I said 'things are looking up at Columbia' just as they announce a whole slew of titles in full screen only...it had to happen :b
Anyhoo, if this is any guide, my R2 of Georgy Girl arrived today. Very close to the specs above, except the only subs are English HoH and there are no 'bonus previews'. The picture is correctly presented at 1.78:1 anamorphic; it's quite grainy (which never bothers me), but it's also pretty soft and quite dark in places. There are none of the subtle gradations of gray as seen in, say, Bunny Lake is Missing. There's also evidence of dirt and marks, nothing too distracting, but there nonetheless.
The sound appears to be pretty decent; it's not perfect, but it was cheap, and I'm delighted to have it - I'm transported back to the 'Swinging Sixties', which, as most of us who lived through them realise, never actually existed...
(Blonde Bombshell could look a whole lot better, but I haven't a clue what they had to work with) ====
John,
Are yo actually referring to PLATINUM BLONDE, the Capra movie with Jean Harlow? As far as I know, Victor Fleming's BLONDE BOMBSHELL isn't otherwise available on DVD is it? The reason I ask is that the region 1 of the Capra comedy drama is ridiculously expensive for a vanilla release from a major studio and I had noticed that it has recently been released in Region 2 and was wondering if it was any good?
Apparently the Region 1 is a joy to behold in terms of picture quality, constantly singled out on the Laser Examiner website for its fine transfer and encoding.
Columbia titles in Region 1, especially for classic or in any event archival, non-recent releases, are clearly more expensive than those from some other studios - but they can charge what they want and so its just a shame if we can't afford to buy them - I certainly own more Warner titles than Columbia titles, at least partly for this reason.
:b Yes, apologies; what the hell made me write that? The R2 transfer of Platinum Blonde isn't bad, but the original elements were obviously in poor shape and there are still numerous lines, marks and speckles showing.