Bound For Glory -- How's the DVD?? (1 Viewer)

[MarcoBiscotti]

It broadcast on TCM last night from a really soft transfer... the picture looked washed & blown-out and really blocky; Does the DVD fare any better?

This highly underrated film really deserves a Special Edition release with commentary and extras. It could easily be turned into a 2-dis set.

Does anyone own the current MGM cheapie and if so, how does it look and is it worth a purchase?

 

[Mark B]

The DVD is non-anamorphic, soft, and dirty. I agree with you that a special edition is in order. Somehow this film got tucked in a corner; it needs to be re-discovered.

 

[walter o]

considering it was a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars. It also won Best Cinematography Oscar for Haskell Wexler, so it be nice to have him supervise the color correction. However, I think the "muddy" look was intentional.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I agree re. the look of the film, but certainly the blocky, pixelated, no-contrast, artifact ridden transfer seen on TCM was not the intended aesthetic.

A DVD with commentary, interviews and background story & production docus, perhaps even a second-disc with specific focus directed towards Woody Guthrie, would be more than welcomed!

This is a highly underrated film and one of the best biopics I've seen, that indeed deserves to be rediscovered on DVD!

 

[Peter Neski]

The TCM version was Slightly better,but both versions are poor

 

[haroldS]

This DVD is part of a $5.99 group of MGM titles at DeepDiscount. They appear to be a close-out group of titles rather then a sale. If so, I wouldn't expect any further release, let alone a special edition or re-mastered set, in the future. These titles, for the most part, were the same as Amazon had about four months ago at three for $10.

In any case I agree with all the prior comments about it being, what I consider, a near classic and unappreciated, or more likely, unrecognized. If you think the DVD seems bad, the version shown on commercial television had forty minutes edited out of the film and was almost impossible to follow. Compared to what I saw on television, the DVD is a vast improvement.

 

[ahollis]

I remember playing the film in Jackson Mississippi at both the Meadowbrook Cinema Six and Town & Country Triple Drive-IN. Both prints were flat and looked washed out. I remember reading a remark in the weekly Boxoffice Magazine that the dull washed out colors was what the director wanted to give the depression its own color and life.

We are now thinking is a bad print job, could be artistic development. I would like to hear other opinions of this.