"The Robe" and "Demetrius and the Gladiators" are now a wow! (1 Viewer)

[RobertGr]

Thanks for the intreresting info!

 

[Barrie Maxwell]

I first saw this thread last Friday and now on Monday, I am amazed at how it has expanded. I have no background information on what restorations may or may not have been done, but I have both the 2001 DVD of The Robe and the new release (with by the way, one of the worst covers I've ever seen). The new release has a 2005 copyright on the rear cover of the packaging. The disc inside, however, has a 2001 copyright on it and physically looks identical to the disc of the original 2001 DVD release. I compared the two discs subjectively (simply flipping back and forth between identical scenes as the two discs played simultaneously) and to my eye can see no difference at all.

Barrie

 

[Mark Anthony]

Quelle suprise, that's two copies of both disc's that have been independently verified by respectable sources as being identical to the original 2001 release!

Anyone else?

M

 

[RobertGr]

Doesn't wash Barrie and Mark Anthony because the promos on the disc re: Fox Video are the ones since 2005 not in use in 2001, The discs were redone.

 

[Thomas T]

And round and round and round and round and round we go but it still seems we're at the exact same place we started off. I suppose it just comes down to who you want or don't want to believe.

 

[Douglas R]

I first saw this thread last Friday and now on Monday, I am amazed at how it has expanded. I have no background information on what restorations may or may not have been done, but I have both the 2001 DVD of The Robe and the new release (with by the way, one of the worst covers I've ever seen). The new release has a 2005 copyright on the rear cover of the packaging. The disc inside, however, has a 2001 copyright on it and physically looks identical to the disc of the original 2001 DVD release. I compared the two discs subjectively (simply flipping back and forth between identical scenes as the two discs played simultaneously) and to my eye can see no difference at all.
Barrie

Thanks Barrie. We now have two authoritive sources (you and Joe) who confirm that their is no difference between the discs. I think that's conclusive! I disagree with you about the new cover though - I far prefer it to the old one!

 

[Robert Crawford]

I first saw this thread last Friday and now on Monday, I am amazed at how it has expanded. I have no background information on what restorations may or may not have been done, but I have both the 2001 DVD of The Robe and the new release (with by the way, one of the worst covers I've ever seen). The new release has a 2005 copyright on the rear cover of the packaging. The disc inside, however, has a 2001 copyright on it and physically looks identical to the disc of the original 2001 DVD release. I compared the two discs subjectively (simply flipping back and forth between identical scenes as the two discs played simultaneously) and to my eye can see no difference at all.
Barrie

Thank you Barrie, that's all I needed to know.
Crawdaddy

 

[Joe Caps]

oNe of the new copies of The Robe I bought last week has new promors and logogs at the beginnning, but when the film starts, the same white marks and blackmarks on the film in the same places.

 

[Mark Anthony]

May I suggest that a mod renames this thread too "The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators are now exactly the same as in 2001!*

* Except for a crappier/better cover and promo's!

M

 

[RobertGr]

It boggles the mind to think the studio would go throught the expense of making a new disc to use to duplicate to add new promos.

 

[RolandL]

Robert,

What's the year on your 2005 dvd?

 

[RobertGr]

Back cover 2005 new packaging. On screen printed front of disc 2001 yet the disc has all the new FOX logos etc and pomos. I will post info I receive from my contacts at FOX when I get a reply.

FOX has been totally awesome when I ask questions regarding their work!

 

[ScottR]

I have the 2005 Robe and 2001 Demetrius. Both look fine. The 2005 Robe is dirty with specks everywhere. I'm not sure if that was indicative of early Cinemascope or not. Demetrius has the same look as The Robe...the same bright colors, and similar grain. I'm a perfectionist (duh!) and I am happy with both. If you have the 2001 copies, you're all set until HD versions.

 

[Matt Hough]

I don't think THE ROBE looks fine at all (judging by the 2001 copyrighted version I have). The color is strong enough and it's reasonably sharp, but it's DIRTY: just filled with speckles and dirt that ruin my enjoyment of the presentation.

Maybe I'm spoiled, but when I see the PRISTINE job Fox did with SOUTH PACIFIC and THE KING AND I (DVDs so spotless they look as if they were filmed yesterday), watching THE ROBE breaks my heart a little.

This should be one of the gems of the Fox collection. Instead, to my eyes, the DVD looks like an afterthought.

 

[Simon Howson]

I don't think THE ROBE looks fine at all (judging by the 2001 copyrighted version I have). The color is strong enough and it's reasonably sharp, but it's DIRTY: just filled with speckles and dirt that ruin my enjoyment of the presentation.
Maybe I'm spoiled, but when I see the PRISTINE job Fox did with SOUTH PACIFIC and THE KING AND I (DVDs so spotless they look as if they were filmed yesterday), watching THE ROBE breaks my heart a little.
This should be one of the gems of the Fox collection. Instead, to my eyes, the DVD looks like an afterthought.

My guess is that is as good as it will ever look. It seems to me that most of the film was restored in the late 90s using separations rather than the negative.
Maybe the negative is just in a really bad shape, because the film was reissued by Fox every decade becuase it is such a historically significant film? Maybe it was mishandled repeatedly over the years, so now the current DVD is as good as it will get without a vast improvement in digital technologies?
Plus it was photographed with one of Henri Chretien's own prototype anamorphic (he called them hypergonar) lenses which was manufactured in the late 1920s.

 

[RobertGr]

Hi
Check out the link pasted below re: THE ROBE - some great stuff on here! Also now we see the NEW cover came from a poster from the film. I like the cover although some don't. It is better than the previous release.
Then below that is a snippet from a great piece A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW ON WIDESCREEN MOTION PICTURES from 2004 by Richard Mitchell. He gives some great info on the original neg of THE ROBE and says what great strides film restoration made in five years, this infers THE ROBE was restored around 2004. In line with DEMETRIUS being done in 2005.
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingcs3.htm
"The next treat of the night was the opening of "THE ROBE" (20th Century-Fox; 1953), the first CinemaScope picture, using a new composite print which looked very much like the print shown at the Academy last November. I was told this print was from an internegative from an IP made from the usable material from the original negative filled out with material from separations. The print had a Dolby SR track, making it impossible to show it at 2.55:1, but sounded as good as the transfer from the 4 track dub master shown double system at the Academy's Goldwyn Theater.
Next came a clip from "KISMET" (MGM; 1955), which host David Browning implied, possibly erroneously, was one of the seven MGM films shot both in CinemaScope and spherically before the development of squeezing/unsqueezing optical printer lenses. "KISMET" and "THE ROBE" are brilliant examples of how far film restoration has come in just five years. Just that recently, it was feared that new prints from the original negatives of pre-1962 color films were doomed to have washed out colors with yellow highlights and blue shadows, or to be printed from inferior separations made by dry printing and not really checked, meaning they're likely to have new problems of their own. I saw a print of "KISMET" from an internegative from seps some years ago, but it looked nothing like the print off the original negative I saw that night with its deep velvety blacks and rich vibrant colors of a type supposedly obtainable only with IB Technicolor (belied by the IB clips shown that night); probably looking better than 1955 prints.
Similarly, "THE ROBE"'s negative has long been rumored to be unprintable, and about 40% was, but according to several people who saw its original release, the sections from the original negative looked sharper and less grainy than they remembered and the clip shown at the SMPTE meeting, though two generations away, looked just as good. "KISMET" was shown with an optical stereo variable area track made from the original 4 track master, for which the single vocals seemed to have been rechanneled into the center rather than following their source, as would have been the case in 1955"
: )

 

[MatthewA]

Even if they did restore it that does not mean they made a new video master.
Weren't Cinemascope "lenses" merely attachments onto existing spherical prime lenses? I have always assumed that the first anamorphic primes were made by Panavision a few years later.

 

[RobertGr]

Maybe people such as Joe Caps would know more about the lenses he seems to be interested in technical info, I would love to know more about the lenses!

Interesting some of the reviews mention the 2001 reviews of the dvd mention the film is not framed at it's original 2:55 scope ratio. The new cover says on the back the film is shown in dvd in it orginal scope ratio 2:55.

 

[Simon Howson]

Weren't Cinemascope "lenses" merely attachments onto existing spherical prime lenses? I have always assumed that the first anamorphic primes were made by Panavision a few years later.

My understanding is there were three key stages in the development of CinemaSope lenses, they were initially attachments, but later became complete lenses.
The first three CinemaScope films The Robe, How to Marry A Millionaire, and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef were all photographed using Henri Chretien's prototype hypergonar attachment lenses in front of spherical prime lenses. These were the lenses that Chretien had designed and had built in the late 1920s. In fact, one of these lenses was used by Claude Auntant-Lara to shoot Construire un feu (1929). A 2.66:1 widescreen, silent, B&W film must've been something to behold.
While the earliest CinemaScope films were being made, Fox paid Bausch & Lomb to initially build new attachment lenses from Chretien's lens designs, these were first used for Knights of the Round Table, and King of the Khyber Rifles. Khyber Rifles is the first film I've seen that has the "CinemaScope lenses by Bausch & Lomb" credit. You can see one of these initial B&L built, but from Chretien's design adapter lenses at the top of this page:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingcs4.htm
Then in July 1954, Bausch & Lomb introduced new CinemaScope lenses from their own designs. These were called "combination lenses" because they contained the anamorphic attachment and the prime lens in the same housing. Previously the anamorphic attachment, and the spherical (non-anamorphic) prime lenses had to be focused separately. You can see one of the combination lenses on this page:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingcs5.htm
According to Fox advertisments, the combination CinemaScope lenses were first used on Broken Lance and The Egyptian, released July and August 1954 respectively. According to Martin Hart, the B&L attachment lenses continued to be used as well, but I suspect they were relegated to use on lower budget productions, or perhaps even RegalScope films.
Panavision's big innovation was making the anamorphic element capable of moving within the body of the lens depending on where the plane of best focus was set. This ensured that infocus objects received the most accurate anamorphic compression, at the expense of over squeezing the backgrounds. This enabled a dramatic reduction in CinemaScope mumps (fattening of actors' faces).

 

[RobertGr]

According to the onfo I posted THE ROBE was indeed restored again with parts from the original neg around 2004. Also original disc reviews claim the aspect ratio was not 2:55. The newly repackaged disc says it is in the original ratio. What does the back of the 2001 disc sat about the aspect ratio?