david hare
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2014
- Messages
- 683
- Real Name
- david hare
A new Koch Media DVD of this from Germany comes recommended from me. The film itself is a personal favorite Noir and perhaps the most extreme expression of the Cornell Woolrich universe of doomed fatalism. Eddie G and the great Gail Russell give the movie a real feel for melancholy (the score helps too) which Farrow seems to respond to with beautifully expressive long takes from CUs of the principles to wide curves out to wide shots like brushstrokes to literally sketch the characters. (Farrow was also a master of the long take generally - His Kind of Woman is full of takes lasting four minutes plus.) Paramount house master DP John Seitz was lenser on this. For an 81 minute feature (78 minutes here in PAL speedup) it's "A" quality.
But you have to accept this has been up til now one of the hardest 40s Paramount(Universal owned) to see in anything remotely viewable since the sixties. There are at least two bootlegs around, one from TCM plus a barely watchable Spanish DVD (probably itself a boot of the TCM boot transferred to PAL.) They're both rubbish.
This is a legit licensed transfer and, allowing for some rough reel ends with substantial gate induced wear and tear, and a second last reel that suffers from bad audio hum for several minutes it survives what I call the projector test with flying colors. Image is clean, and the transfer preserves the quality of the print including its weaknesses, but also its grayscale and dynamic range with ease, and it looks like film. Nothing like the previous illegal boots.
One can complain it might have been cleaned up or remastered but there' s no money out there and Koch (and other German Universal license holders) are doing such terrific work getting things out now I am not one to quibble. If only someone could come up with a 35mm anywhere near as good as this for another apparently "lost" Paramount/Uni title, Leisen's Swing High Swing Low I would be in near paradise.
But you have to accept this has been up til now one of the hardest 40s Paramount(Universal owned) to see in anything remotely viewable since the sixties. There are at least two bootlegs around, one from TCM plus a barely watchable Spanish DVD (probably itself a boot of the TCM boot transferred to PAL.) They're both rubbish.
This is a legit licensed transfer and, allowing for some rough reel ends with substantial gate induced wear and tear, and a second last reel that suffers from bad audio hum for several minutes it survives what I call the projector test with flying colors. Image is clean, and the transfer preserves the quality of the print including its weaknesses, but also its grayscale and dynamic range with ease, and it looks like film. Nothing like the previous illegal boots.
One can complain it might have been cleaned up or remastered but there' s no money out there and Koch (and other German Universal license holders) are doing such terrific work getting things out now I am not one to quibble. If only someone could come up with a 35mm anywhere near as good as this for another apparently "lost" Paramount/Uni title, Leisen's Swing High Swing Low I would be in near paradise.
