Le Mans The Movie

[stewarth]

Any news on wether the Steve Mcqeen film Le Mans will be released in the near future on DVD.

As well as movie fans there are a hell of a lot of motorsport fans waiting for this release with 5.1 sound and lots of nice extras.

 

[shaunthedude]

I heard a while ago that it was due out this year along with the James Garner film "grand Prix". However I see that Amazon are still saying "the company is not yet producing this on dvd" Guess we will just have to wait.
BTW My dad met Mcqueen on the set of this film (just briefly) and got his autograph. Now in my possesion he he.

 

[Marcus Wood]

Does anyone have more news on this?

 

[Marcus Wood]

I just noticed Le Mans is scheduled for release in April, but Grand Prix doesn't seem to be yet.

There's a lot of pre-orders for Grand Prix on Amazon - 20,721!

 

[koku]

Play (R1) and Amazon.com have Le Mans down for 29/04. if that's any use to ya?

I've placed my order already as I've been waiting for this movie in 5.1 ever since I became DVD capable

Alas the wait for John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix goes on...

 

[Marcus Wood]

Yes, I ordered Le Mans too. I just hope it's not done from the same master tape as the letterboxed Laserdisc though.

The anamorphic unqueezing wasn't done properly, so everything looks a bit thin. But if you expand it to 16:9 or even 14:9, everything looks too fat.

The only way to make it look right is to use one of those modes for expanding 4:3 material to fit a widescreen TV without too much distortion. I can't imagine why they did it like that.

By the way, does anyone know if 'Weekend of a Champion' is available on DVD? That's the documentary about Jackie Stewart made by Roman Polanski. I know you can get it on VHS.

 

[Confucius]

My LD looks just fine in 'zoom' mode. I was watching it just the other day.

Odd.

 

[Marcus Wood]

I'd had mine for a couple of years before I saw the problem. It's fairly subtle.

I noticed it first because the proportions of the 911 at the start don't look quite right.

 

[Confucius]

EDITED having watched it again(!)

Yeah, see what you mean now - I did it with reference to the 917s and 512s. They do not look quite as squat and purposeful as still photographs indicate.

It's possible that the distortion - though not deliberate - is an accurate representation of the movie as it originally appeared.

Also, the LD was around long before any notion of anamorphism was mooted in home theaters.

 

[Marcus Wood]

I have a feeling the problem with the unsqueezing happened by accident.

The only reason for them to do it on purpose would have been to reduce the aspect ratio a bit. But the best way to do that would be to just cut off the edges of the picture.

I've sometimes seen a picture squeezed at the edges of the frame but not in the centre (e.g. The Blue Max NTSC LD and PAL VHS - both letterboxed) but this isn't as noticeable as the effect on Le Mans.

 

[shaunthedude]

Le Mans is also due out on REG 2 in June.