by lhb412 » Fri Nov 04, 2011 1:35 pm
^Well, I'm only 2 discs in, but I've popped in all the discs and surveyed the set:
While their hasn't been any remastering done (UCLA is currently undertaking the complete L&H remastering project and it'll take years) these are the best transfers taken from the best prints available, considerably better then the UK set. The original title cards have replaced long-standing replacement titles cooked up for reissues, TV and video, and several shorts have the option of watching them with the original early-'30s music tracks or the reissue soundtracks from later in the decade (where they pasted wall-to-wall music). Sometimes only the reissue tracks remain, and where that's the case it's mentioned in the extensive liner notes. A few of the films have multiple commentaries because the L&H experts behind them gathered so much info that they had to run through the film twice to get it all in.
The contents of the set are all the Hal Roach talkie shorts and features (besides Fra Diavolo, Bonnie Scotland, and Wooden Soldiers which are under different rights holders and widely available). Half a dozen expanded foreign language versions are included. The extras disc has a featurette where Jerry Lewis, Tim Conway, Dick Van Dyke, and Penn and Teller are interviewed about L&H, a survey of locations (showing how they appeared in the films and how they appear now), three other Hal Roach shorts that L&H cameo in, and a three original trailers.
The packaging has stirred up some controversy: a book style case (featuring the extensive liner notes I mentioned) where each page is a cardboard sleeve containing one of the ten discs. None of my discs came scratched, and I'm pretty careful with my discs anyway so I seem to be able to take them in and out (each several times so far) without scratching.
It's pretty sweet.