nope. It looks like a port of the VHS released years ago. It's 4X3 and cropped badly.Originally Posted by eubiecat
nope. It looks like a port of the VHS released years ago. It's 4X3 and cropped badly.
Video capture programs like Pinnacle will record regardless of protection. If you can watch it on screen, it can be recorded. I'm just saying.
phil
I dug up a few more Netflix movies: Caught (1947) and The Big Night (1960 -- also has The Big Night 1951)
Latest Netflix On-Demand additions:
Wise's A GAME OF DEATH (45).
Endfield's THE SOUND OF FURY (50).
Gabel's THE LOST MOMENT (47).
Siodmak's THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY (45).
Lerner's EDGE OF FURY (58).
Shane's FEAR IN THE NIGHT (47).
Just added: Mark Stevens' CRY VENGEANCE (Allied Artists, 54). Alaska Noir!? You bet. 10 years before a certain half-governor was born. With a very nasty Skip Homeier, who seems to be styled after a starving polar bear.
And for John Alton aficionados, a beautiful print of Dwan's DRIFTWOOD (47). Scary "Kiddie Noir," in the first reel.
Finally, HOMICIDE FOR THREE (48). One of a mini-trend of comedy-murder mysteries happening in the late 40s (i.e. THE CORPSE CAME C.O.D.) Republic's production values were not bad when shown in a print this lovely, and Audrey Long is just adorable.
Yet another recent addition from the Republic catalogue: Philip Ford's HIDEOUT [no article] (49). Jeff and Beau's daddy has some cute by-play with Sheila Ryan. Ray Collins is the baddie. Lorna Gray is the bad girl. Decent 35mm print. Ford was John Ford's nephew, and Yates, as all Vera Hruba Ralston lovers know, was not averse to a lil' nepotism at his studio.
Also available for viewing: watchable enough 16mm print of Wilbur's CANON CITY (48). Some of John Alton's bestest work on view.
It's not noir, but a lot of noir stalwarts (Stanwyck, Conte, DeToth, Rosza, Milner) we love are involved (and it IS one of the "darkest" women's pictures of the 40s): THE OTHER LOVE (47). Nice 35mm print.
Juran's HIGHWAY DRAGNET (54, Allied Artists) and DeToth's HIDDEN FEAR (57, UA): decent 35mm prints. Tuff-guys Conte and Payne growl out their lines, eyes darting, pondering how their careers are dissipating...
I watched a bit of Madonna's Secret on Netflix last night... Quality again excellent. This is another one that I'm shocked to see on the Instant list. And on a side note, Netflix is doing a crappy job with their cover art. I wish someone would email me and I could take care of that.
JUST ADDED!
Lang's THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (44)
Dupont's THE SCARF (51)
Rowland's WITNESS TO MURDER (54)
Wise's ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (59)
Preminger's WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (50)
I watched Crosswinds with a great noir cast (but not noir... more like a B African Queen/Treasure of Sierra Madre/Tarzan)
John Payne, Forrest Tucker, Robert Lowery, John Abbott... and Rhonda Fleming in color. She should always be in color.
The film's a bit of a goof. They're off the coast of FLA but they somehow end up mixing with African headhunters. Somehow the movie poster got Rhonda's hair brown...
More proto-noir, film noir, neo-noir, and new wave on Netflix:
Appointment with Danger (Allen - 1951)
Boarding Gate (Assayas - 2007)
Body Heat (Kasdan - 1981)
Branded to Kill (Suzuki - 1967)
Breathless (Godard - 1960)
Devil in the Blue Dress (Franklin -1995)
Diabolique (Clouzot - 1955)
Dr. Mabuse: the Gambler (Lang - 1922)
High and Low (Kurosawa - 1963)
Kansas City Confidential (Karlson - 1952)
La Bęte Humaine (Renoir - 1938)
Le Cercle Rouge (Melville - 1970)
M (Lang - 1931)
Madigan (Siegel - 1968)
Mean Streets (Scorsese -1973)
Niagara (Hathaway - 1953)
Night and the City (Dassin - 1950)
No Way Out (Mankiewicz - 1950)
Odd Man Out (Reed - 1947)
Shelter Island (Scorsese -2010)
Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut - 1960)
Street With No Name (Keighley - 1948)
Suddenly (Allen - 1954)
The Asphalt Jungle (Huston - 1950)
The Black Dahlia (De Palma - 2006)
The Dark Corner (Hathaway - 1946)
The Killing (Kubrick - 1956)
The Lady from Shanghai (Welles - 1947)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang - 1933)
The Third Man (Reed - 1949)
Tokyo Drifter (Suzuki - 1966)
Union Station (Maté - 1950)
Last edited by Hard-Boiled-Rick; 01-09-2011 at 04:23 PM.
THE DIAMOND WIZARD (53) [aka THE DIAMOND]. Britain's first and only 3-D feature, and only the Brits would make it in drab black and white, nor even bother to thrill audiences with objects thrust into the camera. The film is listed as one of the British Film Institute's "75 Most Wanted", since the 3-D elements have vanished, and the BFI doesn't even have what Netflix subscribers now have: the flat version in 35mm. The real mystery is who the director is: Montgomery Tully (according to the BFI) or star Dennis O'Keefe (according to the credit on this print).
APPOINTMENT WITH CRIME (UK-46). 35mm print, some sound drop-out and choppiness at reel change. Watchable print, in sum. Lucky Netflix watchers will feel their jaws drop at this amazing, amazing film. (First re-discovered at Film Forum's Brit Noir series last year).
David, et al ...
Some clarification is called for, as things in cyberspace proceed at breakneck speed. First, the version of CRY DANGER being streamed on Netflix is NOT the restoration funded by the Film Noir Foundation. In fact, I doubt it's even from 35mm, as Paramount never had a 35mm print of this film and there is still some question as to whether they own the rights to it or not. It would seem to me that most of what Netflix is offering for streaming are digitized versions of video masters made 20 or so years ago when a different company owned the Republic library.
As near as I can tell, Netflix is making its play to become the dominant provider of streaming films on the internet and part of its plan is offering films that it sometimes doesn't even have the rights to, since this is now standard internet procedure. Since they make their money almost entirely through subscriptions rather than per film viewing, they really are not at much risk if a rights-holder appeared—they'd just delete the film from their inventory and throw the owner a few bucks.
It's a brave new world, and of course it does affect (somewhat) the plans of the Film Noir Foundation, since obscure films that we labor to find and restore to their pristine original condition (like THE SOUND OF FURY) are now available instantly in streaming form. Obviously this could be detrimental to any DVD release of the restored version, which we were planning for CRY DANGER, THE SOUND OF FURY, and TOO LATE FOR TEARS. It is next to impossible to compete with giant corporations which, after all this time, have decided that many old films are loss-leaders that can simply be given away. And since Newflix has now purchased the Republic library from Pasramount, it may very well have exclusive rights to the films ... meaning we'd never be able to offer THE SOUND OF FURY on DVD (so why restore it at all?) We'll have to see how THE PROWLER does on DVD with all the special features we included. We tried to provide the most bonus material we could and still be cost-efficient, but it's hard to compete with instant delivery at virtually NO cost -- no packaging, no shipping, no special features.
The wonder of the internet is tempered for me somewhat by the fact that it consumes VAST amounts of energy and creativity and remunerates NONE of it. Except for the corporations that buy control of the distribution channels, no one else seems to make a penny.
Re: CRY DANGER. I just looked at the print streaming on Watch Instantly for a couple of minutes again. I can individuate every pebble beside the train track in the opening credits. I am convinced, and I would be happy to be corrected, that somehow, some way, NF is streaming an immaculate 35mm print. Is it the FNF-funded restoration? What I can see is that it is nothing like what was on the Republic Home Video 20 years ago.
THE SOUND OF FURY is also streamed a very good 35mm print. It looks much better than the 20th Century Fox "Gangster Collection" video of the early 90s.
I'll consider this can of worms opened. And yes, you raise all kinds of problematic issues with regard to what the FNF is doing, and how it's being pre-empted by NF...
Another point of discussion: my understanding is that Netflix hasn't purchased the Paramount library per se, but is leasing it (as they lease all the material they stream on "Watch Instantly") for a contracted period. Titles are added and dropped (and sometimes re-added) with a great deal of churn. Again, I imagine that sets up all kinds of problematic issues regarding rights that might have been (more) settled before we embarked on the Brave New World of internet streaming.
David is correct. Netflix doesn't own the copyright to any of the films they stream, they just hold a time-based agreement with the studios, who retain the rights.
I'm lucky to have some insight into how Netflix does business, so I can provide a little additional information here: the film noir stuff, along with a multitude of other classic films that are now available for streaming resulted from the billion dollar deal NF signed with EPIX. EPIX is a shell company that holds the catalogues of Paramount, Lion's Gate, MGM, and their subsidiaries. EPIX has an HD cable network in a few cable systems, and VOD through their website. The agreement with Netflix stipulates that Netflix can air all of their content 90 days after EPIX makes it available to their own customers.
These deals and others were signed by Netflix to increase their streaming libraries, but more importantly they are the payoff for Netflix agreeing to hold most new releases for 28 days. The upside for Netflix here is two-fold: they get to stream movies like Shutter Island, Iron Man, Benjamin Button, etc very close to the DVD street dates, and they get the catalogs. The only thing Netflix really cares about as far as the older films go is how it allows them to claim more feature films than ever are available. When NF launched their streaming service, they did so with the claim of having 10,000 titles available to watch instantly. But they took a huge beating when new subscribers signed on only to find that most of the 10,000 titles were actually individual episodes of TV shows. Since then, they've had the prerogative of boosting that number with feature films as high as they can get it, and they really don't care what sort of feature films they have to stream to do that.
Consider that Netflix dropped the "Friends Community" features because they claimed only 5% of their membership were utilizing them, and therefore they weren't worth keeping up, even though only two employees were dedicated to the features. Less than 5% is still almost a million paying customers, so that gives some insight into how they prioritize (quite successfully). As much as we love the great new noir additions, realize that there are not a million members putting any of these film in their queues — far less I'm sure — and consequently Netflix doesn't give a dang about the films themselves and they don't figure into the marketing plan in any way. With that in mind, I characterize all of these new additions as a small miracle and gift from the heavens, and I'm going to watch every one of them until the agreement runs out and they are eventually removed.
I don't think the presence of these films on Netflix, which we are all thankful for, should be a concern for anyone at the FNF. I'm certain it would be jarring and disappointing to put blood, sweat, and tears into getting Try and Get Me onto DVD, only to see it show up on Netflix, along with a bunch of other rare stuff, some of which had achieved mythic status. How can we not be really happy about this? I'm going to buy any DVD FNF puts out there, just like I do with Criterion discs —*and those folks are well-known for regularly streaming their own content for free. I don't see a competition here. We are all niche people who like niche films and will both purchase the DVDs and pay to see the films on the big screen; and continue to support FNF in everything they do. Right?
Last edited by The Professor; 01-11-2011 at 11:42 PM.
Some good poop here from the Prof! Eddie has good reason to have misgivings, but will film noir lovers not also still want to own DVDs of titles, considering that with NF, what's here today may be gone tomorrow? Or still want to see films on the big screen with a crowd in festival settings? Of course, if we ever get the ability to duplicate/record at home from NF streams, then that further complicates matters.
In any case, the upside is the (always temporary or provisional) availability of much material in better renditions than ever before on NF streaming. Case in point: WITNESS TO MURDER (54). The full range of grays and pinpoint detail are now visible, since Turner Classic Movies was broadcasting a burned out print in rotation over the last 15 years. You can really appreciate Alton's stunning work on this otherwise implausible film now...
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