US DVD

I don't know why there isn't a USA DVD, because I don't understand the rules of who owns what in terms of copyright. I'm a Brit living in the USA, so I ordered the region 2 PAL version to play on my multi-standard set-up. I have read many negative reports on this movie, but I remain firmly in favor. In my humble opinion, this movie is a masterpiece of cinematic history and it is what it is. Escape to Athena provides terrific entertaiment, not least because it shows off the beauty of the Greek island of Rhodes. The mixture of humor and drama are just about right, however the TV versions may lose some of the comedial impact. For example, the scene at the beginning where Sergeant Mann (Michael Sheard) approaches David Niven with his gun drawn and incorrectly estimates the age of a historical artifact. Mr. Niven's character calls Sergeant Mann an 'ignorant bastard', but those words are diluted somewhat for the UK TV version. I found the stronger language version funnier. For those who wanted something different or something better, I don't know what to suggest. The R2 DVD has no extras and the technical quality is poor, with severe motion judder when the camera pans from left to right or vice versa. This is possibly because European PAL DVDs are authored at 25 frames per second, whereas all movies are originally shot at 24 frames per second. In addition to that, I found the actual picture quality of the DVD rather grubby. The movie was shot in Panavision, which is a high quality 35 mm anamorphic format. In this modern day (just 28 years later), I would have thought the motion picture industry could have dug up a cleaner print from which to produce a DVD. I understand it is also possible to digitally clean up scratches and other blemishes, before submitting the movie for DVD authoring. The PAL format has the potential to offer superb DVD picture quality, but that has not happened in this case.