I'm perfectly happy waiting for it, as long as I know it will come out sometime. Kane was well worth the wait.

My guess is they are doing some sort of deleted scenes piece involving notes, scripts, storyboards, everything they can to fill in the gaps as best as possible.

No, the Euro version is more comedic, really. This Wellesnet thread details the differences fairly exhaustively. The upshot is that if you're looking for something darker and more noirish, this alternate cut isn't really it.

Universal Pictures Video releases THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS on R2 Pal DVD single disc on 24th April... Don't know how this would tie in to Warners R1...

My guess would be "not at all." I don't think there's ever been much overlap between Universal's RKO releases in R2 and Warners' in R1 -- the Universal Kane came out about eight months before the WB version and had a different transfer and different extras, and Universal had a near-barebones R2 version of King Kong four and a half years before Warners finally got around to releasing it in R1.

I suppose that's true - what could Warner's offer as an extra? - maybe commentary by Robert Carringer, Rosenbaum or indeed Clinton Heylin... Or they may go for bare bones too, like some of the upcoming Warner Ford releases... Can't think of any docu that would be fitting, unless they pick up the THE ORSON WELLES STORY either as the BBC Arena 2 part original or as the single feature length re-edit for Turner...

Why do think so? This release is not (yet) listed at amazon or bensons or blackstar.

Find it at Moviemail, usually first to post new UK releases here...

http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk/films/6461

Belated thanks to Annie Mall for the dynamic list of Welles DVDs - very useful!

This may be old news, but for the sake of completeness may I suggest adding the Italian DVD of The Immortal Story to your list? It is essential viewing for Welles completists and, whilst it was originally made for French TV, it deserves a mention here every bit as much as, say, Don Quixote does.

You can read the WellesNet review here.

I purchased my copy from dvd.it. (Although the shipping cost more than the DVD itself!)

Thank you and consider it done! In fact, I already updated it. Thanks for this addition!

Dull cover art is up at Play.com for the UK Ambersons.

And, something about which I had no idea, Welles' radio adaptation has been released as a standalone CD. The eventual Warner edition is bound to include this (they love their radio plays even more than Criterion), but I'm not sure I can hold off.

That is a fucking ugly cover. With all the beautiful shots in the picture, they go with THAT?

Awful cover. Looks like a generic, public domain release.

This postage stamp is up at moviemail, but the play.com one seems more genuine...

Yech. Cheapo cover art. It gives the impression of Film Noir. The capitalized impact font is also horrid.

That Moviemail cover is the old VHS art. Even for VHS, the transfer was horrendous. Has anyone, in the last ten years, seen a good print of Ambersons?

A repackaged Touch of Evil is also listed, with a 24th April street date. No sign of the Reconstructing Evil documentary or Curtis Hanson commentary, unsurprisingly.

But just look at all those subtitle options:

English for the hard of hearing ; Spanish ; German ; Arabic ; Danish ; Dutch ; Finnish ; Greek ; Hebrew ; Norwegian ; Portuguese ; Russian ; Swedish ; Turkish ; Italian ; French

Which version of TOUCH OF EVIL - does not make clear?...

Amazon UK lists a PAL running time of 105 minutes, which would make it the same as the existing UK DVD i.e. the 1998 re-edit.

Just received the Universal R2 UK/IRL disc of AMBERSONS... Slightly soft image but otherwise fine.. Main extra is interview with Bill Krohn speaking in French, subtitled in English!...

FABBO!

I wanna hear Bill speaking da French!!

Should I buy the Ed. Mont la Femme sur la Plage while Im there BTW?

Ste, can you (or someone else) post a few comments on the Italian THE IMMORTAL STORY disc. This is a film that I have always wanted to see. Does the DVD do it justice?

LA FEMME SUR LA PLAGE is well worth getting hold of... See the Beaver review which says it is probably a transfer from tape, producing some combing, but like it's the only show in town, and it's a very interesting movie...

Apropos of which, I have just read Janet Bergstrom's article ONEIRIC CINEMA - THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH... Excellent piece which fits with my theories of damaged physiques and psyches of males emerging from WWII in this film and THE RIVER, marking a key turning point in Renoir's cinema towards a more female proto feminist perspective...

Bergstrom's article works from the RKO archives, and the continuity scripts of the various versions, to chart the evolution of the project through script to the various edits, ultimately asserting that the final version (prepared by Renoir) is the significant achievement in terms of its elisions and foregrounding of certain plot elements...

So the Ed Montparnasse disc, is far from being a mangled version, with some lost holy grail of a director's cut lost in the mists of time and RKO archives... This is the finished and finest article...

Good to hear. I've always loved this release print, and I asked about the French disc as I already have an excellent (for Analogue sourced tape to flm) copy from DTV. But yes gary's R2 looks marginally better, if still cropped slightly.

I'm on holiday in the UK just now, so this'll have to be brief. (Don't you just hate using your parents' computer?)

The Immortal Story DVD is worth getting, I think, if you are a Welles completist. It's a simple little tale, filmed simply. It was made for TV, so it's not a big budget production, but it is classy enough. The gauzy photography reminds me a little of Tony Scott's The Hunger, if you know that one. A link to the WellesNet review can be found elsewhere in this thread, and that covers it fairly comprehensively.

There are three dubs -- with slightly different edits -- English, Italian, and French. Subtitles appear to be burned in. My little Cyberhome player usually ignores forced subs, but I can't remove these at all. That said, they are not too distracting. Picture quality is excellent; far better than the VHS, or the many bootlegs.

What else can I say? To coin the usual cliche, it ain't Citizen Kane, but if you enjoy Welles's minor work it's worth a look.

I recently picked up the French StudioCanal and compared the 1963 cut to the Warner UK: the order of the reels is in the same order in both. I fully agree that the StudioCanal looks much better.

From this year's chat: