criterionforum.org

Mere months after delivering one of the definitive examples of film noir with Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich brought a noir flavour to Hollywood with his classic adaptation of Clifford Odets stage play, The Big Knife.

Charles Castle, one of Hollywood s biggest stars, looks like he has it all. But his marriage is falling apart and his wife is threatening to leave him if he renews his contract. Studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff isn t taking the news too well, and he ll do anything he can to get his man to sign on the dotted line even if means exposing dark secrets...

Winner of the Silver Lion at the 1955 Venice Film Festival, The Big Knife also boasts a remarkable cast list including Jack Palance (Shane) as Castle and Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront) as Hoff, plus Shelley Winters (The Night of the Hunter), Ida Lupino (On Dangerous Ground), Jean Hagen (Singin in the Rain) and Everett Sloane (Citizen Kane).

Special Features:

• Brand-new 2K restoration from original film elements produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release
• Original English mono audio uncompressed LPCM
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Commentary by film critics Glenn Kenny and Nick Pinkerton, recorded exclusively for this release
• Bass on Titles Saul Bass, responsible for The Big Knife s credit sequence, discusses some of his classic work in this self-directed documentary from 1972
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips
• First pressing only: Illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Nathalie Morris

According to Gary, there's just over a minute of the film missing on this disc...

I was going to order it but might wait 'til Arrow addresses this first. Looks like a great disc other than that! Never heard of this film until recently so intrigued to see it.

Wasn't his role in this film part of the reasoning behind the later casting of Jack Palance as a megalomaniac film producer in Godard's Contempt, as a sort of filmic reference back to another biting approach to filmmaking and failing marriages?

Can anyone who has ordered The Big Knife in the latest Arrow sale confirm a couple of things? First, that it is being shipped with the replacement disc that restores about a minute of dialogue left off the initial discs. Second, that it is still shipping with a booklet. Thanks.

When was it announced that there would be a replacement disc?

Arrow mentioned it on Twitter, but I don't think they've gone out.

DeprongMori wrote:Can anyone who has ordered The Big Knife in the latest Arrow sale confirm a couple of things? First, that it is being shipped with the replacement disc that restores about a minute of dialogue left off the initial discs. Second, that it is still shipping with a booklet. Thanks.

The omitted speech has indeed been restored, and the blu-ray still comes with a booklet. I bought this in the latest Arrow sale.

DeprongMori wrote:Can anyone who has ordered The Big Knife in the latest Arrow sale confirm a couple of things? First, that it is being shipped with the replacement disc that restores about a minute of dialogue left off the initial discs. Second, that it is still shipping with a booklet. Thanks.

I received my copy right before Christmas, but I got it from BN sale in USA. My US copy came with a booklet. I haven't got a chance to watch the film yet, but will try to watch it ASAP to check whether the US copies are also defective.

reaky wrote:

DeprongMori wrote:Can anyone who has ordered The Big Knife in the latest Arrow sale confirm a couple of things? First, that it is being shipped with the replacement disc that restores about a minute of dialogue left off the initial discs. Second, that it is still shipping with a booklet. Thanks.

The omitted speech has indeed been restored, and the blu-ray still comes with a booklet. I bought this in the latest Arrow sale.

I got the booklet too.

I bought the US edition in the B&N sale. It came with a booklet but has the shorter runtime.

Is it safe to buy in stores, i.e. HMV?

I got this response about getting a replacement disc:

Sorry for the delay in response and thank you for your patience.

We’re currently working on a replacement disc system and we will of course be able to replace your disc when this is up and running.

Please keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook page for updates on this.

I emailed them yesterday and got a response:

The Big Knife has indeed been corrected and ordering a copy from the store now means you will get the correct disc.

So ordered a copy.

L.A. wrote:I emailed them yesterday and got a response:

The Big Knife has indeed been corrected and ordering a copy from the store now means you will get the correct disc.

So ordered a copy.

I had ordered my copy from Amazon.com. What is the best way to get it replaced? I wrote to Arrow UK (since I thought they are the parent organization), but received no response. Is Amazon.com now shipping the corrected copies?

If you ordered the US version you are in the same boat as me and need to wait.

swo17 wrote:If you ordered the US version you are in the same boat as me and need to wait.

How do we know when wait is over? How do we get informed?

As I posted earlier on this page: "Please keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook page for updates on this."

swo17 wrote:As I posted earlier on this page: "Please keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook page for updates on this."

Thank you.

I just received my copy of The Big Knife in my Arrow UK order. It did contain a booklet, and they had promised that it would contain the corrected disc, but the disc itself had no textual indication that it was a different disc than the original. (Criterion and BFI usually add some indicator such as “Second printing” or a distinctive code on the printed disc surface.) I inquired with Arrow Academy and they stated that there is no way to tell the uncorrected from corrected discs by visual examination of the disc itself.

The only way to be certain is by viewing the scene that was inadvertently trimmed.

From DVDbeaver:

"Firstly, this Arrow Blu-ray of The Big Knife is missing a scene (part of a scene) that is on the MGM DVD. It's around 1:35:30 into the film, when Nat Danziger (Everett Sloane) is sitting on the couch - he talks with Charles Castle (Jack Palance) and Marion Castle (Ida Lupino) for about 1-minute on the MGM DVD - on the Blu-ray he just departs. This is missing his whole speech about money and Charlie's response - it's about 66-seconds long. The other 20 seconds of longer running time appears to be the 'United Artists' logo at the beginning on the DVD. I don't believe they caught this omission in the commentary"

You can tell more easily by just checking the total runtime--if it's 1:52:19, it's cut, if it's a minute longer (1:53:52?) it's uncut.

The previously missing footage of Everett Sloan talking (approx one minute) is now present, but total runtime seems to be 1:53:35, not 1:53:52. I guess the additional logo display (about 20 seconds) from the MGM at the opening was not reinserted. That’s fine by me. Just wanted to make sure the feature wasn’t cut.

So, UK is shipping corrected disks, with booklets, at this point.

I have to say I'm quite surprised at how Arrow is handling this one, and this might be the first time I recall replacement discs being made available in fully assembled retail copies before allowing the existing customers to get access to a replacement program (in the case where a replacement program was explicitly said to be coming).
I have no idea what Arrow is waiting for or what is blocking them to make their existing customers have access to the corrected discs, since they clearly exist in their final retail form since at least 3 weeks.
It’s also frustrating to see that the existing customers waiting for this disc are the ones who bought the release early and paid a higher price for it, while the replacement discs were available through the reduced price copies during Arrow’s sale.

I hope that it won't take much longer for Arrow simply to have single discs available for replacement, but I wish they would have prioritised the existing customers over putting corrected copies on the market (at least done that in parallel).

tenia wrote:I have to say I'm quite surprised at how Arrow is handling this one, and this might be the first time I recall replacement discs being made available in fully assembled retail copies before allowing the existing customers to get access to a replacement program (in the case where a replacement program was explicitly said to be coming).
I have no idea what Arrow is waiting for or what is blocking them to make their existing customers have access to the corrected discs, since they clearly exist in their final retail form since at least 3 weeks.
It’s also frustrating to see that the existing customers waiting for this disc are the ones who bought the release early and paid a higher price for it, while the replacement discs were available through the reduced price copies during Arrow’s sale.

I hope that it won't take much longer for Arrow simply to have single discs available for replacement, but I wish they would have prioritised the existing customers over putting corrected copies on the market (at least done that in parallel).

the lack of information on facebook or twitter is infuriating . BFI have always handled these schemes brilliantly .

In this case, it's also that Arrow never did that in the past. The worst they did was the silent remaster of the UK Blind Woman's Curse, but they explained they wouldn't do (for whichever reason) a replacement program nor a corrected repressing, so at least it was clear.
But being for Requiescant, Theatre of Blood or the few others that needed to be corrected, the replacement program always came early, and certainly not weeks after having retail copies available.

What was wrong with Theatre of Blood?