Oh... Rosalinda (Powell & Pressburger, 1955)

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Tommaso · #1 Post by **Tommaso** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 11:13 am

Released yesterday in France, apparently. Ah... I can't believe it, but it seems to be true.

Have ordered it already, I only hope they made a decent dvd with removable subs. Anyway, I've never seen the film but wanted to for ages. I really find it strange that both Carlton and Criterion have avoided it until now. Everybody tells me it's a minor work, but then everything by P&P is surely worth seeing, and the excerpts on Criterion's "Red Shoes" did not look bad at all. Now I'm waiting for "The Elusive Pimpernel"...

#2 Post by **Matt** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:44 pm

FNAC says it has a French dub track in addition to the English track, so I would assume that would make the subtitles removable.

These "PVB Editions" people have a very strange collection of titles available. I've not seen any of their discs and no one appears to have mentioned them on this forum before.

A review of one of their discs from DVD Drama says that they can be somewhat inconsistent: "L'éditeur PVB oscille d'habitude entre des DVD de bonne facture et d'autres beaucoup moins regardables..." and says that their disc of The Haunting of Julia is a catastrophe from A to Z.

Tommaso · #3 Post by **Tommaso** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 3:18 pm

Oh dear, I have just read this "Haunting of Julia" review. I fear the worst now for "Rosalinda"...let's hope that someone provided them with a good transfer which they only have needed to put onto disc. And I always thought the French generally did quite decent dvds...
I think you're right about the subs because of the additional French dub. Even if the subs are mandatory, they won't be burned in and could be removed via copying it with one of those dvd ripping programs if necessary.

Anyway, I also ordered the new French 2 DVD edition of Kurosawa's "Dodes'kaden", another film I've never seen before and apparently not available anywhere else apart from the notorious Mei-Ah from Hongkong (there was formerly a one dvd edition from arte edition which is said to be quite good, probably it's the same print with this new one). It's released by Universal, so one might hope they managed to get it onto dvd in an acceptable manner. No english subs though, so I hope my French won't let me down too much. I will report back on both these releases once they arrive here.

ellipsis7 · #4 Post by **ellipsis7** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:26 pm

Anyone orderd this yet?

Review from TIME OUT...

Oh Rosalinda!!
'They should have been forcibly suppressed,' spluttered one early review of Powell and Pressburger's update of the Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus, set in four-power occupied Vienna; even the title's two exclamation marks betrayed an unseemly excess. The blatant artifice, sugar-candy sets, and preposterous plot, once deplored by the critical establishment, are now cherished by connoisseurs: what better way to pass a disgracefully self-indulgent Sunday afternoon?

the dancing kid · #5 Post by **the dancing kid** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:42 pm

Great find, I've been wanting to see this for a long time.

Does anyone know if Powell's Bluebeard film is available anywhere? I emailed the guy who runs the Powell and Pressburger fansite about it awhile ago but he couldn't help me out.

Tommaso · #6 Post by **Tommaso** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 5:48 pm

I think the Bluebeard film is probably the most sought after Powell rarity of all, unavailable anywhere (was it ever released at least on VHS?). I always thought it would be a great extra on a "Rosalinda" dvd, as it apparently runs only 60 mins.... well... one really wonders why Criterion did not take the chance yet. After the justified praise for their "Hoffmann" dvd I thought this would be a definitive money-maker. No idea whether the French dvd will contain any extras, but unless the quality should prove to be horrible, let's be glad it's there at all for the moment.

Tommaso · #7 Post by **Tommaso** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:37 am

davidhare wrote:The big problem with releasing Bluebeard must surely be the royalties for the Bartok score - still in copyright.

True, but the same goes for the Braunfels score on "The sorcerer's apprentice" (much shorter of course). And there are a lot of other music dvds of copyrighted works (even opera) out there, so I do not think that this is the main reason. Perhaps the film has simply been 'forgotten', as I think it was originally made for /financed by German TV, and did not receive much theatrical presentation (if at all).

davidhare wrote:I have never seen Oh Rosalinda, bar the extract on the Red Shoes disc but as you can see it's in Scope. I hope the French disc is anamorphic.

I would already be glad if they retained the original aspect ratio at all. In the case of "Haunting of Julia" they seem to have pan&scanned the 2.35 to 1.78....

Talking about unseen Powell films: has anybody ever seen "Luna de miel" (1959) and "The Queen's Guards" (1961)?

Tommaso · #8 Post by **Tommaso** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:17 pm

((
Amazon.fr also says it's "indisponible". The only hope I have is that alapage also announces "Rosalinda" to be released as a double-pack edition together with "A matter of life or death" in November, so I hope that this individual release is just postponed and not given up altogether.

Kinsayder · #9 Post by **Kinsayder** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:54 pm

It looks like the double-pack will be cheaper anyway than the single edition:

Michael Powell : Une question de vie ou de mort - Oh Rosalinda !

...and there are also two other multi-packs to choose from:

Coffret comedie musicale : Mariage royal - Oh... Rosalinda !

Coffret comedie musicale : Mariage royal - Oh... Rosalinda ! - Moulin rouge

I've seen PVB's edition of Les Pas Perdus in the same series "Les Classiques Inédits", and there was a serious problem with the aspect ratio on that disc: poor Jean-Louis Trintignant looked a great deal shorter and fatter than in any other film I've seen him in.

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Oh... Rosalinda (Powell & Pressburger, 1955)