*** Official Warner Archive DVD Review Thread - Page 9

Glenn Erickson has a review of Berlin Express up over at DVD Talk.  He mentions the following glitch:

 

"Curiously, on my copy of Berlin Express the film begins abruptly, cutting off the fade-up of the RKO logo."
 
Has anyone else seen the same problem?

My copy also begins with "An RKO" already visible and "Radio Picture" continuing to appear letter by letter.  It is abrupt, but I did not find it that irritating, though it does start in the middle of a music note.

Not sure if it is the fault of the company that produces the DVD-r or if that is the condition of the transfer given to them.  Other than that I found the transfer to be in great shape with little wear and tear, and a very enjoyable film.  The powers that be a WA seem to be releasing a lot of Robert Ryan films which is very appreciated as he is an actor that has not gotten the attention that he deserves. 

Is it possible for you, to include maybe 2-3 screenshots of the transfers in your Archive reviews?

Just in general, till the end of the year I'll have the French pressed discs of "Mr. Lucky", "The Search", "Berlin Express", "The Mad Miss Manton" and "Experiment Perilous" + the Italian DVD of "The Fallen Sparrow". If you're interested I can make screenshots and maybe someone's out there who owns the Archive discs and we can make a comparison.
Already with me is the French Warner DVD of "Party Girl".

Has anyone received a copy The Mortal Storm yet? They finally posted a clip on the website and it doesn't look very promising, kinda looks like they recycled the old video master.

I received and watched my copy yesterday and last night.  It is on par with the other Archive transfers.  Not the best, but certainly much better than On Borrowed Time, The Mad Miss Manton, and The Big House.  I checked out the website and that clip does looks a little soft while the DVD-r was much crisper.  It is one hell of a film and Frank Morgan and Jimmy Stewart are just great to watch.

I do think you are right in that most of the films are video masters and this is something that we will have to somehow live with, especially with the TCM/Universal news.

By the way, does anyone else think it is odd that TCM and Universal got together for this.

I would actually prefer not to since Warner is now adding text to all of their review screener cover materials saying we are not supposed to distribute screen shots.  I doubt it would be a problem (DVDBeaver is still in business, after all), but I do not want to tempt fate.

In my opinion, that's a fairly lousy request on their part, and it speaks volumes. To me it shows that they'd prefer not to let people get a look at how bad some of these "as-is" transfers actually are (but actually some of the more recent ones I've seen like The Tall Target look quite decent). I guess we'll have to check reviews from those who actually purchase them and can freely post a few screen shots under "fair use" without fear of being cut off.

I find myself liking Warners and the way they're doing business less and less.

While I agree with you and would love to take a look at screen shots, and I do a DVD Beaver, I have seem some really bad screen shots of DVD's that were not nearly as bad as the shots indicated.  The one I remember the most are recent shots of Zombies On Broadway.  The transfer was not perfect, but a heck of lot better than the screen shots indicated. 

I certainly trust Mr. McAlinden knowledge to get it right, but not sure about a lot of other people.  With so much being talked about the transfers of the Warner Archive, I can understand their side of the story and would like a shot that is equal to the transfer.  Screen shots just depend on the software used and can be manipulated.  I know no one would do that.

I am agreement in your comment on TALL TARGET, it is a good transfer and I have found that the past few titles I have gotten, the transfers are much better.

To be clear, Warner has the "no screen shots" boilerplate language on the cover letters for all of their screeners.  As a matter of fact, the Warner Archive titles are the only ones I sometimes receive without a cover letter.  To be safe, I am operating under the assumption that the policy applies to everything they send me.  I think it is mainly a matter of them being able to control the promotional images used for  their product, especially when it is released in advance of street date, but I will not know for sure unless they elaborate further at some point.

In other news, my latest Archive review is now posted: HTF DVD REVIEW: Pride of the Marines (Warner Archive)

Thanks for the explanation. I mistakenly assumed it was unique to the Archives review copies.

For what it's worth, I really like to see reviews with screen shots. I think they help sell the product for the studios. It's not so much that you can gauge the picture quality, because as it's been pointed out that can be problematic (although I believe you can make some conclusions even from small screen shots). Rather, something about seeing a few good frame captures really piques my interest for the film.

Yes, but i'm thinking Movies Unlimited Might have brought the two parties together. :)

But then TCM has never limtied itself to just the WB Owned WB/MGM/RKO/Monogram Library

Heck,even some classic 20th Century Fox films are turning up on TCM!

ANYBODY ELSE EXPERIENCING DAMAGED CASES?

RE: Order No. 7131970 (They Won't Forget, Penthouse, Confessions of a Nazi Spy)

All three received and all three cases broken --crushed and split -- as occurred with order No. 239002705845900  never replied to:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     Case broken
Date:     Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:43:57 -0700
From:     >
To:     service@wbshop.com

Re: order No. 239002705845900
Item 883316165447 "Reducing" DVD case cracked  and broken pieces of case in envelope.  Should I return entire DVD or just case?  If replacement blank case sent I can slip artwork out of broken case sleeve and into new.

Sincerely,

Thus, end of buying from WBshop.

Sincerely,

Yes, I received an order months ago with a smashed case. The movie was OK, and I was going to replace it with a slimline anyway. It's like the Archive cases are a more brittle plastic.

RESOLVED

Thank you for your reply. I had some exact black cases and slid out artwork (taped "Confessions of  Nazi Spy' which was  cut by broken case and reinserted and ran blue ink to match artwork over taped cut gap) so everything OK. No need to credit. I do appreciate your reply and hope my advise of damage prevents damage in other shipments. Cases are quite brittle.

Thank you and   
Best Regards,

service@wbshop.com wrote: Hello Stephen,

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

I am sorry to hear your DVD cases were damaged. Unfortunately, we do not carry the DVD cases individually. I would like to offer you a 15% off of these titles. If you accept this offer, we will issue your account credit for 15%. The credit will post onto you account within 2-5 business days. Please reply (directly to this email) if you would like the 15% credit or if you would like the exchange information.

I look forward to you reply.

Regards,

Cayci
www.WBshop.com
1-866-373-4389

RE: *Order No. 7131970*

 It may be a while before I get them written up, but for those interested, I would consider Wonder Bar and Mary Mary to be safe purchases.  The image is more than acceptable.  

Wonder Bar  has occasional shots that look a little bit soft and "dupey", but otherwise looks much like many of the other 1930s titles released on pressed disc give or take  a couple layers of digital clean-up (i.e. you get a bit more speckling and artifacts like vertical scratches).  Grain is a bit coarse, but detail is generally good aside from the sporadic shots mentioned.   The audio was exceptional for a film of this vintage.  There are occasional rough patches (such as Jolson's first number - did they record him live?) where overload on loud passages results in distortion, but for most of the film's running time, fidelity is surprisingly good. 

Mary Mary also looks acceptable with perhaps a little fade to its early 1960s color scheme and a bit more grain than I expected, but not a lot of other problems.

Both titles have noticeable film grain which occasionally gives the compression algorithm fits, but not so much that it looks bad from a reasonable viewing distance.  I had no issues with combing or composite video artifacts on either title.

Ken - agree with your quick assessment of Wonder Bar and Mary, Mary.  I also found Never Too Late and Any Wednesday to be acceptable and safe to buy, along with both being enjoyable films with Any Wednesday a hoot.

I look forward to your full thoughts on the above films.

Thanks.

I took my first dip into the WB Archives this week. Being a fan of the great James Whale, I purchased THE GREAT GARRICK. I watched it a few nights ago, and found the quality to be acceptable. The picture was a little light, but there was plenty of detail. Sound was fair; I used Sennheiser headphones, and the right audio channel would drop out ocassionally(being a mono film, this wouldn't matter much if viewed through a regular television speaker or a properly set up home theater system). There were light stress lines and cue marks, which doesn't bother me much since I like to know I'm looking at something from a film based source. The film itself was delightful, with a great cast and wonderful dialogue.

I just ordered TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE and TARZAN THE MAGNIFICIENT. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that these two titles are properly mastered.

Finally broke down and folded some archive titles into my GWTW order- the same two Tarzan's that Larry ordered (and that some people are getting bad copies of apparently) as well as Under The Rainbow, The Grasshopper, Any Wednesday, and Who Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe.
I'll be watching these on a 1080p pj on a 96" wide screen and will post a few thoughts afterward.

I had no problems playing GREATEST ADVENTURE (received today, shipped last Thu) on my Sony. What library was sold to get this Paramount-logoed title into the Warner Archive?

I wondered about that as well. The Tarzan films were all Sol Lesser productions, who presumably held the rights, separate from Paramount's distribution rights, and which Warner Bros then acquired (although many Sol Lesser productions seem to have gone into the public domain).

I could be wrong, but I had heard it was through an agreement with Edgar Rice Burroughs estate.  I heard that the Sol Lesser films went back to ERB estate.  Again, I could be wrong and Warner may have them directly from Sol Lesser estate. 

 

Any way, no mater how they got them, I am glad Warner has them and not Paramount. For if Paramount controlled them we would never see them on any form of DVD.

My order came in yesterday- two days after shipping out and about a week after I placed the order.
Speed wise, I couldn't be more satisfied.
Unfortunately two of the films were off the hubs and scratched up. I'm able to spot check the transfers/encodes but haven't watched all the way through to see if there are any issues with playback  hidden in there.
I watched Tarzan's Greatest Adventure in full, and sampled the others.

The worst is Under The Rainbow. If I had bought this off of a bootlegger at a comic con back in 2003, the anamorphic aspect would have been enough to have impressed me, but it is a woeful looking piece of work in 2009. This proves how useless those little postage stamp youtube-esque previews are. This one I thought looked good based on that, but even when previewed on my 19" computer monitor, the poor compression is readily apparent. On an 80" screen it's an absolute eyesore.
I'll be putting up some screen caps in a few days to illustrate the point better. Suffice to say this is what I've been expecting (the worst) which is why it's taken me this long to get out a first order.
This is also why I have to take Feltenstein's recent comments with a large grain of salt. If he was truly chagrined by the sub standard quality of some of the earliest releases, how did something like this make it out in the last wave? Sure it's not a 'good' movie, but it has an appeal enough for some of us to lay out good money for it (I paid more for UTR than I did for the Criterion Bd of Howard's End this week fer Chrissakes).

But enough of the bad-
Every other title in the order (Any Wednesday, The Grasshopper, Tarzan The Magnificent, Tarzan's Greatest Adventure) looked at least acceptable on a the large screen (about 80" wide via a 1080p pj) or better.

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure I thought was indistinguishable from what i would have expected from a legitimate pressed release. Some (many?) people might take exception to the overall look of the film (faded or wonky Eastman colors; dirt and scratches; etc) but the critical point here to me is that what I see is as faithful a translation of the problematical source as standard def is capable of.
I don't think I can stress this enough, because what I am not seeing is the negative effects of undue digital manipulation like edge enhancement and noise reduction. The image isn't always pretty looking due to condition of the original elements, but that didn't stop me from being impressed with how well Warner transported what was there to disc. I would not hesitate to recommend this title to anyone interested.

The Grasshopper- I only watched the first 10 minutes. Chuck Pennington has a review at the beginning of this thread with screenshots and based on what I've seen so far I would agree almost 100% with his review. I was expecting to see worse examples of macroblocking than I have seen so far. Even on a large screen this is mostly well within the bounds of toleration to me. The only real  noticeable examples of compression weakness so far is around the titles. Any text or graphic on screen, including studio logo at the beginning is ringed with nasty artifacts. A minor point for most people, but anyone with a large screen will likely see it. I believe this is an interlaced transfer, but it's not giving my player any problems (incorrect flags?).

Any Wednesday- just watched a few minutes of the first few chapters, but what I've seen looks excellent in regards to what I expect is the condition and nature of the source. Like TGA, very natural and film-like without any undue digital manipulation.

May end up watching Tarzan The Magnificent tonight. I do see some circular striations in the dye on the disc surface with this one. I could access the first few chapters, but didn't venture farther. While sharing a similar look to TGA, this one might be rougher with even more faded and wonky colors. The main titles display a  (no hyperbole) blizzard of dirt that I assume would entail a very long and costly digital restoration to correct, so it's less a surprise this one never made it out in a legit pressed release.

So far it looks like 4 out of 5 may have been worthwhile purchases.

 Well I finally bit ...Bought The Gathering and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes...Can anyone elaborate on the presentation of Airborne?  It says its 16x9 Full Frame.  Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
 

This thread hasn't been posted in a couple of months.  Anyhow, this week I viewed "Rancho Notorious" and "The Fastest Gun Alive" and found both discs with very good video presentations.  This weekend I will view another 3-4 western archive titles and will post my thoughts here over the next couple of days.  I was able to purchase these titles for 9.72 each plus shipping.

However, I don't think Warner has addressed the problem that keeps international customers from ordering these titles directly from their Warner Archive site.  If true, this is crap because I personally know several international HTF members that would buy some of these titles if they were available at a reasonable pricepoint to them without heavy shipping costs.  A real missed opportunity by Warner if this situation hasn't been resolved by them.






Crawdaddy

Can anyone comment on how some of the Ginger Roger titles look like Fifth Avenue Girl and Once Upon A Honeymoon?

I received a couple of titles from the last announcement and last night I watched ENSIGN PULVER.  The transfer was clean with good colors and good sound.  The film was in Panavision and is anamorphic.

I have been a fan of MR ROBERTS since my viewing of it and I saw ENSIGN PULVER, the sequel, in theatres when I was at an early age.  We lived in the small town of Evergreen, AL and Ii remember attending the PIX Theatre a lot (not much to do there), however I only remember three films, THE CHALK GARDEN, FATHER GOOSE, and ENSIGN PULVER.  What the other ones were I could not tell you.  I do remember thinking this was a very funny film, but was bored with the lost on a raft scenes.  This still holds true today.  Robert Walker Jr. does a good job trying to make you forget Jack Lemmon, but you never do and Walter Matthau does make you forget William Powell as the ship's doctor.  Burl Ives is not James Cagney, but plays a great hard-nosed-by-the-book captain of the supply ship.  The interesting part today is the supporting cast of Jack Nicholson, Larry Hagman, Peter Marshall, Tommy Sands, George Lindsey's bare butt, and a very skinny James Coco.  This is a typical navy comedy played for laughs, which MR. ROBERTS went more for character and story.

Next up is THE BRIDE GOES WILD and THE TANKS ARE COMING.

"... George Lindsey's bare butt."

I wonder why the gay community has never discovered ENSIGN PULVER.  This is like a 60's version of CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC.  I haven't bought the disc yet, but I definitely remember being fascinated by the film via many VHS viewings because of its total gay vibe (I'm gay so maybe I just pick up on it more).  So many shots of the sailors in underwear, tight pants, short shorts, and shirtless and sweaty in as many shots as possible.  Their playfulness towards each other is also more than the usual camaraderie and one musical sequence where they're all shirtless and doing acrobatics on deck looks like a gay pride festival.  Plus, one guy putting another guy under an iron press to steam his butt (and he likes it) and that aforementioned ripping of one sailor's back pocket off by one of his mates to show a nude tattooed bun is beyond outrageous for 1964.  It's all light-hearted fun and that gay vibe may fly over general audiences' heads completely, but if you're gay, this movie offers a lot of eye-candy and gay camp that can't be denied.  Yes, there's a suplot of heterosexual love with Millie Perkins to appease general audiences, but that part is so dry and unerotic compared to all the male action that it feels really forced.

I don't know if the director was gay, but he appeared to have worked on Broadway musicals and directed some famous film musicals as well.  I know that's a stereotype and I don't want to encourage that type of thing, but I think that may have something to do with why this film has such a vibe.  Anyway, just some comments that may interest some gay members here if they've never heard of this film and want to check it out.  I also saw the earlier MISTER ROBERTS, but I was kind of bored with that one as it is much more conventional (and probably a much better film, but I don't care) as I'm not normally interested in this genre otherwise. 

PS - this forum looks great with a lot of really smart people and I'm glad to find it!

When you get the DVD take a look at the trailer, it is made up of a lot of scenes that were not in the film and I swear when Tommy Sands jumps across the deck to go on leave to see his wife, he stops and kisses another sailor. 

Joshua Logan, the director, was married and had children, but there was always the whisper about him.  He directed, South Pacific, Tall Story, Picnic, Bus Stop, Camelot, and Paint Your Wagon along with taking over Mr. Roberts from John Ford.  I think just a couple of scenes from South Pacific, Tall Story and Picnic fueled the rumor more.  I have read Mr. Logan's autobiography and he had lived a very interesting life.

Wow - thanks for that info!  At least now I don't think I was jumping to conclusions too fast.  I can't wait to see that trailer and also the film in widescreen as I've ony seen it on vhs.

re: Out of the Fog

I received this today and noticed it is only 85 minutes long, the correct length being 92 minutes according to various sources, including the WB Archive web site. Does everyone owning this have the same shortened copy, or did just I receive a bad copy?
Now I'll have to check the time on my other WB Archive DVD-r's.