A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Big Parade -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[SeanAx]

And as far as "The Big Parade," it is magnificent. The Davis score (which incorporates some of the original score) is very effective and evocative and it sounds so grand on the disc. John Gilbert is something of a lightweight as an actor but he's well used here and gives a credible evolution.

I honestly did not expect so many silent films would get Blu-ray releases. There are some essentials still missing, as the lists above attest, but this is a better start than I could have hoped for.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I'm excited for this release - should be able to pick it up by the end of this month. I've never seen the film since I haven't had TCM for years and didn't want to settle for a used tape (or worse, bootlegs). Seeing on Blu-Ray first was my experience for both Wings and Our Hospitality, so I look forward to this.

The Crowd; Napoleon; The Wind; The Scarlet Letter (L. Gish); A Woman of Affairs (Garbo's best silent movie performance); Rex Ingram's movies (including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc.). We've asked for these titles so often. All of these, save for Napoleon, are WB. What's holding back their release?

I'm glad Warner waited so they could pull out the stops, but it is sad that it has taken such a long time given the wealth of silents in their library. I would assume it's about remastering - they don't want to use an old transfer for The Crowd, but it's taking forever to get it into that point. Especially when Kino has brought out two dozen silent features, many including new music scores.

Napoleon will certainly be coming.

The problem has been perfecting the bicycle chains which will synchronize the 4k data for the triptych.

RAH

Napoleon would be a day one purchase for me. Both Davis and Coppola composed fantastic scores for the film.

 

[Richard V]

Wonderful film, beautiful score, and gorgeous BD transfer. Not to be missed.

 

[rdimucci]

The Crowd; Napoleon; The Wind; The Scarlet Letter (L. Gish); A Woman of Affairs (Garbo's best silent movie performance); Rex Ingram's movies (including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc.). We've asked for these titles so often. All of these, save for Napoleon, are WB. What's holding back their release?

And what about GREED? We've never even gotten a Region 1 DVD of that title?

 

[OliverK]

And what about GREED? We've never even gotten a Region 1 DVD of that title?

Stroheim generally is not very popular. You will also see very little discussion of his first major work Foolish Wives that came to Blu-ray a bit before The Big Parade.

 

[calvinm]

Greed was one of only three films unavailable on DVD to make the top 100 of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll and the only one of those three to be owned by a US studio so I would be surprised if Warner don't get to it sooner rather than later. Of course, that depends on how well The Big Parade sells.

 

[OliverK]

Greed was one of only three films unavailable on DVD to make the top 100 of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll and the only one of those three to be owned by a US studio so I would be surprised if Warner don't get to it sooner rather than later. Of course, that depends on how well The Big Parade sells.

The problem with the 4 big Stroheim productions (Foolish Wives, Greed, The Wedding March, Queen Kelly) is that they only ever existed in truncated form even when initially released. With the current trend of trying to bring as much material as possible to disc in the best possible quality Greed will always be problematic as it is so severely shortened with to my knowledge nothing but stills remaining of the lost footage.I hope that Warner will find that The Big Parade sales meet expectations so that other silent titles can follow soon, possibly even Greed.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Well there is the 4 hour Greed reconstruction that has run on TCM. That's as good as we're going to get there I bet

 

[Danny Burk]

Despite being shorn of so much footage, the release version of GREED is still a cohesive, powerful film. If we weren't aware of its history, I don't think we would watch it and feel that it's incomplete, or choppy, or substandard in some way. More than anything, it's knowledge of the once-extant 8 hour original cut, and a taste of this via the reconstruction and Herman Weinberg's book, that make us feel cheated. I admit to feeling this too...probably due to curiosity more than anything...but my point is that the release version is more than suitable for release as it stands. Of course, I hope we'll get the 4-hour reconstruction too.

 

[Ruz-El]

I hope we get both versions of Greed as well. It's one of my most wanted titles. The 4-Hour version is interesting, bout 2 hours of stills is a bit of a chore. The 2-hour release version is pretty gripping stuff.