Import Week 2025, Day 4: Sword of Honour, Or Is That Soldier?

This is one I've been planning to cover here for a long time, it's actually one of the discs that inspired me to make this site.  But as you'll see, it required a lot of extra work, so I kept putting it off.  Import Week 2025, Day 4's the day, though, so here we go!  I'm talking about 2001's Sword of Honour, an epic (in every sense of the word) television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's trilogy of novels: Men at Arm, Officers and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender, published between 1952 and 1961.

It consists of two feature-length films made by Channel 4 in the UK, recreating Waugh's harrowing, and sometimes bizarrely ironic, experiences during WWII.  It's shot in various countries with a massive cast, exploding planes and tanks, etc.  This is not your traditional stage-bound Masterpiece Theater, though its intelligence and literary merits are just as strong.  It blends Waugh's famous humor - some scenes are truly wild - with a truly bleak examination of the cruelty of war.  It stars Daniel Craig, who I haven't historically been a huge fan of, but he's perfect here, as a sad, naive but never sentimental idealist whose ideals are steadily rebuked by an endless procession of absurd bureaucrats and an the desperate criminals who try to eke out a life under their thumb.

So Acorn released this as a 2-disc DVD set in 2006.  It came as two amary cases in a nice little slipcase.  But the content of the discs themselves was a little underwhelming, so I took to the internet to hunt for an international upgrade.  And it turns out this had been released on blu-ray in France!  It was put out by a smaller label called Fusion, which made the curious decision to change the title to Soldier of Honor (though it still says Sword on-screen).  And while, as you'll see, this may not be the grand HD experience one might be hoping for, it is an unqualified upgrade, and I'm glad I got it.

a scene only in the full-length French cut.

Especially since it turns out this is a longer cut!  It's a good nine to ten minutes longer, and no it's not a PAL vs. NTSC thing (both discs are NTSC).  I've synced them up and gone through them simultaneously, and the US version is definitely missing footage that appears on this French disc.  I can only guess, but presumably what we got here is a trimmed commercial television edit, cut down to accommodate broadcast schedules and ads, in the same way some Masterpiece Theater programs like the 2007 Northanger Abbey got mistreated.  Because I've itemized all the changes, and none of it is for censorship reasons or anything.  The bloodiest bits are all intact, and neither cut has any nudity.  Here's a full break-down of all the differences so you can see for yourself.

The following time codes are based on the US DVD:

0:00 The differences start right from the jump, with the blu-ray opening on Craig in a hotel room, looking at a framed photograph and then bagging it in a pre-credits scene excised from the DVD.

4:18 The DVD has on-screen text "Bellamy's Pall Mall" over the shot of a car pulling up.  The same shot is on the blu-ray but without this text (presumably cutting down on foreign ext for French audiences).  But then the blu-ray has a whole series of shots where Craig gets out and surveils the club, then goes inside and goes inside where he's stopped by the doorman ("excuse me, sir, but are you a member?").  They have a back and forth exchange, after which Craig goes upstairs, only then cutting to the shot of Craig writing a letter which is what the DVD cut to after the car.

4:47 Cuts out some of the dialogue with Craig and his father.  They both start with the father telling Craig "you're far too old" to join the army, but the blu-ray has a bit where he asks him, "can you seriously see yourself sprinting..." which the DVD clips out. 

6:30 The DVD snips out some establishing footage of Craig and his father crossing the street and into the bar parking lot

7:30 Cuts out part of the conversation about how the captain's regiment doesn't "do things in the ordinary army style," which is a pretty important precursor of things to come.  The DVD rejoins the blu when the captain says, "if you're really serious, I'll see if the thing can be managed."

16:40 Cuts out most of Virginia's reaction (i.e. putting her arm on the couch) when Craig leaves.

17:00 About half of the mugging rescue is cut, with the victim exclaiming "it's the second time I've been robbed this week" etc.

17:18 A shot of the military vehicle being let through the gate has been cut.  On the other hand, the blu is missing the on-screen text, "Southsand-On-Sea."

20:20 The blu opens with the troupe wandering up the road, lost.  The DVD only cuts in when the dialogue starts.  And it trims off the end of the shot, too.

23:17 The DVD removes shots of the soldiers in the room exchanging glances after the Captain leaves the room.

26:56 Cuts out Craig's line, "very good of the Brigadiere, I thought."

27:57 A quick cut of Craig walking up the hotel hallway.

28:36 Removes a whole scene of Craig first walking into Virginia's room, walking around, and exchanging dialogue.  "I didn't join the army just to become more attractive to women," etc.

30:27 Cuts out Apthorpe realizing Craig has hung up the phone on him.

34:34 Cuts out a the end of Craig on the train and beginning of him driving up to the house.  More noticeably, it also cuts out most of the conversation between Craig and the operator over the phone.  Then it trims a couple seconds of him and Apthorne running through the woods and walking up the road.

50:45 Another slug, this one reading "H.O.O. HQ London" is only on the DVD.

52:22 Cuts out Craig saluting after receiving his orders, and also trims a handful of frames off various shots of Craig exploring his new base.

56:30 Another title card: "Station Hotel Glasgow."

56:59 Cuts out a moment where Gustav teases the bartender about his tip.

1:01:20 Trims a second or two off the guests walking into the hotel.

1:03:35 Cuts out Craig's reaction before cutting to the troops in the stream.  Then cuts out a shot of the officers waving to the troops after the line, "I think plan B is called for, sir."

1:07:50 Cuts out two shots of Craig and McTavish after Craig's warning about him is ignored.

1:12:25 Cuts the opening couple of seconds off the shot of the boats paddling up to shore and then a lot more at the end, with the soldier trying to get his flashlight to work.  And then a few more frames are trimmed off them walking through the field.

1:15:15 Cuts the one soldier helping the other get up off the tracks.

1:16:44 Cuts out some of the article being read aloud about the soldiers' bungled operation being misreported, and some of the dialogue that follows (for example, "well, hairdresser's assistant" and "carried out one of the most daring exploits in military history).

1:17:13 Another DVD-only title card: "Ford Sidi Bishir HQ Egypt."

1:24:00 Cuts two seconds or so from the shot of the battleship.

1:25:45 Several of the orders being given after the commander has broken his leg have been cut.

1.27:00 The "Crete" title card is missing from the blu.

1:30:00 The DVD's closing credits play at double time.

Surprisingly, after all those edit in the first film, there are none in the second, despite the fact that the second is the longer of the two.  The closing credits even play at the same speed.  The only difference is that the DVD is missing another label: "Croatia" at the 1:05:21 mark.  All told, most of the cuts are minor, and you can tell someone was trying to cut for time while doing as little damage as possible.  But a few of the bigger cuts are detractions, sometimes cutting the humor or emotion out of a scene, even if it leaves all the necessary story points intact.  As for the on-screen titles, I have to say, after living with the BD version for years now, and watching it with family, we had no trouble following the story without them.  The ideal version would be the fuller BD cut with these labels intact, sure, but since we have to choose, this international cut is hands down the way to go.  Especially since the BD has other advantages.

US Acorn DVD top; FR Fusion BD bottom.

I wanted to get at least one post into this Import Week that wasn't just comparing the same master appearing on a standard and high definition disc, and here we go.  The DVD is 1.81:1, while the BD is 1.83:1, but you can see the framing has been shifted a little bit more than that.  For example, in the first set of shots, the DVD has a little more on the right side of the picture, and the BD has a bit more on the left.  It's hard to say which looks better, is more technically correct, but it is the first of several distinctions.  The color-timing is similar on both releases, but the DVD has that reddish orange hue that tends to plague older DVDs, which the blu-ray cleans up.  They're both anamorphic, but in terms of resolution and general image quality, while the BD is technically in true 1080p (and a proper BD50), it looks like a soft-ass, edge enhanced upconvert.  There's no real gains in that regard, disappointingly.

But there is a substantial benefit in the interlacing.  As you can see in the first set of shots, both discs suffer from it (for an older TV broadcast, you'd have to expect it, unless someone were to go back to the original film elements and conduct a full-blown restoration).  But it's so much worse on the DVD.  It almost looks like Acorn acquired an interlaced master and then introduced worse interlacing when converting it to NTSC.  Or that's just a very extreme example of the benefits of HD on interlacing.  Either way, it looks decidedly better on the blu.  It's like those Llamentol / Mapetac blu-rays from Spain I covered before: they look like DVD transfers.  But superior DVD transfers compared to the original DVDs, so still a reasonable upgrade, just not terribly impressive looking.

Both discs just feature the original lossy Dolby stereo audio track.  The French blu also includes a stereo French dub, and the US DVD has one thing going for it: optional English subtitles.  The French disc doesn't have any subtitles at all, so at least you don't have to worry about any forced foreign ones.   neither release has any kind of special feature at all, not even a bonus trailer.

Sword of Honour is brilliant, and you should definitely see it if you haven't already.  And the French blu is the way to go, especially since I really don't hold out any hope for a future upgrade for this title, sadly.  There's a sort of adult, high-brow market that contemporary home video seems afraid to touch anymore.  If it's some "pure cinema" Ozu, sure, Criterion and them will swoop it up.  But who's going to tackle legends like Elizabeth R and I, Claudius?  Come on, you cowards!  If Terror Vision can put out Nail Gun Massacre in 4k, somebody can give us The Six Wives of Henry VIII on BD.

Three Handfuls of Dust

Here's one I've been obsessing over for a while: Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust from 1988, based of course on the 1934 novel of the same name.  I've always had just the crappy, old barebones and fullframe DVD of this film, until relatively recently, when I decided to investigate to see if there was anything better out there that might better live up to this highly underrated (I mean, it was nominated for an Oscar and a couple BAFTAs in its day) dark dramedy.  And... there kind of is.  I'm at least happy to say I've come up with something to show for my quest, even if it still isn't remotely satisfactory.

A Handful of Dust stars Kristin Scott Thomas and James Wilby as an extremely British, aristocratic couple whose marriage is just a little short on romance.  If you're worried this is going to be some stuffy, English screed that plays like a homework assignment, though, you don't know your Waugh.   It's another of his grand, globe-trotting plots full of colorful characters and more of his usual satiric edge than you would've found in more famous but atypical Brideshead Revisited.  It's directed/ adapted by Charles Sturridge and Derek Granger, who did the original Brideshead series, so you know they're capable of tackling the subject matter.  And if Scott and Wilby appear a little milquetoast, how about this supporting cast?  Rupert Graves, Anjelica Huston, Judi Dench (who won a BAFTA for this), Alec Guinness and a small part perfect role for Stephen Fry.  This is one of those stories where you might think you know where it's all headed, but I guarantee you do not.

I've always loved this movie and wish more people appreciated it, but one of the things holding it back in that regard is probably its life on home video.  Dust was first released on DVD by HBO Video here in the USA in 2004, which self describes it self as "14:9 letterboxed inside a 4:3 frame.  That was quickly followed by a UK release from Prism Leisure in 2005, that also identifies as "14x9 non-anamorphic."  Back in the US, it was reissued by Acorn Media, included in a 2010 boxed set called The Evelyn Waugh Collection.  The case for that one just says it's "4:3 letterboxed."  That sounds like all the same stats re-phrased, but these discs are not in fact all the same, and actually the distinctions get pretty significant.  So let's dive in.

1) 2004 US HBO DVD; 2) 2005 UK Prism DVD; 3) 2010 US Acorn DVD.

So the first thing you'll likely notice is that the UK disc is wider than the others.  Well, no, actually, the first thing is probably that they're all non-anamorphic, which is a real bummer, since I left the negative space around the first set of shots.  But we knew that from reading the back of their cases, as I wrote above.  And they're all kinda 14x9 like they claim.  The US discs are both 1.52:1, or 14x9.24, and the UK disc is 1.66:1, or 14x8.44.  The US discs aren't exactly identical, but in terms of framing, it's the difference of a handful (see what I did there?) of pixels.  But the UK disc is definitely matting the bottom of the frame a lot tighter.  Whether that's a good thing is a little more complicated.  Doing a little online research confirms that this film should be 1.85:1, and the UK's 1.66 is closer to that than the US's 1.52, purely by the numbers.  But, eh, let's put a pin in that.

Other differences include the US discs being interlaced, though the UK is not, which is a big mark in its favor.  And, just for the record, I'll also point out that the interlacing between the two US discs is slightly different, not that it will matter much to anyone, but you can really see it in the second set of shots.  I was also surprised by the lack of NTSC/ PAL time difference between the US and UK discs.  They all play at the same speed, which leads me to guess that the US discs are interlaced because they're PAL-sourced on NTSC discs.  Anyway, something funny is going on there.  The US discs also have warmer color timing, which I think I prefer and does appear to be more accurate judging by Shout's HD source.  Yes, let's find that pin now.

4) 2023 ShoutTV streaming.

In an incredibly frustrating turn of events, A Handful of Dust is available to stream in 1080, despite us only having non-anamorphic SD versions on disc.  A grabbed a screenshot from ShoutTV, since it's free, and ahhh... why can't they give us this on blu?  It's 1.78:1, showing even more on the bottom of the frame (suggesting the US's framing was at least slightly more accurate in leaving that on-screen) and considerably more on the sides.  It's certainly not interlaced, and just looks considerably higher quality.  And bear in mind, this is just a screenshot I took of the stream in motion; not even the downloaded file.  So it would probably look even crisper on disc.  I don't usually bother comparing screenshots from streaming services, because it's not relevant to the physical media in discussion here at DVDExotica, but I've done it here to show what we're being denied (and to better judge the US/ UK framing).  How annoying.

Anyway, getting back to the discs.  The HBO DVD has mono audio in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles (IN ALL CAPS).  The Prism DVD has both the original Dolby stereo track and a 5.1 remix, but no subs.  Acorn just has the stereo track and brings back the subtitles (now in proper sentence case).

Before you pick a favorite, though, there's another big difference between the discs.  The HBO DVD is completely barebones, and the Acorn DVD isn't really any better with just a couple ads for other Acorn releases.  Well, that is unless you count the fact that The Evelyn Waugh Collection also includes a whole second film on a second disc.  It's 1987's excellent made-for-British-television (A Handful of Dust, to be clear, was a proper theatrical release) Scoop, based on the 1938 novel, with Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus himself Herbert Lom and Donald Pleasence.  For the record, that disc is properly 4:3 but also interlaced.  The collection consists of two amary cases in a nice slipbox.

Prism's trailer.

But, in terms of proper extras, only the UK disc has our backs with a proper audio commentary by Sturridge, who has a lot to say and isn't exactly dishing dirt, but he's not afraid to be forthcoming either.  It's a good one.  At one point he expresses supreme confidence at being able to make audiences like an on-the-surface unlikable character, which he certainly pulled off for me here; but when you read criticisms of this film, that's usually where people get stuck.  Anyway, Prism also has some bonus trailers and a properly anamorphic theatrical trailer for the film itself, perhaps just to rub it in our faces.  Sure, Shout's still looks better, but why couldn't the rest of Prism's disc at least look like this?

So, at the end of the day, I'd give the slight edge to the Acorn DVD in terms of just the picture, and getting the Collection is a nice bonus if you don't already have Scoop.  Although if you have the HBO disc, it's hardly worth replacing it.  And you might very well consider opting for the UK disc instead because of the progressive transfer and commentary.  Or even buying that in addition to a US disc, since the good news about these DVDs is that they can all be had very cheap nowadays.  But man oh man, if Shout Factory is sitting on the home video rights to this film along with that HD transfer, I'm pleading with them to release A Handful of Dust on blu.  Preferably with the commentary.

Controversial Blus: Brideshead Revisited

This is one I've been meaning to cover since I first started this site.  1981's Brideshead Revisited is a title I've triple-dipped on... quadruple-dipped if you count the old 5-tape VHS set.  I've never regretted any of 'em, and that's despite the fact that the common critical consensus seems to be that I should have.  At least the last time.  "Stick with the DVD" seems to be the summation of every online review I've ever read of Acorn's 3-disc 30th Anniversary blu-ray set, the series only HD release to date.  In fact, they got me to put off upgrading until it was long out of print and tricky to find for a reasonable price.  Not that I totally disagree with all of those writers' findings (we'll get into it all), but they're crazy if they seriously believe it's not or barely worth upgrading.

If you've never seen it, Brideshead Revisited is a true classic, even by the strictest definition.  Even in this "golden age of television," I don't know if it's ever been matched.  It's an adaptation, of course, of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, and every bit the profound reflection on life, love, friendship, religion and family that Waugh put on paper.  Admittedly, it garnered a ton of attention by having far greater production values than any other television effort had in the past.  And that's no longer a unique asset BR's got going for it (although its varying and clearly authentic international locations are still quite impressive), but time has proven that it never needed those things to stand up as a masterpiece.

Jeremy Irons stars as the titular Charles Ryder in an arresting performance, while Anthony Andrew's turn as Sebastian effectively defined his entire lifetime career.  The pair dominate the entire series, even after one of them drops out of the second half.  If you read the book, now, or even just hear the title mentioned, and you picture these two guys.  But the whole cast is spot-on, not the least of which include screen legends Lawrence Olivier and John Gielgud as their fathers from utterly different worlds.  But really, it's everyone - every supporting role from Blanche to little Cordelia is indelible, the perfect syncing of the written word and on-screen performance.  It's wild to think, for instance, that Simon Jones made this and starred in The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy in the same year, and then nothing but British soaps and little TV appearances.  Everyone here is a star at least as long as the show runs.

By the way, yes, there was a remake in 2008, and I've seen it.  It's better than you might expect, with the two young leads replacing Irons and Andrews holding up significantly better than you'd think.  It's got Emma Thompson in it, too, and you can never go wrong with her.  But it's a movie, not a mini-series, and so obviously it suffers from immense condensing and abridgement issues.  The movie barely runs longer than the pilot episode, leaving ten full episodes worth of content out.  It's like reading the Cliff's Notes instead of the novel.  And imagine a version of the story without the wonderful intrusions of Gielgud and Olivier.  But if you just can't, you'll get another chance, because apparently HBO and the BBC are producing a third version, this time starring Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett and Andrew Garfield, who are all much too old to play the leads, so goodness only knows what they're doing. Actually, I can picture it turning out pretty good, but remaking one of the all time greats is always doomed to some degree of disappointment.

So Acorn originally released Brideshead Revisited as a 3-DVD "Digitally Remastered Collector's Edition" set in 2002.  A few years later, in 2006, they reissued the series as a 4-disc "25th Anniversary Collector's Edition" DVD set.  And finally, in 2011, they wound up for their third pitch: their 3-disc "30th Anniversary Collection" blu-ray set.  You know, the one everyone says not to get, because it's basically the same master as the 25th Anniversary or whatever.

2002 DVD top; 2006 DVD middle; 2011 BD bottom.

Clearly, this is not at all the same master.  The 2002 and 2006 DVDs are, yeah.  They're downright identical transfers, right down to the seriously damaging interlacing that mars five out of every six frames.  You could be forgiven, if like me, you read online reports that the blu was 1080i and let them put you off, naturally expecting more of the same or similar frame rate issues.  Even the back of the case lists this set as 1080i, but no, thankfully it's 1080p and plays great, fixing that problem that persistently plagued the previous editions.  And while the picture is framed consistently at 1.32:1 across every edition, the blu has clearly pulled back to reveal a little extra information along all four sides.  This is a substantial upgrade; you can't look at these images side by side and say one is just as acceptable as the other:

2006 DVD left; 2011 BD right.

And I've isolated a section not slashed with the ugly scan lines that make most of the DVD so ugly.  It's still a blurry mess compared to the far crisper blu.  Furthermore, BR was shot on 16mm, not 35, so you can only expect so much fine detail.  Grain's a little soft, this is clearly not a modern 2 or 4k scan or anything.  But it also doesn't have any haloing, artificial sharpening or any of the other common signs of misguided tinkering we're used to coming across in cases like these.

With that said, for all these steps forward, it does seem to take a clumsy step back in the colors department, which look strangely flat here.  Look how all the shadows seem to have been washed off Irons' face in the third set of shots, for instance.  The DVDs' contrast is a little overblown, and their colors are a bit on the cool side (I'm pretty sure the tablecloth shouldn't be green in that first set of shots), but the blu doesn't seem to have any true whites or blacks at all.  Everything has an odd pastel wash to it.  I can imagine why reviewers who hadn't actually seen the DVDs might assume this is basically how the DVDs looked, but with just a little more compression softening.  But it's not.  This is a serious, important jump in quality, and if you're still trying to watch the old DVDs in 2021, you're missing out.

I should point out that while the DVDs transfers are the same, the 2006 edition did introduce one nice improvement: they added optional English subtitles, which are missing from the original set.  Thankfully, the BD keeps them.  But less happily, it also keeps the lossy audio track, which has always been a fine, clear track with just a feint, natural hiss poking along in the background.

One area no reviewer denies the latest version improves on is the special features.  The initial DVD set really one had one noteworthy extra, and even that was hidden away as an easter egg: a joking, just over three-minute television interview with one of the series' directors about Sebastian's famous teddy bear (notice: he's pictured on all three covers atop this page).  It's cute.  And besides that, the original DVDs just had a nice booklet and some production notes.

The 25th Anniversary release turned it into a deserving special edition, with a 47-minute retrospective documentary and audio commentaries for two episodes with producer Derek Granger and the series stars Irons, Andrews, Nickolas Grace and Diana Quick.  There's also about ten minutes of vintage outtakes and a photo gallery, plus the teddy bear clip and (slightly different) booklet.

Well, the 30th Anniversary blu holds onto all of that, including the teddy bear clip and (slightly different-er) booklet, plus adds even more goodies.  We get two more episode commentaries, by Granger and one of the directors, and another commentary by the series' other director over a collection of production stills that runs a good forty minutes.  Brideshead has a bit of a complicated history with directors, where one was rather controversially replaced with the other, so it's great to finally hear from them both, at length, here.

So yes, I'd say this is quite an essential upgrade, actually, as it progresses so far forward.  Sure, compared to most movies on blu, this one doesn't look as impressive.  You can chalk some of that up to BR being a 16mm fullscreen production, but no, the critics are also right.  This blu could and should definitely look better.  The lossy audio underwhelms, too.  I guess, maybe if we're super lucky, the upcoming remake will inspire BFI or Network to come to the rescue with a worthy restoration, at least for region B viewers.  But if you manage to come across one of these in the wild now, I'd seriously recommend snatching it up.  It may well be your last and best chance.  And then toss those DVDs.

A Watchable Vanity Fair?

I've had some surprisingly good luck upgrading to these Mapetac blus recently, so I thought I'd roll the dice one more time.  This time it's for one of my absolute personal favorites: 1998's Vanity Fair.  Yes, it's the Andrew Davies version, but even most of his other work falls short of this epic miniseries, especially if you're expecting just another delicate comedy of manners about a 17th century woman who narrowly avoids marrying the wrong man instead of the right one.  Thackeray is quite a sharp turn from Jane Austen.  And speaking of sharp turns, well, we all know the reputation these Llamentol discs have; but when it's the only BD option, and the DVD is fairly borked, well... like I said, we're rolling the dice.

This is the best of all the Vanity Fairs.  It's a true marriage of society's elegance and grotesqueries in every aspect, from its photography to the brilliant soundtrack.  The more recent version has some strengths: adding Michael Palin as narrator lets them include some of Thackeray's non-dialogue text, but it tries way too hard to appeal to modern sensibilities.  It feels like it was made for high school students who couldn't be expected to wrap their heads around a different time period with alternate sensibilities and values so it takes all kind of silly liberties.  At my old job, people always used to ask me about the Reese Witherspoon Vanity Fair, and I would try to warn them against going that route.  It's alright, don't get me wrong.  The production values are admittedly higher, Reese isn't the problem and some of the supporting cast, like Jim Broadbent, are first class.  But chopping the story down to two hours is such an abridgement it loses so many great scenes and consequently cuts the wit and humanity out of those that remain.  It's the same problem all the 1930's versions had, though at least Mira Nair successfully recreated the period.

Actually, I used to be a pretty big proponent of the BBC's 1967 version, which certainly was at one time the definitive VF going, but now comparing the two, I see how much of the heart and subtext has been thrown away compared to the 90s version, almost as harshly as the Witherspoon despite being substantially longer.  Original Masterpiece Theater darling Susan Hampshire and the rest of the cast are all quite smart, and the drama does still build to a beguiling boil by the second half.  It's been a while since I've seen the 80's version (also a BBC miniseries, with Freddie Jones as Sir Pitt Crawley), but I remember feeling it was pretty stiff following this one, which was fairly tied for faithfulness to the novel, but possessed more of the spirit.

If you're looking for a quick way to judge Vanity Fair adaptations, the dictionary scene early on makes it easy.  A number of versions throw it away, quickly depicting the moment without conveying its delicious spirit or the necessary set-up.  Becky Sharp over-did it, adding a hokey little "let this speak volumes" speech to it.  The 2018 version shows us they're determined to botch the Amelia character, and thus the film's central relationship, by changing the scene so they both throw their dictionaries and scream "viva la Napoleon!"  The 90s version remains the only one to get it right.  Plus, the home video situation for this one is pretty dreary.  In the US, it's only ever been released on VHS... at least in the UK, there's a 2-disc DVD set from Acorn.

2004 Acorn DVD.

I assume this was shot on video, so there are no negatives to go back to.  But the interlacing is out of control; it's not intermittent frames like usual, but every frame.  And I gather that's some kind of edge enhancement making their collars flair out in the second shot - it certainly looks like it - but their are so many potential flaws in SD transfers of broadcasts from tape I can't say for sure.  It's murky, the colors are bleeding, really the only thing that seems to have gone right is that the 1.32 AR is probably about right, although as you can see, there's some unusual dead space along the top.  The audio has some background hiss but is reasonably clear.  There are no subtitles and the only extra is a nice behind-the-scenes photo gallery.

But we're not here for that Vanity Fair; we're here for THIS Vanity Fair.  So let us move on. A&E Home Video released the 90's Vanity Fair here on DVD in 2003 as a 2-disc set, in two amaray cases and a slipbox.  Looking at it now, it doesn't hold up (as we'll detail below), but the only blu-ray option is the infamous Llamentol disc released in Spain in 2013, and repackaged as a Mapetac in 2016.  I've bought the latter.

2003 A&E DVD top; 2016 Mapetac BD bottom.

Yes, once again this is the 2011 Llamentol disc, right down to the old label, housed inside the newer 2016 sleeve.  I was initially encouraged by the fact that this is a pressed disc (dual-layer even), not a BDR, like Middlemarch.  On the other hand, I was skeptical of the 16x9 aspect ratio; would this made for television series be widescreen?  In 1998, it's on the bubble.  But comparing the shots, no, this 1.74:1 is correct... or at least close to it.  The fullscreen DVD not only brusquely chops off the sides, and a sliver along the top and bottom, but I caught it doing some ghastly pan and scanning to try and preserve key characters who had been cropped out of shot.  So yeah, this is a big fix of the 1.32, though ideally, sure, we probably want it to be 1.78, or maybe even 1.85:1, without that weird left-hand pillarbox (return of the unusual dead space!).  In fact, we briefly get a glimpse of it.

For one shot early in the final episode, the edges flicker, the left-hand bar disappears and the resulting framing corrects itself to unmatted widescreen, and then snaps right back in the next shot.  During this brief glimpse, there's only very slight negative space along the overscan area, the most being about 7 pixels along the top, opening the shot to 1.79:1.  Oh well.  The 1.74 will do.  Especially when there are other improvements as well.  Most notably: the interlacing is gone!  It was really bad on the DVD, again not intermittent but every frame.  It's hard to say if the blu's HD is any natural improvement in terms of clarity or detail - the patterns on that soft, say - because the interlacing ruins the DVD's picture too much to judge.  But what that means, practically speaking, is that the BD's a huge improvement because we finally get a non-distorted look at the image.  Of course there's no pan & scanning here, and the colors are also cooler, seemingly to correct for an overly pink hue to the DVD, which I'd call another mild improvement, though I suspect a proper restoration could do an even better job of the colors.

Both discs feature the same decent but lossy stereo mix.  The blu also has a stereo Spanish dub.  The one thing the DVD had going for it was optional English subtitles, which the blu predictably replaces with Spanish ones.  So that's a small step backwards.  Neither release has any special features at all, though, so that's a draw.

It's the same story: a low-quality (and quite possibly unlicensed) blu as predicted; but it's all I was hoping for given my expectations.  I knew this wasn't going to look "blu-ray quality," but it did turn out to be a substantial upgrade.  Granted, that's not due to any great qualities of the blu's so much as the DVD having such poor ones, but I've finally got a watchable copy on my shelf that I can live with.  That's a win in my book, and I'm both happy and relieved.