Yeah, try not to scan Gilbert & Sullivan with a microscope. Also, the point was using Japan to have a go at Britain.
Cool! Thanks for adding to the list. The first Universal Hitchcock box was 4 films, the second box was 5, with Universal only owning 5 more films for a third box: Rope (1948) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Torn Curtain (1966) Topaz (1969) Frenzy (1972) There's no other place to go for these films but in a third box, meanwhile Universal confirmed that there would be a third box, only not the content. But since they only have the 5 leftover, well... I hope Universal has the OG negs for Phantom of the Opera (1943), because there's a fair amount of misalignment on the blu-ray. It would seem kind of pointless to me to put out any three-strip film in 4K with misalignment of the elements. It would great if it was fully restored.
VERY interesting and “food for thought,” - thanks! That’s some pretty impressive detective work, entirely reasonable and believable. Among my recent blu-ray purchases, a couple of 3-strip movies (the second one PARTIAL!): “The Captain from Castile” on Twilight Time, (OOP) available from screenarchives.com (or eBay, etc.) I had passed on this when it was new, but recently had my mind changed when I read Glenn Erickson’s (“rerun”?) review at his cinesavant.com site on July 19, it’s right under the date, the caption starting with “1947 Mexico.” I check his site every Tuesday and Saturday, when new columns go up. “The Women” (1939) from Warner Archive, a black & white movie with an entire scene in beautiful 3-strip Technicolor! The whole scene is up at Vimeo.com titled “The Women-1939-Fashion Show” 5 minutes, 40 seconds. I saw this in an old thread at blu-ray.com titled “The Official 3-Strip Technicolor on Blu-ray.” There’s other enticing stuff there that I’d missed that are now OOP and going for big $$, (sigh).
How is the picture quality on the Olive Signature disc? I have a DVD under the Republic Pictures name I think, and it just seems to be a little on the soft or blurry side for the picture.
Very nice, I think - not up to the amazing quality Warner Archive now routinely delivers (what is?) but still well worth having. Not “fuzzy” at all. This is a film that I like to revisit from time to time and I’m glad to have it in this quality - no doubt it could have been done even (slightly) better given a bigger budget, but I think this is the best we’re likely to get, and as I say, very nice indeed - I highly recommend.
I wish I could claim that work, but there are people out there who keep up with the ins and outs of ownership, distribution, rights, etc., on the daily, who pass down this information. I do remember when Rope was advertised as coming out on the 2nd Hitchcock box, but was pulled in favor of Saboteur or Shadow of a Doubt. Note also, that if the 3rd Universal Hitchcock box holds true (I'm 95% certain), this would be the only all-color Hitchcock box, with one three-strip and another VistaVision. WB holds the rights to North by Northwest (1959), also in Technicolor VistaVision, which will assuredly make a great standalone 4K release. I think that would be a big seller.
NxNW was shot in VistaVision, but not in 3-strip Technicolor -- it was shot on regular Kodak negative by DP Robert Burks. My guess is they'd scan from the original 8-perf 35mm VistaVision negatives, which I bet would look spectacular. I mastered an early version of North by Northwest for MGM many years ago, but all they had at that time was a flat 35mm reduction IP, which didn't look great. The negative would remove several layers of crud from the image, and it'd be far steadier, too. The 1959 release prints were Technicolor, but that kind of doesn't mean anything today. Anything could be printed on Technicolor, but it didn't necessarily give you a great image. That's one of the problems with the word: it kind of started meaning a lot less once Process 4 went away. True, the dye-transfer prints lasted a long time, but the reality is they'd get so scratched and beat-up during a typical theatrical run, it sort of didn't matter. I would agree that an 8-perf negative scan really could give you 4K of information, even in 1959. I don't think 4-perf could do it, but VistaVision is a big, big negative... It'd be interesting to see if they release it in 1.66 (full image area) or 1.85 (the projected image area for most theaters).
I believe it HAS to be 1.85:1, that’s what we’re all used to and most likely what Hitchcock intended, and please none of that nonsense like “The Ten Commandments” 4K at 1.78;1! This has been high on my (lengthy) VistaVision “wishlist” along with “The Searchers” and “Funny Face” (that IS VV, right?) With Universal releases I wait for reviews, from Warner I feel confident enough to pre-order. Speaking of which, Universal is releasing on blu-ray 8/23/22 “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” more 3-strip Technicolor! Already up for pre-order from Moviezyng - I’ll be waiting for reviews!
Right. I didn't mean to intimate that it's three-strip, only VistaVision originally printed in Technicolor. One great thing about HDR, though, is how they can inch closer to an IB look, using a reference, like Vertigo and The Trouble with Harry. Both of those releases Universal did in 1.85:1. Be that as it may, since no two IB prints are exactly alike, we have to roll with what they give us.
Yes, Funny Face (1957) was VistaVision. I know, it sucks about TTC, but the image, itself, is wonderful.
Well, there's about 12 pixels (in HD) of difference between 1.78 and 1.85 -- my argument has always been, if you see an extra 1/2" of picture at the top and bottom, does it destroy the film? I actually disagree, and I just got certified as a Dolby Vision mastering engineer (I've been "certifiable" for years) and our facility just got licensed as a Dolby Vision facility. A brighter image with more dynamic range is not necessarily closer to IB Technicolor -- it's two different things. We actually try hard not to push the Dolby Vision levels too hard with old movies, because the picture falls apart quickly. It's really tough to make a video image looked like a projected film print, because it's such a different subjective experience. We've been cautioned many times by studios, "hey, don't make this movie look 'too modern' -- keep it in the same subdued tones it had as a print." I've encountered a few 1970s/1980s/1990s films where they punched the hell out of it, went for the whole teal/orange thing, really got aggressive with the look... and that's kind of a temptation with HDR. We lean towards being conservative when we can, unless it's a contemporary film, and for those you can go crazy since digitally-sourced camera images can take it.
Color saturation and brightness are two different things, though, right? With Technicolor, it's the saturation that gives it its signature look, not necessarily the brightness. I prime example would be The Ladykillers (1955), which is arguably the most well-preserved Technicolor film released in HDR, outside of The Wizard of Oz. The Ladykillers employs what's been dubbed "Technicolor Black" due to the emphasis of deeper blacks that Technicolor afforded. The film, Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), first employed this emphasis on darkness, as Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe lead this charge. DP, Otto Heller, with The Ladykillers, was a fan of Slocombe's work, lighting for a lot of deep shadows. I mean, I understand addressing the brightness issue, because, generally, a lot of people think of Technicolor as "bright," because The Wizard of Oz is such a benchmark, but there have been some releases of The Wizard of Oz that have been overly bright and overly saturated. I think a poster mentioned the wicked witch having a radioactive green face. I think he hit the nail on the head. Thus, it's a case-by-case basis, using OG sources as a reference, yet, at the same time, HDR does allow for more "accurate" color reproduction, within the confines of what IB Technicolor was able to innately accomplish when it was first printed. Rec.709 has its limitations, meanwhile no consumer television can render 12-bit Rec.2020, but Rec.2020 covers more bases, thus my comment "inches closer." It's in the hands of the modern colorist. I, too, have seen modern films mismanaged in HDR, overcooking the colors, but I can't say that out of the 5 three-strip films that are out in 4K HDR, that I've seen anything outside of the scope that one would expect from three-strip Technicolor, yet there are plenty of three-strip Blu-rays that lacks that certain je ne sais quoi that HDR accomplishes. I see deeper colors with HDR. Not necessarily brighter ones.
That is comforting to know. I just watched the The Garden Of Allah BD last week and I was blown away by certain aspects of color elements I see often ruined even by current digital capture much less in digital restoration. The color of orange of the flames in the campfire scenes was spot on. No blow outs to yellow as I've seen in digital video captures. Sometimes old technology like 3-Strip Technicolor can get it right more than modern digital capture. The Garden Of Allah BD DVDbeaver screengrabs I posted a link to up thread are exactly as they appear on my eyeball calibrated Samsung HDtv. I was expecting overly red skin tones but fortunately that wasn't the case. The overall color and look of this film is incredible. Very dream like.
Reading accounts of the first use of the 3-strip Technicolor it was mentioned they had to do several test shots due to the garish over saturated colors. They didn't mention the adjustments made to correct for this. But how and when over saturated results occurs has to be at the dye transfer stage because the color filtered light out of the camera is in b&w negative film. There's no color in B&W obviously. Something happens I've learned shooting sunlit color with my DSLR is the issue of fluorescing when direct sunlight shines on a transparent or semi transparent colored object like a back lit by the sun green leaf which turns electric green. I'm sure you've seen this outdoors in nature. My DSLR's Raw feed will crush this into a dull mid range green viewed in Adobe Camera Raw due to the wide gamut of this type of scene. So in a restoration of the green of the wicked witch in Oz there has to be some guess on the level of fluorescing in the dyes because the more light on the witch the more that green make up is going to induce fluorescing on the B&W negative in the form of clear film which produce a blowout or electric green.
Too bad there's no before comparison on Technicolor restoration. I did a search including Kino Lorber's site and get nothing. They don't seem to want to toot their horn on the artistry of their restoration work. I'ld like to see a before condition on the "Garden Of Allah" BD.
I think there's more to it than that. Don't forget that the 3-strip Technicolor productions were also shot on nitrate, which is another factor in why they looked the way they do. I also think so much care (and expense) was taken on Technicolor productions, they couldn't help but look really, really good. BTW, I often joke about being in Technicolor's building, but we really are. Grabbed this shot the other day on my way into the office: This is the original building over on Romaine Street here in Hollywoo. Lotta ghosts in this building. I don't think the scanners can reproduce the "deep colors" of HDR or Dolby Vision, so I don't think it's there. Modern digital cameras can hit those levels, but even then, consumer sets can't reproduce deep color gamut (like Rec2020) just yet. I'm even skeptical that average consumer sets can hit P3, which is a lot easier to do. Most of the really tough colors to reproduce are in the deep red and high green areas (as shown in the chart above), and to tell you the truth, I'm not convinced they're actually an issue with modern films. I tend to notice the high brightness of video levels in Dolby Vision first... although the other day, we were watching a movie that started with a closeup of a big street stoplight, and I said out loud, "well, that's what I call Dolby Vision," because the reds of the streetlight were just about overpowering. But that was a digital production, I think the new Netflix action film The Gray Man (shot on Sony Venice, which is a great digital camera). BTW, I ordered the 4K Dolby Vision Blu-ray of Singin' in the Rain (mastered by WB MPI), and we'll see how that looks. That's a later 3-strip Technicolor film, and I have no doubt they worked very hard on it. I don't know if all the separation negatives survived, but I'm sure they got it together as best they could, 70 years after the fact.
Had some fun in the last few days attempting to simulate the "Look" of 1936 3-Strip Technicolor in Adobe Camera Raw from what I saw in "The Garden Of Allah" BD on my own photos. It's not exact of course but these kind of color grading simulations get me to come up with a "look" I wouldn't have considered but can use on a number of my personal digital shots as a fun hobby. Applying these saved settings to a series of my images still needed work on an image by image basis from the various changes to exposure/white balance so it wouldn't be economical and feasible to apply to a 24 frames per second movie. Focused more on the odd neutrals from green shifts I saw in the referenced Technicolor movie complemented by the vibrant primaries. Photos on the left are the original finished rendering, on the right the Technicolor simulation.
Yeah, I've thought about this, but having no way of knowing if the scanned print is a pre-1949 nitrate print, it's kind of difficult to put your finger on it, which is another trapping of Technicolor viewed through a 2020 vantage. It's only a guess, but I suspect, with no way of proving it, that several of the beloved Technicolor titles might be sourced from 1st gen nitrate transfers. They look so different from modern safety Eastman stock: The Garden of Allah (1936) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) Under Capricorn (1949) Although Under Capricorn is 1949, according to Haines' book, Under Capricorn had some nitrate IB prints. I don't imagine that there was a hard cuttover to safety stock on New Years day 1949, so that would make sense. Thats super cool! Thanks for sharing. I like the Technicolor monkey.
The negatives? Or the dye transfer prints? Or both? The negatives' density range (blackest black to whitest white) have to match up with the dye formulation prints' densities. If not, it's all mystery meat. And then the artistry of the restorer becomes critical in the final look. Don't know what nitrate does to negatives in the look of the final positive print. Don't know how much it throws off the final matrices. This is why it would be good to show the before and after restoration.
Yeah, I really don't know what difference nitrate film would make either, but I'm interested. As @Tim Lookingbill said, I'd really like to see an in depth Technicolor restoration from start to finish. Not just a before and after featurette.
Whoa. It started out as the right comment and then I somehow pasted a whole other Tull comment I made on the TaaB forum right in the middle. Dang it. Don't even know I managed to do that.
National Velvet (1944) ~ I bought this on a lark, because it was on sale. I remember in gradeschool this girl reading the book, but I never read it nor peeped the movie. Boy, what a surprise! I was really into the film. Now, it's just this side of cloying, so I don't think it reached total sappy saturation, but what stuck out to me was how good Mickey Rooney was, and how young Liz Taylor was. For some reason I had it in my head that Elizabeth Taylor was an older teen in this film, but no, she was a little girl! She was 12 when they filmed it. Anyway, the Technicolor. This film has more of a muted pallette, yet it still screams Technicolor. It's kind of like The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), as far as the colors, but National Velvet is a first class restoration by any standards. Of course it is; it was put out by WAC! With very few opticals, there's nothing distracting about the image. It's super clean and perfectly aligned. On another note, I don't know enough about the Technicolor cameras, themselves (which I'll remedy), but it seems to me, by watching enough of these, that cameras has an issue with long focus. Or, at least there is an issue with the film, itself, in conjunction with the cameras. In other words, some permutation of the above. For example, let's say the camera is shooting a closeup. It's as clear as a bell, displaying detail down to the pores in faces. But take that same shot and zoom back, back, back, the focus is very different from what B&W usually diaplays, and modern color film, too. It has a "dupey" look to my eyes, even from the OG negs. I've seen the flip hold true. The camera will start off with a dupey looking long shot, but then zoom in, where the image is nice and natural, retaining much detail. In a similar vein, let's say you're watching a Technicolor film and you know there's some slight misalignment with the matrices, but when they zoom out, boy, you can really tell just how misaligned they are, because the long shots have green and red bleed, halos around the actors. Also, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944), I wasn't as impressed as I was with Cobra Woman, also from 1944. Ali Baba looked extra dupey and the story sucked. It makes me wonder if they were just churning those Montez & Hall movies out, as fast as they could. I'll end up getting the latest set from KL, but I'm not expecting the world. Just fun.
