A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Myth of Dye Transfer Printing (1 Viewer)

Bob Furmanek said:

MoMA is the place to be this summer!


https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1583

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Good God, a NEW 35mm print of Duel in the Sun?!

Will Krupp said:

I hope you don't mind, but it's also available at Amazon for almost half the price:


http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Technicolor-1915-1935-James-Layton/dp/0935398287/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421186494&sr=8-1&keywords=dawn+of+technicolor


although the Eastman House is shipping their copies on Feb 1 and the Amazon copies won't be available until February 24 (for $32 I can wait )

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Potential purchasers might want to read some of the negative comments on that page just so you'll know what to realistically expect from this book.


BTW, when is the actual centennial of Technicolor being honored?

Bob Furmanek said:

MoMA is the place to be this summer!


https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1583

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Can't be there, unfortunately, but would still like to see blu-rays available for these films....

benbess said:

Can't be there, unfortunately, but would still like to see blu-rays available for these films....

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Unfortunately, many would look nothing like Technicolor.

Bob Furmanek said:

MoMA is the place to be this summer!


https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1583

Click to expand...

The MOMA lineup is just insane! Wish I could be there. Will be QUITE an eye-opener for attendees who've never seen real Technicolor IB prints before. Surprised that it doesn't include the ground-breaking Becky Sharp restoration. I've seen a number of these original 35mm prints in the past; the one that's burned into my retinas is of course The Gang's All Here which is quite an experience; I don't think that I've ever seen more electric blues in my life. Wish I could see Down Argentine Way, which is one of the first -- if not THE first -- Fox Technicolor musicals. I've got the LaserDisc, and Betty Grable is incandescent in it. Had never heard of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before, interesting.


My personal Technicolor-on-Blu-ray wish-list:


Becky Sharp (1935)
Down Argentine Way (1940)
That Night in Rio (1941)
Week-End in Havana (1941)
Song of the Islands (1942)
Bathing Beauty (1944)
Frenchman's Creek (1944)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
Desert Fury (1947)
Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Neptune's Daughter (1949)
King Solomon's Mines (1950)
Show Boat (1951)
Road to Bali (1952)
Secret of the Incas (1954)

notmicro said:

The MOMA lineup is just insane! Wish I could be there. Will be QUITE an eye-opener for attendees who've never seen real Technicolor IB prints before. Surprised that it doesn't include the ground-breaking Becky Sharp restoration. I've seen a number of these original 35mm prints in the past; the one that's burned into my retinas is of course The Gang's All Here which is quite an experience; I don't think that I've ever seen more electric blues in my life. Wish I could see Down Argentine Way, which is one of the first -- if not THE first -- Fox Technicolor musicals. I've got the LaserDisc, and Betty Grable is incandescent in it. Had never heard of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before, interesting.

My personal Technicolor-on-Blu-ray wish-list:

Becky Sharp (1935)
Down Argentine Way (1940)
That Night in Rio (1941)
Week-End in Havana (1941)
Song of the Islands (1942)
Bathing Beauty (1944)
Frenchman's Creek (1944)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
Desert Fury (1947)
Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Neptune's Daughter (1949)
King Solomon's Mines (1950)
Show Boat (1951)
Road to Bali (1952)
Secret of the Incas (1954)

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A third of those are lost.

Bob Furmanek said:

MoMA is the place to be this summer!


https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1583

Click to expand...

Wow, there's too much good stuff in that show. I won't be able to see but a fraction of them. I remember seeing UNDER A TEXAS MOON (1930), a 2-color Technicolor musical with Frank Fay and Myrna Loy and directed by Michael Curtiz, at MOMA many years ago. Not a good movie, but quite memorable nonetheless. I've seen REDSKIN (1929) on the big screen before, decades ago at the Public Theater, and remember being bowled over by all the Technicolor location footage. I saw TOLL OF THE SEA (1922) at a Chinatown theater when it was first restored. That would be worth seeing again. I saw THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER and GARDEN OF ALLAH at Radio City Music Hall during an Art Deco festival in 1974. Those were pretty damned impressive.


I'm really more interested in the shorts and the early 2-color features that are rarely shown than anything else. I've seen a lot of the later features, several of them on the big screen, most on TV.


TCM often runs 2-color and 3-color Technicolor shorts. I wish there were more of the later ones in this program, e.g. all those historical shorts WB used to make, like SONS OF LIBERTY and PONY EXPRESS DAYS. Those may be the only two I've seen (both at MOMA), but there were quite a few, including other about the founding fathers. These should have been shown in school when I was a kid but they weren't.

Vic Pardo said:

Wow, there's too much good stuff in that show. I won't be able to see but a fraction of them. I remember seeing UNDER A TEXAS MOON (1930), a 2-color Technicolor musical with Frank Fay and Myrna Loy and directed by Michael Curtiz, at MOMA many years ago. Not a good movie, but quite memorable nonetheless. I've seen REDSKIN (1929) on the big screen before, decades ago at the Public Theater, and remember being bowled over by all the Technicolor location footage. I saw TOLL OF THE SEA (1922) at a Chinatown theater when it was first restored. That would be worth seeing again. I saw THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER and GARDEN OF ALLAH at Radio City Music Hall during an Art Deco festival in 1974. Those were pretty damned impressive.


I'm really more interested in the shorts and the early 2-color features that are rarely shown than anything else. I've seen a lot of the later features, several of them on the big screen, most on TV.


TCM often runs 2-color and 3-color Technicolor shorts. I wish there were more of the later ones in this program, e.g. all those historical shorts WB used to make, like SONS OF LIBERTY and PONY EXPRESS DAYS. Those may be the only two I've seen (both at MOMA), but there were quite a few, including other about the founding fathers. These should have been shown in ; when I was a kid but they weren't.

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I, too, saw TEXAS MOON at MoMA during that series of early sound films on disk. TOLL OF THE SEA, I think played during their Films from the Archive series; REDSKIN played during the Paramount retro in 1972; and I also attended the Radio City Music Hall screenings of THE GARDEN OF ALLAH, and THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, although I believe prints were cut for reissue (but I may be wrong).

I also seem to recall that TOM SAWYER played during the Selznick cycle @ MoMA, which also included A STAR IS BORN, NOTHING SACRED and DUEL IN THE SUN. All of these were Selznick's personal prints. And they were AMAZING!

Some of the WB shorts Vic mentions also played @ MoMA during the WB retrospective in 1973.

Ah, to have lived during those years and have had the opportunity to see many of these Technicolor films in 35mm nitrate prints! Never again, alas...

I hope Dodge City looks good, being released on Tuesday week.

I would love to see Warners release a Blu ray of some of the best of their short Technicolor movies.

I'd especially love to see on Blu ray the wonderful short 'The Gay Parisian' from 1941, with the Ballet de Monte Carlo in its prime, doing the complete Rosenthal/Offenbach 'Gaite Parisienne'. The short was directed by Jean Negulesco, so it really is a prime piece of cinema history and ballet history.

Warners gave us a splendid version on DVD as a bonus to 'The Maltese Falcon', which I still play often, but would love to have a decent Blu ray transfer. Warners did in fact have an attempt at this on its Blu ray of 'The Maltese Falcon' but almost totally destroyed it, giving us a muddy, often out-of-focus transfer which was unbelievably below the standard of the DVD!

Interesting what MOMA says about the Wizard of Oz.


"The Wizard of Oz is widely remembered, and cherished, for this dazzling rainbow palette (audiences looking for a way out of Kansas will still get chills at the film’s momentous transition from Dust Bowl sepia). But in truth, the film’s original release prints were less garish; under the supervision of Technicolor consultant Henri Jaffa, Baum’s Oz was rendered in dreamy shades of yellow, green, and red, most especially with Dorothy’s ruby slippers and the tantalizingly jewel-like Emerald City. 35mm print from George Eastman House; courtesy Warner Bros. 102 min."



I wonder if the Fox films will look like. While most of the MGM film prints being shown come from archives, many of Fox films are coming from Fox ( Chad Hanna from George Eastman House archive.).



Money from Home [excerpt in 3-D]
1953. USA. Directed by George Marshall. Screenplay by Hal Kanter, based on a story by Damon Runyon. With Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis. 35mm print from the 3-D Film Archiv ofe; courtesy Paramount Pictures 20 min.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 6:15 p.m., Theater 1, T1 (Introduced by Robert Furmanek, founder and director, 3-D Film Archive)
Thursday, July 30, 2015, 4:15 p.m., Theater 2, T2

AnthonyClarke said:

I would love to see Warners release a Blu ray of some of the best of their short Technicolor movies.

I'd especially love to see on Blu ray the wonderful short 'The Gay Parisian' from 1941, with the Ballet de Monte Carlo in its prime, doing the complete Rosenthal/Offenbach 'Gaite Parisienne'. The short was directed by Jean Negulesco, so it really is a prime piece of cinema history and ballet history.

Warners gave us a splendid version on DVD as a bonus to 'The Maltese Falcon', which I still play often, but would love to have a decent Blu ray transfer. Warners did in fact have an attempt at this on its Blu ray of 'The Maltese Falcon' but almost totally destroyed it, giving us a muddy, often out-of-focus transfer which was unbelievably below the standard of the DVD!

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Which is srange considering it was still presented in standard definition.

Anthony's is right. The BD version of the Gay Parisian short (directed by Jean Negulesco BTW) looks like crap, soft, washed out imperfectly scanned 480i on the Blu Ray but looks like tight, sharp and accurately represented Tech IB on the DVD.

Exactly the same thing has happened with Warner's older DVD of Easter Parade and the Blu Ray. On the old DVD there is a twenty minutes reel of rushes (opened with a clapboard which gives Bob Alton as director - he was uncredited second unit on the film, and DP Harry Stradling) with Judy doing the terrific cut number "Mr Monotony" in numerous retakes for edit sequence, and then (without a chapter stop) they present an edited (quite expertly by someone in the Warner HV team) "complete version" of the song. All this footage is gobsmackingly gorgeous, pinks, creamy flesh tones, inky blacks and is one of the best if brief representations of 3 strip Techni on film. At least it is on the DVD, again on the Blu Ray whoever authored the new BD has rendered this like dupey, soft unattractive Eastman dupe.

Go figure. Maybe it tells us something about "A" teams and "B" teams at the same Company.

notmicro said:

The MOMA lineup is just insane! Wish I could be there. Will be QUITE an eye-opener for attendees who've never seen real Technicolor IB prints before. Surprised that it doesn't include the ground-breaking Becky Sharp restoration.

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They've since announced the July screenings and BECKY SHARP is indeed among them on July 5th!


https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/24228


This lineup really IS insane and I must admit I miss living in PA and having the city be a short hour and forty five minute drive away!

They just added some old Disney movies and shorts too!

I'm pleased to report that once again, our research documents have been used by an important organization.


Last night, MoMA presented MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION in 35mm widescreen as part of their salute to Technicolor!

Bob Furmanek said:

Last night, MoMA presented MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION in 35mm widescreen as part of their salute to Technicolor!

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widescreen? I thought boxy was better....


(ducks!)

I think it's "Boxy is Beautiful."

Just came across this interesting site: http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/ with lots and lots of actual frames of dye technicolor prints.
Direct link for movies from 1932-1953: http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1301/
Direct link for movies from 1954-1959: http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1445/

The differences in color for the same movie but different dye transfer prints are sometimes stunning. A striking example: http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1301/#La_Cucaracha_(1934)

what great links!!! Thanks!