Let's Talk Technicolor: 2-Strip, 3-Strip, Everyone Strip

Great thread
I wish there was a serious effort to preserve the animated shorts that were shown over the years in the theaters, rich history that is not available
Some studios shorts are in better shape then others

 

I dunno if it's the best coming of age flick but they had me at Connie Francis crooning the title track.

 

Captains of the Clouds (1942) ~ First of all, hilariously enough, the movie has "Captains" in the title, yet all of the flyers are lieutenants. Whoops. But I get it.

Secondly, Jame Cagney's first Technicolor picture, and he's a prick the whole movie long. If Cagney wasn't Cagney, and we knew somebody like that, consult your mental healthcare professional. This guy's a loon. Ditto for Brenda Marshall, who likes dick more than air.

To match the neurotic nature of Cagney, the film, itself, suffers from schizophrenia; it displays multiple personalities, never quite settling for one. There's a charm to that, though, as everybody screws over whomever they can, and believe you, brothers and sisters, everybody can.

It was a fun watch, bolstered by a more earthen Technicolor pallette, slightly muted, compared to the saturated glow of 1948's The Pirate or 1939's Elizabeth and Essex. The restoration here is just a good as anything that WAC has done. It's beautiful, without a hint of matrice misalignment, and nary a sign of digital manipulation. There's some tough scenes to encode, too. Fog is prevelant. You might expect the image to breakup at any moment, but it never does. I think I caught a tiny whiff of posterization, but we're talking a second at the most.

A big draw for me is the aerial photography, which comprises about 35% of the picture. I'm just spitballing that number, but whatever it is, it's a lot. The aerial scenes were shot using Technicolor's new Monopack technology (introduced in 1941), which was essentially a joint effort between Technicolor and Eastman Kodachrome, to get better color PQ out if smaller cameras, when Technicolor's 500lb camera proved to be impractical. In 1937, aerial photography of New York's skyline was filmed for Selznick's Nothing Sacred, and while it looked a great, it was limited to static images, because those mammoth cameras were unwieldy when aloft. Monopack cured this ill, allowing for planes to perform extreme aerial feats without having to adjust for weight, especially in smaller, single prop planes. The resulting 35mm blowups were of much better quality than standard 16mm Kodachrome, and Captains of the Clouds demonstrates this. The aerial shots are just a smidge grainier than regular three-strip tech, yet I was surprised just how well they fit into the pocket with the standard three-strip footage. It's near seamless. In other words, if you're not looking for it, you're not going to see it.

Also, big props to WAC for not removing the wires holding up model airplanes. The little things mean a lot. It's a nigh perfect film. No discernable DNR. I would have preferred a little more saturated look, but this film is a product of a lot of natural lighting, so the colors follow suit.

This is probably one of the best mono mixes from the 1940s that I've heard. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday. There's nothing peaky about those high-mids that's typical of the era.

It's not a great film by any means. I thought that there would be a lot more combat. The action takes off only during the last 20 minutes of the movie. I'm glad I purchased it, though, as each restoration of this caliber is a minor miracle. That should never be underestimated nor taken lightly.

 

Somebody posted on Blu-ray.com a link for UK Amazon which shows Casablanca in UHD for November 7th, 2022. It's coming (one day or another).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B5LQNMK6?tag=bluraycom-21

 

I watched The Naked Spur on TCM the other day. It is listed as 3 strip on Wikipedia. It looks like it probably had fantastic color when released but the print TCM ran was pretty faded and a bit out of focus.

 

I haven't seen it yet, but The Naked Spur (1953), was released by WAC at the end of last year, with a full restoration of the OG Technicolor negatives, and supposedly it's one of the best. All of the reviews are rave.

I thought that there was some sort of symbiotic relationship between WB and TCM, but perhaps I'm wrong. Who knows what kind of source TCM used, but I'd be surprised if it was the WAC restoration.

 

Watched Giant last night. Not the best transfer like everybody says. I enjoyed it for what it was. Oh well.

 

I

I just looked at the screen caps from the WAC Blu-ray of The Naked Spur on Blu-ray.com. That definitely is not the transfer I saw. I’m gonna have to get that disc.

 

Jeff,

If you google "Naked Spur blu ray review" and you go to the review at blu-ray.com, you'll see, in a strip just above the text of the review a link to screenshots, 26 of them.
This will give you a hint of how beautiful this recent Warner Archive is. Unless the settings on your tv are out of whack, the blu ray will look much better than that.

 

Thanks. We cross posted.

Definitely a different transfer.

 

Yeah, sometimes the prints TCM run are sub-par - Showboat for one - but I'm watching Funny Face right now and the colors are simply dazzling. This isn't a WAC job (heh heh) but Paramount has done this movie right. I'm not sure what print this is but I notice there's an earlier release and a Paramount Presents version that came out about a month ago. Anyone got this?

 

Not Technicolor, today I picked up the Criterion Girl Can't Help It Blu-ray at Barnes and Noble's 50% off sale. Given Frank Tashlin's involvement, I expected this to have bright/vivid/richly saturated color but to me this restoration's color looks washed out, reds tend towards muddy orange tones, turquoise overtones galore where things should be white, blue seems to dominate the color palette, everything looks too dark. I've got a 65" LG OLED and when a source is good it really pops, if it sux it ruthlessly lays out the flaws - I think this one is less than stellar. Anybody have the dvd version from around 2006? How's the color on that one?

 

Re: GIRL CAN'T HELP IT blu ray - there was an extensive thread about this over at the hometheaterforum, I and others feel that this is WAY too "bluish." SH thinks it looks pretty good
(way) up THIS thread. I pre-ordered this then canceled when I saw the screenshots, electing to keep the dvd that came in the Jayne Mansfield 3-dvd collection, which looks
right to me.

Here's what I don't understand: Via Vision (Australia) brought out a first ever blu ray of the 3-strip 1952 WAR OF THE WORLDS. There was widespread consternation that in an opening scene
of their release Mars was blue. When Criterion picked up this transfer for domestic release, they changed Mars to look properly reddish due to widespread comments on the blu-ray.com forum, and maybe elsewhere. So if they could apparently easily fix that, HOW HARD would it be
for them to shift the color balance of the GIRL CAN'T HELP IT (or for that matter Criterion's "bluish" original FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX?)

 

I don't understand - as far as I know, the only blu ray is the 2014 version, although some say the one in the (7 blu ray?) Audrey Hepburn Collection is newer.
I'd be all in for a blu ray with a better transfer, even a 4K disc since this was filmed in VistaVision, so more information in the OCN is there to be "mined," if it still exists in decent shape.

 

Yeah, my bad. It appears the one released a month ago is probably the same as the older one. Good! The older one is cheaper. The picture quality wasn't exactly perfect but the colors really popped.

 

I had a laserdisc back in the day of Funny Face that was pretty terrible. I caught a few minutes of the TCM showing and it looked great.

 

What’s going on with this forum?
I get up this morning and
SEVENTEEN of the first 25 threads are started by the same “guy with the Elvis avatar,” and a bunch of the NEXT 25, too! Much the same YESTERDAY.

Is it just ME or is something odd going on here?

 

4-strip CMYK!

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “film print”.

 

War Of The Worlds 4K is headed for a September release courtesy of Paramount Presents. Supposed to be a two-fer with When Worlds Collide but I think that second title may just be a BR.

 

Someone very bored?

 

I hope you don’t mean ME (!)

It seemed so weird that I was wondering if the site had been hacked - I guess it was just that most everyone else had just “checked out” for the holiday, leaving “Elvis avatar guy” and his threads to proliferate without competition.

 

Threads over at blu-ray and HTF forums are wondering, as I do, if the 4K release will fix the “blue Mars” depiction at the start of the movie as the Criterion blu ray did over the Australian Imprint blu ray (if only Criterion had done this with THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT!) Mars is properly RED on the Criterion blu ray.

I’m wondering if there’s much more to be had in a 4K release of this film. The guessing is that ALL of these were derived from 4K scan made and supplied by Paramount.

 

No of course I didn't mean you. Every now and then I suddenly see a bombardment of threads generally from new members -does not seem to be the case- they last one day or two and then the poster go away to never be seen again. One possibility is most members here are based in the US -I didn't check the timing- he might be in another country time zone and there was nobody else posting, as you've said he had no competition. Still a very prolific thread starter, I can see quite a lot of those still on the first page.

 

I used to pre-order the newer “4K Editions” routinely, but I’ve been burned enough times by now that I’ll just wait for a review from someone I trust.