MovieChat Forums > The Green Hornet (1940) Discussion > new DVD officially released

new DVD officially released

posted 15 years ago by Grant_Gardner
2 replies | jump to latest

Found out yesterday that VCI Entertainment released The Green Hornet and The Green Hornet Strikes Again serials officially on DVD last July. All reviewes I've come across have been 5 out of 5 stars. Starlog has given the most information concerning the releases, http://www.starlog.com/videolog-main/9-dvd-a-blu-ray/427-the-green-hornet-serial-dvds-review. One thing about them that also interests me is that each DVD comes with two bonus radio shows that have also been restored.

[–] ghostbusters 13 years ago

I don't know how good or bad VCI's serial releases are, but AVOID their "Movie Edition" DVD of the first serial. It's been chopped down to 84 minutes, and the main feature is heavily altered with colorization, new sound effects, new transitions, overuse of horrible Photoshop filters, and more. The original black and white unaltered version of the movie is on the disc as well, but it's still tremendously shorter than all 13 chapters of the serial combined. And just to tease the consumer, the first two chapters of the serial are included in their original unedited form.
--
Paul R.

http://spookcentral.cjb.net

[–] tbrittreid 13 years ago

Well, any feature compilation of a Saturday matinee serial--and there are many, with another one of this very production from GoodTimes video in 1990--would by definition be "tremendously shorter than all [however many] chapters of the serial combined." Expecting otherwise is like expecting Never Say Never Again (Sean Connery's 1983 return to James Bond outside the regular series) to include the bull's-eye opening, the 007 theme, Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, Desmond Llewellyn as "Q," etc.; all of those were owned by or under contract to United Artists/EON Productions and unavailable to Never's producers. To return to VCI's "Movie Edition": Those "new transitions" are probably a consequence of editing it down, but the other things surprise me. Could they be trying to help the less than truly effective day-for-night work here? What's in this serial is nevertheless generally better than what is found in the 1966 The Green Hornet TV series, but that might be at least in part the result of the different lighting requirements of b/w and color film.

The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!