Customer Reviews

While I Live (While I Love) 1947 - England [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I first saw "While I Live" on TV when I was a child and it made a lasting impression on me. Watching it now, 50 years later, I am not so impressed. It seems rather disjointed and confusing but it does have a certain period charm. I suspect that there are pieces missing, as Halliwell describes the film as being 85 minutes long, when it lasts only 57 minutes. This would account for the disjointed storyline! Now, as then, it is the music, "The Dream of Olwen", which makes the film.

Since this disk is advertised as unavailable, I'll refer prospective buyers to Amazon's UK website, where the film is available in an 81 minute version from Britain's Odeon label.

I now own a copy of the UK R2 DVD, and the quality is outstanding, with the disk described as restored and remastered. Except for a few moments late in the film where a small portion of a dark shadow is not perfectly 'black', the film is 99.99% beautiful, both in image and sound quality.

I liked this film, typical of British films from that era, with an intriguing plot, though some parts are slightly predictable. I particularly enjoyed Patricia Burke's hard-nosed performance. I enjoyed her as much here as I did in her next film, 'Forbidden' (also available in the UK.)

The music, of course, is wonderful. There is an excellent recording by Mantovani on his 'Music from the Films' CD, for those who are interested in a stand-alone copy of 'The Dream of Olwen'.

If you have a region-free DVD player that can handle R2/PAL disks, you may be interested in this newer release. If you don't have one of these players, I recommend picking one up. There are many goodies available on Amazon UK which are not currently available in US editions.

The condition of the dvd was so bad that i gave up trying to watch after 5 minutes. This is a shame as this was a memorable film for buffs, but I could not bear the awful sounds emitting from the screen. The product was returned and repayment has been advised.

The last time I saw this movie was in 1947, I was 7 years old. 'THE DREAM OF OLWEN' instanty became my favorite piece of music and it still is. I was taking piano lessons at that time and my parents bought me the sheet music, which I still have, the record, a 78rpm 12inch(breakable disc) was the first record I ever bought with my own money.

I have been wanting to have the movie 'WHILE I LIVE' on VHS or DVD for a very long time, but after reading the many awful reviews here, there seemed to be no point in sending for it, but then I read that there was a new DVD available from Amazon UK that was of good quality. I sent for this new release and I now have it, the picture quality is excellent and so is the sound, I have already watched it more than a dozen times. The copy I have is a 'RENOWN PICTURES LIMITED' release and I would recommend it to anyone.

My 78rpm record broke many years ago, but also many years ago I bought a 45rpm EP a 'COLUMBIA' release, a mono recording taken from the soundtrack of the movie (as was the 78rpm) which is now sounding a little worn, but a few years ago I purchased an excellent stereo CD of this wonderful piece of music played by the brillant french pianist RICHARD CLAYDERMAN with THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, Wow! what a superb recording

"While I Live aka The Dream of Olwen" appears to be a poor quality NTSC transfer possibly from a 16mm film distributed to a television station years ago. This film looks to have been possibly an old theatrical release that must have been shown hundreds of times because of all the broken sections. I actually wonder if the various copyright permissions have been obtained since the quality is so awful. This video has also been sold on Ebay for years. Edward Dryhurst Productions, the originator of the film, no longer exists. He was a one realer producer of silent films in California before returning to England. I do not know who actually owns the original negative or copyright but there is enough interest in this melodrama to warrant a decent re-release due to the famous music theme. It also dabbles with the subject of reincarnation. A.W.watkins, listed in the credits, was a famous British audio engineer whose last film was 2001 I believe.

Sound and picture quality is rubbish. Looks like it was very poorly recorded from a television broadcast, and the film wasn't in good shape to start with. A huge chunk of the story is missing from the middle which makes nonsense of the plot and there seen to be smaller cuts where there have been commercial breaks and the video wasn't cued to start on time. Possibly there are also cut(s) where the original film had been broken and respliced--for example, theme music at start is disjointed. Hard to tell from this travesty if the original movie was any good or not.

Going from IMDb info on film length ALMOST ONE THIRD OF THE FILM IS MISSING.

Do not buy this. The dvd comes in a box with no artwork and its the worst quality i have ever seen. looks to be taken from a tv broadcast.

I WAS NOT OVERLY IMPRESSED WITH THE QUALITY OF THIS FILM CONSIDERING WHAT I PAID FOR IT I SAW IT ON TV A FEW YEARS AGO AND THE QUALITY WAS VERY GOOD IT'S NOW IN THE BIN!!!

I was very impressed, firstly with the promt delivery and secondly with the quality of the film. When you consider that the the film was originally made in 1947, the transfer to dvd is very good.
such a beautiful film with beautiful music.

While I Live is a haunting drama of yesteryear that only British actors do so splendidly. The story is rather good and holds one's attention, but, of course, the finest thing about the film is the magnificent, beautiful tonal music by Charles Williams, "The Dream of Olwyn". It is a great loss to cinema buffs that such wonderful old films are not easily available in quality (and complete) reproductions.