The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Comedy, Romance • 1h 29m
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charles Ruggles, George Barbier, Hugh O'Connell, Maude Allen, Granville Bates, Harry C. Bradley, Carrie Daumery, Ludwig Heinsich, Cornelius MacSunday, Elizabeth Patterson, Janet Reade, Werner Saxtorph, Karl Stall, Robert Strange, Charles Wagenheim
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 6 months ago
Overview
An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.
Director: Leo McCarey
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
> Germany Wicked Vision Blu-ray > US Flicker Alley Blu-ray see DVDBeaver caps
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: Frank Capra
Director: William Dieterle
Director: David Butler
Video format: Only Unofficial Sources
Sources: archive.org (opens in a new tab)
The DVD isn't an official one, and according to a user review on Amazon:
This DVD comes from Archive.org, where the movie can be viewed for free. The original source, comes from the Fox Movie Channel
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab) · blah-ray.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for Dec 2026 release
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
> Kino Lorber see DVDBeaver
Indicator is using a different restoration from earlier Kino Lorber Blu-ray and it has much better contrast and slightly better grain resolution
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Subjective, but the concertina score by Bernard Wrigley on the OOP MoC Blu-ray is generally regarded as very weak. For example, it frequently doesn't match the action. The Meg Morley score on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray is considered superior.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2021 Kino Lorber Blu-ray
Video comparisons: https://slow.pics/c/ryvPN8Uu
Audio comparisons: https://slow.pics/c/KEs7dwRg
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Kino Lorber 4k resto
The audio on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray comes from a better source than the various DVDs and the previous HD version on streaming. This audio is relatively untampered with, and is likely the best available source as no laserdisc was ever issued.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
MoC OOP Blu-ray is likely to have better encoding than Kino Lorber Blu-ray judging from other movies in the boxset
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
MoC OOP Blu-ray is likely to have better encoding than Kino Lorber Blu-ray judging from other movies in the boxset
Director: Steve James
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)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray poor compression, otherwise Second Sight has best Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
> BFI 4K Blu-ray. caps Criterion presents the master as originally graded in SDR whereas FiM added HDR / Dolby Vision for the BFI.
Criterion 4K Blu-ray's audio mix has more detail than BFI’s and same applies to the subtitles, covering both English and France spoken word
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Director: Terrence Malick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Lovely underlying remaster by Criterion and Resillion but encode is sadly low-pass filtered by Pixelogic, and even then, the encode is still less than ideal. Still easily obliterates any prior disc release, but certainly wouldn't hurt to have a UK or German label take a crack at this same master.
Director: Anthony Mann
Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
2008 Universal DVD mono
The mono on the Criterion is severely filtered resulting in it sounding incredibly muffled. It is nearly as filtered as the 2003 original Universal DVD which had extreme filtering and sounds horribly thin. The 2008 DVD remaster and original Laserdisc analog mastering are mostly left alone. The original LD master is from a worn element but otherwise sounds very natural. The 2008 DVD is the highest quality version we have without the heavy filtering and the defects of the LD master. It isn't perfect but easily the best of the main four sources by a dramatic margin.
The existing 4K SDR restoration looks excellent, but the Criterion extras are limited and disappointing. The classic Stewart interview commentary from the LD is ported over but given a new mastering. Compared to past releases it has been very slightly noise reduced.
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