New Region 2 DVD of THE STRANGER

[sergio]

I just received my copy of the new DVD that has been released by Eureka in the UK as a Region 2 disc. It is being released on its own and also as part of a double bill with Fritz Lang's SCARLET STREET as an Edward G Robinson double-bill.

When I first heard about it I thought it might just be a Region 2 version of the CITIZEN WELLES version of THE STRANGER. Thankfully, the first thing to say about it is that it does not feature a commentary track by Jeffrey Lyons, but instead one by Russell Caldwell, who I have not heard of before. The track is rather bare bones in that there are frequent pauses and often the commentary merely describes the action happening on screen (a common enough fault with commentaries).

On the other hand, it does try to give some pertinent details about the crew and the actors and is therefore probably worth listening to just the once.

As for the transfer, it is as usual labelled as being "digitally re-mastered", which at least here seems to mean that it's been duped off an NTSC master. The image is much much better than the CITIZEN WELLES version, in which everything descends into a morass of greys. Here the contrasts are much better defined and the soundtrack isn't in a fake 5.1 but simply a clean version of the mono original.

Having said all this, I should add that it is still very blurry and that the original telecine of the print (and I have no idea how many years and generation ago that would be) is really pretty lousy.

The Roan disc is still the only version with a decent transfer to go with the title - if only it had had a commentary to go with it! Still, you can't have everything, though now that I have 3 versions of the THE STRANGER, I am rather starting to feel rather like Fran Kubelik from the late great Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT, in which she says that she never gets colds and that therefore someone out there is getting more than their fair share to keep the averages going.

The version of SCARLET STREET by the way is pretty frightful to look at, but it also features an OK commentary by Caldwell.

Not what you'd call an essentiall purchase really...

[Jeff Wilson]

Thanks for the update, Sergio. It sounds like one to miss, then. It seems the odds of getting a good disc of The Stranger are small, because Warner likely has possession of the best prints, and would be unlikely to release it, given the public domain status of the film. It's a shame.