AlanP

Gabe D

It was I who said in the other thread that he compared the Anatomy of a Murder DVD to the letterboxed version from Turner Classic Movies. The DVD does have slightly less picture on the sides, but it is really a very small difference. However, the opening titles are the dead giveaway. I don't see how there can be any question that the opening titles were created for a matted presentation.

Danny_N

The R2 of Anatomy Of A Murder also says that it has the original theatrical ratio:

"This widescreen version is presented in a letterbox widescreen format, preserving the 1:1.85 aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Enhanced for 16:9 widescreen TV's".

Columbia has done this with a few other titles (Delmer Daves' Cowboy springs to mind): release an open matte full frame disc in R1 and a matted widescreen disc in R2.

Danny_N

Alfie is available on a nice disc from Paramount.

David Von Pein

So which is it??

Do we just toss a coin??

David Von Pein

Any more to add (or subtract) to/from the list, all these months later?

(Sure would love Jimmy Stewart's No Highway In The Sky from 1951. )

DVP's BLOGS
DVP's VIDEO PAGE

Derek_McL

Interesting thread but while I agree there are some gaps in the 1950s DVD discography it is by far the best represented decade of the era of the big studios. The 1930s and particularly the early sound period are very poorly represented. Warners say they are going to boost the number of Cagney and Flynn discs available soon but no announcements yet and when are they going to delve into the MGM and RKO catalogs they now own ?

Apart from I believe Little Women and Citizen Kane no RKO releases ; no Fred and Ginger, silence about King Kong (at least in Region 1).

MGM : No Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow from the Thirties.

Warners : No apparent plans for more Busby Berkeley musicals,only The Jazz Singer among the early sound films in the works.

Paramount : very few films available from the 30s : A Farewell To Arms on various Public Domain labels, Trouble In Paradise and The Scarlet Empress (only Marlene Dietrich/Von Sternberg American prod. available) on Criterion : no Marx Brothers (Image DVDs OOP), W.C. Fields (his Paramounts), Mae West, Gary Cooper/ DeMille movies.

Fox does have some Shirley Temple, John Wayne in The Big Trail and the hard to get for Europeans Sunrise but nothing else from its pre-1940s output. Perhaps they have more of an excuse as 20th Century Fox wasn't formed till 1935 and much of the original Fox studio's output has been lost or fallen into the public domain. A Fool There Was starring Theda Bara the studio's first star is available and Will Rodgers' Judge Priest is out there somewhere too (in a Navarre triple feature disc I think).

Only Universal through its monster movie discs and Columbia through its Columbia Classics has made a significant contribution to covering the 30s on DVD.

I know the studios can only release so many films at a time
but I believe many of these films (probably because of their age) aren't getting the priority treatment they deserve. Perhaps they should farm some of them to Criterion who did produce excellent DVDs of Universal's My Man Godfrey and Paramount's Sullivan's Travels.

Recently Warners released a few swashbucklers from the 50s : The Crimson Pirate and Scaramouche. With all due respect to fans of these movies to me they don't hold a candle to Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk yet these remain on the shelf awaiting release (in the next year ?). Where is the announcement for that double disc special edition of The Adventures of Robin Hood which was supposed to be coming in September ?

Joe Caps

I fond when transferring movies for Laserdisc that many studios assume that all 1950 films were presented matted at 1:85. Yet whenever we pulled prints, most studios were hard matting at 1.75 or 1.70. The studio print of seventh Voyage of sinbad was 1.75 as was Ten Commandments which included instructions from Demille to theater owners to project at 1.75.
Most of Warners late fifties films were projected at 1.75 but home video often does 1.85 or trnasfers too tight at 2.00. especially compare the AMC flat and widescreen broadcast of warners Parrish which is cutting off so many tops of heads on the widescreen version, its embarrasing.\
They need to widescreen summer Place and Rome Adventure but at 1.75 NOT 1.85 or tighter.

Peter Apruzzese

I've handled two different original-release 35mm IB Technicolor prints of The Ten Commandments and neither were matted - they even had the visible VistaVision framing marks on them. But, it plays best matted to approx 1.75-85.

Correction - they *were* matted to approx. 1.66 .

Glenn Overholt

Unles I missed it, you Doris Day fans missed 'It Happened to Jane'. Ok, it isn't in the same class as her rest, but it certainly is a great comedy, and the kids will love it too.

I'd also like to see the rest of the movies with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The ones together, and a fww apart too. (I saw Jerry Lewis on TV not long ago, and he has some serious back problems now as a result of doing all of those stunts).

Glenn

Craig

Anybody know of any particular problem with HUD? Seems way past due, especially since it had 7 Academy Award nominations and won 3 (Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography-B&W).

Robert Crawford