704 Riot in Cell Block 11

[Moe Dickstein]

It's just a way for him to remind us how "wonderful" he is, lest we forget. (though try try we might)

[tenia]

I'm quite sure that at some point, Wells himself is not even sure why he's using the word except by the force of habit.

[manicsounds]

blu-ray.com

[EddieLarkin]

Looks much as I expected it to.

Dismissing the "backwoods" folks who saw Riot in Academy is a bit harsh, if you ask me. If I had my druthers and compelling, indefatigable evidence were shown that the movie predominantly screened 1.85, or equally as often as Academy, then I'm first in line asking for a dual-AR edition, since Criterion opened the door with Waterfront. What a Pandora's Box that has turned out to be…

What I've seen in this thread seems to indicate it absolutely protected for 1.85, but was not composed specifically for that AR. Bob, do you have sources that quote Siegel or direct associates re: preference for 1.85?

From the 3D Film Archive Widescreen Documentation article:

On December 5, 1953, a survey of 16,753 operating indoor domestic theaters showed that 80% of downtown theaters and 69% of neighborhood theaters had installed widescreens. In total, 58% of all U.S. theaters had gone wide by the end of 1953. The conversion was slow in the Southern and North Central parts of the country and that’s why the films were still protected during photography for the standard Academy ratio.

Riot premiered a few months after this survey, so it would indeed appear that most people will have seen in it in some form of widescreen on original run. As for the suggestion that the film was merely "protected" for widescreen but composed traditionally, I've expressed before that I don't believe this is something that can realistically be achieved.

[L.A.]

Joe Dante on RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11

[Fred Holywell]

Joe Dante on RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11

This features the trailer in widescreen, btw. Also available here, without the commentary.

[ianungstad]

Worst release of the year. The cover is boring. Criterion put barely any effort into the supplements and the film itself is very mediocre. I've browsed various reviews online and most seem to agree that this movie is very middle of the road. I think the only reason Criterion licensed this from Paramount is because it's never made it's way to dvd/blu and they felt obliged to rescue the film from limbo.

TCM showed a film on it's TCM Underground program called House of Women which has very similar plot elements but set at a women's prison. A far better film for those who are interested in the subject matter.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think the movie itself is more interesting than good (though it's far from bad) but features wise I'd say this was one of the year's stronger releases- one of the very few new scholarly commentaries, good essays, and relevant excerpts from three different, fairly obscure books. That's certainly better than, say, Blue is the Warmest Color.

[Drucker]

I too enjoyed the film. Not everything Criterion releases needs to be world's greatest film. In fact, I'm sure many of us wish there were more non-canonical releases like this one. Taking a fun, semi-ignored (are there previous, legitimate/NON-PD releases of this?) film and putting it out, nothing wrong with that. Film quality wise, I don't see how this film is any worse than something like Brute Force.

[swo17]

What? Brute Force is amazing.

[barryconvex]

What? Brute Force is amazing.

Really though...