How many years have I been belly-aching about the absence of a From Here to Eternity Bluray, despite Sony’s Grover Crisp having remastered this 1953 Best Picture winner sometime in early to mid 2009? My first “where’s the Bluray?” piece ran in November 2009. I’ve run two or three follow-ups since. Anyway, the endless delaying is over. Sony Home Video is finally releasing it on a Region 2 British disc on 10.7.13. Perhaps a Region A U.S. version will follow a few months later.
I finally saw Crisp’s high-def version on Turner Classic Movies last February. It’s clearly a significant enhancement over the DVD version that everyone has been looking at for the last 11 years or so. “Prettier”, less contrasty, smoother skin tones, greater specificity (especially in terms of the fabrics, hair follicles and the glistening look of rain-soaked streets) and so on. I like my Blurays to “pop” above and beyond what i’m used to from DVD versions, and Crisp’s Eternity definitely does that.