And speaking of Sherlock Holmes... I can't believe there was no official announcement on Blu-ray.com, but I just happened to be going through their listings for upcoming releases and was shocked to see a 5-disc, 14-movie Blu-ray set of all the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes titles scheduled for release on March 29th! They do at least seem to have a discussion thread on the topic, however, which lists some of the details and bonus features. Apparently it showed up for preorder on Amazon back in December.
( http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Sherlock- ... ray/19232/ )
This is amazing news and bodes well for the future of genre classics and box sets in high-definition (assuming this one sells reasonably well). The entire series ran regularly for several years on a local TV station, so I never bothered picking up the DVD editions, but I can't wait to see the UCLA restorations on Blu-ray!
--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/Old ... BluRay.htm
Classic Sherlock Holmes on Blu-ray!
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Christopher Jacobs
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The UCLA restorations were very well done by Bob Gitt, as the "before-and-after" featurette that's included in the set shows. Apparently some of the films were in particularly bad shape, either from neglect, age, overprinting or all of the above.
At least one advantage of the Blu-Ray set is the price. When these were first released on DVD, I think they were getting about $15-20 for each movie. Now you can buy all 14 for under $100.
BTW, for my money, Basil Rathbone is still the best on-screen Homes, bar none. SETH
At least one advantage of the Blu-Ray set is the price. When these were first released on DVD, I think they were getting about $15-20 for each movie. Now you can buy all 14 for under $100.
BTW, for my money, Basil Rathbone is still the best on-screen Homes, bar none. SETH
Please don't call the occasional theatrical release of an old movie a "reissue." We do not say "The next time you go to the Louvre, you will see a re-issue of the Mona Lisa.” -- Cecil B. DeMille
Sherlock Holmes Blu Ray
Classicflix mentioned it last week & ordered from my supplier. Often announcements for new classic releases thru Classicflix are well advanced of entries at Amazon or DD. More surprising that MPI would go to the trouble seeing that they have backburnered a lot of projects like their Honeymooners project. Sales are the cause of the back burner problem.
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Michael O'Regan
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The DVD set is also very cheap:sethb wrote:
At least one advantage of the Blu-Ray set is the price. When these were first released on DVD, I think they were getting about $15-20 for each movie.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes ... 539&sr=1-5
Not all the films in the series are winners (Sherlock Holmes in Washington? Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon?). But most are fairly faithful to the Canon, and Rathbone is uniformly excellent, in my opinion. As with most great roles, the role of Sherlock Holmes was probably a blessing and a curse to him at the same time, providing the same sort of typecasting that bedeviled Bela Lugosi and George Reeves, among others.
Many have criticized Nigel Bruce's bumbling characterization of Watson, but I wonder if most of us would not be equally befuddled in such situations.
Anyway, I agree that the set is a wonderful bargain -- so get it now before it goes out of print! SETH
Many have criticized Nigel Bruce's bumbling characterization of Watson, but I wonder if most of us would not be equally befuddled in such situations.
Anyway, I agree that the set is a wonderful bargain -- so get it now before it goes out of print! SETH
Please don't call the occasional theatrical release of an old movie a "reissue." We do not say "The next time you go to the Louvre, you will see a re-issue of the Mona Lisa.” -- Cecil B. DeMille