His Girl Friday [1940] [DVD]

There were at least another previous release of this film in DVD, but the film quality was quite bad, and there were no extras, subtitles or even scene selection! Finally with this edition it gets the DVD treatment it deserves: the picture has been clean up and probably restored and the sound is great. Columbia is taking great care with their classics, an example that other studios should follow.

The film (or as much of it as we saw!) seems to deserve all the praise it has received. However, there are many different DVD versions on the market, as you can see here on Amazon, and this particular one should be avoided like the plague!

The transfer is poor, with a rather out of focus quality. There are no options whatsoever. No subtitles. No scene selection. No extra features. The DVD menu only allows you to play the movie and nothing else.

To make it even worse, my copy played about half way through then the picture started to break up and after a minute or so of this behaviour it just jumped back to the beginning. Obviously, I can't say if this particular defect applies to all copies.

Feedback on this site suggests that the Columbia Classics DVD might be a much better buy - and I will probably now get this version.

One only has to look at the likes of the recent releases of 'The Big Sleep' and 'Casablanca' to see what can be done with all-time classic movies. Ok, neither of these titles is packed with extras, which many would see as a crime in itself, but the picture and sound quality are superb considering the vintage of their original release and is a testament to those involved in the transfer to DVD. This is especially gratifying when one realises that although these titles are often cited as 'top 10 greats', they will have a limited audience among the 'Matrix' and 'Men In Black' fans and therefore will ultimately be monetarily less successful.

However, even an admittedly limited audience appeal cannot excuse the complete lack of effort put into this release. Not only does it have no extras ( which on a film of this age is perhaps excusable ) but the picture and sound are so terrible that an old VHS copy I have actually rivals it for quality - this is especially telling due to the fact that my VHS copy was recorded off-air on long-play on a very cheap tape ( in fact I think that this DVD must have been taken from a similar source ).

As a fan of classic films I purchased this DVD with great pleasure that a distribution company would have taken the trouble to release one of the greats - what I didn't bank on was the fact that I could only stand to watch this title for around 5 mins before I had to switch it off and resort to my VHS copy - where at least the hiss didn't drown out every bit of dialogue.

In short, my advice to anyone who is a fan of this film ( or DVD in general ) is to vote with your feet and avoid this DVD like the plague !