The restoration card at the beginning of StudioCanal's blu-ray:
As for the sound, the original magnetic elements disappeared, a new negative was made from a positive of the period, respecting the original mono format.
I believe this claim that the magnetic elements have disappeared is false. Even more strangely, I think they received a home video release.
The old Fox Lorber DVD, the Criterion DVD (not pictured below), the two Criterion blu-rays, and the StudioCanal blu-ray have the same general problems -- they're extremely bass-anaemic, they have little dynamic range, and their noise floor is high. The Criterion releases sound the least unnatural of these, and the StudioCanal blu-ray the most unnatural with its horrible treble boost.
And then there's the old StudioCanal DVD that was released in Germany, which may or may not be identical to the other StudioCanal DVDs released around the same time (I haven't confirmed this). It's much more detailed, has less constant low-level noise, a wider dynamic range, tonnes of real bass... The differences are everything you'd expect from a mag master versus an analogue dupe generations removed. There is literally nothing about the blu-rays and the Fox Lorber and Criterion DVDs that sounds better. And there's very little 'wrong' with the StudioCanal DVD -- no mix discrepancies or missing lines, although it has some bass clipping in 3 scenes (a mastering/authoring problem, not a source-related one).
So it's very likely that StudioCanal had the magnetic elements and then either threw them out (unlikely) or didn't bother to look for them again just a couple of years later.
Truly one of the more bizarre things I've encountered in the five or so years I've been doing this.
The optical track dates the film by a good 15 years. Jump to 5:53 in the clip below to hear something truly alarming.
Oh the humanity
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