BD 98 The Thief of Bagdad

[tenia]

The Thief of Bagdad



This swashbuckling tale out of The Thousand and One Nights was Hollywood mega-star and producer Douglas Fairbanks' pet project, and coming on the heels of previous costume successes The Three Musketeers, The Mark of Zorro, and Robin Hood, cemented Fairbanks' standing as both the leading action-adventure star of his day and one of the industry's first "multi-hypenate" powerhouses.

The actor stars as the impious thief Ahmed who has made a reputation as Baghdad's premiere plunderer. When he falls in love with a beautiful princess (Julanne Johnston) and the two determine to marry, her father the caliph intervenes, forbidding the union. Thus erupts a chain of circumstances involving a crystal ball, a magic apple, a pegasus, an invisibility cloak... and, of course, a flying carpet.

No expense was spared for The Thief of Bagdad: An Arabian Nights Fantasy — it was one the costliest films produced in Hollywood in the silent era, evident in both the stunning sets of William Cameron Menzies and the breakthrough special effects that weave throughout the picture. Expertly directed by Raoul Walsh, who would go on to become of America's foremost filmmakers, and the creator of such classics as The Bowery, High Sierra, and White Heat, The Thief of Bagdad remains an enduring fantasy for the ages. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to release Fairbanks and Walsh's epic, newly restored and featuring a magnificent score by maestro Carl Davies conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, in a Dual Format release for the first time in the UK.

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

• New high-definition 1080p presentation of the film on the Blu-ray, and progressive encode on the DVD.
• Audio commentary by Faibanks biographer Jeffrey Vance
• Fairbanks and Fantasy - A seventeen minute featurette including rare behind-the-scenes photography
• 20-PAGE BOOKLET including new and exclusive writing on Douglas Fairbanks and Raoul Walsh

[EddieLarkin]

(and apparently Cohen's Thief has the frame issue many Kino blus have).

That's why my interest is still raised for the MoC's one.

I'll take the opportunity to point out to Eureka if they're reading (or maybe David if you're doing the encode?) what the deal is with the Cohen BD. It isn't done poorly as suggested here, like many Kino discs are (Nosferatu!), the interpolation itself is fine. The problem is the speed of the film is 22fps, meaning the presence of interpolation makes it look jerky. As MichaelB wrote in his essay on the issue when the BFI released Potemkin, interpolation is only successful if the projection speed is a multiple of 3 or 4:

However, these techniques only work if the optimum projection speed is a multiple of three or four. With other frame rates, greater compromises have to be made, either by permitting a slight ‘judder’ as a by-product of inserting irregularly-spaced duplicate frames, or by resorting to ‘interlacing’.

So getting 16, 18 or 20fps films into 24fps is fine, whilst a 22fps film is not. The Cohen BD basically repeats every 11th frame, which is too infrequent for it to not be noticeable (Flicker Alley's Hunchback of Notre Dame BD has the same issue). Looking at the grain structure in particular, you can see it constantly halting for a split second throughout the entire film. So hopefully, unless tests prove otherwise, I think interlacing this one would be the best option. It'd certainly act as a good comparison to the Cohen disc, and you'd earn a lot of kudos over on Nitrateville and elsewhere.

[tenia]

Unless tests prove otherwise, I think interlacing this one would be the best option.

From what I've read lately, interlacing would be the best option judder-wise concerning silent films with a frame rate non multiple of 3 or 4, but you would be likely to have combing effects.
But you're right, it's not the same issue as on the Kino discs, especially the infamous Nosferatu (which still bewilders me as to how a QC could let such an encode pass with frames missing everywhere due to the poor repeat scheme used).

[EddieLarkin]

From what I've read lately, interlacing would be the best option judder-wise concerning silent films with a frame rate non multiple of 3 or 4, but you would be likely to have combing effects.
But you're right, it's not the same issue as on the Kino discs, especially the infamous Nosferatu (which still bewilders me as to how a QC could let such an encode pass with frames missing everywhere due to the poor repeat scheme used).

While interlacing sucks if you want to capture a good frame, it's difficult to spot during playback, at least with my player. I support interpolation for 16, 18 and 20fps films, but anything else is best left to interlacing. On rechecking my Cohen disc when writing my post, the judder is very noticeable indeed, something I missed when I first watched it.

Re Nosferatu, I pointed out to MisterLime on HTF what happened with the frame deletion, and he said he would pass it on to the guys doing Caligari. So they have no excuses with that disc.

[Orlac]

I wonder if MOC will use the Kino or Cohen versions of THIEF and INTOLERANCE. Their BD of Birth of a Nation uses the same version as Kinos.

[chatterjees]

I wonder if MOC will use the Kino or Cohen versions of THIEF and INTOLERANCE. Their BD of Birth of a Nation uses the same version as Kinos.

It makes sense, right? There have been a huge overlap between their releases in the past. I wonder whether MoC will also release Cohen's upcoming release of Lang's Hangmen Also Die (MoC loves Lang) or Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) (They have released one Hitch already) in near future.

[Drucker]

I wonder if MOC will use the Kino or Cohen versions of THIEF and INTOLERANCE. Their BD of Birth of a Nation uses the same version as Kinos.

Intolerance recently had a 4k restoration that ran theatrically. It will surely be from that.

[eerik]

I wonder if MOC will use the Kino or Cohen versions of THIEF and INTOLERANCE. Their BD of Birth of a Nation uses the same version as Kinos.

Intolerance recently had a 4k restoration that ran theatrically. It will surely be from that.

No, Cohen's restoration of Intolerance was done in 2K. I guess you mixed it up with The General, which was 4K.

[Stephen]

https://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/thief-bagdad

Look forward to confirmation on the fps & whether this is just a port of the Cohen edition (minus the featurette).

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver.

[Gregory]

Did this release end up solving the judder problem seen on the Cohen disc, or is it identical in that respect?

[EddieLarkin]

Unknown. The frame repetition is not always uniform on the Cohen release, so there may be an improvement if the MoC disc is. I just bought it for £5 in Eureka's deal so I'll check once I have it.

[EddieLarkin]

Did this release end up solving the judder problem seen on the Cohen disc

Unfortunately it doesn't. Of course, your mileage may vary; it certainly isn't as bad as The Black Pirate Blu-ray from Kino, which duplicates every 18th frame, plus or minus one every now and then, and is stuttery as hell. This despite the fact, at least according to Kevin Brownlow (going off the film's original cue sheets), the film's run speed was always 24fps, not 22 or 23fps!