Search - Women of Courage (If Tomorrow Comes/Becky Sharp/Rain /The Green Promise/Nurse Edith Cavell/Two Women/Smash Up/Three Came Home/The Southerner on DVD

Nice well-rounded (and inexpensive) old movies collection. W

D. P. Wilson | Seaford, DE | 04/22/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I can unhesitatingly endorse this nice collection of nine interesting movies, having now watched all of them as reproduced in this set. The picture and sound quality varies, from movie to movie, but is in most cases fully satisfactory, and for some of the movies is downright excellent. Any shortcomings in picture and/or sound quality for certain movies, I do not believe those issues to be due to the quality of St. Clair Vision's digital reproduction process (they, I feel, did a really nice job), but to be inherent to the specific individual copies of the films that the digital copies were made from.

The nine included movies in this collection are:

Becky Sharp (1935 - 83 mins.)
The Green Promise (1949 - 93 mins.)
Rain (1932 - 93 mins.)
Nurse Edith Cavell (1939 - 94 mins.)
Two Women (1960 - 95 mins.)
If Tomorrow Comes (1971 - 74 mins.)
Smash Up: The Story of a Woman (1947 - 103 mins.)
Three Came Home (1950 - 105 mins.)
The Southerner (1945 - 92 mins.)

In my opinion, five of these movies ("Becky Sharp," "Rain," "Nurse Edith Cavell," "Two Women," and "Three Came Home") are not-to-be-missed true gems, that will stick with you, and that make this collection well worth purchasing (which is not to say that other movies aren't worth watching at least once - some, namely "The Green Promise" and "Smash Up: The Story of a Woman," also being fine films).

Check IMDb for reviews and/or message board comments and discussions pertaining to the nine movies included in this collection, to learn what others who have viewed them have thought and had to say.

I highly recommend this collection. For the budget price, and the in most cases entirely satisfactory (in general much better than I actually had expected) good picture and sound quality, you just can't go wrong. From reviews and comments that I've read on IMDb regarding the various movies, what I saw in the movies as reproduced in this nice collection is, I believe, probably the best (or approximately equivalent to) presently available digital reproductions of the various individual movies. For copies of unrestored movies that are in the public domain, these movies, as digitally reproduced here, are probably as good as you'll be able to readily find them looking and sounding at the present time.

In my own set (and this problem is I am pretty certain not specific to just the second disc in my personal set, but almost certainly is a flaw in the copying process of one particular movie), the movie "Two Women" has a significant glaring performance issue at one point during its final third or so. The picture briefly freezes up, then, for a short stretch, a portion of the movie plays in reverse, then corrects itself and plays forward, and, a bit later, all the part of the movie that played screwy, through to that point (which is several minutes), suddenly begins to replay properly, and continues onward through to the very end of the movie. This doesn't seem to be an issue to do with either my DVD player or my copy of the second disc in question, as I could see the footage, in the one portion, playing backwards, then reversing itself, even when I fast-forwarded through that portion of the movie. (It wouldn't have been able to fast-FORWARD footage in reverse unless that is how it was recorded onto the disc by the manufacturer.) In other words, my disc itself plays perfectly, but the movie as recorded ONTO the disc has the problems, during that one movie I've mentioned. As it turns out, none of the footage or audio is actually missing, or is unable to be fully viewed properly, as what originally plays messed up then fully replays properly. If you know to probably expect, and can accept, that problem, and just fast-forward through it, you'll still be able to get full appreciation of that excellent movie.

If you enjoy old movies, performances - in several cases outstanding - by a parade of undeniable past talents, and don't mind that certain films might look or sound somewhat degraded from their original pristine state, don't hesitate to purchase this collection, as I can assure you that you won't be disappointed."