitoil]

This was quietly corrected in later pressings of the DVD, so I'm sure the Blu is good.


Whoops, this is what happens when you respond to the last post on page 1.

 

[Mark-W]

Anyone still waiting for the Blu-ray from WAC directly to ship?

I admit that I am inpatient. I would have thought it would ship on Tuesday, release day. It is now mid-morning on Thursday and it still shows "in progress."

 

[Matt Hough]

Anyone still waiting for the Blu-ray from WAC directly to ship?

I admit that I am inpatient. I would have thought it would ship on Tuesday, release day. It is now mid-morning on Thursday and it still shows "in progress."

Argh! I would have been climbing the walls by this time! You have the patience of a saint!

 

[trajan]

Argh! I would have been climbing the walls by this time! You have the patience of a saint!

Try waiting for DOCTOR DOLITTLE and STAR! to come out on bluray.

 

[lukejosephchung]

Received my copy from Amazon today for this...will be checking this out tonight after dinner...given everyone's positive reports, this will truly be a treat!!!

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Thought it was interesting that The Great Race Blu-ray menu does not provide the "scene access" feature. Access via player remote control button is possible, manually selecting each in succession, but still this was a surprise.

 

[classicmovieguy]

The Warner Archive Blu-ray's don't have 'Chapter Search' screens - a small quibble. They did however include a "Song Selection" function on "Hit the Deck" and "Kismet".

 

[davidmatychuk]

Somebody alert the Chapter Search Technicians Union!

 

[Mark-W]

I ran out of patience this morning. I tried to cancel, because, to make it worse, now Amazon is cheaper on top of the failure of WAC to ship or alert me to a reason for the delay.

WAC apologized for not notifying me that Paypal won't allow them to bill my account a month after the order was first put through. They knew this already, and had me on their list of people to call, but had done nothing and it still read "in progress" on their site.

I was not particularly great on the phone. They are giving me the option to return the disc when it arrives. I want them to lose a sale because of this.

Me cranky is not good. One of several bad online order situations in the last week.

Days like today remind me why I am still single. LOL!

Argh! I would have been climbing the walls by this time! You have the patience of a saint!

 

[atfree]

Watching it now....the BD is a wonder!

 

[Mark-P]

I think the implication in RAH's review was that the overture is already against a black screen, but I could be misreading him.

And indeed I was misreading him. As I now have the disc, I can tell you that the "Overture" Entr'acte" and "Exit Music" titles are up on the screen, but are designed to look like 1890s slides. The "Overture" and "Exit Music" titles may have been added by Warner just for this release (I can't tell) but the "Entr'acte" card is animated as it "slides" into place and slides back out when finished, so it was probably in the original version.

 

[Matt Hough]

I ran out of patience this morning. I tried to cancel, because, to make it worse, now Amazon is cheaper on top of the failure of WAC to ship or alert me to a reason for the delay.

WAC apologized for not notifying me that Paypal won't allow them to bill my account a month after the order was first put through. They knew this already, and had me on their list of people to call, but had done nothing and it still read "in progress" on their site.

I was not particularly great on the phone. They are giving me the option to return the disc when it arrives. I want them to lose a sale because of this.

Me cranky is not good. One of several bad online order situations in the last week.

Days like today remind me why I am still single. LOL!

Really ridiculous set of circumstances. Sorry this has happened as I know you were looking forward to the movie.

 

[ThadK]

Not sure what the issue is with everyone else, but I ordered this Wednesday morning and it (and OUT OF THE PAST) arrived in time for a Saturday night screening. Looking at GREAT RACE now and it looks... well, great. Definitely buy from the WAC Blu-Ray line with confidence! Looking forward to KISS ME KATE next year.

 

[David_B_K]

Mark's quandary reminds me of when I ordered The Quiet Man from Olive's website and still didn't have it weeks after everybody else. I canceled my order and got it elsewhere, but never got around too watching it until about a month ago.

 

[Paul Scott]

So am I the only one that sees 'issues' with this disc?
On the opening Overture card, the white filigree border design looks low res digital (harsh pixel aliasing). The word Overture OTOH looks smooth and solid, so it's odd that the detail in the edges looks so much lower res. Once we get into the film proper, the second shot with Curtis in front of the ballon basket shows some noticeable shimmering on the basket weaves as the basket moves back and forth.

I stepped through a bit more of it and didn't notice any more glaring flaws, but the overall impression I had was "don't look too close at this one, it just won't hold up to even causal scrutiny".

This is on a Pioneer FPJ1 feed by an Oppo 103 and shooting on a 9' wide screen. Viewing distance is about 1.25 screen widths. Given how lauded the Oppos scaling is, I doubt what I'm seeing are errors introduced by that piece of gear.