Falstaff Chimes At Midnight 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Trailer

Posted May 5, 2015 05:40 PM by


British distributors Mr Bongo have released a new trailer for the their upcoming Blu-ray release of Orson Welles' Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight. The release will be available for purchase on June 29. For the 50th anniversary edition of Chimes At Midnight, Mr. Bongo worked with Luciano Berriatúa at Filmoteca in Madrid. The restoration has been undertaken with utmost respect for Welles' original vision of the movie, and is not based on providing a quality of picture and sound according to the standard of current technologies (attempting to better what Welles filmed in the sixties), but to recover the film so that the viewer can experience the movie the same way they could watch it at the time. On the brink of Civil War, King Henry IV (John Gielgud) attempts to consolidate his reign while fretting with unease over his sons seeming neglect of his royal duties. Hal (Keith Baxter), the young Prince, openly consorts with Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) and his company of Diana's foresters, Gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon . Hal's friendship with the fat knight substitutes for his estrangement from his father. Both Falstaff and the King are old and tired; both rely on Hal for comfort in their final years, while the young Prince, the future Henry V, nurtures his own ambitions. Orson Welles considered Chimes at Midnight his personal favorite of all his films. Perhaps the most radical and ground-breaking of all Shakespeare adaptations, the film condenses the Bard's Henriad cycle into a single focused narrative. Its international cast comprises of Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey, Margaret Rutherford, and Ralph Richardson as the narrator, in addition to Welles and Gielgud. The film's harrowing war scenes have proven especially influential, cited in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V as well as Mel Gibson's Braveheart. Note: Also on June 29, Mr. Bongo will release on Blu-ray Too Much Johnson and The Stranger, and on DVD The Immortal Story.
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News comments (11 comments)

Top contributor

mrjohnnyb

May 05, 2015

Looks awesome! We need this for Region A!

pEgLeG

May 05, 2015

I think I'll have one shipped to Region A!

glumpy_99

May 05, 2015

I think we've just found the topper for THE FORCE AWAKENS trailer! June 29 can't come soon enough...

Subtitle

May 05, 2015

Wow, I got chills watching the trailer.....this looks amazing.

atcolomb

May 05, 2015

There is good news for a region A release. Criterion has the rights now to release it some time soon but since i do have a all region player i might get this one too.

billyearle

May 06, 2015

Looks great. And Jess Franco was 2nd unit Director...that shot walking through the trees reminds me of Female Vampire.

Top reviewer

Top contributor

toddly6666

May 06, 2015

Glumpy, not even in the same league as Force Awakens trailer but still looks good.

A friend of mine recently saw the restored print of this and raved about it. Obviously there are still sound issues, that's just inevitable, but the picture is quite good now. Most of the dvd's I saw were bad.

I'll wait for the Criterion release though.

Carcosa

May 06, 2015

I will be buying bit for sure...not going to wait on Criterion if I can get one sooner.

Top contributor

jacobb1313

May 06, 2015

YAAAAY. I can retire my Mr Bongo DVD. [The UK DVD is Region 0/All. I wonder if this one will be the same on Blu?]. I'll buy it regardless.

Also, for those of you looking to watch Too Much Johnson, Google the title with the National Film Preservation. You can view and download a decent, legal version of their restoration directly from their site.