Preliminary Magnificent Ambersons DVD info on amazon.com

[purplepines]

My intuition says they'll wait for the big whole number anniversary (70) and release it in HD in 2012. By then, the subject matter might even more closely mirror the American story.

[bord]

Its worth considering that Warners has cautiously ended their 'no outsourcing/licensing' policy by working with Criterion on Downhill Racer.
http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9921

It'd be nice to see Ambersons back in the hands of Criterion.

[atcolomb]

I do have Ambersons on laserdisc released by Criterion when they were making laserdiscs. Criterion did an excellent job on the extras and the print used for the movie was in good shape!

[Dan]

The story only says "shots". No further details provided, still an interesting item:

Large Gift Boosts Harvard Film Archive’s Collection
Published On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:34 AM
By GAUTAM S. KUMAR

Harvard’s once small collection of film stills—movie frames studied by film historians—is slowly ballooning into one of the country’s ten largest, thanks to a gift from a pair of German collectors.

Munich-based couple Lothar and Eva Just are now in the process of donating their estimated 800,000-piece collection to the Harvard Film Archive. So far, the HFA has received over 42,600 items in the collection, which will take an estimated five years to arrive and catalog, according to Film Conservator Elizabeth Coffey. The HFA began receiving the shipments in May 2008...

...Notably, the collection includes shots from films whose footage has been partially or wholly destroyed—such as Josef von Sternberg’s The Case of Lena Smith and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons...

Full article: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=529087

[NoFake]

As the couple is "Munich-based," do any of our Munich members know what the collection might entail vis-a-vis AMBERSONS?

[Dan]

Well, what's the latest info on an Ambersons DVD release? I've read nothing in the press or online about it, so I guess it' still in limbo.

[atcolomb]

I am guessing it will be released next year for it's 70th anniversary but if Warner Bros. is having cold feet about releasing it maybe Criterion can since they did it back in the old days on laserdisc. Nothing yet on the Blu-ray on Kane so it might be released latter this year.

[Roger Ryan]

Yeah, Warner Home Video pretty much confirmed that AMBERSONS and JOURNEY INTO FEAR would eventually come out (possibly as one package), but not before the KANE Blu-ray.

[atcolomb]

Just saw the info from The Digital Bits website today:

Okay... we've got a little bit of breaking news for you. Our very own Dr. Adam Jahnke just spotted something interesting: Warner's long awaited Citizen Kane: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. In fact, Amazon appears to have an EXCLUSIVE offer for the BD set bundled with a DVD edition of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons. The SRP is $79.98 but Amazon has it for just $55.99. According to the back of its DVD cover art, Ambersons appears to be the existing 88-minute version. The package also includes the excellent RKO 218, lots of paperwork (including replica documents and poster art cards) and a collector's book. Here's a look at the cover art for the Citizen Kane Blu-ray box set, The Magnificent Ambersons DVD and the open contents of the UCE box set.

...and yes you can pre-order it right now...Great News but Ambersons is only dvd and not blu-ray! Also on the back cover of the Ambersons dvd is a scene cut out from the film??..if my memory serves me right.

[edmoney]

Fantastic news about Ambersons finally being released on DVD ... at long last.

Yes, that scene is not in the 88-minute version - very curious indeed. It looks like something that would be out of the original ending in the boarding house where the other residents are trying to listen in on the conversation between Eugene and Fanny. It's also curious that Ambersons is being released only on DVD, only on a single disc, and apparently available only with the Kane BD. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ambersons might be released again next year in a stand-alone, special edition (perhaps in BD as well). The upcoming DVD release this year would not only be a bonus meant to entice purchase of an expensive Kane box set but perhaps a "teaser" for more to come?

[atcolomb]

Fantastic news about Ambersons finally being released on DVD ... at long last.

Yes, that scene is not in the 88-minute version - very curious indeed. It looks like something that would be out of the original ending in the boarding house where the other residents are trying to listen in on the conversation between Eugene and Fanny. It's also curious that Ambersons is being released only on DVD, only on a single disc, and apparently available only with the Kane BD. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ambersons might be released again next year in a stand-alone, special edition (perhaps in BD as well). The upcoming DVD release this year would not only be a bonus meant to entice purchase of an expensive Kane box set but perhaps a "teaser" for more to come?

You could be right edmoney...i hope they will release a stand-alone ( with Journey Into Fear?) for it's 70th anniversary next year..and in blu-ray..and some nice extras.

[Roger Ryan]

I'll be very curious to see what the "digitally-mastered" picture quality looks like on AMBERSONS. Warner was supposed to have done a 4K scan of the film; if that was the case, the improvement in quality would definitely show up even on standard definition DVD...and would bode well for a true HD release on Blu-ray in the future. If the picture quality looks like what TCM-HD aired last week (dingy and dull), then I would have to assume that insufficient elements were found in order to do the 4K scan or Warner just didn't bother putting the effort/money into it. If the picture quality is poor this time around, I' m thinking that AMBERSONS will not be revisited at any point in the near future.

By the way, Jeff Wilson has pointed out that both Joseph Cotten's name and Booth Tarkington's name are misspelled on the back cover according to the current artwork (poor Joe gets "Cotton" as happens way too often and Tarkington gets altered to "Tarkinson" - apparently to bring it more in line with "Amberson"!). I hope they fix those typos before release...and they might want to nix the boarding house photo from the back cover as well.

[atcolomb]

I also saw the TCM-HD version last week and it was a weak print of the film and when i have a chance i will dig out my Criterion laserdisc version and compare the two. It's kinda of sad because Warner Bros usually does very well with it's releases but maybe they think that with Ambersons it might not be a big seller and won't recoup their money to do a special edition?

[edmoney]

The lackluster picture quality of the recent TCM-HD airing sounds like it could be cause for concern ... what is the relationship between TCM and WHV? Would TCM necessarily have access to the same print/transfer being used for the upcoming AMBERSONS release? Although I do have to admit that an airing a week before this "announcement" seems like more than just coincidence.

With the exception of Criterion, WHV consistently offered the best transfers on their catalog releases, and at times, even rivaled or surpassed Criterion. I'd think that WHV would know the difference between "good" picture quality and sub-par picture quality. If the upcoming release offered sub-par picture quality, I'd think WHV wouldn't try to call attention to it. Boasting "Digitally remastered for enhanced picture and audio quality!" on the back cover would be inviting scrutiny and potential embarrassment if they weren't confident about it. Have there been cases in the past where WHV made such a claim and not delivered?

Still, "Joseph Cotton" and "Booth Tarkinson" don't give me the warm and fuzzies ...

[Roger Ryan]

Yes, WHV has usually delivered excellent transfers of their catalog titles whereas their new releases on DVD started to look atrocious circa 2004 (plenty of compression artifacts and ghosting).

TCM is part of the Warner Brothers family after WB bought the Turner library and you usually start seeing certain films in very good condition just prior to their DVD or Blu-ray release. Not just films from WB but from Criterion, Kino and others. A few weeks back, I caught a bit of Buster Keaton's short ONE WEEK (1920) on TCM-HD when it was being aired prior to a feature film - it looked phenomenal and I wondered if there was going to be a Blu-ray of it soon. Then, a week or two later, Kino announced a Blu-ray release of Keaton shorts coming out this summer.

Now while I don't have confirmation of this, I was under the impression that a 4K scan was completed on AMBERSONS two or three years ago, so TCM should be showing a better quality version by now. Perhaps WHV has held back on releasing the new master to TCM to make it a bigger DVD release event (yep, that was sort of a joke). Then again, AMBERSONS was screened as part of TCM's first Classic Movies Festival last year in Hollywood - logically, that would have been the time to unveil a new and improved version. Has anyone heard anything about that screening? I agree that "Digitally Remastered" implies that some kind of work has been done, but that term has been around for a decade; a 4K scan would warrant the claim "Remastered in HD" which we're not hearing. If this was a proper catalog release (even if just on DVD), I'd feel certain the quality would be top-notch. But throwing it out there as an Amazon.com exclusive bonus feature to KANE makes me wonder.

By the way, I have yet to be alerted by Amazon that AMBERSONS is coming out on DVD even though I signed up to be pre-notified eleven years ago!