Press Release Warner Archive Collection Announcement: Land of the Pharaohs (1955) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Coming to Blu-ray from Warner Archive June 27th
NEW 2023 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Camera Negative!

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS (1955)
Run Time 106:00
Subtitles English SDH
Audio Specs DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 - Stereo
Aspect Ratio 16x9 2.55 Letterbox
Product Color COLOR
Disc Configuration BD 50

Special Features: Commentary by Film Historian/Director Peter Bogdanovich (with archival interview comments by Howard Hawks); Classic Warner Bros. Cartoon SAHARA HARE (HD); Original Theatrical Trailer
Cast: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin
Director Howard Hawks, who worked brilliantly in virtually every genre, shows his mastery of the large-scale epic with this gigantic production filmed on location in Egypt. Thousands of extras (9,787 in one scene alone!), magnificently detailed sets (including the pyramid's inner labyrinth, booby-trapped so no one can learn its secrets and live) and vast desert vistas fill the screen and astonish the eye. There are also human-scaled stories. Of the Pharaoh (Jack Hawkins) who orders the pyramid as his tomb, dooming untold numbers to unending toil. Of the architect (James Robertson Justice) designing it to earn his people's freedom. Of the slaves constructing it of blood and sinew. And a beautiful queen (Joan Collins) whose greed leads to murder- and a stunning revenge!

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See on Amazon

 

[Robert Crawford]

It appears the release date is June 27th according to MovieZyng.

 

[GlennF]

Watched this recently on TCM. The book scenes are laughable, but it is undoubtedly a spectacle - particularly in the earlier scenes.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

WHEW!!! I've been jonesing for this title in HD for decades. GREAT news! Now on to Helen of Troy.

 

[RichMurphy]

At last!

(I just bought a replacement DVD a couple of months ago, so you're welcome)

 

[haineshisway]

I wonder if the transfer on HBO is this new one?

 

[Alan Tully]

It'll be interesting to see how Hamar the High Priest looks like at the start of the film, he looks terrible on the DVD, dupey & very soft. I thought the main problem with the DVD is that the picture was very inconsistent, some shots look great & other shots look like a few generations away from the original. Anyway, I'm sure this Blu-ray will blow away the DVD. I probably won't get it in the UK until late July, no rush, it'll be a winter watch along with Helen Of Troy.

 

[richardburton84]

I wonder if the transfer on HBO is this new one?

I believe the HBOMAX transfer is the new one (I don’t have HBOMAX just for the record). While I know I shouldn’t be relying on screenshots, our own RolandL did a screenshot of the HBOMAX transfer and the old transfer as shown on TCM last month (they were supposed to show the new one, but evidently someone screwed up), and the HBOMAX shots very closely match what I saw in Scorsese’s introduction.

Picture from my iPhone 6 taken of the TCMHD broadcast on the TV. Looks a lot better on the TV than the iPhone picture. iPhone increases the contrast.
View attachment 182332

HBOMAX - I have HBOMAX and it's strange that the colors are different and the image is cropped on both sides.
View attachment 182334

TCMHD
View attachment 182333

HBOMAX from David_B_K. Compared to TCM, the image is stretched as the faces look wider.
View attachment 182336


From my iPhone of HBOMAX broadcast
View attachment 182351

 

[mskaye]

I wonder if the transfer on HBO is this new one?

this is covered on another thread but HBO Max is streaming the new transfer.

 

[GerardoHP]

LotP is one of my favorite camp epics. I watched the HBO transfer a couple of weeks ago and it's a vast improvement from the old Warners DVD BUT... It's still Warnercolor so don't expect miracles. The blues and purples pop in ways I didn't expect but the overall look reminded me of color photos in early 1950's magazines.

 

[ahollis]

And maybe that is what it was supposed to look like. It was filmed in mid 1950's.

 

[haineshisway]

I was pretty sure it was the new one - yes, the dupes are still dupey - not much to be done about that, but it looks pretty good to my eyeballs. I didn't notice stretching.

 

[Alan Tully]

LotP is one of my favorite camp epics. I watched the HBO transfer a couple of weeks ago and it's a vast improvement from the old Warners DVD BUT... It's still Warnercolor so don't expect miracles. The blues and purples pop in ways I didn't expect but the overall look reminded me of color photos in early 1950's magazines.

The colour on the WarnerColor Blu-ray, Mister Roberts looked er...well it had its own look, which I thought was very pleasing. I just know I'm going to love LotP & being Warner Archive, you know it's going to look the best it possibly can.

 

[RolandL]

I was pretty sure it was the new one - yes, the dupes are still dupey - not much to be done about that, but it looks pretty good to my eyeballs. I didn't notice stretching.

Compared to the TCMHD broadcast the HBOMAX broadcast does look stretched and is cropped on both sides.

TCMHD

HBOMAX

 

[OliverK]

The HBO broadcast looks like an early Cinemascope production should look - they used to call it cinemascope mumps for a reason:

American Cinematographer Image Viewer

 

[OliverK]

View attachment 183437

Coming to Blu-ray from Warner Archive June 27th
NEW 2023 1080p HD master from 4K scan of Original Camera Negative!

LAND OF THE PHARAOHS (1955)
Run Time 106:00
Subtitles English SDH
Audio Specs DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 - Stereo
Aspect Ratio 16x9 2.55 Letterbox
Product Color COLOR
Disc Configuration BD 50

Special Features: Commentary by Film Historian/Director Peter Bogdanovich (with archival interview comments by Howard Hawks); Classic Warner Bros. Cartoon SAHARA HARE (HD); Original Theatrical Trailer
Cast: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin
Director Howard Hawks, who worked brilliantly in virtually every genre, shows his mastery of the large-scale epic with this gigantic production filmed on location in Egypt. Thousands of extras (9,787 in one scene alone!), magnificently detailed sets (including the pyramid's inner labyrinth, booby-trapped so no one can learn its secrets and live) and vast desert vistas fill the screen and astonish the eye. There are also human-scaled stories. Of the Pharaoh (Jack Hawkins) who orders the pyramid as his tomb, dooming untold numbers to unending toil. Of the architect (James Robertson Justice) designing it to earn his people's freedom. Of the slaves constructing it of blood and sinew. And a beautiful queen (Joan Collins) whose greed leads to murder- and a stunning revenge!

I have NEVER seen Land of The Pharaohs in my life.

I have first missed it on TV multiple times and then gotten the DVD in the infamous Cult Camp Classics box and then much later a slightly better HD airing that looked only a bit better than the DVD (thanks to the gentleman who was nice enough to share it).

As I had seen stills from the production I could not quite bear to miss so much of what was on screen and so I waited, 35mm or a good Blu-ray it had to be. But there was no Blu-ray and I looked around a bit for screenings but no joy as outside of a Howard Hawks retrospective LotP very rarely gets screened and I was not willing to travel excessively just to see it screened far far away.

Now finally I will be able to see this in the quality we have become used to by the Warner Archive collection which is sometimes good and more often exceptional so I am hoping to get exceptional this time - many thanks to Mr. Feltenstein and the people at the Warner Archive!

 

[Alan Tully]

Compared to the TCMHD broadcast the HBOMAX broadcast does look stretched and is cropped on both sides.

TCMHD

HBOMAX

The TCM looks wrong to me, they look vertically stretched & thin, the HBO looks fine, but then you can really only judge a Blu-ray by looking at the Blu-ray. I have an original Belgium film poster of this (& Helen Of Troy), the Belgium posters are good, as they're quite small & very colourful.

 

[GerardoHP]

Adding to my impressions about the HBO MAX, which I sort of scanned through today, the color in some of the outdoor scenes looks quite rich and natural but a lot of the studio scenes have that brownish quality that is so pervasive in Warnercolor. This is especially evident in the skin tones which, for the most part, do not look natural at all except on the outdoors shots. However, the massive crowd scenes in this movie are jaw dropping (DeMille must have been jealous) and you get a sense of how difficult the work of setting up each scene must have been. Definitely a upgrade purchase for me despite the fact that I can watch it on HBO, where it looks framed at 2.55:1.

 

[Mark B]

I would hope the BluRay doesn't look like the TCM cap which is vertically squeezed, and whose color reminds me of that terrible DVD of The Opposite Sex from WAC in which everything black was midnight blue.

 

[haineshisway]

Compared to the TCMHD broadcast the HBOMAX broadcast does look stretched and is cropped on both sides.

TCMHD

HBOMAX

No, Roland, it's the TCM that's squeezed - the HBO-Max is correct and NOT stretched. Furthermore, the TCM looks like crap - look at those skin tones.