Grace Kelly
7 Films
Grace Kelly
7 Included Films
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. Kelly was born into a prominent Catholic family in Philadelphia. After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1949, Kelly began appearing in New York City theatrical productions and television broadcasts. She gained stardom from her performance in John Ford's adventure-romance Mogambo (1953), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the drama The Country Girl (1954). Other notable works include the western High Noon (1952), the romantic comedy High Society (1956), and three consecutive Alfred Hitchcock suspense thrillers: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). Kelly retired from acting at age 26 to marry Rainier and began her duties as Princess of Monaco. The couple had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stéphanie. Her charity work focused on young children and the arts. In 1964, she established the Princess Grace Foundation to support local artisans. Her organization for children's rights, AMADE Mondiale, gained consultive status within UNICEF and UNESCO. Grace's final film contribution was to the documentary The Children of Theatre Street (1977) directed by Robert Dornhelm, where she served as the narrator. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Kelly died at the age of 52 at Monaco Hospital on September 14, 1982, from injuries sustained in a car crash the previous day. She is listed 13th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classical Hollywood cinema. Her son, Prince Albert, helped establish the Princess Grace Awards in 1984 to recognize emerging performers in film, theatre, and dance.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
MoC 4K Blu-ray, both Kino Lorber and Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray have poor encode. See nicolas review on Eureka Blu-ray. It seems the 4K restoration on that disc and the Olive Films Signature US release served as the basis for the HDR master Kino Lorber commissioned. There are the same traces of grain management in the opticals and the small number of shots from a lower quality source that were spliced in between the OCN footage. The SDR grayscale looks great though and after having compared everything, I would’ve preferred a 4K SDR release. The Eureka Blu-ray release wasn’t encoded by FiM and it shows. For those with the Blu-ray and an appreciation for optimal encoding, consider an upgrade.Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray: It seems that Kino Lorber commissioned the HDR/DV grade and some additional cosmetic work on the master. They used to mention "… brand new master by studio X" on their back covers when they were supplied with ready-made materials. This isn’t the case here but maybe someone’s in the know and things are different. The HDR grade is darker than the SDR one and flattened the grayscale quite significantly. I mentioned this in the Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard thread as well but I’m not really a fan of these grades and doubt that they’re enhancing the grayscales to make them appear more film-like. I’ve seen worse and it’s not the end of the world when the film is viewed in a dark environment but don’t expect anything as luminous and sparkly as The Big Heat. Kino Lorber’s encoding can be seen here via ko8ebryant’s caps.Eureka 4K Blu-ray (BD-100): Same 4K master and same HDR grade as on the Kino Lorber 4K but now expertly encoded. Thanks to no compression anomalies standing in the way, we can now scrutinize the master much better. In comparison with the SDR master, I noticed that there are opticals that got hit with further noise reduction and sometimes egregiously so, such as in the scene with Grace Kelly at the train station at roughly 18 minutes into the film. Parts of that scene were sourced from a lower-quality source. In the HDR master, grain was practically erased altogether whereas in the 4K SDR master on the Eureka Blu-ray, grain is visible in the same shot despite the iffy encoding.I’d still recommend the Eureka 4K Blu-ray as the OCN shots and scenes are frequently gorgeous, beautifully detailed and at most only minimally tampered with. The imperfect HDR grade bugs me but I’ll still use Eureka’s 4K Blu-ray for my future viewings due to the FiM encode.
1992 Republic LaserDisc
Director: Fred Zinnemann
MoC 4K Blu-ray, both Kino Lorber and Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray have poor encode. See nicolas review on Eureka Blu-ray. It seems the 4K restoration on that disc and the Olive Films Signature US release served as the basis for the HDR master Kino Lorber commissioned. There are the same traces of grain management in the opticals and the small number of shots from a lower quality source that were spliced in between the OCN footage. The SDR grayscale looks great though and after having compared everything, I would’ve preferred a 4K SDR release. The Eureka Blu-ray release wasn’t encoded by FiM and it shows. For those with the Blu-ray and an appreciation for optimal encoding, consider an upgrade.Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray: It seems that Kino Lorber commissioned the HDR/DV grade and some additional cosmetic work on the master. They used to mention "… brand new master by studio X" on their back covers when they were supplied with ready-made materials. This isn’t the case here but maybe someone’s in the know and things are different. The HDR grade is darker than the SDR one and flattened the grayscale quite significantly. I mentioned this in the Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard thread as well but I’m not really a fan of these grades and doubt that they’re enhancing the grayscales to make them appear more film-like. I’ve seen worse and it’s not the end of the world when the film is viewed in a dark environment but don’t expect anything as luminous and sparkly as The Big Heat. Kino Lorber’s encoding can be seen here via ko8ebryant’s caps.Eureka 4K Blu-ray (BD-100): Same 4K master and same HDR grade as on the Kino Lorber 4K but now expertly encoded. Thanks to no compression anomalies standing in the way, we can now scrutinize the master much better. In comparison with the SDR master, I noticed that there are opticals that got hit with further noise reduction and sometimes egregiously so, such as in the scene with Grace Kelly at the train station at roughly 18 minutes into the film. Parts of that scene were sourced from a lower-quality source. In the HDR master, grain was practically erased altogether whereas in the 4K SDR master on the Eureka Blu-ray, grain is visible in the same shot despite the iffy encoding.I’d still recommend the Eureka 4K Blu-ray as the OCN shots and scenes are frequently gorgeous, beautifully detailed and at most only minimally tampered with. The imperfect HDR grade bugs me but I’ll still use Eureka’s 4K Blu-ray for my future viewings due to the FiM encode.
1992 Republic LaserDisc
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
2024 Paramount "Presents" 4K: although there are reviews that called it disappointing. It is also regarded as a vast improvement over all previous versions by many others as well.
This is a problematic release, because while scenes like the aerial shots at the beginning looked pristine and shows new detail, many others are suspiciously identical across all three Blu-ray releases (the 2012, 2020 and this 2024).
Some defects on this are unfixed from the 2020 Blu-ray for some reason. (See this review and its discussion.)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
2024 Paramount "Presents" 4K: although there are reviews that called it disappointing. It is also regarded as a vast improvement over all previous versions by many others as well.
This is a problematic release, because while scenes like the aerial shots at the beginning looked pristine and shows new detail, many others are suspiciously identical across all three Blu-ray releases (the 2012, 2020 and this 2024).
Some defects on this are unfixed from the 2020 Blu-ray for some reason. (See this review and its discussion.)
Director: Charles Walters
Director: Charles Walters
7 films