Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection coming 9/13/16 (1 Viewer)

[John Sparks]

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[BobO'Link]

My copy arrived today! I shouldn't have to tell you what *I'll* be watching tonight!

 

[TravisR]

I only just discovered by accident that there were new shots included in this version of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. I was completely amazed and elated about it. These are golden goodies I have never, ever seen before - and in such clarity! (I am referring first to a sequence where Josephine Hutchinson is combing her hair and runs into her son's bedroom to check in on him during the thunderstorm, and then a latter "new" shot of Ygor motioning to the Monster to come forward and the Monster bounds forward down the corridor). Amazing.

Good eye! I don't know the movie well enough to catch that kind of thing but when comparing the run times of the 2004 DVD and the Blu-ray, I noticed the new disc ran 45 seconds longer so thanks for pointing out the new/restored stuff.

 

[BobO'Link]

Even though I truly wanted to jump straight to Son of Frankenstein I forced myself to start with Frankenstein and then Bride of... Wow! I thought the remastered Legacy DVDs from a couple of years back looked good, and they do, but *these* prints look incredible! I'm glad I went ahead and sprung for this, and the Wolf Man set, when Amazon dropped the price. My Wolf Man set arrived today. It'll be next... just as soon as I finish the Frankenstein only titles (I'll save the films with both characters until after I've watched the Wolf Man prequel films).

 

[Nelson Au]

About a month or two ago prior to the release of this set, I re-watched the Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein blu Rays from the original Universal Monsters set and yes, they are just amazing looking remasters! Massive improvement from the DVDs.

 

[BobO'Link]

A few thoughts on the sets so far:
1) I like the cover design on the original Legacy Collection DVD sets better, but that's a minor complaint for me.
2) Son of Frankenstein - looks and sounds fantastic! I noticed a few frames missing at one point when Ygor is leading the Monster along, which I didn't notice before. It may have always been there. I'll edit this post with the timestamp later.
3) Werewolf of London - it's a shame they couldn't restore this one. The audio especially needs attention, with the frequent pops and volume fluctation. However, it looks much better than the DVD.
That's all I've seen so far. I'm parcelling it out between now and Halloween.
Thanks, Universal!

I noticed that too. It's around 1:03:36 when Ygor is leading the monster into the hidden passage. That scene is not on the original Legacy DVDs which picks up after the scene with Wolf and Dr. Frankenstein with Ygor and the monster exiting the passage. On the DVD that scene of the pair exiting the passage appears about 1:03:00 - about 45 seconds *earlier* than on the BR so there's another scene or two added before that comes up.

 

[Tony Bensley]

I noticed that too. It's around 1:03:36 when Ygor is leading the monster into the hidden passage. That scene is not on the original Legacy DVDs which picks up after the scene with Wolf and Dr. Frankenstein with Ygor and the monster exiting the passage. On the DVD that scene of the pair exiting the passage appears about 1:03:00 - about 45 seconds *earlier* than on the BR so there's another scene or two added before that comes up.

Having viewed SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) last night, I'm in wholehearted agreement that the print on the new Legacy Blu-ray is a thing of beauty! In fact, it looks so pristine that I wouldn't be at all surprised if very little actual restoration was needed.

What I had forgotten, or perhaps hadn't previously fully appreciated, is the interesting interior architecture of the Frankenstein estate!

I found it very easy to spot where Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder picked up on a lot of what they used in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974). It's evident to me that Gene borrowed quite a lot from Basil Rathbone's wonderfully over the top performance!

The ending also seems a bit rushed (and somewhat contrived!), especially for a film that runs nearly 100 minutes! I still find it very enjoyable, though!

As a side note, one unexpected happy aspect of my recent 1930s Frankenstein viewings is in spotting sometime Hal Roach Studio players, and "Son Of" is no exception, with my spotting of Clarence Wilson, in a scene with Lionel Atwill.

CHEERS!

 

[Tony Bensley]

Here are the original Universal Trailers for SON and GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN from 35mm nitrate stock, generously uploaded by Jonathan Froes!

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) Trailer:


GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942) Trailer:


CHEERS!

 

[Will Krupp]

Here are the original Universal Trailers for SON and GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN from 35mm nitrate stock, generously uploaded by Jonathan Froes!

Wow, they're beautiful! I especially love the SON trailer! Because of the sub-par duping stock available at the time, It was common practice in those days to cut the trailers from camera negatives. Since the "official" takes were in the hands of the editors putting the final film together, the trailers were mostly made up of unused alternate takes as this one was. It's always jarring to see a trailer for a favorite film of the golden age and hear a completely different line reading that you're used to hearing in a movie you've seen countless times.

I bring it up because, unless i'm off my game, I'm pretty sure that, beginning at the :55 mark, we're treated to a brief moment of Basil Rathbone waiting for his "cue" before snapping into character and picking Donnie Dunagan up from the floor. Great stuff!

 

[Nelson Au]

I finally had a chance to view Son of Frankenstien tonight. It's not a film I ever liked as much, but I can appreciate it a lot more from this viewing. And it's still connected to the first two films with Boris Karloff. It does look great! This must be the fourth or fifth or even sixth time I've ever seen it fully. I did notice that during the fades and dissolves between scenes, the image quality suffers a bit by becoming much less sharp.

I do find it a bit jarring that this production took a sharp turn towards the expressionistic set design of the castle of the Fransenstien home. I think it's great production design! But it's such a departure from the original two films. The second film though did have a little of that going on, but it wasn't so stark and devoid of furnishings. It is very cool. Just different from the first two films. When they show the painting of Henry Frankenstein, I wondered why it didn't look like Colin Clive. Another departure.

Karloff is terrific with what he has to do and he does what no other actor after does, which is emote and carring on with pathos. His performance and movements too are unmistakable compared to the version from Meets the Wolfman.

Rathbone is great as Wolfie! There's a spark of Colin Clive here and there. The police inspector is terrific too as they battled each other.

Interesting that Lugosi is doing the part of Ygor, it's such a different performance from Dracula. I don't think I've seen Ghost of Frankenstein, so it will be interesting how they explain Ygor's return.

I came back to this thread to check on which are the new scene that are in the film, interesting as I don't know the film well enough to know the new shots.

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched House of Dracula in the Frankenstein set yesterday, and I thought it looked wonderful. This is a great value for me as I hadn't bought the original Blu-ray box collection or the individual releases just hanging on to the DVDs in the Legacy set. I hadn't bought Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein yet either, so another bonus for me.

 

[Tony Bensley]

About the only thing missing from these beautiful 4K restorations of the wartime programmers is the Liberty War Bonds ad, that would originally appear immediately following the closing credits. In fact, an online search I attempted uncovered absolute ZILCH, hence this screenshot posting that I've captured from the SON OF DRACULA (1943) 2004 Legacy DVD version:

In my opinion, it would be really nice to have this in a non letter-boxed, HD format!

CHEERS!

 

[David Weicker]

About the only thing missing from these beautiful 4K restorations of the wartime programmers is the Liberty War Bonds ad, that would originally appear immediately following the closing credits. In fact, an online search I attempted uncovered absolute ZILCH, hence this screenshot posting that I've captured from the SON OF DRACULA (1943) 2004 Legacy DVD version:

View attachment 34983

In my opinion, it would be really nice to have this in a non letter-boxed, HD format!

CHEERS!

I'm fairly certain these are on the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes Blu-rays

 

[crissrudd4554]

I noticed there’s a few Universals Monster threads I could post in but since it’s in regards to Frankenstein and I didn’t feel it totally necessary to start a new thread I figured I’d post here.

First off I think what Universal did with these restorations are very well done. Dracula was a major stand out. Never had that film looked so good. Outstanding work.

However, I’ve had one pet peeve with these films even going back to some of the DVD releases. The audio for Frankenstein.

Starting with 2004 DVD release and onward the audio for this film IMO is very flat and to an extent muffled. I was hoping this would be fixed for the BD but not so.

Doing a comparison the old 1990’s VHS release IMO had a better mix. Dialogue/effects are more clear and it just sounds more open IMO although the background hiss is a bit rougher. Here’s a video if you want to compare. Watching with earphones might make the differences more pronounced.



Also there’s a few missing audio bits a well which I point out in this second video. First is the missing ‘Henry! ‘Frankenstein!’ dialogue outside the watchtower. Second the echo to the Monster’s growl when Henry and Waldman descend the stairs.



Someone on Classic Horror Film Board mentioned having an old print of Frankenstein and mentioned the missing dialogue was intact but the growl echos weren’t. He further mentioned that he hadn’t noticed those echos until the video release. Perhaps the echos were not part of the original film but that still leaves out the missing dialogue.

Anyways, I’m not trying to speak negatively of these releases or anything. No, no. It was just something that I’ve noticed for a while that I wanted to bring up. Keep in mind it is my favorite horror film. If anyone hasn’t gotten these releases yet I strongly recommend them!

 

[Malcolm R]

This set is currently a Lightning Deal at Amazon for $14.99.