Same extras; commentary with film historians Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo plus a trailer. The Twilight Time Blu-ray offered their usual isolated score and liner notes where the Kino does not. The Kino Blu-ray has the slipcase and a reversible sleeve cover (see below.)

Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid was adapted from a Cornell Woolrich novel; Waltz into Darkness. So Belmondo (as tobacco plantation owner Louis Mahé) becomes engaged through the mail - via the personals column) - to a girl who has sent a false photo and instead of who is expecting it is... a ravishing Catherine Deneuve (as 'Julie Roussel' or, later we find 'Marion Vergano'.) While she had no disclosed her obvious beauty - he, likewise, had not been forthcoming about his vast wealth. I'm sure he thought he had won the lottery, but things are more complex than he could have anticipated. What ensues is the revelation of her past prison sentence and damaged psychological ice-princess status, a confidence game, potential poison, murder, blind adoration and more. A curious unconventional romance. In recent years it has become one of my favorite from Truffaut. I wouldn't double-dip here, but for the money the Kino Blu-ray is strongly recommended!

***

ADDITION: Twilight Time - Region FREE - Blu-ray June 15': Mississippi Mermaid is another problematic title in regards to bringing it to digital - reminding me of Twilight Time's transfer of Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black. The Twilight Time 1080P transfer is blameless in that it is dual-layered with a high out bitrate and seems to have been at the mercy of the source provided. Historically, they never seem to do manipulations and looking positively, it does look significantly superior to the SD renderings of more than a decade ago. The grain textures are somewhat inconsistent (but not as clunky as we have seen) but over-all, in-motion, the image quality is certainly better than just 'watchable'. Colors, in particular, regain some normalcy. It is heavy with very little depth. There is, mostly, much more information in the frame of the 1080P - notable on the side edges. Perhaps this is the best HD video we will see for this title?

Twilight Time utilize an authentic DTS-HD Master mono track in the original French at 1063 kbps. No aggressive effects per-se but the score by Antoine Duhamel (Godard's Weekend) carries some weight not heard in my European SD. Unfortunately, it has burned-in yellow font subtitles (that I assume were on the D1 source provided?) Like all Twilight Time Blu-ray it is region FREE.

We get a new audio commentary with film historians Nick Redman + Julie Kirgo. Julie takes the lead but I find this an unusual film for discussion although the educated pair do impart some interesting value. Twilight Time add their usual isolated score track, there is a theatrical trailer and some liner notes with essay by Julie Kirgo. This release is limited to 3,000 units.

ON THE DVD (2003): Overall both look very weak. The anamorphic PAL edition appears to have better image quality. It is marginally sharper with superior contrast levels. Skin tones in the non-16X9 NTSC look a little unnatural and orange to me... and that edition is slightly cropped. It seems the Region 1 may have some contrast boosting. It is very difficult to know for sure, but I lean toward the PAL edition and its anamorphicity. All else is the same (extras, audio, menu).