Kismet (1955)
Music, Romance, Adventure, Fantasy • 1h 53m
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray, Vic Damone, Monty Woolley, Sebastian Cabot, Jay C. Flippen, Mike Mazurki, Jack Elam, Ted de Corsia, Pat Sheehan, Reiko Sato, Patricia Dunn, Bernie Hamilton, Ray Aghayan, Ed Agresti, Jan Arvan, William Bagdad, Ross Bagdasarian, Rama Bai, Nita Bieber, John Bleifer, Lennie Bluett, Herman Boden, David Bond, George Bruggeman, Buddy Bryan, Barrie Chase, Noel Cravat, Drusilla Davis, Jack Dodds, Jamie Farr, Louise Franklin, Naji Gabbay, Leonard George, Jean Hartelle, Edmund Hashim, Hilo Hattie, David Hoffman, Sam Hunter, Dick Johnstone, Dulcie Jordan, George Keymas, George Khoury, Marc Krah, Walter Kray, Ethan Laidlaw, Norman Leavitt, Luana Lee, Virginia Lee, Guy Manford, John Mansfield, Charles Mauu, Reed Maxcy, Bert May, Maria McClay, Frank Mitchell, Leonard Mudie, Diana Norris, Donna Norris, Don Orlando, Hamil Petroff, Frank Radcliffe, Gloria Rhoads, Phil Rich, Julie Robinson, Herman Rudin, Sam Scar, Norbert Schiller, Reginald Lal Singh, Aaron Spelling, Nick Thompson, Arthur Tookoian, Dee Turnell, Bruno VeSota, Charles Wagenheim, George Wandell, Mel Welles, Marc Wilder, Norman Wright
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About the film
A silver-tongued poet and self-proclaimed "King of the Beggars" searches old Baghdad for a rich bachelor to marry his dreamy daughter, Marsinah. Along the way, he poses as the renowned sorcerer Hajj and gets in and out of scrapes with an elderly thief, a dim-witted wazir, and his wife. Meanwhile, his daughter develops feelings for a handsome caliph.
- Alternative Titles
- Kismet
Director: Vincente Minnelli
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Warner Archive, 2k + 4k scans
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Vincent Sherman
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: George Pal
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Compton Bennett
4K restoration from original technicolor negatives
Director: Jack Conway
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
More Music on Blu-ray
Directors: Chris Appelhans & Maggie Kang
"Sing-Along Edition" not included on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray, only available on Netflix Streaming
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Director: Damien Chazelle
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
US Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray re-release announced with Dolby Vision, a new exclusive bonus, and the previously retailer pre-order bonus-exclusive/Hong Kong-exclusive bonus interviews in HD
Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix
Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else and only included as retailer-exclusive pre-order bonus DVDs with the US Blu-ray
Directors: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
UK StudioCanal UHD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Shout Factory Blu-ray
Shout's BD has both cuts of the film in addition to the 3.0 stereo and 2.0 mono mixes making it the first time the full theatrical cut is available with the 3.0 mix. The new commentary is good. The 3.0 stereo sounds wonderful and the mono sounds solid.
That's where the positives end. This is the same terrible Universal DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc with a terrible encode making both versions share the disc separately taking up more space. This master was already poor for DVD and is nearly unwatchable here on the Shout disc. It looks virtually identical to the upscaled DVD most of the time with only a bit less noise due to it being 1080p. This is one of the most appalling cases of "DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc" you can possibly find. Absolutely shameful video presentation. This should have never been released this way. Sadly it's still ever so slightly better than the DVD and the only way you get the proper theatrical cut with lossless 3.0 stereo. This is still the best source we have for the film.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
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