Night of the Living Dead: Any of the cheap discs have good prints?
 

For those few people not in the know, the film Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. Consequently, there's an infinite amount of releases of this film. Apparently one of the anniversary versions or the millenium version is the best. Whatever. I don't care enough about the film to spend more than $6 or $7 on it.

I'm wondering about all of these cheapie discs floating about. I have a NOTLD on a horror compilation DVD. It's surprisingly serviceable. However, I wasn't sure if it's edited or missing footage or dialogue.

No idea, but to let you know, I've seen it at Wal-Mart for $1.

The one from Target for $1 was good enough for me now until I can afford the Mil Edition one in the future or if they re-release a better disc when LOTD comes out on DVD

Dude, get thee to DDD and just buy this > http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=ELE001116 < it's $4.79 -eek- with the 20% off sale. That was THE definitive edition of NOTLD until the Millennium Edition was released. The transfer is excellent and miles above what you're going to find on any PD release.

Ooooh. Nice Price on that. Thanks.

If I'm not mistaken, NOTLD really isn't in the public domain, and Romero could take legal action, it's just that he doesn't have the cash and legal teams that someone like Disney does. Our legal system is such that he would need an upfront amount of cash to pursue the violators, and it's not big enough for the MPAA to care about apparently. So he just goes on with his life. I believe that by only buying an Elite version, that Romero gets a cut of that, as he rightfully should.

Johnny Zhivago's suggestion is an excellent one that you won't regret if you like this film whatsoever.

Absolutely! At that price there is absolutely no reason why anyone should buy a cheapo PD print. I had it (and give it to my brother when I upgraded to the ME)

And actually, this disc has something that the Millennium Edition lacks. :( But I won't say what and spoil it for anyone who HASN'T seen it. :lol:

This is what I've always heard. It was MISTAKENLY believed it was in the public domain because when they changed the name of the film from "Night of the Flesheaters" to "Night of the Living Dead" at the last minute, in their haste they left off the copywrite in the credits.

Under the applicable law in 1968 (the so-called 1909 Copyright Act), omitting a copyright notice from a work automatically put that work into the public domain. Night of the Living Dead is indeed in the public domain, as the copyright notice was left off when the title card was changed before release. It's PD, no mistake about it.

DJ

I've got the Image version and the 20th Century Fox colorized version (which also includes the black & white print).