City Lights

Keith M. · 11-05-2003, 02:48 PM

Im very confused, hope you all can help me out...

I noticed that Charlie Chaplin's City Lights is being released on DVD on 11/11/03 as a Limited Edition.

The price is $50, why is this priced so high?

And is this the only version currently in print that is available? I know the Image version is OOP...

Im planning on purchasing the Chaplin Collection Vol 1, but am worried that City Lights will be later released in a Collection Vol 2...

Please help clearify this for me...

Thanks in advance...

Patrick McCart · 11-05-2003, 02:54 PM

It'll probably be another gift set which includes the 2-disc SE DVD, the soundtrack (if it's the Carl Davis recording, it's mine!), a booklet, and a film senitype.

The normal 2-disc version will probably be around, though.

Brian PB · 11-05-2003, 03:51 PM

Warner will be releasing their next wave of Chaplin 2-disc SEs early in 2004, including a second boxset. I would expect that City Lights will be part of this "next wave" of releases (unclear if they'll be milking us for three waves of releases or two).

FYI: Note that all of Chaplin's features were released at once in Europe in September. I ended up selling off my R1 Volume 1 boxset due to Warner's inexplicable decision to base their R1 NTSC transfers on the PAL masters. I then bought the 18-disc R2 PAL (UK) complete boxset (for a pretty reasonable $155 delivered from Amazon UK). Very pleased with the results.

If you have a projector (or other PAL-compliant display device) and an all-region DVD player (which applies to more people than you might think), I would highly recommend the R2 PAL releases over the R1 NTSC.

Bill Burns · 11-05-2003, 04:30 PM

I would agree for the other titles in this series, but based on the preview clip found on the second disc of WB/MK2's The Gold Rush, I have to make an exception of City Lights and recommend trying to track down the David Shepard/Image edition. The clip of MK2's product revealed dramatic cropping and what I can only characterize as a nearly complete lack of shadow detail. The blur/ghosting would be remedied by turning to the PAL edition, but if that clip was indicative of the final product (I A/B'd it at the time with the Image edition), unlike the other titles (which show minor re-edits and cropping, and are often a bit darker), City Lights is a dramatic step down from the Image edition. It may be cleaner (fewer scratches, etc.), but ... well, there ya' have it.

I had another, less profound concern over a possible video error in A Woman of Paris as found in those clips. There's a Chaplin MK2 thread where all of this has been discussed, so I won't reiterate any further here -- just do a search for the film titles within that thread if you'd like to explore further reactions/concerns.

Good luck!

Tracking down the best of each may take some time, but for these films ... very much worth it.

Keith M. · 11-06-2003, 11:08 AM

I only buy R1 releases... I dont own multi-region player, nor do I want to.

So should I hold off on purchasing City Lights:LE and wait for the second r1 collection next year?

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Justin W · 11-06-2003, 01:10 PM

It's a shame that we have to settle for an inferior transfer of Chaplin's greatest film. Such a prolific artist's films should be given much more care that it seems they are being given. As much as I love the film I'm going to have to stick with the Image DVD rather than deal with ghosting and cropping.

Josh Steinberg · 11-06-2003, 09:45 PM

Quote:

So should I hold off on purchasing City Lights:LE and wait for the second r1 collection next year?

I would. This same company has put out limited editions for 2001, Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and some others, and it's just the movie with a copy of the soundtrack CD and a film cell. Not worth paying double or triple the price. Put it this way - this City Lights set is going for a little over $50 at Amazon right now... I bought the first Chaplin boxed set (which included four films) for only a little more than that. If you hold off and wait for the regular release, you can end up getting for films for what you'd pay for that one.



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