Soyons maudits si nous oublions une seconde qu'il est le seul avec Griffith, qui le muet, qui le parlent, d'avoir fait demarrer ce merveilleux petit train electrique auquel ne croyait Lumière. Tous, toujours, lui devront tout.

From the Back Cover
This fully restored Macbeth is the original version produced and directed by Orson Welles.In a bid for commerciality,the studio later trimmed the film by twenty minutes and redubbed the Scottish accents employed by Welles and his cast.This tampering with his work would come as no surprise to a director growing disillusioned with a Hollywood that tampered with all his films after Citizen Kane. Welles shot the film in just 21 days in the summer on 1947,at the small 'B'movie studio Republic.Here he believed was the perfect environment in which to undertake his first Shakesperian project for the screen.The result was powerful,intense and distinctively Welles.From the omnious encounter with the witches to the fateful marching of Birnam to Dunsinane,Wellesm the director captured the very essence of this,Shakespear's darkest play.With typically expressive use of camera,Welles conjured up a claustrophobic world,where Welles the actor portrayed an increasingly deranged Macbeth. One of Welles'filmmaking experiments in Macbeth was a ten minute take,subsequently edited when Republic shortened the film for general release.In 1980,a film archivist in America discovered half the reels of the original version on a high grade stock,among which was this 'one take' reel.After sourcing the missing footage from elsewhere,he was able to create a high quality,restored version of Macbeth,as Welles had intended it to be seen.In this complete form,it remains on of the most powerful and atmospheric of the many screen adaptations of Shakespeare..

DVD Features:
• Special Feature Information:
° Restoring Othello Feature
° Restored Othello Trailers
° Production Stills
° Orson Welles Short Film Return To Glannascaul
• Aspect Ratio: 4:3
• Available Audio Tracks: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Main Language: English

Synopsis
The story of a man driven mad by the power of his self-contained emotion. A Shakespearean classic. Orson Welles' production began in 1948 but with money in short supply the production took a further four years to complete. An original negative found in 1992 allowed a restoration project to begin.

BTW who if anyone bought the Studio Canal Falstaff/Chimes at Midnight?

Something you might want to know if you were thinking of buying it: The Warner R2 The Trial (a British bare-bones release featuring a StudioCanal logo on the front, which leads me to assume it's a port of the Canal transfer) has two reels swapped around, and is missing a line (the female Law Office worker's reference to not being able to breath the air outside)

Considering all the crappy editions of The Stranger and The Trial that exist, I'm assuming that these have slipped into public domain and continue to languish there. Fortunately, The Trial has received two good releases: In R1-land, Milestone released a now-OOP edition several years ago; TCM regularly shows that print (probably about every third month). In R2-land, Studio Canal released an even better edition in France. DVD Beaver has reviewed it, and you can pick it up from Amazon.fr. Unfortunately, none of the extras have English subs.

I don't have editions of The Stranger, so I don't know which one to recommend there.

I saw a beautifully restored print at NYC's Film Forum this past summer (or thereabouts... maybe a bit earlier) of THE STRANGER, along with LADY FROM SHANGHAI, both beautifully restored prints from Rialto-- their usual high quality. Gorgeous elements exist, and held very close to the Criterion vest... I'd keep both eyes open this year...

But isn't Lady from Shanghai already out on DVD from Columbia? The Stranger however, could use a decent edition from either Criterion or Warner.

Don Quijote de Orson Welles (1992) - wait, just grab yourselves a seat and wait
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompar ... uixote.htm

Chimes at Midnight[/b] (1965) - go for the spanish edition or wait for a release of the recently restored print

Warner still looking for better elements for The Magnificent Ambersons and will release
Journey into Fear with it. Be patient this might stretch out for a couple more years.

From the Warner chat:

The issue is with Ambersons, not Journey into Fear. That said, they should just release Journey into Fear separately instead of tying it to a film that may well never come out on DVD at the rate things are going.

In the case of JOURNEY, Warner will hopefully include both the American and European release versions, which feature different footage and endings. The Munich Filmmuseum has done a preliminary reconstruction combining the two, which would be cool to see also, but probably unlikely for Warner to include.