A few words about...™ Meet Me in St. Louis -- in Blu-ray

What a relief! Thank you, Mr Harris. Looking forward to adding this to my collection very soon!

Scared me for a second with "almost perfect."

Great news!! Thanks for this wonderful review. I'll be adding this classic my collection. Probably everybody here knows this movie, but if you don't...I can pretty much guarantee that it will make you laugh several times, smile a lot, and cry at least once with the famous song near the end that became a Judy Garland classic.

I'm sorry to hear the negative for Wilson is lost. Even with its flaws, I think it's a fine and epic political film. What happened to the negative? Fire? Thrown away?

Are there any others from this year where the negative survives that you think deserve to be on blu-ray?

National Velvet would be nice. That's a great classic...

Up in Arms too...

I wasn't a bit worried. Warner's Ultra-resolution process has a perfect batting record on Blu-ray. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Ultra-rez DVD titles to make their way to Blu-ray: Easter Parade, The Band Wagon and Singin' in the Rain.

Thank God.  Time for a little good news again.  Fantastic.

 

Fox 'updated' their negatives and threw the originals away so an article elsewhere stated recently. Makes little sense but that is Fox. Enough said when one considers the 1937 fire in NJ and the later 60s one in that state. Lifeboat had troubles for DVD because of lost elements. Hello, Frisco, Hello was redone on DVD which means we all had to buy it again in. But Fox, for all that, is supposed to have some 20s original nitrate prints rotting away someplace(1930s) and I had heard their European 30s/40s production elements had been returned to Hollywood but the call had been to destroy them in England. Who knows? Funny how Fox seems to have stereo sound stems from the 40s and issued a couple mof LPs from stems they had in their archives long ago(Tommy Dorsey & Glenn Miller). Strange people.

 

As I type, I am watching the just received WAC Rhapsody in Blue and seeing this film for the first time in more than 30 years, maybe longer. I can't fault the picture and sound. And an opening full reel of overture I have never seen before. It speaks for itself. I got The Great Waltz at the same time in a different package and I don't believe I will be disappointed in that one either, another I have not seen a while but I have the Laserdisc. 

I'd also like to see "National Velvet". The DVD isn't so hot, and the film that catapulted Elizabeth Taylor to stardom when she was 12, which also happens to be one of the greatest family classics, deserves better...

A couple of things - the sound has been redone - is it still stereo?

Great info about Technicolor - two of the paramount ones i would kill for - Frenchmans creek and Lady in the Dark

I've told this story before but I'd like to tell it here: at one of the Wizard of Oz festivals, I was hanging out with the celebrities (John Fricke and I are close friends.) Margaret O' Brien was there that year. Another friend of mine owns the Judy Garland dress from the "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" scene. He clipped off a patch from the inside and presented it to Margaret. She was overwhelmed with joy! Very cool moment. I'll never forget that year. I also got to hold Judy's high school diploma that said friend also owns.

According to DVDBeaver the sound is DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0, so I would say yes.

I thought it was Fox's The Gang's All Here that had to be redone, not Hello, Frisco, Hello.

Based on some contradictory press releases I was concerned that the extras would be jettisoned, but if all we have to worry about is a crappy cover then they've done good by me. This is my favorite Judy Garland film that has no flying monkeys in it; I'm looking forward to getting it.

Good story. Thanks for sharing it.

Your right it was The Gang's All Here.  Once in the first Alice Faye Collection, then again in a Carmen Miranda Collection.  The color in the first one was horrendous and the Laser looked better.  The second release was a hundred times better.  And because of that incident, I started to loose faith in FOX and that has continued until today.  

 

Hello, Frisco, Hello, had a warning on the front about the poor elements just as Lillian Russell did, but it was not that bad. 
 

 

You are right, I confused the two titles. It was The Gang's All Here that was redone. I have more on these choice(to me, anyway) titles. Firstly, when I was getting into the business as a young man in my early 20s and started subscribing to Classic Film Collector there was a 35mm screening in New York of The Gang's All Here. A guy involved in it says he secretly got into the bio box and filed down the gate to have the film screen full frame. Maybe, but never too sure about that one.

 

However, what is true is that some local guys were franatic about these Technicolor Fox 40s musicals. One guy was said to live in a suburb about 2 miles from my home and had a number but the house burnt down because of these films. Another guy lived closer to downtown Melbourne but was somewhat backward and had a job with the city doing grass cutting and weeding. Arthur used to always be in overalls and wrote me letters about films he wanted and wrote every other which way around the envelope. He lived in a little old house with his Mom next door to a licensee of Westinghouse appliances. He had a load of these 35mm Technicolor nitrates and one day they found him staring at the ruins of what had been the little old house. Again the films were the culprits. How these guys got these films, I never knew. Later Fox used to have a lawyer go to the dump with prints and sign a form that he had seen the prints chopped up with an ax. There have been numerous raids in those far off days for prints stolen from silver reclaim plants but usually one thing leads to another when one is caught and gives the names of other guys to try and save their own skin or is it a case of one in all in? A rare Canadian Western was destroyed by a scared old man who had it on 35mm but still got charged and went to court. Years later his film loving son(who had worked in an exchange and Fox movie chain office) read the search story in Classic Film Collector and told me the story. Don't know if the Canadians ever found a copy of this 1930s title, whatever it was. 

 

Today we know it is collectors and forgotten reels that have saved many a title that we are still able to see today. The FBI never did see it that way. 

When Film Inspection had several warehouse/depots around the country one of these was in New Orleans.  Once a month the FI would clean out old films that the film companies deemed excess.  FI would sign a form saying that they were completely destroyed, but in actuality they would end up in the dumpster.  In the dead of night people would sneak around the dumpsters and a few would climb in tossing out reels of film to collectors below.  I had a friend who did this quite often and took me along one night and it was like the a horde of hungry people waiting for a tidbit to be tossed to them.  By the way my friend had a garage full of 35mm cans of film stacked to the ceiling.  Nitrate was long gone thank goodness. He did have a great collection of Three Stooges shorts though and he did have a 35mm projector set up shooting out of a back bedroom window and we would sit on the patio watching the Stooges and others dance across a plywood white painted screen erected in his backyard.  "Can I have another Bourbon and coke?" 
 

 

 

I do agree with you on some of the Fox Technicolor DVD's are superb.  All of the Carmen Miranda title were bursting with color. And there was nothing like a Fox Technicolor musical. 

 

I guess I did not make myself clear.  My disappointment with Fox was the lackluster The Gang's All Here in the Alice Faye Collection, and when it was brought to their attention, Fox just ignored it, but ended up re-issuing it in another collection and in a way forcing a double dip.  I would have hoped they would have tried to make a correction the first time around.  I do not feel that they work to correct mistakes as Disney, Paramount and Warners have in the past.  That is my disappointment. 

 

Fox has done excellent work on their Blu-ray titles and are at the mercy of MGM on what elements they are given for transfer.  I look forward to Cleopatra and the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals next year. With a much improved Todd-AO Oklahoma! (I hope),  One title that should have been replaced when orginally released also. 
 

 

I've wondered why Fox Technicolor features (particularly the 40s) tended to have a lackluster video quality about them compared to other studio releases. Now I know.

It has been said to me that when a film wraps there is always someone who rushes around & collects up stuff and takes it home and when DVD etc special features are being planned stuff comes out of the woodwork. I got 16mm dubs of Judy Garland aborted Annie Get Your Gun in color this way, more material than was on the DVD issues. Of course a lot was repetitive so it need editing for the DVD, Miraculously this footage was saved when so much picture negative outtakes was lost in a 1950s fire at MGM, the audio being elsewhere.

 

I was told when films were sold to TV in Australia in the earlier days the prints, if a color film in the first place, were sent out in color even though we could not screen color until about 1973-74, after UK & Germany(could afford it, the Government said for the prior years). In earlier film days, b&w titles were often sent as lavenders for local printing but color films in 35mm came as prints ready to screen as we had no proper color processing labs then. Lavenders were said to have existed in recent times for films made in my city in the early 30s by the company run by the father of Frank Thring Jr(Pontius Pilate in two epics of note) who died of cancer about 1935 afte a trip to Hollywood & new plans for filming in Sydney.

 

In early 1971, I went to Saturday screenings etc at or with an old man who worked at one time, before a stroke at the BFI in London, and met your average citizen who liked old films and collecting. One guy was a projectionist at a local theater. He told me of a film of the time(Paramount, I think) that had a damaged reel and a replacement was requested. A courier arrived and left a complete new copy and not just the errant reel. He did not ask for or take back the other print. This guy took it home and repaired the damaged reel. The moral, he said, is how so many films are saved for posterity. I always wonder how the average working class British citizen stores much unless they get a lock-up somewhere because, generally, their living space is minute compared with my country. 

 

Also in the 70s back home, a guy I got to know thru my film sales catalogues was working for Fox which incorporated the exchange of some British films in Melbourne. he lived near my home and had Saturday night film screenings he invited me to. he lived with his Mom and he had a house with a floor plan similar to my parents home. He had his projector in a closet in his bedroom. He cut a doored window in the back that opened in the passage and another in the opposite wall that opened into the living room. Thus he was able to screen the films above his fireplace and all the noise of the 16mm projector kept in the bedroom. I saw the Mary Costa The Great Waltz there and never seen it since. His guest fellow collectors came with wives & kids and the ladies made the supper. One collector told me that he was a 35mm collector because no one wanted the gauge because it was bulky to store. Thus the reels were cheap and he could get cheap 35mm projectors from defunct theaters. Many theater owners just left the stuff and walked away. The old drive-in that was near my home was like that. A friend took all the speakers off the carpark poles and sold them. I got a few glass advertising glass slides and some 70mm footage. I also found a wages book in a desk drawer and the rats got all the food and drinks left in the cafe but I got the plastic cups and plates. This was the mid-80s and we had a Sunday market in the grounds for a few years until it just stopped. The odd midnight show had been opened during that time before abandonment. Just the past few weeks I found the wages book again in a clean up at home. Factories adorn the site today. The local cemetery & a city dump are still across the road. Another local drive-in became a factory estate many years before but that one was part of a chain(the operators of Warner Movie World in Queensland).

 

In reference the the fate of Fox archives, Paramount prints & whatever they sent to MCA were also roughly worked on before this happened. Supposedly the work was done by some lab 'down the road'.

 

I have been involved in a large collection of 35mm and 16mm films in early 2003 after an old collector I knew died in the previous December. He is buried outside Melbourne a few yards from my Dad. Little did I know I would bury my Dad 11 months later. My Dad has a proper lawn plaque with a film reel and football emblem of his team on it. The other man has nothing at all just an unmarked piece of grass. Any way this eccentric collector had scores of reels stored in his theaterette sort of under his house and had been taking films up to a pair of old shops at the end of a historic town in the North-West of our state, four hours away. His little old Japanese car had the back seat taken out to store more films and the radiator was broken so he stopped at farms along the way for more water!!! I went to the town and there was rooms and rooms full of old films, much nitrate and many poor state of repair projectors for 16mm. The films were not in good order, in general, but these were to be a former friend's with those remaining in Melbourne going to a woman, much younger than the deceased who got the house(a trick actually, not for this discussion). But there were gems, just the same in the country town. There was a 16mm color print of Song of the South, but I had a copy and have the DVD. But there was a relatively rare 1933 35mm nitrate of an Australian film on our bushranger Ned Kelly(whose remains were recently dug up on the site of the former prison/hanging site). This print was in good order and it differed from the archived copy at the NFSA in Canberra having different title graphics and some alternate scenes. But I also found some 16mm mag-striped early government TV shows the archive did not have. These were in good order and I gave these to the archive who did not have these episodes. They sent VHS copies back of these reels being they did not do DVD then.

 

One 30mins program was presented by a singer/actress named Evie Hayes from Seattle who came here pre-war with her husband(mostly in name only) Will Mahoney who had a speciality of dancing on xylophones. Mahoney had toured England in the thirties but was the lead/opening performer of the stage show that preceeded MGM's Grand Hotel in 1932 in LA. The 60secs clip of the ad is on the Grand Hotel DVD. He was also noted for the song, She's My Lily, and he made a 2-reeler(Educational?) undet that title about 1935 which was on 16mm in the 1970s from Thunderbird Films. He appeared with Evie in the Australian carnival musical about 1938 called Come up Smiling(its theme song) or, alternatively, Ants in His Pants. He was the father of a girl soprano named Jean Hatton, who still does not like being called Australia's Deana Durbin. Evie went on to play the Ethel Merman role in Annie Get Your Gun here and a guy I worked with played the piano for her audition rehearsals and Mahoney was doing the coaching. Before the rehearsals were over they were calling her Annie and she got the part. My mother says Evie always walked around the theater with apoodle under her arm and was a littl bit of a "I am". Mahoney went into his act on kids' TV shows and Evie sung and did ads on the same station. later she was a talent judge on a kids' TV variety show before contracting MS. 

This news is a huge relief after the My Fair Lady debacle. Good to know someone knows what they're doing. Now I have to somehow get through the next 2 weeks until it's in my hands--

Maybe I'll spend the money I saved by not buying "West Side Story" or "My Fair Lady" to buy two copies of this instead ... in support of a quality release.

Can't wait for 'Meet Me in St Louis' to wing its way down here to rural Woodend -- near Melbourne, Australia. My copy of MFL should arrive today or tomorrow via Amazon ... I'm hoping the big-screen experience won't be quite as bitter-sweet as Mr Harris warns......
And I second all the suggestions for that wonderful movie 'National Velvet' to make it to Blu ray ... it has never had a decent transfer to DVD. And for a great double-bill with the young Elizabeth Taylor, why not add to it another classic, 'Lassie Come Home'.
And ps to Kenneth Henderson .. what footie team is commemorated on your father's plaque? Not Collingwood, I hope ......
Meantime, last night my family (visiting son and friend joining the home-team) watched the Walmart special release of 'The Big Country' on our big projector-screen. It was a very decent showing but I did spot the strange frame elongation which I think it was the esteemed Mr Harris first pointed out.

I want "Anchors aweigh" already! come on Warner. Sometimes I think they hate that movie.

I got my copy at the weekend, haven't watched yet, saving it for nearer Xmas, i really like digibooks and this ones as thick as How The West Was Won.

 

 

Just bought this one from amzn. I'm looking forward to it!

got my copy on the day of release and I must say the quality is superb ... the best I have seen it. I'm so happy to own this wonderful Garland film on blu.

Wonderful film. Great blu-ray. Highly recommended.