Twilight Time / Redwind

[Kirkinson]

Expecting something like THE RED SHOES is futile.

All I would expect would be something like the print of Leave Her to Heaven I saw just a couple years ago, and the screenshots so far don't live up to that. But I'm definitely willing to believe that seeing the disc itself would change my mind.

[EddieLarkin]

THE MAN FROM LARAMIE being a comparatively big name Sony title may mean it receives a similarly timed EU release, like many other TT titles.

As for Criterion, they only release 60 titles a year, and I guess their thinking was Mann is already in the collection, whereas Daves wasn't. That, or they passed on LARAMIE to release a different Mann, WINCHESTER '73 perhaps? Upgrade THE FURIES?

[swo17]

There are so many Anthony Mann movies that are "worthy" of being in the Collection. But where are we getting that they passed on Laramie? How do we know that it was ever on the table?

[domino harvey]

Winchester 73 is Universal and was announced last year as a forthcoming Blu-ray from the studio

[EddieLarkin]

It was? Great news but I can't find a source.

[Murdoch]

See here, but this was two years ago so who knows

[EddieLarkin]

Some caps that appear more favourable, colour wise, for LHtH here:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdreview ... heaven.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fourth comparison demonstrates the best that the colours are improved over the old DVD transfer.

See here, but this was two years ago so who knows

Universal France as well.

[kingofthejungle]

There are so many Anthony Mann movies that are "worthy" of being in the Collection. But where are we getting that they passed on Laramie? How do we know that it was ever on the table?

I'm assuming that it never was on the table for them. If Criterion had a chance at it, I feel sure they would have taken it.

On Winchester 73, it seems that Universal had plans to release it on Blu-Ray some time ago, but opted to simply re-release it on DVD at the last minute, which is a real shame. I'd snap up any of the Anthony Mann westerns in HD without a moment of hesitation.

I would almost rather see Laramie paired with another western on a Mill Creek Blu-Ray than see it go to Twilight Time.

[Jack Phillips]

Some caps that appear more favourable, colour wise, for LHtH here:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdreview ... heaven.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fourth comparison demonstrates the best that the colours are improved over the old DVD transfer.

I don't think these screen caps really do justice to the images in motion. The colors on the BD are quite vibrant. That is--they often are. It seems to me that color intensity varies from shot to shot. It also seems to me that the trial scene in particular is somewhat drab in comparison to all that precedes it, but that could have been the result of a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers, or a natural consequence of filming on a drab set with characters dressing in somber colors.

I immediately followed my viewing with another look at the recent Col. Blimp BD. Blimp certainly shows LHtH to disadvantage, but without such a comparison LHtH is very satisfying.

[kingofthejungle]

I watched the new Leave Her To Heaven Blu-Ray last night. It's ok. I think the screen caps get it about right - the color is good enough that I was often thinking "Wow, this must have been gorgeous in real Technicolor". Skin tones often seemed strange. I'd never seen the film before (which was just stunning), but everyone I've talked to (or seen comment) on the BD who has seen LHtH projected via 35mm feels the color could be better. I have a suspicion that the usual suspects would be howling with discontent were this released by Olive Films rather than Twilight Time. On the plus side, the detail on the disc seems much better than average for a Fox Film of this era, so I have no problem believing it a significant upgrade from the DVD.

[EddieLarkin]

I have a suspicion that the usual suspects would be howling with discontent were this released by Olive Films rather than Twilight Time.

I don't think the "usual suspects" are under any false impressions when it comes to 3 strip technicolor from Fox. People were hardly screaming praise for Pony Soldier, were they?

If you're referring to any discontent over The Quiet Man (which I personally thought looked spectacular, other than the often poor blacks), there is an important difference. Unlike LHtH, The Quiet Man is available in a fully restored form from the original 3 strip negatives. Olive didn't use this restoration and decided to make their own master instead, some aspects of which they messed up. People were unhappy about this; not the disc itself mind, but that a presentation that could have been perfect wasn't.

Few would criticise Olive or Twilight Time for presenting a less than perfect transfer of LHtH when the best elements available are presumably CRI negatives and/or Eastman dupes.

[Moe Dickstein]

From what I understand, it depends on the quality of the replacement materials that were left behind. If the seps that were made from the nitrates were not mis-aligned then of course that's going to give a better product now than for example what we have with LHTH. RAH has reported that what remains on that film is a composite element that was made from improperly recombined seps, which were themselves not kept, so it's several generations down and has the misalignment baked in. Other films might not have such severe issues but still not have the original nitrate materials extant.

[EddieLarkin]

Surely another consideration is cost? If it's true that the sky is the limit when you have the right digital tools, then it comes down to the incentive to put up the cash to use them. I'm not knowledgeable about what is actually involved with 3 strip technicolor digital restoration, I'm barely knowledgeable with what the "correct" look of a 3 strip film actually is, but it's pretty obvious why Fox are going to put more money into a Monroe film than LHtH. The way they have been released proves that.

But I didn't intend to defend the transfer of LHtH with my post anyway, the disc hasn't even arrived yet. I was simply arguing against the assumption that certain people would have a different opinion of the disc or the caps if this were coming from Olive. Which I think is silly.

p.s. thanks for the Niagra caps. Very much looking forward to the Blu-ray now.

[captveg]

Per Home Theater Forum exclusive guessing process, Used Cars tentatively scheduled for April 2014.

[jsteffe]

Surely another consideration is cost? If it's true that the sky is the limit when you have the right digital tools, then it comes down to the incentive to put up the cash to use them. I'm not knowledgeable about what is actually involved with 3 strip technicolor digital restoration, I'm barely knowledgeable with what the "correct" look of a 3 strip film actually is, but it's pretty obvious why Fox are going to put more money into a Monroe film than LHtH. The way they have been released proves that.

Someone please feel free to correct me on this. If the situation is as Moe Dickstein describes for Leave Her to Heaven--that we are left with "a composite element that was made from improperly recombined seps, which were not themselves kept" and thus "has the misalignment baked in"--then probably there is not very much to be done, even with expensive digital tools.

When separation masters do survive for films originally shot in Technicolor, it may be possible to recombine them digitally, as was done with The Wizard of Oz and some other MGM Technicolor films. Since Warner scanned the three black-and-white picture elements separately, they were able to compensate digitally for problems such as differential shrinkage to create very precise alignment, hence the rich color and details in these digital restorations. However, this kind of digital restoration can be very expensive, which is why you see it mainly for top-tier titles.

When prints for Technicolor films are struck from separation masters that are out of alignment, this can result in problems with the sharpness and color. The prominent color fringing in the Blu-ray of Hitchock's Rope is an example of what this can look like, though frankly you can find many examples on DVD. Any misalignment results in lost resolution and color information that can never be fully recovered. For instance, in the case of Rope, even if it were technically possible to digitally paint out the heavy color fringing, it would result in a very artificial-looking image, exactly the kind of thing that cinephiles complain about. It would not be restoring lost picture information. (I am only using Rope as an example; I am not sure what elements for that film survive. Perhaps it would benefit from an extensive digital restoration, perhaps not.)

In other words, depending on what elements survive it is entirely possible that the Blu-ray for Leave Her to Heaven is roughly as good as we can hope to get, give or take some minor differences in the transfer and encoding. Throwing a large amount of money at it may not make enough difference to be worthwhile. However, it is possible that they could have done the transfer and encoding better. David Hare's comments are pretty interesting in this regard:

With LHTH I get the distinct impression the people managing the 2k for Blu Ray kept a tight rein on things like fine grain control and white level to keep the picture bright and well contrasted, probably allowing for the loss of detail a deeper gamma for instance might have introduced into the image, especially where blacks weren't pitch to start with. I think they've possibly carried this too far at the expense of more vibrant color.

[Moe Dickstein]

The negative on Rope exists. It could look AMAZING, Universal just didn't put the $ in to doing the Blu-Ray right, and it was far from the worst looking film in that set...

[jsteffe]

The negative on Rope exists. It could look AMAZING, Universal just didn't put the $ in to doing the Blu-Ray right, and it was far from the worst looking film in that set...

That's a relief to know. I hope someday they do a full-on digital restoration, though I wouldn't hold my breath. Agreed, despite the problems with the print the transfer itself was far from the worst in the set. I found it more watchable than MARNIE, FRENZY or FAMILY PLOT, because at least it looked like an actual film!

I just got an email from Screen Archives that my copy of the LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN Blu-ray shipped today. I'm curious to see it in motion.

[captveg]

Moe there is no doubt Rope should look as gorgeous as the clip from it does in Scorsese's A Personal Journey. Universal are almost as hopeless and lazy as Paramount when it comes to caring about their archive.

While it didn't help with all the Hichcock titles, the last year or so of Universal restorations have been promising, and we know more are on the way this year (I believe The Birds was the only one to get this recent attention). I also wonder if the Hitchock Estate complicates how they approach the films.

[jsteffe]

I do not agree. Most people may like it but I am not crazy about Uni's 2k remaster of the Birds. There's an awful lot of manipulation going on where a good original Tech element and some basic cleanup would have been a perfectly good source from which not to stray far. They have played merry hell with the soft focus shots (of which there are a dozen or so until the second half when Hitch de-glamorizes Tippi.) And there is degraining and regraining going on which tends to draw attention to itself. In its own way I think it's as bad as the Marnie encode.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as MARNIE, but I see what you mean. I recently saw a new 35mm print (the cans said "original answer print") that was part of a Universal retrospective, and the color timing was about identical to the Blu-ray. (I assume this means they did the grading properly for the Blu-ray.) However, on the Blu-ray, the very prominent soft focus shots of Tippi Hedren had a layer of grain that seemed to swim on top of the image. The grain didn't quite look right in other places too. I know the film is probably challenging to encode because of the mix of process shots, studio shots, location footage and glamour close-ups, but I still feel they could have handled the grain better.

[Moe Dickstein]

And nobody's brought up the worst one, Man Who Knew Too Much...

[tenia]

Similarly Fox Tech IB three strip and after titles keep getting released in France and Spain and Germany, notable amongst recent ones a very acceptable but almost certainly not IB sourced Forever Amber for which Fox gave Carlotta a good element for DVD a few years ago, and which Carlotta have since worked on with considerable success to produce quite a handsome Blu Ray. This is almost certainly an Eastman print but the grading and scanning done by Carlotta has delivered a pretty convincing simulacrum of a good Tech IB, even though it's not.

I know it's not the point of your otherwise very interesting post, but not only Forever Amber hasn't been ported in France by Carlotta but by Sidonis, but the disc itself not only isn't especially wonderful from what I heard on DVD Classik, but I also understood it to be in 1080i50 instead of a proper 1080p. Especially, Sidonis never handled a single restoration themselves (leanding to quite weak BDs so far in their Westerns de légende collection) so I would be surprised if it is much away from any existing material from FOX, but would anyway ditch any possibility of a new scan and grading done for the French BD.

Certainly the Monsters Box was exemplary, and a number of other titles for the anniversary year. They obviously have some very good people doing these, and they have some other people doing others things very differently....it's always down to the holy dollar I suppose.

When you compare The Bride of Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, it seems to me as they have 2 very different teams working at Universal... Because The Wolf Man does have its huge share of awful filtering. And you have also The Phantom of the Opera, which has quite a percfectible color alignment (to say the least).

And whoever managed the degrain stage of the encode for the Cape Fear clearly fell asleep at the desk, forgetting to turn off the degrain switch until the last m2ts file (side B of the BD DL) when they remembered to switch it off/turn it down and the grain suddenly came back. Like magic. Another one that should never have passed quality control, and they repeated the same fucking encode for the much later US release! This is not respectful treatment of their deep archive material.

I'm glad to see that I was not crazy, and that indeed, grain suddenly came back at the end of the movie.

Bah. As long as Universal will feel the need to "average grain" between shots, I guess they'll never learn anything.

[jsteffe]

Steering things back to Twilight Time, in addition to LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, I finally ordered the BDs of BONJOUR, TRISTESSE and THE BIG HEAT. The costs add up in a hurry! I won't be ordering too many of those discs, that's for sure.

David, at least based on the Beaver screencaps I think I can see what you mean about LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN. It appears as if the color palette is reduced compared to the DVD edition. It looks as if they tried to give the film more "normal" (if pale) flesh tones, and overall there appears to be less green in the image. I will need to see the disc in playback to get a better sense of things.

As for Universal, their quality control is all over the place. The sudden switch in encoding didn't just happen in CAPE FEAR, but also, notoriously, MARNIE. However, I would not say that the last reel of MARNIE truly "improved." The electrical noise/faux grain disappeared, but the color also changed. The skin tones in the last scenes suddenly took on a purplish hue which doesn't look right. In contrast, the color was at least OK in the first portion of the film, even though the grain was messed up. It's as if they grafted together two completely different transfers & encodes. Really sloppy!

When you compare The Bride of Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, it seems to me as they have 2 very different teams working at Universal...

In a funny way, that theory makes a lot of sense! How else to explain the ongoing, wild discrepancies in quality? Whatever one can say about Twilight Time, have they put out absolute dogs like Universal?

[EddieLarkin]

Whatever one can say about Twilight Time, have they put out absolute dogs like Universal?

A lot of brouhaha over Night of the Living Dead, due to an unfortunate change to the original look of the film. Demetrius and the Gladiators is from a very dated source, as was Journey to the Center of the Earth though it wasn't as bad. The Fury has a lot of problems, though RAH says it is completely true to source and gave it a 5/5... Pony Soldier is very poor for technicolor, and soft to boot. Cover Girl has similar color problems, but at least gets a decent bump in resolution.

Everything else varies from unexciting to excellent, though it depends on who you ask.

[Jameson281]

Whatever one can say about Twilight Time, have they put out absolute dogs like Universal?

A lot of brouhaha over Night of the Living Dead, due to an unfortunate change to the original look of the film. Demetrius and the Gladiators is from a very dated source, as was Journey to the Center of the Earth though it wasn't as bad. The Fury has a lot of problems, though RAH says it is completely true to source and gave it a 5/5... Pony Soldier is very poor for technicolor, and soft to boot. Cover Girl has similar color problems, but at least gets a decent bump in resolution.

Everything else varies from unexciting to excellent, though it depends on who you ask.

The complaints about THE FURY are absurd. Yes, dark scenes and some opticals are grainy. Guess what? They were always grainy. It's in the film. The transfer is fine. Some people just have absurdly unrealistic expectations.

[Moe Dickstein]

I believe Universal has a backlog of older HD transfers done prior to the current team who are doing the stronger work. That's why you get schizophrenic box sets.