MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War) (1 Viewer)

[Richard--W]

Thanks, I'll go to DeepDiscount then.
Odd that neither amazon nor classicflix have it.

 

[Marcel H.]

Amazon.com: Doc: Penelope Allen, John Bottoms, Denver John Collins, Gene Collins, Faye Dunaway, Marshall Erwin Efron, Bruce M. Fischer, Mart Hulswit, Dan van Husen, Stacy Keach, Antonia Rey, John Scanlon, Philip Shafer, Hedy Sontag, Mike Witney, Harr

 

[Bob Graham]

It's also part of a 50% off sale Barnes and Noble is having right now on Fox/MGM titles. Base sale price is $7.50--$6.74 if you're a BN Club member.

 

[Richard--W]

Thanks for the link. Odd that Doc didn't show up on amazon when I typed it into the search mode this morning. The listing says the DVD is full screen. Could the listing be wrong? The film was shot for 1:85 and that's how it appears on the Spanish DVD I bought a few years ago.

I vaguely remember Faye Dunaway and Stacey Keach's appearances on talk shows to promote the film in 1971. They had a lot of interesting things to say about this controversial film, and it's too bad their appearances could not be included as a supplement.

Pete Hamill's screenplay was published at the time in a paperback, which can still be found here:

Amazon.com: doc by pete hamill: Books

He offers no explanation as to how he arrived at this utterly misguided interpretation of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It is, however, an intelligent western with a layered story and emotionally motivated characters. The paperback is item 200 in my Wyatt Earp / Tombstone / Cochise County bookcase.

What's holding up the home video release of Frank Perry's other films? The Last Summer, Diary of a Mad Housewife, and Man On a Swing were important films in their time, and much better films than Doc.

 

[Richard M S]

I looked for revews and did not find any, has anyone received these films yet to confirm the transfers? Thanks.

 

[Simon Howson]

I MAY have my copy of The King and Four Queens by tomorrow, if not, I'll probably have it by Monday.

 

[Mike*HTF]

I do too - if worse comes to worst, I still have the R2 non-anamorphic DVD of NWF.

 

[Brent Avery]

Just to add something to the DVD Beaver review of Time Limit - it is unfortunately non anamorphic but I simply used the picture zoom ( Theater 1 )which actually stretches on my Toshiba Regza lcd (42" 1080), it filled the screen nicely without any obvious stretching. Can't comment on the OAR but the framing looked good. Dvd player is a Oppo 981. I thought the image looked very decent and the sound was fine. No issues there. Not sure what was happening with the image on DVD Beaver as the screen shots did not look very promising either. I had just purchased this title but after watching it on my setup I found it quite enjoyable. I have seen much worse -detail and sharpness were above average in my case. I will be watching Young Billy Young tonight.

 

[walter o]

Anyone know if DOC is the PG cut or the original R rated cut? (or was it re-rated for PG?)

 

[Simon Howson]

Yeah, but it is such a good film that it deserves a pristine R1 transfer.

 

[sestamuch]

Sometimes search results don't show up for me either, it could be that they were updating it at the time.

 

[walter o]

Well MAD HOUSEWIFE is with Universal, MAN ON A SWING is with Paramount, so there's your problem there, however, since LAST SUMMER is with Warner, I think this can show up on the Archive Program (even though it deserves a regular release).

 

[Alan Tully]

I thought MGM had stopped this. So they continue to release crappy non-anamorphic 1.66 titles. Well let them carry on doing it, they're not getting any of my money.

 

[Simon Howson]

The King and Four Queens looks to me like a brand new transfer. If North West Frontier has similar quality, I'll be very happy. Click the images for larger views.



EDIT: I just noticed there is a strange artefact on the extreme left edge of the frame, as if part of the optical sound track has been scanned. I doubt this will be a problem for people with displays that don't show the full image, but it could be very annoying for people with projectors.

 

[ahollis]

I was very happy with "The King and Four Queens" and "Northwest Frontier" (Is Northwest one word or two?). The transfers look great.

However with all the talk on Time Limit, what is the proper aspect ratio. It looks as if MGM made another non-anamorphic release, and in 2009. That is a shame.

 

[Simon Howson]

I just received North West Frontier. The colour is much better than my Australian non-anamorphic version, but as with The King and Four Queens, it exhibits the same strange artefact along the left edge of the frame.

One reason why I really love North West Frontier is because unlike earlier CinemaScope films, it often features quite aggressive uses of depth. While this wasn't rare for late 1950s CinemaScope films, not all directors who used the format were as creative as J. Lee Thompson. I especially love this shot with the actors receeding a way into the background, while the machine gun turreett is reasonably well focussed in the bottom foreground.

Here is a comparison between my non-anamorphic region 4 PAL copy, and the new anamorphic region 1 version.



Region 1 NTSC on left, region 4 PAL on right.