Frankinho007 wrote:Comparison of While the City Sleeps between the Exposure Cinema disc and the Remastered Warner Archive disc: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/dvd_revi ... sleeps.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jesus, glad I saw this before I bought that Warner Archive disc.
FWIW, if you want widescreen, one consolation is to rip the Exposure DVD, re-export it with MPEG Streamclip using the "cropping" function, then burn it back on to a DVD using DVD Studio Pro.
Unfortunately you will take a hit in quality - even if re-compression is not a factor, you're still chopping it down a good number of pixels, and if the exported/burned image is made to fill a widescreen TV (and not just sit letterbox-fashion in an academy ratio screen), it's not going to look ideal.
Yeah, there's a debate to be had about Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, but I think there's no question that Exposure's the way to go on While the City Sleeps- I have that disc and it's wonderful. It even has extras- press clippings and sales material and so forth- that are way more interesting that I would have expected, and reflect the company's level of care in putting these out.
I updated the List adding the upcoming Spiders DVD and Scarlet Street BD from Kino. I try to list the best overall release(s) for each title and avoid the problematic ones. But the list is of course incomplete.
Spiders (1919) - upcoming Kino DVD
Der müde Tod (1921) - Image DVD
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) - MoC DVD (only in Mabuse box set)
Die Nibelungen (1924) - Kino DVD for now (upcoming MoC and Kino Blu-rays)
Metropolis (1927) - MoC and Kino Blu-rays tie for PQ, but MoC has more extras
Spione (1928) - MoC DVD
Woman in the Moon (1929) - MoC DVD
M (1931) - Universum, Criterion and MoC Blu-rays tie
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) - Criterion and MoC DVD tie
Liliom (1934) - Extra on "Carousel" DVD
Fury (1936) - Warner DVD
You Only Live Once (1937) - Studio Canal DVD
You and Me (1938) - Koch Media DVD
The Return of Frank James (1940) - Fox DVD
Western Union (1941) - Optimum DVD
Man Hunt (1941) - Fox DVD
(Moontide) (1942) - Fox DVD
Hangmen Also Die (1943) - e-m-s DVD
Ministry of Fear (1944) - Optimum and Carlotta DVD tie
The Woman in the Window (1945) - MGM DVD
Scarlet Street (1945) - Odeon DVD for now (upcoming Kino Blu-ray)
Cloak and Dagger (1946) - Republic DVD
Secret Beyond the Door... (1948) - Wild Side and Exposure DVD tie
House by the River (1950) - Wild Side DVD
Rancho Notorious (1952) - Warner Archives DVD
Clash by Night (1952) - Warner DVD
The Blue Gardenia (1953) - Arthaus DVD
The Big Heat (1953) - Sony DVD
Human Desire (1954) - Sony DVD (only available in Film Noir box set)
Moonfleet (1955) - Warner France DVD
While the City Sleeps (1956) - Exposure DVD
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) - Warner Archives DVD
The Indian Epic (1959) - MoC DVD
1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) - MoC DVD (only in Mabuse box set)
Re. the upcoming Kino DVD of The Spiders, accompanist Ben Model wrote on Nitrateville:
Newly transferred from a tinted 35mm print from a foreign archive. Difference in running time between this and the 2002 version is because of transfer speed, although there are a few minutes here and there of add'l footage. Also, the tinting scheme is almost completely different from the the Image DVD.
Incidentally, the BBC (2) has a Fritz Lang noir season in the week leading up to Xmas, including Secret Beyond the Door, While the City Sleeps, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, The Big Heat and Scarlet Street. It might be worth comparing the prints of some titles with the UK DVDs, though I suspect the BBC will use fairly old transfers.
I wonder if Kino is going to rerelease Hangmen Also Die!. Yesterday TCM showed a version that is far cleaner and better looking than any of the screencaps I've seen for the film so far as if a new restoration was done. I don't know how to take caps off of my DVR to show though.
There's been a better transfer available for several years now, from e-m-s in Germany. Review here. Did the version on TCM include the scene depicted in the first screencap shown at that link, with the shadows against the wall? (It's right at the end of the film.) This scene is pretty crucial to the film, but was excluded from the Kino release.
swo17 wrote:There's been a better transfer available for several years now, from e-m-s in Germany. Review here.
There's also this, which seems to be a 2001 reissue of this. Both are also available through Amazon.de directly and not through third-party sellers. Anyone know how either of these compare to the e-m-s?
In the May issue of Sight&Sound(the one with MichaelB's Kaurismäki cover story)Michael Atkinson reviews Kino's new Spiders dvd and claims that"the restoration of The Spiders is the news,being more than half an hour longer than previous editions".If this is true it would certainly be news but I didn't find anything about this on Kino's website.Noticed the post from Nitrateville above about"few minutes",so which one is correct?Does anyone here own both Image and Kino versions to verify?
bugsy_pal wrote:That's great news about the forthcoming "You and Me" disc from Koch - I've never seen that film. I'm also looking forward to hearing impressions of the new "While the City Sleeps".
I was wondering about the best version of "Cloak and Dagger" - I don't have a copy, and i'm not sure whether to go with the US Republic version or the UK disc which is from "Paladium" (according to Amazon UK). I have not been able to find anything on the quality of the UK disc. It would be nice if it improved on the US version, which doesn't look great according to Beaver screencaps.
The German release of Cloak and Dagger (Im Geheimdienst) is supposed to be an improvement on the US one: click & look at post #10. I still have no idea about the UK disk. Olive seem to have the rights to it now though so we could be getting a new DVD or Blu-ray shortly.
The Italian Blu is annoyingly stretched though. All I get from this review is that the Studio Canal is better than the Image, but no word on how it compares to the Cinema Club.
I always found these lists really useful, so if Der Spieler doesn't mind I'm going to go ahead and update it with the newer stuff. Let me know if there's anything that ought to be changed.
The Spiders (1919) - Kino DVD
Harakiri (1919) - Kino DVD (in Fritz Lang: the Early Works box set)
Das Wandernde Bild/The Wandering Image (1920) - Kino DVD (in Fritz Lang: the Early Works box set)
Vier um die Frau/Four Around a Woman (1921) - Kino DVD (in Fritz Lang: the Early Works box set)
Der müde Tod/Destiny (1921) - Image DVD
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) - MoC DVD (only in Mabuse box set)
Die Nibelungen (1924) - MoC Blu-ray
Metropolis (1927) - MoC and Kino Blu-rays tie for PQ, but MoC has more extras
Spione (1928) - MoC DVD
Frau im Monde/Woman in the Moon (1929) - MoC DVD
M (1931) - Universum, Criterion and MoC Blu-rays tie
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) - MoC Blu-ray
Liliom (1934) - Extra on "Carousel" DVD
Fury (1936) - Warner DVD
You Only Live Once (1937) - Studio Canal DVD
You and Me (1938) - Koch Media DVD
The Return of Frank James (1940) - Fox DVD
Western Union (1941) - Optimum DVD
Man Hunt (1941) - Fox DVD
(Moontide) (1942) - Fox DVD
Hangmen Also Die (1943) - e-m-s DVD
Ministry of Fear (1944) - Optimum and Carlotta DVD tie
The Woman in the Window (1945) - MGM DVD
Scarlet Street (1945) - Kino Blu-ray
Cloak and Dagger (1946) - Republic DVD
Secret Beyond the Door... (1948) - Olive Blu-ray
House by the River (1950) - Wild Side DVD
American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950) - Fox Spain DVD (as Guerrilleros En Filipinas)
Rancho Notorious (1952) - Warner Archives DVD
Clash by Night (1952) - Warner DVD
The Blue Gardenia (1953) - Arthaus DVD
The Big Heat (1953) - Twilight Time Blu-ray
Human Desire (1954) - Sony DVD (only available in Film Noir box set)
Moonfleet (1955) - Warner France DVD
While the City Sleeps (1956) - Exposure DVD
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) - Warner Archives DVD
The Indian Epic (1959) - MoC DVD
1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) - MoC DVD (only in Mabuse box set)
Last edited by matrixschmatrix on Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I thought the Cinema Club DVD was supposed to be the best release of You Only Live Once. I know StudioCanal put out a new version this year, but I never saw any reviews. What are you basing your assessment on, matrix?
I own all three BDs of M and I don't think you can call it a tie. The Universum is definitive and it's pretty easily seen in comparing them side-by-side - more detail, better depth, richer palette. Cleaner audio, too. The Crit versus the MoC depends on how you view Crit's contrast boosting and black levels as opposed to MoC's grey scale.
