Old films on Blu-Ray - worth it?

The old films that I have, are nearly all better than the new.

Zulu is the best blu-ray I own in terms of picture quality, Cool Hand Luke and the Conney Bond movies are also fantastic. As is Gone with the Wind.

The Towering Inferno less so.
 
You've got to remeber that the old films that get released on blu-ray are often the well loved classics - which means they've generally had a proper restoration done - and are therefore absolutely beautiful quality. Far superior to many films from the 80s and 90s that are on blu-ray and have little or nothing done to them.
 
Picked up Moonraker earlier based on a recommendation int his thread, along with North by Northwest and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Can't wait to check them out later.

Also ordering Dr No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger from Amazon later, the first two are a steal at
 
At least one of the commentaries is new but the documentaries have all been seen before on various Harryhausen dvd's.

But the disc is only
 
You should have got the US disc of North by Northwest as it comes with a great 48 page hardcover book in which the disc is housed.

If you're multiregion for Bluray don't forget that Licence To Kill , Golden Gun and Never Say Never are available on Region A.

There were some Euro releases for LTK and MWTGG but these seem a bit harder to get
 
Oh I'll probably end up getting the RA version of NBNW at some point as well, I already have 2 versions on DVD, and now the RB Blu Ray! :D

I'll look out for the other Bond releases, although to be honest, priorities at the moment are Thunderball, Goldfinger, Dr No and From Russia with Love, which thankfully are already available. Wouldn't mind The Spy Who Loved Me though.....
 
John Wayne's The Alamo should be re-released on Blu-Ray.

BUT, the longer version which I have on video bought in 1991 is no longer available. The extra footage has been left to rot in storage which is scandalous to say the least. I fail to understand why this was allowed to happen because the longer version is much better balanced overall, and has some interesting scenes.

Hopefully someone will sort it, but after reading about the way this extra film stock has deterioated, its hardly likely.

Shame really.
 
The problem with Ray Harryhausen films is the way they were made relied heavily on matte shots and multiple images combined together which creates an awful lot of grain on the picture.

Excessive grain can be a problem on some films but these are part of the film and can be intentional ,a limitation of the technology back then or even due to the type of film stock used.

Some companies like Universal have been employing artificial noise reduction to reduce the grain but it also means reducing the detail and their recent US Bluray of Spartacus is an absolute travesty.

All the Harryhausen films on Bluray have been remastered for HD with the old B&W ones done from scratch in order to provide colourised versions too.

So while Bluray will sharpen the image it also means anything inherent in the actual film like grain also shows up more.

7th Voyage of Sinbad looks fine but the grain can be distracting.

Buy the Warner release of Clash of the Titans. The grain is so strong it's distracting and Warner delayed releasing the film for a long time due to earlier complaints about grain on other movies.

So I would buy Clash of the Titans and if you can cope with the grain on that - and there's even too much for me - you'll be ok with the other Harryhausen movies.

Twenty Million Miles to Earth is also out on US Bluray
 
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