What's new

Aspect Ratio Documentation (2 Viewers)

Vahan_Nisanain

Supporting Actor
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
969
Location
Glendale, California
Real Name
Vahan_Nisanain
One other thing (For now at least):

I wonder if we will eventually find out the filming dates, as well as aspect ratios for all the non-English films that were released here in America?

Also, when non-English films were released in American theaters many years ago, during the 50's, 60', 70's, and 80's, did they offer both subtitled and dubbed versions, or just dubbed versions?
 

Bob Furmanek

Insider
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Messages
6,708
Real Name
Bob
IntoIt said:
One other thing (For now at least):

I wonder if we will eventually find out the filming dates, as well as aspect ratios for all the non-English films that were released here in America?

Also, when non-English films were released in American theaters many years ago, during the 50's, 60', 70's, and 80's, did they offer both subtitled and dubbed versions, or just dubbed versions?
It will get done if somebody takes the time to do the research.

Everything in my article is new and original research from primary source materials. Finding the information was not easy and I began working on this article about a year ago.
 

Bob Furmanek

Insider
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Messages
6,708
Real Name
Bob
It's hard to believe that in 2014, the only way to acquire a film like NIGHT PEOPLE (2.55:1) is in a pan and scan 1.33:1 extraction.

What were they thinking when that was released on DVD???

Night-People.jpg
 

Gary16

Screenwriter
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,421
Real Name
Gary
Unfortunately many of the Fox scope archive releases are being pulled from pan and scan material rather than OAR. I've not purchased any because of this. Makes no sense.
 

John Hodson

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2003
Messages
4,627
Location
Bolton, Lancashire
Real Name
John
After years of banging on the door to little effect, it does appear that at last more and more are beginning to see the immense value in this hard won research. Slowly that door is swinging open; it seems to me that pretty soon it will be impossible to ignore even by previously closed minds.

Keep it up Bob!
 

Bob Furmanek

Insider
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Messages
6,708
Real Name
Bob
Sometimes when you are in a rush to get something done, an important bit of information slips through the cracks.

I had this in my notes and completely forgot to add it to the article. It's just been updated.

September 16 – ALOHA NUI opens in anamorphic 2.50 at the Center Theatre in Buffalo, NY.

Vistarama5.gif

Vistarama-review.gif
 

Vic Pardo

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
1,520
Real Name
Brian Camp
IntoIt said:
One other thing (For now at least):

I wonder if we will eventually find out the filming dates, as well as aspect ratios for all the non-English films that were released here in America?

Also, when non-English films were released in American theaters many years ago, during the 50's, 60', 70's, and 80's, did they offer both subtitled and dubbed versions, or just dubbed versions?
I did a little bit of research on this some years ago. Subtitling was the norm for the longest time. It wasn't till the postwar era that distributors put in the effort to dub the French and Italian films that were coming into the U.S., but only those that had mass appeal. I'm still trying to learn which were the first foreign films that were dubbed for wide release in the U.S. I did a piece on my blog about the film, THE GLASS WALL (1953), which had scenes filmed around Times Square in 1952 and I determined that of the two foreign films visible on different marquees in the area, one was released dubbed and one was shown subtitled, as determined from the New York Times reviews of those films. Here's a link to the piece:
http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/42nd-street-and-times-square-theaters-the-glass-wall-1953/

As far as I can tell, the first Japanese film to be released in a dubbed version was SEVEN SAMURAI, which was shown as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN when it was released in the U.S. in 1956 (four years before Hollywood's western remake of that title) and was shown in both subtitled and dubbed versions. Earlier Japanese films had, as far as I know, all been released with subtitles, including RASHOMON, GATE OF HELL and SAMURAI I.

Brigitte Bardot films were released to neighborhood theaters in dubbed versions. A friend of mine is old enough to remember seeing one in the mid-50s.

By the time I was in college, most arthouse foreign films were released only in subtitled versions, except for the occasional one to hit a mass market, like Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT (1973), which I saw subtitled but played in my neighborhood theater in the Bronx in a dubbed version.

On the other hand, after the success of Steve Reeves' HERCULES (1959), which was, of course, dubbed in English, there were tons of Italian genre films released in the U.S. only in English-dubbed versions. Same for Japanese monster movies following the success of Joseph E. Levine's GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS, a reedit of GOJIRA (1954). And later on, Hong Kong kung fu films. Japanese samurai films tended to come here only in subtitled versions, but after kung fu became popular, a handful of Japanese samurai and martial arts films got the dub treatment and mass market release, e.g. Sonny Chiba's STREET FIGHTER series and the Lone Wolf and Cub films, LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH and SHOGUN ASSASSIN. But those were few and far between, while there were hundreds of kung fu films that got dubbed (and comparatively few of those got subtitled release here--and when they did, it was in Chinatown theaters).

That's all for now. If anyone wants to add to the above or point out corrections, please feel free. Thanks.
 

nara

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
8,962
Location
UK
Real Name
Hugh
Bob Furmanek said:
Sometimes when you are in a rush to get something done, an important bit of information slips through the cracks.

I had this in my notes and completely forgot to add it to the article. It's just been updated.

September 16 – ALOHA NUI opens in anamorphic 2.50 at the Center Theatre in Buffalo, NY.

attachicon.gif
Vistarama5.gif
attachicon.gif
Vistarama-review.gif
They screened Aloha Nui at the Bradford Widescreen festival a few years back. The print was in pretty poor shape as I recall, but it was worth it to watch a piece of history.
 

Bob Furmanek

Insider
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Messages
6,708
Real Name
Bob
I'm glad that a print survives! Was it mag stereo?

Technically, it's the first anamorphic widescreen film shown to a paying audience, even if it beat THE ROBE by only four hours!
 

Thomas T

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2001
Messages
10,288
Bob Furmanek said:
It's hard to believe that in 2014, the only way to acquire a film like NIGHT PEOPLE (2.55:1) is in a pan and scan 1.33:1 extraction.

What were they thinking when that was released on DVD???

attachicon.gif
Night-People.jpg
I have the Australian release of Night People and can verify it is 16x9 anamorphic wide screen.
 

Bob Furmanek

Insider
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Messages
6,708
Real Name
Bob
I just checked my notes on what was happening at Fox when the CS spec changed to 2.55 on May 12.

BENEATH THE TWELVE MILE REEF was in the middle of their seven week location shoot in Nassau. They returned to the studio on June 1 and filmed interiors and the underwater fight between Robert Wagner and Peter Graves. It wrapped sometime around June 15.

It's possible the footage shot at the studio is 2.55 but I have no documentation.

Cinemascope-255-May-12.gif
 

Thomas T

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2001
Messages
10,288

John-Weller

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jul 15, 2013
Messages
61
Real Name
John
Vic Pardo said:
I did a little bit of research on this some years ago. Subtitling was the norm for the longest time. It wasn't till the postwar era that distributors put in the effort to dub the French and Italian films that were coming into the U.S., but only those that had mass appeal. I'm still trying to learn which were the first foreign films that were dubbed for wide release in the U.S. I did a piece on my blog about the film, THE GLASS WALL (1953), which had scenes filmed around Times Square in 1952 and I determined that of the two foreign films visible on different marquees in the area, one was released dubbed and one was shown subtitled, as determined from the New York Times reviews of those films. Here's a link to the piece:
http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/42nd-street-and-times-square-theaters-the-glass-wall-1953/

As far as I can tell, the first Japanese film to be released in a dubbed version was SEVEN SAMURAI, which was shown as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN when it was released in the U.S. in 1956 (four years before Hollywood's western remake of that title) and was shown in both subtitled and dubbed versions. Earlier Japanese films had, as far as I know, all been released with subtitles, including RASHOMON, GATE OF HELL and SAMURAI I.

Brigitte Bardot films were released to neighborhood theaters in dubbed versions. A friend of mine is old enough to remember seeing one in the mid-50s.

By the time I was in college, most arthouse foreign films were released only in subtitled versions, except for the occasional one to hit a mass market, like Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT (1973), which I saw subtitled but played in my neighborhood theater in the Bronx in a dubbed version.

On the other hand, after the success of Steve Reeves' HERCULES (1959), which was, of course, dubbed in English, there were tons of Italian genre films released in the U.S. only in English-dubbed versions. Same for Japanese monster movies following the success of Joseph E. Levine's GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS, a reedit of GOJIRA (1954). And later on, Hong Kong kung fu films. Japanese samurai films tended to come here only in subtitled versions, but after kung fu became popular, a handful of Japanese samurai and martial arts films got the dub treatment and mass market release, e.g. Sonny Chiba's STREET FIGHTER series and the Lone Wolf and Cub films, LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH and SHOGUN ASSASSIN. But those were few and far between, while there were hundreds of kung fu films that got dubbed (and comparatively few of those got subtitled release here--and when they did, it was in Chinatown theaters).

That's all for now. If anyone wants to add to the above or point out corrections, please feel free. Thanks.
The subtitled prints for Hong Kong movies frequently were awful - some of the subtitles barely qualified as English.They were done in Hong Kong for the "benefit" of the English speakers there, and also for government requirements. Tsui Hark once wrote to a US critic apologising for the subtitles on the 35mm prints of Peking Opera Blues.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,701
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top