Fans of this film might wanna try the old dvd release

I love Rio Bravo. Watch it once or twice every year. Till now I've only had the two-disc special edition dvd with the fairly dark image with a brownish brownish/reddish leaning.

I caught a screening of a 16 mil print a year or so ago and it was much paler and looked better to my eye.

Since seeing the Dvdbeaver site's review's comparison screen shots:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/rio-bravo.htm
I've been hoping to get hold of the original original single-disc region 1/US dvd release, which has cooler, paler tones.

The blu ray is similar image colour/contrast/brightness-wise to the two-disc special edition:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Rio-Bravo-Blu-ray/437/#Screenshots

I finally picked up the old disc at a used dvd place, watched it, and it's great. A different experience. I felt more connected to the characters seeing them without the somewhat baked flesh-tones.

So: great film I can enjoy anytime, anyway, but for me, best enjoyed with the more subtle colour pallet and so I recommend the old dvd (with the white background on the cardboard cover) to big fans of the film who love it enough to go to the trouble of seeking out and acquiring the old out of print version.

WARNING: non-region 1/US releases with the same white cover may actually be the darker later edition - not certain, but suspect this to be the case.

Here's hoping a restored and remastered blu ray will one day be released with both great detail and great colour, which might be somewhere between the two versions.

Cheers,

Manton


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