The Lady From Shanghai-Worth It? (1 Viewer)

[Jake Johnson]

I've been getting into Orson Welles this past year, and he's easily one of my favorite directors of all time. Probably #2, right underneath Soderbergh. Is this title worth adding to my collection? Or will a better version be coming out soon? I don't want to buy it and have the Superbit come out a month downn the road. This is Columbia we're dealing with afterall. On another note, how's the transfer and the audio quality on the Milestone disc of "The Trial"? Any new version coming down the road?

 

[JasenP]

I can't say I've heard of any new edition arriving anytime soon, but it's a great "B" movie.

If you are a Welles fan, it's worth picking up just for the Bogdanovich audio commentary.

 

[Fredric]

This is probaby the best DVD of this film you're going to get. It's Welles so no one wants to invest the time or money to do things right, so what you have here is much better than ever expected. If somebody could dig up the original work print of LfS with the original music cues, that would be a find. Great film. With only twelve complete films to his name, you'd think we'd have at least half of them released by now in R1:

Citizen Kane: Yes
Magnificent Ambersons: No
The Stranger: Yes
Lady from Shanghai: Yes
Macbeth: No
Othello: We only have Beatrice's butchered version.
Mr. Arkadin: Corinth Version still hasn't been released. Confidential Report version is only R2.
Touch of Evil: Yes but with many supplements removed.
The Trial: Yes
Chimes at Midnight: No
The Immortal Story: No
F for Fake: No

 

[Kenneth English]

If you like Welles (or film noir) then you should absolutely buy THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. It's a great little movie and the DVD quality is just fine given the film's age. I seriously doubt we'll see a better release any time soon (if ever).

Besides, it's got Rita Hayworth! What more do you need?!?!?

 

[Enrique B Chamorro]

You can check out a comparison of the 2 versions
of The Trial here;

http://207.136.67.23/film/dvdcompare/thetrial.htm

There is also a comparison of the US vs UK Citizen Kane;

http://207.136.67.23/film/dvdcompare/citizenkane.htm

I just got the Korean version of Othello and it is the
same as the US version by Image Ent. The Korean is a R0
NTSC with the same restoration documentary as the US and
the BIG benfit is that the Korean version has fairly
accurate English Subtitles, the US lacks any subtitles.
The bit rate graphs are the same for both versions
so the Korean is really a port with subtitles.

Right now, you can only get the "studio" version of
Touch of Evil in laserdisc.

Macbeth is out on Laserdisc by Image Ent. (better picture)
and by Republic (commentary track by Bruce Eder and some
extra exit music).

Criterion made several Welles laserdiscs;
Citizen Kane (different extras vs. the DVD), F for Fake,
The Magnificent Ambersons, and Mr. Arkadin.

 

[Jake Johnson]

I heard that the Touch of Evil disc as originally supposed to have a documentary on it, among other things. What happened to these? Will we ever see a TOE disc with both versions on it, and all the special features that should be there now??

 

[Fredric]

There was also a commentary recorded for ToE, with Charlton Heston and (I think) Janet Leigh. Bea sued to have it removed along with the restoration doc.

Whoopie.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Not to mention the transfer is awful (for Touch of Evil, that is. Lady From Shanghai looks ok).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I don't actually own LFS (I've rented it a couple times and keep meaning to buy it, but you know how things go) and I was generally pleased with the quality of the DVD release. That it had a commentary was more than I would have expected for the film, but I think it's generally a solid (if unimportant) little film, and I do like it a lot.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

There's also the Don Quixote footage assembled by Jess Franco in R2, for the completists. Chimes at Midnight is out in R2 as well.