260 Eyes Without a Face

[Props55]

I suspect you're both right as regards the censorship issue and the missing scene is just an random anomoly.
I was sure such an innocuous scene would pass stateside and even the much more strenuous BBFC but I should have made clear that my curiousity was with regard to any French censorship measures.

What's even more curious to me is that there was a similar situation which came up after the release of the MoC JUDEX several years ago. Someone discovered additional footage (less than a minute or two) of the detective and the kid in a stateside PD release (Sinister Cinema?) which was never really accounted for even after checking the original press and distributor runtimes and matching them to the vault negitive and prints which were the basis for the various region-coded editions released at that time.

Perhaps it's all due to Franju gremlins!

[MichaelB]

What's even more curious to me is that there was a similar situation which came up after the release of the MoC JUDEX several years ago. Someone discovered additional footage (less than a minute or two) of the detective and the kid in a stateside PD release (Sinister Cinema?) which was never really accounted for even after checking the original press and distributor runtimes and matching them to the vault negitive and prints which were the basis for the various region-coded editions released at that time.

It sounds like a similar situation to Salò, where an additional scene popped up in the 35mm print held by the BFI National Archive that is not in any other version that I'm aware of - including the original camera negative stored at Technicolor in Rome, from which the HD master used for various Blu-rays was struck. And I don't think anyone's satisfactorily explained its existence.

[peerpee]

What's even more curious to me is that there was a similar situation which came up after the release of the MoC JUDEX several years ago. Someone discovered additional footage (less than a minute or two) of the detective and the kid in a stateside PD release (Sinister Cinema?) which was never really accounted for even after checking the original press and distributor runtimes and matching them to the vault negitive and prints which were the basis for the various region-coded editions released at that time.

Perhaps it's all due to Franju gremlins!

It was pretty well accounted for, I thought. I received this reply from the film's owner Jacques Champreux, and posted it in the MoC JUDEX thread:

Dear Mr. Wrigley,

I'm very surprised by your mail. I've never heard about another version of « JUDEX » with a different cut like this.
I can affirm that the French DVD and MoC DVD is absolutely conformable to the original negative as cut by Georges Franju himself and Gilbert Natot and kept in the lab Eclair.
The version of « JUDEX » you can see in the DVD is exactly the same as the one that Franju approved and saw in 1963 at the Cinémathèque Française, at the time of the first official screening in the world of that film.
Since, nothing has been changed.
I suppose that, before this official screening, a print was normally established and next after seeing it, a refining out of the cutting of some sequences was decided. And then that refused print has been commercially exploited, without Franju's knowledge. There are no neglectable savings for the producers
It seems to me that the result of the cuts you indicate is to improve the rhythm of the concerned sequences.

With my best regards
Jacques CHAMPREUX

[Props55]

Yes, that's it! Thanks Nick!

So in the case of JUDEX a pre-release cut was purloined and made its way into the collectors greymarket. Perhaps the same for EWaF.

[Stefan Andersson]

davidhare:

Have you seen this discussion over at DVDClassik re: a scene missing from the Gaumont Eyes Without a Face Blu?
http://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewtop ... &start=405" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Check out posts by "todslaughter". One of them includes screencaps from the missing scene (taken from the Crit DVD), with the dog handler returning a missing dog to Dr. Genessier, who puts it in a cage.

Jerome replied several times to this issue. He says the Gaumont BR is taken from a newer master than the Crit DVD, and speculates that the missing scene may now be missing from 35mm elements also. The newer master = the showing of the film at Cannes in 2009. But the does think that the missing scene is a bizarre issue, so I believe he will be investigating further.

[dwk]

Beaver on the Blu-ray

[Max von Mayerling]

Personally, all I care about is how Blood of the Beasts looks. I'd love to see screen caps of that.

[_shadow_]

I don't see that any online review has commented on whether the scene missing in the Gaumont Blu is present in the Criterion Blu upgrade; the only related indication is the identical runtime with the DVD indicated on DVD Beaver. Can anyone confirm that the scene has been retained from DVD?

[twicebilled]

I don't see that any online review has commented on whether the scene missing in the Gaumont Blu is present in the Criterion Blu upgrade; the only related indication is the identical runtime with the DVD indicated on DVD Beaver. Can anyone confirm that the scene has been retained from DVD?

Having watched this the other day, I can confirm the scene Rupert posted is in the criterion blu release.

[HerrSchreck]

Has anybody around here either seen or heard of a DVD release of the english dubbed cut of the film which went on the road with the sublime The Manster? It was called, as we all know, The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.

[Orlac]

Has anybody around here either seen or heard of a DVD release of the english dubbed cut of the film which went on the road with the sublime The Manster? It was called, as we all know, The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.

Sadly not. I'd like to see it, if just for the giggle factor.

[tenia]

Blu-ray.com has posted the review and includes 5 caps of Blood of the Beasts. It is indeed a new restoration but it seems not to be especially overwhelming.

[_shadow_]

You can find the Horror Chamber here, just skip the bookends.

[Finch]

4K upgrade in October, SDR only

[hearthesilence]

4K upgrade in October, SDR only

Kind of stunned by this. Umbrella's 4K has HDR and DV - I was under the impression it was a good HDR grade too, or am I mistaken about that?

[Finch]

I liked the DV grade on Umbrella's 4K.

[denti alligator]

Reason for SDR only? Laziness? Error? Licensing?

[DimitriL]

Or like Sofia Coppola's choice on The Virgin Suicides, they decided that the increased HDR did not represent the original source or didn't particularly add anything. (I was just thinking about this site's review of the Glenn Gould 4k, where the reviewer is actually shocked that it's SDR because its range is so stunning.)

[hearthesilence]

4K upgrade in October, SDR only

Kind of stunned by this. Umbrella's 4K has HDR and DV - I was under the impression it was a good HDR grade too, or am I mistaken about that?

So I guess the restoration was originally done in SDR, hence Criterion's decision to leave it as-is.

[MichaelB]

The BFI version is also HDR and DV.

Here's the relevant bit in the booklet:

Eyes Without a Face was scanned and restored in 4K resolution by Gaumont using the original 35mm negative and is presented in high dynamic range with Dolby Vision in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and with original mono audio.

Thanks to: Jean-Marc Zedde (Gaumont)
Technical Producers: Douglas Weir, Peter Stanley (BFI)

[Tuppence]

Does anyone know if the full final music cue is now present on the 4K? Gaumont truncated it severely for their HD master, which was replicated by the BFI and Criterion, apparently so that the audio could fade out at the same time as the image. It lessened the impact of the ending considerably.

[denti alligator]

Has anyone done a direct comparison of these?

[hearthesilence]

I can't believe there's three concurrent UHD releases and they all seem to have their caveats.

[swo17]

If you value all the short films, then you need the BFI plus either the Criterion or Umbrella. What are the pros and cons of those last two, and which of the cons don't matter if you have the BFI?

[MichaelB]

A major pro of the Criterion release is the gorgeous HD transfer of Le Sang des bêtes, which I'd only previously seen on well-worn 16mm.

But I already had the BD, so there's no reason for me to get the UHD.