REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required - Page 2

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

Regarding the ultra-low budget titles: if the people making the films hoped they would play in any theaters after the mid-fifties, they would be composing for widescreen. That includes Sam Sherman, who most certainly intended his films for theatrical exhibition.

So far as the 42nd Street grind-houses, consider the following. Like most other New York theaters, they had converted to widescreen by the end of 1953. They were still playing mainstream Hollywood product at that time, and most likely went with 1.85 which had become pretty much standard by 1955. By the 1960's when they were starting to play the real cheapo product, do you really think they would have gone to any extra expense to dig out the old 1.37 aperture plates and lenses, or bother to adjust the masking on different ratios during the presentation? I tend to doubt it.

In fact, my 42nd street movie-going began in the mid-70's. Everything was shown in the same ratio, and I caught some vintage titles during that period, such as Horror of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein, The Creeping Flesh and the Corpse Grinders. I can assure you they were not changing ratios during those shows. It's fortunate they even maintained an image on the screen!

Michael, you said "Countless John Agar films were meant for television but ended up in drive-ins."

Can you tell me which ones?

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

OK... back to the original question. Any screen captures of the new Legend version?

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

I wouldn't paint the widescreen issue with such a broad brush Tim. There were exceptions, but it is well documented that the major studios began composing for widescreen on the dates I cited, and most theaters had installed new screens by the mid-50's. Those that didn't upgrade could still run the films in the "standard ratio" which is how they were described in the trades, but those theaters were certainly in the minority.

For instance, while doing some research in 1955, I noticed that both "Othello" and "The Big Chase" were designated as standard ratio, as were most foreign productions.

I did some additional research on "Thunder over the Plains." According to TCM, it was filmed in August and September of 1952 and sat on the shelf for over a year. While the studio recommended 1.66, it would most certainly be composed for 1.37.

Scott's first widescreen film was "The Stranger Wore a Gun" for Columbia, which was also 3-D, stereophonic sound and Technicolor. He even made a special trailer promoting the new techniques of the production:

Stranger Wore A Gun (1953) - World 3-D Film Expo II presented by SabuCat Productions

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

Bob, I'm pretty sure on the HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS (or BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR) commentary (or perhaps interview or intro) Sherman states that the film has three different aspect ratios because of how Adamson would "patch" everything together. All the different versions were made in the mid 60s but 1.33, 1.85 and 2.35 are the ratios that ended up in the film. Of course the Troma DVD is "open matte" from whatever mess they made. I believe more comments are made about DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN.

Your broad brush comment was my whole point of this debate. I think there are exceptions to every rule and I think some of these "Z" films are them. I have shot off an e-mail to a buddy at BCI to see what he has to say about these zooming issues.

Those Larry Buchanan titles did go theatrically even though they were made for TV. I'm sure someone at the other board can confirm but there are posters there who claim to have seen them in theaters. So what do you do here? The films were obviously shot for television yet had to be matted in the theaters. Since they can technically be called theatrical films should these be matted?


James, there's a budget release out there with the "longer version" of GLEN OR GLENDA but the Image one is the correct version. The "missing scenes" are S&M stuff that the producer added after the film was originally released. It adds nothing to the film but does have a re-used shot of Lugosi sitting up in his chair with bug eyes but this time he is looking at a woman being whipped. There's also a couple nude scenes.

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

Regarding some of the films that have been mentioned--

I've only ever run a trailer in 35mm, but I think that the BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE is 1.37, at least to my eye. Some shots look framed for 1.85, others don't. My guess is that the cameraman was a lazy oaf who wasn't paying attention. Of course, it wasn't a Hollywood film, and it wasn't even made by professional film-makers, both factors that have to be equaled into the equation.

HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN is 1.85. I've run a 35mm print of it and if you don't run it that way, you'll see boom mics, top of sets, etc. THE SWV edition is zoomed in, like many of their transfers.

And speaking of zoomed-in, here are some comparison shots from THE DEADLY MANTIS. Green is the Universal DVD, b/w is from 35mm.







I still maintain that unless you're running a print in 35mm, you simply can't judge a film's technical aspects, including the ratio of a film.

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

Wow! That gives you a good idea of how much information can be missing from these transfers.

Based on those comparisons, you can see there is no accurate way to determine the OAR from an existing transfer. If you can't go back to the 35mm element, you need to trust the information contained in the primary source materials.

Tim: did you read the information I researched for you on the Randolph Scott titles?

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

No, those are just frame lines I didn't crop out.

Re: REQ: Bride of the Monster - Legends screencaps required

Thanks, I wasn't aware it was missing anything other than the S&M scenes. The first version of this I watched was back in the early 90s and it only ran 57-minutes. I bought it from some store out of Fangoria and wish I still had this copy just to compare it to a fuller version.