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M



Of all Fritz Lang’s creations, none have been more innovative or influential than M, the film that launched German cinema into the sound era with stunning sophistication and mesmerising artistry. A spate of child killings has stricken a terrified Berlin. Peter Lorre gives a legendary performance as the murderer Hans Beckert, who soon finds himself chased by all levels of society.

From cinema’s first serial killer hunt, Lang pulls back to encompass social tapestry, police procedural, and underworld conspiracies in an astonishingly multi-faceted and level-headed look at a deeply incendiary topic. One of the greatest psychological thrillers of all time, M remains as fresh and startling almost 80 years on. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present a stunning high-definition restoration of a definitive classic of world cinema.

DUAL FORMAT RELEASE INCLUDING BLU-RAY AND DVD VERSIONS OF THE FILM

• Stunning, restored 1080p high-definition transfer in the correct 1.19:1 ratio, with restored sound
• Two audio commentaries: one by German film scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler; the other featuring film restoration expert Martin Koerber, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, historian Torsten Kaiser and excerpts from Bogdanovich’s 1965 audio interviews with Lang
• The original 1932 British release version of M, presented in its entirety, recently rediscovered after 70 years, featuring different actors, alternate takes and Peter Lorre’s first performance in English
• Zum Beispiel Fritz Lang, a 1968 documentary with Fritz Lang discussing his career in German cinema
• 48-page illustrated booklet, including writing by Fritz Lang, historian Robert Fischer, details of a missing scene, behind-the-scenes stills and production drawings

James wrote:[I'm starting this thread because] MoC announced that on both releases an extra feature will be the lost 1932 version. I figured this was important information.

I'm guessing this is the first time that this "English language version" is available on video right? Has anyone actually seen it? Either at some festival, or for our elderly British forum members?

A heads-up: our forthcoming BD of M will be Region B to respect Criterion's wishes (we're using their master). This will be our second BD to be region encoded (the first was FOR ALL MANKIND, also from Criterion).

That might explain why they are region-locking ALL their releases, maybe they want the 'respect' to be mutual. That seems like a 'Don't interfere with our titles' position {|=

I guess it's more like they hope to sell their masters to or co-operate with other companies, like in this case. Or they are contractually obliged to do it. Region locking in general means a loss of potential customers, at least with Blu discs.

Tommaso wrote:I guess it's more like they hope to sell their masters to or co-operate with other companies, like in this case. Or they are contractually obliged to do it. Region locking in general means a loss of potential customers, at least with Blu discs.

What surprises me most is that Criterion is allowing MOC to release the film first on blu-ray.

Region-free BD players are still fairly hard to come by in the U.S. so I don't see MoC's M gouging much into Criterion's sales.

Hard? Amazon sells at least a dozen different models! :-s

Isn't the Criterion master slightly zoomed in?

perkizitore wrote:Hard? Amazon sells at least a dozen different models! :-s

I don't know which ones you might be talking about, but in my recent search for a region-free BD player, I got the impression that your choice was down to buying a region-locked player and getting the hardware modified to be region-free (which would invalidate your warranty) or buying a player like the Momitsu (that can be made region-free by remote code) which is only currently available from potentially shady e-tailers. I'm not saying the players don't exist (I took a risk and now have one myself) but I wouldn't exactly call them an easy sell yet.

I am talking about Momitsu clones.

Will Barks wrote:Isn't the Criterion master slightly zoomed in?

The "master" is not zoomed in, but rather the image on their DVD. But don't worry, Criterion's Blu release won't be zoomed in. I'm sure of that.

Anthony wrote:

Will Barks wrote:Isn't the Criterion master slightly zoomed in?

The "master" is not zoomed in, but rather the image on their DVD. But don't worry, Criterion's Blu release won't be zoomed in. I'm sure of that.

How can you be sure?

Tommaso wrote:I guess it's more like they hope to sell their masters to or co-operate with other companies, like in this case. Or they are contractually obliged to do it.

Almost certainly the former, in Criterion's case.

As far as I can see, from some considerable time before they released their first Blu-rays, they've been region-locking everything, regardless of format or rightsholder obligation. I honestly can't remember the last time they released a region-free DVD, though I certainly remember that ten years ago region-coding was very much the exception rather than the norm.

By contrast, the BFI, MoC and Artificial Eye only region-lock when they have to, and reluctantly - they're far less wealthy than Criterion, and have smaller national markets, so they'd much prefer to make their discs as widely available as possible (without actually selling them abroad themselves, which of course would breach licensing terms - but they can't stop people importing, and obviously wouldn't want to!)

Region locking in general means a loss of potential customers, at least with Blu discs.

...but they'll more than make back potential losses by licensing their masters to other distributors. I don't know whether they're on a percentage deal with Eureka (I suspect they're probably not, if it's only to do with licensing their master and/or extras), but they're making money from MoC's disc regardless.

Where Criterion differs from many other independent distributors is that they actually create high-quality HD masters from scratch, which gives them a pretty hefty bargaining chip even if they don't actually own the underlying rights to the film.

There are region-free Artificial Eye releases?

I think Mirror is region-free, but I don't know what else.

My apologies - the Artificial Eye reference was to their Blu-ray line-up, but since my earlier Criterion reference was to their entire output, I can easily see where the confusion arose!

It'll be interesting to see whether The Double Life of Veronique is region-coded, since I imagine Criterion have their eye on that HD master too.

The Case, via Bluray.com
"Optional English subtitles with the original German Soundtrack on the main feature and ZtBjfHg" ???

I haven't seen the cover in person yet (even though it is at home waiting for me) but it already gets a thumbs up. My brother opened the package for me and exclaimed down the phone "WOW, that looks awsome!"

manicsounds wrote:"Optional English subtitles with the original German Soundtrack on the main feature and ZtBjfHg" ???

It's an abbreviation of the Lang doc title.

That's a ridiculous (but relatively minor) printing error made by the printers. It was not on the proof, and it doesn't affect the DVD sleeve.

Just wondering - will this be similar to the Criterion & MoC Vampyr releases of the other year?

Using same source, but MoC using "hands-off" approach, and Criterion doing additional restoration work - so there would be differences between the two?

Bleddyn Williams wrote:Just wondering - will this be similar to the Criterion & MoC Vampyr releases of the other year?

Using same source, but MoC using "hands-off" approach, and Criterion doing additional restoration work - so there would be differences between the two?

That's actually a very good question. I definitely sit on the "hands-off" side of the fence.

Some extras were dropped as compared to the original Eureka release, most notably the visual essay by R. Dixon and the restoration comparison. On the other hand, there was no booklet in that first edition.

It looks like I will end up with 3 editions of this film. The old Eureka for the contents that dit not migrate to their new BD. The 2-disc Criterion for all the extra material (ported to their forthcoming BD), and the new MoC for the BR transfer as well as for the booklet and the British version (duplicated on the Criterion BD). Even though Criterion will probably upscale their extras to 1080p, as they have done on most of their BR re-releases, this would not count as a major factor in favor of that edition.

And of course, when in ten years time another edition comes out in the forthcoming SuperDuper-Infinite Definition format, we'll all probaly succomb to the temptation one more time!

It looks like the case is the larger typical UK BD case that Une Femme Marie shipped with...can anyone confirm this? I will definitely be getting the MoC edition over the Criterion if only for the awesome artwork.