Criterion October Releases -- HAXAN and the Von Sternberg Silents get Blu-Ray upgrades.

[azjazzman]

Lots of variables involved. Who is doing the transfer, equipment used, what the source print is, etc.

There are a few assumptions that are pretty safe, however. Just about any competent 2019 transfer (4K or 2K) is going to look significantly better than an unspecified, generic HD transfer done in 2010. And when you add in the jump from DVD to Blu Ray as the carrier, it gets more dramatic. Not barely noticeable better...Yaris to Lexus better.

I'd love to hear someone actually involved in doing transfers say if any of the assumptions people are making about how a 2010 transfer is obviously grossly inferior to a 2019 one are at all true. Sure, the technology changes all the time, but it seems to change more in the area of how much digital cleanup you do than the initial transfer itself.

[rudyfan]

Regarding the Von Sternberg silent, has anyone received the discs and compared to the previous issue? If the improvement is really noticeable, I'll go for them. I am quite happy with the original release.

[Rick Lanham]

Regarding the Von Sternberg silent, has anyone received the discs and compared to the previous issue? If the improvement is really noticeable, I'll go for them. I am quite happy with the original release.

Perhaps foolishly, I did buy the blu-rays in the latest Criterion sale, even though I have the previous DVDs.
I just sampled Underworld and do not see a major difference so far. This is on a 50" Panasonic plasma TV. I want to do more comparisons, but there's the World Series tonight; college football tomorrow, etc. I can probably look at them some more Sunday and post here.

The packaging is almost identical, smaller for the blu-rays; such that they do not list the chapters on the inside of each blu-ray package/folder. The same scores are listed.

Rick

[Rick Lanham]

I've now compared early scenes in the two other movies. I hooked up a second player to attempt an A-B comparison (I was switching discs in the same player before). One player window-boxes the image slightly, while the other doesn't. They are different brands.

I played scenes and paused on faces or titles occasionally.

Nonetheless, I don't see much difference between the DVDs and the blu-ray images. In fact, a friend of mine arrived during my comparison. He didn't know which was which. I asked for his opinion since he's an amatuer and sometimes professional (wedding) photographer. He said he thought the DVD image (the one slightly smaller because of the window-boxing) was sharper!

That's my experience here. Unfortunately the one player which plays DVDs is acting up (they don't play) when trying to play blu-rays, so I couldn't switch the discs to do that comparison.

I hope one of the sites will show us their comparisons.

Rick

[CoffeeDan]

I also purchased the silent von Sternberg Blu-ray set, and was getting ready to do my own A/B comparison with the DVD set, when my Blu-ray player conked out! I spent the weekend looking for a replacement unit, and it should be here by Tuesday. Both of my DVD and Blu-ray players are Sony models.

One thing I like to do for BD/DVD comparisons with my set-up is start the DVD and Blu-ray in sync, and toggle between the two while they are playing. I can usually tell any significant differences in quality right away. I'll do that once I have everything together, probably on Wednesday or Thursday.

[Rick Lanham]

Just a further update. Following a recommendation from the Internet, I unplugged the one player for an extended time (the one which played DVDs, but not blu-rays). I left it unplugged overnight. This morning it plays blu-rays again!

I then played The Last Command extensively. Other than the slight window-boxing from one player, I still see no real difference between the two discs, DVD and blu-ray. I switched the discs between the players, and back.

Maybe CoffeeDan and others will add to this.

Rick

[azjazzman]

Just a further update. Following a recommendation from the Internet, I unplugged the one player for an extended time (the one which played DVDs, but not blu-rays). I left it unplugged overnight. This morning it plays blu-rays again!

I then played The Last Command extensively. Other than the slight window-boxing from one player, I still see no real difference between the two discs, DVD and blu-ray. I switched the discs between the players, and back.

Maybe CoffeeDan and others will add to this.

Rick

I've done A/B comparisons on a 65" 4K Television and using a projector onto an 8 foot screen, and I would agree that the difference is very slight. The Blu Rays, especially THE LAST COMMAND, look a tad sharper to me, but not enough to worry about. This is what I was trying to convey in my earlier post. This is a missed opportunity to have done these great films properly on Blu Ray,

[bgp]

The Criterion half off sale is now in effect, so if you were waiting.....

[bigshot]

Still frame on fast action scenes. That will show you the difference. Blu-ray has a bigger data rate. DVD can blur through the fast action sometimes if the data rate gets too slow.

[CoffeeDan]

Well, I have finally watched UNDERWORLD and THE LAST COMMAND on Criterion's old DVD and new Blu-ray sets of Josef von Sternberg's silent films. I did this by synching up DVD and Blu-ray in two separate players and playing them simultaneously, toggling between the two during certain scenes and sequences. I can now see that there are clear differences between the two media.

Generally speaking, the contrast was turned up high on the DVDs, presumably to hide the hairline scratches in the prints. The Blu-rays are a little darker, showing a little more damage, but the contrast is better balanced and reveals more image detail. The image is slightly windowboxed on the DVDs, but 4:3 full-screen on the Blu-rays.

One of the strengths of von Sternberg's cinematic storytelling is his judicious use of close-ups. This is where the Blu-rays really shine -- I can see telling details in the actors' faces that I couldn't see before. Really subtle things, like reaction shots. Much of the detail is lost in the DVDs where you can't really see the lines of the faces (I'm not talking about wrinkles here), and the faces look "blown out" by comparison. In UNDERWORLD, for example, the close-ups of Fred Kohler, who plays George Bancroft's gangland rival, are so well-lit and detailed in the Blu-ray you can almost count the pores on his face. In fact, Kohler is probably the best-photographed actor in the film, even better than the leads. I wonder why?

Lots of ensemble scenes in THE LAST COMMAND; some of these actually looked better on the DVD until the camera started moving. Overall, they looked much better on the Blu-ray. Emil Jannings' performance is also enhanced by the added detail on the Blu-ray, which is often lost on the DVD.

(I haven't yet looked at THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, but will add to this post when I do.)

Criterion is currently offering the von Sternberg silents only in Blu-ray. This is justifiable -- the Blu-ray image on these discs is sharper and yields more detail than the older DVDs, which now look blurry and indistinct by comparison. If you bought the original DVD set, and are set up for Blu-ray, you'll want to get the Blu-rays ASAP. And now couldn't be a better time -- as I write, the Blu-ray set is on sale at BarnesandNoble.com for only $49.99 (50% off MSRP)!

[CoffeeDan]

And while I'm at it, here's Frederick James Smith's original review of UNDERWORLD from the October 22, 1927 issue of Liberty (reading time, 3 minutes):

A MACHINE-GUN HIT
A Thrilling Film of Gangster Life in the Wild Middle West

A film review by Frederick James Smith

Hollywood is given to pulling its punch. It is afraid to lash out with force and fury. It is frightened continually by the miscellaneous sensibilities of America's millions. That is why the screen has so few effective and gripping melodramas.

THE MIRACLE MAN and THE UNHOLY THREE were the best of this genre. The new Ben Hecht study of machine-gunmen at play, UNDERWORLD, takes its place beside these two as a fine celluloid thriller of tang and gusto.

UNDERWORLD is something of an accident, as are all really good pictures. It was just a program picture given for the making to Josef von Sternberg, the man who made the much touted but disastrous failure, THE SALVATION HUNTERS.

UNDERWORLD lifts the former film-cutter, once known in the old Fort Lee studios as plain Joe Stern, to the heights. Von Sternberg can now snap his fingers at economy drives.

UNDERWORLD may not be Hecht's original story. In fact, Hecht protests that it isn't. But it is a powerful and tense melodrama. Chicago is the background, and Bull Weed, killer and guerrilla chief, is the principal protagonist.

Bull picks up a drunken tramp who was once a lawyer and makes him one of his gang. The third member of the triangle is Bull's light o' love, known as Feathers. An oily gangster, who is a florist in the upper world, tries to get possession of Feathers, and Bull pumps him full of lead for his pains.

The inevitable happens and Bull is sentenced to hang. An hour before the execution he escapes. Word has been filtered to the death cell that Feathers has been unfaithful with the derelict lawyer. Bull sets out to kill the man before the police can get him again.

Then follows one of the most thrilling fights ever filmed. Bull is surrounded in his hideaway. The man from the death house and the police fight it out with machine guns, searchlights, bombs, and all the modern paraphernalia of law and order.

In the end Bull gives himself up -- and we are asked to believe that he does this upon realizing that Feathers and the wreck he befriended really love each other. This, of course, is the usual preposterous movie hokum. But even this climax can not demolish the driving force of the melodrama as a whole.

UNDERWORLD owes its excellence to Von Sternberg's direction. His action is at once sinister, ruthless, and biting. Moreover, Von Sternberg evokes three superb performances from his principal players.

Even Emil Jannings could not have bettered George Bancroft's Bull Weed. His gang czar, swaggering, childlike, relentless, and generous, bellowing with laughter at his prowess with the gat or a few drops of nitroglycerin, is a real flesh-and-blood being. Indeed, you will not find a more fascinating character in years of film-going.

This Bancroft first came to light as the smiling frontier villain of THE PONY EXPRESS. The public had passed over his brutal mountaineer in Charles Brabin's DRIVEN.

Bancroft, who is six feet two and a half, was born in Philadelphia. He was behind the footlights for years, dancing and singing his way around the world three times. He tried everything from Shakespeare to minstrelsy. He was in a number of Broadway musical shows, New York last seeing him in Honeydew. Director Hugo Ballin saw him in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and gave him his first film job in THE JOURNEY'S END, over seven years ago.

Another performance of genuine excellence is that of Evelyn Brent as the tawdry girl of the underworld. It is a sensitive and provocative characterization, the best thing Miss Brent has done in pictures.

Clive Brook, as the derelict attorney, is the third member of the superb acting triumvirate. This, too, is Brook's best film to date, topping his German prisoner in BARBED WIRE.

Better see UNDERWORLD. It is easily one of the ten best pictures of 1927.

(And in my humble opinion, it still is!)

[Daniel Eagan]

That's a pretty perceptive review, even if it gives away the plot. Lots of inside information, and an astute take on what works and why.

[CoffeeDan]

Thanks, Daniel! And if anybody still needs another reason to buy this Criterion box set, here's Smith's original review of THE LAST COMMAND from the March 17, 1928 issue of Liberty (reading time, 3 minutes 22 seconds). Possible spoilers follow:

RED TRAGEDY
Emil Jannings Proves His Worth as a Screen Actor in THE LAST COMMAND

A Movie Review by Frederick James Smith

"Hollywood: Capital of a New Empire -- Mecca of a New Civilization," reads the opening title of Emil Jannings' newest American-made film, THE LAST COMMAND. Don't let this hurry you to the nearest exit. THE LAST COMMAND is one of the best pictures you will see this year.

If you have been a Hollywood visitor, this belief in the place as the art center of the world will not surprise you. Out where men are yes men, this is almost a religion.

THE LAST COMMAND is also built upon another Hollywood theory: that art is tragedy and vice versa. Thus Herr Jannings is forced to suffer and die once more.

The story is a good one. The cousin of the czar, who is also general of the armies of Russia, is swept aside by the Revolution. He drifts to Hollywood. There he is called upon to play the very role he had enacted in real life. Ironically he commands a wavering mimic army in the studio trenches and, lashed by make-believe snow from the wind machines, he falls dead -- a broken derelict -- as he tries to lead his men to victory.

Don't say this could not happen. Hollywood is too crowded with former princes, archdukes, and generals to give you room for argument.

It is almost needless to say that Jannings is superb as Sergius Alexander. Here you trace the man from a broken, palsied extra (by flash-back) to his post under the old Czarist régime. There you find him an arrogant aristocrat -- domineering, charming, and cruel. You see his disintegration under the boots of the revolutionary mobs, and you swing back to the man's final moment of tragic triumph. Here is acting.

There are scores of big incidents, such as the one where he faces and, for the moment, cows the bloodthirsty rioters bent upon tearing him to pieces.

Josef von Sternberg's handling of this turbulent tale is good, marred only now and then by an inability to grasp the sweep of the Revolution. He inserts a good deal of irony into the studio shots and shows you the movie assistants dressed in all their brief authority.

Probably a lot of this bitterness comes from von Sternberg's own experiences. He is the man, you know, who made UNDERWORLD. But before that hit were years of struggle. He was born in Vienna. For years he was a film cutter in the old Fort Lee studios. Then his name was Joe Stern.

In partnership with George K. Arthur, an unknown newcomer from England, he made a film called THE SALVATION HUNTERS, a gloomy, turgid story using a San Pedro harbor mud dredge as its chief figure of symbolism. Von Sternberg and Arthur put all their savings into the venture. They borrowed some more. The final film cost $4,500. Georgia Hale, also unknown then, played the leading role -- for nothing.

The adventurers paid Stuart Holmes a hundred dollars a day -- when they had it. When they didn't, von Sternberg donned Holmes' make-up and faked the part.

Charlie Chaplin and Doug Fairbanks saw THE SALVATION HUNTERS and were wildly enthusiastic. Von Sternberg seemed to have landed. But the film failed with the public.

Next, von Sternberg briefly was with Metro-Goldwyn. Soon jobless, he joined Chaplin. He made A WOMAN OF THE SEA for the comedian. This starred Edna Purviance and cost $90,000. It is still on the Chaplin shelves.

At that moment Paramount needed someone in a hurry to do retakes on CHILDREN OF DIVORCE. Von Sternberg was called in. Result: he got the job of making UNDERWORLD, looked upon as one of the biggest hits of 1927. Recently, Jesse Lasky gave him a bonus of $10,000 for his work on UNDERWORLD. Since that was the largest bonus handed out by Paramount, it places UNDERWORLD as the prize 1927 film of that organization.

When you see THE LAST COMMAND, watch the neat performances contributed by William Powell and Evelyn Brent. Powell plays a revolutionist who becomes a sleek Hollywood director. Miss Brent is a Red who sets out to kill Sergius Alexander and ends by giving her life to save his. Here are two of Hollywood's best troupers.

[bigshot]

I screened the new restoration of "Haxan" last night, and although the film restoration is flawless, I was still a bit disappointed. The score is basically a Time/Life "Classical Music Greatest Hits" arrangement for chamber orchestra. It basically treaded water and didn't really serve the movie. The whole pace of the film was dragging. So I decided to switch to "Witchcraft Through The Ages", because that soundtrack has always been among my favorites, with Jean-Luc Ponty's edgy, angular music and William S. Burroughs fantastically dry and world weary narration. But unfortunately, this appeared to be an upscale of the old DVD. No restoration at all. "Witchcraft Through the Ages" is just as important as "Haxan" in my opinion. I don't care if it is the wrong speed, includes expanded narration that isn't indicated on the title cards, and edited. It plays as a film much better than "Haxan". Normally, I want as close to the original presentation as possible. But this film is an exception. I think what Burroughs and Ponty did with this film raise it to another level. I'm glad I got this, but I will probably not watch the restored version again.

[Nick_M]

Aww, I wish Criterion would stop with the upscaling

[Ken Mitchell]

I was pretty dubious that the Blu Ray of the Von Sternberg Silents would not be a significant upgrade. However, after A-B'ing the first 15 minutes of Underworld, I have to agree the with other posters here. The blu ray is an upgrade but a minimial one. Shows off the film grain better, there is a little more superfine detail that brings out the nap of clothes cloth or shows invidividual hairs on a head a little clearer but that's about that. Very disappointed in the lack of leap forward in quality.

[Claus Harding]

Got "Haxan" and it looks FAN-tastic. The score is somewhat "wallpapery", grinding on with some themes as opposed to really underscoring the action, so that could be improved, but the imagery looks gorgeous. New respect for Christensen's work; the film really was ahead of its time.

C.