MGM Westerns - May 17 Releases (1 Viewer)

[Brent Avery]

Old news as usual for any of you keeping track of the release schedules. For better or worse I came away with most of the titles, must be a weakness so I hope they turn out to be entertaining. I'll list the specs for those interested.

The Hunting Party - 1:85/Enhanced for 16x9/Mono.
More Dead Than Alive - 1:85/Enhanced for 16x9/Mono.
Escort West - 2:35/Enhanced for 16X9/Mono.
The Scalphunters - 2:35/Enhanced for 16x9/Mono.
Invitation To A Gunfighter - 1:66 Ltrbx/Mono.

All are flip discs with Full Screen versions on the opposite
side. Invitation To A Gunfighter with Yul Brynner is only
available Letterboxed - still inconsistent but at least MGM
has given us some hope with mostly Anamorphic versions. As
far as the video/audio goes I'll be viewing some of them
shortly. Also to be released: Hour Of The Gun,Sam Whiskey.

 

[Brent Avery]

First up is The Scalphunters which stars Burt Lancaster, Telly Savalas, Shelly Winters and Ossie Davis. The transfer itself looks quite good overall and the soundtrack is solid. If you like films of this sort it looks like a good bet and MGM has released another worthy title which is reasonably priced.

 

[DieterW]

Two of the MGM releases get a not too positive review on DVDBeaver:

More Dead than Alive
Hour of the Gun

 

[Marko Berg]

Thanks, Brent. I have pre-ordered all of these titles. It's good to know most of them are anamorphic at least. (MGM is actually annoyingly consistent in not releasing 1.66:1 titles with anamorphic enhancement. I never expected Invitation to a Gunfighter to be anamorphic.)

 

[Brent Avery]

Thanks Dieter, I'll have to recheck More Dead Than Alive but I am sure it was enhanced, of course, it may not mean much anyway and MGM makes it very difficult to even read the 16x9 info as it is quite small. And unless it is an exceptional transfer in 2:35 I tend to watch most films on my 27" tv as opposed to the front projector as I have a dedicated 2:35 screen, so even a substandard dvd can still look passable. I recall the absolute worse transfer I had to endure was the Indian Fighter, released by who else, MGM. I have Hour of The Gun on a widescreen laserdisc and I doubt now if the video quality is much better on the dvd. The audio is probably superior. You look forward to some of these releases and then you end up dissappointed. Thankfully Fox will give us Broken Lance, Forty Guns, and Warlock, they at least will be above average transfers.

 

[Robert Crawford]

After reading DVDBeaver's review of "Hour of the Gun" and then watching the dvd this evening, I was kind of surprise that the dvd's video presentation wasn't as bad as I anticipated. Hopefully, others will offer their opinion once they've watched the dvd. It's not a great presentation by any mean, but I've seen a lot worse from MGM.







Crawdaddy

 

[John Hodson]

Apologies for reviving this old thread, but, especially for those HTF'ers equipped with multi-regional players, check out this comparison at DVD Beaver.

 

[oscar_merkx]

thanks again John