MGM Musicals - Video Quality on Different Versions ? (1 Viewer)

[stevenHa]

Is there a difference in video quality between MGM's Showboat in a stand alone case as opposed to the one included in TCM's Greatest Classic Films Collection: Broadway Musicals ? How about for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kiss me Kate, An American in Paris, etc.... ?

 

[Matt Hough]

For Show Boat, I'm guessing (emphasis on that word) that there is no difference since we've only gotten one transfer so far for this film though the design of its keep case has been altered through the years. As for Seven Brides and the others, there were at least two different transfers for Seven Brides on DVD (one anamorphic, one not), and since I don't have that TCM release, I'm not sure which one Warners used in making up the contents of that set.

 

[JoHud]

there were at least two different transfers for Seven Brides on DVD (one anamorphic, one not), and since I don't have that TCM release, I'm not sure which one Warners used in making up the contents of that set.

The TCM collection uses the anamorphic transfer.

 

[marcco00]

i learned from the 'dvd beaver' website that 'kiss me kate' had some framing issues in it's earlier dvd release that were later corrected. that corrected version is in the tcm collection. the images in this later version are less cropped, with the colors more muted, but very pleasing. the coloring of the images in the earlier transfer really popped though! i'm thinking in particular of ann miller's 'too darn hot' hot pink-mauve- purplely dance costume i have both dvd editions and like the subtle color variations of the transfers.

 

[Matt Hough]

I would have liked Kiss Me Kate even more if the framing had been 1.75:1 like one of the laserdisc releases was.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

The color difference was related to contrast more than saturation. As the corrected transfer had lower contrast, revealing more shadow detail, the color saturation was ever so slightly less. I made the comparison below years and years ago to show the differences between the two transfers. Photobucket downscaled it, but here it is anyway.

 

[Charles Smith]

Thanks for that info, Chuck. (Just ran to check my copy, expecting to find the earlier one in the old snapper case, but it's the corrected one. Yay!!)

 

[Matt Hough]

Thanks for those side-by-side comparisons, Chuck. It's easy to see how much picture information had been cropped. I do like the contrast in the original release, however.