I was wrong the other day when I said “as far as I know Paramount is still refusing to create a Bluray for George Stevens‘ Shane.” Dead wrong. Because I’ve been told by a guy who knows stuff that Paramount has spent serious money on George Stevens‘ 1953 classic, specifically on scanning and combining the three-strip Technicolor film, and that the remaining work yet to be done — dirt removal, color correction, fix sound, create protection elements — could be completed by the end of the year, or certainly by early 2013.

So there you have it — a Shane Bluray from Paramount Home Video is in the pipeline and likely to be issued sometime in 2013 so they can call it a 60th Anniversary edition.

And all of this for reasons having little or nothing to do with my constant bellyaching about the lack of a Shane Bluray.

The scanning of Shane‘s three-strip elements was done eight or nine months ago. I haven’t been told when the combining was done, but it has been done. I’m told that George Stevens, Jr. is involved, and that the film as presently constituted has been shown to a few Paramount Home Video people, and that they’ve spotted some places where the registration is slightly off, etc. It’s a tough job to make all of those George Stevens dissolves look right and well-blended with everything else. But they’re well down the road so no more complaining from this corner.