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The Tarnished Angels



One of legendary director Douglas Sirk's most cherished passion projects, this spectacular adaptation of William Faulkner's Pylon has risen in stature to become one of his most acclaimed films. Reuniting with his core creative team from oil tycoon saga Written on the Wind, Sirk this time examined the marginal lives and lost souls living one rung from the bottom with surpassing delicacy and artistry.

Rock Hudson stars as journalist Burke Devlin, fascinated by the sordid lives of a trio eking out a living in carnival circuit daredevil airshows — Roger Shumann (Robert Stack), former WWI fighter pilot, forced into races and parachute routines with the help of his wife LaVerne (Dorothy Malone), and faithful mechanic Jiggs (Jack Carson).

Evoking Depression-era New Orleans with glorious black-and-white CinemaScope photography, Sirk's spellbinding chronicle of personal obsession, romantic longing and irreconcilable desires now appears as one of the most extraordinary films to come out of 1950s Hollywood. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present The Tarnished Angels on Blu-ray for the first time.

SPECIAL BLU-RAY EDITION

• Beautiful new 1080p high-definition master
• Feature-length audio commentary by film critic Adrian Martin
• Talk About the Business, a video interview with supporting actor William Schallert
• Infernal Circle, a video interview with critic Bill Krohn
• Acting with Douglas Sirk, a collection of archival interviews with Douglas Sirk, producer Albert Zugsmith and actors Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone
• Original theatrical trailer
• Isolated music & effects track
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf & hearing impaired on the feature
• 44-PAGE BOOKLET featuring writing on the film by Luc Moullet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Tag Gallagher; a vintage report from the set at the time of production; interview excerpts with Douglas Sirk and William Faulkner; and rare archival imagery

Sweet! I already have it in that big R2 Sirk boxed set but I'd GLADLY upgrade to Blu for this one!

Excellent! Was debating over this one because there aren't any good DVD's here in the U.S. The best transfer I believe was a no-frills disc that's part of a UK/EU box set that I wasn't interested in, so an MoC reissue is very welcome.

It was released in the US in the Sirk TCM Vault set, but that set's only available as DVD-Rs now

I know, but I think the transfer on that set is supposedly pretty crummy.

hearthesilence wrote:I know, but I think the transfer on that set is supposedly pretty crummy.

No, the transfer is excellent. The initial issuing of the disc did not have the last eight minutes, but they changed that.

I believe the TCM release had slightly more information on the sides of the frame compared to the UK and Carlotta DVDs (although the difference was neglible). I held off on the previous releases since the import cost of the Carlotta was too much and I wasn't much interested in the other films of the Sirk box, so this will be a much appreciated upgrade and another notch in MoC's bedpost of great films rescued from region 1 DVD-R hell (see also Park Row).

Any possibility that MoC licensed the Adrian Martin commentary from the Australian disc?

Murdoch wrote:I believe the TCM release had slightly more information on the sides of the frame compared to the UK and Carlotta DVDs (although the difference was neglible). I held off on the previous releases since the import cost of the Carlotta was too much and I wasn't much interested in the other films of the Sirk box, so this will be a much appreciated upgrade and another notch in MoC's bedpost of great films rescued from region 1 DVD-R hell (see also Park Row).

Going by the DVD Beaver comparisons at least, the TCM release has more information but the image is quite a bit softer. The Carlotta release has the best sharpness and contrast. The UK release is somewhere in the middle--it looks as if it has less detail than the French release, possibly due to a low-pass filter being applied? I'm glad I bought the French release early on. However, it's all a moot point if Masters of Cinema is releasing this on Blu-ray! Hope they continue to put out more Sirk in Blu...

Going by the DVD Beaver comparisons at least, the TCM release has more information but the image is quite a bit softer. The Carlotta release has the best sharpness and contrast. The UK release is somewhere in the middle--it looks as if it has less detail than the French release, possibly due to a low-pass filter being applied?

It could be lowpass filtering, but it could also be down to the screen grab (as has happened before). The only way to know for sure would be to get both discs and screen grab both using DGindex or similar.

The softness is what I was referring to. It's tough making this work on DVD - 2.35:1 in crisp black & white, it should be seen projected from a good 35mm print - but TCM (or whoever mastered it in the U.S.) should've been able to do much better. Hope the MoC release is a Blu-Ray release, it really needs the resolution.

Announced for August, Blu-ray only.

MoC Twitter wrote:Replete with a ton of extras.

The French DVD extras will probably be a given, I wonder if MoC can dig up some other vintage stuff, or new stuff.

Awesome, so glad labels in other regions are starting to catch on to the great work Adrian Martin's done for Madman

I'm sure he's not getting paid any extra for licensing.

Three weeks from announcement to first review. They certainly didn't hang around with this title.

Did that reviewer actually possess the Blu-ray? There's no comments at all on any of the extras and all the talk about the image could have been lifted wholesale from the sale-sheet info, with the quality guessed

Hard to say, although at times it does seem like a regurgitation of the press release...

MoC: "with glorious black-and-white CinemaScope photography"

Reviewer: "The glorious black and white Cinemascope image..."

MoC: "Beautiful new 1080p high-definition master"

Reviewer: "...beautifully restored new AVC encoded 1080p High Definition master..."

For the record, my review copy turned up in the post yesterday - and I daresay they were sent out in one big batch.

So if I'd been minded, I could have reviewed the whole thing and written it up for online publication this morning - although I agree that it doesn't look like a particularly in-depth examination.

Yes, I received it yesterday morning and got it watched and reviewed straight away! Didn't even look at the press release. Just wanted to get the review up as soon as possible. I know it is only short, however, I'll get a more thorough examination of the film and extras up soon!

Wow. That looks amazing. MOC has really been working miracles to get these great HD transfers out of Universal. Now if only they could get their hands on some Sternberg...

kingofthejungle wrote:Now if only they could get their hands on some Sternberg...

I'm guessing "The Blue Angel" doesn't count since you're thinking of the Paramount via Universal titles?