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Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 3:41 pm**

Full specs announced:

Cry of the City
A film by Robert Siodmak
Victor Mature, Richard Conte and Shelley Winters

A masterpiece of law and disorder, Robert Siodmak’s film noir classic depicts a timeless struggle between good and evil on the streets of New York. Charismatic criminal, Martin Rome (Richard Conte) is on the run from Lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature), a dogged cop and onetime friend. The two nemeses go head-to-head in a tense game of cat and mouse, leading to a dramatic showdown.

After its welcome theatrical release last year, the BFI brings Cry of the City to both Blu-ray (in High Definition) and DVD formats on 22 August 2016, with special features that include an audio commentary.

Insolent, menacing yet darkly charming, Conte is magnificent, whilst Mature gives a career best performance as the unsettlingly obsessed detective.

Cry of the City boasts a glorious gallery of shady figures, from a lawyer oozing corruption to a memorably sadistic masseuse, whilst the film’s steely realism is enhanced by flourishes of noir stylisation, anticipating the films of Martin Scorsese.

Special features
• Presented in High Definition in Blu-ray version
• Original theatrical trailer
• Audio commentary by Adrian Martin
• Adrian Wootton on Cry of the City (2016, 26 mins): a newly filmed appreciation by the critic and chief executive of Film London
• Illustrated booklet with full film credits and new writing by Frank Krutnik

Blu-ray Product details
RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1238 / Cert 12
USA / 1948 / 96 mins / black and white / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / BD50 / 1080p / original aspect ratio 1.37:1 / PCM mono audio (48k/24-bit)

DVD Product details
RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIV2080 / Cert 12
USA / 1948 / 92 mins / black and white / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / DVD 9 / original aspect ratio 1.37:1 / Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio (160kbps)

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 4:27 pm**

I'm wary about the phrasing "Presented in High Definition" rather than "2K restoration". Does anybody know if it will be the same new 2K restoration than Kino ?

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 4:29 pm**

It will be worth getting both editions anyways, as Kino have Eddie Muller doing their commentary

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:16 pm**

tenia wrote:I'm wary about the phrasing "Presented in High Definition" rather than "2K restoration". Does anybody know if it will be the same new 2K restoration than Kino ?

I imagine it will be the same Fox restoration which according to Kino is in 2K (can't find confirmation of it on the Hollywood Classics site). I've noticed the phrase '2K restoration' has been omitted more and more these days and don't really get why. Perhaps because it's not as impressive-sounding as '4K restoration'? Who knows...

Either way I'm certain it'll look great. Hopefully we get reviews before it's released so we can see how it looks, but I'm looking forward to it. Probably best not to sleep on this one as the price for Night and the City inflated soon after release for some reason (maybe it cost more than usual to license and/or author). A good modest amount of extras on this one though, but they're bound to be pretty in-depth (particularly that Adrian Martin commentary).

Posted: **Thu Aug 11, 2016 12:07 am**

DVD Beaver

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 5:08 am**

rapta wrote:
tenia wrote:I'm wary about the phrasing "Presented in High Definition" rather than "2K restoration". Does anybody know if it will be the same new 2K restoration than Kino ?
I imagine it will be the same Fox restoration which according to Kino is in 2K (can't find confirmation of it on the Hollywood Classics site). I've noticed the phrase '2K restoration' has been omitted more and more these days and don't really get why. Perhaps because it's not as impressive-sounding as '4K restoration'? Who knows...

Sadly, either the new restoration is not optimal, or the BFI hasn't been able to licence it :

Chris wrote:"What we get looks okay but doesn’t look like a fresh new scan or at least comes from a less than stellar print."

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 6:05 am**

Martin Rome (Richard Conte) drives the law crazy - he is a beautiful loser, defying death, the great charismatic anti-hero of Siodmak's masterpiece of law and disorder.

Don't recall Beaver's sentences ever being quite so tortured. Can't help reading this as Death being the anti-hero.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:12 am**

tenia wrote:
rapta wrote:
tenia wrote:I'm wary about the phrasing "Presented in High Definition" rather than "2K restoration". Does anybody know if it will be the same new 2K restoration than Kino ?
I imagine it will be the same Fox restoration which according to Kino is in 2K (can't find confirmation of it on the Hollywood Classics site). I've noticed the phrase '2K restoration' has been omitted more and more these days and don't really get why. Perhaps because it's not as impressive-sounding as '4K restoration'? Who knows...
Sadly, either the new restoration is not optimal, or the BFI hasn't been able to licence it :

"What we get looks okay but doesn’t look like a fresh new scan or at least comes from a less than stellar print."

What review are you quoting? The Beaver caps don't look that bad to me.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 9:27 am**

Quoting Chris' review on this very website. I'll edit my post to make it clearer.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 12:42 pm**

It looks okay, I just found it a bit soft I guess. The notes only say they got the master from Fox but it doesn't describe it in more detail than that. I can't say what it was scanned from or at what resolution.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:30 pm**

It's a shame the Kino, which has definitely been flagged as a 2K remaster in the promo materials, does not come out until November. I don't regret buying the BFI edition, but for a title that has taken so long to come to market I'm a bit surprised that they may have gone ahead with an older/dated transfer. Until the Kino comes out I guess we won't really know what's what with this title.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2016 8:11 pm**

Here is the Bluray.com review.
Curious, what kind of case is it in? The image looks like a standard bluray case.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2016 8:16 pm**

That's how most of their BD-only releases are packaged.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2016 8:21 pm**

It is indeed a standard Blu-ray case.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2016 10:56 pm**

Interesting that this review assumes it to be from a 2K resto, when nowhere in the BFI edition is this indicated to be so. Until the US release, I guess there's no knowing for sure.

Posted: **Sat Dec 17, 2016 6:16 pm**

All that and the Kino ends up looking quite similar.

As with Boomerang, the materials must just not be in the greatest of shape.

Posted: **Fri Nov 13, 2020 4:58 pm**

BFI have just announced that they are deleting their Cry of the City release.

Posted: **Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:03 pm**

They'll hang on to their Fox titles until the day the licence expires, but once that happens, that's it - they don't have an option to renew. Very safe to assume that this was a five-year licensing term.

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