Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has revealed that it plans to bring to Blu-ray director Carol Reed's The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), starring Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, Diane Cilento, Alberto Lupo, Venantino Venantini, and Tomas Milian. The preliminary release date set by the studio is March 4, 2014.
That's interesting, because among the big bag of CDs I bought at Amoeba Music on Monday night was Alex North's "The Agony And The Ecstasy" soundtrack from VS with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Jerry Goldsmith.
I very much expect that this Blu-ray is going to be a 4K scan of restored 65mm Todd-AO elements. I think the movie is flawed as entertainment, but just for the photography and production, it'll be a Blu-ray worthy of attention -- unless Fox Home video does something stupid. We'll see.
Just received the Blu a few days ago going to watch tonight.
I wish there was a decent soundtrack of North's brilliant music. The Varese has bad acoustics that need restoration. The Goldsmith conducted version is atrocious. What was Goldsmith thinking? It is ponderous, wrong notes, wrong orchestration and the Varese sound is just horrible. Sure wish Tadlow would undertake this score, but I'm not sure if it would be financially feasible?
