"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" coming from MGM/UA to Blu-ray

Just saw it on one of the Movie Channels recently and it looks pretty great.    I admit I still have a crush on Ms Howes and have since I saw this at the Drive In when I was old enough to notice such things and just young enough not to be at that "anything Disney is dumb"  age.

I learned about the upcoming MGM release of

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a few weeks ago at a

Fox event in New York City.  I was not allowed

to say anything about it at the time, but I did

express a huge amount of elation about the

decision to put this film out on Blu-ray this year.

So, yes, it is coming.  Waiting for an official

press release to show up any day now despite

the fact it is already up for preorder on Amazon.

They are trying hard to turn (at least some of) us poor. :-)

_Man_

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finn 

Wait - Ron Epstein knows secrets and is not sharing them !! 

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Blu-ray is coming this November...

I think that it the secrets thay you know that we all want to know.
 

Well this is great news, The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, things are starting to look up for musical fans. I am surprised no 55th anniversary Blu of Oklahoma, or maybe there will be. Sad the 45th anniversary of Hello Dolly was bypassed. I saw Chitty on Hdnet and it looks great now, but without compression, and in 1080p and especially with lossless audio, this should be a real treat. What a great holiday season :-)

I wonder if IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD will soon be released on Blu Ray. The HD they showed on MGMHD looks great, although it is the standard release version. I always liked CHITTY, and look forward to this Blu Ray release. Despite all the problems MGM is having, at least we are getting releases of desirable titles. 

This film needs to have a complete roadshow restoration done to it.

Robert Harris has all the elements and is the one person who is

capable of doing real justice to the restoration of one of the most

greatest comedies ever made.

Under MGM, I don't think there would be interest.  Not a slam

against the studio, but under their financial duress, I cannot see

them throwing money into a huge expensive restoration of this

film.

So, what we would probably get is a high definition release at

some point on Blu-ray, but it would be a far cry from the roadshow

release all of us have been clamoring for these many years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GMpasqua 

The Cinerama Dome screenned a 70MM print of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" about 5 years ago and it looked excellent. So even if the film can not currently be restored to it's original lengt,, at least a HD transfer of the 70MM neg would not be a bad thing. Hopefully we will at least get that!

The showings on MGMHD networks is a HD transfer of 70mm MAD WORLD and it looks great. Of course, it should be restored to its original road show length. But I fear that may be years away. In the meantime, I would buy a BluRay version of the current version. I can't imagine MGM spending all that money just for cable showings. And it could be unique in having Overture, Intermission Music and police calls and Exit music properly placed. I was thrilled when the last 70mm showing in Los Angeles included the police calls at intermission.

I know the laser extended cut included some scenes that were never in the road show version. For me, the only part of the extended version that I thought went on too long and kind of disrupted the timing was some of the extra footage of the group arguing over “shares.”  A friend of mine who saw the original version at the Cinerama Dome only remembered the Tracy’s phone calls with his wife seemed longer, or more of them.

HDNet Movies has been running this month what I can only assume is the transfer they're going to use of Chitty for Blu-Ray and it looks mighty good to me.

HDNet runs plenty of stuff that hasn't made it to Blu. They are also running the excellent Holes, which might not be considered "classic" but is another great "family" movie. They are also running The Russians are Coming and Tron this month too.

I miss HD NET Movies.  Friggin' Time Warner Cable dropped the HD NET channels last year.  :-(

Hmm I missed Tron, but just set up the DVR for Holes.  I recorded CCBB earlier, but still looking forward to BD release.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradley-E 

I miss HD NET Movies.  Friggin' Time Warner Cable dropped the HD NET channels last year.  :-(

Tell me about it. I saw stuff there I never thought I'd ever get to see in HD.

As for Chitty, is there any word on whether they will keep the 2003 DVD extras?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GMpasqua 

Amazon has the cover art up - it's really too bad they don't use the original art - it's so much better

I agree totally. Even the lettering that has always been used was changed. Disappointed.

Yeah, not great artwork at all.

They could have done much better with the cover.

I'm just happy that this is coming out on Blu-ray.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein 

Yeah, not great artwork at all.

 

They could have done much better with the cover.

 

I'm just happy that this is coming out on Blu-ray.

Couldn't agree more. I was very surprised to hear about this release but very excited. The showings on cable recently in HD have been great but of course they are all compressed in picture and severely compressed sound. I noticed they did a remix on the soundtrack. The music seems much more separated and the levels balanced now. Previously, you could hardly hear the music during the opening credits during the car races, but now it is well balanced. Too bad UA masters and stems are mostly gone, or we could have a nice isolated score. The soundtrack CD is nice that Rhino released but it is from  the album master, and they never sound as good as the stems.

Hopefully, MGM will continue this with Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story!

I would love to see Fiddler and West Side Story on BD. Fiddler's 35mm, but the location photography is amazing.

Truth be told, I'd much rather they have released Blu-rays of West Side Story or Fiddler on the Roof rather than Chitty, but I'll take what I can get.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GMpasqua 

I would love an isolated score for CCBB! 

 

"Fiddler" is listed as coming at Blu-Ray.com but no date, and Amazon has a placeholder for "West Side Story" (which was announced over seas but then cancelled) so I would think both are in development and a release should occur next year

I think that on a magicmusic.net board discussion when Varese Sarabande reissued the soundtrack CD, someone claimed to have contacted MGM about where the music recording sessions and the isolated score tracks went, and they said they couldn't find them. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist or that they even looked, though. They have found scores for other United Artists movies in various degrees of quality.

That would be a shame if they truly existed in no form anywhere on Earth. Irwin Kostal is one of my favorite arrangers for movie musicals, and I would like an isolated score, too. In fact, musicals are the one genre where isolated scores are a must (when they still exist).

Quote:

Originally Posted by MatthewA 

I think that on a magicmusic.net board discussion when Varese Sarabande reissued the soundtrack CD, someone claimed to have contacted MGM about where the music recording sessions and the isolated score tracks went, and they said they couldn't find them. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist or that they even looked, though. They have found scores for other United Artists movies in various degrees of quality.

 

That would be a shame if they truly existed in no form anywhere on Earth. Irwin Kostal is one of my favorite arrangers for movie musicals, and I would like an isolated score, too. In fact, musicals are the one genre where isolated scores are a must (when they still exist).

I was told by a rather well known home video expert from one of the studios that the stems and music tapes and most of the camera negatives for the UA library (pre-1970) are rare or destroyed. I can't remember which but when one company bought them, I was told they threw almost all of it away. This is a very reliable insider who told me this. He told me that when we see any pre-1970 UA film in stereo, it is pure luck that a print survived and was used for home video. If you look at the condition of some of the MGM releases of the UA films, that says it all. So we are lucky to have stereo for some of these films. Many of the 50's and 60's stereo tracks are simply gone unless collector's have them or a studio office in some other country. VERY sad indeed!

Sad, but it makes sense because United Artists was not a studio in the sense that MGM or Warner Bros.  was.  They were a distributor only.  So I would imagine they didn't have much in the way of centralized archives.  They probably left it to the original film producers to keep their materials--or not.

From what I know at least the negatives of their big 70mm productions West Side Story, The Greatest Sory Ever Told, IAMMMMW, Khartoum and CCBB are available, don't know about their 35mm libary though.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertSiegel 

 

I was told by a rather well known home video expert from one of the studios that the stems and music tapes and most of the camera negatives for the UA library (pre-1970) are rare or destroyed. I can't remember which but when one company bought them, I was told they threw almost all of it away. This is a very reliable insider who told me this. He told me that when we see any pre-1970 UA film in stereo, it is pure luck that a print survived and was used for home video. If you look at the condition of some of the MGM releases of the UA films, that says it all. So we are lucky to have stereo for some of these films. Many of the 50's and 60's stereo tracks are simply gone unless collector's have them or a studio office in some other country. VERY sad indeed!