Sandpiper Pictures Blu-ray

[John Johnson]

Anyone heard of this label? Rumour has it, it's Twilight Time revamped.

Sandpiper Pictures will add six new titles to its Blu-ray catalog. They are: Khartoum (1966), Wuthering Heights (1970), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Another Woman (1988), Radio Days (1987), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Shadows and Fog (1991).



https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=31238

[AndyDursin]

There's definitely no revamping involved lol -- these are the exact same MGM catalog masters that Twilight Time, Shout and other labels released on their Blu-Rays.

I don't know who Sandpiper is specifically -- they don't send review product to anyone, they don't remaster the transfers or include extras on their discs (AFAIK). Everything they're putting out are MGM licenses to Blu-Rays that have HD masters already produced and released in the format.

What happens is the MGM licenses to their film/TV/music properties expire (and seemingly at a shorter duration than other companies). It's the same thing that happens to MGM soundtracks -- like POLTERGEIST II, when it moved from Intrada to Varese to Kritzerland and back to Intrada again. All of their licensed properties have an end point, then they move along to another label if they're not renewed. (In addition to whatever fees are involved, I'm pretty sure this was one of the reasons Lukas passed on releasing MGM titles during the last few years of FSM's existence producing CDs -- I remember going through the catalog for him, finding some potentially interesting titles to release, but he opted not to go forward. I'm not sure how much bang you were getting for your buck when the license would run out after a couple of years or however long it is. Anyway, Intrada, Kritzerland, Quartet, etc. ended up with various titles from their catalog instead).

The Sandpiper prices are pretty high for barebones old catalog transfers -- but if you missed CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and don't want to pay the $100+ the Twilight Time disc routinely went for (at least for a while!), I definitely don't blame you

[mkaroly]

Maybe they will do MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY too - unfortunately I was slow and missed out on the TT release.

[AndyDursin]

That one is a Sony license -- Woody had moved to Tri-Star for just a couple of movies after his Orion deal ended -- so I don't know if Sandpiper would release that as they only seem to deal with MGM licenses.

Sony ought to reissue it themselves though, but it's almost as if only the small boutique places are interested in dealing with Allen's catalogue right now. Hopefully someone picks it up, that one still sells for like $100.

[AndyDursin]

Also from what I've read on a few titles at least the Sandpiper discs are single layer whereas TT's were dual layer. So on The Russia House it's the same master but Sandpipers release has a lower bit rate.

[AndyDursin]

Just to follow up on this as I bought a couple of their releases: these are clearly Olive discs, coming from Olive everywhere but the name on the spine. The presentation, packaging, fonts, etc. all look like Olive Films. What's intriguing is there's no address or other information for Sandpiper, no PR firm providing review copies, nothing -- making you think Olive "rebranded" itself for, ahem, "business reasons". Maybe they declared bankruptcy. I have no idea, but it IS a little strange.