Why isn't "Holiday Inn" on Blu-ray? And, what happened to the colorized DVD from a few years ago?

Since I somewhat recently bought a Blu-ray player, I've been upgrading a few of my favorite DVDs in my collection. While It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle On 34th Street, and White Christmas are all readily available in HD, Holiday Inn, sadly, is not. Why? Is there just not a huge demand for it? If so, then that's a shame since the movie has charms galore and is infinitely more "Christmassy" than White Christmas, the title song from which made its first appearance in Holiday Inn over a decade earlier. Is the "Abraham" blackface number holding the film back?

Also, the wonderful double DVD set from a few years ago that featured Holiday Inn in glorious, original black and white, AND meticulously, well-applied color seems to be out of production! Again, this is, indeed, a shame as the colorized version would probably help the film appeal to modern, uninitiated audiences. The only listing for Holiday Inn on Amazon is for the single DVD "Special Edition" from 2006. Why keep that version in print when the double DVD set was far superior?

 

One of my favorite Christmas films. I have and enjoy both the B&W and colorized versions. Also once had a colorized version of Bishop's Wife that I recorded on VHS from a turner broadcast, but don't think a colorized version was ever commercially released.

 

The colorized version of Holiday Inn is very different from the early Ted Turner colorized broadcasts, and even the recent I Love Lucy Christmas show in "color" that aired this past December.

If the special feature on the DVD is to be believed, various set renderings, costume sketches, fabric swatches, and the like were utilized to depict the colors in Holiday Inn as accurately as possible. The result is a very natural color palette, one that's akin to actual color movies shot during the same era. I think Holiday Inn, either in black and white or color, would look splendid on Blu-ray.

 

The more important question: who starts a thread about Christmas movies in the middle of January?

 

Um...me?

 

Russian orthodox Christmas is in January

 

Yeah, and let's zoom it in to 16x9 so it looks like it's widescreen, and then maybe add 3D! Yeah, that'll make it real modern for today's hip, happening kids!

 

While I agree colorizing Holiday Inn is somewhat sacrilege, not to mention a bit of artistic revisionism, I do think it was handled extremely well and adds another dimension to this fine film.

The black and white original will always be my go to version. However, those people who are strongly averse to any movie simply because it's "old" and "not in color" might be willing to take a chance on the colorized Holiday Inn and thus experience something they wouldn't have, otherwise.

I truly feel this film isn't as well remembered as it should be and the deletion of a superior edition DVD from the market confirms that. Time and again Holiday Inn gets overshadowed by It's A Wonderful Life and, of course, White Christmas, when all three are of equal importance to the Christmas movie genre.

 

I hear this all the time I have yet to meet any of these people.

 

Yay - question answered!

 

The selection of vintage film in HD on BluRay is poor.

Which is a shame since vintage films - definitely including B&W - look great on BluRay, far better than older video.

If PD, it's lucky to have a half-decent release on any format.

Likewise most people never listen to music in circumstances where stereophonic imaging is beneficial, never mind accurate, yet a lot of music recorded in mono has suffered from the belief that people won't buy/listen to it because it's mono. It's a truism for a lot of things: never underestimate the power of perceptions.

 

I know I should've picked this up when it was more affordable. At least the B&W is still available. (I only have the vhs.)

Maybe they're important to the genre; not to me. 'Holiday Inn' stands by itself.
"La-zy, I want to be la-zy..." Magic.

 

It's not really a Christmas movie, is it?

 

It looks like crap to me:

 

I'd like to own it...I missed it the first time.

 

far out man...oh wait, not...

 

a wonderful movie to be enjoyed and discussed anytime during the year.

 

Yes and no. I was joking when I made my comment, which is why I used the "" emoticon.

In truth, "Holiday Inn" could justifiably be called a New Year's Movie or a Valentine's Movie or whatever - clearly it covers a bunch of them.

However, it did popularize "White Christmas", so for better or for worse, I think it's commonly viewed as a Christmas Movie.

I suspect it gets played on TV a lot in December and not so much the other 11 months of the year!

 

I don't have a professional's eye, but I'd prefer an opinion that didn't come from a Youtube upload. I've watched the DVD and I thought it looked quite good, perhaps not as good as It's a Wonderful Life, but definitely not the Turner era colorization.

 

Give me another clip and I'll be glad to evaluate it. No question, colorization has gotten better since Colorization Inc. and Color Systems Technology were doing it in the 1980s. I think this demo from Trikona in India looks pretty good, though they cheat by making the B&W comparison too dark to evaluate: