Over the last six months I have been culling my collection of DVDs & Blu Rays down from 6,000 to 4,800.
During this process I have checked some of the discs which included titles that I was planning on keeping and others that I was going to sell and stumbled across two DVD discs that have stopped playing altogether. One was an Australian disc of an American comedy thats title escapes me and the other was the Criterion edition of Gimmie Shelter.
Neither of the discs had any signs of DVD rot or damage and both played fine when I purchased them over 10 years ago. Anyway I didn't give it much thought. I threw the discs away and ordered the recent Blu Ray of Gimmie Shelter. I wasn't concerned about the other film as I was going to sell it anyway and was only going to watch a couple of funny scenes again.
I should point out that I take very good care of my collection. I don't lend titles out except to my mother (and father before he passed away) who treats them with great care. If friends want to watch films I invite them over or go to their place and watch it with them. It really is advisable not to lend discs to people as in the cases where I have (when I have received a second copy or its something I'm going to sell) they almost always are returned with fingerprints!
Anyway, when I got to culling all my boxsets I checked one of the Forbidden Hollywood editions with The Red Headed Woman and to my horror (it is after all my favourite Jean Harlow film), it would not play. I started checking the internet for any information of other people having problems and my worst fears were realised.
It turns out that a number of people are having problems with US Warner & Turner Classics discs from around 2006 to 2009. Initially, I thought this was limited to boxsets but have this week discovered the problem is much wider.
We watched Rich and Famous last Sunday night and half way through it stopped playing. I popped it in another machine and it was fine. (Age has not been kind to Cukor's last film not that it matters because it wasn't too good back in 1981). I was going to watch Shoot the Moon last night but after checking it on six different machines the same problem occurred - it wouldn't chapter skip past the middle of the film and if I went to the menu and selected a later chapter the disc either would play at all or would go to that chapter only to stop and start.
I thought it would be worth starting a post to advise of any faulty discs that people come across as I know some people on the board to have DVD collections and it would be worth checking any Warner or Turner Classic discs you have from the above period.
The films in my collection that are now redundant - and I have checked them in numerous DVD and Blu Ray players are:
Forbidden Hollywood - The Red Headed Woman (though thankfully Baby Face & James Whales Waterloo Bridge play fine);
Joan Crawford boxset - Torch Song, A Woman's Face, Sadie McKee, Strange Cargo & Flamingo Road
O Lucky Man
Personal Best (I let out a cry like a dying animal with this one)
Crusin'
Shoot the Moon
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
It should be noted that all the films in the Crawford boxset and well as all the other single films will only skip from chapter to chapter to the half way point.
It turns out that only dual layer disc are affected and it was a manufacturing fault which didn't emerge until sometime later. Goodness knows how many complaints Warners have had but it is very concerning.
The following films played fine:
Cannery Row
Goodbye Mr. Chipps (the Herbert Ross one)
Zabriskie Point
The Ritz
The Grass Harp
The Lon Channey collection that included Laugh Clown Laugh
The Star
Dinner at Eight
These are playable on some machine but not others:
Buster Keaton collection (which includes Spite Marriage)
Rich and Famous
The Old Maid
Also worth noting that I have sold around 1,200 films over the last 6 months and have had no complaints and some of these were Warners titles (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman & Queen of Outer Space).
Also, I have watched some of these films (Personal Best, Crusin', Red Headed Woman when I first purchased them and they were fine. When I buy any disc I always ensure that they play and do a chapter skip.
Last night we ended up watching Fatal Attraction, having not seen it since it's first release. It was the Australian Blu Ray disc. You wouldn't believe it, it stopped half way through, but played fine in the other player. To be far in this case though our primary region B player is on it's last legs and can take up to six goes to start playing a film. The Blu Rays of Kedi & Sieranevada both started breaking up when we watched them a couple of months ago but are fine in every other Blu Ray player we own (both films are Region Free). Clearly in these three cases the problem is the player, not the discs.
I intend to contact Warner Brothers and basically beg them to release the above films on Blu Ray given we the paying customer paid for product that turned faulty. I know Warners have re-released some of these titles on DVD-R, but that is really not good enough. Though to be fair I watched Heart Beat after John Heard passed away and that was a Warner's DVD-R which I had purchased in 2009 and it played fine. I just prefer pressed discs to DVD-Rs & Blu Ray-Rs.