Customer Reviews

Life With Father - 1947 Color (Digitally Remastered Version)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's just beautiful. We've waited a long time for this...I just can't understand why Warner Brothers did'nt do it from start because it's a high profile classic picture...but Digi-Com you did great and it will certainly pay off. The DVD on our 32 inch plasma set looks like a live television picture rather than a movie. In addition to fixing the color and sound, every little tiny speck of scratch and dust and whatever is gone, and there is zero left/right movement back and forth as a film looks like going through a projector. It does look like live TV. Just beautiful.

Thanks.

Steve Spears
Orrs Island, Maine

They did a good job remastering this movie. You can actually watch this one.

This DVD is perfect in every way, technically, and all others, so far as I can tell. For those who love this splendid classic movie, it is just what we have been waiting for.

People...PLEASE understand...this is digitally REMASTERED NOT RESTORED. Consider yourself fortunate to have a copy even this good when you consider WARNER ENTERTAINMENT has turned their backs on this wonderful old classic. WARNER ENTERTAINMENT has no interest in ever making this title available from their own original negatives which is so unfortunate. This title fell into public domain and because of that WARNER apparently feel it has no commercial value. Under the circumstances we have to just be thankful that any company is at least willing to find a good, clean copy and attempt to remaster it.

Please remember the difference. A RESTORED movie is one that come from the original negative or good working print and every single frame (16 to each minute so some nearly 2,000 frames for the full movie)and clean up dirt, scratches, rips, etc and attempt to restore it to it original beauty. This process is extremely costly. In fact, in some circumstances restoration can cost as much as the original movie production. It is just not an expense anyone but a major studio could afford.

A REMASTERED movie is when a company can locate a good print and try to clean up that print the best they can. Because it is a print and not a negative it is nearly impossible to do much better then what we see in LIFE WITH FATHER. But it is apparent that they did locate a very nice, clean print. This copy is far superior to any copy previously available to the public.

You can't compare this to the TV prints. Keep in mind that WARNER still holds on to the TV released prints and there they are working with original negatives (the same negatives and prints that WARNER does not wish to release to the general public which is so very upsetting....but then WARNER is the worst studio for turning its backs on the collectors).

And disregard the collector who complained about the story content. This is not a dull, boring story. It came from what in 1946 was at the time the longest running non musical Broadway play. It is based on a true life story and is a beautiful example of the life in a much softer life. We rarely get glimpses of early America in movies today and it is a treasure to be able to view that time in a movie that was produced when people from that era were still alive and able to recreate what to them were memories. We may never see the likes of this again.

Some of the customer reviews of this DVD (the DigiCom TV "Digitally Remastered" version) are hyperbolic. This is no perfect transfer. The colors are pastel--not what one would expect from a three-strip Technicolor production of the 1940s, and not at all like the brilliant tones I have seen in showings of this movie on TCM. Skin looks a little odd; everyone has a pink face. However, this disk is by far the best DVD of "Life with Father" that has yet been offered. The picture is quite sharp and clean, and the sound is good. Unlike the many worthless public domain versions, this one is watchable and well worth the modest price, until a truly restored Warner Bros. version becomes available.

The whole family gathered around the television to watch one of our favorite movies on Father's Day. Picture and sound quality were excellent. Irene Dunne and William Powell never looked or sounded better! Look no further for an excellent copy of this classic movie.

I have occasionally been disappointed in so-called "remastered" movies but a good job was done on this one. I have seen Life with Father many many times over the past 50 years but was never able to appreciate the rich textures and colors of the fabrics, wallpapers etc in the various scenes until this DVD issue. The audio is also good now. If you were unfortunate enough to purchase the 2002 DVD version as I did, throw it away! The fuzzy images were washed in graveyard gray and the audio sounded like it was recorded underwater.

I really enjoyed this film, having never seen it before, apart from a few seconds of watching an atrocious version on another dvd.
I would just like to assure buyers that the DigiComTV version is fully re-mastered with a lovely clear image and sound. I think this fact needs to be stated because the packaging is so well... lacklustre, that you may think this is just another of the many bad copies of this classic film on the market.

This is the best copy of Life with Father that I have ever watched. THe colors and detail are incredible. The movie, as always was terrific. Wonderful performances from Irene Dunne and William Powell. My family loved this classic movie.Life With Father - 1947 Color (Digitally Remastered Version)

It astonishes me that Life With Father no longer has the same degree of popularity as other Hollywood films of the Forties that tell similar stories of family life in late 19th-Century America. This was one of the best of the Greatest Generation's stiffly satirical looks at its own elders, which had been filmed so sweetly in Meet Me in St. Louis, for example. The original Life With Father was a huge and much-honored Broadway hit, and the play was also adapted for a well-executed television series in the 1950s.

But this funny and very gentle portrait of a large middle-class family in New York City circa 1880, a major Warner Bros. release at the time (1947), has been sorely neglected on video. Until now not even a watchable transfer existed. The comedy, one of Jack Warner's casualities-by-neglect, fell through cracks into the public domain, and as such has never been restored. This from the same studio executive who later outbid all others for the similar-in-feel The Music Man, now much honored on disc, including Blu-ray.

The story is almost a catalog of 19th-century obsessions, with a twentieth-century bite. It is a recounting of one family's cranky, overbearing and semi-oblivious father, a straight-arrow businessman who is firmly convinced he will never need to be baptized into his wife's church. When he finally gets up to Heaven, by God, he'll just have a good talk with them and set them straight! Such shocking disregard for convention and his wife's devout beliefs sets off a family crisis, as Mother and her brood take a stand against this tyrannical but ultimately lovable man of the house.

The film has standout performances by at least three huge stars--William Powell, Irene Dunne, and a very young Elizabeth Taylor. Supporting roles are near-perfect, including a rare appearance by Zazu Pitts in an iconic role as a fluttery aunt. The excellent dialog has just enough hilarity and bite to remain tasty, even though the complications are, despite the life-after-death stakes, relatively trivial to us today.

If you've seen it, you may wonder if this newer transfer is superior to previous VHS copies, and the answer is a qualified yes. The video image is surprisingly richer and more colorful than the poorly produced tapes of the past, but it's hardly up to Warners' current standards. If you watch your films on a TV set with a "cinema" or "theater" picture mode (which is much warmer and less blue than "standard" mode) the image will appear quite dark and lacking in contrast. Switching to a brighter mode, however, restores some luster and the picture is far more enjoyable. That's not something I'd normally endorse.

But the play's the thing, and I'd like everyone to see this film at least once. Finally here is a very inexpensive disc that offers a hint of what the fuss about Life With Father was all about.