Criterion's January release of Magnificent Obsession: all good news (1 Viewer)

[Simon Howson]

Exactly, it is 16:9 / 1.78:1. That capture is from a TV broadcast, not the Criterion DVD.

 

[BillyFeldman]

Let's be clear - the Criterion DVD is not comprised of screencaps and stills - it is comprised of images and they are all, every single one of them, perfectly framed with a proper amount of head room. You can do a screencap from any movie ever made including those in Academy and find a single frame where someone's head is tight to the top of the frame or cut off but it is, in the end, utter nonsense. There are no shots in Criterion's transfer where anything is out of the frame or even near to being mis-framed. And that is the bottom line. I'm sure the post above was supposed to be clever and meaningful, but screencaps are not clever. Only watching the actual DVD is clever. I have. Has Mr. Howson?

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Um, I think the screen caps I posted are being misinterpreted. I did not post them as some inditement over the framing at all - I was just showing how the PAL release different from the NTSC Criterion. The Criterion shows a minute amount of more room at the top of the frame, that's all.

 

[Simon Howson]

I agree.

 

[CineKarine]

Just curious, are there more people who prefer, as I do, the 1935 Stahl version of the film? This earlier version gets merely a one line mention in most reviews of the DVD I have read, yet it is such an outstanding film, so much more understated, yet, to me, more effective and affecting, than Sirk's version. I have felt this way ever since I first saw both films about 20 years ago.

 

[jdee28]

I prefer the Sirk version of Magnificent Obsession over the Stahl version, but mostly because of the casting. I just find Robert Taylor to be too insufferable in the 1935 film; his "acting," if you can call it that, is horrible. He is just not convincing. He's much better in Camille (1936), perhaps because Cukor was able to handle him better, reign him in, shape his performance; and then there is Garbo, a much more believable object of obsession than Irene Dunne.

Magnificent Obsession really doesn't do Dunne much justice. She's much better in Stahl's 1939 film "When Tomorrow Comes" with Charles Boyer. That's a Stahl film that is heads and tails better than the Sirk remake, "Interlude." Again, casting plays a part, as Rossano Brazzi, star of the remake, can't act his way out of a paper bag, and June Allyson is a bit drab in Dunne's original role.

I was really disappointed by the transfer of the 1954 version on the Criterion DVD. I was expecting it to look like their release of Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows. Instead, it hardly looks Criterion worthy at all. The colors are faded and the tint is slightly off; everything is too magenta. Is this the best that the 1954 version of Magnificent Obsession will ever look?

 

[CineKarine]

I agree with you on that 100%! Yet despite it all, as a whole, I prefer the 35 version. I got the Criterion mainly for it.

For sure, When Tomorrow Comes, would be a great addition to DVD - a wonderful film. I could do without its dreary remake though.

I tend to adore melodramas - but Sirk's widely acclaimed ones (1954 and after) usually don't work for me. I find there is a rather hard-to-take aloofness and detachment about them (especially his Imitation of Life) and the overly glossy look of these films seems to take away from everything else. That's probably why I generally prefer the "simpler", yet more moving (to me) versions of the 30s.

Having said that, I am a great fan of Sirk's pre-Magnificent Obsession films which strike me as so much more alive and more affecting than anything he did after somehow. Of course, I am sure and positive I am in the minority here.