The Carey Treatment (1972)
Crime, Mystery, Thriller • 1h 41m
Director: Blake Edwards
Cast: James Coburn, Jennifer O'Neill, Pat Hingle, Skye Aubrey, Elizabeth Allen, John Fink, Dan O'Herlihy, James Hong, Alex Dreier, Michael Blodgett, Regis Toomey, Steve Carlson, Rosemary Edelman, Jennifer Edwards, John Hillerman, Robert Mandan, Warren Parker, Robie Porter, Morgan Sterne, Melissa Torme-March
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 11 months ago
Overview
A doctor uncovers a hotbed of corruption when he tries to clear a colleague of a murder charge.
Director: Blake Edwards
Mono: Kino Lorber US Blu-ray
Mono: Kino Lorber US Blu-ray possibly?
Director: Blake Edwards
88 Films 4K Blu-ray scheduled for August 24, 2026 release
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray fixes stretched ratio problem
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray fixes ratio issue due to new scan but has no original audio, only remixes. The MGM and Shout! Factory Blu-ray use the same HD master with stretched image and horrible muffled processed to death mono. The PCM mono on the MGM letterbox LaserDisc reissue is the only untouched original mix audio and sounds incredible.
Shout! Factory uses MGM's HD master and mono mix which sounds similar to their 2004 DVD mono. They sound nearly identical aside from volume differences-except that the sound effects seem a bit flattened again on the DVD and this Blu-ray mono mastering seems to be EQ'd a bit differently.
The original mono mix has bad pitch and sound quality issues on the Shout! Factory Blu-ray and is terrible sounding. The LaserDisc PCM mono is very good but sounds a tad muffled in comparison to the MGM 2004 DVD mono at first listen. Yet the DVD mono has the volume of the entire track normalized so that effects and music remain at consistent levels which they don't in the LaserDisc mono-meaning that the jokes and gags hit harder in the LaserDisc mono because the mix varies as it was intended. It may be that the same source was used and then EQ'd and processed for the DVD boxset as all the mono mixes were messed around with. For example, when the hunchback disguise goes off with the explosions, the DVD mono has everything at a mostly consistent level. On the LaserDisc the effects build and fall off in loudness so the intensity is entirely different because they were mixed that way for comedic effect. Another is the piano smashing-on the DVD mono it's at the same level as the rest of the scene. On the LaserDisc it's loud and aggressively so which again makes the gag hit so much harder.
Again, the remixes are existing MGM ones and not good. The 5.1 remix on the Shout! Factory Blu-ray does not have pitch issues but the stereo remix does.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is from a new 4K master with some transfer issues, notably in the title sequence. The mono mix had errors and slight deletions introduced in the 2004 DVD remaster which were corrected on a 2006 DVD repressing. The Shout! Factory Blu-ray uses the 2006 corrected mono but those sections sound added in and in lower quality. The Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray reverts to the defective 2004 mono. All the DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray mono mixes sound poor when compared to the untouched uncut MGM LaserDisc mono PCM mix which is a direct perfect transfer and sounds excellent.
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Live Home Video 1996 remastered letterbox LaserDisc
The remastered LaserDisc PCM mono sounds the most untouched and natural of any version. In 2006, Universal made a new HD master used on all subsequent DVD and Blu-ray releases. The Universal 2.0 mono mix may be a new transfer, different source or remix made from stems as the music and effects are at different levels throughout the track when compared to older copies featuring the mono mix. Additionally there is extreme noise reduction with dialogue sounding too clean and hiss being almost gone. Comparing with the 1996 LaserDisc mono clearly shows in all of these moments that the original mono was mixed differently and to serve the jokes.
Director: Blake Edwards
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray with audio issues
MGM Letterbox LaserDisc, 2004 DVD mono, or Shout! Factory Blu-ray mono
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray introduces pitch issues on the mono mix. LaserDisc mono is from worn element but sounds mostly natural with possibly some attempts at noise reduction. MGM 2004 DVD mono transfer is higher quality without the wear but may have some processing applied. Shout! Factory Blu-ray is the same MGM mono now in lossless but seems to be EQ'd a bit differently. LaserDisc, DVD or Blu-ray is a toss up but those are your three options. The Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is useless due to the pitch issues. The remixes are very poor.
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 Crime on Blu-ray
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the WB release without the filtering Comparison between the Criterion and WB.
5.1: WB 4K Blu-ray, a remix but has higher fidelity
Mono: Criterion 4K Blu-ray (restored for the box set)
Director: Michael Mann
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · thedigitalbits.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray is encoded by FiM and is better than Criterion, see caps https://slow.pics/c/Z2RRQAAT
Criterion 4K Blu-ray vs Blu-ray: caps colors are more different and nuanced than anticipated even in the SDR-converted caps and the usual gain in highlight detail is also apparent. Encode looks excellent except for the brightest areas as usual.
5.1/5.0 mix (essentially a 4-track mix in 5.1 and 5.0 containers respectively)-Arrow/Criterion 4K Blu-ray. Only imperceptible differences in bit-depth: 20 vs 24.
2.0 mix- Arrow 4K Blu-ray (original stereo)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
US Magnolia BD
UK Entertainment One release contains directors commentary track
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Both come from a 4K scan of a 35mm film out which was made from the original 2K DI but the Lionsgate release has visible dust and damage marks while the Universal release is cleaned up more thoroughly. Both releases suffer from DNR which seems to have been baked into the DI. The colour grade is basically the same for both releases but the Lionsgate has Dolby Vision whereas the Universal is HDR10 only. The compression on the Lionsgate UHD base layer is apparently fine so the FEL doesn't make much of a difference.
The Lionsgate UHD has Dolby Atmos whereas the Universal UHD has DTS:X. Kick-ass was originally released with a 5.1 track which may be on the Universal Blu-ray.
The Lionsgate UHD is on a BD-100, the Universal UHD is on a BD-66.
The Universal UHD has no extras.
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: 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: 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
Director: Lloyd Bacon
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
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