Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

[domino harvey]

Dag, I thought it was gonna be a boxed set but I guess it's just the individual titles eh

[tojoed]

Yes, Domino, individuals rather than a boxed set, I'm afraid.

[Alyosha]

MichaelB: Does Optimum's Country Priest contain any extras at all?

EDIT: I just found the info I needed.

[MichaelB]

MichaelB: Does Optimum's Country Priest contain any extras at all?

The trailer. I only had a checkdisc so I don't know if there's any printed insert, but I'd guess not.

[videozor]

Is anybody familiar with Optimum's Ealing Sudios Collection?

Do these DVDs include any extras? How they compare with R1 Anchor Bay's?

Especially interested in The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit. Thanks in advance!

[tryavna]

Is anybody familiar with Optimum's Ealing Sudios Collection?

Do these DVDs include any extras? How they compare with R1 Anchor Bay's?

Especially interested in The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit. Thanks in advance!

I have quite a few, and they all compare favorably with the Anchor Bay releases, though I don't actually have many overlaps. My guess is that Optimum and Anchor Bay used the same prints. (I guess that Anchor Bay won't be releasing any more, however. Lionsgate now seems to have an exclusive deal with StudioCanal, which owns the Ealing catalog.)

Very few of the Optimums have extras, though. A few have short intros and still galleries. The only really stacked one is the two-disc edition of Whisky Galore. But one of the boxsets also contains the hour-long docu Forever Ealing, which is a decent intro/overview but nothing particularly special.

If you're mainly interested in the Alec Guinness titles, then I'd really recommend that you get Anchor Bay's boxset, which is very reasonable (especially considering the weak dollar) and also contains the masterpieces Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers and the decent but decidedly second-tier Captain's Paradise (which actually wasn't an Ealing comedy but very much in the same mold).

[John Hodson]

That superb 'Whisky Galore' set was the last Optimum produced before being taken over by Studio Canal and we can only imagine that they could have gone down the same route with other Ealings but for that.

Alot of Optimum's output is pretty slapdash these days when it comes to the back catalogue and the Ealings in particular deserve so much better; 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' is a bit of a mess and the AB 'Dead of Night', though it's not that good a transfer, is much better than the Optimium version.

A while back, I spotted this comment on Amazon about one of the Optimum box sets:

Most film lovers are aware of the legacy Ealing Studios left to the nation and indeed the film world - and here is a small snapshot of some of their more famous films from over 100 in their history. The comedies are naturally the ones that are more instantly recognisable and enough has been said elsewhere about their lasting memory of class, quality and humour. Ealings output tho covered many other genres and it was a rare year that there wasn't a classic film made out of Ealing Studios that has stood the test of time today.

Unfortunately - as much as I would love to fully recommend this collection I must warn would be purchasers that for the most part the films are shoddily presented by Canal/Optimum and have been given little or no remastering or restoration.

Most of the transfers were done in the 80's and early 90's onto old 1" C format open reel tapes and used to duplicate onto the original VHS releases for Warner Home Video. These were done using pretty much the first print that came to hand - often an original (i.e. from the 40's/50's) In those days before HD, plasma, LCD, and indeed the infancy of surround "Dolby Digital" sound the transfers were adequate and served their purpose.

Many of the comedies 1" masters suffered heavy "rotation" at the duplication factory. It was general practice to review and to often commission a new transfer once the masters went above 50 rotations (each rotation meant loss of oxide on the tape and a weaker signal:noise ratio). However for most old films it was never considered value for money to strike a new duplication master.

When DVD came about it was decided again not to strike new masters for most of the films but to simply re-record the 1" onto Digibeta with no intermediary remastering. Sadly these releases are still using those old old transfers with all the inherent problems of the original film plain to see and hear. (the sound is probably the worst thing about all these releases)

What makes this particularly sad is that many of the films had brand new prints struck from the original negatives in the early 90's for a season at the Barbican. New transfers from these prints would have elicited a superb presentation.

Wonderful films - awful discs. shame.

Having said that both 'The Lavender Hill Mob' and 'The Man in the White Suit' are among the more decent transfers IIRC.

[Person]

Having said that both 'The Lavender Hill Mob' and 'The Man in the White Suit' are among the more decent transfers IIRC.

They are pretty good - not MoC or Criterion standard, but they are clean and fairly well-detailed transfers. I always suspected that many of the Ealing DVDs were made from old analogue tapes. A crying shame. Now that the HD Age has slowly began in the UK, hopefully, we'll see new, restored HD transfers of the original negs.

[What A Disgrace]

Having said that both 'The Lavender Hill Mob' and 'The Man in the White Suit' are among the more decent transfers IIRC.

They are pretty good - not MoC or Criterion standard, but they are clean and fairly well-detailed transfers. I always suspected that many of the Ealing DVDs were made from old analogue tapes. A crying shame. Now that the HD Age has slowly began in the UK, hopefully, we'll see new, restored HD transfers of the original negs.

Hopefully as loaded as Optimum's exquisite and essential Whisky Galore!...easily the best DVD they ever released, and the film that initiated my undefinable love affair with Mackendrick's films. The rest of his films (Sweet Smell of Success, too...hinthint, MGM) deserve sterling treatment. And I don't think I'd mind seeing other Ealing films treated that way, either!

[starmanof51]

Is anybody familiar with Optimum's Ealing Sudios Collection?

I have Optimum's Saraband For Dead Lovers, which of course doesn't have an R1 Anchor Bay counterpart unlike the comedies. It's sadly pretty washed out for something that once wore its Technicolor with pride. It sounds like one of the discs that fits in with the Amazon review John Hodson cited above. They used crappy materials and did nothing to improve them. Underrated film however, and I'd still rather have it than not.

[John Hodson]

That's disappointing; I was going to pick up 'Saraband' but when I read reports like this, I hope that R1 can come galloping to the rescue.

Not Ealing but I've got Optimum's 'The Long and The Short & The Tall'. The credit sequence is in what looks to me to be non-anamorphic 1.66:1, but into the action and it's full-frame and it's cropped. It's also full of marks and dirt and edge enhanced within an inch of its digital life. It's just terrible, probably an old TV master slapped any old way onto digital disc.

[tryavna]

I have Optimum's Saraband For Dead Lovers, which of course doesn't have an R1 Anchor Bay counterpart unlike the comedies. It's sadly pretty washed out for something that once wore its Technicolor with pride. It sounds like one of the discs that fits in with the Amazon review John Hodson cited above. They used crappy materials and did nothing to improve them. Underrated film however, and I'd still rather have it than not.

Same thing goes for Optimum's release of the non-Ealing The Magic Box.

On the other hand, some of the more recent b&w Optimum releases have been pretty good. The most recent one I got was Ealing's The Long Arm. It looks quite nice -- and is an excellent police procedural with the British actor who did this kind of film best (Jack Hawkins).

So I guess I should revise my earlier glowing recommendation of these discs. I love these films so much that, like Starman, I'm happy to have them in less-than-stellar editions. I should point out that, if you wait a few months, Amazon.co.uk regularly lowers the prices on these films to less than 8 pounds (and sometimes as low as 4). At that price range, they're no-brainer stop-gaps until someone like Lionsgate demonstrates a commitment to the catalogue.

[John Hodson]

Quite a few buyers have noted the same sound problem DVD Times reported in their review of 'The Long Arm'

[tryavna]

Quite a few buyers have noted the same sound problem DVD Times reported in their review of 'The Long Arm'

It's not a problem on my disc. Perhaps an early batch was problematic, but I have no complaints.

[Stefan Andersson]

Hi all!
Has anybody seen the 9-title Studio Canal Tavernier DVD box?

I get conflicting info from Amazon and the Studio Canal website re: English subs. Some titles seem to have Eng subs, others not.

Also, is CAPITAINE CONAN better or worse A/V-wise than the Kino edition?

[Jack Phillips]

Hi all!
Has anybody seen the 9-title Studio Canal Tavernier DVD box?

I get conflicting info from Amazon and the Studio Canal website re: English subs. Some titles seem to have Eng subs, others not.

Also, is CAPITAINE CONAN better or worse A/V-wise than the Kino edition?

It's much better, plus you get a second disc of extras.

I don't have the entire box set, only selected titles (which were sold individually). The ones I've viewed have English subtitles with one exception: Deathwatch (aka Le Mort Direct) which was shot in English and so doesn't need subtitles (it also has a French language dub). Obviously, I can't tell you about the whole set. The extras are generally not subbed, IMS.

[Stefan Andersson]

Hi davidhare and all! Can you please repeat that info about LA BETE HUMAINE being incomplete on the Studio Canal DVD? Sight & Sound had a piece on it a long time ago. If I remember correctly the UK 3-film Renoir box from Warners had the correct LA BETE HUMAINE (= Criterion, right?).

Re: TRISTANA from Studio Canal vs. BFI - which one of these has the French-language print with very weak colour, contrast and audio levels? I ran on Swedish TV recently and looked abysmal.

Sorry if this is a repeat of another thread.

[Scharphedin2]

Stefan, I would have to check, but there are definitely one or two films in the box that do not have subtitles.

[lubitsch]

Has anybody seen the 9-title Studio Canal Tavernier DVD box?

I get conflicting info from Amazon and the Studio Canal website re: English subs. Some titles seem to have Eng subs, others not.

The four films from the 90s have all English subtitles. DADDY NOSTALGIE has no English subtitles for the French dialogue. UN DIMANCHE A LA CAMPAGNE and DES ENFANTS GATES have English subtitles, DEATH WATCH is an English language film, LE JUGE ET L'ASSASSIN has only French, German and Italian audio without any subtitles, the same goes for UNE SEMAINE DE VACANCES minus a German audio track.

[Stefan Andersson]

Thanks lubitsch! LE JUGE ET L´ASSASSIN is out in the UK on DVD, a very recent release along with COUP DE TORCHON, L´HORLOGER DE ST. PAUL and L. 627.

[tojoed]

^ If you're looking for Studio Canal releases with English subs you should always check out the Optimum Releasing thread. For example, these 5 Tavernier films were announced there on March 25th.
See this page

[zone_resident]

DVD Times review of The Watchmaker of St. Paul

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

According to HMV Optimum have a 15 DVD 'Ultimate' Godard collection in store for us... Presumably, their Volumes 1&2 will make up two thirds of this set. I am not sure about the rest though!

[Ovader]

I have both Volumes and Hélas Pour Moi so I hope the remaining four DVDs will be available separately if indeed the two volumes make up the rest of this new release.

[justeleblanc]

maybe les carabiniers, nouvelle vague, and godard encore

that puts me at 15