I have just seen that a prince of tides criterion ld has sold on lddb for $250 , well my first thoughts were that it seems to be overpriced but on looking more closley I would say its a real bargain. You might already be aware of this but I wasnt so heres the story of the first release of prince of tides cc159 as told by jeff krispow a ld reveiwer.
I was an LD (and DVD) reviewer for nearly 20 years, and I received a copy of that real first printing of PRINCE OF TIDES directly from Criterion. Contrary to whatever Criterion's "official company line" might be, that first disc obviously existed, because several thousand copies were pressed. (I'll see if I can find my info on the exact pressing run.)
As far as I can remember, no actual copies had yet been distributed to stores. IF, and that's a big IF, any were, it would have been to a couple local LD stores, and they would have been easily recalled. But of those actual copies "released" outside of Criterion, they went directly to maybe 10 or so reviewers nationwide, myself included.
In what turned out to be a very costly problem for Criterion, Barbra Streisand had COMPLETE control of the LD, and had final approval. The entire project met with her approval every step of the way, and the disc was pressed. But when a copy was given to Streisand for the final sign off, she refused to give it — she was very unhappy with the way she sounded in her commentary track, and wanted to do it over. There were also a few minor items in the supplementary material she wished to revise. And since she had final approval and creative control over the LD, Criterion had no choice but to follow her instructions and start work on revising the LD.
Because of all that, Criterion "recalled" the LD, and all copies were ordered destroyed. Legally, none could be released and sold at retail. Of course, not all the copies were "recalled" and destroyed — we reviewer could keep our copies, and Criterion did hand one out to each employee that year as Christmas presents.
As an LD fan, from a collector's point of view I sometimes regret selling the disc, since there are only maybe 50 copies at most in existence.
I have several "one-of-a-kind" discs, where maybe 1-5 copies were ever pressed. These were either test pressings, or in a couple of cases final pressings with full covers. I even have alternate finished jackets for several discs that were never released (the artwork or designs had to be changed). Anyway, these titles/discs never made it to market for one reason or another — sudden legal issues, rights pulled/lost at the last minute, etc. I know of several cases at one studio/company where they legally obtained a title, or so they thought — they'd press a few test copies, or even the final disc, only to later discover that the "rights-holder" didn't actually legally hold the rights to the title(s) they were selling in the first place. Very messy... and costly.
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