55 Days at Peking / Circus World - April 7th

[Oliver K]

A text intro from Scorsese came with the US DVD and it closes with:

I'm very happy to see El Cid finally appearing on DVD. It's truly one of the finest historical epics ever made.

He probably never saw the DVD and trusted Weinstein to do a good job with it...

[richarde007]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

A text intro from Scorsese came with the US DVD and it closes with:

I'm very happy to see El Cid finally appearing on DVD. It's truly one of the finest historical epics ever made.

He probably never saw the DVD and trusted Weinstein to do a good job with it...

If I remember correctly part of the reason they look pretty poor is that the weinsteins were only sent inter positives to work with as the licence holder didn't trust them with the negatives. Which actually was a good thing because these inter positives were never returned anyway...

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by richarde007

If I remember correctly part of the reason they look pretty poor is that the weinsteins were only sent inter positives to work with as the licence holder didn't trust them with the negatives. Which actually was a good thing because these inter positives were never returned anyway...

They were low contrast prints which would not have looked perfect anyway but the scrubbed look is entirely their fault. I can only guess that a more delicate cleanup procedure was not used for either reasons of cost-cutting and/or ignorance but the end result speaks for itself espdcially on Blu-ray and frankly the DVD of El Cid was also quite bad.

If the prints were not returned that is really bad but it also shows why sending precious negatives abroad is not something that happens everyday. I remember that Robert A Harris was surprised that the negative of Il Gattopardo was shipped to I believe Warners scanning facility for a 6k scan (or 4k from perf to perf) as obviously this is not the usual practice.

[Yami]

Artwork courtesy of Amazon:

[CinemaScope]

What an awful cover for 55 Days!

Some caps from the French Blu that was released today, I don't know if it's the same transfer.

http://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/view...p?f=32&t=35330

[richarde007]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

What an awful cover for 55 Days!

Some caps from the French Blu that was released today, I don't know if it's the same transfer.

http://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/view...p?f=32&t=35330

Yeah that's the new pinewood 2K master. Lovely isn't it.

[Douglas R]

Ghastly covers!

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

What an awful cover for 55 Days!

Some caps from the French Blu that was released today, I don't know if it's the same transfer.

http://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/view...p?f=32&t=35330

The French BD is magnificent!