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49th Parallel gets a Beaver comparison review and the new French edition comes out a winner.

And another strike for Warner France, this time around for Black Narcissus.

Thanks Annie!

Yes, to further emphasize - I strongly recommend the Warner Black Narcissus as the best quality I have seen of that film on digital. It is spectacular... in my opinion.

49th Parallel is better, but not as significantly as BN.

The Red Shoes is a weak sister but has the benefit of appearing un-manipulated. It's just the print used is more worn and faded (comparison is up, btw).

I didn't get Blimp... but understand it is also weaker than existing DVDs.

Best,
Gary

If you've been holding out on buying the new French P&Ps, it might be worth holding out a bit longer...

Works out about 16.60 Euros for each double-disc set.

Doesn't mean that much to me, but I know others will be interested in THIS 11/20 release.

Box includes: The Battle of the River Plate, A Canterbury Tale, 49th Parallel, I Know Where I'm Going!, Ill Met By Moonlight, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, They're a Weird Mob

Sorry if this's been posted elsewhere. Sought, but not found.

It sounds a lot like this, supposed, HMV exclusive.

After the beautiful recent restorations of BLACK NARCISSUS and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, the Film Foundation now begins to restore THE RED SHOES (as you can read here). Now that's fantastic news!

With the 2006 contribution, The Film Foundation will fund the restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's masterpiece, THE RED SHOES (1948) starring Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring and Moira Shearer. Though currently available on DVD, the film's original negative is in serious need of restoration to ensure its future survival.

Immensely good news. I wonder which type of restoration it will be?

Mr. Bernstein wrote:After the beautiful recent restorations of BLACK NARCISSUS and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, the Film Foundation now begins to restore THE RED SHOES (as you can read here). Now that's fantastic news!

Is this* available on dvd anywhere? And if so why am I not already aware of it!?

*Life and Death not Red Shoes

n w wrote:Is this* available on dvd anywhere? And if so why am I not already aware of it!?

*Life and Death not Red Shoes

No, sadly the newly restored A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH wasn't released yet on DVD.

I can't believe I missed out on that HMV set for £15.99, it's now almost double that at £34.99

I just got an answer from Film Foundation via email regarding THE RED SHOES:

Thank you for your query. We are in the process of gathering and
reviewing the film elements and will have a complete preservation plan
shortly.

Best regards,
Jessica Bursi
The Film Foundation

No big news, but I surely am excited anyway.

Don't know if others are aware but it looks as if A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going, and Peeping Tom are being released by Warner France as well. Each will have 2 disks and be sold in a box very similar to their other set of four, both boxes are coming out Nov 8th.
And it appears that Peeping Tom will be exclusive to the box whereas the other two will be available separately in December.

Very good news, Peeping Tom is finally going to be available in its correct AR

OH ROSALINDA! and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH will be released in France on November 7th, as you can see here

I hope the transfer is based on the new restoration!

It's surprising that the Charles Doble restoration of Honeymoon hasn't been released on DVD anywhere. Studio Canal own the rights. It has long been dismissed as silly travelogue, but it's probably quite exciting. Seeing it in its original 2.35:1 Technirama framing with vibrant color would be most welcome.

I'll be very interested in seeing the new Matter of Life DVD from Warner France. Sony hasn't said anything about their release in years.

The hmv exclusive box is on sale now along with a 20% discount today only, coupon code SQ1515. Bringing the box down to £12.39.

A great deal but I'm waiting for the warner editions, the cool colors of the carltons don't sit right with me.

Gordon wrote:I'll be very interested in seeing the new Matter of Life DVD from Warner France. Sony hasn't said anything about their release in years.

I don't think that it's from Warner France. The amazon.fr website doesn't say anything, but the Institut Lumière website doesn't list AMOLAD in their DVD series.

Reviews of the new Institut Lumière editions of I Know Where I'm Going, and Peeping Tom... out on Nov 8th.

The standalone edition of A Canterbury Tale appears to have been postponed to Dec 6th.

Here's a review of A Canterbury Tale. It also compares it to Criterion.

Ashirg wrote:Here's a review of A Canterbury Tale. It also compares it to Criterion.

A bit of a disappointment, I just ordered this set from amazon and I was hoping A Canterbury Tale would be around criterion quality. What bothers me in that comparison is that on the criterion you can faintly see the clouds in the background, where on the warner it's just whiteness. Though the criterion is window-boxed and the extras look better on the warner.

Greathinker wrote:Though the criterion is window-boxed and the extras look better on the warner.

Really? Admittedly, that 20 min. Tavernier piece seems very interesting, but in all likelihood it won't rival Ian Christie's excellent audio commentary. And the dvdtimes comparison indeed shows that the Criterion image is far superior.

Amazon.fr still doesn't list any information or cover for the Oh Rosalinda! and A Matter of Life and Death release. I suppose this will be bare bones, therefore we'll have to continue to wait for a DVD that uses the new AMOLAD restoration. I wonder what those idiots at Sony are doing.

Tommaso wrote:Really? Admittedly, that 20 min. Tavernier piece seems very interesting, but in all likelihood it won't rival Ian Christie's excellent audio commentary. And the dvdtimes comparison indeed shows that the Criterion image is far superior.

I have to get every DVD release with contribution either by Tavernier or Christie. The latter does the finest audio commentaries for P&P films, but I love Tavernier's Les audaces d'un aventurier features. He's a very enthusiastic and intelligent speaker.

I have both the Criterion and Institut Lumière DVDs of Blimp which is really great because the CC has the Powell/Scorsese commentary while the French disc has Kevin Macdonald's "The Making of an Englishman" and the usual Schoonmaker/Tavernier stuff.

JLG's neighbor wrote:I have both the Criterion and Institut Lumière DVDs of Blimp which is really great because the CC has the Powell/Scorsese commentary while the French disc has Kevin Macdonald's "The Making of an Englishman" and the usual Schoonmaker/Tavernier stuff.

Ah, great to hear. As there's no Beaver comparison of "Blimp" CC vs Lumiere, can you say something about this? Most important for me would be whether the over-reddishness/pinkishness of all the faces in the Criterion version has gone in the Lumiere. On the CC, Blimp constantly looks like he has a blood pressure of 220...

This page has a visual comparison of the Criterion, Institut Lumière and Carlton Blimps.

Tommaso wrote:Ah, great to hear. As there's no Beaver comparison of "Blimp" CC vs Lumiere, can you say something about this? Most important for me would be whether the over-reddishness/pinkishness of all the faces in the Criterion version has gone in the Lumiere. On the CC, Blimp constantly looks like he has a blood pressure of 220...

As you can see in the comparison, the CC and the Institut Lumière used the same transfer. I'm pretty certain the "reddishness" was done on purpose and looking at this comparison I think it looks more stylistically apt. Also, the reddishness you're refering to is only visible in the bath scenes at the beginning and fits quite well because of all the steam and heat of the place.

Hmmm.... to me the Carlton looks much more natural, take a look at captures 4 and 8 especially. Far better rendering of the blue tones. Capture 10 even has the reddish tinge on the black and white poster in the CC and Lumiere versions. I cannot really believe it's intentional.