The Man From UNCLE?? (1 Viewer)

[Patricia]

FI-NAL-LY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you Anchor Bay!!!

 

[John H Ross]

FANTASTIC NEWS!!! But... DVD-18s? Groan :-(

JR

 

[HowardPaul]

Huh? What is this about? All 4 Seasons are available?!

Link deleted by moderator; do not repost. - MR

 

[MattHR]

That site sells nothing but bootlegs.

 

[HowardPaul]

Oh!
Why are they not shut down?
Bizarre......

 

[MattHR]

Most of us have been asking that for years. It's one thing to see bootlegs offered on eBay by many different sellers. But to have this professionally designed and operated website brings it to a whole new level. I'm sure many unsuspecting customers have been fooled. I'd like to think the studios have threatened legal action.

 

[Parker Clack]

So how many of you have already pre-ordered the set? This is one set I have been waiting for a long time to see on disc.

Parker

 

[Jeff#]

I never pre-order DVDs 3 months in advance. $35 at Amazon is a great price for a $50 set of U.N.C.L.E. , But I'll wait until at least until around the end of June to order it. Deep Discount DVD or Best Buy will most likely also charge $35. Possibly a few dollars less.

 

[Jeff Willis]

I usually wait until the week before to pre-order but it's one that I'll be getting for sure unless there's word about cut eps in the set.

 

[Jeff#]

Anchor Bay releases are uncut.

 

[JeffWld]

Hardly. You must have forgotten about Season 1 "Roseanne"- or their Cannell properties.

 

[Steve...O]

There were also reports of occasional edits (missing tag scenes?) in the Three's Company sets as well.

Back to what an earlier poster said, the distributor can only deal with whatever masters are provided to them by the owner.

 

[Michael Alden]

Meaning, what, that having quality control is totally out of the question? If they have anyone it their company who cares about a product they can check what they are given before authoring a set and bringing it to market. And they can also go to the providers and demand proper materials be provided. Unfortunately that is usually only done after the fact when a cut set is issued (Cosby Show, Too Close for Comfort, Roseanne). And I saw mentioned something above about Rhino and My Favorite Martian. Well, first off, they are both under Warner so it's essentially the same company, although different divisions. And with the My Favorite Martian, Warner has the 35mm uncut prints, as well as access to the warehouse storing the masters. They just didn't want to put the money and effort into doing the transfers and when they could only locate sped up TAPES on several episodes, that was what they went with. I'm sure if either Rhino or Warner felt like coughing up the bucks to run off the few episodes that were in this form, it could have easily been done.

 

[Jeff#]

I wasn't even aware of those being cut. I always hated Roseanne just from her stand-up days on HBO, so I never watched her sitcom on ABC.

What Cannell series were released by Anchor Bay? The only Stephen Cannell shows I have on DVD are The Rockford Files (Universal release), and through his own Cannell Productions and Studio Works, The Greatest American Hero, and Wiseguy. All of those are uncut, although a few Wiseguy episodes had music replaced.

 

[Beau]

I think I remember Renagade was an Anchor Bay release.

 

[JeffWld]

Other Anchor Bay Cannell releases include "21 Jump Street", and "Hunter".

 

[Jeff#]

I wasn't a fan of either series, Jeff, but since you mentioned them...how well did those transfers turn out on DVD?

 

[Michael Alden]

Great . . . if you don't mind music replacements, edited out scenes, etc. Every Cannell release (the ones he did himself) has been a hack job. He obviously doesn't give a damn about his shows, other than to obtain profits from them, so all music is automatically removed. It's not even because of expense as he doesn't even bother to find out what it would cost.

 

[Parker Clack]

We shall see what Anchor Bay does with these discs. Personally I am just glad they are being released.

 

[Jeff#]

I don't see how anyone could ruin a series as important and entertaining as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. I believe UNCLE will get the same first-class treatment as CBS Video's transfers of The Wild Wild West for Columbia House.

No music needs to be replaced, because almost all of it were instrumentals composed for the series by Jerry Goldsmith and Gerald Fried. The only episodes that I can recall with notable lyrical music taken from other sources are actually from the 3rd season: "The Hot Number Affair" with guest stars Sonny and Cher. Playing garment manufacturers Jerry and Ramona, the co-workers listen to Sonny & Cher songs on the radio. There's also a familiar rock tune from a lesser-known group whose name escapes me in one scene of "The Five Daughters Affair". The song is heard when a fight breaks out in a discotheque. And then there's Nancy Sinatra in "The Take Me to Your Leader Affair", and she sings an original song before both she and Kuryakin escape.

Most or all of those are probably public domain by now. I suspect that the song Nancy Sinatra sang in her episode was one that she didn't write or own. I don't know if Cher owns the rights to her early music with Sonny Bono or not, but she didn't have any objection to her tunes being used in an X-Files episode (all of which are on the "Post Modern Prometheus" DVD release).