Thank You, Universal, For Your Recent Catalog Blu-rays! (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

What? No love for Tammy and the Bachelor or Sweet Charity? We need a new Blu of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas too (not a 'classic' or 'deep' catalog) but necessary remaster. Shenandoah, The Time of Their Lives, Revenge of the Creature, The Heiress, The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Three Smart Girls, Can't Help Singing, One Night in the Tropics, Who Done It?, Hold That Ghost, One Hundred Men and a Girl, Spring Parade, Midnight Lace, Six Weeks...and on and on - to say nothing of a new transfer for Death Becomes Her. There is NO excuse for a movie from 1992 to look as poor as this on Blu-ray!

Uni is waaaaay behind the eight ball with regards to its proactive stance on its rich heritage. That they never launched their own 'archive' or conspired consistently with a third party distributor like Criterion or Twilight Time to offer us 'quality' releases culled from new masters is absurd, for starters, and downright obscene - full stop! And let's get real for a moment; the masters they continue to offer Shout! are pretty spotty at best, to downright misfires at their worst. Yuck and who needs it?!?

Their present releases of For Whom The Bell Tolls, and, The Paper are a travesty. No color correction, restoration, realignment of 3-strip Technicolor for the first, a digitally harsh transfer on the latter with plenty of edge effects. But let's get serious here - if they cannot even be moved to remaster a movie like Field of Dreams - one of their biggest and brightest money makers (the current Blu-ray is woefully below par) then can we honestly expect they will lift the proverbial finger to do right by these aforementioned 'more obscure' titles? Don't even get me started on their Marx Bros. set - Horse Feathers, Animal Crackers and Monkey Business in desperate need of image stabilization without edge effects!

If you haven't already guessed, folks. I am decidedly NOT a fan of Universal or any studio still under the mismanaged belief it can flimflam the public with less than quality releases. To some extent, all of the majors are guilty of this practice, though none more egregiously so than Universal. Resources are always the issue. Time and money. It is required and doesn't come cheap. But it's necessary and never more pressing than today. The archived elements are not going to 'improve' with age, folks. They will only continue to deteriorate until the day will come when no such restorations, however well intended, will be possible!

Can we honestly afford to lose the films of a James Stewart or a Preston Sturges? Is there anyone here who thinks the world of entertainment will be just as rich if we lose a movie like The Glenn Miller Story or Christmas in July through neglect? Does any of this make sense in a sane world?

One can argue they are still 'in the game' as it were, what with very sporadic releases like Cleopatra and The Egg and I (the latter suffering from two glaring digital anomalies and an overly processed look, but at least relatively free of age-related artifacts and nicely crisp). But for every such release, Uni just seems to dump a lot of catalog on the market, either via their own release or through Shout!, hoping nobody is paying strict attention to quality, per say, or lack thereof for sure.

And worst of all, they begin projects without actually finishing them - the Preston Sturges' releases via Criterion a prime example (where are the rest?!?) or the Universal Monsters franchise. Re-releasing box sets that have the same movies in them over and over again, with two or three new to Blu add-ons is really dumb.

I've bought the Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man sets and now, in addition to my original copy, have three extra discs of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein! The Mummy set came with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Apparently Uni doesn't think much of A&C to rate a box set of their own, despite the fact the dynamic comedy duo were responsible for keeping Universal in the black throughout the 1940's and are deserving of a lavishly appointed treatment exclusively devoted to them! Ditto for Deanna Durbin musicals.

Uni would have gone the way of RKO without Durbin, A&C and their monster mash-ups. Yet none of these 'franchises' has been completed on home video in 1080p. For shame! Also, with regards to 'the monsters' we are still awaiting comprehensive collections for The Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Really? What happened there?!?!

Finally, it's high time Uni did something about their hit or miss Hitchcock set. Again, Hitchcock is not an obscure figure in American cinema, but you would never guess it from Uni's handling of the transfers on The Man Who Knew Too Much (one of the master's biggest and most popular films) and Marnie (not a hit, but ridiculously flawed on Blu at present). Uni's executive mentality here appears to have been that sets sell better than singles (although singles were released later on), so get the stuff out there for consumption and to hell with maintaining consistent quality control across the board. If one or two movies look worse for the wear, so be it. They'll hopefully be overlooked in favor of the ones that appear to have been paid moderate care. Right? Wrong! Half-cocked is still half-cocked, folks, and frankly, in my not so humble opinion...it stinks!

Also regarding their Hitchcock set, billed as a comprehensive look at the master's 50's output: why no one at Uni bothered to try and secure the loan out rights to To Catch a Thief, when they clearly did as much for North by Northwest, is beyond me. A Hitchcock 50's set without To Catch a Thief...are you serious?!?

It's 2018 - not 1980, the year most every studio finally got on the band wagon with a home video apparatus to market and distribute their own (VHS) catalog - at least for rent (sell thru to follow in 1983). We're not talking about nostalgia here.

In most cases, we are decidedly referring to cinema art and heritage - a collective past being expunged by shortsightedness and a decided lack of interest in anything that cannot immediately earn back its cost - plus. I keep referencing the Warner Archive as an exemplar in this digital age; the only studio to consistently invest in remastering efforts that slowly trickle out via WAC on properly minted Blu-ray discs. Uni's discs...they cannot even give us a main menu, chapter stops or a theatrical trailer as a - 'choke' extra.

As the technological wizardry of TV displays, projector set-ups and the like continue to advance, the sad truth is that the upkeep in archiving deep catalog titles able to meet and exceed these demands on home video continues to lag desperately behind. What is the point of having a 4K set-up when the content being offered isn't even up to basic 1080p standards? Disgusting!

That's a lot to take in. First, Universal did make a (weak) attempt at an Archive series with Universal Vault, but only on DVD. I wish they had tried to go Blu with this, but their hearts were probably not into developing the means of promoting and distributing them in the way the Warner Archives does.

Some of the titles in your first paragraph are available as Blu-rays in Europe. I just picked up THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER and MASK (1985), and have owned a number of others for a while, including TARANTULA, MONOLITH MONSTERS, WINCHESTER '73, THE LAND UNKNOWN, and THIS ISLAND EARTH. They all look quite acceptable to me, although the last one could sure use a new negative scan to bring out the original Technicolor hues.

I concur with your call for remasters of some of the most egregious of the Hitchcock titles, and they need to tip their hat to W.C. Fields and Deanna Durbin and others. But they are one of the few studios that is still putting an occasional box set, and I expect THE CREATURE and INVISIBLE MAN legacy series to appear, hopefully in time for Halloween this year. I stand by the sentiments expressed in my O.P, while acknowledging that there is certainly a lot of room for improvement on the discs released.

Oh, and I like SWEET CHARITY a lot -- as I do almost anything with Bob Fosse choreography. Hoping for a Blu on that, too!

 

[Thomas T]

What? No love for Tammy and the Bachelor or Sweet Charity? We need a new Blu of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas too (not a 'classic' or 'deep' catalog) but necessary remaster. Shenandoah, The Time of Their Lives, Revenge of the Creature, The Heiress, The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Three Smart Girls, Can't Help Singing, One Night in the Tropics, Who Done It?, Hold That Ghost, One Hundred Men and a Girl, Spring Parade, Midnight Lace, Six Weeks...and on and on - to say nothing of a new transfer for Death Becomes Her. There is NO excuse for a movie from 1992 to look as poor as this on Blu-ray!

Uni is waaaaay behind the eight ball with regards to its proactive stance on its rich heritage. That they never launched their own 'archive' or conspired consistently with a third party distributor like Criterion or Twilight Time to offer us 'quality' releases culled from new masters is absurd, for starters, and downright obscene - full stop! And let's get real for a moment; the masters they continue to offer Shout! are pretty spotty at best, to downright misfires at their worst. Yuck and who needs it?!?

Their present releases of For Whom The Bell Tolls, and, The Paper are a travesty. No color correction, restoration, realignment of 3-strip Technicolor for the first, a digitally harsh transfer on the latter with plenty of edge effects. But let's get serious here - if they cannot even be moved to remaster a movie like Field of Dreams - one of their biggest and brightest money makers (the current Blu-ray is woefully below par) then can we honestly expect they will lift the proverbial finger to do right by these aforementioned 'more obscure' titles? Don't even get me started on their Marx Bros. set - Horse Feathers, Animal Crackers and Monkey Business in desperate need of image stabilization without edge effects!

If you haven't already guessed, folks. I am decidedly NOT a fan of Universal or any studio still under the mismanaged belief it can flimflam the public with less than quality releases. To some extent, all of the majors are guilty of this practice, though none more egregiously so than Universal. Resources are always the issue. Time and money. It is required and doesn't come cheap. But it's necessary and never more pressing than today. The archived elements are not going to 'improve' with age, folks. They will only continue to deteriorate until the day will come when no such restorations, however well intended, will be possible!

Can we honestly afford to lose the films of a James Stewart or a Preston Sturges? Is there anyone here who thinks the world of entertainment will be just as rich if we lose a movie like The Glenn Miller Story or Christmas in July through neglect? Does any of this make sense in a sane world?

One can argue they are still 'in the game' as it were, what with very sporadic releases like Cleopatra and The Egg and I (the latter suffering from two glaring digital anomalies and an overly processed look, but at least relatively free of age-related artifacts and nicely crisp). But for every such release, Uni just seems to dump a lot of catalog on the market, either via their own release or through Shout!, hoping nobody is paying strict attention to quality, per say, or lack thereof for sure.

And worst of all, they begin projects without actually finishing them - the Preston Sturges' releases via Criterion a prime example (where are the rest?!?) or the Universal Monsters franchise. Re-releasing box sets that have the same movies in them over and over again, with two or three new to Blu add-ons is really dumb.

I've bought the Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf Man sets and now, in addition to my original copy, have three extra discs of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein! The Mummy set came with Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. Apparently Uni doesn't think much of A&C to rate a box set of their own, despite the fact the dynamic comedy duo were responsible for keeping Universal in the black throughout the 1940's and are deserving of a lavishly appointed treatment exclusively devoted to them! Ditto for Deanna Durbin musicals.

Uni would have gone the way of RKO without Durbin, A&C and their monster mash-ups. Yet none of these 'franchises' has been completed on home video in 1080p. For shame! Also, with regards to 'the monsters' we are still awaiting comprehensive collections for The Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Really? What happened there?!?!

Finally, it's high time Uni did something about their hit or miss Hitchcock set. Again, Hitchcock is not an obscure figure in American cinema, but you would never guess it from Uni's handling of the transfers on The Man Who Knew Too Much (one of the master's biggest and most popular films) and Marnie (not a hit, but ridiculously flawed on Blu at present). Uni's executive mentality here appears to have been that sets sell better than singles (although singles were released later on), so get the stuff out there for consumption and to hell with maintaining consistent quality control across the board. If one or two movies look worse for the wear, so be it. They'll hopefully be overlooked in favor of the ones that appear to have been paid moderate care. Right? Wrong! Half-cocked is still half-cocked, folks, and frankly, in my not so humble opinion...it stinks!

Also regarding their Hitchcock set, billed as a comprehensive look at the master's 50's output: why no one at Uni bothered to try and secure the loan out rights to To Catch a Thief, when they clearly did as much for North by Northwest, is beyond me. A Hitchcock 50's set without To Catch a Thief...are you serious?!?

It's 2018 - not 1980, the year most every studio finally got on the band wagon with a home video apparatus to market and distribute their own (VHS) catalog - at least for rent (sell thru to follow in 1983). We're not talking about nostalgia here.

In most cases, we are decidedly referring to cinema art and heritage - a collective past being expunged by shortsightedness and a decided lack of interest in anything that cannot immediately earn back its cost - plus. I keep referencing the Warner Archive as an exemplar in this digital age; the only studio to consistently invest in remastering efforts that slowly trickle out via WAC on properly minted Blu-ray discs. Uni's discs...they cannot even give us a main menu, chapter stops or a theatrical trailer as a - 'choke' extra.

As the technological wizardry of TV displays, projector set-ups and the like continue to advance, the sad truth is that the upkeep in archiving deep catalog titles able to meet and exceed these demands on home video continues to lag desperately behind. What is the point of having a 4K set-up when the content being offered isn't even up to basic 1080p standards? Disgusting!

As we, the baby boomers, enter our dotage, it's become increasingly clear that interest in classic cinema (outside of the usual suspects like Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, Wizard Of Oz etc.) is at an all time low. When in a recent episode of Jeopardy!, none of the contestants in final Jeopardy! could identify Casablanca (they were all millennials), it's clear it's not the focus of the new generation. I suspect if we took a poll of the average age of the HTFer, it would most likely be over 50. We are the demographic of these "older" titles but it's a fantasy to think that Universal is going to shell out big bucks to restore Deanna Durbin's catalog. But that has about as much chance of happening as Fox restoring Betty Grable's musicals and putting them out on blu ray! The market is dwindling and the majority of corporate studios are concerned with profits and not saving "Art" for future generations.

 

[Dick]

One thing has to be noted in passing...an anthology set of the Struges films you mention would have to require the participation of two entities. While EMKA/Universal Television does indeed hold rights to the first three titles, “...Morgan’s Creek” is still held by Paramount due to a deal involving remake rights since Paramount did not want EMKA to redo a property that should be rightfully theirs.

Which is why we may never see it on Blu.

 

[Nick*Z]

As we, the baby boomers, enter our dotage, it's become increasingly clear that interest in classic cinema (outside of the usual suspects like Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, Wizard Of Oz etc.) is at an all time low. When in a recent episode of Jeopardy!, none of the contestants in final Jeopardy! could identify Casablanca (they were all millennials), it's clear it's not the focus of the new generation. I suspect if we took a poll of the average age of the HTFer, it would most likely be over 50. We are the demographic of these "older" titles but it's a fantasy to think that Universal is going to shell out big bucks to restore Deanna Durbin's catalog. But that has about as much chance of happening as Fox restoring Betty Grable's musicals and putting them out on blu ray! The market is dwindling and the majority of corporate studios are concerned with profits and not saving "Art" for future generations.

Thomas: I think also we are both forgetting one thing, that the proliferation of classics on TV is virtually non-existent today. Save TCM and a few other specialty cable channels, the general public never gets to see 'old movies' on TV anymore. I was not around when any of these golden oldies were originally released, but, as a child of the 1970's, I can honestly say a lot of this stuff found its way to my 3 channel basic television programming, filling the airwaves during 'down time' or after the late night news.

I remember the Abbott and Costello Sunday Morning Movie, followed by serials of Blondie and Sherlock Holmes. Then there was Bill Kennedy at the Movies, the Saturday Afternoon Matinee on ABC (where I saw Grand Hotel, Random Harvest, Casablanca, Now Voyager, Rebecca among many others), and the Saturday Double Creature Feature on CBS (where I saw, among others, Psycho, The Birds, This Island Earth and the original The Blob for the very first time), to say nothing of after school reruns of The Three Stooges, and finally, The Twilight Zone after Carson and the late night news.

The public needs to be reawakened to classics to whet their appetite. This is precisely what occurred in the 1970s and 80s, thanks in part to anthology films like That's Entertainment! and That's Dancing!, and the aforementioned ever-presence of great stuff being reconstituted with commercial interruptions on basic TV. If you don't have cable or satellite you aren't seeing TCM or the other commercial free classic channels. I suspect the public 'interest' would increase if the exposure did too.

In 1977, at the age of 9 mind you, I didn't know who Cecil B. DeMille was, but I certainly tuned in every Easter for The Ten Commandments. I didn't realize Judy Garland had 'a career'. She was just the beloved girl who was swept away by a tornado annually in The Wizard of Oz. The proliferation and fragmentation of programming via endless specialty channels has compartmentalized nostalgia to the point of extinction.

 

[albert_m2]

Also regarding their Hitchcock set, billed as a comprehensive look at the master's 50's output: why no one at Uni bothered to try and secure the loan out rights to To Catch a Thief, when they clearly did as much for North by Northwest, is beyond me. A Hitchcock 50's set without To Catch a Thief...are you serious?!?

North by Northwest was included because of a deal that Universal did with WB (basically a film exchange) if I recall correctly.

Also, it's not a "50s" set. Universal's Hitch sets are all of their Hitch films. Though they did release a smaller collection of some his really big films, but again, it wasn't a "50s" collection.

 

[Mike Frezon]

When in a recent episode of Jeopardy!, none of the contestants in final Jeopardy! could identify Casablanca (they were all millennials), it's clear it's not the focus of the new generation. I suspect if we took a poll of the average age of the HTFer, it would most likely be over 50. We are the demographic of these "older" titles

I gotta admit, I saw that episode of Jeopardy. I figured with a Final Category of "Film & War" I was all set and probably would have bet everything I had.

Here was the Answer:

The New York premiere of this film was on Thanksgiving, 15 days after the liberation of its title place

And I could not come up with the question.

Not having any time reference outside of Thanksgiving I drew a total blank. Not a thing in that clue clicked for me! I was glad NOT to have been a contestant on that episode or else the embarrassment would have been severe.

 

[Worth]

Not much has changed in the last 35 years...

http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/casablanca_rejected

 

[Thomas T]

I gotta admit, I saw that episode of Jeopardy. I figured with a Final Category of "Film & War" I was all set and probably would have bet everything I had.

Here was the Answer:



And I could not come up with the question.

Not having any time reference outside of Thanksgiving I drew a total blank. Not a thing in that clue clicked for me! I was glad NOT to have been a contestant on that episode or else the embarrassment would have been severe.

The "title place" was a giveaway and "liberation" sealed it for me. I can see how it might have been difficult for non film buffs but .....

 

[Mike Frezon]

The "title place" was a giveaway and "liberation" sealed it for me. I can see how it might have been difficult for non film buffs but .....

Like I said...

 

[Mike Frezon]

I picked up Cleopatra and it’s a great film. Looks wonderful and doesn’t look 80 years old. Colbert isn’t Taylor in the role but she plays with her own spunk and is definitely lovely to look at. I recommend it to anyone on the fence.

It does look wonderful, and I think it's Henry Wilcoxon's best screen work.

This keeps staring back at me from my "To Watch" stack. I gotta get to it.

The 1934 Cleopatra finally won the staring contest. I blinked and I watched this fine film tonight.

Wow. Matt's not kidding when he says it looks wonderful. Timothy, too, when he says it doesn't look 80 years old. I was stunned by how good this film looks--especially after watching 1943's The Outlaw a few days ago. LOVED Colbert as Cleopatra. Lots of other lovely ladies, too. This film must've been rather scandalous back in it's day.

 

[Alan Tully]

I also love the recent Cleopatra, which to my eyes looks a bit better than the UK blu of a few years ago. I so hope that this restoration project will include other classic DeMille's like Sign of the Cross, The Crusades, Union Pacific and Unconquered.

I had quick look through the German Blu-ray release of Unconquered & think it looks splendid, sharp, solid forties colours, no fringing, probably an old master, but it really does look good (& it's only 13 euros). It states region B on the back cover, I don't know if it's locked, I know some German releases say B but still play in A machines, I have no way to check.

https://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=11828&d2=11827&s1=116558&s2=116550&i=0&l=0&a=1

...& I thought that the DVD looked so good at the time! (& the colours on the actual Blu look better than the Blu caps shown).

Anyway let's hope that Reap The Wild Wind also gets a German release, it's just the sort of thing they do & I know it has a great HD master as it's been on TV a few times.

 

[MarkA]

Have there been any reviews of the Blu-ray release of "The Thrill of it All"? Wondering if it is worth an upgrade. Thanks!

 

[Ed Lachmann]

LOVED Colbert as Cleopatra. Lots of other lovely ladies, too. This film must've been rather scandalous back in it's day.

Check out DeMille's The Sign of the Cross with Colbert bathing in the infamous "asses milk" sequence as well as all the nudity and lovely ladies in the arena sequence. Much more scandalous than Cleo. PLEASE, Universal, do release a blu-ray of Sign of the Cross if at all possible.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Ed:

If they release it, I will buy it. For sure. I've seen plenty clips of that sequence on YT.

I think Colbert is spectacular. She was quite a talent.

 

[JohnMor]

Have there been any reviews of the Blu-ray release of "The Thrill of it All"? Wondering if it is worth an upgrade. Thanks!

Haven’t seen any reviews, but it’s a step up from the dvd. NOT a night and day difference but a bit of an improvement for both video and audio. Looks to my eyes like an older transfer. Probably done at the time of the Day/Hudson comedies. The disc drops the trailer from the dvd and it has no menu.

 

[Alan Tully]

Yeah, it sounds like the same as The List Of Adrian Messinger, barebones & old master. I had the UK DVD of Messinger & it looked very nice, so the Blu-ray looks a bit nicer, but as you say, not night & day.

 

[MarkA]

Haven’t seen any reviews, but it’s a step up from the dvd. NOT a night and day difference but a bit of an improvement for both video and audio. Looks to my eyes like an older transfer. Probably done at the time of the Day/Hudson comedies. The disc drops the trailer from the dvd and it has no menu.

Thanks for letting me know. Might not be worth an upgrade to me then.

 

[Matt Hough]

Speaking of Universal catalog Blu-rays, tonight I took out my HD-DVD of The Sting to watch. I had read a review of the Blu-ray which mentioned the use of DNR to reduce the moderate grain structure of the image, so I had avoided it and continued watching the HD-DVD version all these years which seemed (despite an occasional dust and dirt speck) truer to the original film that I adored. Anyway, tonight my HD-DVD seized up about ten minutes into the film and wouldn't play any further. Inspection revealed several blotches having formed underneath the surface of the disc rendering it useless. So, tonight I reluctantly put in my order for the Blu-ray version which will arrive Saturday.

 

[Dick]

Have there been any reviews of the Blu-ray release of "The Thrill of it All"? Wondering if it is worth an upgrade. Thanks!

I have this release. It looks pretty good, except the flesh tones lean toward pink and there is occasional color fading. It's certainly sharp enough and hasn't been scrubbed of grain. Black levels are acceptable. Mono sound is perfectly clear. This has been my favorite Doris Day movie. Add James Garner and a funny script and it simply gels.

 

[MarkA]

I have this release. It looks pretty good, except the flesh tones lean toward pink and there is occasional color fading. It's certainly sharp enough and hasn't been scrubbed of grain. Black levels are acceptable. Mono sound is perfectly clear. This has been my favorite Doris Day movie. Add James Garner and a funny script and it simply gels.

Is it worth an upgrade from the DVD or did you not have the DVD?
Thanks!