Dr. No

[Brandon B]

Watched the "first" Bond outing last night, and have to say I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I had read reviews that gave the disc high marks, but I was pleased to see it was clean and sharp almost throughout the movie.

There were shots here and there where elements of the scene were softened, likely due to deterioration of their source material. But the majority of the film was in beautiful shape, and it was fun to get the theatrical experience from a movie I have seen several times in my life, but only on TV. Interestingly, in one scene shot day-for-night/dusk with filters and such, you could see that they had used some piece of sheer fabric draped over the camera o darken the scene, as its weave was visible across the sky. At first, I thought it was some odd moiré artifact with a painted backdrop, but then the camera panned and it moved with it, and disappeared and reappeared from shot to shot.

Audio (DTS-HD MA 5.1) was obviously not comparable to modern releases with their better dynamics and range, but it was still quite good in the sense I felt like I was watching a movie in a theater in the '60's (albeit in a somewhat older body). Not much "surround" activity, but then these movies were originally mono, so a really active modern mix would have been a substantial departure from the original feel of the film, which I personally am glad they avoided.

Anyway, if you are into Bond films, these releases look to be very nicely done. The menus, extras and such are all very similar to the recent DVD remastered releases. I (well, my kid) already have Goldfinger and From Russia, With Love in those DVD versions, and I am not quite a big enough fan to replace those right now, but I will likely nab Thunderball, and any other Connery films released on BD.

[The Seventh Taylor]