The Doris Day Collection DVD Review

These films have never looked so good. You can see the effort that has been put into restoring these classics and they do indeed shine like never before, apart from when they were first released that is. They all have a very clean transfer and one example of how much they have been improved is with Young At Heart where at the beginning of each scene, for a split second as the picture appears, you can see the pre-enhanced image just before it reaches full brightness. It looks like a sheet has been lifted from the screen as every facet of the image improves. The sharpness, the brightness, the colours and lack of grain all instantly lifts in quality. I cannot say that they look as good as some of today's movies, but displayed upon my 80inch projector screen, I was amazed at the clarity and impact these 40 year old movies displayed.

The bitrate varies quite considerably from one disc to another but the average is about 6Mbps with the lowest being 4.8Mbps and the highest as shown in the graph was 8.65Mbps which was on Send Me No Flowers but all images looked exceptional for their age.

The sound is adequate and more than acceptable when you consider when they were recorded. Most movies have a stereo soundtrack with the exception of Young At Heart and The Thrill of It All which both have only a mono soundtrack. There is some instances of sibilance and a lack of bass as would be expected but the voices and the music both come over clearly and for the most part, cleanly. The sound is kind of what you are anticipating anyway and I think anything more would have been overkill for these movies.

Very little I'm afraid on the extras front. All with the exception of Young At Heart have only the original theatrical trailer. Young At Heart also has some still images in a Gallery which contains both shots from the movie and publicity posters from the time the movie was first released. It would have been nice to have at least one interview with Doris Day somewhere but trailers are all we get. Shame.
The word 'Classic' is bantered about far to frequently these days but this collection of Doris Day movies is filled with them. Of course you have to be a fan of this genre of movie, if your thing is only special effect laden Sci-Fi movies, then this will do nothing for you but if you can appreciate cinema from all eras and all genres then I whole heartedly recommend this collection. Born Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff, Doris Day is now 80 years young and she should feel very proud of her movie career. This is just a taste of her many films but a superb collection all the same.....Now where's that video of Calamity Jane?