Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) Criterion Blu-ray Review

[@thelastnotary]

Man this channel is so much sauce

[@Peter-yj8fj]

I saw this in my teens and it is still my favourite b/w movie Cary Grant was hilarious .

[@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984]

I'll have whatever Damn Fool's having, just mind the Arsenic. Make mine a cool a piña colada after the main feature. Great job, as always. It's good to see you made it to the other side. 🍻

[@kali3665]

They should have let Karloff appear in the film. He would have made this even more of a classic....

[@Mandibil]

wtf was that intro :-) ... you are getting good at it :-)

[@jasonrlariviere227]

Hope you have understanding neighbors

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Thankfully I knew of a staircase where I could safely charge. I figured blowing a bugle would’ve been a bit much….

[@melissaking6019]

It's a shame that Boris Karloff wasn't allowed to put on film his legendary stage portrayal of Jonathan Brewster. The rest of the play's cast was allowed to go to Hollywood, but Boris was held back because the greedy producers feared Karloff's absence would tank ticket sales. It was one of Karloff's few career regrets. Raymond Massey's performance is good, but he's no Karloff.

[@KevinStriker]

What greater compliment could there be from Spencer for a catalogue Mono mix than only being a minute of the discussion?

[@4bobbyt]

Maybe Kin0-Lorber will do a 4K, as they have done with other Criterions. Saw this with my parents , when first released.We sat through it twice...

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Probably not as they don’t have any deals with Warner, but it’s definitely possible somebody else could pick up the UHD rights since Criterion only did a Blu-ray and the source was a new 4K master. That’s amazing you saw the original release!

[@edrooney1967]

Very good video, solid points. Without doubt one of the best classic comedies ever but too many negatives for me to justify a buy: No 4K disc, no Europe friendly blu-ray, too many imperfections picture wise and too few special features at this price point. And I’m not very font of the cover design either. For the money, I will import some Warner Archives titles instead. I'm loosing interest in Criterion releases.

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

That is completely understandable. It's still an essential upgrade in spite of the drawbacks but one you might want to pick up on sale later on. And even harder to justify with the boatload of WAC titles that get released.

[@daveanderson4600]

I absolutely love this flick - might be my favorite comedy. Was stoked upon release and although your criticism is very accurate, still delighted it's available. Not looking forward to the day that streaming is the only available option. Major kudos on the opening - Bully, absolutely Bully, my main Melon

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Me imitating Teddy: This is Fun!

[@erniemeyer1342]

Can you sometime if you have time and inclination make a video about Batman and Batman Returns home video history? I would be particularly interested in what you think about the UHDs. By the way I love your channel and deeply respect your opinions even if I don't always agree

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Oh gosh yes. I’d like to do a video history for the Batfilms and the Indy trilogy actually.

[@videosteini]

RE: the extras, there have been massive lay-offs at Criterion, and I've been hearing that future releases from the label will be much lighter on extras than previous releases.

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

That’s certainly a possibility. Between this and some of their more recent releases the extras have really dropped off.

[@unclesporkums]

My FAVORITE Capra film by far and certainly one of my favorite comedies of all time! Shame that in this modern age, film preservation seems to be taken less and less seriously by these major companies.

[@tysonmindham2986]

I agree, this should’ve been a UHD. Kind of weird it wasn’t beings the stature of the film and it returning to the Criterion collection.

[@adamATOM3]

Awesome video. I saw this movie for the first time about 6 months ago. It was great. I didn’t notice encoding problems as much but I think what you said about OLED covering a lot of problems is true.

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

They’re also hard to capture in screencaps, but if you squint really close in some of the dark areas you start to see macroblocking. Because the film is so dark it does thankfully hide a lot of it. I think more people have seen it watching on LED or having their brightness up higher, which would make it more obvious.

[@adamATOM3]

@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader yah no excuse for that. I don’t ever want a hint that I’m watching a digital file. Even on a regular bluray there is so many “perfect” encodes I don’t understand why some go off the rails. Especially for a premium label like Criterion.

[@professorwh042]

I don’t have it, so I wasn’t aware, but if you look closely at 47:31 in the “About the Transfer” section, you can see that Lee Kline is credited for both supervision and grading, so this is a full on Criterion effort, with Warner MPI just scanning it. Doesn’t change the fact that they should’ve put more effort into the release, and that Pixelogic should be held to higher standards, but at least now I’m aware it wasn’t a potential WAC release “snapped up” by the big C. (At least this has more extras than “Last Hurrah for Chivalry” did, which was laughably slim… you’ve got the return of John Woo into the collection and all you can do is 17 minutes of material?!)

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Ah! So it is. This is one of those where they took over more of the work which might explain the favoring a darker look and some of the other things that popped up in the transfer. Oh geez that Chivalry disc was ridiculous. Might as well go as a movie only title just like the old Criterion days.

[@deckofcards87]

This one's in my top 5 Capra. So relieved that the film's been preserved with love and care. That stair charge made me spit my apple juice😅

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

Happy to provide spit takes!😂😂

[@200wattstudio8]

Wasn't this up a few months ago? Is this a reupload? I had it show up in my suggestions lately.

[@malwalsh]

PS: if you don’t mind me asking, have you bought any of the new 007 paperbacks yet, or the new Higson novel, or the new folio society Casino Royal SE? cheers mate!

[@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader]

I’m skipping the new paperbacks with the changes but will pick up the new Higson book. I’ve not yet tried any of the folio editions because of the higher price tag but they do look fantastic and are very tempting. I might try one at some point.