ADDITION: Legend Films - May 09': Legend films came out with a dual colorized/black+white package with another Public Domain film; "The Most Dangerous Game". It compares reasonably well to the single-layered Criterion which shows more damage and cue-blip markers (see sample below) but looks a bit sharper with visible grain.  Whether you are in opposition to the colorization of classic films or not - it's always interesting to see the results. I'm not overwhelmed by this effort by Legend Films. Mostly, I find it looks quite a bit more artificial than some of their similar DVD projects. The trouble with this film is you can't dramatically improve the detail. It will probably always remain somewhat hazy. The film is more than 75 years old and both DVDs have some contrast flickering.

Legend don't offer subtitles on this one where Criterion have their usual optional English. Audio on both remains a bit scratchy mimicking the image quality.

Despite the listing of supplements Legend's extras consist of three separate brief sound bites from Ray Harryhausen, James V. D'arc and composer John Morgan lasting less than 15-minutes. Criterion's Edler commentary and liner notes essay by Bruce Kawin have much more value.

The film gained some prominence for its mention in David Fincher's Zodiac but I've never found this as appealing as other representatives of the genre from the classic era - despite the excellent storyline. I don't believe I have revisited it for many years prior to recently viewing the colorized version for this review.

The colorization is a curiosity and to be fair to Legend films - it's appreciated and important of them to include the original black+white version along with it. These are both superior to the many cheaper PD-bandit version available but the Criterion still rules on all fronts.

***

ON THE CRITERION DVD (written in 2000): This film is public domain and hence has had some atrocious transfers by other DVD distributors. Criterion have done a nice number on this one. There is quite a lot of flickering in the beginning. The commentary is sound, but the real trouble with this release is the film is just over an hour long. The data on the disc only takes up 3.5 gig... room for double the info!  Audio is relatively weak for this DVD, but keep in mind it is from 1932. Overall its the type of early horror that I love to own in my collection, yet don't have the desire to watch it often. It's appeal seems to be dated. Still, the best it will look and sound out side a huge retrospective that most likely won't happen.  

Gary W. Tooze