Douglas Sirk on Blu Ray

[Aunt Peg]

A number of Douglas Sirk films are about to be released on Blu Ray in Germany.

Titles include:

The Magnificent Obsession (8 May)
The Tarnished Angels (17 April)
Imitation of Life (8 May)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (8 May)
All That Heaven Allows (8 May)
Taza, Son of Cochise (8 May)

Only The Tarnished Angels is stating a Region Code of B. The others are unknown at this time.

All films but The Tarnished Angels are being released by HanseSound. No language indications on Amazons site yet.

The Tarnished Angels is being released by Koch Media GmbH in German & English with German & English subtitles.

[Bruce Morrison]

I might go for 'Imitation Of Life'. HanseSound is a new name to me - do they have a good track record on BD transfer quality?

[Blu2u]

I picked up the Magnificent Obsession IT import. Just skipping through it, it looks decent at best. It hasn't been restored, so there are some problems. Doesn't exactly look like an upconvert, but better than a DVD. There may not be a good remaster available for most of these. I will be picking up 3 of them. I already have the 2 from MOC and the 1 from Italy. I think I will also go for the 1 Criterion is releasing as it will be cheaper from Germany.

[JackTwist]

Originally Posted by Bruce Morrison

I might go for 'Imitation Of Life'. HanseSound is a new name to me - do they have a good track record on BD transfer quality?

I want to know the same. Imitation of Life is in my top 3 and a film I'm patiently awaited to arrive on blu-ray. I don't know if Universal will ever release stateside or provide the rights to Criterion/Masters of Cinema (in the UK). The not-knowing is what's holding me back from snatching this up.

[Simon Lewis]

I have a number of titles from Hansesound, including the Doris Day collection, The Rains Of Ranchipur, The Laughing Policeman, The Ambassador and The Naked Face. All of these are 1080p and the PQ is pretty good. German subtitles are not forced.

Hansesound are licensing titles from Hollywood Classics, who appear to be distributing titles from Fox, MGM and Universal.

[Simon Lewis]

Unfortunately, Blu-Ray Disc DE is stating 1080i for all these releases

http://www.bluray-disc.de/blu-ray-fi...t-blu-ray-disc

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by Simon Lewis

Unfortunately, Blu-Ray Disc DE is stating 1080i for all these releases

http://www.bluray-disc.de/blu-ray-fi...t-blu-ray-disc

Yikes! I'll definitely wait for a review of these before deciding whether to order any. If they are indeed 1080i, then no sale.

[Arkadin]

yeah a lot of foreign distributors utilize "Hollywood Classics" as their gateway to licensing older American films for bd. This usually means dated transfers unfortunately. Often better than nothing, but certainly will never be the better bd if the film gets an official studio release.
I was, of course, wondering about the Sirk titles myself, but will just continue to wait out the eventual Criterion releases of the other 2 they currently have the rights to.
Imitation of Life could perhaps end up with some other distributor that might have a better pipeline to Universal materials than Hollywood Classics. at least I hope so.
Eureka seems like the best hope for sure regarding that one.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

yeah a lot of foreign distributors utilize "Hollywood Classics" as their gateway to licensing older American films for bd. This usually means dated transfers unfortunately. Often better than nothing, but certainly will never be the better bd if the film gets an official studio release.
I was, of course, wondering about the Sirk titles myself, but will just continue to wait out the eventual Criterion releases of the other 2 they currently have the rights to.
Imitation of Life could perhaps end up with some other distributor that might have a better pipeline to Universal materials than Hollywood Classics. at least I hope so.
Eureka seems like the best hope for sure regarding that one.

My understanding is that Hollywood Classics is more of an intermediary and the materials/transfers still come from the studio itself. I'll have to double check the credits but Arrow certainly use them and I think Eureka do too.

I'm going to hold off for the Criterion of Magnificent Obsession and (hopefully) Imitation of Life, as they'll probably include the John Stahl originals too.

I don't suppose the upcoming German release of 'Taza, Son of Cochise' is in 3D?

[Arkadin]

yeah you are probably right about that; but it just seems like going through "Hollywood Classics" may not always give a distributor access to the "newest" materials is what I'm thinking. Maybe there's a tier system--if you pay this much you get last year's 2k transfer; pay only this much you get the 10 year old dvd master.
I just know there are a lot of foreign distributors utilizing Hollywood Classics for their licensing, and not one of those bds has ever gotten absolutely stellar reviews that I have seen, and most, in fact, don't seem to get very good reviews at all.
so who knows.
btw: I just looked at the backs of all my Koch Media western digibooks and every permutation was present--just the Fox logo; just the Universal logo; Hollywood Classics and Universal logo; Hollywood Classics and Fox logo.
so have no idea if that means anything, but it must mean something.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Just giving this a bump as the films I want have been released a couple of days ago. Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows are two of my favourite films and I'd also get Magnificent Obsession, which is the most eye popping of all the Douglas Sirk melodramas. Can't find any reviews yet.