Natalie Wood Collection

The Natalie Wood Collection

Bombers B-52 (1957) Cash McCall (1960) Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Gypsy (1962) Sex and the Single Girl (1964) Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Titles

From the back cover
Bombers B-52: The era's mightiest fighting machine! A dissension-torn crew prepares for a test flight of a 2000-ton B-52 Stratofortress. Wood is joined by Karl Malden and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Cash McCall: What's the real reason behind corporate raider Cash McCall's (James Garner) bid to snap up Austen Plastics? Could it be a way to woo the lovely daughter (Wood) of Austen's owner? Splendor in the Grass (remastered): Their hearts say yes. Their hometown says no. Repression reaps tragedy in a compelling tale of teenaged lovers in 1920s Kansas. Natalie Wood teams with screen-debuting Warren Beatty. Gypsy (remastered): You gotta have a gimmick! Stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (Wood) has one of the best, thanks to the coaching of stage mom Rosalind Russell. A vibrant Everything's Coming Up Roses-adaptation of the Styne-Sondheim Broadway smash. Sex and the Single Girl: From Helen Gurley Brown's bestseller! Natalie Wood is the girl who writes the book on love--and Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis, and Lauren Bacall join her in the boudoir bedlam that follows. Inside Daisy Clover: Who better to play a teen screen sensation than the star who was one of film's greatest child actors? Natalie Wood and up-and-comer Robert Redford shine in this inside-Tinseltown tale.

Posters

Theatrical Releases: Various from 1957 - 1965

DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Warner - Region 1,2,3,4 - NTSC

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Warner Home Video - Region 1, 2, 3, 4 - NTSC
Times	1:46:08, 1:41:45, 2:03:48, 2:22:55, 1:54:04 and 2:08:20 respectively
Audio	English (original)
Subtitles	English (SDH), French, None NOTE: '*Sex and the Single Girl*' also offers Portuguese subtitles
Features	Release Information: Studio: Warner Home Video Aspect Ratio: All Original Aspect Ratios - 1.85 - 2.35 Edition Details: • One cartoon and theatrical trailer (except for B-52 and Gypsy) for each feature. • 2 musical outtakes on Gypsy DVD Release Date: February 3rd, 2009 6 Keep Cases inside a cardboard box Chapters: various

Comments:

Three of the six discs are also sold separately (remastered versions of Splendor in the Grass and Gypsy plus Sex and the Single Girl) but the other 3 may be reaching DVD for the first time and seem only available in Warner's The Natalie Wood Collection boxset at the present time. They are all housed in full (standard) keep cases utilizing vintage poster-art covers. All are coded for regions 1,2,3 and 4 in the NTSC standard. Each have original audio and optional English (SDH) and French subtitles (NOTE: Sex and the Single Girl also offers Portuguese) in an off-white font with black border (sample below). All transfers are progressive, dual-layered and anamorphic in their original aspect ratios of either 1.85 or 2.35. We've compared three captures of this new Splendor in the Grass with the 2001 Single-layered snapper cased edition.

The short story on the image is that Gypsy looks the best of the six but a cleaned-up Splendor appears to have fallen victim boosting and to some DNR with predominant softness covering noise.... and grain. Bad, bad, bad. Bombers B-52 is not especially sharp but colors are impressive. Cash McCall looks equally as bright. I noted some artifacts in Sex and the Single Girl but overall it is clean. Inside Daisy Clover is consistent with probably the next best image quality after Gypsy. In conclusion the collection is certainly 'watchable' but only Gypsy is stellar while Splendor's 'remastering' remains a disappointment.

Audio is a usual Warner strongsuit and no complaints here with nothing in the way of audible dropouts or hiss. Clean and consistent throughout. There are optional subtitles for each feature.

No commentaries at all, and aside from 2 short musical outtakes on Gypsy (left over from the previous DVD release) we only get a 7-minute cartoon added to each disc/feature and a trailer for 4 of them. Effectively bare-bones.

Overall, digitally-speaking this might be considered a disappointment by fans. Warner can usually be counted on for some more viable extras and the image for all but Gypsy is underwhelming. The positives are the film - I enjoyed the 'daughter' ones (Bombers B-52, Cash McCall) the best being my first time for both - in fact, in one sense this collection is like seeing Natalie rapidly mature over the course of a brief 7 years with the latter films taking on a very morose context. Despite the technical gripes it's nice to have these new-to-DVD films in the collection.