Tweet Les Vampires, Early Lang on Blu-ray

The intertitles say on the screen long enough to read. The subtitles under the notes don't at times.
While I can get used to black and white opposed to it being tinted, I'd prefer consistency. Either leave it all black and white or make it all tinted. To just tint a few night scenes looks out of place. The sound effects are a nice touch in the musical score. Some scenes are dark and fairly rough looking, like a PD copy would look. It seems that with the kino/lorber merger we still get a fair amount of silent releases, they are just lazier to clean up the prints and add extras. Still thankful to get them. This along with the recent Spiders release is happily accepted. I guess KINO has had a range of good restorations in their time. The old Fairbanks Kino DVD's that shepard did like the Three Musketeers especially, and also notably Robin Hood, they are not cleaned up very good. They run to fast. Can't catch the intertitles, and the electric fake music sounding Robin Hood score.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Not having the VHS myself, I can't speak to the other damage -- but VHS-era transfers often had a considerably cropped frame, losing some of the edge of the image in order to make sure no frame edges were visible on your TV. This would also have cropped off places where the sprocket holes have intruded into the image area. Recent transfers tend to be more edge-to-edge, which gives you all the available image, perhaps including intrusive sprocket holes.

Also, the softness of VHS transfers may reduce the number of noticeable specks and lines, which (along with the detail you want) become more apparent in BluRay.

Then again, maybe it's just that the source material is a couple of decades older...

In a film theater, the edges of the screen are masked with black cloth to make them sharp, a practice you could adapt to your home theater

I plan to order the Blu-ray edition of LES VAMPIRES soon, and welcome a transfer that includes as much of the image as possible. Visible sprocket holes on the edges, while slightly distracting, are to some extent also an enjoyable film artifact. Our last local theatre that runs real 35mm film plans to switch to completely digital sometime in October. I tend to watch all movies on16mm film, DVD, or Blu-ray projected in my home theatre, so I can simply pull in my side black velvet masking to cover up the sprocket hole if they become too annoying. Of course if you watch on a TV set, you're stuck with them unless you set it to underscan the picture and lose image information all around.

Here's a rather interesting review from Slant Magazine.

Great to hear that the new version has a Mont Alto score. I'm very fond of the Robert Israel score and was afraid something inferior had been substituted- all of the announcements I've seen make no mention at all of the score.

I've just watched the first episode ("The Severed Head") of the Kino Blu-Ray and compared it to my Image DVD. Here are some of my thoughts:

The Kino has night tinting (blue), but not the green tinting that apparently means "outdoor daylight" on the Image version.

I'd say there's a similar amount of print damage -- spots and scratches -- in both versions.

The Image version replaced all handwritten letters with modern text on a blank screen. The Kino shows the handwritten letters with subtitles below.

The Kino shows the edges of sprocket holes in certain scenes... for example, at night in the reporter's bedroom, and when the Grand Vampire escapes. But that means you're seeing more of the original picture, too.

The Kino Blu-Ray shows much more picture detail than the Image DVD. For example, in Mazamette's photo of his children, the kids are more than just blurs.

The Image DVD came with a booklet that discusses Feuillade and Gaumont, though it also veers a bit into "film school blather". There's nothing like that in the Kino version.

The Kino Blu-Ray uses Kino's accordion-style menu format, which I find very crisp and clean.

Nice job by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra on the new Kino score. Blu-Ray makes their music big and bright.

I'm happy.

Here's a useful review from Carl Bennett's silentera.com.

Daryl Loomis' review at DVD Verdict.

Reviews for this title keep trickling in...

http://battleshippretension.com/?p=8575

http://j-entonline.com/tag/a-j-ent-blu-ray-disc-review/