Interested, yes, but interested, no. On one hand I'd like to know what's out there, but on the other, I find it very difficult to play DVDs upscaled on a 4K TV. I bought Ben-Hur (1925) recently on DVD, because 1.) I've only seen parts of the original, which many deem a masterpiece, and 2.) The restoration was done by Photoplay, who is one of the best in the business, so I thought, it can't look bad, can it? Yes it can! The bitch part is that you can tell it's a helluva restoration beneath the pixels. The only problem is the pixels. Now I've got to watch this movie on my laptop or phone screen to render a good image. Nuts! Edit: Oh, by the way, I have Montez & Hall 3 film package coming in today from Kino Lorber.
C’mon evolvist, it’s not that bad, I’m watching it now in youboob. Very nice colors across the board. And one more time Marilyn Miller dance segment where they found 2 minutes of color 2 strip tech and re inserted it into the lousy multi generational black and white print. Listen also how much the vista phone audio on the color sections just blow away the normal soundtrack…… Marilyn Miller 1929: Beave And remember, the set was around 100 degrees!
This is from Sally (1929), isn't it? The entire film was Two-strip Technicolor, but now only a few segments remain.
Yes Ev. Literally just a few minutes in color that they found, And WITHIN those elements are lower quality frames that they connected together, a really amazing snippet literally 2 or 3 frames they used to piece that segment together. It’s so sad when you think about it guys. So much lost…………. Beave
Found a third edition PDF of this. I became a videophile when I saw how good a calibrated Pioneer plasma looked in the early 2000s but I have not read much at all about these early video technologies like I have with early audio with Klangfilm, Western Electric, etc. Looking forward to this journey!
I need a digital copy because my physical copy of "Film Style and Technology" is falling apart. It's one of my favorite books.
I'm not gloating; I'm just excited that I booked my trip to the 2023 Nitrate Film Festival at the George Eastman Museum campus, June 1st-4th. They don't reveal the itenerary until the first day of the fest, but the first night will be an IB print of Black Narcissus (1947). I'm geeked! They've projected this print a few years ago and the reviews were that it is an astonishing print. I'm sure there will be more than one Technicolor feature, and perhaps some IB trailers, but of course I'm in for B&W films, too. I'm hoping for at least one silent picture and maybe a solid noir. But whatever, I'm just happy to be going and to pop my Technicolor cherry.
Haha! Yeah. I've read all of their fire protection/prevention information. There are theater exits by the screen, furthest away from the inferno.
THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR, 1948 RKO Radio Pictures, Technicolor. Produced by Dore Schary before he went over to M-G-M. Starring Dean Stockwell and Pat O'Brien with Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale, etc. When Peter's parents are killed in the war, he is sent to various relatives to be looked after and ends up with Gramps, an ex-circus performer now working as a singing waiter. One day Peter's hair turns green and he becomes a symbol of the horrors and futility of war. The Warner Archive Collection release is so amazing, I'm just blown away. THIS is how every Technicolor restoration should look. It's obvious that the picture AND sound source used on this was first generation and pristine. No idea how or why these elements survived fires and time, but if you want to see what could be done with the right elements and the right people in charge, watch this one! Trust Steve. Also includes a low def but wonderful M-G-M short subject, "The Passing Parade" short with Dean Stockwell from 1946, narrrated by John Nesbitt. Brings me back to watching these M-G-M shorts on KTTV Channel 11 here in Los Angeles. A worthy Technicolor Blu-ray for your collection and I'm damn hard to please..
I remember being affected by this movie as a child in the early 60s when it was the boy with the b&w hair. Bought the dvd several years ago and will happily upgrade. Another film WA did that recently impressed is Captains Of The Clouds. Beautiful restoration of an 80 year old Technicolor film, particularly the aerial sequences.
I just checked. Mine is coming in on Saturday. I'm in Rochester for the fest, so I'll see it when I get back. After your report, now I'm extra excited to see it. Yeah, this is good stuff. I especially love that they didn't erase the wires holding the model aircraft. I love seeing that stuff!
There's only a handful of film screening rooms left in LA that are insured and "certified" to handle Nitrate film. I know the old Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. was, and Cinemateque showed several nitrates about 10-12 years ago. I had to admit, there is something different about a B&W nitrate image: it's got some built-in diffusion and glow that's very different from more-contrasty safety stock. Netflix bought that theater a few years ago, so I'm not sure what their current status is. I have handled nitrate before, and it is stinky stuff. Nowadays, some other guy down the hall does the scan before I get this stuff, and so all I see are digital files. If they deflicker it and stabilize the fragile chemicals in the stock, a digital restoration can look rock-solid and beautiful. It's not the same as being projected on film, but it may be the only that survives the next 20-30-40 years.
I'm anticipating the WA release in late June of Land Of The Pharaohs. Not a great flick but some great sets and color that I'm sure will look gorgeous. Helen Of Troy is coming down the pike, too.
Supposedly at the fest they have this thing where we get to handle nitrate, or finger it, or whatever. I don't know what it is exactly, but they've been doing for a few years to gain a closer experience into nitrate. I guess I'll find out.
(I think I told this story earlier...) When the MPAA did a "safety class" for us back in the 1980s, we went outside and they took a 1-foot strip of bad nitrate film and a bucket of water, put a weight on the end of the film, lit the film on fire, and dropped it into the bucket of water. The fire continued to burn underwater, because nitrocellulose creates its own source for oxygen when it burns. A nitrate fire is very, very difficult to put out, and if you have hundreds (or thousands) of feet of nitrate film in deteriorating cans, and one catches on fire, it can turn into an explosive inferno. Don't forget the scene in Inglorious Basterds where the Nazis in the 1940s movie theater burn up in a monstrous nitrate explosion... Mr. Tarantino very much knows his film history, even for a fictional "reimagined" film like this.
Land of the Pharaohs was a CinemaScope release in "WarnerColor", which I believe means it was Eastman single strip color film processed by Warner's lab, which was a hit and miss proposition at the time. While the film is a lesser entry from Howard Hawks, it is definitely worth a watch. The sequences where they present a somewhat plausible method for how the Pyramids were constructed and sealed appeal to my nerdy engineer sensibilities.
I always think of that scene, but before that movie there was the burning of Atlanta scene in Gone With the Wind (1939) where they burned reels and reels of priceless nitrate film to create the fire - film that we'll never get back. Whole films were lost, mostly silents. I'll never understand how David Selznick got away with this, how this was greenlit, especially since WB at that time were at least making small attempts at keeping their films archived and preserved. I've never read an explanation, but maybe because they were silents that nobody cared. I've also never seen nitrate burn. In the military, nitrate was used as an explosive, but when I got there it had long been phased out for cordite and its derivatives. However, I have seen white phosphorus burn, and it's a lot like nitrate. You can't hardly get anything to put it out. It has to wear itself out. Terrible stuff.
Source for that Selznick story? Gas jets and King Kong village gate set was how I understood it. They started and stopped the fire at least three times for different angles, using the gas valves. Can’t do that with burning nitrate.
Evidently I fell prey to an urban myth. This is what I believed to be true long before the internet. I never questioned it until today. Thank you. It makes much more sense that it isn't true. I know Selznick had at least some affinity to preserving film (at least his own), so it always smacked at incongruous to his personality, even though he was a dick. L B Mayer intentionally burned up Tiffany's silent library - NitrateVille.com
