The List of the Adrian Messenger in DVD?
This is an excellent movie. Made entirely in black and white, it an example of George C. Scott's acting at his best. When will it be released in DVD version?
shareI agree i was only 22 years old when i first saw it. i was enjoying a 2 week vacation at a lake north east of Toronto and a friend came up to see me for a day. when he was going home i remembered seeing the trailer for this movie some previous week and decided to return to toronto with hm for a day in order to go see it. it did, enjoyed it tremendously and returned back to the lake by bus the following day to continue my vacation.
These "spoilers" who claim the characters that Douglas, Sinatra, lancaster, Curtus & Mitchum played where often not them at all but a stand-in, frankly i don't believe any of it. I think who we saw on screen were who was listed in the cast. I had no trouble recognizing Sinatra, Mitchum or lancaster admititly i did have a little trouble with Curtis and 1 maybe 2 of kirks characters, but i am convinced they all were played by those actors who were cast & billed to do them.
Oh yes gary I also wonder when they are going to get off their duffs and reproduce "list" in a dvd format.
I'm still convinced that Lancaster did NOT have a cameo in the movie. At the end when he takes off the woman's mask, it does not resemble the ladies face/mask AT ALL. I think this was a bluff!
shareAs of 2007, the only DVD release of ADRIAN MESSENGER is a French disc from Bach Video. It's available from Amazon.fr and other retailers.
Sorry, I don't know if there's an English language track included. You might want to take a chance and purchase it anyway; the price is only about 7 Euros (a little over US$10 as of Dec. 2007). The title is "Le Dernier de la Liste."
There will be a UK DVD on 17th March from Metrodome:
www.moviemail-online.co.uk/films/23137/The_List_Of_Adrian_Messenger
No other info yet.
That's great news! That could possibly mean that The List of Adrian Messenger could make its DVD debut here in the near future!
shareBought the region 2 DVD yesterday and watched it last night. Still as great as ever, one of the best and most entertaining murder-mysteries. As usual, George C Scott can do no wrong.
I'm surprised the DVD came out in the UK first and not the US. Although I would still buy a US release if it had some good extras, as the UK disc only has the movie and scene selections.
Hi,
Can you tell us please if this transfer is LETTERBOXED or WIDESCREEN? IMDB has the film's aspect ratio as 166:1 which is slightly wider than the standard 133:1 standard TV aspect ratio.
The DVD manufacturer’s site (Metrodome Distribution) is of no help—it doesn’t specify the aspect ratio. However it does list the running time at 95 minutes (vs. IMDB’s 98 mins.), and even incorrectly lists this film as being in “colour.” As I say, not much help. Hopefully someone out there who’s purchased this DVD can answer the question definitively.
ADRIAN MESSENGER was released 1.66:1, which refers to “masked” or “flat widescreen”—that is, the film negative was shot full-frame 1.33:1, but masked by cinema projectors to achieve a modified widescreen look. This practice began in the 1950s and was standard procedure for decades on non-anamorphic releases.
When these types of films were shown on TV or released to videocassette (before letterboxing came into vogue), the full, unmasked 1.33:1 image was usually displayed. That means the audience watching on TV often saw more of the top-and-bottom image than theatergoers saw. Filmmakers began to take this into consideration and framed their shots to compensate (framing marks in the viewfinder indicate the TV “safe” area). But occasionally TV audiences would see microphone booms and other clutter at the top or bottom of the screen that were previously hidden by theater masking.
A famous example of this problem was seen in PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. A gag showing an impossibly long bicycle chain being extracted from the bike’s compartment was spoiled in the original unmasked home video release—the chain was obviously being fed through the compartment’s false bottom.
These days, countless reissue DVD releases are touted as being in “letterboxed widescreen,” which often simply means that the original theater masking has been restored—removing (one could argue) 20% of the previously viewable image.
Wikipedia has a good overview of widescreen processes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen
A very informative article critical of the ubiquitous “widescreen” label can be found here:
http://www.dvdcreation.com/2001/01_jan/features/widescreen_scam.htm
FWIW, reel bands on original prints are marked "Preferred aspect ratio: 1.85:1."
-J. Theakston
http://centraltheater.blogspot.com
> FWIW, reel bands on original prints are marked "Preferred aspect ratio: 1.85:1."
Very cool info. What do you think it means, since this is not an anamorphic release? Could it mean that Universal preferred it to be masked even more than normal into a "scope"-like image?
Well, the full label reads:
WIDE SCREEN
Minimum aspect ratio 1.33 to 1
Maximum aspect ratio 2 to 1
Preferred aspect ratio 1.85 to 1
OPTICAL SOUND
In other words, if you had to, you could run it 1.37:1 because there are no hard mattes in the film (at least, I don't believe there are any), and at the very most, with the right framing you can get away with running it 2:1, but that the cameras were marked off for, and it was composed for the ratio of 1.85:1.
-J. Theakston
http://centraltheater.blogspot.com
Thanks for the excellent post. I was always confused by numerous posts on imdb for numerous movies that say studios releasing a new DVD of an old movie took a 1:33 aspect ratio and blacked out the top and bottom for today's generation to make it seem it was filmed in widescreen. Such posts complained that much of the image intended to be seen by the filmmaker was was lost. Well this is not the case. Way back in the 50's there was a two stage projection process. The film maker filmed in 1.33:1 knowing that it would be masked later as the filmmaker wanted. But studios confused us by issuing early VHS versions without masking then issued a masked version on DVD as it was supposed to be seen. As a write this I wonder whether all of this was planned by the studio to make more $. We all bought the 1.33:1 version VHS then bought the masked version when they announced the DVD version was widescreen unlike the VHS.
sharePerhaps starting in the '50s or '60s, studios requested that their theatrical films be shot with an eye toward eventual TV sale, dictating a viable 1:33 frame along with the theatrical 1:66. Any opinions?
shareThe difference between the listed running times could be explained by the difference between frame rates as suggested above. Frame rate of motion picture film is 24 fps and the frame rate of PAL/SECAM is 25 fps, so the difference is 4%.
4% of 98 minutes is naturally about four minutes, which would make the listed DVD running time (95 minutes) correct.
What a wonderful film. I hope someone has done restorartion on this, because it would be a shame if this little gem were lost, and it's not the high-profile sort of movie that gets a good deal of attention. Just a lot of fun, and one of the reasons I fell in love with movies as a kid. It's nice to see so many post by others so fond of a nifty little flick about which I have such warm feelings.
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