laureatedvd.com

[Christoph Nestel]

One of Danny's finest and available from Stonevision Entertainment on DVD now. This DVD is definitely no fun. It seems to be an old analogue transfer which has been tried to improve digitally slightly. Bad and faded colors. The German TV version has an excellent picture quality in vivid beaming Technicolor. The German version was culled from the original German 1950 dupe negative which is owned by the Kirch Group, Munich today. The sharpness of my vhs recording is a thousand times better than this DVD. For the DVD they have also zoomed in too much into the frame. So beware of this ! Has the British TV version a better quality or is it as worse ? I'm a little confused about who is holding that title. I would Warners have supposed to be rights owner. Or is this a public domain title and there may be still a chance of a future good Warners release ?

But what I wonder about most is why Paramount didn't and doesn't have any interest in making KNOCK ON WOOD available for decades. Clarence & Terence, Gromek, Brodnick, Brutschik and Papinek... outstanding !

[Ken Barnes]

Hi Christoph,

Good to hear from again. Yes, The Inspector General (1949)
was allowed to slip into the public domain in 1977 ( somebody forgot to renew the copyright and - after 28 years and, in the USA, this is mandatory in order to preserve ownership)

"Knock On Wood," for which I share your enthusiasm, was
renewed and is safely in copyright. It may be that Paramount
no longer have the releasing rights because it was a Dena
production distributed by Paramount. But if they issued
"The Court Jester" ( also a Dena project ), why not ?

I'm pretty busy right now on a number of interesting projects but, when I get time, I'll see what I can find out
about "Knock"
Clarence - Terence - Gromek-Brodnick - Brutschik and Papinek. Where are they now ? Let's see if we can find out. I'm as interested as you.

Regards
Ken