Blackmail (1929, Alfred Hitchcock) from Kino Lorber (issues..)

[kishiro]

I finally got my hand of one of the few Alfred Hitchcock movies I've never seen; Blackmail. Hitchcock's first Talkie from 1929. yay

The Kino Lorber release consists of 2 discs. Disc one containing the Silent version and the Talkie version in 1.33:1 aspect Ratio. Disc two contains the Talkie version in 1.20:1 aspect ratio.

So far so good... But it's not. Both the Talkie versions have problems. The 1.33:1 version is horizontally stretched (I don't no why it was even included). The 1.20:1 version is actually not 1.20:1, but rather 1:12:1 and vertically stretched! Damn !!

Also the Black bars on both Talkies are not totally black but have a RGB value of R3 B3 G3 instead of 0 (zero). The silent version looks good though, geometry is fine and the black bars are properly black.

I'm sad....



Why is QC so bad. How hard can it be to check the aspect ratios before release.... Do you think they'll release a fixed pressing ?