21 replies to this topic

[clublos]

Does anybody know if the CLV versions of the discs are without the infamous commentaries? I read a review of the GF Deluxe Edition Laserdisc online that claimed only the CAV versions contained the commentaries and were recalled.

[DLibrasnow]

I've heard that it was only the criterion laserdiscs as well...Its a shame because I would love to hear the uncensored (by EON) version of what the Bond crews thought about the making of the movies.

[IndyB007]

Only the CAV editions of the Criterion Collection Laserdiscs have the infamous commentary tracks. Each title is a two disc set and also includes rare tv commercials and other extras. I beleive that only Dr. No and From Russia With Love were released with a commentary track, I don't know about Goldfinger.

[clublos]

Thanks.

I actually emailed someone selling them on ebay and found out (sorry for not letting anyone know). I bought FRWL.

FYI: GF is available on Criterion with the commentaries. Also, all three are currently on ebay, factory sealed!

[IndyB007]

Thanks for the heads up. I just ordered FRWL from half.com with commentaries, but I'm gonna head on over to eBay now and check out the other two!

[Triton]

For those of us without Laserdisc players, can you share with us the comments on the commentary track that Eon found so objectionable?

[Bondian]

Hi Gang,

Jesus I would give my right testicle to see these laserdisk's. I have the player ( a top-of-the-range DENON ) and I have never seen these.

I will definately check this out.

All the best,

Cheers,

Ian

[clublos]

Don't laugh, but I don't have a laserdisc player. You see, it was really high on the list of things to do after I bought the Criterion FRWL and Deluxe Edition Thunderball (which includes the 1965 Incredible World of James Bond). However, these minor details like rent and car payments get in the way of the important stuff! Actually, I've picked several out on ebay that I'm interested in, but for some reason I just can't justify it. However, Santa's on his way...

If I do get the other two laserdiscs and definitely a laserdisc player, I wouldn't mind working on a transcript. Or maybe I can get some of my tech nerd friends to help me record it into an mp3...certainly would be less time-consuming! Come to think of it, why stop there? I'll record the Incredible World of James Bond, too, and we'll all collect our files and create our own definitive collection of Bond DVD's. And, in the mean, get the pants sued off of us by MGM.

[Bondian]

Hi cludlos,

And ( if you haven't been told yet ) welcome to CBn.

Sound's like you a handy man to know. I wasn't even aware these existed.

I'm sure you'd make some interest in these forums but it may be worth checking with the 'Top Guy's or Gasses' or landlords first before you post the transcripts etc.

All the best,

Cheers,

Ian

Originally posted by clublos
Don't laugh, but I don't have a laserdisc player.  You see, it was really high on the list of things to do after I bought the Criterion FRWL and Deluxe Edition Thunderball (which includes the 1965 Incredible World of James Bond).  However, these minor details like rent and car payments get in the way of the important stuff!  Actually, I've picked several out on ebay that I'm interested in, but for some reason I just can't justify it.  However, Santa's on his way...

If I do get the other two laserdiscs and definitely a laserdisc player, I wouldn't mind working on a transcript.  Or maybe I can get some of my tech nerd friends to help me record it into an mp3...certainly would be less time-consuming!  Come to think of it, why stop there?  I'll record the Incredible World of James Bond, too, and we'll all collect our files and create our own definitive collection of Bond DVD's.  And, in the mean, get the pants sued off of us by MGM.

[Bryce (003)]

I've got the following LD's-

DN, FRWL, GF, TB, YOLT, OHMSS, DAF, TMWTGG, FYEO, TLD, LTK, GE.

I haven't listened to all the commentaries in a while, but this thread is making me think about checking them out again. Yes, my LD player is still functioning.

[IndyB007]

I don't own these laserdiscs yet, but here's a little info about them and their commentaries from www.dvdlaser.com :

Each of the first three James Bond movies, starring Sean Connery, has undergone six iterations on laser disc, a quantitative indication that the series exemplifies the sort of entertainment that attracts laser disc collectors. Included among them are perhaps the most sought after collectors's items of all, Voyager's initial CAV releases of the films. Voyager did up each in typical Criterion Collection fashion, including alternate audio commentaries by several of the artists involved in the production of each film. One of the Bond producers took issue with these commentaries and demanded the discs be withdrawn from the market. Voyager then issued CLV renditions with the same transfers, all of which are letterboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.75:1, but no supplemental features.
For Dr. No, Bruce Eder hosts recorded commentary from several of the film's creators, including director Terence Young, writer Richard Maibaum, and editor Peter Hunt. Hunt is especially lucid (our respect for him increased listening to his talk--too bad he became the director who got stuck with George Lazenby) and there are few important production tricks or artistic approaches that are not fully explained, either from a technical and a motivational point-of-view. The discussion is so informative that the disc could serve as a guide to the art of practical filmmaking. Eder's own added comments tend to be excessively trivia-oriented, but it is an overcompensation which assures that everyone's basic questions will inevitably be answered. The only topic which gets away--nobody provides a satisfactory explanation as to why the elaborate iris opening, which became one of the series trademarks, was inserted in the beginning of the film. Other than as a series trademark, it seems to have no logical purpose, and the creators, while they expected to make a sequel, were not anticipating the sixteen plus episodes which the movie so far has spawned.

The flesh tones and day-for-night shots are much more accurate, and the mild letterboxing (properly described, for once, on the back of the jacket) improves the picture composition's validity. The digitally encoded monaural sound is sharp and can be amplified without significant distortion. The film's soundtrack appears on the digital track. The analog track is split in two, with the music and sound effects, excluding the dialogue, on one audio channel and the production commentary on the other. Voyager has not chapter encoded the music cues, and in fact upsets an important one, the first line from Underneath the Mango Tree, in the break from side one to side two. The supplementary section contains an original theatrical trailer and a mixture of photos and short essays which add further details to the production history. At the end of side two, in a miniature supplementary section, two amusing British television commercials for Bond Bread have been inserted. While the segment does not offer the full compendium of Bond rip-offs which the disc jacket seems to promise ("Television commercials featuring James Bond spoof."), it is still an enjoyable addition. It is also the best example the disc producers could provide of the utter madness which this simple action picture created.

Dr. No would be far less tolerable if it were not the first episode in what is now the most extensive action and adventure saga motion pictures have produced. Connery's accent still has a heavy Scottish brogue, and his acting is too leery to be suave or worldly. He drinks heavily, smokes like crazy, and practically rapes every woman he meets. Worst of all, he treats the impossibly stereotyped black fisherman and part-time CIA operative, Quarrel (John Kitzmiller), as a second-class being. At one point he tells Quarell to, "Fetch my shoes," as he himself goes traipsing into the woods with Ursula Andress. There are at least three shots in the film where you can see the camera crew, and unnatural light reflections are present in almost every scene. What made Dr. No spellbinding when it was first released, however, and what makes it still entertaining a number of decades later, is the pacing. The new wave editing of the late sixties was still generally unknown, but the style of the Bond films presaged. Dr. No is a movie that refuses to slow down, and that is, perhaps, why you don't notice the reflections of the camera crew until you've watched the film a hundred times. The alternate audio track talk on From Russia With Love is an extension of the talk given on Dr. No. There is some information that, by necessity, must be repeated, such as Connery's biography, but at its best the information provides still more insight to the art of practical filmmaking (every train station in the movie, for example, is the same one, with a different sign). Although the commentators point out several continuity flaws in the film (and mention a horrendous one which almost went in, if a little boy had not pointed it out in the nick of time), nobody brings up an aspect which has always bothered us, the sun rising in the west when the heroes reach the coast of Yugoslavia after a night-long train ride. The talk is not quite as sharply organized as it appears on the Dr. No disc, and the participants, including Young, Hunt, and Maibaum, slip in, among other things, good-natured but lewd comments about Lotte Lenya. Nevertheless, the information provided will be valuable to anyone interested not only in how From Russia With Love was made, but how all movies are put together.

It is mentioned several times that Ian Fleming's book, and, to a lesser extent, the movie, are considered "the best" of the series, without really explaining why. Although "spies" had been lurking about in literature and film for a number of years, it was the Bond series which really set the genre on fire. Bond, however, acts more like a detective than an intelligence agent in most of the stories, and it is only in From Russia With Love that he really does "spy." In fact, everybody in the film is spying on everybody, shadowing them, looking at them, listening to them, and so forth. The memorable rat-infested underground waterway that the heroes use to peek at the Russian embassy is one of the few visual metaphors in all the Bond films which has political instead of sexual meaning. Yet, such considerations apparently did not amount to much and the filmmakers were on the wrong track because, as is explained on the disc, nobody went to see From Russia With Love until after Goldfinger came out.

The picture on Goldfinger is super. The colors are perfect, and the source material has very few errant markings. On the older versions, the footage of Miami and Kentucky took on a blandness, with faded colors and scratches, making those segments of the film seem no more exotic than a drive to the local grocery. On Voyager's disc the colors are so sharp and the image is so fresh the movie's exoticism is reestablished, even when the locale shifts to a scrap yard. By including interviews with more creative personnel than simply the movie's director, the disc makes the listener aware of how many different factors are contributing to the success of a sequence--the gold piled unbelievably high in the mythical bowels of Fort Knox, the audience-priming delineation of the Astin Martin's special features, and Odd Job's hat all came from different individuals involved in the production. As for the ejector seat, it sprouted, as only it could in retrospect, from the mind of a twelve-year-old boy, the son of the movie's production designer. Other added features include an original theatrical trailer, a commercial for a James Bond toy pen, and a nice still photo section that provides short, informative essays about Goldfinger as an excuse to share a number of wonderful production and memorabilia photographs.

I also found out that MGM/UA sent a 16 page list of complaints about the CAV discs that they wanted censored or the titles pulled from the shelves. One such grievence was that one interviewee stated that non of the other Bond actors had as good a physique as Connery. Why take offense? When the LD's were pulled and the CLV editions were released, there was a coupon inside to purchase the commentary track on cassette for $10, or so I read.

[Neil S. Bulk]

There were 185 things EON objected to on the Criterion LD's. The cassette's were never issued to those who bought the CLV discs.

My Dr. No Criterion CAV LD is signed by Lois Maxwell. She had no idea what it was.

Neil

[IndyB007]

That would make a fine addition to anyone's collection Neil!

I had my doubts about the cassettes. I've never heard about them or seen them before on eBay or any such website. Do you know if the coupon was included with the CLV titles at least? That would make an interesting collectible as well......

[Turn]

A couple years ago I saw somebody selling what they claimed were the banned Criterion commentary cassettes. I don't know if these are the ones they meant or if somebody merely recorded the tracks onto regular cassette tapes (which probably isn't legal to begin with).

I've got to admit I did think about bidding, but never did. I wonder if they sold?

[clublos]

The same seller of the Criterions on ebay also has the Deluxe Collector's Edition of TB, factory sealed as well. Compared with Spyguise, it's a good deal, but more than I paid:D

http://cgi.ebay.com/...item=3363045739

However, and I'm sure all of you can relate, when I do purchase a laserdisc player, how am I to be expected to keep these things sealed?????

[IndyB007]

That's not a bad price, but you're right.. I paid a whole lot less. It is really a nice set with The Incredible World of 007 documentary and a series of collectibles and posters from the era.

As soon as you get your laserdisc player, I'd recommend opening those puppies up and popping them in.......

[clublos]

I would, of course, be "taking one for the team" in order for us all to get the juicy details on the commentaries and see the Incredible World of 007.

It would be cool to organize a viewing. Unfortunately the world's a big place, and having us all come together would be hard. Maybe we could show them at one of the conventions.

[Neil S. Bulk]

All of my Bond LD's are open and have been played many many times. That inlcudes the Criterion CAV's and the MGM box sets.

Neil

[clublos]

GF and Dr. No went for over $100 each yesterday. Doesn't even appear to be a Bond fan that bought them, which means one of two things: (1) he's a serious film collector with a large bankroll; or (2) they'll be back up on ebay shortly.

Come to think of it, most of the open Criterions go for around $20. If one of us bought it, the plastic would come off in seconds along with $80.

[zencat]

Ah laserdiscs...

I don't have the Criterion versions, but I do have every Bond up to TND on laserdisc. The GF and TB box sets are really nice, and the GE laserdisc is great.

[clublos]

Originally posted by zencat
Ah laserdiscs...

I don't have the Criterion versions, but I do have every Bond up to TND on laserdisc. The GF and TB box sets are really nice, and the GE laserdisc is great.

Dude, I thought you had it all...

[IndyB007]

I just got my From Russia With Love discs in the mail yesterday! I'm gonna have to listen to that banned commentary the first chance I get!