The Great Gatsby (1949) -- August 12th, 2025

[McCrutchy]

Kino Lorber will release Elliott Nugent's The Great Gatsby (1949) on August 12th, 2025.

EDIT: Thanks to MifuneFan, I see this is also being released on the same day as part of Kino's Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXVI (1942-1949) box set, possibly with different artwork.

The individual release should include a slipcover.

A Great Cast… A Great Novel… A Great Motion Picture! This 1949 retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beloved novel takes us back in time to The Roaring Twenties, an age of hot jazz and cold champagne. The great Alan Ladd (Shane) stars as Jay Gatsby, formerly Gatz, who works his way from poor fisherman to extravagant Long Island millionaire and then risks it all to woo back his former love, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan (Betty Field, The Shepherd of the Hills). Shot with noir style by director Elliott Nugent (The Cat and the Canary), this rare and ravishing Paramount adaptation was made long before the book became canonized as The Great American Novel. The first-rate cast features Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, Barry Sullivan, Howard da Silva, Ed Begley, Elisha Cook Jr. and Shelley Winters.

Product Extras:

• Brand New HD Master – From a 4K Scan
• NEW Audio Commentary by Author/Film Historian Paul Talbot
• David Ladd Interview with Alan K. Rode: Ladd Discusses His Father’s Career and The Great Gatsby
• Theatrical Trailer

[MifuneFan]

They're also including it with their Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXV set:

[McCrutchy]

Despite being a pre-order, the individual release is currently on sale for just $10.19, with Amazon matching Walmart.

Svet has recently reviewed this disc and says the master used is different than the 2023 Australian BD from Imprint:

Press materials we received at the time indicated that the Australian Blu-ray release was sourced from a 4K master prepared at Universal Pictures in 2022. Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release is sourced from a new 4K master, and after revisiting The Great Gatsby earlier tonight, I can confirm that it offers a different presentation of it. The new 4K master offers several improvements. For example, it produces noticeably healthier visuals. I would not declare that the visuals are immaculate because they retain some imperfections that appear impossible to eliminate. However, the various large and distracting cuts, marks, nicks, and blemishes that were present on the previous presentation are gone. Furthermore, the grayscale is rebalanced. On the previous presentation, in various darker areas, different ranges of blacks and grays were too prominent, producing different types of crushing that would flatten finer nuances. I did not think that this was a big issue, but I thought that it could have been avoided. On this release, virtually all of these darker areas look more convincing. There are no traces of problematic digital corrections, and I think that grain exposure is a little more convincing now as well. However, the best original elements for The Great Gatsby that Universal has in its vaults are obviously not in top condition, so you should expect to see small and bigger density fluctuations that impact delineation, clarity, and depth. (I am not referring to the density fluctuations that the original cinematography introduces in the flashbacks). As far as I am concerned, the unevenness is quite small, and even when it is noticeable, the visuals still maintain a strong organic appearance, but I have to mention its presence. Image stability is very good. In summary, I think that this new presentation of The Great Gatsby is superior and unquestionably more attractive, especially if viewed on a very large screen. My score is 4.25/5.00.

The David Ladd interview is also on the Imprint disc, but the two releases have different audio commentaries and Imprint includes more extras, though only the Kino disc has the film's theatrical trailer.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

They're also including it with their Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXVI set:

Interesting, I hadn't realized that. Thanks for pointing it out.

It looks like the artwork is different on the box set release, too.

[MifuneFan]

Now down to $9.42 at Amazon



This is a WM PM

https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Great...caAvk4EALw_wcB

[PhysicalMediaMaestro]

I'm glad to see the first movie of the classic novel is now available on physical media. Now all four versions of the movie are available to the public.

[Areyakiddin]

I don't know if anyone was curious, but the interview of David Ladd by Alan K. Rode on this disc is completely different (done at a Noir City Festival over a decade ago) versus the interview of David Ladd by Alan K. Rode on the ClassicFlix The Proud Rebel disc which seems to have been completely produced and recorded for that disc.

[sherlockjr]

Originally Posted by PhysicalMediaMaestro

I'm glad to see the first movie of the classic novel is now available on physical media. Now all four versions of the movie are available to the public.

The 1949 version of THE GREAT GATSBY was actually the second film version of the novel.

The first version was a silent film released by Paramount in 1926, only a year after the novel was released, based on a Broadway version directed by George Cukor earlier in 1926. The 1926 film starred, among others, Warren Baxter, Lois Wilson, Georgia Hale, and William Powell(!) and got reasonably decent reviews at the time.

Sadly, Paramount's elements were in such bad shape in 1947--only 21 years after release--that they were unrunnable and are now gone. The only remnants of the film that is known to survive now is a one minute trailer, which is available as a special feature on the BD and 4K of Baz Luhrman's 2013 THE GREAT GATSBY.

[GeoffOliver]

Originally Posted by sherlockjr

The 1949 version of THE GREAT GATSBY was actually the second film version of the novel.

The first version was a silent film released by Paramount in 1926, only a year after the novel was released, based on a Broadway version directed by George Cukor earlier in 1926. The 1926 film starred, among others, Warren Baxter, Lois Wilson, Georgia Hale, and William Powell(!) and got reasonably decent reviews at the time.

Sadly, Paramount's elements were sadly in such bad shape in 1947 that they were essentially unrunnable. The only remnants of the film that is known to survive now is a one minute trailer, which is available as a special feature on the BD and 4K of Baz Luhrman's 2013 THE GREAT GATSBY.

That is among my top most sought after lost films, an adaptation of The Great Gatsby that didn’t even need to be filmed as a period piece.

(My others are The Mountain Eagle, London After Midnight, and The Cat Creeps.)