I recently saw Hitchcock's The 39 steps for sale for 1.00 at the Dollar Tree. This came in a cardboard envelope with no case. I didn't have the time to look at the specifics of the disc, and was wondering if any one has any information on the quality of the disc. I'm not sure who released it as well, but thought for a dollar, I would pick it up. Especially considering that I've never seen the film.
It's probably one of the cheap "public domain" versions of the film that sell for about $5, e.g., this LaserLight version. I have the Criterion version. Can't comment on the quality of the others.
I've picked up a few of these, the only one I've watched so far is Abbott & Costello on the Colgate Comedy Hour. It's a black-and-white kinescope (these are always frustrating since you know how good they looked going out live, but videotape didn't exist yet), but very decent for a buck. At 99-Cents-Only Stores they've got some cartoon ones also, I've just looked briefly at them and they look like they were taken from VHS tapes. Still hard to turn anything down for under a buck though as long as it actually plays!
I picked up the original D.O.A. at my local Dollar Tree, and was horrified by how awful it was. Blurry, misframed, audio muffled and nearly unintelligible.... Man, it was ugly, even worse than my cheap VHS copy. A bright ending to this unfortunate tale: I traded it in at Blockbuster Video and got KILL BILL volume 1 for $12.99!
Hmm. Even at a buck, that's a buck too much, in my opinion. The quality of these is terrible, usually, so why would anyone want to sully their collection?? Sometimes a buck can be the most costly price.
I think the intention here was just to see the movie, and then if he liked it he'd buy a better version. For a dollar, buying the movie was cheaper than renting it.
