List Price: $39.95
www.amazon.com's Price: $29.99
You Save: $9.96 (25%)
Condition: New
Availability: Not yet released
Release Date: 2009-01-20
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Lowest New Price: $29.99
| WELL DONE CRITERION!The Sirk movie is great. It was great 45 years ago when it was not something you HAD to admire. It was still great when I caught a 35 mm print five years ago. In the movie theaters it has always been shown in the Academy ratio, as shot. IMDB is a commercial organization and its 1,85 hysteria to accomodate the DVD releases is a disgrace.
THE MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is well served by ROCK HUDSON who was not taken seriously because he was breathtakingly handsome. Look at JOHN WAYNE in the thirties, he was that handsome too but nobody held it against him. He was not taken seriously because his films were not prestigious.
Everybody was even better in ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS.
The JOHN STAHL version is great. Again the new canon: all melodramas ARE masterpieces, has done him no service. IRENE DUNNE is superb, as usual and ROBERT TAYLOR was a great actor. I mean it.
Could we have 1,33 editions of the movies from the fifties, at least.
All the movie buffs would be willing to pay extra money. I am deprived of the BOETTICHER and DAVES movies and couldn't face watching SUMMER PLACE, a great movie in that hideous 1,85 format. It lies with IMITATION OF LIFE and some others.
The author LLOYD C. DOUGLAS was a queer one, a Lutheran minister. He wrote only eleven novels. The last ones THE ROBE and THE BIG FISHERMAN are straight Christian novels, or Christian romances.
THE MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION is the first one (1922). For me, Douglas was rather some kind of spiritualist than a true orthodox, in spite of
the Christian themes or conversions. I strongly recommend to lovers of American literature GREEN LIGHT, WHITE BANNERS and DISPUTED PASSAGE, they will be rewarded by some bizarre but interesting thinking, not just some
queer praise of medical science. Like the movies, literature must not be
pure pleasure but has to reveal its significant treasures.
Pan and Scan by Criterion?If you go to IMDB Technical Specifications you will see the film was shot in 2.00:1 Aspect Ratio.
If you go to Criterion's website they ALSO list original aspect ratio of 2.00:1 and further state they are releasing it 'Not Anamorphic'! Why?, because, and I NEVER thought I'd see the day, Criterion is releasing it in 1.33:1 Academy Aspect. I'm hoping against hope that this information is incorrect.
If the current details hold true, what does this mean? It means this version will be a Pan and Scan transfer. Originally, amazon.com listed the studio as Image Entertainment but it was changed to Criterion. Does Image Entertainment connote the same trust as Criterion Collection?
Criterion Collection was founded by Image Entertainment. Criterion Collection is, as of this date, a privately held company which is probably good for us because they do not have to listen to shareholders when deciding what to release, what to restore and how to spend their monies in a creatively free way - an environment beneficial in all art.
I'm not saying Criterion Collection does not put out great films, they do, but they may be getting too greedy for our good.
I wish Criterion Collection would have used better judgment when they released versions of widescreen films that SHOULD have been Anamorphic like, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Night Porter, Vagabond, High and Low etc. Now, they expect us to purchase them all over again?
Criterion Collection continues to release DVD's using Picture Boxing (for the benefit of people who still have tube TVs). They have started using other substandard transfer techniques such as boosting contrast levels to manipulate detail and employ Edge Enhancement.
IS THIS CRITERION OR IMAGE ENERTAINMENT?Under Product Description Amazon Shows the Studio as Image Entertainment. The picture of the BOX says Criterion on the side of picture.
Is this the Criterion Collection release or Image Entertainment. I am going to buy it as soon as I am sure it is a Criterion Film. Great Film.
Contains a double feature of the classic storyThe Criterion collection is adding both the 1935 and 1954 versions of Magnificent Obsession to its list of classics getting the deluxe treatment. Thus you are not only getting the Wyman/Hudson version of this film, but also the 1935 Irene Dunne/Robert Taylor version which has never been released either on DVD or VHS. Both were Universal properties, but the last time I saw the 1935 version it was so dark I wasn't sure it could be salvaged to the point we would ever see it on DVD. I was happily wrong.
The center of the story is Robert Merrick ( Hudson in 1954, Robert Taylor in 1935). He is a well-to-do playboy that has a boating accident at the same time that Dr. Hudson has a coronary. There is one piece of life-saving equipment available in the area, and it winds up saving Merrick's life. Hudson's family and the entire community can't help but be a little bit resentful that such a seemingly useless young man, whose accident was due to his own recklessness, has been spared at the expense of the beloved Dr. Hudson. This causes Merrick to begin to reflect on life and as a result he is told by Edward Randolph about Hudson's "magnificent obsession" - doing good with little fanfare and getting paid back many times over. Unfortunately, Merrick doesn't quite understand. He thinks of this process as a vending machine. He puts in a quarter ( a good work), presses a button and then says "gimme". However, Merrick is the indirect cause of a second tragedy that finally does put his life on the right path over a period of years.
In spite of the poor film quality, I think I preferred the 1935 version to the one from the 50's although I loved them both. The 30's version focuses more on Merrick's inner turmoil and transition while the 50's version is more of a melodrama and love story. The best thing about the 50's version - the chemistry between Wyman and Hudson. You would never think such a thing would work unless you saw it yourself, but it does. Also, there is Otto Kruger as Edward Randolph, the man who helps put Merrick on the right track. In the 30's Kruger could play some really hardened character, but here he is as gentle as Santa Claus. It's quite a tribute to his acting skills - I think he was always underrated.
The extra features are:
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood (1991): a rare 80-minute documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt in which Sirk reflects upon his career.
Video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, paying tribute to Sirk.
Theatrical trailer .
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien.
Product DescriptionReckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town s only resuscitator at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk's most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked to one another amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. For this release, Criterion also presents John M. Stahl's 1935 film version of the Lloyd C. Douglas novel, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
Magnificent Obsession (1935, 102 minutes): a new digital transfer of John M. Stahl s complete earlier version of the film
Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood (1991): a rare 80-minute documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt in which Sirk reflects upon his career
Video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, paying tribute to Sirk
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Geoffrey O Brien
Read more...
Similar Products:The Taking of Power by Louis XIV - Criterion Collection
Warner Bros. Romance Classics Collection (Palm Springs Weekend / Parrish / Rome Adventure / Susan Slade)
Rossellini's History Films: Renaissance and Enlightenment - Eclipse Series 14
Hobson's Choice - Criterion Collection
Waterloo Bridge
|
