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Fox, please redo your Shirley Temple discs -- they look AWFUL (1 Viewer)

Brian W.

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I was so disappointed when I bought Shirley Temple's "Heidi." I can't believe how bad the transfer is on this disc. It looks like it might have been digitally cleaned, but it is so washed out and needlessly edge-enhanced -- the whole picture looks like a slight double exposure. The thing is, I don't even get the impression that the print is that bad, just that some really nasty processing was done to it, which might have gone over okay on VHS, but looks horrible on DVD.

Mr. Staddon, I know this is an old movie, but surely a better transfer could have been done. Please consider remastering the first three Shirley Temple DVDs, and by all means please use more care for any future issues in this series.
 

george kaplan

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You do realize these are colorized, right? That's why they look so bad. What's needed (not that I personally have any interest in these films) is a release of the original black & white.
 

Peter Apruzzese

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George, both versions are on each of the discs. The black and white prints look as awful as Brian described. The colorized ones look the same, but with phony color on top. Fox screwed the pooch with these releases.
 

GlennH

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Thanks for the warning.

We have the VHS of a couple of these Shirley Temple movies that my daughter enjoys, and I was considering an upgrade to the DVD. Sounds like it's not an upgrade though. I'll keep my money.
 

Patrick McCart

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Come on... Columbia was able to produce a beautiful DVD of It Happened One Night which is just as old as some of these Temple movies.

Also, Universal's Frakenstein, other 1930's Universal Horror titles, WB's 42nd Street and Little Women, and the rest of Columbia's 1930's titles look great!

Fox makes great post-1970 DVD's, but they need to put more work into their older titles or license them to Blackhawk for restoration. (Like the Chaplin DVD's...which look fantastic.)
 

Brian Lawrence

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Mr. Staddon, I know this is an old movie, but surely a better transfer could have been done. Please consider remastering the first three Shirley Temple DVDs, and by all means please use more care for any future issues in this series.
Mr. Staddon, is not responsible for the tranfers on these films. Please direct any comments or questions towards FOX as a studio, and not single out an individual who has been gracious enough to spend his time as a member of this forum.
 

Brian W.

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People on the forum frequently say, "Mr. Staddon, please release this" or "please release that" or "why wasn't this better?" He does have some say in what goes on at Fox -- he is the head honcho there, after all. I don't understand how that could be considered "singling him out" for anything.
:)
 

Brian Lawrence

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Don't mind me, I was just venting because as you stated it seems that there where tons of those threads addressed to Mr. Staddon. And since then he seems to have vanished from the forum.
 

DaViD Boulet

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Unwatchable. Shockingly bad. Fox, is this a joke?

Brian wrote:

I got the Shirley Temple Heidi and the black and white transfor is AWFUL. I thought of posting a thread in the Studio Feedback thread. Think I will. Heard of Superbit? Try "SuperEdgeEnhanced" -- so bad, it literally looks like a slight double exposure. Truly, this is shockingly bad mastering from Fox. I know the movie is from 1936 or so, but I've seen older movies that look better than it does. A great disappointment.

You said it.

Aliasing and Ringing are so bad if this was broadcast TV you'd be trying to adjust your antenna to get rid of the ghosting. This DVD *might* be watchable on monitors 20" and smaller...but that's it. 32" direct-view people, you've been warned. Big-screen or projection system owners...don't even waste your time hoping.

I never thought a major studio that's taken such great strides recently for DVD would produce something that looks like a bootlegged Asian VHS release. But they did.

Those of you on the fence about this title (or any of the other Shirly Temple classics released by Fox) DON'T buy them. Write to Fox or post to a thread in the studio feedback section letting them know how upset you are.

I was looking forward to adding all the Shirley Temple classics from Fox to my DVD library. Now I will only keep Heidi to demonstrate to friends how embarassingly bad a DVD can look when a studio does the worst job possible.

I honestly can't imagine how it could look worse.

Thanks Fox for screwing Shirley Temple fans. Any chance of a reissue? These titles are so painfully horrible that you should pull them from the market NOW. Do a recall...they are literally defective. That's how shockingly bad the picture is. Hold them in your library until you can release them properly.

-David Boulet
 

Roger Rollins

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I was going to buy them, but was skeptical as to the quality. They were playing one of them (B&W version, thankfully) in a local store, and I was aghast at what I saw. Horrendous. Looked like Super 8.

FOX (and I guess you do have to address these concerns to Peter Staddon, because he's supposed to be their "Mr. DVD") should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this kind of excrement on ANY home video format, no less DVD.

Fox releases NO classic films at all lately, except a CARMEN JONES tied to Black history month (not the best film in their library to tie-in with that "promotional opportunity") and we are getting a bunch of Marilyn Monroe films, only 2 of which are decent, and they're only releasing them because they have "Marilyn" in them.

I guess this is just another example of people working at a studio, whose idea of a "classic OLD movie" is STAR WARS.

This is a company that clearly doesn't give a rat's ass about their library. Shameful.
 

Eric Peterson

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This is terribly disappointing as I was planning on buying all of these discs. I thought something was fishy when I originally heard that they were to be colorized (A nearly forgotton process - Thank God!). I'm glad that I waited for reviews and that Best Buy almost never stocks catalog films, otherwise I'd already have them. It sounds like these are the same ghastly transfers that I see on those infomercials on TV.

Well, I'll save my money for other worthwhile discs.

I love most of Fox's output, but there release are quite thin in the classic department.
 

Jay E

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Yes, I too have become sceptical of Fox's commitment to their classic library. I wonder if their total disregard to the quality of the Temple DVds has anything to do with the fact that they feel these DVDs are more for kids than adults(which is how they marketed their VHS Temple films).

And I'm still waiting for films such as Laura, The Grapes of Wrath, The Gunfighter, Any Film Noir films, My Darling Clementine, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Young Mr Lincoln, The Razor's Edge, Any Sherlock Holmes or Charlie Chan films, The Ghost & Mrs Muir, Jane Eyre, The Snake Pit, The Heiress, Unfaithfully Yours, Lifeboat, A Letter to Three Wives...but then again, regretably, not many studios are releasing classic B&W films.
 

Steven Simon

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Don't mind me, I was just venting because as you stated it seems that there where tons of those threads addressed to Mr. Staddon. And since then he seems to have vanished from the forum.
Peter Staddon has no obligation to post here.... He posts on his own free time.
 

Brian Lawrence

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By that I mean that it seemed like people kept hounding the guy everytime a problem would pop up with a FOX dvd, so maybe he rightfuly got tired of it. I certianly did not mean to imply that I felt he owed us any kind of presence on this forum. In fact I pretty much meant the opposite.
 

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