The Iron Mistress (1952)
History, Drama, Action, Western, Romance • 1h 50m
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Alan Ladd, Virginia Mayo, Joseph Calleia, Phyllis Kirk, Alf Kjellin, Douglas Dick, Anthony Caruso, Nedrick Young, George Voskovec, Richard Carlyle, Robert Emhardt, Don Beddoe, Harold Gordon, Jay Novello, Nick Dennis, Sarah Selby, Dick Paxton, George J. Lewis, Edward Colmans, Gordon Nelson, Daria Massey, Leon Alton, John Alvin, Ernest Anderson, Walter Bacon, Salvador Baguez, Richard Bartell, John Barton, Madge Blake, Oliver Blake, Eugene Borden, Chet Brandenburg, Harry Brown, Morgan Brown, Ivan Browning, Argentina Brunetti, Morris Buchanan, Peter Camlin, Fred Cavens, Charlita, Ann Codee, Jean Del Val, Stanley Fraser, Jack Carr, Tom Coleman, Gayle Kellogg, Alberto Morin, Hal Taggart
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 11 months ago
Overview
In this biopic, Jim Bowie goes to New Orleans, where he falls for Judalon and befriends her brother, Narcisse. Soon, Jim is forced to avenge Narcisse's murder, but Judalon takes up with another man. Jim eventually has another romantic interlude with Judalon and is forced to kill one of her suitors in self-defense. Jim leaves town, and falls for the daughter of a Texas politician, but his entanglement with Judalon continues to bedevil him.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · catalog.afi.com (opens in a new tab) · archive.org (opens in a new tab) · +1 more
SF is in 1.66 aspect ratio. Whether this is the intended ratio or a compromise isn't clear.
American Film Institute's catalog and Variety's contemporary review list it as 1.66, but other sources disagree.
Exhibitor's contemporary review lists it as 1.85, IMDB and an internal pre-production note from Warner Bros. list it as 1.75.
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 History on Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
Other releases have horrendous DNR
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion Box Set coming on October 20th with FiM encode
DTS:X mix most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD has additional features not found on the 4K Blu-ray
Director: Miloš Forman
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray: Huge improvement in colors and detail. The restoration was done by the Academy instead of WB MPI which explains that there’s no grain management or issues with colors. They also accessed the original credit optical and scanned that one instead of recreating them digitally
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray, according to Saentz, the 5.0 is a recreation of the original and subsequently 70mm mix from original elements.
StudioCanal Blu-ray
StudioCanal was overseen and approved by Nicolas Roeg and has a more filmic color grade than the Warner Archive Blu-Ray.
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Zee5 Streaming
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
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