General Evans Above Archive for Oct 27, 2025
Joan Crawford Collection Blu-ray review
Oct 27, 2025 – permalink
Warner Archive has released the Joan Crawford Collection on Blu-ray. This four disc set includes four of the screen legend’s films: 1932’s Grand Hotel, 1939’s The Women, 1947’s Possessed, and 1950’s The Damned Don’t Cry. Thanks to Allied Vaughn Entertainment for letting me review this release and thanks to Canada Post for going on strike just as I was expecting it.
1932’s Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding, is a star-studded ensemble piece that actually sees Crawford billed third after Greta Garbo and John Barrymore. The interwoven storylines, set in the Grand Hotel in Berlin, also sees screen time for Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, and Jean Hersholt. The film is based on Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. It’s in Grand Hotel that Garbo utters the famous line, “I want to be alone.” The film won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The image has a really nice level of detail, from the textiles to the massive set. The grayscale palette ranges from bright whites to dark inky blacks and everything in-between. The grain is fine and natural. I was really impressed with how this looked.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track as well as French, German, Italian and Spanish (Castellano and Latin American) Doly Digital Mono tracks.. Subtitles are available for English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish (Castellano and Latin American). The dialogue is clear in this mix, but the source materials that were available for this transfer do have some tinniness and hiss to them.
As far as extras, Grand Hotel comes with a commentary track by film historians Jeffrey Vance and Mark A. Vieira that delves into a great amount of information about the production. There’s also a short “making of” doc, newsreel footage of the film’s premiere at the legendary Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, “Nothing Ever Happens” an almost 19 minute musical parody of the film released in 1933, a cinema snipe that advised patrons to catch Grand Hotel before it left theatres, and trailers for the film and the 1945 remake, “Week-End at the Waldorf.” Note that all of the extras are in standard definition.
Directed by George Cukor, 1939’s comedy-drama The Women stars Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Lucile Watson, Mary Boland, Florence Nash, and Virginia Grey. It truly is The Women as every on screen performer from the biggest marquee name to the smallest bit part is female. Crawford plays a shopgirl who’s having an affair with the husband of Norma Shearer’s high society character. The film follows Shearer and her circle of socialite friends as she heads cross-country to Reno to obtain a divorce. This version of the black and white film does contain a six minute fashion show shot in three-strip Technicolor. Cukor said in a later interview that he never liked the inclusion of the colour sequence and some DVD versions of the film replace it with a black and white version which is included on this disc in the bonus features.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The source material they found is very good to begin with and the restoration that was done for the Blu-ray’s 2014 standalone release gives us a video presentation with excellent detail over in facial features, textiles and sets. The black levels and grayscale are equally rich. The colour sequence pops with primaries, but is not oversaturated. To my eye, there’s no sign of digital noise and compression artifacts and the presentation retains a nice film grain.
On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track as well as Spanish (Castilian and Latin) Dolby Digital Mono tracks. Subtitles are available for English SDH, French and Castilian and Latin Spanish. The soundtrack serves both the rapid-fire dialogue and score well and is mostly devoid of some the hisses and pops you find on older soundtracks.
The Women comes with a nice selection of bonus materials. “Another Romance of Celluloid” is composed of two featurettes: “From the Ends of the Earth” is a 1939 promotional short for MGM’s upcoming features that highlights the locales and goods it uses from around the world, while “Hollywood: Style Center of the World” is a 1940 promo piece that suggest that women want to dress like the stars they see on the screen. The disc also includes the colour cartoon short “One Mother’s Family” about a protective hen taking care of her chicks. There’s also the black and white version of the fashion show sequence, a lengthy audio only piece about scoring the movie, and trailers for The Women and the 1956 musical remake, “The Opposite Sex.”
1947’s Possessed, directed by Curtis Bernhardt, has Crawford working opposite Van Heflin and Raymond Massey. Crawford plays an unstable woman obsessed with an ex-lover. The film earned Crawford an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The image is beautiful with sharp details and a wonderful grayscale palette that takes us from crisp white to inky blacks. There’s a fine and pleasing grain pattern.
On the audio side of things, the disc comes with a single English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. Subtitles are available for English SDH. Dialogue is crisp and clear and the score works well within the dynamic range of the era.
Possessed has a small handful of special features. There’s a commentary from film historian Drew Casper that covers Crawford, film noir and production notes, a piece called “Possessed: The Quintessential Film Noir”, that sees a group of film scholars discuss film noir and detail why they think Possessed is a classic of the genre, and a theatrical trailer.
Finally, the last film in the collection is 1950’s The Damned Don’t Cry. Directed by Vincent Sherman, the film also features David Brian and Steve Cochran. Crawford plays a woman who leaves her small town life behind after the death of her son. Her new life is vastly different as she becomes involved with a gangster, which sets off deadly consequences.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The restoration work for this release started with a scan of the original negative that gives us this amazing result. Details on faces, clothes and locations look great and we get crisp whites, inky blacks and everything in-between. It’s a great presentation with no signs of digital noise or compression artifacts.
On the audio side of things, there’s an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mon track. Subtitles are available for English SDH. Dialogue is overall clean and clear, though there is the occasional moment of pops and hiss. The score sounds good and gives us the right film noir atmosphere.
The special features include a commentary by director and Crawford collaborator Vincent Sherman, who was 98 when he recorded it. “The Crawford Formula: Real and Reel” features interviews with filmmakers and historians on Crawford’s life and careeer. There’s an hour-long radio broadcast of The Screen Director’s Playhouse which stars Crawford and Frank Lovejoy. Finally, there’s the theatrical trailer.
The Joan Crawford Collection Blu-ray contains four films that serve as a great introduction to the screen legend’s career. All of the included discs look and sound great, and there’s a nice selection of extras. Definitely think about adding this to your film library.