Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Alec Guinness probably preferred not to be associated with a movie that was back then considered both an artistic and a commercial failure, mainly due to its devastating reviews and box office numbers in the US.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Back to the topic of 4 of the Bronston movies coming to DVD. Anybody from this forum know the right people to talk to at Weinstein ?
It would be great to get a few more infos on what they plan to do with these and how their intntions are with regard to doing some work on the original negatives or what other sources they would use to do the DVDs.

Hell, I would contact them myself, but I do not know whom to contact

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

PR email for TWC at the bottom: http://www.geniusproducts.com/dyncon...ame=contact_us

However, I emailed them two weeks ago about a title and have yet to get a reply back.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

I mailed them and we'll see what their answer will be.
If they use existing masters we are in for a bad surprise as these are not only not up to today's standards but also even more problematic when displaying or rather not displaying the huge amount of picture information in these epic movies.

While there are versions of these movies with acceptable colors all of them suffer from color fringing and in some cases an obnoxious amount of edge enhancement / ringing that puts most other bad offenders to shame.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

One of my major concerns is with "El -Cid". I thought the Miramax restoration did not look or sound satisfactory and they seemed happy to go with a Dolby Stereo track. When Criterion prepared the Laserdisc I convinced them that the proper audio format was 4.0, and to try to access the 4-track stereo mag. I am very grateful that they took my advice as they managed to access one from England and it resulted in a terrifically sounding discrete 5.1 soundtrack which the 35mm print shown at the Cinerama Dome didn't get.

I contacted somebody on that website and have requested to talk to a person working on these films. Waiting to hear back.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

If memory serves, the Miramax restoration was circa '91-92, which was just when Dolby Digital had been released with it's first handful of titles inc. Star Trek 6 & Batman Returns, it would have been extremely expensive and a test of unproven technology and so i'm not suprised they went with Dolby Stereo(SR?) for the 35mm print's.

CDS has pretty much died a death the year before and DTS and SDDS were still over a year away.

But if your saying they used a 2 channel mixdown master as a basis for the Restoration Dolby Stereo track, rather than the 4 channel mag masters, then that is another matter...

M

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Mark, are you sure it was as early as that? I was associated with Criterion on the project in Summer, 1996. I thought the restoration release was only just prior to this.

Quote: But if your saying they used a 2 channel mixdown master as a basis for the Restoration Dolby Stereo track, rather than the 4 channel mag masters, then that is another matter...

Somebody over at Miramax supplied this two-track, which was obviously made from a 4-track source, and this is what Criterion were going to use with the belief, I am assuming, that this was the original sound format for the film and that it was Miramax's project. But I assured Criterion that they should create an AC3 stream with the original discrete four-track.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Mark, I just found a review on google dated '93, so it was longer ago than I thought.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

I have the Criterion El Cid right in front of me and it says that the theatrical rerelease was 1993 and the year of first printing was 1996. On the discs it also says 1996 the Voyager company.

Thanks for the great AC-3 sound - now we need a better picture to match the sound

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

so is el cid on it calender for release or not

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

There is no firm date as of now.

As I already own a few half-decent DVDs of both of El Cid and FOTRE I hope that means Weinstein is taking the time to do El Cid and the other Bronston productions justice.

No need for another low budget release with the only difference being that this time it is an RC1 version.

It would be great to hear anything new regarding these titles, it has been very quiet from Weinstein after the initial announcement.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Someone on another site who has contributed to the extras for EL CID has said that round about Jan 2008 is the likely release date.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

I read that but it would be great to hear something from Weinstein, especially regarding the state of things with regard to masters and source material.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Douglas, any idea which website you found that comment in? I'd be interested to see what they said.

Thanks

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Jeff - There's a Samuel Bronston thread on the dvdforums site:

http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Still seems strange to me that Weinstein would a whole new movie collection togehter with a flagship title and take the bigger part of a year to finally release that title and launch the collection.

I hope this points to a bigger effort on their part.
I also wrote to them some time ago regarding the Bronston epics but never heard back from them - obviously I am good enough to buy the DVD when it's out but not good enough to get any info about how it done and what quality the release will have...

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Thanks Douglas - I'm going to check it out.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

From MoviesUnlimited:

One of the films most requested at Movies Unlimited, El Cid (1961), the epic produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Anthony Mann, finally lands on DVD in two different versions with a spectacular new transfer. Charlton Heston plays the title role of Rodrigo Diaz, a disgraced Castilian knight who leads the Spanish people against the invading Moors from North Africa in 1060. Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone, and Herbert Lom also star in this spectacle that boasts gorgeous scenery (to go with gorgeous Sophia), thrilling battle scenes, and a sweeping historical story. There are a pair of two-disc sets on the way: El Cid (Deluxe Edition), with interviews, commentary, trailers, and more, and El Cid (Limited Collector’s Edition), with all the bells and whistles, plus a special book.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Any news as to a release date for El Cid?. Sounds like it's going to be worth the wait....and any news on the other Bronston epics.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

The others are supposedly upcoming, here's the page where I found the info:

http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musit..._05_093007.asp

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Fantastic news. I wonder if they'll be able to get a commentary from Charlton Heston. Perhaps it depends on how badly his Alzheimer's has become.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Well, according to the supermarket tabloids, Heston's health has deteriorated a lot, so that is unlikely. His son Fraser has said he will spend the rest of his life at home, so I would be surprised if there will be any new contributions from Heston. However, he has been interviewed on his films in the past, so they should be able to include some good comments from him as a SE feature.

I DVR'd an interview with Heston and Robert Osbourne on TCM, and they spent a good bit of time on El Cid. Unfortunately, I never got around to transferring the reccording to DVD-R, so I lost it when my DiSH DVR Receiver died. One thing that was interesting is that Heston seemd to have softened in his views about the film. He used to say it was a good film, but that it would have been a great one had William Wyler directed it (he says that on the Crierion laserdisc). He did not say that sort of thing in the TCM interview, and seemed quite proud to have been associated with the film. I think it has become apparent after many years that Anthony Mann showed himself to be a master of widescreen composition on El Cid and FOTRE.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Was there a commentary track of any sort on the Criterion laserdisc? I seem to remember Charlton Heston saying that he was especially pleased with the death scene; however, it may have been on one of the extras. Would be nice if they have overcome the color imperfections that were present on the laserdisc.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Yes and no. There was no commentary during the film itself. However, on side 4, during the supplements, they had commentaries from various people. So, on the first layer, you could watch the original release trailer, various video interviews (including Heston), the re-release trailer, etc with their proper digital sound. Then, you could re-watch them, and select different audio streams from the analog tracks which featured comments by various people associated with the film, an essay on Miklos Rozsa, etc, and a few extra comments from Heston and others.

I suppose it might be possible to use parts of Heston's various comments from interviews in scene-specific moments. Or they may elect to simply include some video interview bits with Heston.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

A big problem with Heston is he is incredibly dull as his commentary on Ben Hur shows only too well, and like so many, has selective memory. For El Cid I'd like to hear from Sophia Loren, who by all accounts loathed Chuckie!

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

The feeling was probably mutual. In his journals, Heston describes how unprofessional she was during the filming of El Cid (coming in late and keeping cast and crew waiting, etc).

I didn't find "Chuckie" dull at all on Ben-Hur. He is a bit pompous, but usually provides some interesting info (unless it's a story you have heard him tell over and over in interviews, like "I made sure that chariot race was fixed", etc). Most people on commentaries are not particularly charismatic in their comments, IMO.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Unlike Heston, Loren also refused to be aged for the latter part of the film and inexplicably demanded top billing which of course she didn't get. I mean the film is called El Cid, not Chimene. Hopefully, she has grown more gracious during the ensuing years. Heston was a total professional and didn't have much time for divas. Heston was put off by Ava Gardner's antics during the filming of 55 Days Of Peking and there was talk of replacing her with Joan Collins or Dana Wynter. Still, Heston didn't hold grudges and he and Gardner worked again in Earthquake where Gardner was older and mellower.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Coming back to this thread to express my disappointment with how Land of the Pharaohs looks. I finally broke down despite my feelings that epics have a very hard time looking decent on DVD, yet Warner surprised me before with King of Kings.

With Land of the Pharaohs however Warner clearly has been doing its reputation a disservice with releasing this movie in bad to mediocre quality.
Some scenes during the building of the pyramids look to be about VHS quality and the transfer generally falls apart when there is a panoramic shot.

Not recommended for the discerning viewer, wonder when I will be able to watch this movie in acceptable quality

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

I agree, especially when Warner managed to make such nice transfers for other 1955 CinemaScope films, such as East of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause. But all films are different, so maybe Pharaoh's was just stored poorly, or badly printed back in 1955.

The strange thing is, it seems to me that the image on Land of the Pharaoh's looks a bit compressed horizontally. Sometimes actors look too tall and skinny.

I understand the CinemaScope lenses at the time were pretty poor quality, and exhibited a range of optical anomalies, but I haven't seen any other film where actors constantly look so skinny, and not just when they stand at the edges of the frame.

The image is about 2.37:1, but it looks more "normal" to me if it is stretched out to 2.55:1. I still don't know if this is accurate, but there is something very strange about the original image, apart from the poor colour.

Re: Bronston epics and Land of the Pharaohs coming at last!

Simon,

an excellent observation with regard to the AR. I also noticed that but as I plan to immediately resell Land of the Pharaos I did not bother to tinker around with it.

The picture quality is indeed horrible at times and there is no excuse for this except for the case that all film based material for this movie was lost which I find highly improbable.

So Warner has obviously decided to release this one the cheap and easy way, but it does not work with epic movies - too many fine details in the original elements mercilessly expose weak transfers.

BTW: I have included a splitscreen still from both The Sun also rises from Fox and Land of the Pharaohs from Warner. Both stills have been upconverted to 1920 x 1080 and they are also taken from scenes with a lot of small detail. There is simply no comparison - from 2 times the picture width away the Fox movie starts to look pretty nice and Land of the Pharaohs - oh well...

And yes I know that I could have made the screenshots a little better with different scaling algorythms etc. but this does not change the fact that there is a HUGE difference both with regard to detail and artefacts.



Oliver