Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement? - Page 2

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I completely agree with you, Chuck. And, by the way, thanks for posting those caps.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

People rarely agree with me, GerardoHP. It's nice to know that if I'm crazy and seeing things that I'm not the only one. There have been plenty of remasters that correct some things while screwing up others, and unfortunately I feel this way about the remaster of MARNIE. Just because it is newer than the previous release doesn't mean it is always better in all respects. It's sad because that is one of my favorite Hitchcock films.

Isn't it funny how people rush to defend things that look blatently wrong, as if they are afraid to admit something is botched and will need to repurchased in another 5-7 yrs once it is remastered... again.

2000 DVD

2005 DVD


Oh, and I apologize for putting 2004 as the release date for the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection - it came out in fall 2005. I just looked it up - I wasn't sure.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

So if I can recap what the general consensus of opinion is, re Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection:-

All the titles appear better than their previous incarnations with the exception of Marnie and The Man Who Knew Too Much. With this in mind an upgrade is still worth while?

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Yes, it is more than worth it, and at around $80 it's a steal. BTW MARNIE is improved as well save for one section. I'll post MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH comparison pics later.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Nick, I say yes, too.

As nice as the outer packaging is, I think the inner packaging is kind of a mess. These films certainly deserve better than the thin cardboard, flimsy digipak treatment Universal gives them. Be that as it may, there is more than enough overall improvement to warrant the upgrade IMO. And IIRC, ALL of the content from the original "deluxe edition" discs (plus significant new material) is ported over to the boxset.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Chuck, thanks for all the work to put up the screen shots. I bought this set when it came out and I have not seen the later films like Torn Curtain, Family Plot, Topaz and Frenzy yet. Now I will after seeing the caps.

Hitchcock's films of the fifies and early 60's are my favorite period, and I do enjoy several from the 40's, especially the Notorius and Spellbound. So the later films of the later 60's and early 70's are not familiar to me.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I bought this set when it came out. It had a problem with something or other on one of the titles and I had to replace it at Best Buy, but it was taken care of.

Enjoyed the screen comparisons, and can easily see the problem with MARNIE that's being described as too yellow. Not to make excuses, but as it is an indoor scene, is it possible that it was intended that way to perhaps indicate a yellowish incandescent lighting scheme?

Harry

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Oh, Harry, then why wasn't that ever seen on any of the other releases, and why would it only affect one reel (I believe it is the second reel). Marnie's mother's home certainly isn't as as yellow when she returns there in the finale...

I think that reel was from a slightly faded interpositive with improper color correction.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Someone wasn't paying attention. Universal had To Kill a Mockingbird, To Hell and Back, and The Man Who Knew Too Much all digitally restored at 4K by Cinesite. While they used the new 4K digital restoration for the Legacy Series "Mockingbird", they didn't for this one. It's considered a minor film, but it's actually quite good. Universal probably would have replaced it if enough people complained, but it's just not that well loved like a lot of others.

My best guess is that they didn't know the 4K remaster existed and went ahead with tinkering with the existing transfer.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956)
I got as close to the exact frame as I could with VLC. I'd bet it is from the same master with slight color correction and additional edge enhancement.

2001 DVD vs. 2005 DVD

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Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Good questions - and I tend to agree with you. I'm just playing a bit of "Devil's advocate" here, trying to rationalize what can clearly be seen as a yellowish color to that scene.

So, I dug out my copy of the "red velvet box set" and played the scene in question. What I observed on my TV was a lot less yellow looking than on these screen grabs, for sure. In fact, it looked (on my Sony 55" HDTV) like the set was indeed intended to look like that. The whole of "Mama's house" looks a bit tired and dingy, like the old white paint had yellowed with age. Look at the light switch near the front door. It's got dirt and greasy fingerprints all around it, as if it hadn't been cleaned in years. Hitchcock didn't show us that for no reason. All of his shots and sets are meticulously plotted out, so that tells me that perhaps he wanted this scene to look a little like it had a "waxy yellow build-up", to use the vernacular of the TV commercials of the era.

Still, the screengrab of the salt and pepper shakers sure looks like it's tinted funny, or that the color timing is off.

But then again, take a look at this screen grab from the same scene:



Notice the shiny silver-colored pot on the stove. If the color timing were skewed to the yellow side, wouldn't that gleaming silver/steel look a bit yellowish too?

Harry
...with more questions than answers, onlilne...

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

True, it is very yellow, but there are pure whites in the scene as well, which would lead me to believe that it's not a negative fading issue. And what time of day does this scene take place? Isn't it morning, when the interior of homes are generally that color?


I'm not defending anything, and I'll be the first one to tell you how Universal is on my s**t list because of their double-sided disc errors and non-OAR/bad treatment of their '50s films. In fact I haven't even seen the DVD of MARNIE to be honest. I'm simply giving you an eyewitness account of what an original Technicolor print looks like. A brown/yellowish look was Universal's house look at the time, exhibited by many TV shows of the time (some of which have been lost in transfer these days, such as the COLUMBO episodes).


If the IP was faded, they'd be compensating it with blue-cyan, assuming the film is fading towards red. A yellow "cast" would be indicative of a fading negative.

Besides, studios print up new IPs for transfers for just that reason.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I just noticed - in the screencap I posted above, Ms. Hedren's teeth and the whites of her eyes aren't yellow.

Harry

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I just spent the afternoon watching Marnie. Yes, the kitchen scenes were yellow-ish and I compared it to the 1999 version right after which the kitchen was whiter looking.

However, as has been discussed before, screencaps are sort of deceiving. I just sat and watched the film and was sucked into it. I did notice how soft the image was as it was the first time I saw it on my new flat panel! I only noticed the yellow because of this thread. Not saying the issue is right or wrong, and I don't know what's right, but I was not taken out of the film by it.

I did enjoyed viewing the film today, I've not seen it in a while. It was interesting to see Connery's portrayal of Mark again. It felt very Bond like in a way.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

When compared to the original DVD release, that entire reel in MARNIE looks off. And as for the white glare on the teapot in the background - it wouldn't be yellowed if it was overbrightened to the point of blooming, would it? And the table cloth being green and that shade of yellow? No... And the little girl with the light yellow collar on her red dress as opposed to white as in the original DVD and all prior video releases on VHS and Laserdisc?

I don't buy the argument that - at long last - this version is correct and all of the others were wrong.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Why should prior videos have more weight? Studios can be really bad about making neutral white levels to look "natural" when it's not intended at all. Hitchcock was always playing with colors, so it looks intentional. Especially since Hedren's teeth and eyes are neutral white. The "white balanced" 2001 image doesn't have the depth of the 2005 because of this.

It wasn't until the remastered SE of To Catch a Thief that the intended green-blue night scenes were presented as such - all the prior releases, even the first DVD, made them look like normal blue.

Just because it's first doesn't mean it's correct.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

And just because it is a new release doesn't make it correct. Check out the remastered, anamorphic GUYS AND DOLLS. There are many earlier releases of films on video that show the films with more accurate color than later reissues, namely the Disney animated features.

Why would a new anamorphic transfer be necessary for the 2005 MARNIE reissue when the title had already been remastered as recently as it was for the 2000 DVD? The newer version (save for the reel I feel is incorrect) does look better, albeit sometimes very modestly, but has techology changed THAT much to affect a standard definition transfer of such a recent vintage? I wonder why shots of Tippi during the finale are so heavily zoomed in on the 2000 DVD but not on the 2005/2006 release? Weird... The matting varies a bit too and looks more accurate now, so that's nice.

I'm not so sure the heavy green tints in TO CATCH A THIEF are entirely correct either as even the early 80's video had turquoise coloring, this at a time when any available print was quickly telecined with little to no alteration. With the heavy green tinting on the newest DVD, I don't see how it could be altered to bring out normal skin tones along with a turquoise light on the actors, which is what I recall on the old LD and VHS. Maybe the green was intented and there is some documentation of it and the newest DVD does what it can to replicate that look. It's odd that such a tinted print just happened to not be used for that early careless 80's video master.

I don't know, but it does make me think of another film - 1967's REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE - released recently on DVD entirely tinted gold. Previous TCM broadcasts, as well as the included trailer, show a wide and gorgeous color scheme as most audiences saw the film. The alteration appears to have been done in the video transfer and not from a properly tinted print, just like TO CATCH A THIEF's newest DVD release. Is this new DVD release of REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE more like what John Huston intended? Perhaps, but only if a reference print and some serious documentation from the man himself were used as a guide. I should probably make some screen captures and post them from REFLECTIONS, but I'm not sure anyone would be interested - and it probably would belong in its own thread.

BTW - Several friends of mine are fans of the John Badham 1979 DRACULA and treasure the cropped early 80's video releases because of their color. The widescreen Laserdisc, and apparently every other video release since, has highly desaturated color - appearing almost black and white - according to Badham's wishes for how he wanted the film to appear theatrically. However, since it appears fans never saw it this way and this is not the version they initially liked, should this reworking be the only one now seen on video?

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Perhaps Mr. Harris could weight in with an opinion?

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Off the topic here, but I saw CHARADE at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus last night, and it was a very strange experience. The print was in very good condition, but it was shown unmatted. In the scene where Audrey Hepburn returns home to find her apartment empty, the stage lights and the point where the set ended could be seen in many shots at the top of the screen! The microphone could also be seen following Cary Grant as he enters the scene as well! :-( Yet one reel in the middle of the film appeared to be hard-matted - or at least the print that reel was from was hard-matted at some point. Then came a reel change and BLIP the mattes were gone and we were all watching a 1.33:1 film with tons of head and bottom room again. The same festival showed LOVER COME BACK without matting it at all, and I remember seeing a disasterious screening of THE SEARCHERS without matting in 1996 in Boise, Idaho. Microphones were seen moving around at the top of the screen during many scenes, and stage lights and the ending of painted backdrops were also clearly visible. Many audience members were laughing. :-(

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Is there some way to ensure soft-matte films are projected properly? I tried to explain to my date the problem, and he didn't quite get it. I had to go through the whole hard and soft-matte story, and even then it surely sounded odd.


Are hard-matte projection prints ever made of soft-matte films to make sure they are framed properly? I think we've all seen such films presented on video improperly cropped and framed badly, but there must be some reference for how they should be framed. Are some films shot with more bottom room than head room and intended to be cropped mostly at the bottom?

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I have frequently wondered about this, too, Chuck. In Tampa there's a retro theatre, and I saw so many films shown "full frame" when they should not have been -- PSYCHO, CABARET, TO CATCH A THIEF, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN......so frustrating. I think matting should be applied to prints if for no other reason than to combat ignorant projectionists.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Regarding REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, my understanding is the color scheme used on the DVD is the intended color scheme requested by John Huston.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

- Hitchcock mentions the interesting night colors in the Truffaut book. He didn't want it to look like the stereotypical blue-tint night.
- John Huston wanted Reflections to be gold tinted, but it was released without the look. So, it's correctly presented.
- John Badham wanted Dracula to be desaturated, but Universal vetoed the decision and released it with full color.

If it's the way the filmmakers intended it, that's fine with me. I'm not going to contest an actual quote from the Master himself. Joe Six Pack mentality is slowly creeping into the places where people really should stand up for the integrity of a film. People conveniently overlook botched aspects of transfers while criticizing aspects that are pinpoint accurate.

As for matting, a lot of video transfers would zoom in or show too much. Consider The Great Escape being ridiculously wide on the non-anamorphic DVD because they exposed the image that would not be seen due to the soundtrack being laid over it (it was shot full aperture). Or The Searchers was heavily cropped on all four sides unlike the properly framed remaster.

Theaters are supposed to use STMPE guidelines when framing prints. It's a standard. Any proper theater would take care of this. Showing a 1963 Universal film open matte was a careless mistake, as even an inexperienced projectionist would know not to do.

Also, why should DVDs be remastered? Even today, a transfer made in 2000 will not stand up to a new transfer or remaster in 2005. Even if they use the same transfer, there's better compression methods, better color correction, and better image tools. Rear Window's DVD in 2002 was very good, but look at how the 2005 DVD cleans up a lot of dirt and scratches and is much sharper. "Good enough" is not good enough indefinately.

Again, I don't know why a 1980s laserdisc would be reference for anything. Or any laserdisc, except maybe for sound, I guess.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

The projectionist has to be competent enough to UNDERSTAND the history of widescreen first. Then do research, and then verify by pre-screening the print. Despite some of the inane bickering that goes on about aspect ratios here and other forums, it's not rocket science and takes collectively an hour, tops.

Recently, I went to a screening of a color, late '50s sci-fi movie that happens to be hard matted at 1.66:1 in several shots (which is how the DVD is presented, although the composition is for 1.85:1). When they presented the film, it was (among other problems) being shown full frame. It's beyond me how when I asked the projectionist that while he claimed he's run the print more than a dozen times, he's missed all of the dead space, the hard mattes, the top of sets showing, etc. When I politely told him he should really be running the film widescreen, it was like a deer in headlights.

Most people apparently don't realize how it's REALLY easy to spot a 1.37:1 picture being run improperly. Title's never fit, heads are chopped off SIGNIFICANTLY, and other compositions are botched. Just because one or two shots seem tight doesn't mean the whole picture should be run full-ap.


I'd say that about 90% of flat release prints today are hard matted (from what I've seen anyway). It's supposed to be a safeguard against stupidity (and lower the cost on digital output or opticals), and yet I've STILL been to presentations where the picture is misframed, the projectionist doesn't look and the matte is creeping into the picture.


No, the idea is to consistantly frame in the dead center of the frame, so that you need not have to ever adjust the projector's framing during flat presentations. These areas are marked off in the camera operator's eyeglass (and on the video monitors). Of course, with a minority older pictures, this technically isn't always the case (for a number of reasons), but the margin is always only about a 10-15% adjustment at the most.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

Patrick: George Lucas keeps altering the STAR WARS films to "more accurately represent what was originally intended," including adding lots of digital effects, etc. Those are now the ONLY versions available for high quality viewing, and the original versions were even pulled from the archives at which they were deposited in favor of these "revised" versions. Are you in favor of keeping the original films from being seen as they were by millions of people? Perhaps they weren't what Lucas "intended" (at least in hindsight- which, oddly, keeps changing as each video releases features MORE treaks and changes!) - but the original films made and released the way they were are the ones fans fell in love with and want to see preserved. The fact that the original negatives were dismantled and no longer exist to create the "special edition" versions probably wouldn't matter to you either, heh?

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

There's alot of threads to have the OT vs. SE debate.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

I only brought up STAR WARS because of the whole argument over "what the director intended" being an issue. I think that the original theatrical versions of films should be released on DVD along with any extended/alternate versions.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

No one knows yet why the scenes in Marnie are yellow, so until there is a definitive answer there's no point in arguing.

Re: Hitchcock Masterpiece collection - a significant improvement?

It would be nice if multiple-versions of movies were always available, like with the upcoming Blade Runner and Close Encounters releases. I wish all directors were as accommodating as Ridley Scott and Spielberg (in the "better late than never" category).

I have a huge amount of respect for directors who allow different versions of their films to be "out there" even when they have a strong personal preference.

(sorry! off-topic)