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• The Films of the Comic Duo WHEELER & WOOLSEY

  • John Paine
  • 2012-02-12

  This is not so much a review as a complaint. Turner Classic movies released at least 10 Wheeler & Woolsey comedies on LASERDISC - its a great shame they don't put these films out on DVD because the only copies available from US sources are much inferior to the LD picture quality and if TURNER still has the facility to reproduce the Laserdisc material in the DVD format we would be able to see that Film Makers in the 1930's were actually able to take pictures which were in FOCUS and had good CONTRAST. It's a sad fact that many of the DVD suppliers - who may currently be the only providers of these less popular or early movies - seem to have only poor quality material to put onto their DVD products - OR - they are just so insensitive to the material that they make claims of DIGITALLY RESTORED / ENHANCED but then add a message to say that some of the Quality of the Picture "might be lost" or affected by these processes. The presence of this statement usually guarantees the DVD will have a picture that is effectively OUT of FOCUS due to excessive grain or noise removal that has also taken out all the sharp edges in the image. There will also be loss of detail in Highloghts due to crushed Whites as well as the corresponding loss of detail in dark areas due to crushed Blacks The objective seems to be a BLACK OR WHITE picture rather than one with shades of GREY I have seen copies of my Laserdisc films in which Faces are unrecognisable and with cutting that has completely lost the original plot. I have my suspicions that some makers set out to make DVD's of old films which look so bad that any younger viewers who have not had an opportunity to compare the original will assume that ALL early films are of poor quality. By this means thay could put out any old rubbish and it would be accepted without complaint. We NEED GOOD QUALITY transfers of the old films in the TURNER COLLECTION to defeat these rubbish monger

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