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Did Jeffrey Wells oversee this 'restoration'?

The Studio Canal image, like their edition of The Graduate, is also cropped.

ugh, the studio canal one washed away all the fine detail, look at Cotton's coat near his neck in the second image, in the criterion you can see the texture of the coat, in the studio canal it looks like a dvd, textureless gray.

Those caps have already been posted in the Studio Canal thread.

Pro-B wrote:I don't have any of these discs yet so I cannot comment on the quality of the high-definition transfers, but I can assure you that what you see posted on the site are very heavily compressed JPEG files - which is the reason why I never judge quality by random screenshots.

They may be heavily compressed, but they're still native size, and if they were captured and posted by the same person, each set will have had the same compression applied. Even with all these ifs, and, and buts, it's still clear the Criterion has more detail.

I guess my sealed Criterion Blu will be worth something after all.
This is a realm shame, and a bad bad sign of things to come from SC.

I can count my blessings I own the Criterion disc.

Going off the Beaver caps there's a huge difference between the versions. The colors on SC disc are just all wrong. A total abomination.

ShellOilJunior wrote:The colors on SC disc are just all wrong.

The what ?

I figure he means the gray levels, which are different in comparison. What bugs me more is the lack of detail. They all look fuzzy. Based on those caps I'd even say both Criterion DVDs look sharper, again based only on the grabs. I'm hoping the SC BD would still look better than the DVDs on an HDTV.

As someone who is not a professionnal, what strikes is that what is good on Breathless disc (less contrast) is wrong here. Breathless disc which I bought a couple of days ago, and indeed, look quite sharp but a bit too clear (white skies...).

But anyway, the lack of details on the SC disc is striking.

What's going on with the contrast in the two BD releases of Breathless is a different issue to what's going on here. In terms of contrast, these two Blu-ray releases are about the same. It just looks like SC went so overboard with the grain reduction and "unsharpening" that they eliminated all detail and clarity.

How long do you think this is going to stay at Arm & Leg pricing on Bluray? Is it kind of like Rebecca's flash in the pan, now it's back to manageable pricing, or do you think it'll be more like Ran, slowly increasing as more and more people realize it's greatness so the cost just continues to rise.

tstutzman wrote:How long do you think this is going to stay at Arm & Leg pricing on Bluray? Is it kind of like Rebecca's flash in the pan, now it's back to manageable pricing, or do you think it'll be more like Ran, slowly increasing as more and more people realize it's greatness so the cost just continues to rise.

Well, look at this.

I though I was selling high at $100 with my excess copy a few months back.

It is shocking to me that the Criterion has shot up so high in value with the StudioCanal disc out there. It bums me out that I sold my extra copy for $60 a little while back.

Napier wrote:

tstutzman wrote:How long do you think this is going to stay at Arm & Leg pricing on Bluray? Is it kind of like Rebecca's flash in the pan, now it's back to manageable pricing, or do you think it'll be more like Ran, slowly increasing as more and more people realize it's greatness so the cost just continues to rise.

Well, look at this.

Makes me regret selling my copy for a mere 40

What the actual fuck

Does anyone happen to know/remember if all or only some of the copies of the Third Man in the plastic case came with the sticker label on top with the name of the film? I really need to know and would appreciate any and all help.

Thanks!

I just saw this film for the first time last night, and was absolutely blown away. I will need to see it a few more times to be sure, but this could easily make it into my personal top 10 list.

Looks like I will have to start looking for a used copy of the Criterion release (currently selling for $100-150 unfortunately) - the StudioCanal version looks terrible! I look forward as well to diving into the extras for this title. It's really a shame that Criterion hasn't renewed / been able to renew the rights to this title - it definitely belongs in the collection.

Jeff Bannow wrote:I just saw this film for the first time last night, and was absolutely blown away. I will need to see it a few more times to be sure, but this could easily make it into my personal top 10 list.

I sometimes feel that THE THIRD MAN is the finest film ever made. It certainly is a once-in-a-lifetime combination of a director at the top of his game making the most out of a sublime, literate script with perfect casting throughout. While it treads in similar territory as Hitchcock, the film's depiction of the naive dope caught up in something he can't fully understand still feels startlingly fresh. Suspenseful, philosophical, romantic, nostalgic, horrific, heartbreaking, and remarkably funny in a covert way.

Does anyone know what version (restoration or unrestored) the version of the film that shows on TCM is? It's the only version I have (I DVRed it.) and would like to know what I'm missing.

krislandis wrote:Does anyone know what version (restoration or unrestored) the version of the film that shows on TCM is? It's the only version I have (I DVRed it.) and would like to know what I'm missing.

TCM shows the original full-length U.K. version so you're not missing anything. The subsequent U.S. release trimmed the film by ten minutes (excising much of the footage where characters speak languages other than English) and had Joseph Cotten read the opening narration instead of director Carol Reed (Reed's third person narration is droller and fits the film's tone better since it's important that Cotten's Holly Martins not telegraph the significance of his experience in Vienna himself). Happily, the original U.K. edit appears to have replaced the U.S. one in most instances (home video release, retrospective screenings, TV showings).

Excellent. Thanks for the info!

When will there be a re-issue of The Third Man on Blu-Ray? Any news?

This is the best you'll be able to get in print. Criterion can no longer release the film.