DVD Talk on the new Bluray of "The Stranger"

[Wellesnet]

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/62063/orson-welles-the-stranger-kino-classics-remastered-edition/

[Wellesnet]

DVD Beaver compares the two Blurays:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm

Also, a nice review by Joshua Brunsting:
http://criterioncast.com/reviews/blu-ra ... ay-review/

[Le Chiffre]

Finally got around to ordering this, and was quite impressed. The picture quality, as Bret Wood jokes in his entertaining and informative commentary, is so sharp that you can see the glue holding Welles's moustache on (don't look for it, though!). The image could have used some judicious cleanup, however, as it is a "warts and all" presentation of the Library of Congress print, which means there are some annoying scratches and streaks from time to time, and occasionally at crucial times, unfortunately. Still, it's well worth getting, and puts all those atrocious pub domain releases that we had to put up with for so many years to shame.

However, as DVD Beaver points out:

Many fans of the film greatly prefer the MGM DVD for its superior source - that doesn't show the distracting damage in the latter 3rd of the film including the important finale.

Reviews from Amazon of the Kino Stranger:

Kevin:
The image quality overall is great, but there are two short scenes missing. One of Edward G. Robinson on the ladder as a rung breaks, and then another related one of him showing the Noah character that the rung had been cut and glued together. These are short but key scenes that are simply missing.

John C:
I disagree about the image quality. At best this disc looks like a sharper version of a public domain print minus the badly needed cleanup. According to Blu-ray.com, a good site for reviews and my starting point in learning about a Blu-ray's video & audio quality before I buy one, "the folks at Kino-as they often do-have essentially left the print 'as-is.' This means you will see bouts of specks and vertical scratches through out the film - along with a few missing frames...." Boy Oh Boy was that an understatement! The front cover states this version is a "35MM Archival Restoration" but your eyes will tell you it's obviously not true and I complained to Kino about their false advertising.
I took Alric's advice and bought the MGM DVD. It's wayyyy better than the Kino Blu-ray in video quality. You'll have to look very hard to see the few specks present.

Brian:
Despite Kino's implication of offering the best-available-to-date print of Orson Welles' classic mystery-thriller 'The Stranger' (Independent Releasing Corp., 1946)-- that being from the Library of Congress's archives-- the image quality of their 'restored' edition is clearly inferior to MGM/Fox's 2007 release. While Kino's HD picture is sharp with good contrast, it's marred by scratches and other artifacts that don't appear on MGM's virtually flaw-free copy.

Joker:
The transfer is far from perfect, lots of shots with scratches, dust, slightly over exposed and also missing frames, (sometimes several in one shot, I thought it was my player but went back frame-by-frame only to find it was the print) but still with all these flaws it is light years better than any of the previous public domain copies I’ve had in the past. The audio commentary is very insightful for film buffs and especially Welles fans.

KPR:
If you are expecting the 'Kino Classics Remastered Blu-ray' version of Orson Welles' "The Stranger" to be the definitive print you've been waiting for, you'll be sadly disappointed. The Kino release is a Blu-ray disc of a mediocre print that the Library of Congress received from International Pictures. No effort (that I can see) was made to restore or improve this over-exposed, grainy, scratchy print, whose defects are made even more obvious in high-definition. If you wish to watch a much, much better print of this movie, get the DVD released by MGM as part of their (MGM Film Noir) series. The MGM version has much better contrast, exposure, and is remarkably free of scratches and other artifacts. It's not high-definition, but it is far superior to the Kino Blu-ray release in every other way.
However, one of the two reasons you might wish to buy this pitiful Kino Blu-ray release is the commentary track by film historian Bret Wood. It's excellent! The other reason is to see the horrible footage of the Nazi death camps put together by Billy Wilder in 1946, which is one of the disc's extras. Watching "Death Mills" is a reminder of why we should never forget the atrocities of the Nazi regime. A few shots from this documentary are used in "The Stranger".
I'm still patiently waiting for a Criterion release of this film, whenever that might be. Unlike Kino, Criterion is the one company you can always rely on for stunning prints and informative extras of important movies.

Clarence:
I've purchased this in many configurations and the best I've found to date was the official MGM version on DVD (I think this is the link)The Stranger (MGM Film Noir) and compared to the other PD versions I've suffered through I felt it the best I'd ever get. I jumped on this KINO Blu Ray when it appeared on the shelf of my local record store , Fingerprints in Long Beach CA , today and I have very mixed feelings. Sure it is a Blu Ray and some of the detail is very sharp....but like the Buster Keaton Blu Rays it also features a TON of flaws in the negative , scratches.... shifts in sharpness/softness and at times a definite lack of contrast and strong blacks.. something mandatory for such a film. All this would be okay if it were a $10 Blu Ray but I paid close to 30 bucks and for that I'd expect the Criterion treatment ... not the OLIVE FILMS treatment or worse.
GREAT Film... great cast... a necessity for a film buff, but I wish to warn those thinking they will be stunned when viewing .. this isn't close to the job WB did on Citizen Kane (70th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray Book] or that Criterion did on The Third Man (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
I am happy to own this but at the price and with the "Remastered" banner.. expected a heckuva lot more.... Criterion is the best, WB is very very good, Kino and Olive Films are very hit and miss but they never fail to hit the high price point.

Monty:
You are right about Kino. They charge outrageous prices for sub-par transfers. Wished they would do full blown 4K restorations (even 2K would be great) like Criterion does. Thanks for the great blu ray review of The Stranger. I want to get it, but I am still hesitant because of the high price for it. I have not seen many "great" looking transfers from Kino. They tend to use film prints (35 MM on the cover is a give away) instead of known negatives. I know that most negatives on these old classics are lost, but hold out until a better film print shows up. Seems like Kino wants to cash in on us BR fans and not truly restore these prints to a great level. Why can't they spend the money and time to do what Criterion does when they are charging Criterion prices?
Thanks again for your blu ray review. I am still holding out on upgrading (I may just buy a used copy of the MGM DVD you mentioned).

Rabbit's Soul:
You know enough about blu-rays to know that Olive Films often releases sub-par products ("I paid close to 30 bucks and for that I'd expect the Criterion treatment ... not the OLIVE FILMS treatment or worse"), but you don't know that Kino almost always release films as-is (They scan the prints they obtain without doing much, if any, tinkering (e.g. removing specks and scratches))? Not only that, but you didn't even mention the blu-ray of The Stranger released by Film Chest a couple of years ago. It was layered with so much DNR that it's very blurry and difficult to look at, which seems to be the case for all of their blu-rays.
I realize a large part of your gripe with Kino is the price of The Stranger, but 3 stars for doing a decent scan of what is probably the current best print of The Stranger doesn't seem fair. There are many places to go to read reviews about blu-rays, so true movie lovers shouldn't have trouble making the right choice. Besides that, you didn't have to buy it for the original price.
If you go to blu-rayDOTcom, dvdbeaverDOTcom or hometheaterforumDOTcom and read reviews for blu-rays you'll learn a lot. In this case, I urge you and everyone else to go to dvdbeaverDOTcom to look at the comparison of the The Stranger blu-rays released by Film Chest and Kino. The difference is staggering. I wasn't going to get this blu-ray at first, because I couldn't decide if the negativity was truer than the decent reviews and screenshots I've seen and read. Well, having watched the blu-ray, I can say that people should trust the positive reviews and learn to understand Kino's model.
Lastly, the extras are worth mentioning...
(taken from blu-rayDOTcom):
- Death Mills (SD, 21:30): Billy Wilder produced this 1945 informational film on the Nazi death camps-footage of which appears in The Stranger-that was intended to be shown to the German people to reveal the murder and torture behind the Nazi regime's pageantry and parades.
- Welles' Wartime Radio Broadcasts: The disc includes four WWII-era broadcasts that Welles voiced. "Alameda" (28:52) is the dramatization of a hypothetical Nazi takeover of a small Canadian town, "Brazil" (28:52) is the first episode of a variety program meant to introduce Americans to the rest of the Americas, "War Workers" (14:33) is a War of the Worlds-type pseudo-documentary about a German spy inside a Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant, and "Bikini Atomic Test" (14:38) is an opinion piece about the U.S.'s post-war continuation of atomic tests. A great inclusion.