The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - 2/1/11 (Best Buy) 5/8/12 (General)

[shinseiRomeo]

Four men pull off a daring daytime robbery at a bank, dump the money in a trash can and go their separate ways. Thomas Crown, a successful, wealthy businessman pulls up in his Rolls and collects it. Vickie Anderson, an independent insurance investigator is called in to recover the huge haul. She begins to examine the people who knew enough about the bank to have pulled the robbery and discovers Crown. She begins a tight watch on his every move and begins seeing him socially. How does the planner of the perfect crime react to pressure?

The Thomas Crown Affair Blu-ray


*****

Review is live:

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) Blu-ray Review

[Dickieduvet]

Great Film, Anyone know when this will get a general release?

[Wings80]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Great Film, Anyone know when this will get a general release?

Do exclusive titles ever get one?

[Blackbird31]

This movie is way better than the modern version with Pierce Brosnan. The chess scene is fantastic! This is a real classic. I highly recommend it, especially for those who enjoy movies filmed in a traditional manner without all the crazy camera movement and other useless tricks. When I studied film our professors always stressed that movement should be strictly for onscreen, not the camera. If you remove camera movement the camera fades away and it brings you more into the film. This is debated now, especially after the infamous "NYPD Blue" camera stutter technique, but I agree with the old ways. Its funny how excessive camera movement now is considered artistic or ground breaking. In the old days it was considered poor movie making.

[Dickieduvet]

Originally Posted by Wings80

Do exclusive titles ever get one?

yeah, It's usually a matter of a month or 2 before they get a proper release.

[retask]

Where can I buy this for international shipping? I live in Norway.

[PRO-630HD]

Great flick, but how old is this transfer? MGM has released about 25 exclusive titles between Target and Best Buy in the last month and the decrease in quality control shows. I am renting the dvd tomorrow to compare and see if it is indeed the exact same 12 year old transfer as I am guessing. Honestly the transfer has it's moments, but they are fleeting. I would say 2.5/5 for PQ and I think that is being generous. I realize MGM has little money, but without new transfers simply don't release them. I was very pleased with thier recent efforts such as Escape from New York and Mad Max, but these were clearly newer transfers the PQ and detail was pretty stellar for catalog titles.

[boulder_bum]

Doh! I ordered this thinking it was the 1999 version with Pierce Brosnan. I canceled that part of my order, but I wish that Best Buy would post a picture of the Blu on their website or at least the year of the movie to alleviate confusion.

[whitesheik]

Originally Posted by PRO-630HD

Great flick, but how old is this transfer? MGM has released about 25 exclusive titles between Target and Best Buy in the last month and the decrease in quality control shows. I am renting the dvd tomorrow to compare and see if it is indeed the exact same 12 year old transfer as I am guessing. Honestly the transfer has it's moments, but they are fleeting. I would say 2.5/5 for PQ and I think that is being generous. I realize MGM has little money, but without new transfers simply don't release them. I was very pleased with thier recent efforts such as Escape from New York and Mad Max, but these were clearly newer transfers the PQ and detail was pretty stellar for catalog titles.

This film never looked good even in its original release prints. For example, the reviewer here says the Jack Weston opening is very soft - of course it is - it's one long optical coming off the main titles opticals (which have many passes), and is therefore generations away from the original production photography. He also mentions the split-screen footage and those are all multi-pass opticals and that's what you get. There is no damage whatsoever on any shot that isn't an optical. The film was never very sharp - had MGM gone back to the original camera negative it might have been a bit better, but I'm pretty certain this is, in fact, a new transfer off an internegative - color is excellent throughout. It's a whole lot better than its DVD counterpart.

[PRO-630HD]

Okay I rented the dvd, exact same transfer! Let's be clear exact same 1999 transfer! Even for $10 this is not worth it. Barely un upgrade at all and if most catalog transfer looked like this, bluray would be an obsolete format by now. Bottom line, the release needs a complete restoration. Releasing a 12 year old transfer on bluray is simply unacceptable!; and is one of the real problems facing the format as Bill Hunt made an issue of studios releasing decade old transfers on the format last year. Transfer and mastering technology has come leaps and bounds since 1999. DVD was 2 year old technology at the time! Essentially what was state of the art in 1999 sure as hell isn't state of the art in 2011!

Yes, opticals obviosly decrease resolution. Any bluray shows this decrease unless the opticals were done in Vistavision or 70mm then no decreased resolution or increased grain will present themselves. there is nothing excellent concerning any or this transfer in modern terms. Be it colors, black levels, detail, sharpness, etc. These portions range from poor to fair.

MGM has released a bunch of Best Buy and Target exclusives. It appears most using very dated sources and very mediocre results for the format. Their wide releases like Dances with Wolves, Mad Max, Escape from New York, Thelma and Louise, Showgirls, etc. with the new transfers all look very good to excellent and really is what should be expected from the format. I don't want quantity, I want quality!

[Arkadin]

of course, it is based on the dvd master, but to say it looks exactly the same is just silly.
I mean look, I totally agree that a new master would have caused this bd to look much better most likely, but MGM is basing all its bds on the same masters as prepared for the "special edition" dvds.
If you haven't noticed, this is what all the studios are doing with 90% of catalog releases.
There have been very few 2k, 4k, 6k, or 8k restorations done on any catalog bd releases.
Warner have done the most, and Sony and Fox have each done a few.
and the other studios each have 1 or 2 restored catalog titles.
but by and large catalog titles on blu-ray are being based on the most recent dvd masters, and sure it's a shame, but that's the way it is.
back to this release, it is noticeably more stable than the dvd version with improved color and contrast, and in general certainly benefits from the 1080p bump.
When I watched the bd I felt much more like I was watching a film than when viewing the dvd, which kept me from getting fully immersed due to it's notable instability, artifacts, and general limitations.
Does it look amazing?
no, but it is most assuredly an upgrade, and to say it isn't is just flat out wrong.
but I agree that the studios are absolutely NOT for the most part releasing catalog bds that could really be a tremendous upgrade in quality, and it all goes back to the unwillingness to spend the money on the creation of new masters.
really what is being created is a middle level of quality imo.
you have dvd releases.
then you have blu-rays based on the dated dvd masters which represent an improvement, but certainly not as much as the
final level--the fully restored/new master version--like the Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang bd, which looks incredible and represents bd at its best

[Crimson King]

Originally Posted by boulder_bum

Doh! I ordered this thinking it was the 1999 version with Pierce Brosnan. I canceled that part of my order, but I wish that Best Buy would post a picture of the Blu on their website or at least the year of the movie to alleviate confusion.

The 1968 Steve McQueen film is better anyway!

[PRO-630HD]

I never stated it was exactly the same. I stated barely un upgrade at all it it is entirely accurate. Bottom line is a 12 year old transfer geared for dvd is only going to show so much improvement on bluray, being minimal at best. It is one of the worst upgrades I have ever seen and I own over 490+ HD titles. Properly done bluray shows a night and day difference as we have seen with a recent scan and remaster. 4K for 35mm obviously the best.

There was no special edition dvd, ever! This is the same master used for the 1999 dvd and the 2005 rerelease with a new case and the same disc. That is what I rented. The improved color and contrast you are talking about is so minimal it isn't even funny. Although this is the only bluray I know of that is using a 12 year old transfer. The first scene with any detail of Crown grabbing his watch in chap. 2 is minimal as well. I would love to see a professional screenshot compare on this. To sum it up this is one of the worst improvements in PQ I have ever seen when comparing a bluray to the dvd.

Studios are not currently using 90% the same masters for catalog blurays as they did for the dvd. You are flat out wrong on that. That was a big part of the issue Bill Hunt brought to the studios attention as the they compained catalog sales were down and he used it to get thier quality control up to where it should be. These are new masters on catalog titles since the summer of 2010.

Fox-MGM new masters
Moulin Rouge 4K
Rocky Horror Picture Show 4K
Romeo and Juliet 4K
Last of the Mohicans
All About EVE
An Affair to Remember
Showgirls
Mad Max
Thelma and Louise
Escape from New York
Predator-excessive DNR
Alien 4K
Aliens 4K
The Sound of Music
Hang Em High
History of the world Part 1

WB-New Line New Masters
Mutiny on the Bounty
Caddyshack
Vacation
King Kong 4K
Seven
A Star Is Born 6K
Lost in Space
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Last Boy Scout
Last Man Standing
Kelly's Heroes
Funny Farm
Mars Attacks
Lethal Weapon-UK
Lethal Weapon 2-UK
Cobra-UK
Demolitiona Man-UK
The Maltese Falcon
The Color Purple
Deep Blue Sea

Paramount new masters
Minority Report 4K
War of the Worlds 4K
The African Queen 4K
Saving Private Ryan 4K
White Christmas

Sony new masters
Jason and the Argonauts 4K
Charlies Angels
The Bridge on the River Kwai 4K
Desperado
Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Other studios New Masters
Evil Dead
Stagecoach
Psycho
Apocolypse Now 4K
All Disney Animated feature films
Highlander
Highlander 2
Charade
The Black Pirate

Those are simpy titles I am aware of. There are obviously more catalog titles with newer masters I am not familiar with since last summer. I am also not stating they were brand new masters but within a few years and not that they are perfect either, but they are definitely not what was used for the prior dvd. As well these Target-Best Buy exclusive MGM bluray masters (Overboard is another prime example) are so dated even AVC bitrates approaching 40 mbps don't help.

[Arkadin]

well you are certainly passionate I'll give you that.
You may be right about less than 90%; it may be more like 50%, but even with all the ones you named, there are a boatload that are clearly based on the dvd master, so it's probably a wash.
Look, I agree with everything you are saying about all of this.
I'm not trying to defend MGM, and I think you know that.
I just think this bd is a little better than you are making it out to be, that's all.
but everything you are saying about the wretched practice of recycling these transfers I certainly agree with.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by PRO-630HD

Studios are not currently using 90% the same masters for catalog blurays as they did for the dvd.

And the studios definitely did not use 90% of the same masters for DVD. I am unsure where you are getting your info from, but it is wildly inaccurate.

Fact of the matter is this - just like the studios could not manage to properly transfer a lot of films on DVD (and you could go as far back as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Lolita) or simply did not bring key films to the format (from The Devils to The African Queen), they will struggle to do everything right for Blu-ray. Some films will get better attention than others for a variety of different reasons.

The big difference here is that what you describe as placebo effect is actually a realistic understanding a lot of people have about what is possible in this market and what isn't. No studio ever promised that every single catalog release appearing on Blu-ray will be sourced from a new 4K scan, and if you got into the hobby expecting so, you clearly had some very unrealistic expectations. So this notion that any Blu-ray catalog release that isn't sourced from a 4K scan is some sort of a remarkable disaster clearly is quite ridiculous, which is what I believe Arkadin attempted to point out to you.

All of this being said, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you that The Thomas Crown affair is the weakest release from the BB exclusives batch, but it is still a film/release worth owning.

Pro-B

[Crimson King]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

And the studios definitely did not use 90% of the same masters for DVD. I am unsure where you are getting your info from, but it is wildly inaccurate.

Fact of the matter is this - just like the studios could not manage to properly transfer a lot of films on DVD (and you could go as far back as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Lolita) or simply did not bring key films to the format (from The Devils to The African Queen), they will struggle to do everything right for Blu-ray. Some films will get better attention than others for a variety of different reasons.

The big difference here is that what you describe as placebo effect is actually a realistic understanding a lot of people have about what is possible in this market and what isn't. No studio ever promised that every single catalog release appearing on Blu-ray will be sourced from a new 4K scan, and if you got into the hobby expecting so, you clearly had some very unrealistic expectations. So this notion that any Blu-ray catalog release that isn't sourced from a 4K scan is some sort of a remarkable disaster clearly is quite ridiculous, which is what I believe Arkadin attempted to point out to you.

All of this being said, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you that The Thomas Crown affair is the weakest release from the BB exclusives batch, but it is still a film/release worth owning.

Pro-B

+1 agree. Another thing to remember that TCA had those neat split screen effect screen through parts of the movie, which might have used multiple types of film stock (ie 8, 16, 35 MM) to get the final results when the pieced it all together.

[PRO-630HD]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

And the studios definitely did not use 90% of the same masters for DVD. I am unsure where you are getting your info from, but it is wildly inaccurate.

Studios are not currently using 90% the same masters for catalog blurays as they did for the dvd.

What ? are you saying I have no clue or how it relates to my statement?
I simply stated currently studios are putting some effort forth and not 90% of the time using the same old master from the dvd for the newly released catalog title on bluray. The numerous examples from my prior post more than prove my point and my statement is entirely accurate.

[PRO-630HD]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

The big difference here is that what you describe as placebo effect is actually a realistic understanding a lot of people have about what is possible in this market and what isn't. No studio ever promised that every single catalog release appearing on Blu-ray will be sourced from a new 4K scan, and if you got into the hobby expecting so, you clearly had some very unrealistic expectations. So this notion that any Blu-ray catalog release that isn't sourced from a 4K scan is some sort of a remarkable disaster clearly is quite ridiculous, which is what I believe Arkadin attempted to point out to you.

Luckily of of this for me is on the upswing concerning picture quality. No I don't expect every title to get a brand spanking new 4K master and I never stated that. I did state that a 4K scan is the ideal for 35mm followed by a 4K master. I am sure due to more studios using them and it is cheaper to do in 2011 than it was in say 2004 when Lowry did the first 8 Bond films. Warner has scanned many films at 8K with 4K masters and for 70mm 8K scans should be the norm and 6K for Vistavision all with 4K masters. Sound of Music and Ten Commandments both did exactly that.

What I do find unacceptable is any studio releasing titles with masters more than a few years old. Especially 12 years old! It is like putting a Pentium II processor in a modern computer and trying to sell it as state of the art. Mastering technology for films has improved in exponential amounts just as computer technology has. HDTV's were rare in 1999! My point with this title is most consumers that will purchase it own it already on dvd. They are double dipping for a better product that studios are boasting a 6 fold increase in resolution from dvd. You will never see anything close to that with 1999 mastering technology or truth be told without a recent 4K scan. I am not part of the it's good enough crowd and never have been, those type of consumers are far better served with dvd. 5th Element and Gladiator have proven consumers demand a certain level of quality with bluray. If a consumer's favortie movie is this film and he buys a new player and this bluray do you honestly think the format will win him over? The bluray player will be returned the very next day.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...oap062510.html

All I can say is, there's a lot of frustration out there among the most avid Blu-ray consumers - the serious film and home theatre enthusiasts - and those of you who work at the major studios would do well to address it seriously and soon. Many of your best customers are a little... pissed. Sadly, the very good catalog Blu-ray work some of you are doing is being overshadowed all too many titles with recycled, mediocre, digitally over-scrubbed transfers. I would say that if you're not willing to spend a little money to create a new HD master from the best available elements, don't release the title. "Good enough" just isn't good enough, and you REALLY need people with experience in film restoration and mastering to act as a quality check to make sure crap isn't getting through - people who know what a FILM is supposed to look like, not just HD video techs. Trust me, there is a BIG difference.

You know, I suspect there are probably a few upset executives at the major studios today, and all I can say to that is that sometimes the truth just hurts. But we have a very long history here at The Bits - 13 long years of it - of working to approach these situations reasonably, rationally and with the best interests of both our readers and the health of the industry as a whole in mind. We're not unreasonable and we don't grind axes here just to piss people off. So when we talk about a problem like this... there's a REAL problem. We've actually been posting warnings of it now and again since high-def discs first appeared, hoping that it would go away. But the industry seems to have taken its eye off the ball, and it's time we started getting more insistent.

Bottom Line: Nobody's fought harder for DVD over the years than we have here at The Bits, and nobody's fought harder for Blu-ray than we have, because we felt both formats were in the best interests of our readers and the industry. But the fact is, Blu-ray is being sold for a premium price. And Blu-ray has been and continues to be marketed as "The Look and Sound of Perfect" by the major Hollywood studios. So that's what film enthusiasts expect. And if you're cheaping out by recycling a 6-year-old HD master, you ain't delivering perfect, Jack. No way, no how. So think of this as a bit of tough love, from your old pals here at The Bits.]

So in the last 6-9 months we are seeing far more new transfers on catalog titles and far less digital manipulation being EE, DNR, etc. In a nutshell consumers drive the market. It is not the other way around. We are talking with our wallets and the studios are listening. So occuring less today, but studios are still expecting consumers to fork out premium cash for a less than premium product. They expect to win my hard earned money and doing no work whatsoever to earn it. I won't buy a 21st century product using 20th century technology.

[surfinhank]

I saw in another thread someone had mentioned this was $40 on Amazon at the moment (by a third party seller, which makes it appear to be OOP). I see that City Slickers and Back to School are also pretty pricey. I've been under the impression that all these "Best Buy Exclusives" would eventually be available at other retailers after a certain amount of time. Is that not the case?

[Monterey Jack]

Just because a title might be made available outside of BB, it might not be for a while, which is why copies of Thomas Crown Affair and others are selling for a lot now. But I'm confident that they'll all be widely available at some point.