Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Comedy, Romance, Fantasy, Drama • 1h 52m
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, Allyn Joslyn, Eugene Pallette, Signe Hasso, Louis Calhern, Helene Reynolds, Aubrey Mather, Tod Andrews, Florence Bates, Scotty Beckett, Clara Blandick, Leonard Carey, James Conaty, Jack Deery, Claire Du Brey, Jay Eaton, James Flavin, Bess Flowers, Gary Gray, Alfred Hall, Grayce Hampton, Marlene Mains, Trudy Marshall, Edwin Maxwell, Michael McLean, Doris Merrick, Harold Miller, Dickie Moore, Bert Moorhouse, Clarence Muse, Monty O'Grady, Anne O'Neal, Gerald Pierce, Nino Pipitone Jr., June Preston, Maureen Roden-Ryan, Anita Sharp-Bolster, Gerald Oliver Smith
About the film
Spoiled playboy Henry van Cleve dies and arrives at the entrance to Hell, a final destination he is sure he deserves after living a life of profligacy. The devil, however, isn't so sure Henry meets Hell's standards. Convinced he is where he belongs, Henry recounts his life's deeds, both good and bad, including an act of indiscretion during his 25-year marriage to his wife, Martha, with the hope that "His Excellency" will arrive at the proper judgment.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for Dec 2026 release
Indicator Blu-ray > 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
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
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
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: Martin Scorsese
Video format: 4K Streaming
Director: Victor Sjöström
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Director: Victor Sjöström
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Director: Leo McCarey
Director: Philip Kaufman
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is a significant upgrade over previous WB Blu-ray see comparison
Criterion for the first time on home video have provided the 70mm 6-track as well as the Dolby stereo which was previously on LaserDisc. Both tracks are unique so included both with the 6-track default. Criterion’s 5.1 remix is lossless compared to the lossy tracks of the previous blu-rays and DVDs.
See comparison
2023 Criterion 4K Blu-ray (bad compression) / Curzon 4K Blu-ray (visible chroma noise and meh compression)
Director: Roman Polanski
Director: David Lynch
Criterion standard BD encode, sold separately, is not very good
More Comedy on Blu-ray
Director: Richard Rush
> Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode on Radiance compared to Duplitech encode on Shout! Factory)
Directors: Allison Anders & Alexandre Rockwell & Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
See caps
Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray coming November 27
Director: Todd Solondz
1999 R1 Trimark DVD
The Criterion 4K Blu-ray has audio that, despite being in a lossless codec, is extremely lossily compressed akin to an MP3.
Director: Mike Nichols
StudioCanal 4K caps.Criterion Blu-ray better encode than StudioCanal Blu-ray.
Director: Mike Cheslik
Director: Hal Ashby
See caps https://slow.pics/c/lVdZaG0W
Director: Tom Holland
sounds better than the Sony 4K Blu-ray , https://slow.pics/c/pJfES0fl
Twilight Time has an isolated score
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