Blu-ray Review 3D A Few Words About A few words about…™ Prison Girls – in Blu-ray & 3D (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Maybe the Wayne estate will think differently once they see the results of the 3-D Film Archives efforts with Martin and Lewis' "Money From Home" - which they're working on from 4K scans of 72 reels of 3-D negative provided by the Paramount Film Archive (hardly the sub-optimal materials used for "Prison Girls"); this one analogous to the combined efforts of Warner Motion Picture Imaging department and Dave Strohmaier and company for Warner Film Archives' release of "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm".

With respect, I don't believe the issue here is with the Wayne estate. The Wayne estate authorized and paid for the creation of a 3D DCP, which is available for theatrical bookings. I've seen it and it looks fantastic.

The issue is that the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights for Hondo to Paramount, and that Paramount is uninterested in releasing the 3D version on disc. Because the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights to Paramount, the Wayne estate is not able to offer 3D home video rights to another company, no matter how interested one might be. And the terms of the contract with Paramount don't allow Paramount to sublicense any of their licensed Wayne titles to a third party distributor, so Paramount can't offer it to a boutique label (if they'd even want to).

Nothing here will change, unfortunately, unless Paramount changes its mind (unlikely given that the studio no longer supports 3D home video releases at all), or unless their license for Hondo expires and the Wayne estate chooses to seek out another release partner.

 

[Dennis Gallagher]

With respect, I don't believe the issue here is with the Wayne estate. The Wayne estate authorized and paid for the creation of a 3D DCP, which is available for theatrical bookings. I've seen it and it looks fantastic.

The issue is that the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights for Hondo to Paramount, and that Paramount is uninterested in releasing the 3D version on disc. Because the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights to Paramount, the Wayne estate is not able to offer 3D home video rights to another company, no matter how interested one might be. And the terms of the contract with Paramount don't allow Paramount to sublicense any of their licensed Wayne titles to a third party distributor, so Paramount can't offer it to a boutique label (if they'd even want to).

Nothing here will change, unfortunately, unless Paramount changes its mind (unlikely given that the studio no longer supports 3D home video releases at all), or unless their license for Hondo expires and the Wayne estate chooses to seek out another release partner.

Paramount is at least supporting 3D releases to the extent of doing a full 4K scan of the 3D (and Technicolor) negatives of their "Money From Home" - even though the final release will be from the boutique label Kino Lorber. I of course am not industry - or any kind of preservationist - so I have no idea of all the machinations required to get a 3D BluRay release of "Hondo". (Too bad that the Film Forum's scheduling their "Hondo" showing on a Monday evening in the heat of summer - which seems like the worst time for an out of town 3D fan.) (Minor question: 3D or 3-D?)

 

[Robert Harris]

Maybe the Wayne estate will think differently once they see the results of the 3-D Film Archives efforts with Martin and Lewis' "Money From Home" - which they're working on from 4K scans of 72 reels of 3-D negative provided by the Paramount Film Archive (hardly the sub-optimal materials used for "Prison Girls"); this one analogous to the combined efforts of Warner Motion Picture Imaging department and Dave Strohmaier and company for Warner Archives' release of "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm".

Hondo needs no further restorative efforts from anyone. It’s fine as it is.

 

[maxfabien]

Getting back to the original subject of this post - Prison Girls. Easy to tell that this softcore porn was shot in the 70's. It has more bush than the Amazon Rain Forest. Unfortunately, it falls just short of the "it's so bad, it's good" category. For 3D softcore, "The Stewardesses" fares a little better (but not much).

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I agree with you. Saw it in 3D at the Egyptian. Should be available. The DCP exists. Paramount declined to release it.

I don't know if it's so much that Paramount declined to release it as they could not come to an agreement with the Wayne estate.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

With respect, I don't believe the issue here is with the Wayne estate. The Wayne estate authorized and paid for the creation of a 3D DCP, which is available for theatrical bookings. I've seen it and it looks fantastic.

The issue is that the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights for Hondo to Paramount, and that Paramount is uninterested in releasing the 3D version on disc. Because the Wayne estate has licensed the home video rights to Paramount, the Wayne estate is not able to offer 3D home video rights to another company, no matter how interested one might be. And the terms of the contract with Paramount don't allow Paramount to sublicense any of their licensed Wayne titles to a third party distributor, so Paramount can't offer it to a boutique label (if they'd even want to).

Nothing here will change, unfortunately, unless Paramount changes its mind (unlikely given that the studio no longer supports 3D home video releases at all), or unless their license for Hondo expires and the Wayne estate chooses to seek out another release partner.

As I understood it, Gretchen Wayne [Patrick's widow and administrator of the estate] didn't want to licence the 3D version for home use, as she believed theatrical release was the best venue. These days, she's not wrong.

And now, back to the softcore sexploitation wonder that is Prison Girls.

 

[StephenDH]

A movie even worse than The Stewardesses? This I have to see.

 

[RolandL]

The Stewardesses did well at the box-office:

Top Grossing Movies of 1969​

Rank	Movie	Release Date	Distributor	Genre	1969 Gross	Tickets Sold
1	Butch Cassidy and the Sunda…	Oct 24, 1969	20th Century Fox	Western	$102,308,900	72,048,521
2	The Love Bug	Mar 13, 1969		Comedy	$50,576,808	35,617,470
3	Midnight Cowboy	May 25, 1969	MGM	Drama	$44,785,053	31,538,769
4	Easy Rider	Jul 14, 1969	Sony Pictures	Drama	$41,728,598	29,386,336
5	Hello, Dolly	Dec 16, 1969		Musical	$33,208,099	23,385,985
6	Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice	Sep 18, 1969	Sony Pictures	Comedy	$31,897,253	22,462,854
7	Paint Your Wagon	Oct 15, 1969	Paramount Pictures	Musical	$31,678,778	22,308,998
8	True Grit	Jun 11, 1969		Western	$31,132,592	21,924,360
9	Cactus Flower	Dec 16, 1969	Sony Pictures	Romantic Comedy	$25,889,208	18,231,836
10	Goodbye, Columbus	Apr 3, 1969			$22,939,805	16,154,792
11	On Her Majesty's Secret Ser…	Dec 18, 1969	MGM	Action	$22,800,000	16,056,338
12	I Am Curious (Yellow)	Mar 10, 1969		Drama	$20,200,000	14,225,352
13	Winning	May 22, 1969	Universal	Drama	$14,644,335	10,312,911
14	Z	Dec 8, 1969	Rialto Pictures	Thriller/Suspense	$14,200,000	10,000,000
15	The Sterile Cuckoo	Oct 22, 1969		Drama	$13,982,357	9,846,730
16	The Stewardesses	Jul 25, 1969			$13,500,000	9,507,042
17	They Shoot Horses, Don't They?	Dec 10, 1969		Drama	$12,600,000	8,873,239
18	The Undefeated	Nov 27, 1969	20th Century Fox	Western	$8,000,000	5,633,802
19	Sweet Charity	Apr 1, 1969	Universal	Musical	$8,000,000	5,633,802
20	Where Eagles Dare	Mar 12, 1969	MGM	Action	$7,100,000	5,000,000
21	Alice's Restaurant	Aug 20, 1969	United Artists	Comedy	$6,300,000	4,436,619
22	Topaz	Dec 19, 1969	Universal	Thriller/Suspense	$6,000,000	4,225,352
23	If It's Tuesday, This Must …	Apr 24, 1969	United Artists	Romantic Comedy	$6,000,000	4,225,352
24	Once Upon a Time in the West	May 28, 1969	Paramount Pictures	Western	$5,321,508	3,747,540
25	Marooned	Dec 11, 1969		Adventure	$4,300,000	3,028,169
26	Che!	Jun 27, 1969		Drama	$2,000,000	1,408,450
27	De Sade	Aug 27, 1969		Drama	$1,200,000	845,070