ADDITION: Arrow Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray - November 17': Arrow's Four Film Noir Classics Limited Edition has The Dark Mirror, Secret Beyond the Door..., Force of Evil, and The Big Combo. They are not sold separately by Arrow at present and are only available in this boxset. There are other Blu-ray releases, like the Olive Films edition here, that we will compare to, eventually.

Limited Edition set of only 2000 copies!

The Arrow transfer appears to be from the same source with the same 1.78:1 framing but the UK has a max'ed out bitrate - it is authentically darker and the damage visible on the Olive is not as prominent on the Arrow. The Arrow is, predictably, better.

Arrow is also better than the Olive in the audio - Arrow's 24-bit linear PCM mono vs. the DTS-HD Master (16-bit) track. The film has only a few aggressive effects but we get another wonderful 'dark cinema' score from David Raksin (Daisy Kenyon, Whirlpool, Fallen Angel, Laura, Bigger Than Life) sounding crisp and impressive in the uncompressed. Arrow also add optional English (SDH) subtitles (see sample below) on their Region FREE Blu-ray disc.

Arrow generously add a new commentary by the 'Czar of Noir' Eddie Muller. Wonderful. Geoff Andrew on The Big Combo, the critic and programmer offers an introduction to and analysis of the film for 20-minutes and a similar length visual essay, entitled Wagon Wheel Joe, on director Joseph H. Lewis by filmmaker David Cairns. The disc has The Big Combo original screenplay as a PDF file and the package offers reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Scott Saslow for all films and a hardback book featuring new writing on all the films by noir experts and critics including Michael Brooke, Andrew Spicer, David Cairns and Tony Rayns and others.

Great release in what look like an amazing Noir package!

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ADDITION: Olive Films - Region 'A' - Blu-ray - September 13': The same source (as the Alpha and Image Ent. for sure) with the exact same light scratches. It improves with the benefit of the higher resolution (tighter, brighter) and another big difference is that it is now widescreen at 1.78;1 showing more information on the two edges of the frame - we lose some off top and bottom. Composition looks more correct now. I expect The Big Combo was shown widescreen theatrically, in some theaters, in that transition period of the mid-late 50s. Anyway, this is far from a perfect image but it is certainly ahead of the DVDs - most notably in the contrast and showing grain. It is cited as being 'Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with the Film Foundation'. Thanks goodness.

No subtitles or extras and the lossless mono audio is another step forward - although it has issues similar to the DVDs but a tinge more depth. Overall, I am happy (and wasn't expecting to be overjoyed) - this is primo Noir and ideal to have in the best possible home theater presentation. Fans will be appreciative!  

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ADDITION: Geneon Entertainment - Oct 05' - after seeing the WildSide video logo (cat) in the opening sequence of the Geneon Edition I was anticipating the worst. It, almost unbelievably, is taken from an unconverted PAL source.  This, the newest digital edition of this Public Domain film is quite poor with the only factor in its favor being the price. It doesn't even have menus or a real keepcase. The screen grabs may not show in direct comparisons to these other editions, so we have added one ghosting capture at the very end. All three are quite poor releases but if we are forced to choose it might be the Image Entertainment that is the lesser of the '3 evils' presentation-wise although it obviously has also had some manipulation, but factoring in the cost and limited availability of the Image edition, most consumers may want to go for the Geneon until a someone releases a superior edition... one day, we hope.  

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Chroma is evident on Image release, but the contrast is better and blacks are truer compared to Alpha disc. The damage spots are identical for both editions (lips in capture #2, neck in capture #5), but Image disc doesn't suffer from interlacing (capture #4). Both titles don't have any supplements, so it's ridiculous to charge over $20 for it when there's another version available. Hopefully, like another Image film noir Dark Waters, which went out of print for a short period, The Big Combo will be re-released in a keep case with $14.98 list price.