Cinerama's South Seas Adventure to blu ray? (1 Viewer)

[Jobla]

i look forward to purchasing more Cinerama titles. I've heard that CINERAMA'S RUSSIAN ADVENTURE has been found.

 

[JoHud]

Strong hints have been given that both of these films are close to being released on Blu-ray.

See:

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2013/credits/index.htm

where the restoration credits for some of the Cinerama films (including these) as well as trailers are given. The trailers were created along with the restorations and have a wonderful 50's vibe.

By the looks of that article, it looks like all of the remastering and restoration work is finished on all of the Cinerama titles as of 2013 (minus WB-owned films). Are there some that still need work that I'm overlooking?

 

[RolandL]

Is the transfer really that bad? What went wrong?

Even if the film isn't very good I would probably find purely visual things to like it about it. But if the transfer is that bad ....

There was one title they showed at the 60th anniversary that was taken from a 35mm print that someone filmed in a Cinerama theatre many years ago. There was another where they only digitally restored parts of the film. I think one of them was Seven Wonders of the World and the other was South Seas Adventure. When they finish the digital restoration they should look very nice.

 

[Professor Echo]

Stolen from another thread, dated last fall, here was my mini-review of SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE after seeing the digital presentation at the Cinerama Dome:

The digital presentation of SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE looked ok, but it was very sharp and glossy and, for lack of a better word, cold looking compared to film. Also the image must be squeezed a bit as everyone appeared to be just a little too thin and stretched vertically, not just on the sides of the screen, but in the center as well. Sorry I don't know the proper terminology to describe it nor know what causes it, but I am not as technically savvy about the format and venue as most are who post in this thread. The sound seemed good, but a bit shrill at times, very little bass and, for me, too loud for the relatively small space of the Dome.As for the movie itself, man was it ever dull, dull, DULL. It starts off as a kind of fun and funky 50's issue of National Geographic come to life, but soon descends into endless aerial footage and perpetually drawn out scenes of island pageantry, i.e. LOTS and LOTS of native singing and dancing . I would have preferred less people and more flora and fauna, or at least some scenery from the ground level to balance out all the ethnography. I have been to some of the islands explored in the film and I think many opportunities were missed by rarely showing just how stunningly beautiful they are beyond the people who live there.Having only seen HTWWW prior to this, and THIS IS CINERAMA in 70mm many years ago, I was surprised at how boringly stodgy this was. Are all the Cinerama travelogues like this or is one or more better than the others? If anyone has seen a number of these I would appreciate some recommendations beyond GRIMM and SEARCH, both of which I am attending tomorrow.

 

[Strohmaier]

Hi all
I guess Adrian Turner would prefer to live on his old Cinerama memories and that our Cinerama films just go away and rot unless they can be restored photo chemically. In fact they have rotted to the point of no chance to resurrect them other than with digital. They were not stored properly for 50+ years. Hardly any color left, major shrinkage of each panel, think vibrating sprocket holes x3 with jumpy images all over- then film lacquer shedding on most rolls. Now lets add extra fading of each panel towards each edge. Conventional film of this age may have fading towards the left and right edges but it is not that apparent overall but with 3 panel you get 6 edges! Now lets add the fact that there is no STUDIO restoration budget to do the job only a small grant. Oh yes some of us are doing this on a volunteer basis with no profit participation, think weekends and late nights for no pay or hardly any pay.
You might also be interested to know that where we have missing negatives the Library of Congress (our partners in this project) provides the missing sections for scanning from their original deposit prints. These are of course faded totally pink with hardly any color. So far we have gotten about 75% of the color back, which is amazing.
I wish someday I could restore a film that had only one image -not 3 blended together - and with a negative that was stored in a studio vault for 50 years!!!!
I always love these Monday morning quarterback comments that sound so judgmental. It really encourages us to continue the work!
Thanks so much Adrian Turner for your wise and informative comments. Were so happy that people like Leonard Maltin and Dave Kehr disagree with you.
--
I saw the digital presentation of 1958’s South Seas Adventure, which sold me on the restoration process that’s been implemented by Austin, Texas-based Image Trends Inc. They are working from badly-worn, severely faded color negatives, but you’d never know it from the picture spread on the giant Cinerama Dome screen. Leonard Maltin
--
These are fabulous, David! Can’t wait! “Cinerama Holiday” looks even better than “This Is . . .” for great mid-century imagery.
Will Flicker Alley be releasing? Best Dave Kehr
--
Oh yes our Cinerama Holiday mutilated restorations will screen as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival on April 28 in Hollywood and also at the National Media Museum in the UK on April 27th.
South Seas Adventure was screened, along with a restoration seminar about our work, last summer at the Venice International Film Festival (Italy) one of the more major world film festivals, quite an honor to be featured like this.
If anyone would like to see a hi def example of how we have totally botched and mutilated, as Adrian has stated, these projects I will keep these 3 trailers on my site for next 2 weeks starting 4-10-13.
They will take some time to load up so be patient.
These trailers were created in a 1950s style from scratch by your truly:
Seven Wonders:
Note: First (9) 3-panel shots are from Eastman color LOC deposit prints using special color recovery techniques.
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/Trailers/Trailerv37WiPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
South Seas:
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/Trailers/TrailerFINALSSAiPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
Cinerama Holiday:
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/review/CH%20SB%20TraileriPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
Software stuff:
http://www.borisfx.com/userstory/Cinerama-Flicker-Fixer.php
Color recovery:
http://www.in70mm.com/news/2013/wonders/index.htm
Please pass this message and links on to any of your friends and to other blogs.
Dave Strohmaier

 

[JoHud]

Thank you very much for the update. So needless to say, it sounds like restoration work is still ongoing on many of these which isn't very surprising considering the decades of neglect many of them had.

So Cinerama Holiday, South Seas Adventure, and perhaps Seven Wonders might be the next ones to reach home video in the future? Those trailers are certainly something to whet the appetite. I appreciate the work that goes into these.

 

[Strohmaier]

Image Trends has just started scanning Search for Paradise. Seven Wonders we are about to finish up in the next 2 weeks. 7 Wonders has been by far the hardest one to do.Dave

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Hi all
I guess Adrian Turner would prefer to live on his old Cinerama memories and that our Cinerama films just go away and rot unless they can be restored photo chemically. In fact they have rotted to the point of no chance to resurrect them other than with digital. They were not stored properly for 50+ years. Hardly any color left, major shrinkage of each panel, think vibrating sprocket holes x3 with jumpy images all over- then film lacquer shedding on most rolls. Now lets add extra fading of each panel towards each edge. Conventional film of this age may have fading towards the left and right edges but it is not that apparent overall but with 3 panel you get 6 edges! Now lets add the fact that there is no STUDIO restoration budget to do the job only a small grant. Oh yes some of us are doing this on a volunteer basis with no profit participation, think weekends and late nights for no pay or hardly any pay.
You might also be interested to know that where we have missing negatives the Library of Congress (our partners in this project) provides the missing sections for scanning from their original deposit prints. These are of course faded totally pink with hardly any color. So far we have gotten about 75% of the color back, which is amazing.
I wish someday I could restore a film that had only one image -not 3 blended together - and with a negative that was stored in a studio vault for 50 years!!!!
I always love these Monday morning quarterback comments that sound so judgmental. It really encourages us to continue the work!
Thanks so much Adrian Turner for your wise and informative comments. Were so happy that people like Leonard Maltin and Dave Kehr disagree with you.
--
I saw the digital presentation of 1958’s South Seas Adventure, which sold me on the restoration process that’s been implemented by Austin, Texas-based Image Trends Inc. They are working from badly-worn, severely faded color negatives, but you’d never know it from the picture spread on the giant Cinerama Dome screen. Leonard Maltin
--
These are fabulous, David! Can’t wait! “Cinerama Holiday” looks even better than “This Is . . .” for great mid-century imagery.
Will Flicker Alley be releasing? Best Dave Kehr
--
Oh yes our Cinerama Holiday mutilated restorations will screen as part of the TCM Classic Film Festival on April 28 in Hollywood and also at the National Media Museum in the UK on April 27th.
South Seas Adventure was screened, along with a restoration seminar about our work, last summer at the Venice International Film Festival (Italy) one of the more major world film festivals, quite an honor to be featured like this.
If anyone would like to see a hi def example of how we have totally botched and mutilated, as Adrian has stated, these projects I will keep these 3 trailers on my site for next 2 weeks starting 4-10-13.
They will take some time to load up so be patient.
These trailers were created in a 1950s style from scratch by your truly:
Seven Wonders:
Note: First (9) 3-panel shots are from Eastman color LOC deposit prints using special color recovery techniques.
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/Trailers/Trailerv37WiPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
South Seas:
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/Trailers/TrailerFINALSSAiPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
Cinerama Holiday:
http://www.davidstrohmaier.com/review/CH%20SB%20TraileriPad%20and%20iPhone%204.m4v
Software stuff:
http://www.borisfx.com/userstory/Cinerama-Flicker-Fixer.php
Color recovery:
http://www.in70mm.com/news/2013/wonders/index.htm
Please pass this message and links on to any of your friends and to other blogs.
Dave Strohmaier

You and your team have done a great job, Dave. I really enjoyed the two Flicker Alley Blu-ray releases and look forward to the rest.

 

[rsmithjr]

Dave Strohmaier et al.:

As I have told you personally, I was astounded at the quality of the digital restorations shown at the dome. In particular, Cinerama Holiday and South Seas Adventure were fabulous. Obviously, Seven Wonders of the World and Search for Paradise are not finished yet, but I am anxiously looking forward to seeing and hearing them.

Given what I had heard about the budget and condition of the elements, I frankly had somewhat attenuated expectations. But I kept pinching myself about what I was actually seeing.

BTW, your trailers are terrific! They have a 50's vibe and capture the film very well.

Keep up the good work.


Bob

P.S. Any word on when we can see these on Blu-ray? I also want Scent of Mystery, which I had never seen and really enjoyed at the festival. An unexpected restoration triumph.

 

[Strohmaier]

Were still doing some clean up work on both Scent of Mystery and Russian Adventure.Some new softwares came down the pike from Boris efx. so we also went back into Cinerama Holiday and South Seas, since the Dome festival, to apply them on about 150 shots in each title.CH and SSA might come out in the fall.Dave

 

[Richard--W]

I'll buy every Cinerama title you guys release.

I also have confidence in Flicker Alley, who have never disappointed me yet.

 

[ahollis]

When I bumped this thread a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea it would be so controversial. I enjoyed and was impressed with the work that was accomplised on THIS IS CINERAMA and WINDJAMER that I was looking forward to more releases. Dave, y'all have done astounding work on these titles and a lot of back slapping and congratulations is due. Thank you for the time you have put in the project and I know it was a labor of love.I have the South Seas Adventure trailer saved as a favorite on YouTube and show it to friends whenever I can along with Cinerama Holiday. The SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD looks great and has wetted my appetite for that one also. Can not wait for the next Blu-ray releases.

 

[Professor Echo]

I agree with you, Allen. I didn't mean to contribute to the negativity by bumping my own mini-review of the presentation at the Dome last fall I too am grateful all of these films and important artifacts of film history are being restored and preserved for the future. Dave has indeed done admirable work and even while I may not love all the movies themselves, I do support their being saved and offered again to fans both old and new.

 

[bigshot]

Your review actually made me more interested in South Seas Adventure. Lots of native dances and music sounds great to me. I like Cinerama when it's up close with people. Too many wide shots of vistas isn.t as interesting to me.

 

[Professor Echo]

Your review actually made me more interested in South Seas Adventure. Lots of native dances and music sounds great to me. I like Cinerama when it's up close with people. Too many wide shots of vistas isn.t as interesting to me.

If you include the seemingly endless aerial footage in some of the Cinerama travelogues as part of the "vistas," then we can agree. To me those are just as attention taxing as the singing and dancing. However, you will probably love most of SOUTH SEAS as it has lots of native music and some Christian religious music if memory serves. I'm glad my review inspired you to want to see the movie!

 

[Bill Huelbig]

Dave: Thanks so much to you and your team for the fantastic work you're doing to keep Cinerama alive. Any chance that "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" will get the same restoration treatment as the travelogues? Just a few years ago, that was classified as a lost film. Cut to October 2012 when I saw it at the Dome, something I'd previously thought impossible. Here's hoping a Blu-ray release can happen someday. I meant to ask this question to the guy from Image Trends who was stationed in the lobby that night, but never got around to it. Thanks again.

 

[ahollis]

Dave: Thanks so much to you and your team for the fantastic work you're doing to keep Cinerama alive. Any chance that "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" will get the same restoration treatment as the travelogues? Just a few years ago, that was classified as a lost film. Cut to October 2012 when I saw it at the Dome, something I'd previously thought impossible. Here's hoping a Blu-ray release can happen someday. I meant to ask this question to the guy from Image Trends who was stationed in the lobby that night, but never got around to it. Thanks again.

Post #18 has indicated that the powers that be at Warner's is not interested in doing work with Image Trends. That would pretty much cut TWWOTBG out of the loop.

 

[Bill Huelbig]

Thanks, Allen. Guess I was so excited to see Dave Strohmaier posting here, I forgot to check out the earlier posts. I'm still glad I got to thank him personally, and I hope Brothers Grimm defies the odds again and comes to Blu-ray eventually.

 

[AdrianTurner]

Hi all"I guess Adrian Turner would prefer to live on his old Cinerama memories and that our Cinerama films just go away and rot unless they can be restored photo chemically. Thanks so much Adrian Turner for your wise and informative comments. Were so happy that people like Leonard Maltin and Dave Kehr disagree with you."

Well, I guess this needs some sort of reply. Yes, I would prefer to live on my memories of original Cinerama presentations for this reason: the whole point of Cinerama was the process. You went to see Cinerama, the curved screen, the three panels etc. It was an intensely physical experience and it hardly mattered what the actual film was like. It is quite different from seeing, for instance, Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm and then a few years later a 35mm re-issue because you were going for the movie, to see a masterpiece, and of course it would be better in 70mm than 35mm but even in 35mm it was still a masterpiece.

Cinerama is different. I happen to like HTWWW a lot but I'd never bother with it in flat 70mm let alone 35mm. Grimm as a movie is pretty terrible (though less terrible than I originally remember it) and again there's no point in seeing it in anything other than Cinerama.

The travelogues are absolute rubbish - interminable, trivial, full of boys' choirs, girls in bikinis, without a trace of wit or interest in where they were shot. Total pap, in my view, and the only reason to see them in the 1950s was because of HOW they were shot, not WHERE they were shot. As time capsules of an innocent, Eisenhower boomtime era the rather desperate social historian might find a moment or two to savour. These are films without directors, without scripts, without stars - they are not part of any artistic line or heritage in the way that an early movie by Ford or Kurosawa or Wilder are. They were simply pieces of technology.

In my view, take away Cinerama from these films and you are left with nothing. I respect Strohmaier and his work and I think his documentary, Cinerama Adventure, is masterly - that movie really went the extra mile. However, I must say, there comes a point when you think that some things just aren't worth preserving. I always rate artistic and aesthetic worth over technology any day.

The same applies to the Bradford Festival which has knowingly run the most appalling 70mm prints simply because they are 70mm prints. That makes no sense to me. There doesn't seem be any kind of value system or aesthetic at work here. Sadly, I do think those days of 70mm festivals are finally over because print availability has become such a major issue. It's sad but inevitable.

 

[Bill Huelbig]

The travelogues are absolute rubbish - interminable, trivial, full of boys' choirs, girls in bikinis, without a trace of wit or interest in where they were shot. Total pap, in my view, and the only reason to see them in the 1950s was because of HOW they were shot, not WHERE they were shot. As time capsules of an innocent, Eisenhower boomtime era the rather desperate social historian might find a moment or two to savour.

I always thought the travelogues were an exciting way for people to vicariously visit faraway parts of the world, especially back in the '50s when air travel was not as common as it is now. I certainly felt that way while watching Seven Wonders of the World for the first time last year.