Re: The Bride Of Frankenstein
My problem with DNR is that the post houses doing the transfers on these films are often too liberal with it. Applied in the right amount, it does its job, but most of these films end up a smeary mess. Similarly, there are some excellent optical tracks rendered useless and distorted by low bitrates and too much EQing.
Films like DOCTOR RENAULT'S SECRET look so good because they have the original camera negative or a first generation element like a fine grain, that are devoid of excessive grain that is built up from repeating copying. I don't know what sort of element they have for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, but it looks far better than FRANKENSTEIN, which is several generations removed from the original.
That being said, removing all of the grain with a lot of DNR is tantamount to taking a photo, xeroxing it, and then taking another photograph of it with Vaseline smeared over the lens. You're not really taking away grain selectively, you're simply just smoothing everything out injudiciously, sacrificing tones that were supposed to be there.
Anecdotal, but a friend of mine saw a reel at UCLA of a print that was struck from what was left of the original neg to FRANKENSTEIN and he said it looked like it was shot yesterday, so these films didn't "always look like that," and people on other sites are much misled by this assumption.
