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Is the b&w era of TV on DVD slowly coming to an end? (1 Viewer)

Vic Pardo

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Brian Camp
BobO'Link said:
After reading this a couple of times I'm a bit confused. Are you saying the *full* first season (both parts in the same package) is $17.99 *or* S1V1 and S1V2 are $17.99 each? If the latter, check Amazon before making a purchase. Currently those 2 are $16.93 each and as MattH indicated they've been lower with a $10.08 price each in August 2012.
Yeah, the latter. Season One Part 1 is $17.99 at Best Buy and Season One Part 2 is $17.99 also at Best Buy. They're $16.93 each on Amazon, not a big enough price difference for me to buy from Amazon instead of at Best Buy. I'm just curious about whether later seasons of "Perry Mason" had better critical reputations than the first for any reason. What struck me when I watched episodes on TBS 20 years ago was how much like 1940s noir they looked, which is why I'm intrigued.
 

BobO'Link

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Vic Pardo said:
After reading this a couple of times I'm a bit confused. Are you saying the *full* first season (both parts in the same package) is $17.99 *or* S1V1 and S1V2 are $17.99 each? If the latter, check Amazon before making a purchase. Currently those 2 are $16.93 each and as MattH indicated they've been lower with a $10.08 price each in August 2012.
Yeah, the latter. Season One Part 1 is $17.99 at Best Buy and Season One Part 2 is $17.99 also at Best Buy. They're $16.93 each on Amazon, not a big enough price difference for me to buy from Amazon instead of at Best Buy. I'm just curious about whether later seasons of "Perry Mason" had better critical reputations than the first for any reason. What struck me when I watched episodes on TBS 20 years ago was how much like 1940s noir they looked, which is why I'm intrigued.
It's been quite a few years since I've watched any episodes (in spite of owning a couple of seasons) but my recollection is one season is pretty much like the others with minor exceptions. I tend to like the earlier seasons better simply because Lt. Tragg was still around. If the characters didn't age a viewer unfamiliar with the series would be hard pressed to tell early episodes from later.
 

JMas

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My favorite season is Season 1, mainly because many of the stories were adapted from Erle Stanley Gardner's novels. Future seasons had more stories written for the series by other writers that, in many cases, were not as interesting as those based on the Gardner books.
 

Berkshires

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Originally Posted by Vic Pardo
Yeah, the latter. Season One Part 1 is $17.99 at Best Buy and Season One Part 2 is $17.99 also at Best Buy. They're $16.93 each on Amazon, not a big enough price difference for me to buy from Amazon instead of at Best Buy. I'm just curious about whether later seasons of "Perry Mason" had better critical reputations than the first for any reason. What struck me when I watched episodes on TBS 20 years ago was how much like 1940s noir they looked, which is why I'm intrigued.
Brian, if you like the noir style, I would recommend you check out Season 7. I think the show brought on a new director of photography that year, and they began to emphasize the shadowy, nighttime stylistics of noir, using expressionistic lighting and composition, canted angles, more night scenes than in previous seasons.
But I don't think you can go wrong with any of the sets. This series hit the ground running and remained strong throughout its nine year run.
 

Sky Captain

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Joe Lugoff said:
Also in 1966, ABC was willing to renew "The Patty Duke Show" for a fourth season, but (according to Duke) United Artists wasn't willing to spend the money to film the show in color.
Yet they were willing to shoot that POS show My Mother The Car and air it for a full season. In color. Amazing.:rolleyes:
 

LeoA

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The third season of Patty Duke wasn't nearly as good as the first two and she was starting to get a bit old to play the part of a high schooler. So maybe it was for the best that it didn't get renewed for a 4th season.
 

BobO'Link

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Sky Captain said:
Also in 1966, ABC was willing to renew "The Patty Duke Show" for a fourth season, but (according to Duke) United Artists wasn't willing to spend the money to film the show in color.
Yet they were willing to shoot that POS show My Mother The Car and air it for a full season. In color. Amazing.:rolleyes:
My Mother the Car was an NBC series while The Patty Duke Show was on ABC. While Duke indicated UA refused the ABC demand to switch to color she went on to speculate UA executives said no (the demand was apparently for color episodes delivered at the same rate paid for the B/W episodes) as a negotiating ploy with the hope that ABC would counter with an offer to pay more money for the series. Instead, ABC decided not to renew the series. You have to remember that ABC, being in 3rd place, didn't have the deep pockets of NBC/RCA and had roughly 50% color series on the air that season. I'm sure NBC paid more to get MMTC in color.
 

Garysb

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NBC also went full color in the fall of 1966 and was promoted as the first full color network. Anything that was in B&W on NBC in the previous year such as I Dream of Jeannie , swiched to color in the Fall of 1966 or was cancelled. Studios did not have a choice if they wanted to sell a show to NBC.
 

LouA

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I just found out that the 1956 Sitcom STANLEY with Buddy Hackett , paul lind , and Carol Burnette has been released on DVD. You can find it at Buddy Hackett's web site , also on Amazon and on Ebay. It's a 3 DvD set, which the site states is digitally remastered ,and contains lots of bonus material. 19 episodes were produced, and they're all here. I ordered it , and am waiting for it to arrive. It's a miracle this show is out . It probaly hasn't been shown anywhere since it's original NBC run.
 

Gary OS

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Great find, Lou! I've never heard of this series, but you've got me interested.


Gary "and it has a Christmas episode to boot" O.
 

Jack P

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I only know of it from the time around 1960 or so when by coincidence Hackett was on the panel of "What's My Line" and Burnett was the Mystery Guest and the matter of their having done this series came up in the course of events. On that same show, A.C. Nielsen was an earlier contestant whose line had to be spotted (with Nielsen signing in as "Mr. X") and when his identity was revealed, Hackett mentioned "I've got a bone to pick with you because I had a show Stanley that got cancelled....."
 

BobO'Link

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LouA said:
I just found out that the 1956 Sitcom STANLEY with Buddy Hackett , paul lind , and Carol Burnette has been released on DVD. You can find it at Buddy Hackett's web site , also on Amazon and on Ebay. It's a 3 DvD set, which the site states is digitally remastered ,and contains lots of bonus material. 19 episodes were produced, and they're all here. I ordered it , and am waiting for it to arrive. It's a miracle this show is out . It probaly hasn't been shown anywhere since it's original NBC run.
Do you have a link to the Hackett site? I did a quick Google but came up empty handed. There are a couple of sites, one of which led to a web store (with Hackett and another name) but I didn't come up with a DVD listing anywhere. I *did* find the listing at Amazon but it's only available from a marketplace vendor and I'd rather deal directly with the "official" site since it's not a actual Amazon offering.
 

Richard V

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Just a brief review of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Season 2. Received my copy a couple of weeks ago and must comment on how exceptional the quality of the video is. It is nearly Bluray quality, just superb, at least for the 10 or so episode that I've watched. Does not appear to be edited, each episode clocks in at about 26 min and change. Definitely better than the Season one release. Here's hoping they release all seasons and that they are all the same quality as this one.
 

Randy Korstick

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Thanks for the review Richard. I was hoping the quality was at least as good as season 1 and didn't expect better but thats great. I will be getting my copy as soon as I finsh the last disc of season 1. I too hope they release the whole series.
 

shoeshineboy

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Has anyone bought Stanley? Normally, I'd jump at this as the price is good and the description is intriguing (despite not being a big Buddy fan).... However blind buys are less and less an option these days. Is it any good? Was it any good?
 

Gary OS

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shoeshineboy said:
Has anyone bought Stanley? Normally, I'd jump at this as the price is good and the description is intriguing (despite not being a big Buddy fan).... However blind buys are less and less an option these days. Is it any good? Was it any good?
I've got it coming in the mail, even though it's a blind buy for me too. I did it primarily because it does have a Christmas episode and everyone knows how crazy I am about that, so I went ahead and placed an order. I'll throw in my two cents of a review when it arrives.

On another note, I highly recommend Lawbreaker. It's actually in color and the prints are decent. They look like solid 16 mm to my eyes. What I love about it is that they go on location to the cities where various crimes have been committed and interview the actual police officers and people involved. It's a fascinating little series that's very Americana. Neat, neat stuff for sure.


Gary "continued high marks for Timeless" O.
 

Rob_Ray

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Gary OS said:
I've got it coming in the mail, even though it's a blind buy for me too. I did it primarily because it does have a Christmas episode and everyone knows how crazy I am about that, so I went ahead and placed an order. I'll throw in my two cents of a review when it arrives.

Gary "continued high marks for Timeless" O.
I bought it as a blind buy because of the incredible cast. It's due to arrive by April 8. I can comment after that point.
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

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Gary OS said:
On another note, I highly recommend Lawbreaker. It's actually in color and the prints are decent. They look like solid 16 mm to my eyes. What I love about it is that they go on location to the cities where various crimes have been committed and interview the actual police officers and people involved. It's a fascinating little series that's very Americana. Neat, neat stuff for sure.


Gary "continued high marks for Timeless" O.
Thanks, Gary. After reading your post, I took the opportunity to check to see if there was anything on the series on YouTube, and found a promo video for the DVD set that Timeless recently uploaded... it does look quite good.

LEE MARVIN PRESENTS LAWBREAKER: DVD Trailer
 

Mike*HTF

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A second thumbs up for Lawbreaker. The quality of the prints that were used looked quite good and it is absolutely fascinating to see the cities of America during that period.
 

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