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devlinnn wrote:I don't think it was the second gin talkin', but I doubt I'd be the only 'straight' gent here to find Stanley Donen pretty damn sexy and cool chattin' to Mr. Osborne on the Royal Wedding disc. Effortlessly charming, honest and direct, I'd give a million dollars to look this good in my 40s, let alone my 80s.

I'm almost sorry to revive this thread, but rather belatedly I watched that disc last night and had exactly the same thoughts. The short excerpt from Donen's Academy Award appearance was priceless, too.

I thoroughly enjoyed "Royal Wedding", too. Certainly one of Astaire's very best post-WWII films (with the sole exception of "The Band Wagon", but "Wedding" comes close). Donen's direction was so light-weight and visually inventive compared to the rather 'solid' (some might call it 'dull') direction by Walters in films like "Barkeleys of Broadway", "Easter Parade" and indeed "Belle of New York". The wit already shows in the initial 'royal' dance sequence, and I really loved the slow but convincing build-up of Fred's affair with the dancer played by Winston Churchill's daughter. To think that this role was actually intended for Moira Shearer... man... I really would have liked to see HER alongside Fred, but it seems that Fred was somehow afraid that their dancing styles would clash. That's possible, of course, but if I think of Shearer's later, totally non-classical dance scene in "Peeping Tom", I can't help but thinking that the experiment would have been a successful one, and I can't imagine to what heights "Royal Wedding" would have risen with Shearer playing that part. Ah well, it's great anyway...

One thing that irritated me, however, was the sequence with Powell and Lawford taking a stroll through the village, where the image suddenly becomes very dark. If this was meant to be a day-for-night shot, it certainly doesn't work at all, considering the very heavy shadows caused by the midday sunlight (almost as bad as Orlok walking day-for-night through the town in the new "Nosferatu" resto). I don't think it's a flaw of the colour scheme of the transfer, as the rest of the film looks pretty marvellous. But does anyone know more?

Anyone else experiencing technical problems with discs from Volume 2? Royal Wedding and The Pirate have stopped working for me. Depending on player/drive I can start them, but they will not play the whole movie and some special features have disc read problems too. There is no visible damage or dirt

Just yet another magically degrading WB DVD. Many, many WB titles have this issue, and it’s random based on the pressing plant, so no guarantee a title will or won’t without testing first

I believe I had a similar problem with my library's copy of Presenting Lily Mars. Clean disc, but my player couldn't read it.

domino harvey wrote: Sun May 19, 2019 5:39 pm ...so no guarantee a title will or won’t without testing first

Sorry, but you meant "without re-watching them", right? Or one can buy a replacement DVD and by somehow "checking" it, know in advance the discs will or will not be eventually degraded (or already are)? Thanks for clarifying!

Yes, but I had this screenshot saved which may make things easier via checking the code on the inner ring on the underside of the disc

Great, thank you for this information!

We're currently having similar issues on BD in France for 2008-2009 pressings. then-QOL's factory said they used an improper batch of resin that ended up generating discs that were rotting after a few years only. Unfortunately, the issue seems way more widespread than what they said : they talked about 2008-2009, but their unreliability goes up to 2012 pressings. Some MPO-pressed discs in 2009, 2010 and 2011 also seem abnormally concerned when comparing other manufactured discs.
And it now seems that some Asian discs are having similar issues.

Thanks for the depressing information.

Yes, these are IFPI 60** discs from the Canadian plant. However, other discs in the same box are as well and are still working. So, I guess backing up everything from the affected plants is the only way forward? What's a good free tool to do so these days that is "codefree", ImgBurn? Luckily I live in PAL-land, so most of my discs are not from these plants. A quick estimate in DVD Profiler suggests I still have ~150 US Warner discs from that timeframe though

Is there some kind of replacement program?

For reference, this is the quotes topic above: Link