One-Eyed Jacks 11.8.11

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by whitesheik

Paramount does have all the elements, and the film doesn't need any restoration, at least in the sense of the true meaning of the word restoration in terms of film. It just needs to be lovingly brought to HD by the team that did Tiffany's - it would look absolutely amazing.

The only DVD that does any justice to this film (and it's as good as the laserdisc AND it's anamorphic) is from France - I got it pretty recently, so it may still be available - it's worth getting - not perfect, by any means, but it's taken from a French print and looks SO much better than any of the other PD abominations that are out, and that includes several others from France - the one you want is on Wild Side Video.

Thanks for this info about the French DVD on Wild Side Video. One question though - does it have forced French subtitles or are they optional?

[eChopper]

Originally Posted by whitesheik

Paramount does have all the elements, and the film doesn't need any restoration, at least in the sense of the true meaning of the word restoration in terms of film. It just needs to be lovingly brought to HD by the team that did Tiffany's - it would look absolutely amazing.

....

That would be great and id gladly pay $1000 for a blu ray from the original elements . My favourite film of all time . Malden saw the 4+ hour cut and said not only was it the greatest western he ever saw, might've even have been one of the greatest dramas per se.

[Douglas R]

Originally Posted by Bruce Morrison

Thanks for this info about the French DVD on Wild Side Video. One question though - does it have forced French subtitles or are they optional?

French subtitles cannot be removed - personally I don't find it a problem.

[HuggyBear73]

Any reviews for this yet?

[nazdar]

pre-ordered months to hear brando say 'you scum sucking pig' ...

[rkolinski]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Any reviews for this yet?

I did a review of the German release of this film on BD and it looks horrible!

[Tom Monahan]

Any reviews?

[whitesheik]

Reviews? Since it's not only the exact same transfer as the wretched and amateurish German Blu-ray, but the EXACT SAME DISC - complete with German menus and the joke of a "copyright" notice, not sure you actually need a review. Unbelievable. Anyone who purchases does so at their own peril.

[Cinemave]

Originally Posted by whitesheik

Reviews? Since it's not only the exact same transfer as the wretched and amateurish German Blu-ray, but the EXACT SAME DISC - complete with German menus and the joke of a "copyright" notice, not sure you actually need a review. Unbelievable. Anyone who purchases does so at their own peril.

This film deserves so much more. Very sad.

[Roy Batty]

I've just got this today as a rental from Blockbuster, and, well... it is a joke.

Calling this "amateurish" would be giving it too much credit, actually. More of a bootleg.

The image (encoded as 1080/24p, but it could well be a simple low-res .avi file) is all washed out with grey shades instead of solid blacks. The color palette looks kinda "dirty", although that could trace back to the source materials (even with Brando & Malden involvement, I doubt this was a very high budget production), with a purple-ish hue. On the other hand, if you forego the french credits and the opening gate weaving, the print is quite decent, generally free of scratches and debris (although I just sampled a few scenes), and there's some fine detail there (upscaled-DVD-fine, of course), specially on face close-ups, along with edge halos and aliasing aplenty, and some color throbbing all throughout the film, slight in places, more severe in others. All in all, this doesn't look like a BD at all, but as a fair DVD for what it is, ultimately, a pretty obscure production.

There are both german and english audio tracks. I didn't even bother with the german one (which is the default audio, of course, this being a german port); the english audio track is encoded as 2.0 stereo DTS-HD MA, but, once again, that doesn't mean anything, and the audio sounds more like mono distributed over left, center and right channels, with no directionality whatsoever, and very poor dynamic range, of course.

No subtitles in any language, and no extra features other than a weird trailer (letter-boxed and in pretty poor condition) made up mostly of stills (more like frozen frames) edited together in a montage to some score, mixed with some actual footage.

To sum it up: a blu-ray just in name and physical media.

[whitesheik]

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

I've just got this today as a rental from Blockbuster, and, well... it is a joke.

Calling this "amateurish" would be giving it too much credit, actually. More of a bootleg.

The image (encoded as 1080/24p, but it could well be a simple low-res .avi file) is all washed out with grey shades instead of solid blacks. The color palette looks kinda "dirty", although that could trace back to the source materials (even with Brando & Malden involvement, I doubt this was a very high budget production), with a purple-ish hue. On the other hand, if you forego the french credits and the opening gate weaving, the print is quite decent, generally free of scratches and debris (although I just sampled a few scenes), and there's some fine detail there (upscaled-DVD-fine, of course), specially on face close-ups, along with edge halos and aliasing aplenty, and some color throbbing all throughout the film, slight in places, more severe in others. All in all, this doesn't look like a BD at all, but as a fair DVD for what it is, ultimately, a pretty obscure production.

There are both german and english audio tracks. I didn't even bother with the german one (which is the default audio, of course, this being a german port); the english audio track is encoded as 2.0 stereo DTS-HD MA, but, once again, that doesn't mean anything, and the audio sounds more like mono distributed over left, center and right channels, with no directionality whatsoever, and very poor dynamic range, of course.

No subtitles in any language, and no extra features other than a weird trailer (letter-boxed and in pretty poor condition) made up mostly of stills (more like frozen frames) edited together in a montage to some score, mixed with some actual footage.

To sum it up: a blu-ray just in name and physical media.

No, it does not trace back to the source material - this was a VistaVision picture with incredibly gorgeous photography - original dye transfer prints by Technicolor were astonishing. Put simply, if this were transferred lovingly from original elements it would look as good as White Christmas or The Ten Commandments, both shot in VistaVision and beautifully transferred to Blu-ray. This piece of merde only exists because the film is in the public domain.

[rip63]

I was excited when I saw this listed on Blu at Amazon UK, but I won't be buying it now I know it's a bad port.

This has been a highly regarded film for quite some time now, so I don't understand why it hasn't been given the treatment it deserves, especially given the recent passing of Brando. I have a budget SD release I bought here in Australia recently and it's the best version I've seen (and I've seen a few of them). It's widescreen, but not 16x9 enhanced, so I just zoom it once and it looks great.

This film and Little Odessa (another superb film and victim of poor releases worldwide) are prime Criterion material. C'mon, Criterion!

[nazdar]

happy to have a copy on disc but this is as bad as it gets ... looks better than a beta copy i made off the television; but thats about it ... no one will want this unless you don't demand basic quality ... 'scum sucking pigs!'

[tigr67]

Ordered the blu-ray and got it Tuesday, and it does seem to be the German disc, just repurposed for Region A, and the print itself looks like a 1/2" video master lazily ported over to disc, with all the blurry bleariness that implies, and also with French title cards. I returned it after watching only a few minutes of it.

[JHas]

Originally Posted by nazdar

happy to have a copy on disc but this is as bad as it gets ... looks better than a beta copy i made off the television; but thats about it ... no one will want this unless you don't demand basic quality ... 'scum sucking pigs!'

Scum sucking pigs sums it up best! They didn't even bother to set english as the default language...

[Roy Batty]

I have just realized something that I forgot to mention and now has got me wondering...

- As far as I know, all sources list this movie's original aspect ratio as 1.85:1

- The atrocious BD just released is 1.85:1 (more likely 1.78:1)

- An old european DVD edition I've got of the movie is, on the other hand, 1.33:1.

So far, nothing strange there, we all know how many careless studios produced 1.33:1 DVDs from widescreen movies to fit standard, 4:3 TV sets. But...

- The 1.85:1 image on the BD looks way too tight, with many cropped heads; and, what's more alarming, the opening credits are just way too close to the upper part of the screen, much more than could be chalked up to an excess of overscan

- The 1.33:1 image on the DVD shows much more image on the upper and lower parts of the screen, and both opening credits and actors' heads get that sorely needed breathing space

The usual explanation would be that the 1.33:1 image on the DVD is an open matte transfer, opening the frame beyond what was shown in theaters, and that the 1.85:1 image on the BD is indeed the proper, wider framing. But it certainly does NOT look so, it's way too tight above and below.

So that leaves only one other explanation: the 1.33:1 on the DVD was cropped from the original 1.85:1, cutting off the sides... and this new 1:85:1 on the BD has been cropped from that already cropped 1.33:1 image, cutting the upper and lower sections this time, showing just a small central rectangle from the original, missing image on EVERY 4 side.

What do you think? Anyone here have any old DVD release and the new BD to compare them?

[retablo]

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

I have just realized something that I forgot to mention and now has got me wondering...

- As far as I know, all sources list this movie's original aspect ratio as 1.85:1

- The atrocious BD just released is 1.85:1 (more likely 1.78:1)

- An old european DVD edition I've got of the movie is, on the other hand, 1.33:1.

So far, nothing strange there, we all know how many careless studios produced 1.33:1 DVDs from widescreen movies to fit standard, 4:3 TV sets. But...

- The 1.85:1 image on the BD looks way too tight, with many cropped heads; and, what's more alarming, the opening credits are just way too close to the upper part of the screen, much more than could be chalked up to an excess of overscan

- The 1.33:1 image on the DVD shows much more image on the upper and lower parts of the screen, and both opening credits and actors' heads get that sorely needed breathing space

The usual explanation would be that the 1.33:1 image on the DVD is an open matte transfer, opening the frame beyond what was shown in theaters, and that the 1.85:1 image on the BD is indeed the proper, wider framing. But it certainly does NOT look so, it's way too tight above and below.

So that leaves only one other explanation: the 1.33:1 on the DVD was cropped from the original 1.85:1, cutting off the sides... and this new 1:85:1 on the BD has been cropped from that already cropped 1.33:1 image, cutting the upper and lower sections this time, showing just a small central rectangle from the original, missing image on EVERY 4 side.

What do you think? Anyone here have any old DVD release and the new BD to compare them?

Interesting. It seems this film can never catch a break.

[filmmusic]

Universal:

Began film element research and scan tests for the 4k restoration of “One Eyed Jacks”, Marlon Brando’s only directorial effort. This work is being partially funded by the Film Foundation

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topi...ray/?p=4268943

[RiFiFi1955]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES! This is FANTASTIC news!

[MifuneFan]

I could see this getting a Criterion release later next year