It’s A Wonderful Life – Blu-ray Disc Review

November 5, 2009 – 7:39 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Albert Hackett, Beulah Bondi, Donna Reed, Frank Capra, Gloria Grahame, Henry Travers, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Paramount, Republic Pictures, Samuel S. Hinds

has an average rating of 8.7 on IMDb
4×3 1080p in AVC on TWO 50gb discs
Dolby Digital Mono ONLY!?
with Color version & a “making of”
–
– 1946
– 130 minutes
– Paramount
–
Disc 1 uses 36.8GB for the movie out of 38.7GB total.
Disc 2 uses 36.9GB for the movie out of 37.4GB total.

Overall Verdict – A Classic Somewhat Done Justice

Buy it for $21.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

The Movie Itself was co-wrote, Produced and Directed by Frank Capra. “It’s A Wonderful Life” tells the tale of a man named “George Bailey” (played by James Stewart). We are first introduced to George in a flashback of him at age twelve by two angels prepping his guardian angel for his upcoming mission to help George. As the two higher-up angels tell the guardian angel, George as an adult has currently fallen on some hard times. George is going to consider taking his own life on Christmas Eve, of all nights. George’s guardian angel, “Clarence” (played by Henry Travers), a former clock maker is about to be sent back to earth at 10:45 P.M. in his mission to save George and get his wings.

George Bailey grew up in the small town of Bedford Falls. In the town of Bedford Falls, the richest man is a mean old man by the name of “Henry Potter” (played by Lionel Barrymore). The reason that it is worth mentioning Potter is because George’s father has a competing business with the man. George’s father, “Peter Bailey” (played by Samuel S. Hinds), runs the “Bailey Bros. Building & Loan Association”; in other words a bank. Mr. Potter has wanted George’s father to sell the bank to him and has tried to buy it from him for decades, however Potter has been told by Mr. Bailey that this will never be. That is one of the major plot devices that exist in this very moving story. I won’t get into detail as to avoid spoilers for those few people who have not seen this film before.

George grew up wanting to leave Bedford Falls to go off and become an explorer; that was his childhood dream. When we flash a bit forward to him he has just become a younger man, appearing to be about age 18, just having graduated high school, and is about to be off to college, and is then off to see the world as he had originally planned. But, just as in real life, things don’t always go as planned, and sometimes things happen, that in the granular scheme of things happen for a reason. George ends up finding love in a girl he grew up with named “Mary (played by Donna Reed), starting a family and taking over the family business as he puts his own personal plans on an indefinite hold.

In closing, looking back on Frank Capra‘s classic “It’s A Wonderful Life“, it is easy to understand why it is regarded such highly as it is in cinema history and rated so highly even online over at IMDB, where it’s current at an average of 8.7 (out of 10) rating. The film now roughly 63 years old, 6 decades in age, is not only one of the greatest holiday films but one of the greatest films ever made. You don’t find such amazing story, such amazing acting, such amazing directing and everything as you do here in films these days. It seems that no one could ever recreate this amazing story and let’s hope that no one ever gets the idea of attempting a remake as it would be almost heresy to fans.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a two BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) set in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. REMINDER: Content in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio is in a 4×3 box and contains black bars on the sides, often referred to as black pillars. Disc 1 in the set contains the original Black & White version of the film and Disc 2 contains the Colorized version of the film which was originally done back in 2007 and previously available on DVD. Below you’ll find a screenshot comparison of (almost) the exact same scene in both Black & White & Color. Also, for those interested in comparison, another can be found even further down in the actual screenshots section.

Both versions are Hi-Def transfers and almost seem to be full fledged restorations in fact. That would make sense considering how highly regarded the film is, how old the film is (released in 1946, making it now 63 years old) and just because Paramount knows how to do a Hi-Def transfer; they have proved this much not only with their new releases but with catalog titles as well, this being by far the oldest. The black level on the Black & White version is perfect, the amount of dirt, film grain and such is very minimal and things really appear to have been cleaned up likely by hand. I say that because it still has a sharp rich amount of detail here in comparison to the previous DVD releases in Standard Definition. The Hi-Def transfer shows no signs of excessive use of filters like DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) or even EE (Edge Enhancement) to achieve this presentation. It seems it was actually retouched, cleaned up and such, as I said earlier, by hand. All in and all, its really a nice presentation of a film 6 decades old and regarded easily as one of the best holiday films, if not just films period, ever made. Kudos to Paramount here on a job very well done as this earns them a very impressive “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality for both the Black & White (original) and Color versions of the film presented in this 2-Disc set.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Mono, using Dolby Digital 2.0 sound @224kbps. This may come as a surprise to some that this lacks a lossless audio codec track, which I’ll even admit it did to me. I’m not sure why they didn’t opt for at least a PCM track in 1.0 or 2.0 Mono configuration but they didn’t. Regardless though, this sound mix works for a film that was recorded in mono back in 1946. Dialogue sounds great here throughout. The film’s musical score sounds alright and the songs as well. There’s really not a whole lot to be said about this audio mix, it is again a shame that they didn’t opt for a lossless track. With that being said, this earns an average “2.5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality. It gets the job done but its nothing that is going to amaze you. For a Blu-ray Disc you expect a lossless sound mix, in all honestly at least I feel that way looking at things over the few years now the format has embraced by Paramount. I have no problems with it being in mono, I’d just like for it not to be in a heavily compressed AC3 container and instead in a RAW PCM container. I will admit though, this is NOT by any means demanding sound material but it does at least deserve equal treatment in terms of audio codec and such as other Paramount Blu-ray Disc releases.

Bonus Materials on this release are presented in both High Definition (HD) video using AVC MPEG-4 and Standard Definition video using MPEG-2. Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 @224kbps.

Disc 1 aside from the Black & White version includes:

• “The Making Of It’s A Wonderful Life” (22:45 – SD) is a documentary style featurette hosted by Tom Bosley, who most of you will remember as the father on the television show “Happy Days“.
• Original Theatrical Trailer (1:48 – HD) is nice to see included.

Disc 2 contains:

• The Film Itself In Color. Here on this second BD-50 (dual-layered Blu-ray Disc), you will be treated to the Hi-Def transfer of the 2007 colorized version of the film which is really cool to see included as some of the folks out there actually prefer this version or may have never seen it. This features the exact same tech specs as the first disc, same Dolby Digital Mono sound.

Overall the bonus materials we get here are the bare minimum in terms of supplemental material but it does include the colorized version of the film on the second Blu-ray Disc in the set. So, with that really to me a bonus material, I have to say it works and fans will be happy with what they get. There’s no way you’ll ever get a commentary track by the filmmakers or actors so the only real solution maybe would have been a film historian or critic commentary but that’s nowhere to found. That aside, I cannot really complain about anything lacking here. The “making of” featurette and the original trailer, in combo with the colorized version is enough to earn this an average “2.5 Star Rating” for bonus. It is enough to keep the fans pleased.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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