Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Romance > Literature > Melodrama > Musical > Fashion > Photography > Magazine > Publishing > Large > The Audrey Hepburn Collection (Breakfast At Tiffany's/Funny Face/Sabrina/1954 - 61/Paramount/Warner Blu-ray Set)/Gone With The Wind: 75th Anniversary Edition (1939/Selznick/MGM/Warner Blu-rays w/Bonus

The Audrey Hepburn Collection (Breakfast At Tiffany's/Funny Face/Sabrina/1954 - 61/Paramount/Warner Blu-ray Set)/Gone With The Wind: 75th Anniversary Edition (1939/Selznick/MGM/Warner Blu-rays w/Bonus DVDs Limited Edition Box Set)


Picture: B/A-/B-/B Sound: B- Extras: B+/B/B/B+ Films: B-/A-/B-/B-



For fans and the upcoming holidays, Warner is issuing gift sets of some classic Paramount and MGM titles, all of which we have covered before, but most are new to us on Blu-ray.


The first thing fans may wonder about with The Audrey Hepburn Collection is why the biggest film she made for Warner Bros. is not on there, My Fair Lady (1964, reviewed elsewhere on this site). Though it is true they produced and issued the Best Picture Academy Award Winner, their deal for the stage musical did not include keeping the film in their catalog, so it has been on home video from several entities (CBS/Fox, Warner, Fox, CBS and soon, Paramount) which is why it is sadly not here. However, we get three Paramount films that arrived just before that hit.


Blake Edwards' Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961) we reviewed in its 2001 anniversary DVD edition at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3478/Breakfast+at+Tiffany


This Blu-ray is of the new 2011 restoration that manages to do a great job of capturing the three-strip Technicolor the film was meant to be seen in. I like the film, especially since Hepburn is not necessarily playing the usual nice, sweet role, but some parts fall flat, especially Mickey Rooney's Asian stereotype. Otherwise, it is worth revisiting, especially in this nicely upgraded Blu-ray.


As for extras, the feature length Richard Shepherd audio commentary, Original Theatrical Trailer and a single featurette from the DVD are included and Galleries are added along with more featurettes bringing the total to eight: Behind The Gates: Camera, A Golightly Gathering, Henry Mancini: More Than Music, The Making Of A Classic, It's So Audrey: A Style Icon, Brilliance In A Blue Box, Audrey's Letter To Tiffany's and Mr. Yunioshi: An Asian Perspective. I found all that impressive in total.


Stanley Donen's Funny Face (1956) which we reviewed the exact Blu-ray (including extras) here as a single at this link in our fourth time celebrating the film:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12706/The+Big+Melt+(2013/BFI+Region+2+PAL+Import


Billy Wilder's Sabrina (1954) we previously covered in its Centennial Collection (with the inexplicably excluded, separately sold Roman Holiday entry in that series) at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7808/Paramount+Centennial+Collections


This is obviously a solid comedy and another win for Hepburn, as well as superior to the ambitious remake, but it also has flat moments for me, though it has moments few could have put on the screen as Wilder did. Extras are a little different than that DVD, with a documentary on the film and five featurettes: Audrey Hepburn: Fashion Icon, Sabrina's World, William Holden: The Paramount Years, Supporting Sabrina and Behind The Gates: Camera.



Gone With The Wind: 75th Anniversary Edition (1939) with its 4 directors remains so popular, that Warner has come up with a new limited edition Blu-ray box set different from the nice limited edition Blu-ray and DVD box sets they did 5 years ago. We covered the DVD set from that period at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9237/Gone+With+The+Wind


The last box set had 150,000 copies issued, but this time, only 62,700 of these new sets will be made. Both include the same Blu-ray from the new 8K transfer from the original camera negatives. I have said all I can say on the film from the previous text, except to say the more bad digital action epics that get made, the better some of this actually ages.


Extras are also different this time out from the previous box set and other releases. We get another nice box, this time white and not the red felt of the previous box. Inside this time are a duplicate of Butler's initialed scarf, the thin hardcover book Forever Scatlett: The Immortal Style Of Gone With The Wind - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and a miniature music box that you can wind up. It plays the instrumental main theme song from the film.


The discs add the solid vintage feature length audio commentary track by Rudy Behlmer, the great TV documentary Mini-Series MGM: When The Lion Roared on DVD, Newsreels, Original Theatrical Trailers over the years, The Making Of A Legend documentary (1989 TV Special) (Narrated by Christopher Plummer), Restoring A Legend chronicles the Film/Video restoration Process, 1940 MGM Historical Short "The Old South", International Prologue to explain the film, Foreign Language Version Sample Scenes, Cast Profile, Vivien Leigh: Scarlett and Beyond, The Supporting Players with cameo portraits of an unforgettable ensemble, 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year featurette narrated by Kenneth Branagh, Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On, Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War 1980 WBTV Special, an existing Special never before seen on home video release and two new segments: Hollywood Comes To Atlanta with rough footage of the famed world premiere of the film and Old South/New South featurette.


All that should be enough to justify buying the box unless you are one of the fortunate people to have purchased the 70th Anniversary Blu-ray box. Diehard fans will own both! We should also add for fans that sold separately, a new book by Donald McCaig has been released in hardcover entitled Ruth's Journey: The Story Of Mammy from Gone With The Wind. That continues the film's streak of being of being one of the most successful films to span the most books.



The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Funny Face ran into controversy for those who played it on very big HDTV screens and projectors since we first posted our coverage, exhibiting image issues you could only see that way. That's a shame, but I will only add the disclaimer here not to expect it to hold on big HDTVS of Ultra HDTVs. As noted before, it is going to take a 2160p transfer and upcoming Ultra HD Blu-ray to do total justice to this film, but it is really nice the way it is otherwise so most consumers should have limited concerns in this case. Sabrina could use some work on its black and white presentation, starting with a print that is uneven and has detail issues in some shots it should not. Also, it has a controversy that its frame ought to be 1.33 X 1 or at least 1.66 X 1, but the framing here was not too bad at 1.85 X 1, though no framing can stop us from seeing the age of the materials used. The same frame on the restored Breakfast looks really good often, though I found some shots to be detail challenged, yet the approximation of dye-transfer three-strip Technicolor often shines through throughout. Like Funny Face, it will take a 2160p presentation to really show the film off, but it looks fine here with some demo shots too.


The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image on Wind had all three of its three Technicolor strips scanned at 8K (still not enough, but better than 4K) and is the same Blu-ray as the 70th Anniversary release with some great shots and great color, but I found some shots to not have enough detail and others to not totally deliver the color range it should have. Otherwise, unless you have a rare early Technicolor print, I doubt you'll see this looking better anywhere else. Again, a 2160p presentation is needed, though I still have some small questions about if some shots have been restored correctly. It is better than the DVD version we previously reviewed, of course.


The sound on all four discs area about even, all originally issued in theatrical mono, which Sabrina stays at in a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless mix that is surprisingly clean and clear for its age. Breakfast and the previously covered Funny Face have upgraded DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that deliver their music best, but do their best to present the rest of the original audio of their respective films. Funny Face could still use a little more of an upgrade from the original sound stems. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on Wind is the same mix as the previous Blu-ray and sounds good, but the film is going to only sound so great due to its age. Music and some sound effects benefit, plus the film has been previously upgraded sound wise before in DTS 5.1 theatrical, Dolby 5.1 theatrical and a 6-track magnetic stereo mix in its infamous 1967 70mm blow-up presentation where they cut the top and bottom off to make it widescreen!


The sound might benefit more than the picture with a little more upgrading via some innovative techniques and technology that has arrived in the last 5 years, but this sounds as good as you have ever heard it otherwise.



- Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com