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