"Mark Hellinger's gritty prison drama BRUTE FORCE was filmed in 1947 on nitrate negative film and duplicated to nitrate-based elements such as fine grain positive and dupe negatives. Unfortunately, over the past seven decades as the production became a classic of its genre the film elements were not protected and handled as should have been. Nitrate elements - as opposed to their safety "counterparts" - were also considered a potential safety hazard. The original picture negative (also often referred to as camera negative) is presumed destroyed. The longtime search for it and the other nitrate protection/pre-print elements revealed that much of the surviving original 35mm elements were heavily damaged over the decades due to several causes. Just as with THE NAKED CITY the distributor changed several times since the film's initial release. This resulted in each company making its own individual changes to the film's elements, altering the original in both picture and sound. Decay, but most importantly poor handling during copying and storage of the elements, accounted for the massive physical deterioration of the film's materials. To safeguard and preserve the film for future generations, the current rights-owner ordered in 2016 a complete and extensive restoration for preservation based on the remaining elements. For this restoration a total of 13 elements were selected and used, among them a nitrate fine grain and a safety duplicate negative recently discovered at the British Film Institute (BFI). Almost 2 million frames were scanned and color re-timed - all at 4K resolution- resulting in the final restoration master for preservation you are about to see. During this process - which spanned well over two years - the massive damage on the surviving picture elements was corrected - frame by frame. The entire restoration was made at and by TLEFilms Film Restoration & Preservation Services, Germany."

It looks much different from the Arrow 1080P of 6-years previous. There is more information in the frame - notable on the left edge. The image is both 'lighter' and the 1.37:1 makes faces appears marginally wider on the Criterion. The Criterion's improved brightness shows more detail and the image is smoother. I think I prefer the darker look of the Arrow, but overall the Criterion 4K-restored image is the superior HD appearance looking richer and more film-like in-motion.    

NOTE: We have added 34 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE.

For the audio Criterion also use a linear PCM track (but one channel) in the original English language (24-bit). I don't notice much difference in the audio; effects, dialogue, or via the excellent score by Miklós Rózsa (Criss Cross, The Killers, The Lost Weekend, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Double Indemnity) and the Criterion has optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray disc.

Criterion duplicate their 2007 DVD supplements with a notable addition. There is the 2007 audio commentary from 2007 featuring film-noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini, the 1/4 hour interview, also from 2007, with Paul Mason, editor of Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture plus a trailer and stills gallery. New is a 2017 program featuring film scholar David Bordwell (author of Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling) - a 13-minute episode of the Criterion Channel's Observations on Film Art. Professor Bordwell discusses the many acting methods and styles on display in Brute Force. The package has a liner notes booklet with an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson, a 1947 profile of producer Mark Hellinger, and rare correspondence between Hellinger and Production Code administrator Joseph Breen over the film’s content.

Nice Blu-ray package for this essential Noir with a 4K-restored appearance, the previous but still valuable Silver/Ursini commentary and the new Bordwell piece. Double-dipping would be dependent on your love of the 'Dark Cinema'. It's a keeper for me.  

***

ADDITION: (September 2014) Arrow Region 'B' - Blu-ray: Magnificent! Check out the rich grain and the wonderful contrast. This looks even better than I was anticipating. And this is one of my favorite Noirs. What a treat! The visuals are clean, deep black levels, a max'ed out bitrate on a dual-layered disc. The audio is a fairly robust linear PCM with optional English subtitles (sample below). Extras include a super new video piece entitled Burt Lancaster: The Film Noir Years an in-depth look at the actor's early career by Kate Buford, author of Burt Lancaster: An American Life. It runs almost 40-minutes and she discusses the Nazi-link to the guards in the film and Lancaster's early Circus career, his 'House on Un-American Activities' rejections and much more including many of the 'Dark Cinema' film in which the actor was involved. There is also a theatrical trailer, stills gallery, the package has a reversible sleeve featuring the original poster and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist and contains a collector's booklet containing new writing on the film by Frank Krutnik, author of In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity, and Swell Guy, an obituary of Brute Force's producer, Mark Hellinger, by its screenwriter, Richard Brooks, illustrated with original stills. Being Dual-Format is also has a DVD included! 

***

ADDITION: Criterion - Region 1 - NTSC - March 07': NOTE: This Criterion transfer is again pictureboxed (see our description of 'pictureboxing' in our Kind Hearts and Coronets review). Criterion have included a thick black border around the edge of the frame to counter overscan on production television sets.

The Criterion looks great but I think I might give the edge to the Wild Side DVD for straight image appearance. Criterion have boosted the black levels a bit (and brightness at times) and the print used looks just a shade dirtier. To me the Wild Side looked smoother and more film-like while the Criterion was a notch grittier. One big difference is that, although I did notice some artifacts on the single-layered French DVD - the dual-layered Criterion was very crisp and totally free of them. Viewers on higher end systems will probably appreciate this more.

Where Criterion vaults ahead is in the supplements. Alain Silver and James Ursini give a full length commentary highlighting key points of the production that may have been lost to your average viewer including the anti-fascist sentiment of the film and some less noticeable homo-erotic moments. I won't say it was a stale commentary but certain points were unnecessarily repeated - like Burt Lancaster's body language ala Lon Chaney and Emil Jannings (stated 3 separate times). For the most part it was very good and the two of them work very well together. One can appreciate the hard work and preparation exemplifying the duo's adept and thorough understanding of period piece noir films like this. As with Eddie Muller I could listen to these guys all day. There is also an interesting interview with Paul Mason, author of Capturing the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture - it is about 15 minutes long and well worth watching. There is an unrestored trailer and a stills gallery. The liner notes booklet included in the package is 36 pages long with some beautiful black and white photos. It includes an essay by Michael Atkinson and another by Pete Martin plus a correspondence letter between Hellinger and Production Code administrator Joseph Breen over the film's content.

With the artifact deficiency and Criterion excellent extras - it is surely the way to go for this essential Film Noir. A true gem of a package!       

***

ADDITION: Wild Side Video - Region 2- PAL Nov 06' - The Wild Side  (Pocket version) has a far superior image to the other two releases. No contrast boosting and it has film-like detail. It is also transferred progressively. The Wild Side shows far more information on the top and bottom of the frame.

The French subtitles are player generated and mandatory on most DVD playback units, but easily removable on all computers with DVD burners (see HERE). So you will be able to remove the French forced subs and burn without compression on a blank DVD5 (single layered) - see example - last capture.

It doesn't have any English friendly extras (except the Stills/poster gallery) but the menus are extensive. This is one of my favorite Film Noirs and I am thrilled to finally have a decent version. I'm going to watch it again tonight!  

****

On the Film Prestige:

In Russia, films made before 1970's (I'm not sure the exact year) are public domain. It looks like exact port of U.S. disc with added Russian material. It's recommended since it can be found for less than O.O.P. U.S. edition until Universal (or, perhaps, even Criterion) release their own version.

***

On the Image Entertainment:

-Gregory Meshman