Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films coming to Blu Ray (1 Viewer)

John Morgan · Dec 29, 2010

Amazon has listed the 14 restored Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films coming to Blu Ray March 29 from MPI. The discounted price is $90.99, which I think is less than MPI first release of the all films. Count me in.

Brandon Conway · Dec 29, 2010

That's pretty snazzy.

dana martin · Dec 29, 2010

Holy F@^*, I would have never thought this would happen, makes one hope FOX will do the same with the Chans, and WB the Weissmuller Tarzans!

nothing about this on MPI's sight though? well if the go back to the UCLA restored prints and do this right, i would love to see this teated as good as Becket, i will replace my box set, love these films, great thing for a gloomy afternoon, waiting to hear what else MPI plans to include in this to entice people to buy this, possibly the Rathbone/Bruce radio dramas as well??

Robert Crawford · Dec 29, 2010

There is little doubt that I will buy this collection as a birthday present to myself.

Crawdaddy

Matt Hough · Dec 29, 2010

What marvelous news and a great, unexpected surprise! Can't wait to have them.

bigshot · Dec 29, 2010

Hopefully, they will do it right this time. The DVD set was a total botch with reduced frame rates, horrible compression artifacts and interlacing problems. It's the worst I've seen.

Steve...O · Dec 29, 2010

Originally Posted by bigshot

Hopefully, they will do it right this time. The DVD set was a total botch with reduced frame rates, horrible compression artifacts and interlacing problems. It's the worst I've seen.

Hi Stephen, what version of the MPI releases did you get? I bought the initial set which were one film per disc and thought they looked very good. The later versions put all 14 films on 5 discs which seemed to be an invitation to compression issues. I never saw that version but it sounds like you might have.

The Amazon listing says the BD will be 5 discs also. I will probably wait for reviews to ensure a high quality presentation. The first two Fox films looked ok but would benefit from a bit of touch up; since Fox no longer has rights to these films I doubt that Shawn Belston's team were able to work their magic on these two titles.

The only real disappointments I had with the original release were cosmetic....MPI didn't leverage the wonderful poster art for these films in their packaging and their "bonus features" seemed a bit random, such as putting a half dozen trailers with one title rather than matching the trailer with the appropriate film. Minor stuff to be sure but these are the kind of things that elevate a good release to the next level.

Thanks to John Morgan for alerting HTF to this.

Matt Hough · Dec 29, 2010

I agree. The release of the MPI/Holmes movies that I have looked very, very nice. Yes, one movie per disc were in the three sets plus the individual releases for Fox's two period Holmes features from MPI.

dana martin · Dec 29, 2010

14 films that equate to under 17 hours of programing, i have the release with all 14 on 5 disc, and the fact that i cost it for 25 dollars, is great, oddly enough the original funding for part of the restorations came from Hugh Hefner, yes that Hugh Hefner, but i agree i wish that this would get a serious full blown treatment, associated poster art used, unlike todays photoshop nightmares, they had real art then. i i agree that the trailers should be associated with the films that are on each disc, and also it could include the radio dramas, ( Twilight Zone, makes this work well) i look at this release as like The Twilight Zone, Star Trek Season releases, so much added content on those, that the bar is set really high, MPI has done and 8K transfer, dont know how that was but it seems that we will have to wait to see what is being offered.

Robert Crawford · Dec 29, 2010

Originally Posted by MattH.

I agree. The release of the MPI/Holmes movies that I have looked very, very nice. Yes, one movie per disc were in the three sets plus the individual releases for Fox's two period Holmes features from MPI.

Same with me, I thought they looked very good one film per disc.

bgart13 · Dec 29, 2010

I've got the five disc set and thought the quality was very good with all. I wonder if bigshot has a non-MPI set?

bigshot · Dec 29, 2010

I'm talking about the MPI set. Some of the films are great, but the two best Sherlock Holmes movies (Adventures and Baskervilles) are awful. I Netflixed the set to see if it was worth buying and ended up not even watching some the films because of the terrible disk authoring and compression. I remember at least one that was running fewer than 24 fps with weird interlacing. The pans jittered like crazy.

Robert Crawford · Dec 29, 2010

Originally Posted by bigshot

I'm talking about the MPI set. Some of the films are great, but the two best Sherlock Holmes movies (Adventures and Baskervilles) are awful. I Netflixed the set to see if it was worth buying and ended up not even watching some the films because of the terrible disk authoring and compression. I remember at least one that was running fewer than 24 fps with weird interlacing. The pans jittered like crazy.

Then I guess we're not seeing the same thing. I take it that more than one film was on each disc?

Crawdaddy

ahollis · Dec 30, 2010

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

I'm talking about the MPI set. Some of the films are great, but the two best Sherlock Holmes movies (Adventures and Baskervilles) are awful. I Netflixed the set to see if it was worth buying and ended up not even watching some the films because of the terrible disk authoring and compression. I remember at least one that was running fewer than 24 fps with weird interlacing. The pans jittered like crazy.

Then I guess we're not seeing the same thing. I take it that more than one film was on each disc?

Crawdaddy

[/QUOTE]

MPI released these films twice. The first group in three sets of four films per set, each on a separate disc and the two Fox films individually. These are what I have and found the transfers to be good to excellent and have not experienced any jitters or other problems. MPI released the films with all of them in one set. I understand that all 14 films were on five discs so that put two to three films on a disc which might be what some people are referring to. I think we might be talking Apples to Oranges here and looking at two different transfers.

If the Blu-ray of these films is any better than the original sets that I own, this will be a buy for me, but as most, I will wait for the reviews.

PaulaJ · Dec 30, 2010

Link, please? I cannot find a blu-ray set of the Basil Rathbone Holmes films on Amazon. Thanks.

John Stell · Dec 30, 2010

Originally Posted by PaulaJ

Robert Crawford · Dec 30, 2010

Originally Posted by ahollis

I'm talking about the MPI set. Some of the films are great, but the two best Sherlock Holmes movies (Adventures and Baskervilles) are awful. I Netflixed the set to see if it was worth buying and ended up not even watching some the films because of the terrible disk authoring and compression. I remember at least one that was running fewer than 24 fps with weird interlacing. The pans jittered like crazy.

Then I guess we're not seeing the same thing. I take it that more than one film was on each disc?

Crawdaddy

[/QUOTE]

MPI released these films twice. The first group in three sets of four films per set, each on a separate disc and the two Fox films individually. These are what I have and found the transfers to be good to excellent and have not experienced any jitters or other problems. MPI released the films with all of them in one set. I understand that all 14 films were on five discs so that put two to three films on a disc which might be what some people are referring to. I think we might be talking Apples to Oranges here and looking at two different transfers.

If the Blu-ray of these films is any better than the original sets that I own, this will be a buy for me, but as most, I will wait for the reviews.

I know that as I stated so earlier which is why I'm asking if he viewed the set with more than one title on each disc. I have the first DVD release with just one title on each disc.

Crawdaddy

bigshot · Dec 30, 2010

There was just one film on each disk. The quality of the film prints was very good, but the frame rate was messed up on some titles. The pans strobed. It was consistent throughout the whole feature. Every time the camera moved there was jittering. Impossible to watch.

Robert Crawford · Dec 30, 2010

Originally Posted by bigshot

There was just one film on each disk. The quality of the film prints was very good, but the frame rate was messed up on some titles. The pans strobed. It was consistent throughout the whole feature. Every time the camera moved there was jittering. Impossible to watch.

Then we have just have a difference of opinion.

Brandon Conway · Dec 30, 2010

Stephen, when you rented the discs from Netflix are you sure they were the MPI releases? Netflix often has poor public domain discs for films of this era I've discovered.

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