Wooden Crosses (1932) Eureka (MOC)

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by tenia

Svet, can you tell us if the extras are in HD ? On the Pathé release, they were disappointly relegated to a dedicated DVD.
As for the luminosity, it seems to me there were a right middle between the Pathé (which has always seems too bright to me) and the MoC (which seems too dark indeed).

1. I cannot check at the moment, but I believe they were in HD. However, I do not agree that Pathe's decision to place the extras on a DVD was disappointing. Excluding the restoration featurette, where there are some examples showing the difference between the French and International versions of Wooden Crosses and a few demonstrations, all of the content looks fine upscaled. There is plenty of very dated archival material here.

2. Pathe's brightness settings are clearly more appropriate. This is a restoration and reconstruction and there are different elements with different identities (which have also aged differently). The darker setting works fine for a lot of the outdoor footage, or at least the most healthy footage, but it is problematic for the nighttime/darker footage. As I wrote after I received the French release, it is very clear that efforts were made to rebalance the image as best as possible, but if you pay attention it is rather easy to tell where different elements were used as many transitions frequently have some minor contrast/of brightness bumps. Still, this is a very, very fine job from Pathe.

Pro-B