I will do that this weekend. Thank you for that link! I first got hooked on 2 strip technicolor Via YouTube on a late Saturday morning (like 2 am) stumbling upon this clip of Marilyn Miller………. The restoration of the “lost” 2 strip technicolor frames into a fuzzy black and white print captivated my imagination. They had like 4 sources they used on this for a few minutes! That’s so cool to me it’s not even funny. I eventually got the Laserdisc of that movie which did have that sequence on it. But my interest in 2 strip, and then 3 strip Technicolor began. So then I bought that big O book on Technicolor, that MASSIVE book that I still haven’t opened. And then……after a year from that, I came across THIS….. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA Again, I was now aware of NITRATE film and it’s volatility in the history of early film. Good God. A film that’s over 100 years old and they were able to get 11 of the 14 minutes preserved. Incredible watching this with all the nitrate damage running in fron of my eyes. So, here I am. Ready to learn. One problem I have is adhd, so watching films means I take a smoke break every 20 minutes. Really annoying but as I get older hopefully it will sub Thank You! Beave
A really cool story how you got into it. Me, I had always been into Three-strip Technicolor when I was a kid, but I didn't know it by name. I was just amazed that they had color film in those days. I thought that The Wizard of Oz was the only one for a while, but then I'd catch something on TV that had the same colors as TWoO, so I began piecing things together. It's funny, but from this forum I learned that I'm far from the only one who, as a real little kid, thought that the world was once B&W, because that's the way that old photos were. When I asked my father about it, he pulled my leg, and laughed that yeah, it was pretty amazing when one day he woke up and everything was in color. Of course it didn't take me long to get over that notion, but old film, photos, and pretty much anything "old" fascinated me, which had all lead me to where I am today. You know, I'm just musing, but even with my reinvigored fervor for Technicolor, B&W film still holds an extremely special place in my heart. I don't watch many silent films; nevertheless, my brain wants to fill in the blanks with color, as it naturally gravitates toward seeing the world through their eyes, before talking pictures. With the advent of talkies, the sound adds an extra element to the image, where I just enjoy the B&W photography, without the need to colorize it in my mind. Anyhow, you mentioned nitrate film, which is essentially a type of gunpowder, and I'm reminded of the excellent documentary, Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), which chronicles the history of nitrate film, but particularly the cache of nitrate film that was unearthed in Dawson City, revealing reels and fragments of film that was thought to be long lost. It's crazy to think that upwards to 75% of silent films are now considered lost, while 50% of all films, right up to today, are also "lost." Of course, every year some reels or scraps of film are discovered, if one follows the news from film preservation groups. As cool as that is, they are small consolations in the grand scheme of things. We can flip it on its ear, though, that 25% of silent films is a greater retention number than that of human beings, given that the oldest verifiable centenarian is in a class of 1. Born in 1909.
Talking about b&w/color, I recently got the Moby Dick dvd and it dawned on me while watching it that this was the first time I have ever seen it in color! All viewings prior to it apparently took place before 1969 when we finally got color tv in my household. It astounds me that this film fell so far off my radar that I never bothered to watch it again for over 50 years. Too bad the transfer is middling at best.
I can't speak to how it originally looked but yeah, it's not great. I know it had a BR release a while ago and from comments I've read, it was a slight improvement over the dvd. Someone on BR.com posted an article that states the color was muted on purpose to give the film a somber look. Maybe someone here knows more.
I ended up canceling my order for The Titfield Thunderbolt blu ray from a marketplace seller on Amazon UK once I found there was a Region A, they were very nice about it. I checked eBay and right at top of the search results with a Great Price! tag a highly rated seller had sold dozens with ten left. I ordered 5/17, total cost of $8.83 and received TODAY! I’ll be sure to leave lovely feedback. A couple more fun 3-strip facts: Special effects cinematographer Richard Edlund spent many years fully restoring a 3-strip camera, #D-18, completing some time before 2015, and it ACTUALLY RUNS (using regular 35 movie film). A number of the parts had to be custom machined, and one holdup was finding blu crinkle paint for the exterior, no longer EPA approved! I had a bookmark to a nice article on the web site of the American Society of Cinematographers, no longer working. The PHOTOS from the article can still be found with an image search - I used Richard Edlund restores Technicolor as the search term. Richard is 81 now, I wonder if he still has it, and where it will go when he passes? As part of an interview on YouTube for the 100th anniversary of Technicolor, he doesn’t talk about HIS camera, but does say it was one of the finest pieces of precision machining from the early 20th century, and that the whole process was “The height of photo masochism”(!) Also that the dye transfer print line produced prints at 150 feet per minute. I had (or THOUGHT I did, and mistakenly deleted) a photo that I’ve tried and failed to find online of the HUMONGOUS 3-D 3-strip camera rig in its sound deadening blimp - yep, that’s two three strip cameras for Technicolor 3-D, SIX STRIPS running! Used for two 3-D features, Flight to Tangier and Money from Home starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. No 3-D discs available though there IS a blu ray (“flat,” aka “2-D”) available on the Olive Films label, of Money from Home. I have to decide if I can stomach Jerry Lewis being featured at this point, his “shtick” hasn’t aged well for me (he WAS good in an atypical role in The King of Comedy though!)
Yes, the numbers are not good with lost films. The Alice In Wonderland, the restored BFI version with the original tints is not available on dvd or blu ray. You’d think BFI would come up with a disc highlighting such a fantastic film, but you can only view it on YouTube. Bummer. But in pursuing that thing I stumbled across this series: https://www.amazon.com/Accidentally...9132d&pd_rd_wg=sN8tk&pd_rd_i=B07D55J928&psc=1 Again, learning and fascinating, the US studios sent 16mm prints of movies to overseas, like New Zealand, and also made “rental prints”. Well low and behold the community around the world found reels of movies in various places, like in the back lot of a long shut down movie theatre, in the dirt…IN THE DIRT! And so numerous lost movies have been found as these prints. You can’t make this stuff up. The really cool thing about all this is that there is still heavy enthusiasts interest in these so companies keep popping up to restore them. But that “Peppy Dance” segment still gets me excited, literally frame by frame restoration of a 2 minute segment. How cool is that? Beave
I felt like watching "A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH" today on our new set and, wow, what a masterpiece. I've seen it many times but the entire thing is just amazing. The Technicolor person on the movie (her name was Joan Bridge and she lived to be 100) got the British lab to do a "special effect" for the movie that they used a bunch. Turning a monochrome image into color gradually and then back again. Was not an easy thing to do but it really makes the film extra, extra special. The Criterion Blu-ray is great if you've never seen this gem of a movie, one of the finest of all British cinema.
Sounds interesting. Do you have any information as to whether the UK BD issue from a year later comes from the same master as the Criterion version? I can get that for half the price. Thank you!
I believe it should be the same but I'm bettin' reviews out there in Internetland would know for sure..
11:30, my usual weekend time. The dogs make it impossible to sleep in on a weekend though. It's 6:30 AM wakeup every day of the week..
Good, they are finally getting around to issuing my tales. The movie is all about mastering engineers doing opera, in IB Tech!
I believe this mastering of Tales of Hoffman will be the same as the one that’s been available for a while from BFI/Studio Canal (Region B). After seeing their trailer on YouTube several months ago, I decided that although the image quality appeared spectacular, I just couldn’t manage the opera story line on this one, UNlike The Red Shoes. Steve, if you don’t mind my asking, what “new set” did you get? I’m still using my 2016 LG 4K OLED, at 11,000 hours and still going strong!
Our family got a tremendous gift from one of my long-time Facebook (and here) friends. He sent us this: TCL 75R648 8K 6-Series monitor plus a Sony VBP-X700 Ultra HD BR player and about 300 4K and Blu-ray disks. A generous gift. Best picture I ever saw in our house..
WOW, Steve - “Fat City”! (Also a pretty good film!) What a windfall! I got mine after my previous 27” Toshiba Cinema Series (CRT/picture TUBE) set finally died. One thing I noticed, besides how HUGE the new flat panel looked in comparison, and that I could see much more detail, is that it could reproduce COLORS the old one simply couldn’t. From my seat, my eyes are almost exactly 8 feet away- I got a surprisingly cheap Bosch laser measure for speaker setup after Herb Reichert in Stereophile recommended it: accurate to 1/8th inch up to 65 feet! The set still looks big to me, and I’ve noticed something odd: whenever I go into a Best Buy TVs that size look VERY small. Someday maybe when financial markets bounce back and I’m feeling (relatively) “rich” again, maybe a projector!
I found this in someone’s twitter feed some time ago and it made me laugh, not new but new to ME. From TV listings in the Philadelphia Inquirer by critic Lee Winfrey, who passed away in 2003: Wizard of Oz “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
We’ve had TCL tv’s here for the past 6 years, watching the USFL right now on our 55” Roku TCL. Best dang tv’s we’ve ever had, seriously, easy remote, gorgeous picture, excellent streaming and not a single problem with either of them. This current one is going on 4 years old. Great Tele! At her age I had a 9” b&w zenith. Spoil those kids!! Beave
Just ordered this from the other closed thread: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-R...ovies-tv&sprefix=Glorious+tech,aps,143&sr=1-9 $14, can’t lose at that price. Also got my Dr. X disc, I love the special feature of the restoration. Incredible the raw Nitrate and the restored one, just jaw dropping. Beave
Oof. Buyer beware. That's a crappy VC-1 encode at a poor 19mbps rate. If you're watching it on a small TV you might be okay, but it upscales to 4K on my 77" LG C1 like a 480i DVD. Pixels aplenty.
So, what is THE Blu Ray version to get of The Wizard of Oz? On Amazon there’s like 5 different versions, and the reviews are for all of them. A total mess. There’s this one from 2013: https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Oz-Bl...movies-tv&sprefix=Wizard,movies-tv,170&sr=1-3 Beave
