- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,422
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
Paramount's post 1948 nitrate library, covering just a couple of years still owned by the studio - earlier titles are owned by Universal - have been problematic since the original elements were destroyed.
Unfortunately, this affects some extraordinary titles.
George Stevens' A Place in the Sun is one of them.
Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, in a production based upon Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy."
Photographed by William C Mellor, who was also behind the camera on a number of Mr. Stevens' other films; edited by William Hornbeck (ditto), and with a score by Franz Waxman.
A Place in the Sun exudes quality from the first frame to the last.
The problems begin with almost four minutes of printer function dupes, which which there is no cure once one is down a few generations.
After that, once we're in what would have been production footage, things get a bit better, but the film element is still down enough to eat up virtually any shadow detail, while concurrently exacerbating grain structure, just a bit.
My take is that there's nothing that Paramount could have done to solve the problems. So, I'll accept this as the best that can be done, and be thrilled to have one of the finest films ever made on Blu-ray.
This isn't Mr. Dreiser's first film version of his novel. The initial was aptly entitled An American Tragedy, also from Paramount , with Josef von Sternberg at the helm. It's available as a DVD from Universal.
Absolutely worth adding to any serious cinema library.
Image – 3.25
Audio – 4.5
Pass / Fail – Pass
Upgrade from DVD - Yes
Very Highly Recommended
RAH
Unfortunately, this affects some extraordinary titles.
George Stevens' A Place in the Sun is one of them.
Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, in a production based upon Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy."
Photographed by William C Mellor, who was also behind the camera on a number of Mr. Stevens' other films; edited by William Hornbeck (ditto), and with a score by Franz Waxman.
A Place in the Sun exudes quality from the first frame to the last.
The problems begin with almost four minutes of printer function dupes, which which there is no cure once one is down a few generations.
After that, once we're in what would have been production footage, things get a bit better, but the film element is still down enough to eat up virtually any shadow detail, while concurrently exacerbating grain structure, just a bit.
My take is that there's nothing that Paramount could have done to solve the problems. So, I'll accept this as the best that can be done, and be thrilled to have one of the finest films ever made on Blu-ray.
This isn't Mr. Dreiser's first film version of his novel. The initial was aptly entitled An American Tragedy, also from Paramount , with Josef von Sternberg at the helm. It's available as a DVD from Universal.
Absolutely worth adding to any serious cinema library.
Image – 3.25
Audio – 4.5
Pass / Fail – Pass
Upgrade from DVD - Yes
Very Highly Recommended
RAH
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