Blu-ray Review Lonely Are the Brave – Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[t1g3r5fan]

Having recently left us earlier this year, the legendary Kirk Douglas left behind a great legacy in Hollywood. Not only was he a star of such classics like Spartacus (1960), Paths of Glory (1957), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), he was a philanthropist, active in political causes, and was crucial in ending the blacklist in Hollywood (he and director Otto Preminger both hired Dalton Trumbo to pen the scripts for their respective films – Spartacus and Exodus, respectively). However, one film stood out as his personal favorite, the singular western Lonely Are the Brave. Previously released on DVD by Universal, Kino has licensed the film for its Blu-ray debut.



Lonely Are the Brave (1962)



Released: 25 May 1962
Rated: Approved...

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[Darby67]

Outstanding review, Mychal. This will be a blind buy for me and I cannot wait to purchase it soon.

 

[Bartman]

My Universal DVD is riddled with compression artifacts and needs to be replaced. Does anyone know if this KL version is available from any of the streaming sources?
I'd like to try before I buy, having been disappointed with the picture quality of two other recent KL Blu-ray releases, Charley Varrick and Narrow Margin.

 

[Big Gay Andy]

I can't imagine what your disappointment was about. I have both Varrick and Margin and they both look and sound great, at least on my system.

 

[Bartman]

I can't imagine what your disappointment was about. I have both Varrick and Margin and they both look and sound great, at least on my system.

It may be due to the differences in our systems and viewing conditions. On my LG OLED, viewed in the dark (using ISF dark settings), the picture quality of Charley Varrick is flat and lacks vibrancy compared with the Amazon Prime HD stream however, the special edition extras are superb. Narrow Margin is sourced from StudioCanal (why not the original studio, Carolco/Tristar?) as was the previous SE DVD and carries over many of the DVD's problems, the picture quality varies tremendously scene to scene, it may be a problem with the StudioCanal print or the original photography (Peter Hyams was extremely busy as writer/director/cinematographer). However the Blu-ray is a lot better than the SE DVD (that was particularly poor) and the Amazon Prime SD stream, that is a straight port of the DVD.
I see there is a very positive review of Narrow Margin at Blu-ray.com I usually rely on them so I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps my Sony Blu-ray player is at fault? Perhaps it's buyers remorse and I desperately want these films to look better than they ever can?

 

[Big Gay Andy]

I bought a Sony player and was extremely disappointed with it. It never worked right. Ivid and LG make much better players.

 

[bluirv]

Lonely Are the Brave was Kirk Douglas' favorite film that he made.

 

[Bartman]

So, no recommendations on the best HD streaming version?