Edge of Darkness (1943)
Drama, War • 1h 59m
Director: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Helmut Dantine, Ruth Gordon, Judith Anderson, Roman Bohnen, Monte Blue, Virginia Christine, Morris Carnovsky, Charles Dingle, Richard Fraser, Art Smith, Nancy Coleman, John Beal, Frank Wilcox, Henry Brandon, Francis Pierlot, Kurt Katch, Tonio Selwart, Louis V. Arco, Nora Bush, Glen Cavender, Albert Cavens, Noble 'Kid' Chissell, Tom Coleman, Victor Cox, William Edmunds, Frederick Giermann, Kit Guard, Al Haskell, Kenner G. Kemp, Kurt Kreuger, Ann Kunde, Walt La Rue, Rolf Lindau, Dudley Field Malone, Torben Meyer, Peter Michael, Robert Milasch, Ernesto Molinari, Harry 'Snub' Pollard, Henry Rowland, John Roy, Allen D. Sewall, Carl Sklover, Cap Somers, Ray Spiker, William Sundholm, Helene Thimig, Dorothy Tree, Peter van Eyck, Roland Varno, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Lottie Williams, William Yetter Sr., Jack Young, Paul Kruger, George Magrill, Robert R. Stephenson
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 11 months ago
Overview
The film pivots around the local Norwegian doctor and his family. The doctor's wife (Ruth Gordon) wants to hold on to the pretence of gracious living and ignore their German occupiers. The doctor, Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), would also prefer to stay neutral, but is torn. His brother-in-law, the wealthy owner of the local fish cannery, collaborates with the Nazis. The doctor's daughter, Karen (Ann Sheridan), is involved with the resistance and with its leader Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn). The doctor's son has just returned to town, having been sent down from the university, and is soon influenced by his Nazi-sympathizer uncle. Captain Koenig (Helmut Dantine), the young German commandant of the occupying garrison, whose fanatic determination to do everything by the book and spoutings about the invincibility of the Reich hides a growing fear of a local uprising.
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Sourced from a 4K scan of the 35mm Fine Grain. Even with its unfortunate and noticeable print damage, tears, and other issues, still easily beats any prior disc release, though the Imprint BD (same master as Kino, but inferior encode) included in their Essential Film Noir Collection Vol. 3 set does include more extras. https://youtu.be/-Wrsn6-XJCo
Director: Lewis Milestone
2K scan of a surviving 35mm safety fine grain provided by the Academy Film Archive
Director: Lewis Milestone
Kit Parker Films Blu-ray
4K master from UCLA Film & Television Archive's 35mm photochemical restoration
Director: Lewis Milestone
Sources: moma.org (opens in a new tab)
New 2025 4K restoration by SFFP see MoMA
Director: Lewis Milestone
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber Blu-ray is much better than the extra in Criterion His Girl Friday Blu-ray. Even though Kino Lorber is the international cut and only restored in HD, and Criterion is the US theatrical cut, and restored in 4K, the Criterion picture quality is atrocious http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_68/the_front_page_blu-ray.htm
Director: Lewis Milestone
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: Joel Coen
Director's Cut: Disappointing UK StudioCanal/US Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: LaserDisc or 2001 UK Universal DVD
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=21782879#post21782879 - comparison. StudioCanal is a massive improvement to the Criterion but still flawed in some areas (chroma noise)
Director: Liliana Cavani
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Iain Softley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both 88 Films and Germany Capelight are superior to the Shout! Factory in HDR10 but their FEL layer may even things out. Objectively, the Capelight looks best as they avoided the chroma blocking that’s visible in 88’s disc but they in turn included an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Shout! Factory has the exclusive The Beauty of the Baud and the You Can't Stop Us All featurettes.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
review: Disk Kino
Both have better encoding than Disk Kino, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow
Shout Factory still has the best video while Arrow did a questionable regrade. Arrow definitely has less grain in most shots, has a worse encode and is cm v2.9 compared to Shout’s cm v4.0.
Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.