Yes, I missed that posting, Robert. Thank you for reprinting it. Apparently, the "carpers" missed it, too, since they continue their incessant hurling of brickbats. :b
John, if no one carps about the carping people the people will keep carping and every time I see people carping I feel the need to carp because of their carping and it's just one long viscious carping cycle. Of course, I didn't mean to carp, but there I was, typing away my post and out came a carp. Maybe next time a whitefish will come out and we'll all be much happier. I hereby promise to try and curb my carps, just as I try to curb my carbs and my dog.
Once I get my hands on this DVD from Netflix, I will be able to see truly how "awful" the "restored" portions of the footage looks. If it is as bad as the language of this post seems to suggest, it makes one wonder what is taking Warner so long to restore the "lost" footage to The Sea Wolf? Supposedly, no 35mm elements of this "lost" footage is in Warners' possession (although they do have access to 16mm dupes of the removed portions), the search for which is the reason given for why The Sea Wolf has not yet been restored to DVD. Again, ifThe Sea Hawk's restored segments truly look "awful" as claimed above, one wonders when Warner will finally decide that holding such allegedly disparate standards for The Sea Wolf's video restoration is hypocritical and release the complete film?
While I'm sure that no one among us looks forward to any amount of "awful"-looking footage in a DVD release of a movie we cherish, some of us prefer the studio that holds the rights to said hypothetical film not delay any and all DVD releases due solely to a prolonged search for possibly non-existent elements, when they can release the complete film with the elements they presently have to placate said film's long-suffering fans; until such time as a potential future, upgraded release containing a transfer from all-quality footage can satisfy whatever supposed "standards" exist among their loyal consumers, and within said studio's home video division. I am personally glad that Criterion/Janus did not hold such a questionable attitude about The Devil and Daniel Webster when they released the film from restored 16mm elements on laserdisc and video back in the early '90s. Otherwise, we home video-philes might have had to wait until within a relatively few months of now to be able to own the complete version of the film. Here's looking forward to an announcement from Warner in the near future about the restored The Sea Wolf coming to DVD.
Sorry for the grousing. Kinda grumpy tonight, and still not satisfied with Warner's attitude toward the missing footage in their DVD release of Bringing Up Baby.
i wish I could say the same thing- but the fact is, the film i was most looking forward to getting from them this year (next to the upcoming Queen Christina) was treated very poorly.
yeah, their record is 99.9% outstanding, but it really chaffes when your personal favorite is in that .1% and it would be one thing if the film always had a history of damage and looking poor- but it hadn't. on the contrary, it had always looked 'fine'before and as such, should have looked even better on DVD. a huge personal disappointment.
The replaced footage from The Sea Hawk is a dupe derived from 35mm nitrate elements. Contrast will be at a higher level. Some wear is natural. To my eye the additional minutes look quite proper for what they are, and I'm pleased to have access to them.
The Flynn box is on its way to me. Looking forward to these as I've never seen most, at least in their entirety.
I appreciate the good efforts of Columbia on some of their classic films, but ...
1. There's no denying they have a less-than stellar record regarding OAR support for all titles. Yes, Warners has had a few missteps in that area too, but not lately and not to the same degree.
2. To my eyes, there is something inferior about Sony's MPEG encoder (or something). Too many of their films exhibit excessive edge enhancement on DVD and generally fall a little short of the quality of Warners, Fox, and Paramount. Especially annoying are the far-short-of-perfect DVDs of newer films like the Spider-Mans.
So, they've done some good things, but in my estimation they've done more bad things than most of their top competitors.
I'm sure the additional minutes look proper for "what they are". But they don't look good. That was and is my only point. The rest of the transfer (well, not the transfer really - the elements for the rest of the transfer) looks superb, and therefore the other stuff looks all the worse to my eye. I didn't mean to make it sound like an Alpha release, but since people do like to call attention to these things, you simply can't ignore the drop in quality just because it's a Warners release. I was not complaining about it actually, as I'm thrilled to have the DVD and am very pleased with it. I never complain about these things. I was saying it's odd that some are forgiving of Warners having lesser elements than they are for other studios (John, I'm not carping, I was just 'splainin', as Desi Arnaz would say).
I think that The Sea Hawk is the ultimate, perfect action movie. People who would otherwise not see it because it's an "old" film should reconsider -- it opens with a bang and never slows down.
Wasn't it shot in b&w to allow them to use stock footage to fill out the sea battles?
Some stock footage was taken from "Captain Blood" and some of the same sets and costumes that were used in the "The Sea Hawk" were previously used in the 3-strip Techincolor film, "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex". Not taken in account, the availability of Technicolor cameras, Warner Brothers had a well-earned reputation of being cheap with the dollar which probably influenced their decision to forgo the color process and film "The Sea Hawk" in black and white.
By the way, all of the studios reused footage from previously released films.
I just got through with "The Sea Hawk" dvd. Wow, RAH you weren't kidding about that 24 minutes of replaced footage. I still say this film is superior to "Captain Blood" which I'll watch tomorrow morning.
Is this DVD out in the stores? I have been to my local Future Shop and I haven't seen hide nor hair of this film. Man, Future Shop sucks when it comes to stocking older films like this one. I have also been looking for The Professionals and couldn't find it. At least I was finally able to find the original version of Flight of The Phoenix at FS. I had never seen the movie before, so it was a blind buy.
I picked up the box set at A&B Sound in downtown Vancouver. Wasn't intending to buy it, but how can you say no to $47.99 canadian for the set. They had individual copies for sale as well.
As The Sea Hawk's a favorite of mine, I was eagerly awaiting the additional footage mentioned in this thread. However, the site's I've accessed show a runtime of 127 mins., which's the same as my VHS copy from 1986; have I misunderstood something?
The actual running time of the film intact with the missing footage is 127 minutes. The missing footage was added back in during the video era. Prior to then, the film was shown on television without that footage.
Why did the Warner studio of that era elect to utilize sepia tone for the tropical sequence? I'm not a fan of B & W, but find it superior to that effect. Thanks to all for sharing.