CLEOPATRA Region Free BRD (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Budgell]

I too saw the film at the Dominion and remember thinking it badly needed a chariot race or something to liven it up.

A chariot race?! Cleopatra's Entrance Into Rome beats Ben-Hur's chariot race for me any day of the week. And apparently Madonna thinks so, too, as she just stole it for her Super Bowl halftime performance.

 

[Alan Tully]

I was at the HMV store on Oxford St in London on saturday. One of the staff put on the BLU of CLEOPATRA....,,,,,within minutes a large crowd ultimately gathered watching Cleopatra's entrance into Rome..everyone was transfixed ....comments such as "Is this 3D without glasses?" ..." and look no CGI..wow"...." Now I have to buy a blu ray player". Within 15 minutes.....35 copies were sold.
It was very cool to observe!

I was in there today & they were showing it, but....they'd racked the colour right up to the max! Reds & blues were electric (it didn't do much for poor old yellow),& the contrast was wound up (but it always is there), it didn't look very filmlike, but it did look almost 3D.

 

[john a hunter]

I too saw the film at the Dominion and remember thinking it badly needed a chariot race or something to liven it up. I'm pretty sure it was the four-hour version (it certainly felt like it) but the usually authoritative Monthly Film Bulletin (Sep 1963, p127) lists its running time as "226 minutes (original running time 243 mins)" Now, the difference might be the length of the Overture, Entr'Acte and Play-out music . . . but it's a weird discrepancy.
I ran the film in 70mm a few times at the NFT in the 1980s and we never managed to obtain the original version.

226 minutes sounds about right. Zanuck himself was said to have edited the 243 minutes down for the Dominion print: its first showing outside North America. I think this "Dominion" version is mentioned in the Tom Rothman doco.
Thanks for booking it for the NFT, Adrian,.That's where I last saw it in 70mm. Numerous splices from memory where the cuts were made.

 

[David_B_K]

I was in there today & they were showing it, but....they'd racked the colour right up to the max! Reds & blues were electric (it didn't do much for poor old yellow),& the contrast was wound up (but it always is there), it didn't look very filmlike, but it did look almost 3D.

I received my copy a couple of days ago. I did feel the color was somewhat drab; although the image was quite sharp. It looked pretty good after I bumped up the color a little.

 

I spot checked the movie tonight on my DLP projector and 110" screen. I felt the color was excellent and vibrant at my normal settings. Contrast, sharpness, and fine grain are great as well.

 

[adklz]

I'm disappointed. I ordered this from Amazon UK earlier this week and last night received an email saying it would be another week to 10 days before they'll be able to ship. I was considering cancelling and trying to order from someplace else, but have decided that I'll probably end up with less aggravation if I just wait for Amazon. This is the first time I've ordered from a foreign Amazon site. I'm sorry to find it just as frustrating as the US site. Can anyone tell me how long, with the standard shipping, it will probably take to reach me in the states once it is shipped?

 

[john a hunter]

Could mean Amazon UK had sold out? I actually got mine a week earlier than anticipated.It's worth the wait.

 

[Scott Calvert]

I'm disappointed. I ordered this from Amazon UK earlier this week and last night received an email saying it would be another week to 10 days before they'll be able to ship. I was considering cancelling and trying to order from someplace else, but have decided that I'll probably end up with less aggravation if I just wait for Amazon. This is the first time I've ordered from a foreign Amazon site. I'm sorry to find it just as frustrating as the US site. Can anyone tell me how long, with the standard shipping, it will probably take to reach me in the states once it is shipped?

Usually my orders take about 3 weeks to arrive once shipped. I have no idea why it takes so long as most others seem to get theirs within a week to a week and a half. That said, I still love ordering from Amazon UK as the prices are great.

 

[adklz]

3 weeks from the shipping date? Yikes. I occasionally send packages back and forth with a friend in Germany and they generally take less than a week to cross the pond. Has anyone had any experience ordering from Grooves-Inc? They have the german edition for $18.00 with free shipping world wide. It's also available from CD Wow. I've had good luck ordering import cd's from them, but they also list a 7 to 10 day period before shipping. I'm the impatient sort. Once I decide I want something - I want it now. I drive myself crazy.

 

I live in California and Amazon UK shipments usually just take a week or so to get here.

 

[flixyflox]

They are normally one week to Australia using either Royal Mail or Deutsch Post standard airmail. And their postage is cheap and sometimes free (used to be orders over 50 quid.) I am generally pleased with this but I agree with the poster back a while who thought the skin tones were ever so slightly gray. Apart from this, color resolution, sharpness, contrast look superb and the two halves of the film are supported by two BD50 discs.
I have a recent HDnet 720p broadcast copy which was also very fine and whetted my appetite - I have to say this 720p transfer has the benefit of far more "natural" and warmer skin tones.
It's a tiny issue, really but.....

 

Everyone would like a perfect transfer of every film, but I'll take "slightly gray" skintones over those annoying overly red ones seen so often.

 

[Alan Tully]

I'll keep on fighting the good fight, even though I'm outnumbered. I don't like this transfer, it's cool when it should be rich, the colours are dull when they should be vibrant. And it didn't look like this at the time becouse no film did. Whoever did it has obviously used all the latest grading tools to get into the picture & tweak the colours & give it a today look. I'm so glad they didn't muck up How The West Was Won like this (& I know it's a different studio).

 

I'll keep on fighting the good fight, even though I'm outnumbered. I don't like this transfer, it's cool when it should be rich, the colours are dull when they should be vibrant. And it didn't look like this at the time becouse no film did. Whoever did it has obviously used all the latest grading tools to get into the picture & tweak the colours & give it a today look. I'm so glad they didn't muck up How The West Was Won like this (& I know it's a different studio).

I'll agree with you on HTWWW. That is about as close to the look of a dye transfer Technicolor print as you can get on video. I had 16mm and 35mm projectors and prints back in my film collecting days. As nice and convenient as digital projection at home is these days, I do miss firing up my 35mm projector with xenon lamphouse and showing a Tech print on a 20-foot screen! The last thing we showed back in 2001 was an IB Tech/Scope print of John Wayne's The War Wagon. Where's that on Blu-ray, Universal?? Anyway, color perception and taste is a very subjective thing. I think Cleopatra looks pretty darn good, but you don't have to agree.

 

[flixyflox]

Yes agree on HTWWW. Of course original print runs were IB Techni.
Despite Cleopatra carrying the color by Deluxe crdit I'm certain some first release prints of it (and many other Todd AO movies) were printed by Technicolor. I have to say in regard to my perception of the skin tones, they suggest the whole color timing and grading has been cooled down. It really stands out like the proverbial when you compare to the 720p download. I would far prefer to watch the latter despite the drop in resolution and audio quality.

 

[haineshisway]

Yes agree on HTWWW. Of course original print runs were IB Techni.
Despite Cleopatra carrying the color by Deluxe crdit I'm certain some first release prints of it (and many other Todd AO movies) were printed by Technicolor. I have to say in regard to my perception of the skin tones, they suggest the whole color timing and grading has been cooled down. It really stands out like the proverbial when you compare to the 720p download. I would far prefer to watch the latter despite the drop in resolution and audio quality.

I can't speak to the 35mm general release prints, but in 70mm there would have been no Technicolor prints. Tech didn't print 70mm.

 

[rsmithjr]

A number of Todd-AO films had 35mm IB Tech prints. This is also true of other 70mm productions.
Richard W. Haines' "Technicolor Movies" (p. 106) says that British prints of the short version of Cleopatra were produced in IB Tech. Apparently no US prints.
The 35mm prints I saw were most decidedly Eastman and certainly had the unique look of "Color by Deluxe", which was a quite pretty pastel typical of the 50's. Alas, it faded.
As stated, there were never 70mm IB Tech prints. 16mm prints were very common and were produced by having two images on a 35mm strip with 16mm-style perfs. 16mm IB Tech prints were often spectacular if properly exhibited.

 

[rsmithjr]

I'll keep on fighting the good fight, even though I'm outnumbered. I don't like this transfer, it's cool when it should be rich, the colours are dull when they should be vibrant. And it didn't look like this at the time becouse no film did. Whoever did it has obviously used all the latest grading tools to get into the picture & tweak the colours & give it a today look. I'm so glad they didn't muck up How The West Was Won like this (& I know it's a different studio).

Like I said, I adjusted it to match my memory.

 

[Hollowbrook Drive-In]

16mm prints were very common and were produced by having two images on a 35mm strip with 16mm-style perfs.

Please elaborate on this odd statement (you don't think that Kodak, Fuji, et al didn't have have dedicated equipment for producing 16mm stock, negative, print and reversal?).
And, in the 1970's, when Kodak introduced 110 format pocket still cameras, you know what 110 film was?
Yup -- 16mm film with different perforations. The whole idea was to maximize the use of their 16mm film production capacity, so they designed a still camera around it.

 

Please elaborate on this odd statement (you don't think that Kodak, Fuji, et al didn't have have dedicated equipment for producing 16mm stock, negative, print and reversal?).
And, in the 1970's, when Kodak introduced 110 format pocket still cameras, you know what 110 film was?
Yup -- 16mm film with different perforations. The whole idea was to maximize the use of their 16mm film production capacity, so they designed a still camera around it.

He's probably talking about dual rank printing, often used by Technicolor for their 16mm prints. Technicolor printed 16mm this way and also as a single strip. Some companies printed Super 8 as quad rank, with four prints on one piece of 35mm film. The film was then slit into single strips, as Technicolor did with their dual rank 16mm prints.