My Darling Clementine (1946)

[Rich Pure Doom]

Originally Posted by Fitzcarraldo

Have to say, Criterion dropped the ball a bit on this one. The Preview Cut is the way to go with this film and at least they do include it, even if that is a bit of a no-brainer. The quality of the scan is better than expected too, about as good as one might hope for. But. But but but... Why has there been no de-spot on the preview version of the film?!!! We're not talking about a little bit of atmospheric speckle here and there but rather a veritable plague of dust and damage - the elements seeming to have suffered quite a bit even since the previous DVD release. Criterion have an MTI system in house, so why oh why didn't they clean this up?! One expects this sort of corner-cutting from the likes of, say, Olive, but not from a label with Criterion's reputation and resources. As for the theatrical version, this doesn't look as good as Fox's release from Germany.

Definite room for improvement if, say, Masters of Cinema were to take this on.

First off, great username. Secondly, I agree with you that this release COULD have been better. However, both versions are masterpieces and the only scene I really like better in the pre-release cut is the ending kiss (or lack thereof). Fox's version looks slightly better due to higher bitrate, but it's pretty damn close and the movie is far too good to nitpick about minor PQ issues. The Fox release doesn't have nearly as many extras, and the new ones that Criterion produced for this edition are pretty great.