ADDITION: Indicator - Region FREE - Blu-ray - April 2017': Fans have been waiting, impatiently, for a decent Blu-ray release, doing justice to the film, and it took four 1080P renderings to finally get it correct. The Indicator is a dual-layered transfer with a max'ed out bitrate - the film look appropriately dark and the grain texture support is the best of all the releases. Simply put, the UK transfer is the best, looking the richest and most film-like.

Linear PCM audio - authentically mono and 24-bit. It sounds better than the other releases - flatter but the mono carries depth and resonance. It also offers optional English (SDH) subtitles and is region FREE.

We get the previous audio commentary by Bogdanovich, plus a new, 2017, video piece with actor, and Welles scholar, Simon Callow showing his appreciation for 'The Lady from Shanghai' for just under 22-minutes. Included is the 21-minute, 2000, Discussion with Peter Bogdanovich who talks about Welles and The Lady from Shanghai, there is a theatrical trailer, an odd Joe Dante, "Trailers From Trailer" commentary and an extensive image gallery. The package has a limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by critic Samm Deighan and includes a second disc DVD.

This is it - double-dipping is encouraged for those that bought the inferior BDs. This layered, iconic, film should be on every Cinephile shelf. Get it while you can!

ADDITION: Mill Creek - Region FREE - Blu-ray - March 2015': Mill Creek, eh? Well this 1080P transfer is the brightest Blu-ray of the three compared. Some fans prefer the lighter look. It is AVC, single-layered with a modest, but supportive bitrate. The package also has optional English subtitles and a decent DTS-HD Master track (that may, actually, be the superior to the TCM Dolby TrueHD). It is, unfortunately, bare-bones with no extras at all - but is also Region FREE (despite saying 'A'-locked on the back case) but the price seems irresistible at less than $9 USD. Nice cover too...

David from our ListServ tells us: 'You can safely take it from me the Mill Creek uses the "newer" 22 gig encode Sony did for TCM after the first release which was not bad but was poorly authored IMO with no Eddie Muller pieces, lossy audio and some significant compression issues. Also no SDH.

The remaster was done obviously because Sony was unhappy with and reacting to some criticism of such a relatively shoddy release of one of their Premium 4k restorations (which played at Bologna and elsewhere.)

Unfortunately the second remaster pressing was plagued with major black crush push due to a post mastering pressing fault. I discovered by accident one could alleviate this on playback by pushing up the "brightness" control on your TV or projector by approx. 20% (depending on the accuracy of your monitor's calibration. This was far from ideal of course, but at least audio was now lossless LPCM but still no SDH. I was contacted by someone from the technical team who authored the second master who confirmed all of this. I am not at liberty to say who this was.

The Mill Creek finally delivers the encode correctly and with SDH. I believe the slightly "brighter" image (than the very first botched TCM disc and obviously the black crushed 2nd TCM disc) is as result of the higher bitrate and resolution of the 22 gig encode which is a far more accurate depiction of the 4K which I have seen. ' (Thanks David!)

ADDITION: TCM (***NEW Version***) - Region FREE - Blu-ray - January 2014': Thanks to David H. on our ListServ for first alerting us to the 'updated' status of the Blu-ray. I guess enough voiced displeasure with the original Blu-ray had enough impact for TCM to 're-do it properly'. The image quality is more robust supporting the film's grain textures to a higher degree but most notable is how much darker the "***NEW Version***" image is, almost to the point of losing detail or venturing into moiring territory. But, it honestly looks far more film-like to me using a higher file size (now on a dual-layered disc), and hence higher bitrate and the superior AVC encode as opposed to the VC-1 found on the previous 1080P. Compression artifacts found (zoomed-in) on the original BD seem to have disappeared. This is, absolutely, better...

***

The audio seems similar to the DVD and Heinz Roemheld's score does not get the lossless treatment - which I consider a fairly big error. I will indulge more fully in the 1/2 hour podcast - which I sampled and it seemed to have value. Osborne's intro is less than 2-minutes and the rest are text/image screens. I will also look at the DVD and see if there is something more substantial (in terms of supplements there). So, this is simply an initial warning. There is some sloppiness here in the authoring/transfer. It is far from ideal but it is superior in terms of the visual expression as compared to the older SD, but I think TCM missed a fine opportunity to take the high road with this release.  

***

ON THE DVD (November 2003): This was in the early days of DVD when Columbia ruled the roost. They put an immense amount of effort into their DVD productions (see "The Big Heat" as another example) and sadly now that has changed. This is as close to perfect DVD as you will find. The image is marvelous - extremely sharp, deep blacks and superb shadow detail. The original audio is crisp. My only gripe, and it is a small one, - I have never liked the bright yellow (and overly large) subtitle font. That is my only complaint.

Obviously made to sell in other markets this DVD is filled with subtitle and DUB options and is encoded for regions 1, 3 and 4 in the NTSC standard. It not only includes a commentary by Welles scholar Peter Bogdanovich, but also a 20 minute featurette conversation with him, some talent bio text screens, trailers and some vintage advertising stills. DVDBeaver encourages you to pick up this and all those early Columbia DVDs when that studio seemed to be more keen on investing some real effort into their discs than they are now. This is a must-own DVD. out of

Gary W. Tooze