Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films coming to Blu Ray (1 Viewer)

[bgart13]

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sherlock-Holmes-The-Complete-Collection-Blu-ray/19232/#Review

 

[dana martin]

there's one up on blu-ray.com and this set looks like a winner! This is one of MPI's biggest titles, its the one that they had to get right, and looks like they did.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Steve...O

Thanks, Colin. I had the same question as Rodney. From your review this may not be much of an upgrade. In fact your comment suggests that these may not even be true 1080p transfers. That's a shame because the DVDs, for the most part, looked really good. Even Hound and Adventures looked quite good in their "unrestored" state.

I make no judgment about whether these are true 1080p or not - I just don't think that any extra work was done on them beyond the old UCLA restorations. The main problem stems from lots and lots of print flaws. Some films get off easier than others - of the ones I watched, "Woman in Green" and "Dressed to Kill" were easily the cleanest - but there are still plenty of marks, blotches, etc.


Parts of the movies look quite good - sharpness is usually nice, and blacks are reasonably deep - but MAN are some of these films dirty! I don't expect perfection from 60+ year old movies, but I've seen enough old films to know that they can look better...

 

[Steve...O]

The Blu-ray.com review certainly is a more positive viewpoint of these Blu-rays. Good to read and reassuring.

The UCLA restorations should suffice for Blu-ray. They weren't done all that long ago and they were done with 35mm elements (with a 16mm blow up for the Dressed to Kill titles). I've watched each of them multiple times and don't recall any of them looking overly dirty to my eyes. There are occasional flaws with the source materials but these are relatively few and far between. Everyone's tolerance for these is different though, so each viewer will have to make their own judgement as to the presentation.


Here's another review I found: http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10830/The%20Complete%20Sherlock%20Holmes%20Collection%20(1939%20%E2%80%93%201946/Basil%20Rathbone/Fox/Universal/UCLA/MPI%20Bls-ray%20set)


This one is also positive, saying:

monochrome presentations that are not always perfect, but are a very noticeable improvement over the DVDs with much better Video Black, Video White, Gray Scale, depth and detail the DVDs simply could not deliver.

Interestingly, this review also has the same favorable comparison to the TZ sets that the blu-ray.com reviewer did.

 

[FrancisP]

I don't know if anyone noticed this but the non-Amazon stores are selling this for well under the $75 that Amazon has listed it as. Bought it from the non-Amazon store for $48.99 plus $3 shipping.

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by FrancisP

I don't know if anyone noticed this but the non-Amazon stores are selling this for well under the $75 that Amazon has listed it as. Bought it from the non-Amazon store for $48.99 plus $3 shipping.

What non-Amazon stores, I've checked Deep Discount, Best Buy, Movies Unlimited, and DVD Planet and they are all in the $80 to $90 range.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by FrancisP

 

[FrancisP]

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

According to the e-mail I got, I'm getting a blu ray copy. I guess I'll find out.

 

[bgart13]

Can you specify which non-Amazon store you're talking about?

 

[John Hodson]

Ignore.

 

[Timothy E]

The HTF review has been posted here: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/310109/htf-blu-ray-review-sherlock-holmes-complete-collection-rathbone#post_3794623

 

[bigshot]

It appears that like the DVD set, the two best movies in the collection, Hound of the Baskervilles and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are unrestored and in rugged shape. I'm sure the bluray won't have the problems with compression artifacting I see on the DVDs though. The Universal movies are OK and have plenty of character, but the contemporary settings and less than idiomatic stories don't make them worth the upgrade to me.