Released in Malaysia is a DVD with the colorized version of “Jailhouse Rock”. The label says “produced under license”.
Design
Although this DVD comes sealed, this release has a “home made” touch and feel. The cover bears the classic Jailhouse Rock pose by Elvis with in the background small silhouettes of other Jailhouse Rock poses. The paper the cover is printed on doesn’t feel like something printed at a real printer.
Content
The movie “Jailhouse Rock” itself remains a classic, so no commends there. Although some may say you should never touch a classic B/W movie, but the coloring, done in the early nineties, has been done very well. The colorized version was a joy to watch on video, and now we have the DVD version.
And we did enjoy watching this version of the movie again. The transfer of the colorized edition of the movie to the digital format is o.k., but nothing more that that. We wonder what source they used for this, is there a laser disc of this version?
Just like the “produced under license” version of “On Tour” this package comes with a CDR with the “Jailhouse Rock Sessions”, originally released in 1993 by Radio Recorders. We also saw some vague numbers imprinted on the DVD disc, so this DVD can very well be a factory made DVD-R.
Conclusion
This version should have been included in a “Jailhouse Rock” movie box. Warner Brothers has this version laying around and does nothing with it. Until then, this version will do. But in contrary to ther "On Tour" DVD this is not an essential one to get.
Jailhouse Rock (Colorized)
February 22, 2005 | Video
CD King wrote on
February 23, 2005
This DVD is definately NOT made in Malaysia. The only Colorized "Jailhouse Rock" that is made officially by Warner Bro. Malaysia is the VCD double color Picture Discs version. This DVD version is a bootleg made in Europe and is copied from the Laser Disc. Still it is nice to have it on DVD. I just want to set some record straight that's all.
PaulFromFrance wrote on
March 02, 2005
Only people with bad taste can enjoy a colorized version. The director, the photograph, and all the technical crew created this movie with black and white in their minds. It's insulting to change it and it shows a lack of respect for the artists. I'll stay with the real thing.
cathyreno wrote on
July 04, 2005
well I got this colorized version on the video box set with the lost performances I enjoyed it cause it showed this film from different angles and wide screen ie in the treat me nice segment you can see clearly on the right judy tyler clapping at the start. the video copy was excellent sound and quality it'll be nice to see the dvd
Axeman517 wrote on
July 09, 2005
Paul from France, you should enjoy what you enjoy and not insult others who enjoy different. Color films were still very new at the time (1957) and maybe they didn't have the budget to shoot in color, maybe they didn't think color film would last, but you don't know they shot in black and white on purpose.
And, I don't think colorising films is so bad, if you still have the black and white original as well. I doubt it's an insult to anyone who worked on the original film, in fact it might be a new source of royalities for them!
I have seen only a part of the color version, but I thought they did good. A much better job than some other terrible looking colorized films I'd seen, and I'd like to see this film, along with Love Me Tender and King Creole, all re-colorized from black and white, using the latest technology available today. That would make a great 3 DVD boxset!
In short, colorizing a film is a MUCH less offense than turning mono tracks into reprocessed stereo. A film is still a film, you can see the images and hear the talking, while mono music became electronic stereo and no longer listenable in some cases.