Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 9 Movie Collection (1 Viewer)

I’m curious about this collection. I wonder what the quality would be. Some of these titles are pretty good. Escape in the Fog is a fun B-Noir. I also wonder about a volume 2.
See on Amazon

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There are several really good movies in this set including Address Unknown and The Black Book.

They've all been issued by Sony via either their MOD DVD-r series (variously know as "Collector's Choice," "Screen Classic" etc.) and in one case (The Killer that Stalked New York) in Bad Girls of Film Noir Vol. 1. DVD Beaver has screen shots of all of them. If these are licensed (by Kit Parker, going by the Amazon listing) HD versions of the same Sony/Columbia transfers I'd say this would be most welcome and a great bargain.

Ill probably get this
You know what would be really cool
A Blu ray set of The Whistler movies !
Im happy that they even got DVD releases,.. and they look great, so imagine them in HD !!

Great set, hope the transfers are good. Highlights are The Black Book (John Alton) and The Miami Story

Paul Penna said:

They've all been issued by Sony via either their MOD DVD-r series (variously know as "Collector's Choice," "Screen Classic" etc.) and in one case (The Killer that Stalked New York) in Bad Girls of Film Noir Vol. 1. DVD Beaver has screen shots of all of them. If these are licensed (by Kit Parker, going by the Amazon listing) HD versions of the same Sony/Columbia transfers I'd say this would be most welcome and a great bargain.

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The Bummer is I paid a premium for some of these titles through the MOD program, Escape from the Fog, 711, but if the transfers are better I'm okay with that

Does anybody know anything about this Kit Parker outfit that's releasing this Blu-ray collection?

Robert Crawford said:

Does anybody know anything about this Kit Parker outfit that's releasing this Blu-ray collection?

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Pretty much my question also

Robert Crawford said:

Does anybody know anything about this Kit Parker outfit that's releasing this Blu-ray collection?

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They've been around a long time, I had some dealings with them when they were handling repertory titles for theatrical back in the 90s. Their Hammer Noir DVD sets were very nice.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_...rch-alias=aps&field-keywords=Kit+Parker+Films

All about Kit Parker Films.

I'm really looking forward to this collection!

Now I'm intensely interested in this collection; it might be something that would be worth reviewing!

Hmm..........9 movies on three discs.......... that's kind of tight.

Trancas said:

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Hmm..........9 movies on three discs.......... that's kind of tight.

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These movies are relatively short, black and white and most if not all of them will have black bars over ca. 25% of the picture area so if done properly they should do fine with an average bitrate of about 22 to 24 Mbps when BD50 space gets maxed out. This may not be perfect for grain reproduction but it would still be a bit more than what was available for Lawrence of Arabia and I cannot remember many complaints about bitrate for LoA.

Trancas said:

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Hmm..........9 movies on three discs.......... that's kind of tight.

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Seven of the nine movies are less than 85 minutes each. Another one is 89 minutes with the ninth one being 102 minutes. Three discs should be just fine.

Robert Crawford said:

Seven of the nine movies are less than 85 minutes each. Another one is 89 minutes with the ninth one being 102 minutes. Three discs should be just fine.

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I wouldn't get my hopes up.
The only blu-rays that I see from Kit Parker Films are " The French Way" (1945) with Josephine Baker and “Boss” (1975) written, produced by (and starring) Fred Williamson.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-French-Way-Blu-ray/203900/#Review
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/dvd_reviews_67/the_french_way_blu-ray.htm
http://doblu.com/2018/08/15/boss-1975-blu-ray-review/

Reviews about both films seem to say about the same thing: “waxy and possibly digitized with blown-out whites and a fuzzy kind of grain” or “Sharpness is low and resolution struggles to reach an acceptable tier.”

Both blu-rays were released this year.

Trancas said:

I wouldn't get my hopes up.
The only blu-rays that I see from Kit Parker Films are " The French Way" (1945) with Josephine Baker and “Boss” (1975) written, produced by (and starring) Fred Williamson.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-French-Way-Blu-ray/203900/#Review
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/dvd_reviews_67/the_french_way_blu-ray.htm
http://doblu.com/2018/08/15/boss-1975-blu-ray-review/

Reviews about both films seem to say about the same thing: “waxy and possibly digitized with blown-out whites and a fuzzy kind of grain” or “Sharpness is low and resolution struggles to reach an acceptable tier.”

Both blu-rays were released this year.

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I was only saying that three discs should be fine for these particular nine movies. I'm not buying this BD release until I see some reviews or read some comments from others on this forum. I've learned my lessons from dealing with companies like Film Detective.

Trancas said:

Hmm..........9 movies on three discs.......... that's kind of tight.

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Not really: These are all B&W, with mono audio and all but one in Academy ratio. The shortest is 65 minutes long and most are around 80 minutes. At this price point I'm sure they'll come with few or no extras; at most, just a booklet would be fine by me. Heck, at a stretch I'd even be ok with lossy audio, as most are B-movies and won't have the most dynamic soundtracks anyway.

I've always wanted to see old films released on BD like this. Naming no names, but there are an inordinate number of releases based on just one similarly-specced film but padded out with a bunch of extras that in reality, few buyers are ever going to bother with. There's at least one premium-priced BD featuring a single sub-one hour film! In such cases there should be at least one extra 'cheaper' film (in terms of cost of transfer, licensing, etc) included on the disc. I think such releases are a waste of BD's capacity and remind me of the early days of CD. They promised the high price would be offset by CD's 80-minute capacity and allow for many added extras – then proceeded to release countless barebone albums anyway, with many as short as 30-odd minutes!

ClassicFlix releasing a vanilla version of their three-disc John Alton Film Noir Collection, with all three films on one disc, was a fantastic move, and definitely the way forward.

Trancas said:

I wouldn't get my hopes up.
The only blu-rays that I see from Kit Parker Films are " The French Way" (1945) with Josephine Baker and “Boss” (1975) written, produced by (and starring) Fred Williamson.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-French-Way-Blu-ray/203900/#Review
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/dvd_reviews_67/the_french_way_blu-ray.htm
http://doblu.com/2018/08/15/boss-1975-blu-ray-review/

Reviews about both films seem to say about the same thing: “waxy and possibly digitized with blown-out whites and a fuzzy kind of grain” or “Sharpness is low and resolution struggles to reach an acceptable tier.”

Both blu-rays were released this year.

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Looks as if it was painted in watercolors:
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.php?movieid=203900&position=3

OliverK said:

Looks as if it was painted in watercolors:
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.php?movieid=203900&position=3

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Ugh !

I contacted Kit Parker by e-mail. I encouraged him strongly but politely not to use DNR or video processing on the Sony/Columbia noirs like what happened on The French Way.

Here is his response back to me.

Many thanks for taking the time to write. We are using the Sony masters as-is, and I agree with you about the overuse of DNR. The French Way came to us “waxy,” but I was forgiving because it was restored from a beat up old print; the final result is surprisingly good.

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So the masters from Sony won't be processed in any way.