Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - Italian BD

(Italian title: L'invasione degli ultracorpi)

• Release date: Mar. 18, 2014
• Publisher: Sinister Film
• Region code: Free? (A/B)
  Region code is not explicitly stated on the package and disc,
  but at least I had no problem for playback on my PC with region-A setup.
  

The Packaging

There's no insert or booklet.

Menu

Menus are not animated, but w/ the opening title music.
No popup menu is available.

Setup

English

While I could not find the way to turn off Italian subtitles in this menu,
I could eventually turn them off from the player's menu.

Chapters

Extras

All the extras seem to be in SD thus likely PAL.
But I can't confirm as I saw them only on PC,
which effectively ignore those differences.

• Kevin McCarthy (6:45)
  An interview conducted by Tom Hatten.
  Though recording date and other details are not stated,
  I believe this is the same one in the US laserdisc
  from Republic many years ago.
  
  
• The Night America Trembled (1957/BW/52:42)
  
  
  An episode from CBS's "Studio One"
  originally aired on Sep. 9, 1957, hosted by Edward R. Murrow.
  
  
  This is a dramatization of the (in)famous incident caused by
  Orson Welles' radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds".
  Video/audio quality is not very good but serviceable.
  
  
  Here it's included with Westing House commercials.
  
  
• Presentation by Luigi Cozzi (9:12)
  
  
  Naturally, it's in Italian with no subtitles.
  
• Gallery (1:51)
  A slideshow of various publicity materials from Italy and US.
  No narration, no music, no captions.
  
• Trailer (BW/2:15)
  US version. It has some scratches.
  

Video/audio quality

I watched this BD projected onto 60" screen first, then on 27' PC monitor.

It looks and sounds good to me.
The picture is clean, without blemishes that often plague old movies.

One can argue picture is slightly too soft
(especially when you freeze frame to check the details)
and black levels need to be a bit deeper,
but I think they are nitpicking.

I've only listened to English dts-HD track, which is also clean.

Navigation problem

I'm not sure if this happens in other environment,
but I had problems for navigation
with PowerDVD and WinDVD.

The disc doesn't allow me to skip chapters, move forward/backward etc.
Both the main feature and extras have the same problem.
(For the main feature, you can go back to the chapter menu and select a scene, though.)

Conclusion

With good video/audio quality, some interesting extras,
and fairly low price (when I got it, at least),
I think this is a better choice
than US BD from Olive Films.