Jacques Demy, Complete

[haineshisway]

Holy moley on rye, I just received the humungous Jacques Demy box set from Amazon France. I could find no information anywhere as to whether there would be English subtitles on any of the films, but I took a chance and ordered anyway (it was an expensive chance at 100 euros) - but the chance paid off, in spades. Everything, save for one title, has English subs. Whew! Oddly, A Slightly Pregnant Man has only French with no subs, or an English dub (which is awful), so I'll keep the region one DVD, which does have English subs. Otherwise, you get every film Demy made - fourteen features and all his short films. It's an amazing set in a beautiful box - the DVDs are housed in slimline cases. The Umbrellas and Young Girls transfers are the ones we all have, as is Donkey Skin. But the rarities in this set are the thing - to finally have the much maligned and misunderstood Une Chambre En Ville on DVD is worth the price alone. But to also finally get to see The Model Shop and Lady Oscar and Parking and Three Places for the 26th - heaven. And I've never seen any of his short films so I'm very much looking forward to them.

An amazing set, and, for me, perhaps the DVD release of the year.

[c.n.-tonfilm]

Does the box finally contain the English language version of DEMOISELLES which was called THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT ? The film was shot twice simultaneously in English and French with the English version being genrerally unavailable since its original release (the US DVD by Miramax only carries the subtitled French version under the English title). Would be interesting to know if Gene Kelly did his own voicing in the English version, as he was dubbed by Donald Burke in the French one. The soundtrack cd at least features one song from this English version "A Pais of Twins" an excerpt of which is available for listening here:

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort [Bande originale]

[haineshisway]

Sadly, no. I had a 16mm IB Tech scope print of the English version, which I used to enjoy watching. The fellow who now owns it screens it every now and then and I always go see it. I believe Donald Burke at least covered the high notes in the English version, if not all of the singing. There was a UK soundtrack single LP release of the English version, which I also have. However, to keep things completely accurate, the film wasn't shot twice - only the musical numbers were shot twice - the dialogue scenes are in French and dubbed into English in the English version.

[dazza001]

Well, I got this for Christmas and think it's one of the best sets I've ever owned. Given that half of this material was nearly impossible to see, it's just great to finally have it all in one box - looking forward to finally seeing Parking and A Room in Town.
BTW: I haven't looked at the actual DVD, but I thought the back of the sleeve of A Slightly Pregnant Man says that it does contain the original French w/ Eng subs as well as the dub?
The complete Agnes Varda should also be well worth picking up when it appears in '09...

[haineshisway]

I think you'll find that A Slightly Pregnant Man is the only DVD without subs - it's either the English dub or French - I'll check again, but I recall putting on the DVD and using the subtitle option just to double check, so I'm pretty sure I'm right on this.

[dazza001]

Yep, you are indeed right on this -- only Eng or Fr audio. You'll see the mistake I made in my excitement -- looking at the specs for Parking, which is on the same disc.

Hope you continue to enjoy the set