All the colors of "Bagdad"

“How do you do; my name is Sabu…”

Over at the exem­plary DVD-rating web­site DVD Beaver, some read­ers chime on Beavermeister Gary W. Tooze’s review of the new Criterion edi­tion of Korda, Powell and com­pany’s fab­ulous 1940 The Thief of Bagdad, express­ing dis­ap­point­ment over the screen caps from the new ver­sion. Part of the con­tro­versy stems from Gary’s inab­il­ity to get screen grabs from the 2002 MGM disc of the same film, which some of Gary’s cor­res­pond­ents feel has more vivid Technicolor. Reader Thomas says: “…com­pared to your screen cap­tures of the Criterion, the MGM looks much more vibrant, like Technicolor looked in the forties, in the way of (albeit 1939) Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind. The Criterion in your cap­tures looks much more muted, almost as if it was a col­or­ized black and white image. In the MGM, the scene were June Duprez looks into the pool is a lovely shot, with fresh col­ors in her face and a vibrant lush back­ground. The look of the Criterion dis­ap­points me as look­ing rather drab…”

Hmm. Dave Kehr, in his review of the Criterion Bagdad in yes­ter­day’s New York Times, avers that the new edi­tion is “a strik­ing improve­ment over the out-of-print MGM disc of 2002, with tight­er, bright­er col­ors and improved defin­i­tion.” Now reas­on­able people can dis­agree about mat­ters of visu­al taste, but Dave Kehr’s eye is second only to that of Dr. James Xavier’s in its prime. (I was once fool­hardy enough to take minor issue with him over Fox’s botched DVD rendi­tion of The Gang’s All Here, in part due to my boy­ish enthu­si­asm over the fact that it had made it to DVD in the first place. Fox is now redress­ing its error with a new mas­ter of the Busby Berkeley mind­blower for inclu­sion in an upcom­ing Carmen Miranda box.)

In any case, I can get screen caps from the MGM edi­tion. I’ve made a one-shot com­par­is­on with the Criterion, below the jump. 

The shot is from the June Duprez pool scene cited by Tooze’s read­er. Here’s the MGM version. 

Nothing to sneeze at, really, and a reas­on why a lot of folks felt the MGM ver­sion, which was also pretty inex­pens­ive, was bet­ter than accept­able. Below, the Criterion: 

I see a sig­ni­fic­ant boost in both vivid­ness (the red lip­stick here makes the red lip­stick of the MGM look a little smeary) and detail (the bead­ing on the vest, the brace­let), so I have to call advant­age: Criterion. That said, I’m look­ing for­ward to sit­ting down and watch­ing the whole thing again, and check­ing out the fab extras, which include the war­time pro­pa­ganda Korda pic The Lion Has Wings. Grrr!