James Robertson Justice

Arrow UK Blu-ray > Plaion Germany Blu-ray see caps

Better encoded than MGM Blu-ray

MGM's 7.1 track is a remix with a few flaws and much worse fidelity. Capelight's stereo and 7.1 track are both from the remix.

The movie was originally premiered as a roadshow release, with a a 70mm 6-Track Stereo mix. This mix, unfortunately has not been released on home video.

The closest thing to that mix, is the stereo track included on the 2010 Blu-ray. It sounds great, with high fidelity and little filtering. It's lossy, but that doesn't matter very much.

Both the DVD 5.1 and the Blu-ray 7.1 tracks (identical on both discs) are a new remix, rather than a repackaging of the original mix. The 7.1 track sounds quite muffled, though not evenly so. The Capelight Blu-ray's lossless stereo track uses the same remix, but with higher fidelity than the surround tracks, sounding significantly less muffled. Compared to the original, this remix sounds wider and more "cleaned up". The remix contains a handful of errors, for example the intermission cue fades out, rather than ending correctly.

Comparison samples

4K restoration from original technicolor negatives

The steelbook reissue adds a more nuanced Dolby Vision HDR grading compared to the original UHD. The UHD is also the first ever release of the original four track stereo mix in a discrete presentation without any major processing. It is far superior to the existing 5.1 remix which was a bit modernized. The Atmos remix is laughably overdone and not at all befitting a film of this era.