Popeye color theatrical cartoons on Blu-Ray 12/11

I'm 90% sure that was all Disney. This method would only be possible in animation, where you could painstakingly expose every frame 3 times and change the filter each time. Very labor-intensive, but the three color layers registered perfectly once they did that.

Famous Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker was married to British filmmaker Michael Powell, and she was fairly tyrannical in her quest to get Colonel Blimp restored properly. It was very tough working with her, because she was working in London on Hugo, so she was kind of supervising by "remote control." Very hard to master a project for people not in the room with you at the time. But ultimately they liked the results.

It's a goofy, strange film, but it's got some good moments. By god, it looks fantastic (after about six months of restoration work). I believe it was one of the first Technicolor films shot completely in England, so it's in the record books.

The restoration of the Popeye films at Warner MPI were I think a lot more straightforward, but my suspicion is that Warner's is reluctant to release older stuff because a) it doesn't sell well, b) the mass-market isn't that interested in films made before 1970, and c) there's competition from some public domain versions out there. From a historical point of view, I think they have to keep these films in good shape... just because.

 

I don't think all 220 are there anymore. It looks like 55 are still available. I'm glad I grabbed all of them as soon as I saw they were available.
I made myself a 2 Blu-Ray set (in standard definition, amazing how much SD you can fit on a 50GB disc)

 

No, it was developed by Ted Eshbaugh and the Technicolor Corporation. Research by Steve Stanchfield indicates that Eshbaugh was specifically hired to test both the 2-strip and 3-strip color processes for animation and his 1933 film "The Wizard of Oz" is apparently the first 3-color cartoon, but it was never released theatrically due to the exclusive Disney contract.

Derek

 

Thanks for the update. It seemed like the kind of thing Ub Iwerks would've figured out, but he didn't return to Disney until 1940.

I have mentioned before I actually work in the old Technicolor Building where all that stuff was done. There are 3-color ghosts in the hallways...

 

Would be nice if they released volumes 2 and 3 of the Golden Collection. I sat those out too long

 

Don’t mean to threadcap, but Olive Oyl was a real POS. How many times did she leave Popeye for Bluto when she thought she’d get a better deal? Each time Popeye had to get in a fight to win her back. He should have left her to him.

 

ANY more Looney Tunes would be great. The Golden Collection, Platinum Collection, Superstars etc are all beautifully done. At least we'll (hopefully) have all the theatrical shorts and Warner should make more than a 1 disc set. Maybe at least 2? They have to get to 1957 to finish the theatrical shorts I believe. That's a lot of single disc sets!

 

Based on what Jerry Beck (the guy who really pushed for this to come out) has said -- the single disc format (and therefore lower price point) combined with the fact that these particular cartoons have never been released in any home media format, and are restored from the original negatives, are hoped to bring in enough sales for Warner to green-light further sets of restored cartoons. The "suits" aren't convinced there is enough of a fan base to keep doing this. That's what we are being told, anyway.

They released an awesome set of the complete black and white Porky Pig cartoons last year. But that set -- which was made from decent enough film transfers, though not "restored" in the strictest sense -- has only recently "broken even" in sales.

The Porky set was complicated as there was a snafu with some of the soundtracks which generated some bad publicity -- some of the film prints they used had silent main title footage, and they tried to compensate for this by dubbing the intro music on to them from another one of the cartoons, but it was done kind of slapdash and resulted in the wrong music being used on certain ones, etc. It was enough to turn some fans off from buying it -- despite it being the first comprehensive release of the black and white shorts.

For this set, they are going straight to the original negatives. These Popeye cartoons also had their opening titles cut for television and were very choppy, but supposedly, everything is all original.