More CinemaScope films from WB, FOX , Universal & Columbia (1 Viewer)

[Simon Howson]

I found Lonely Are the Brave, bit too expensive for my liking though. I guess I'll just keep waiting. Typical Universal though, they release more in Europe than anywhere else it seems.

The only copies of Captain Lightfoot I could find were dodgy bootleg copies that I'd rather stay away from.

 

[jack phillips]

I believe a good edition is available in Japan, but you can only get it with other films in an expensive Douglas Sirk boxset.

 

[Simon Howson]

Thanks for the tip. I'm still hoping that Universal will do a comprehensive Sirk set for R1. Yes, I'll be waiting a long time. :|

 

[Jim_K]

Man of the West (CinemaScope) - I've been waiting years for a DVD release and I don't think it's ever going to happen at this point.

Dark of the Sun (Panavision) - Warner mentioned this in last years chat but it didn't happen. Would've made a good Marketing tie in to the release of Blood Diamond last year. Maybe this is the year?

 

[Simon Howson]

I think Man of the West is one of the absolute best Westerns ever made, so if I was in your position I'd buy the Australian version

You could use a video editing application to convert it from PAL to NTSC if that bothers you. Nero Vision does this, albeit with slight quality degradation.

The Australian DVD isn't the best quality. It is anamorphic widescreen, but it looks like a pretty old transfer. I'd give it 6/10. But it is passable given the quality of the film.

 

[Drew Salzan]

Even TCM has been known to broadcast a pan and scan version of a CinemaScope film. Not too long ago they showed the musical remake of It Happened One Night, YOU CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM IT in a very bad and grainy panned and scanned print. To make matters worse, it was mono.

 

[Jim_K]

Thanks but I've got the R2 PAL version and a region free Oppo and it's better than nothing but I still want a decent NTSC version at the very least. The PAL to NTSC conversion anomalies really are very distracting to me (no offence intended to the PAL folks here).

I do agree it is one of the greatest Westerns ever and is criminally overlooked by the studio who owns it.

 

[Simon Howson]

Do you have Mann's CinemaScope western The Last Frontier? The Columbia DVD is pretty lame quality, but the film is brilliant. After that, he made The Tin Star in B&W VistaVision, which has all these crazy deep focus shots. During the final shoot out the bad guy gets shot and collapses backwards INTO the camera, making it shake! You don't see that in too many films.

 

[Jim_K]

You could say I'm an admirer of Anthony Mann's work. I do have The Last Frontier, it caught me by surprise because it's never really talked about much. The Tin Star left me just a little cold honestly but when I watched it I think I was unconsciously (and maybe unfairly) comparing to the brilliant Stewart/Mann Westerns (of which Man From Laramie has fantastic CimemaScope photography). I plan on giving The Tin Star another viewing someday.

The only other notable Mann films (aside from a handful of his pre-noir studio work) I haven't seen yet are A Dandy in Aspic, Serenade and The Furies. The last of which I've been seeking out for years with no luck.

I'm hoping maybe someday Criterion will do an Anthony Mann Eclipse release including The Furies, The Devil's Doorway and The Tall Target.

 

[Simon Howson]

Criterion are releasing The Furies, I'm not sure when though, maybe May or June. It hasn't been formally announced, but it was strongly hinted at in their December email newsletter.

But I agree with you that he would be ideal for an Eclipse box. Surely they could do better Eclipse versions of T-Men and Raw Deal than all the public domain copies. So those two would be a start, then you could go from there.

Kino have released nice copies of Railroaded and Strange Impersonation.

I'm yet to see a Mann film that I didn't like. Truly one of the great underrated Hollywood filmmakers. If only he made it into the 70s and 80s he would be a lot better known.