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post #31 of 36
5/15/09 at 12:02am

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard--W
Thanks for the link. Odd that Doc didn't show up on amazon when I typed it into the search mode this morning. The listing says the DVD is full screen. Could the listing be wrong? The film was shot for 1:85 and that's how it appears on the Spanish DVD I bought a few years ago.

I vaguely remember Faye Dunaway and Stacey Keach's appearances on talk shows to promote the film in 1971. They had a lot of interesting things to say about this controversial film, and it's too bad their appearances could not be included as a supplement.

Pete Hamill's screenplay was published at the time in a paperback, which can still be found here:

Amazon.com: doc by pete hamill: Books

He offers no explanation as to how he arrived at this utterly misguided interpretation of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It is, however, an intelligent western with a layered story and emotionally motivated characters. The paperback is item 200 in my Wyatt Earp / Tombstone / Cochise County bookcase.

What's holding up the home video release of Frank Perry's other films? The Last Summer, Diary of a Mad Housewife, and Man On a Swing were important films in their time, and much better films than Doc.

Sometimes search results don't show up for me either, it could be that they were updating it at the time.
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post #32 of 36
5/15/09 at 2:52am

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard--W

What's holding up the home video release of Frank Perry's other films? The Last Summer, Diary of a Mad Housewife, and Man On a Swing were important films in their time, and much better films than Doc.

Well MAD HOUSEWIFE is with Universal, MAN ON A SWING is with Paramount, so there's your problem there, however, since LAST SUMMER is with Warner, I think this can show up on the Archive Program (even though it deserves a regular release).
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post #33 of 36
5/15/09 at 7:53am

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent Avery
Just to add something to the DVD Beaver review of Time Limit - it is unfortunately non anamorphic but I simply used the picture zoom ( Theater 1 )which actually stretches on my Toshiba Regza lcd (42" 1080), it filled the screen nicely without any obvious stretching. Can't comment on the OAR but the framing looked good. Dvd player is a Oppo 981. I thought the image looked very decent and the sound was fine. No issues there. Not sure what was happening with the image on DVD Beaver as the screen shots did not look very promising either. I had just purchased this title but after watching it on my setup I found it quite enjoyable. I have seen much worse -detail and sharpness were above average in my case. I will be watching Young Billy Young tonight.

I thought MGM had stopped this. So they continue to release crappy non-anamorphic 1.66 titles. Well let them carry on doing it, they're not getting any of my money.
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post #34 of 36
5/17/09 at 8:01pm

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

The King and Four Queens looks to me like a brand new transfer. If North West Frontier has similar quality, I'll be very happy. Click the images for larger views.



EDIT: I just noticed there is a strange artefact on the extreme left edge of the frame, as if part of the optical sound track has been scanned. I doubt this will be a problem for people with displays that don't show the full image, but it could be very annoying for people with projectors.
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post #35 of 36
5/17/09 at 8:32pm

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

I was very happy with "The King and Four Queens" and "Northwest Frontier" (Is Northwest one word or two?). The transfers look great.

However with all the talk on Time Limit, what is the proper aspect ratio. It looks as if MGM made another non-anamorphic release, and in 2009. That is a shame.
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post #36 of 36
5/19/09 at 7:16pm

Re: MGM Catalog releases - 5/12/09 (Western, War)

I just received North West Frontier. The colour is much better than my Australian non-anamorphic version, but as with The King and Four Queens, it exhibits the same strange artefact along the left edge of the frame.

One reason why I really love North West Frontier is because unlike earlier CinemaScope films, it often features quite aggressive uses of depth. While this wasn't rare for late 1950s CinemaScope films, not all directors who used the format were as creative as J. Lee Thompson. I especially love this shot with the actors receeding a way into the background, while the machine gun turreett is reasonably well focussed in the bottom foreground.

Here is a comparison between my non-anamorphic region 4 PAL copy, and the new anamorphic region 1 version.



Region 1 NTSC on left, region 4 PAL on right.
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