DVD details for
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (12 October 2001):
The film master used is pretty clean and steady.
Contrast rendition is fine and images are sharp.
The noise and grain level is low. There are also few video artifacts. Some scenes have overenhanced edges and some mild noise reduction artifacts.
Concerning compression I'm not happy.
Makes me wonder who decides at Columbia-Tristar which films are released in 16:9 enhanced widescreen on a dual layer disc and which are squeezed on a single layer so the other layer/side can be used for a mutilated pan&scam version. And on what principles this decision is based.
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) is

- 114 minutes long and full frame (16:9 enhanced 1.85 : 1) so a lot of scanlines are to compress
- a film that definitely appeals more to videophiles than Joe Average, and hardly to children for which it is unsuitable
- framed in such a way that a 4:3 version hurts image composition and often looks akward

Given this the reasonable decision would have been to release the widescreen version on a dual layer disc and no butchered version at all.
Well, it has not been done and as result the average bit rate is 4.3 Mbit/s and drops at times below 3 Mbit/s. I-frame pulsing is visible on several oocasion, fine textures show compression noise and sharpness had to be reduced to remove entropy. Sounds like a candidate for a future superbit version to me. But I guess it's very unlikely Columbia will do superbit versions of more or less obscure black and white films of the 50s that appeal mostly to the art house crowd.
The DVD offers average Columbia-Tristar quality except for the compression that suffers visibly from the use of only one layer which in addition has to be shared with trailers and a superfluous video montage. And is duplicated on the 4:3 version as well. Uh.