Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced the Blu-ray release of King Vidor's War and Peace, starring Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer, Herbert Lom, Anita Ekberg and Vittorio Gassman. The Academy Award-nominated drama makes its North American Blu-ray debut on January 20, 2015.
Warner has yet to detail tech specs or special features.
I don't imagine that the 2002 DVD came from an HD transfer, so I'm assuming that Paramount provided a new transfer for this release. If so, I wonder what elements were available to them. Does the VistaVision camera negative still exist? I don't anticipate that the release will have anything more in the way of features than the 4-minute featurette and re-release trailer of the DVD.
When I saw the Russian film first run it played in 2 parts: Part 1 played for a week and then part 2 played the next week. You had to be truly dedicated to go back for the 2nd week. It was worth it.
Would love to see a roadshow print of this some day..... Totally overshadowed by mammoth Russian version from the 60's.
I don't imagine that the 2002 DVD came from an HD transfer, so I'm assuming that Paramount provided a new transfer for this release. If so, I wonder what elements were available to them. Does the VistaVision camera negative still exist? I don't anticipate that the release will have anything more in the way of features than the 4-minute featurette and re-release trailer of the DVD.
Oh I dunno, the 2002 might have been an HD transfer. The German Blu-ray looks very much like the DVD, it certainly doesn't look like it was made from VistaVision original elements. I'd think the hope would be that this is a new transfer.
