Official African Queen Paramount Question Thread

Thanks, Adam.

One question I'd have is why there seems to be no lossless audio track on the Blu-ray release of The African Queen.

There are those who say lossless isn't necessary when dealing with mono soundtracks, but my understanding is that lossless amounts to the best available fidelity presentation of an audio track whether it's mono, stereo, or surround.

There must be enough room on the disc for a lossless track? 

Adam,

I would love to know if there was a reason that the R2 Cardiff commentary could not be included.

Thanks,

Jay

I second that question.  I've already sent an e-mail to PHE.  I was going to buy the BD, but will now probably avoid it altogether, or wait until it drops in price.  $27.49 for a BD w/ low bit-rate lossy DD?  No thanks.

Of course, I won't turn my nose up if I win a copy in the HTF contest!

Doug

My question is does this restoration have anything to do with Warner Bros' Ultra-Resolution technique? Judging from the screencaps at DVDBeaver the result looks pretty good, especially the nice registration. This very much resembles Warner's Ultra-Rez restoration and Paramount did used this technique before to help with Chinatown as far as I remembered.

Seconded. I'd also like to know if there are any other gems that resulted from Cardiff's home video participation, besides the commentary and his technical advice during the recent restoration.

I have been wondering why it took so long for this to be released on something other then vhs.

1.  What is the ownership trail?  I understand the Paramount does not control all of the rights, but I am guessing it is international.
2.  Was the marrying of the three technicolor negatives the most time consuming part of the process and exactly what did in entail?
3.  If the three negatives were not used, what generation print or negative did they use.

Please give them my thanks for releasing this and doing such an excellent job.  I sincerely wish them huge success on this release in hopes it will bring other long awaited titles to DVD and Blu-ray (Samson & Delilah).

I'll second the commentary question.  A film of this stature really deserves a commentary track in my opinion.  The Cardiff commentary already exists, and there are no shortage of Bogart, Hepburn, & Huston biographers that I'm sure would have jumped at the opportunity to record a commentary.  It's not going to stop me from picking up this release, but it is a HUGE disappointment for me.

I hope that the documentary is an impressive one.

Awesome information, Adam.  Thanks!

Hope you get an answer on the audio question since it might shed some light on the debate in RAH's thread on TAQ. 

Hmmm.  That doesn't really answer the question for me.  I'm inferring from the answer that they think there's not much more in the original audio that would benefit from a higher bitrate, but did they actually test lossless vs. DD 224 vs. DD higher bitrate?  I bet they just assumed.

Doug

I'm curious to hear about how the restoration team dealt with the opticals, the jittery stock footage of jungle animals, and the night scenes.

I don't believe they would spend so much time, energy and money to do the picture restoration correctly, and then hardly make an effort for the audio.

Not a question, but a big THANK YOU to HTF & Paramount for the contest!!
Got home from a crappy day at work to find a nice little package.
Have a busy weekend ahead, but I hope to find some time to enjoy this great film on Blu real soon!
:)

Echoing Mike's sentiment above, a belated "thank you" from me as well to HTF and Paramount for organizing this fun contest.  I received my copy in the mail last week and wanted to convey my sincerest appreciation and gratitude for adding this title to my Blu-ray collection.  Thank you thank you thank you!

With warmest regards,

Mark

Here's a link on the restoration process, an Adobe flash player file; sadly, this video was not included in the Blu-ray of African Queen:

http://www.movieweb.com/dvd/DVNdiSOUax28QV/exclusive-restoring-the-african-queen

[From MovieWeb]

Adam, I didn't post this on the My Fair Lady thread, but for anyone who's interested, I find this informative on how such work is done, although the issues with African Queen are unique, in some respects. I wish an Industrial Light & Magic reconstruction in CGI had been used on the lousy "process", i.e., blue screen, shots but c'est la vie! Pricey, of course, but I suspect John Huston would have agreed if something could be done to make the shots look better and not stand out as not so great special effects. I don't know whey they didn't use front or rear projection, which would have looked better, I suspect.

I somehow missed this thread before and just read it through.  One thing that looks like it went unanswered is why no commentary...ESPECIALLY given the existence of Jack Cardiff's, of all people.  When I learned about that last year I immediately ordered the UK DVD, and I really do not mind having that sitting alongside this beautiful Blu-ray.  Still, I couldn't help but wonder.

The African Queen was made by British company, Romulus(Romulus & Remus) & Horizon Pictures. Romulus was controlled by John M Woolf who is a member of the Woolf(CM Woolf) family who go back to the pioneer days of Gaumont-British. Some Romulus 50s films, like Jose Ferrer's Moulin Rouge, involved MGM and were in the early MGM TV packages tightly controlled by MGM directly to TV stations, and late come to TV screenings of their archive. Most of the film was made at Shepperton Studios near London and in various parts of Africa but some scenes were filmed in LA, Arcadia & Chatsworth all around LA.

 

The cinematographer Jack Cardiff had a long and fruitful life and he dedicated a lot of it to Technicolor films in & around UK and did some directing. His autobiography is a great and easy read. Worth hunting out. 

 

Warner Bros, apparently, did the major restoration work on this film and taking this into account perhaps those titles were are currently having Blu Ray restoration arguments about might have been better done there also, whatever the cost. At least for MFL which they produced and got back for the DVD versions.