EXODUS (Bluray) (1 Viewer)

Joining in a little late but just wanted to mention that Tadlow Music has a wonderful 2009 rerecording of the complete Exodus score by Ernest Gold. Just received the 2 CD set and it is marvelous. I learned about this score after getting the Lawrence of Arabia rerecorded score, equally great, also from Tadlow Music, Nic Raines conducting the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on both sets. Highly recommended.

There's good news from Germany where a new BD of EXODUS is now available and WITHOUT forced subs. You can find it at Amazon Germany for a very reasonable price. Like Tom above, I'm crazy about the Tadlow rerecording of Gold's score. Tadlow's recordings are always phenomenal, wonderfully mixed and mastered with a dynamic range beyond anything else I have in my collection. They have recently reconstructed Waxman's entire TARAS BULBA score and Tiomkin's FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, both of which I find I'm listening to constantly. Their newest, and not yet released, will be Rozsa's complete QUO VADIS, which I am really excited about. Check out the Tadlow/Prague Orchestra preview session clips on YouTube. Such a treat to see these classic score pieces performed live.

Here are my thoughts about the German Blu-Ray, which I had posted on another forum.
The good news is that the German subtitles are not forced. Picture is 1080p 2.35:1. English soundtrack is HD Master Audio 2.0 Surround. Disc is Region B locked. RT 208 minutes.
The picture is a vast improvement on the old non-anamorphic DVD. The detail is very good, though its quite grainy at times and there is a lot of dirt, so it hasnt been cleaned up. Unfortunately the main titles are window boxed. Colours are a bit muted compared to the DVD.
Summing up, I think this could look better with a proper restoration, but its still a welcome upgrade on the DVD.

Simon Lewis said:

Here are my thoughts about the German Blu-Ray, which I had posted on another forum.
The good news is that the German subtitles are not forced. Picture is 1080p 2.35:1. English soundtrack is HD Master Audio 2.0 Surround. Disc is Region B locked. RT 208 minutes.
The picture is a vast improvement on the old non-anamorphic DVD. The detail is very good, though its quite grainy at times and there is a lot of dirt, so it hasnt been cleaned up. Unfortunately the main titles are window boxed. Colours are a bit muted compared to the DVD.
Summing up, I think this could look better with a proper restoration, but its still a welcome upgrade on the DVD.

Click to expand...

The DVD HAS no color - it's all brown and awful. The Blu-ray, which I assume is the same transfer as the French, has much more color - it's not perfect, but it's all there - a few tweaks and it would be great. More problematic, of course, is not having been transferred from the large format element, therefore the ratio is incorrect and the sound was originally six-track stereo. With those caveats, the Blu-ray is, unlike the DVD, watchable and at least gives you an approximation of what this could look like if it were done the right way.

I have since purchased the German Blu-ray and it is on a par of what we are seeing titles from twilight and others like Fall of the Roman Empire, El Cid, and other classic titles. The studio/distributor is taking the best negative and transferring the movie to Blu-ray with no clean up or remastering. If you enjoy the old catalog titles enjoy them for what they are no sense complaining they are as good as they can be. No studio/distributor is going to spend lots of money cleaning up an old title when they will have a tough time selling 3000 copies.

Ernest said:

I have since purchased the German Blu-ray and it is on a par of what we are seeing titles from twilight and others like Fall of the Roman Empire, El Cid, and other classic titles. The studio/distributor is taking the best negative and transferring the movie to Blu-ray with no clean up or remastering. If you enjoy the old catalog titles enjoy them for what they are no sense complaining they are as good as they can be. No studio/distributor is going to spend lots of money cleaning up an old title when they will have a tough time selling 3000 copies.

Click to expand...

They took the best 35mm negative - that, of course, is not THE negative for Exodus. THE negative for Exodus is 65mm. Of course, who knows if it even exists anymore. I'd like to think it does and I'd like to think it's in good enough shape to use. Remember, it would not have had a lot of use - very few 70 prints of Exodus back in the day.

I read some years ago that the neg had been destroyed and the film did not exist in its 70mm format.
Hopefully wrong and someone somewhere had the sense to look after it. It always looked pin sharp and would get immediately if it was released from a 70mm source.Fingers crossed.