Blu-ray Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - The Bat Whispers -- in Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[Robert Crawford]

Does anyone know what happened? I was scheduled to get my copy today after a 9 month wait and I got this message from Amazon: There is a delay in shipping your order because of a supply chain issue.

It’s not just Amazon with delayed shipping.

 

[Will Krupp]

Does anyone know what happened? I was scheduled to get my copy today after a 9 month wait and I got this message from Amazon: There is a delay in shipping your order because of a supply chain issue.

I'm sorry, Darrell. One would think that Amazon would fill older pre-orders first, but they often don't. It seems unfair but they tend to fill newer orders first and work backwards. I only ordered mine about three weeks ago and I got a shipping notice on Saturday.

There are times when an order has been sitting with no movement and I've re-ordered it and had the new one ship immediately.

 

[bujaki]

I just received The Bat Whispers from Amazon. I'd forgotten that I'd ordered it, so I promptly returned it since VCI had sent me a copy a couple of weeks ago.

 

[KPmusmag]

My copy arrived today - sorry no idea what is going on.

 

[Will Krupp]

I had a lot of fun with this last night!

I didn't watch everything to completion, but I made a point of starting with the US 35mm version since that one I'd never seen (the old DVD used the UK version as the standard, I believe) and, even though it's not visually up to par with the UK and widescreen versions (it's from a fine grain master rather than an original negative) I thought it looked fine and it's nice finally having the domestic "Prime" version with all the "best" takes.

I sampled quite a bit of the 65mm version and it's visually quite stunning. Having the image fill the widescreen makes it miles and miles ahead of the old non-anamorphic DVD and finally allows those compositions to impress. I'm not completely convinced (as yet) that the 35mm isn't still the "best" version of the movie, but the blu-ray makes me want to sit down with the 65mm version again in its entirety to drink it all in.

I didn't have time to watch any of the UK version (besides, I was getting Whispered out, by then) but I was able to go through all of the fun extras which compared the different versions. From what I saw, the UK has a much stronger transfer, which isn't surprising.

Lastly, the only bad (for me) in this entire package is the transfer of The Bat (1959.) No one has mentioned this yet so I don't know if it's something with my setup (Sony 4k player and LG OLED) or my settings, but I found it almost unwatchable. It has an oddly digital look to it and (what looks like) a frame rate issue. The onscreen motion is perpetually jerky and it looks almost like frames are dropped here and there every few seconds. As I said, I don't know what's causing it but I could only stand it for about 10 minutes.

All in all a great package, IMO

 

[Rob W]

Some of these somehow made their way to Canada - picked up my copy in a brick-and-mortar store here in Toronto.

And I noticed the same oddities with the transfer of The Bat (1959) as Patrick.

 

[Will Krupp]

And I noticed the same oddities with the transfer of The Bat (1959) as Patrick.

Thanks for the confirmation, Andy!

 

[Rob W]

Thanks for the confirmation, Andy!

How embarrassing !!!!! My apologies ...

 

[TheSteig]

I agree about The Bat 1959 being full of judder and the herky jerky , and also I am not sure why. I mean it's not the feature film from VCI, and is basically an extra as it was released by Film Detective awhile back. I watched the whole thing, it didn't bother me that much as I have it on Blu-ray already but it was odd that it appeared as it did on the VCI release.

The widescreen Bat Whispers looks excellent, Ill watch the full frame ones soon...I usually watch the film in widescreen.

 

[Will Krupp]

Opening at the Rivoli:

 

[Robert Crawford]

I agree about The Bat 1959 being full of judder and the herky jerky , and also I am not sure why. I mean it's not the feature film from VCI, and is basically an extra as it was released by Film Detective awhile back. I watched the whole thing, it didn't bother me that much as I have it on Blu-ray already but it was odd that it appeared as it did on the VCI release.

The widescreen Bat Whispers looks excellent, Ill watch the full frame ones soon...I usually watch the film in widescreen.

Does The Bat look the same as the Film Detective Blu-ray?

 

[Mark-P]

Lastly, the only bad (for me) in this entire package is the transfer of The Bat (1959.) No one has mentioned this yet so I don't know if it's something with my setup (Sony 4k player and LG OLED) or my settings, but I found it almost unwatchable. It has an oddly digital look to it and (what looks like) a frame rate issue. The onscreen motion is perpetually jerky and it looks almost like frames are dropped here and there every few seconds. As I said, I don't know what's causing it but I could only stand it for about 10 minutes.

Hey Patrick, what’s the running time on The Bat? Is it by chance 4% shorter than it should be?

 

[Will Krupp]

Hey Patrick, what’s the running time on The Bat? Is it by chance 4% shorter than it should be?

It's a few seconds shy of 80 minutes, Rusty!

 

[Will Krupp]

So, here's a little bit of weirdness...

In the 65mm version, after Lizzie hides under the murphy bed (why they'd need a murphy bed in a country house is another question for another time) at the 16:51 mark, the scene rather abruptly cuts to a cool tracking shot of the hallway during a thunderstorm (with an obvious soundtrack edit.) On the comparison extras, it mentions that there is footage missing from the widescreen version. The standard version of the same scene moves from Lizzie under the bed to a thunderclap outside and then to a "flying" tracking shot outside the house (a cool miniature) that then dissolves to the interior hallway. When I saw the extras last night, I thought I had remembered seeing that scene in widescreen. It seemed so memorable but I chalked it up to a trick of the mind because, let's face it, I've misremembered things before.

I didn't think anything more of it until I was giving the 65mm another spin tonight to see what I hadn't seen last night and the scene came on. Again, I was pretty sure I had seen it wide so I went to the "Land of Retired DVDs" (Aka a bookcase inside my bedroom closet) and pulled out the DVD. I'll be damned but the old Image/Milestone disc HAS the scene (that VCI tells us is missing from the negative) in widescreen on their 65mm version. How do you account for that? If it was damaged, they should have just said so rather than saying it was always missing. It's a neat shot, too!

 

[Mark-P]

It's a few seconds shy of 80 minutes, Rusty!

Ok. That blows my theory that it was a sped up 25 FPS master for UK tv where they had to drop every 25th frame for region A Blu-ray compatibility. They’ve obviously done something else weird with the encode to screw up the frame rate.

In any case, all this talk has got me itching to order the Blu-ray now rather than waiting for a sale!

 

[TheSteig]

Does The Bat look the same as the Film Detective Blu-ray?

I thought it did - it seemed to be the same anamorphic widescreen transfer in HD and it appeared to look the same / or close to it , but the VCI disc has the jutter and herky jerky movements for some reason.

 

[ahollis]

I feel the Film Detective Blu-ray is the better presentation of the two 1950’s version.

 

[Camps]

I feel the Film Detective Blu-ray is the better presentation of the two 1950’s version.

I'll hold onto mine then. I'm traveling so I haven't yet ordered the VCI disc, though I very much plan to.

But, missing footage from the 1930 version and issues with the 1959 version...? WTF VCI??

 

[Thomas T]

I got my The Bat Whispers in yesterday's mail and the wide screen version looks amazing. But The Bat (1959) has these jerky movements which makes it impossible to watch. I came here to see if anybody else had that problem with their copy and I see they have. Glad it's not just me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I finally received my The Bat Whispers today. I’ll posts my thoughts later this weekend.