The Ultimate List of Mono to Stereo Remixed Soundtracks (1 Viewer)

[Jim*Tod]

All issues of Ten Commandments up until the 1989 reissue when it was blown up to 70mm were in mono. The ONLY American made VistaVision film (there are some Japanese ones like The Venus Wars) to be in stereo was Williamsburg: Story of a Patriot, which was not a regular theatrical release and used a separate 6-track magnetic soundtrack (its since been preserved on 70mm).


Remember... studios don't have the ability to create 70mm blow-ups until 1963!

Robert Harris did the restoration of STORY OF A PATRIOT. I have a strip from one of the old VistaVision horizontal prints which is how they were presented in Williamsburg for decades. The posters for the presentation said it was in VistaVision with sound by Todd-Ao. The piece of film I have has magnetic strips on it for the six track Todd-Ao sound. Since these were purpose built theaters with curved floor to ceiling screens, it was a very impressive presentation. The restored version is in 70mm and very nice. Almost worth a trip to the colonial capital to see.

 

[RolandL]

Well I remember reading somewhere that only the mono existed back when MGM put out their laserdisc and that sound was redone by Chace. Obviously things turn up.

I might be mixing up my laser disc titles but, I remember getting a note inside the laser disc package, saying that they found the stereo tracks for Forbidden Planet. I think this was from the Criterion laser disc.

 

[RolandL]

MGM actually encoded all their optical tracks from 1956 to about 1958 with Perspecta sound. In some cases (like Forbidden Planet), the Perpecta encoded mono is all that exists.
.

The Tom and Jerry CinemaScope shorts also mention Perspecta in the titles.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The Tom and Jerry CinemaScope shorts also mention Perspecta in the titles.

As do several of the earlier shorts which only exist in reissue prints thanks to the original negatives going up in flames at Eastman House.

 

[TJPC]

What about The Harvey Girls? (1946) I know that most of the soundtrack CD is in stereo?

 

[Mark-P]

What about The Harvey Girls? (1946) I know that most of the soundtrack CD is in stereo?

While The Acheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe number was remixed to stereo for That's Entertainment! and was also included on the DVD as an extra, the movie itself is and always has been mono.

 

[john a hunter]

Also some 35mm Mag Prints only had a single stripe for Centre Channel Mono, they include
Summer Holiday (1963), The Main Event (1979) and The Exorcist (1973).

Hi John, I would have loved to have seen Kwai in 4 Track with all those jungle noises.
best
Derek.

You never know what the upcoming 4k will have but I doubt it.
Did you catch Zhivago at the Empire before they cut up the train noise during the Intermission in favour of yet more Lara's theme?

 

[DP 70]

You never know what the upcoming 4k will have but I doubt it.
Did you catch Zhivago at the Empire before they cut up the train noise during the Intermission in favour of yet more Lara's theme?

Hi John, No I did not I would liked to have heard that.
best
Derek.

 

[moviebuff75]

Was Willy Wonka ever in stereo, before its 1996 remix?

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I don't believe so. There's no indication of 4-track mag prints anywhere on the web, and there most certainly wasn't a 70mm blow-up.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The original vhs and laser of Willy Wonka from the 80s were both mono.

Also the jacket of the 90's laser specifically states its a remix.

 

[moviebuff75]

When mono mixes were prepared for tv and vhs, did they have to use DME stems to mix them? Could stray dialogue end up in those versions that wasn't meant to be there?

 

[MatthewA]

The Wonka laser also has an isolated score available nowhere else, albeit in mono. They must have had a stereo version of that to use as the basis for the new mix. If only the Blu-ray could have at least presented the actual film soundtrack lossless. I'm sure there'll be a 4K with the film's 50th anniversary around the corner.

 

[moviebuff75]

When Charlie'so Mom yelled "Wait!" on the mono track, it was to stop the singing. That line was deleted on the stereo track. Could that line have been introduced back into the vhs/tv mono version? But wasn't in the original mix?

 

[John Morgan]

Maybe I missed this being mentioned, but HOUSE OF WAX originally had a stereo soundtrack on a separate interlocked print, which is gone.
Also, the same situation for CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER. When this film plays on TCM it has a faux soundtrack. I think they had the surround on one of the film negatives and were able to get a semi fuller sound by manipulation.
And THE TIME MACHINE should added to the list.
And finally, I heard that THE CAINE MUTINY did have an interlocked stereo track for a very few theaters. But those interlocked soundtracks seem to be the first to disappear.

 

[MatthewA]

When Charlie'so Mom yelled "Wait!" on the mono track, it was to stop the singing. That line was deleted on the stereo track. Could that line have been introduced back into the vhs/tv mono version? But wasn't in the original mix?

All the pre-1996 videos/discs/TV airings, including The Disney Channel in the summer of 1991, had that line and I assume it was always there. That is literally the only alteration made to the film other than replacing Paramount logos with Warner Bros. ones when they bought out David Wolper's company. The only 35mm print I've ever seen was a 1990s WB reissue print with the line dropped.

WB also remixed 1967's Camelot pretty badly around the same time, but that was already in stereo to begin with, and you yourself mentioned the 1998 Wizard of Oz remix dropping a line. A lot of these 1990s remixes were done either with limited time or limited money, or both, and the technology is not nearly as good as it is if they were to redo it today.

 

[moviebuff75]

I had the 1991 vhs and it looked good. I don't know if it was the same transfer as the 1984 version, but it had changeover marks. Perhaps when WB took over the rights, they made new elements, including the audio.
I think we are now at a point with film restoration that the focus should now turn to fixing these audio errors and redoing them.
In the meantime, I am trying to contact someone who worked on this title, and see if I can get some answers.

 

[MatthewA]

The 1984 version had the Saul Bass \\' logo on either end (I think Follow That Bird, released the following year, might have been the last to use that in its end credits). The late 1980s VHS reissue and the open-matte laserdisc concurrent with it, both of which I used to own, had the WB shield in the clouds on both ends.

Bed knobs may have had a 3-channel mag mix.

The 25th anniversary laserdisc claims "for the first time in stereo," but an article by a Disney insider I happen to know personally (via internet) for a now-defunct Disney fan magazine back in the late 1990s claims there was a three-channel mix made but never confirmed to have been used, and if it was, it was only in New York and LA. But the version it was made for was a 120-minute interim version that tried to spare most of "With a Flair," the last song to go when the orders came to cut the film. It is unlikely that mix was ever heard then. I guess once they settled on a 117-minute running time against the wishes of practically everyone who actually made the film, Disney just didn't want to pay the cost of mag striping prints, especially with Walt Disney World opening concurrently with its premiere and occupying a lot of company finances. When I got a Hi-Fi VCR, I went back to check the last two pre-restoration VHS releases (which looked better than the laserdisc, frankly) that were in Hi-Fi, and they were mono. They still had orchestra pre-records to use, though; most of the other live-action Disney remixes didn't seem to even bother to check for them and so they just sounded like fat and deep mono. Intrada released the soundtrack to the original Escape to Witch Mountain proving an actually good stereo remix was possible. The Blu-ray just went back to 1.0 mono.

Disney has been all over the place on the sound for The Sword in the Stone. It went from mono to stereo and back and forth between formats.

 

[WaltWiz1901]

1961

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

1967

The Jungle Book

1970

The Aristocats

1977

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

1981

The Fox and the Hound

Hold up, weren't these movies (and I'm sure there are a few others) recorded in stereo and downmixed to mono on most release prints? I recall reading a forum post on a Disney animated and live-action film master list on Blu-ray.com that said some of the 1961-1981 animated films had stereophonic score elements that were later used on those movies' Dolby Stereo theatrical reissues and Dolby Surround home video releases. There's even a thread on the DVDizzy forums about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh's Masterpiece Collection VHS/LaserDisc utilizing a true stereo mix instead of a broad mono remix, which I would love to hear at least a snippet of.

 

[Mark-P]

Hold up, weren't these movies (and I'm sure there are a few others) recorded in stereo and downmixed to mono on most release prints? I recall reading a forum post on a Disney animated and live-action film master list on Blu-ray.com that said some of the 1961-1981 animated films had stereophonic score elements that were later used on those movies' Dolby Stereo theatrical reissues and Dolby Surround home video releases. There's even a thread on the DVDizzy forums about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh's Masterpiece Collection VHS/LaserDisc utilizing a true stereo mix instead of a broad mono remix, which I would love to hear at least a snippet of.

If the final mix of the movie is mono, and then a later release comes out in stereo, then for the purposes of this thread that counts as a remix regardless of when it was created.

Allow me to elaborate on that. There have been rumors that original release prints of The Fox and the Hound actually carried an optical Dolby Stereo soundtrack, but that Disney simply chose not to pay the Dolby licensing fee. The vast majority of theaters would have played it back in mono. If there are any projectionists out there who handled 1981 prints of this movie and can confirm that, that would be great. It's also possible Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Rescuers could have carried Dolby tracks, but I've never heard that. As for 101 Dalmatians, Jungle Book, and The Aristocats, these were pre-Dolby so the only way there could have been stereo prints for them is if the prints were magnetically striped and I've certainly not heard reports of that being the case.