Recall that the 2.0 track on the first StudioCanal blu-ray from 2010 is fake stereo. It's also noticeably less detailed than the various US releases - presumably source issues, since it has a fair amount of hiss still present.
1987 Criterion LaserDisc [CC1115L]: Wonderful. Crystal clear and by far the most natural presentation of the film's original mono mix. It's fake stereo, but the kind that achieves that by emphasising different frequencies in
each channel, which in this case folds to mono perfectly. It has two censored lines: at 16:37 (blu-ray timecode), Benjamin's "Jesus Christ" has been dubbed to "Dear God", and his "Oh my Christ" at 16:42 with "Oh my god".
1992 New Line/Columbia TriStar Hi-Fi VHS: It too is 'fake stereo' and can be folded perfectly to mono. More detailed than the DVDs and blu-rays (especially in terms of bass), but closer to them in overall sound than to the LaserDisc.
2007 R1 MGM - 40th Anniversary: Additional noise reduction that makes everything sound distant and dead.
2016 Criterion Blu-ray: More noise reduction than the 2007 DVD during dialogue-centric scenes and a bit less in scenes with music. The film's low end (everything <130 Hz or so) has been cut - the bass in Scarborough Fair has nearly vanished.
2017 StudioCanal Blu-ray: Identical to the Criterion blu-ray mono.
2018 Eagle Pictures Blu-ray: Pitched 0.7 semitones too high (in line with PAL speed-up) and it sounds sort of like the R1 DVD after pitch correction. It's also filled with constant artefacts (clicks) every few seconds, making this the worst track of the bunch.
19/5/2022: Added the Eagle Pictures blu-ray
20/5/2022: Added the Criterion LaserDisc, updated the comparison clip
Wow! Amazing how we have to go all the way back to VHS to hear this movie sounding good.
ReplyDeleteok so question, during the first hotel room scene whenever Ben asks Mrs. Robinson about what type of hanger to hang her coat on (about 35:55 blu-ray timecode), does she respond with "wood" or "either one would be fine" on the Criterion laserdisc? (apparently this was a change applied to all home video releases past 1992)
ReplyDeleteShe says "Either one will be fine". I doubt the line was ever any different theatrically.
ReplyDeletethanks, it was an IMDB entry thing and I figured that specific entry wasn't entirely true, but still thought I'd at least ask to confirm it
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