This now-discontinued Blu-Ray release of Carol Reed's genre-defining noir classic "The Third Man" is the definitive presentation of the film. It was discontinued when Studio Canal acquired the distribution rights to the film and released its own Blu-Ray edition in 2010. The Studio Canal Blu-Ray is clearly inferior in basically every observable or quantifiable way to the Criterion edition, which was pressed from an excruciatingly carefully crafted remaster of the film, which involved, among other things, a chemical and digital restoration of the film elements that involved more than 22,000 individual touch-ups to remove specks of dust, dirt and other damage and distortions from the original film. This version is so prized that it now sells for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Film fans should not be deprived of this definitive archival pressing of such an important movie, or be forced to pay hundreds of bucks for it, just because Studio Canal decided to gobble up the rights and release a crappy successor to it, so I post it here because this treasure should be preserved and accessible to film fans everywhere.

Over at DVDBeaver.com you can find an excellent technical and visual account of the difference between this release and Studio Canal's Blu-Ray (as well as previous DVD releases) with screen captures and disc data:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/thirdman.htm

United Kingdom 1949 104 minutes Black and White 1.33:1 English

Criterion Collection Spine #64

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, black-market opportunist Harry Lime—and thus begins this legendary tale of love, deception, and murder. Thanks to brilliant performances by Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles; Anton Karas’s evocative zither score; Graham Greene’s razor-sharp dialogue; and Robert Krasker’s dramatic use of light and shadow, The Third Man, directed by the inimitable Carol Reed, only grows in stature as the years pass.

Disc Features •New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed mono soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition •Video introduction by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich •Two audio commentaries: one by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, and one by film scholar Dana Polan •Shadowing “The Third Man” (2005), a ninety-minute feature documentary on the making of the film •Abridged recording of Graham Greene’s treatment, read by actor Richard Clarke •“Graham Greene: The Hunted Man,” an hour-long, 1968 episode of the BBC’s Omnibus series, featuring a rare interview with the novelist •Who Was the Third Man? (2000), a thirty-minute Austrian documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew •The Third Man on the radio: the 1951 “A Ticket to Tangiers” episode of The Lives of Harry Lime series, written and performed by Orson Welles; and the 1951 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Third Man •Illustrated production history with rare behind-the-scenes photos, original UK press book, and U.S. trailer •Actor Joseph Cotten’s alternate opening voice-over narration for the U.S. version •Archival footage of postwar Vienna •A look at the untranslated foreign dialogue in the film •Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Runtime: 1:45:13.348 Disc Size: 43,293,713,595 bytes Feature Size: 27,234,594,816 bytes Audio: Original 1.0 mono soundtrack in uncompressed LPCM 768 kbps 16-bit/48khz; 3 alternate audio tracks (all English, Dolby Digital 1.0 16/48 at 192 to 224 kbps) Video: AVC Subtitles: English only Average Bitrate: 34.51 Mbps Blu-Ray Format: Dual-layer Region: A File Format: .ISO (bit-for-bit exact copy of the Criterion Blu-Ray release, including menus, supplements, BD-Java, etc.)