1933 King Kong in November

Columbia, MGM, Disney, New Line, Image, and Anchor Bay have all licensed Criterion commentaries. It remains to be seen whether Warner proper will license such material.

DJ

Criterion's King Kong commentary is, if I'm not mistaken, the first-ever commentary to a film. SO that in itself would be nice to hear.

That's correct. Fully loaded DVDs typically have multiple commentaries so who knows we may be lucky & get treated to the LD commentary on the DVD.

Little snippet from Ain't It Cool News, interesting for 'Kong' fans, and those that want a restored How The West Was Won too:

Warner Bros. Studios and HP breathe new life into classic motion pictures

Warner Bros. Studios and HP also announced that they have teamed to restore the 1933 classic motion picture "King Kong." One of the American Film Institute's 100 most beloved films and named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, the original camera negative of "King Kong" has long been destroyed, leaving only elements and prints that have been deteriorating over the years.

Warner Bros. Studios has brought the best elements and prints from all over the world and has scanned them into a 4K digital file. Using HP's "dirt and scratch" technology, which was developed by HP Labs, the 72-year-old classic will be digitally restored to its 1933 brilliance. A new camera negative as well as new archival elements will be created so that the film will be saved for generations to come. This new, restored version of "King Kong," as it was originally released, will be screened theatrically and broadcast on television, as well as released on Warner Home Video.

HP has also invented a new film restoration process for Cinerama films that eliminates the "seams" visible from the old three panel Cinerama process as well as corrects the distortions in perspective that were inherent in the change from Cinerama's curved screen to a flat one. Tests have already begun on the classic MGM 1962 film "How The West Was Won," now part of the vast Warner Bros. Studios library.

Not sure about that last bit; do we, we home cinema fans, want to eradicate the Cinerama experience altogether?

Wow, where to begin, John!

Great news about Kong. But who are this "HP" outfit? I thought that Lowry Digital Images were behind the 4K scanning and digital refurbishment of the elements, no?

The lines in Cinerama films can be bad for some of the films, especially if the projectors were not set up super-precisely. With a proper, patient set up, those Cinemrama presentations could often be amazing, with the seams practically invisable from a respectable distance from the screen. The main problem is the different levels of fading in each of the three 6-perf 35mm negatives and ancillary elements.

Digital softwares make correcting this much, much easier and cheaper than photo-chem work. However, tests were made on How the West a few years ago and the results were very good, so maybe the elements aren't in as poor condition as some of the other Cinerama films. Correcting the distortions that the curve-to-flat optical convertions introduced is a good thing; those weird kaleidoscopic images were never intended and need to be corrected.

The Smile-box process (click for info) is interesting and could be included as a second or third limited edition disc for hardcore Cinerama enthusiasts, but I can't see Warner going for it. As long as the image is uncropped (when flattened, the ratio for Cinerama is apparently between 2.59 and 2.65:1), I'll be satisfied.

It's great that Warner has the inclination and guts to do work like this and other Studios should take note.

Thanks for the info, John.

It's Hewlett-Packard - see the press release here:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/pr...5/050418a.html

I'd like to see the smile-box at least tried; and I want to see those panel lines; I've said it before, directors worked so hard to hide them; they are part of creative process surely?

Thanks John for the update about King Kong

The seam lines seem to be somewhat modest on the dye-transfer prints (at least from what I've seen on the American Widescreen Museum), but they're very obvious on the 70mm/35mm scope reductions.


As for smilebox, I don't think the Cinerama films should be shown in any other format. There is a huge amount of distortion without this adjustment. In my opinion, Warner would be wasting disc space by including a non-Smilebox version...

I wonder if this Cinerama digital process means that Warner is picking up rights to the Cinerama-owned 3-panel films... it would be a really nice opporunity to create a Cinerama boxed set with How the West Was Won, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, This is Cinerama, and Cinerama Adventure.


And I'm looking forward to King Kong... even the newer master shown on TCM isn't awful (nice photographic quality, if just a little too much dirt and scratch damage). 4K is a wise move, too... we don't need a bunch of "video" restorations when something can actually be used for 35mm.

Does anyone know WHY Warner seems to have ditched Lowry Digital in favor of in-house restoration work? Was Lowry charging them too much, or were they just not pleased with the quality? They gave Lowry some of their first big breaks and now seem content just to do everything themselves (Ultra-Resolution, etc). Disney and Lucasfilm seem to be Lowry's biggest customers now.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that DTS purchased Lowry Digital, and Warner tends to shun DTS on its releases.

I take a gander to say that it's cheaper to do it in-house since Warner releases a lot of catalogue titles, it's probably cheaper to do in the long run to do it this way. That's just a guess.

I'm interesting in special features on this release, I mean the movie is well over 70 years old what can you put on a disc like that? I take a guess that most of the cast and crew is dead, I believe Fay Wray died just last year Then again if they could ever find the lost spider scene that'd be awesome

Well, the last confirmed LDI restoration for WB was THX 1138 (4K).

It's possible that there is a big delay time... especially since LDI apparently creates the IMAX DMR 4K masters and is also working on 4K restorations for the first 9 James Bond films (HD remasters for the others, minus Die Another Day).

From what I have read, Lucasfilm paid for the Lowry restoration of THX and produced the extras themselves. Warner was the distributor, of course. The whole package, the very-high-bitrate transfer and extras have a different style from the Warner standard, which is excellent, of course.

Didn't I read somewhere on this forum that an interview with Miss Wray was in the specs for this release? Thought I did, but I'm having trouble finding it at the moment. Correct me if I'm mistaken. And, yeah, it WOULD be awesome if someone had located the lost spider sequence in David O. Selznick's fruit cellar and kept it under wraps until the DVD street date...

Warners confirmed this during the last chat.

Steve

Very nice Also does anyone know how Universal has the rights to make a new movie but WB has the rights to the 1933 version? I'm taking a guess that it has to do with the whole turner buyout of MGM and then keeping the library for Turner and selling the name, because I'd have to assume that RKO was bought out by MGM at some point which would make sense but it still doesn't clear up how Universal came into possession of the rights to King Kong.

There have been multiple lawsuits over the years to hash this out, so there's no easy explanation. As a result of a bout of lawsuits arising out of the 1976 Dino DeLaurentiis remake, it was declared that the copyright on the King Kong story had fallen into the public domain. Universal brought their lawsuit to declare "Kong" to be in the public domain in preparation for their own remake of the film at that time, which never came into being. While the suits were proceeding, Universal purchased trademark rights to "King Kong" from Richard Cooper, son and heir of Merian C. Cooper.

So while the 1933 film remains under copyright and Warner owns it through the RKO library, Warner holds no special remake rights to the film (nor does any other studio). Universal, however, owns a trademark on "King Kong". Universal is using this trademark right, along with the public domain status of the story, as the basis for their ability to do the remake.

DJ

So technically a studio could make a movie about King Kong as long as it doesn't use the name King Kong? Just curious? I mean that leaves open some interesting doors...

That's basically what happened with Nosferatu back in the '20's. Bram Stoker's estate sued for copyright infringement since it was basically "Dracula". Murnau used different character names. Not sure exactly how it got settled...anyone care to take it from here?

I believe the Nosferatu camp lost and the court ordered for all prints of the film to be destroyed. If I understand correctly, it's a minor miracle we even have the film today.

Murnau's use of different character names was no help, as Stoker's widow prevailed in her copyright infringement action.

As for other entities being able to produce a "King Kong" film and actually use that title, it's an interesting question. In their original lawsuit in which they tried to get the story of "Kong" declared to be in the public domain, Universal also took the position that the public domain status of the story's copyright was enough to make it so that their intended film remake didn't infringe any rights at all (including trademark rights) of RKO, Richard Cooper, or DeLaurentiis's production company.

There is a concept known as "fair use" in the world of trademark law (which is a completely different animal than "fair use" in the copyright context). In the trademark context, "fair use" allows "the use of [a] name, term, or device...which is descriptive of and used fairly and in good faith only to describe the goods." 15 USC § 1115(b)(4). Judge Kozinski eloquently put it thusly: "Indeed, we may generalize a class of cases where the use of the trademark does not attempt to capitalize on consumer confusion or to appropriate the cachet of one product for a different one. Such nominative use of a mark - where the only word reasonably available to describe a particular thing is pressed into service - lies outside the strictures of trademark law: Because it does not implicate the source-identification function that is the purpose of trademark, it does not constitute unfair competition; such use is fair because it does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder." New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc., 971 F.2d 302, 307-8 (9th Cir. 1992).

The story "King Kong" is in the public domain. With regard to copyright law, anyone can make a film (or another book, or a stage play, or a musical, etc.) out of it. Calling such a work "King Kong" is only merely descriptive of its source; having to call it something else would be silly game-playing (in the New Kids case, Kozinski gives "the professional basketball team from Chicago" as such an example). Other legalistic avenues may be available, as well, but it seems to me that making a film adaptation of "King Kong" and call it as such would be a fair use of Universal's trademark. The main strength of Universal's trademark therefore probably lies in ancillary merchandising: maybe anyone can make a film, but they're probably the only ones who could also make t-shirts, action figures, theme park attractions, etc.

DJ

I don't know if it has anything to do with King Kong but RKO retained the remake rights to its films . While the films themselves are owned by Warner Bros, if anyone wants to make a remake of one of their films, they have to deal with RKO . This company, RKO Films, still exists and I believe currently owned by Dina Merrill and her husband. If the film is in public domain then this would not apply.

Incorrect.

RKO sold the remake rights years ago...way before the Ted Hartley/Dina Merrill purchase of RKO's remaining assets without its library.

I don't know the exact situation, but it seemed that in the '60s or '70s RKO (then owned by General Tire) sold the remake rights to both Universal and DeLaurentiis, and a huge lawsuit ensued that went on for years.

That's why Universal has the rights to the Jackson remake.

At least that's how I understand the circumstances having followed the story years ago.

From DVD Talk:

...there is a rumor going around that may be a real revelation for King Kong fanatics. I call this a *rumor* because I haven't even read it personally, but it is supposed to come from genre authority Tom Weaver, and I checked with another genre authority yesterday and he seemed to think it was real as well. Remember the legendary 'spider pit' sequence in the original Kong, reportedly cut after a preview? If my source is correct with this *rumor*, Weaver says that at least a part of it has been located, in a French print that was used as a new restoration source for the other more standard excised Kong scenes - the gnashing of natives in Kong's mouth, the dropping of the brunette over 5th Avenue, Kong's amorous monkeying with Ann Darrow's perfumed dress. In the cut Spider Pit scene, the barely-alive sailors tossed from the log by Kong are attacked by giant spider monsters. The horrible detail has been seen only in a single surviving still image that first saw the light in Famous Monsters magazine, back when we were gum-chewing kids.

Again, this is still in the category of *rumor*, but some rumors are too hot to keep quiet about, as long as one stresses their proper status.

Well that is an exiting rumor.....but I'll believe it when I see it or WB says it is true.

Not only is it "exiting", but it's exciting too!

Sorry, bad day/week at work and the bad side of me could not resist...

Yeah that other thing too....(shrugs shoulders) I guess you aren't the only person who had a long day at work.

Likewise I'll only believe it when I see it with my 2 aging eyes.

Looks like someone beat me to the punch! Here's a bit on this juicy rumour from another genre authority, Mr. Bill Warren, author of sci-fi film tome "Keep Watching The Skies!", which he posted at the Mobius Sci-Fi/Horror board:


So there's another interesting wrinkle--Peter Jackson's alleged involvement. Crazy, huh?

Doesn't Universal own the home video rights to King Kong in the UK (to name but one region). Might explain the co-operation.

very curious indeed