Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) any time? (1 Viewer)

[Eric Huffstutler]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Any word if this 1932 Universal movie will be out on DVD or how about The Old Dark House (1932)?

 

[Charles H]

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is coming out in September from Universal as part of the Lugosi collection. THE OLD DARK HOUSE is available from Kino (it has a Gloria Stuart commentary).

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

How is the KINO transfer?

 

[Charles H]

Acceptable. It is a very rare film that went through many copyright issues (but never hit pd). Kino is as good as it gets and probably what you saw on Turner last night. The dvd has a lot of material on Whale. Cameron was impressed enough by it that Stuart got the TITANIC role.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

OLD DARK HOUSE was thought to be a lost film at one point. The Kino DVD was put out pretty early in the history of DVD so it might be improved upon a bit, but the source material is what it is. It's light years better than a VHS dupe I picked up years ago.

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

Between 1935-1941, Boris Karloff made 18 movies for Universal. Do you think a Karloff set would also be in the works which may include The Old Dark House?

 

[Mark Zimmer]

IIRC, Universal sold off all rights to OLD DARK HOUSE ('32) to William Castle so he could do his mostly-forgotten remake. So chances of a set with other Universal Karloff releases are pretty slim.

 

[Matt Stieg]

A clip of The Old Dark House appears in the Kevin Brownlow documentary "Universal Horror" and looks much better than the DVD transfer. The Kino DVD isn't bad but apparently the film could look better as evidenced by the documentary.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

The Kino disc is transferred from William K. Everson's personal 16mm print, as Universal refused to let them use their 35mm materials. From a post by Norman Hill of Subversive Cinema, at the Mobius board:


Thanks much, Universal...

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I was told that Universal has excellent 35mm materials on this film, including the original nitrate fine grain. It's a shame they won't allow access to them...