830-831 Chimes at Midnight & The Immortal Story

[Roger Ryan]

I just read the NYT obitary for Welles and noticed this line:

'Falstaff'' and ''Touch of Evil,'' two of his later films, were also changed by others before their release.

Is that just an error, with regard to Chimes at Midnight? (It's of course true for Touch of Evil.) I've never heard that that one was compromised. I won't be shocked if it's wrong, since the obituary has at least one other howler ("In Italy and Morocco, at intervals from 1949 to 1952, he put together and starred in 'Othello' and 'Macbeth.'") But was there intrigue I'm unwaware of?

Welles himself reportedly cut an opening scene from Chimes at Midnight/Falstaff just before its release (the director remarked that the scene looked beautiful, but he realized he needed to get the story going more quickly - given the released version already has a quiet meditative pre-credits scene, it seems like a wise choice), but I'm unaware that anyone else (and Harry Saltzman would be that person) made any changes. Perhaps the Times obituary meant to name Mr. Arkadin as a "later film" that was re-edited by others, but the more logical choice would have been The Lady From Shanghai - technically, a "later film" in that it was released six years after Ambersons.

[hearthesilence]

Perhaps the Times obituary meant to name Mr. Arkadin as a "later film" that was re-edited by others, but the more logical choice would have been The Lady From Shanghai - technically, a "later film" in that it was released six years after Ambersons.

This was my guess too, especially since it doesn't substantiate the claim when it returns to Falstaff later on in the obituary.

Even now, I'm surprised how often the Times will make egregious errors in obituaries, especially for individuals who were clearly old enough that they warranted a preliminary obituary that would be completed when the day came. (During one of his concerts, Elvis Costello even took Stephen Holden to task with his egregious mistakes in Burt Bacharach's obituary.)

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

A new restoration of Chimes is making the theatrical rounds in the U.S.; this one was spearheaded by Michael Dawson, who previously did a 35mm restoration (plus the contentious 1992 restoration of Othello). Per the copyright in the restoration credits, it was completed in 2020. This version was sourced from the dupe negative and scanned at 6K, whereas the Criterion came from the camera negative and was presumably 1080p (based off the term "high-definition digital transfer" in the restoration notes). Dawson has previously expressed doubts that the Criterion master actually came from the camera negative, but in the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, I'll just take their word for it.

I haven't actually seen the Criterion restoration so I can't be of much help with a comparison, but the new restoration (which I saw projected at 2K) looked great outside of a certain muddiness during the opening credits, no doubt an artifact of the optical process. Everything after (and before) has a fine sheen of natural-looking grain, the contrast looked good, and I didn't spot any damage. The soundtrack for this film has been notoriously problematic and there were definitely moments I couldn't make out what was being said, but those were few and far between. Despite Dawson's oft-stated wish to "fix" the dialogue sync, it still looked off to me more often than not, so I suspect it just wasn't feasible to achieve perfect sync with whatever budget and tools were available.

[beamish14]

Didn’t Welles already “fix” the sync issues to a certain extent between the film’s festival debuts in 1965 and its American release several years later? I’ve never found them to be particularly egregious save for a few bits in the first reel

[Stefan Andersson]

More details about Michal Dawson´s Chimes restoration from the "Harry Saltzman original AB roll negative":
https://olympiafilmsociety.org/chimes-at-midnight/
https://facets.org/programs/chimes-at-m ... storation/

[Hogfather]

A new restoration of Chimes is making the theatrical rounds in the U.S.; this one was spearheaded by Michael Dawson, who previously did a 35mm restoration (plus the contentious 1992 restoration of Othello). Per the copyright in the restoration credits, it was completed in 2020. This version was sourced from the dupe negative and scanned at 6K, whereas the Criterion came from the camera negative and was presumably 1080p (based off the term "high-definition digital transfer" in the restoration notes). Dawson has previously expressed doubts that the Criterion master actually came from the camera negative, but in the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, I'll just take their word for it.

I haven't actually seen the Criterion restoration so I can't be of much help with a comparison, but the new restoration (which I saw projected at 2K) looked great outside of a certain muddiness during the opening credits, no doubt an artifact of the optical process. Everything after (and before) has a fine sheen of natural-looking grain, the contrast looked good, and I didn't spot any damage. The soundtrack for this film has been notoriously problematic and there were definitely moments I couldn't make out what was being said, but those were few and far between. Despite Dawson's oft-stated wish to "fix" the dialogue sync, it still looked off to me more often than not, so I suspect it just wasn't feasible to achieve perfect sync with whatever budget and tools were available.

Reading over this again and Dawson's casting doubts on Criterion is a little annoying. He says that they probably didn't use the original camera negative because it was in Europe, but the Criterion release - which I own - says they based their restoration on the Filmoteca Española's restoration. In an interview with Wellesnet, Becker says that they "[used] the scan from the Filmoteca, made from the original negative." So it sounds like Criterion was using a high-definition scan of the original camera negative after all; specifically, it sounds like they used the Filmoteca's uncorrected scan of the negative and then applied their own restoration to it. Maybe Dawson wasn't aware of this interview, but I think it clears up the question of Criterion's original source pretty well.

Also, regarding the soundtrack, the film's jigsaw production is a major part of its character and determined a large part of the style. I don't think any restorationist should try to "fix" that. However, I do like that he tried to go back to the original materials, and I think an alternate stereo soundtrack made from them would be absolutely fantastic as long as the theatrical mono track remains available.

[denti alligator]

Should we expect a 4k upgrade with the new print?

[Hogfather]

I hope so, that would be really fantastic. If there's any film that deserves a 4K, it was shot by Orson Welles.

[denti alligator]

I guess my real question is whether I should hold off ordering this in anticipation of the upgrade. It’s high on my want list. Maybe I’ll bump it down and see what happens.