BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

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Drucker
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BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#1 Post by Drucker » Thu Apr 16, 2015 10:16 am

A Letter to Three Wives

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A stunning romantic drama from writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, The Barefoot Contessa), A Letter to Three Wives explores the domestic travails of three couples and the woman that brings them to the brink of crisis.

The letter of the title is written with a poisonous pen: the three women (portrayed by Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and Ann Sothern) receive a note stating that one of their husbands has run off with a woman named Addie Ross which husband in particular, however, remains unmentioned, though each husband had their own affinity for Ross. And so amid the women's mounting anxiety commences a series of flashbacks, each telling the story of how the three individual marriages had come in their own way to be so strained at the present...

A spectacular success at the time of its release, A Letter to Three Wives was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and earned Mankiewicz the Academy Awards for both Best Director and Best Screenplay. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present A Letter to Three Wives in a special Dual Format edition that includes the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL DUAL FORMAT (BLU-RAY + DVD) EDITION featuring:

• Gorgeous 1080p presentation of the film on Blu-ray
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Feature-length audio commentary with Mankiewicz biographer Kenneth Geist, film historian Cheryl Lower, and actor Christopher Mankiewicz, the director's son
• Fox Movietone newsreel covering the Academy Awards ceremony
• 36-page booklet containing essays, interview material, and rare archival imagery
• Original Theatrical Trailer

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Forthcoming: A Letter to Three Wives

#2 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:31 pm


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manicsounds
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#3 Post by manicsounds » Sat Jun 27, 2015 11:14 am

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompar ... ives_3.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

bluraydefinition

Not sure whats up with that second screencap...
Last edited by manicsounds on Sat Jun 27, 2015 6:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Drucker
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#4 Post by Drucker » Sat Jun 27, 2015 2:28 pm


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Drucker
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#5 Post by Drucker » Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:05 pm

So does this film have any strong defenders? I absolutely loved All About Eve but this film really did nothing for me. A lot of plot points didn't really draw me in and felt underdeveloped.
SpoilerShow
I suppose Addie Ross and her linkage with all of their husbands should be linking the women, but this didn't feel like enough for me. I will concede that the three backstories for each woman does a good job of showing the differences between them, the differences between each of their wants and desires, and why they fear this Addie Ross. That said, all of their personality quirks seem to have existed before Addie Ross comes into the picture. Whether paranoia or not fitting in or argumentativeness, these didn't come to the fore because of each husband's relationship or feelings about Addie Ross. And if Addie is such an important figure in the men's lives, and not just a vehicle to show how paranoid each woman is, then the story doesn't really show their bond.

I think the fact that we learn nothing about Addie Ross mostly hurts the story. Mostly, the story comes off like three paranoid women who feel that, what...they haven't been trusting enough of their men? They should count their blessings and just chill out? The climax by Porter just doesn't come off as very effective, and didn't knock me out the way the big twists in All About Eve do, and it just felt tacked on.

One more point, the puns and comedic moments really didn't do much for me. Some really obvious jokes, like the mother at the end saying "bingo" after her daughter announcing her engagement.
Also, pretty disappointing that there was no original mono track included with the film in the MOC disc.

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MichaelB
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#6 Post by MichaelB » Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:10 pm

Drucker wrote:Also, pretty disappointing that there was no original mono track included with the film in the MOC disc.
Where on earth did you get that impression? Original mono is the default playback option, with the 5.1 remix very much an optional extra.

(The latter is mostly centre-speaker mono as well, apart from the three bits where the trains run past and shake the room, which are all six-speaker blowouts.)

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Drucker
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#7 Post by Drucker » Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:29 pm

I have a pretty simple two speaker setup, and no surround, and selected the default audio option. I could be mistaken, and will happily double check, but the moments where the train went by certainly seemed to only come out of one speaker. There were other moments in that same scene, where people were going in and out of rooms where audio only seemed to come out of one speaker. And the track was definitely called "stereo" on my Oppo, though I know the naming of the track doesn't always resemble reality.

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MichaelB
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#8 Post by MichaelB » Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:41 pm

I'm playing it right now, and can confirm first-hand that the soundtrack options are 2.0 mono and 5.1 surround.

With the 2.0 option, aside from the Eureka/MoC opening ident in genuine stereo, you get the film soundtrack in mono, with left and right speakers playing the same thing.

With the 5.1 option, most of the soundtrack comes out of the centre speaker, apart from those very brief moments where all six are pressed into service.

In other words, exactly what I recalled, and what I'd have expected.

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ChunkyLover
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#9 Post by ChunkyLover » Sat May 15, 2021 9:42 pm

Drucker wrote:
Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:05 pm
Also, pretty disappointing that there was no original mono track included with the film in the MOC disc.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. It seemed Eureka used the "stereo" remix that was on the Fox DVD and Fox Blu.

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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#10 Post by pistolwink » Tue May 18, 2021 10:45 pm

MichaelB wrote:
Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:41 pm
With the 2.0 option, aside from the Eureka/MoC opening ident in genuine stereo, you get the film soundtrack in mono, with left and right speakers playing the same thing.
I have what's probably a dumb question -- how is this different from an actual mono track? Is it just an encoding difference but no difference in the actual sound you're hearing?

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Roger Ryan
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#11 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed May 19, 2021 8:03 am

pistolwink wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 10:45 pm
MichaelB wrote:
Sun Sep 13, 2015 2:41 pm
With the 2.0 option, aside from the Eureka/MoC opening ident in genuine stereo, you get the film soundtrack in mono, with left and right speakers playing the same thing.
I have what's probably a dumb question -- how is this different from an actual mono track? Is it just an encoding difference but no difference in the actual sound you're hearing?
I can't speak directly to this disc, but there are usually two choices when encoding a mono soundtrack: 1.0 and 2.0. The former will have the soundtrack coming through a 5.1 sound system's center front speaker only; the latter will send the same soundtrack through both the front left-and-right speakers instead. A 2.0 mono soundtrack is often preferable to one presented in 1.0 because the sound is fuller (a wider field) even though there would be no difference in the sound mix (also, on many systems, the front left-and-right speakers tend to be larger than the front center speaker, so, again, the soundtrack will seem fuller or have greater clarity).

pistolwink
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#12 Post by pistolwink » Thu May 20, 2021 2:53 pm

Thanks for that response. That's what I figured -- it seemed from some comments here (maybe I was misreading) that mono 2.0 was undesirable, while I would think that would be the best option for mono, given that you probably want the soundtrack coming out of the main speakers.

nitin
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#13 Post by nitin » Wed May 26, 2021 4:41 am

I always force mono through my centre speaker, having it come out of both mains just sounds echoey and abnormal to me.

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tenia
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#14 Post by tenia » Wed May 26, 2021 12:19 pm

I have the opposite issue, I suppose my L and R speakers offer a tad better sound so I tend to prefer dual mono over center mono. And in the case of LPCM 1.0, my PS3 defaults it as dual mono anyway (unlike DTS HD 1.0) so I'm now quite used to it.
Edit : forgot to mention : my center speaker is a bookshelf one while my LR ones are towers.
Last edited by tenia on Wed May 26, 2021 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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senseabove
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Re: BD 114 A Letter to Three Wives

#15 Post by senseabove » Wed May 26, 2021 1:52 pm

Same—my L/R speakers are towers while my center's a bookshelf, so a mono track with orchestration/effects/etc. sounds much more than just a tad better coming through L/R. The center works well for a typical 5.1 track where that channel's mostly dialogue or effects spread across all three front speakers, but I always force my receiver to expand 1.0 Mono tracks to dual L/R mono.

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