Samuel Bronston's titles "55 days at Peking", "El Cid", "Fall of the Roman (1 Viewer)

[Perry L William]

Hello,

I was thinking about purchasing these titles in region 2 (pal). However, there were rumors that these titles would be released in region 1. My question is how is the video quality in region 2? and does the region 2 offer two channel stereo?

 

[Patrick McCart]

I caught "The Fall of the Roman Empire" on Turner Classic Movies the other day, and it was a beautiful transfer. Is this reflective of the foreign DVD?

(It was 2.20:1, too)

 

[DieterW]

I bought the Spanish DVD of El Cid a while back. Quality is OK. Normal price is €15, though I managed to buy it for only €4,95 when there were sales.

http://www.dvdgo.com/product.asp?cat...t=1&dvd=El+Cid

El Cid is available in other EU countries as well, but this is the DVD I have in my collection.

 

[Ken New]

I bought all three of the movies you mention from the German branch of Amazon about two years ago. A friend also purchased 'The Magnificent Showman' from the same source - I think. It's German anyway.

Here's what's not so good about them: They're in mono. There are no extras (unless you count the German langauge trailers). There's no add-ons like play-in music or intermission music.

Here's what's good about them: They're in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen (not exactly right, I know). There are no forced subtitles (I've heard rumours that on the French versions you can't get rid of the French subtitles when watching with an English soundtrack.) Transfers are pretty good.

Above all, it's the Bronston epics; they're on DVD, they're in widescreen even if they're not quite OAR and that's more than we've had before, even on VHS. And it's more than we're likely to get for a long time into the future. I've been buying DVDs for nearly six years and chasing up rumours for nearly that long on HTF about a possible Miramax release and I got fed up asking myself 'How much longer?'

'Some nations have not lasted as long as it took Rome to fall on DVD.'

 

[AlexHL]

I used to have the Dutch region 2 DVDs (Video/Film Express) of El Cid and Roman Empire. They are very similar to Ken's DVDs, though these obviously contain Dutch subs. Pic quality is very good IMO. Audio is DD 2.0 but I don't know if that means stereo or two channel mono.

 

[Douglas R]

These were all re-issued recently in Germany. EL CID & FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE are both in 2 channel stereo. 55 DAYS IN PEKING is mono. El CID includes Overture, Entr'Acte and Exit music but omits the music which leads into the Intermission. 55 DAYS IN PEKING includes Overture and Exit music.

 

[Ken New]

Darn it! Thanks Douglas, it looks like I bought too early. I would have loved a bit more of the Rozsa and Tiomkin music. Who knew...

Still, I guess I'll stick with I've got until somebody (Miramax?) gets their act together and comes out with a special edition. Or something.

 

[Perry L William]

Doug are the German re-issues Widescreen?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

There's a very easy way to get rid of this minor annoyance, if you run the disc through DVDShrink and get rid of the subtitles, then burn the film to a blank DVD.

 

[Douglas R]

Yes. They are 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.

 

[Doug Bull]

Don't touch the PAL region 4 versions, as with the exception of Fall of the Roman Empire, which is 2.35 NON Anamorphic( 2 track Stereo )all the others are 4:3 PAN AND SCAN and poor quality as well.

Hopefully region 1 will get proper versions sometime in the not too distant future.
Last I heard was that they were having problems finding decent source material.