Roadshows that need a bluray release - Page 2

Raintree also opened October 17, 1957 at The Astor Theatre in Boston as a Roadshow. 

 

In New York it played at Lowe's State and Plaza Theatres but as indicated by that time, MGM gave up on the roadshow process for the film and just wanted to get their money back.  The New York times review gives praise to the score, cast and cinematography.  It says it's weakness is the script.  The running time in New York was 168min as indicated in the review.  So it had been cut from the 184 by that time as the LA Times said. 

Both versions of TSP on the Collectors Edition DVD ran roadshow. The longer version is the one that premiered in Dec 1966 at the Rivoli Theatre in NYC. About a month latter TSP was cut to the length of 180 minutes or so...TSP played at the Rivoli for 8 months or longer.

If you are interest in TSP there is a fantastic website that has all the information one would ever seek about the film. the sandpebbles.com

I was very upset that the last Blu-ray did not include the longer Roadshow cut of TSP as the DVD did.  I really enjoy the film and McQueen's acting is great.  Your right about that web site it is very interesting and someone put a lot of hard work into. 

 

Interesting little development...

Hello, Dolly! was one of the roadshows given a cheesy cover and menu design by Fox on DVD. Looked like they gave a high school kid a PC with some stock photos and standard fonts...



It's been streaming on Netflix for a while and today, while other TCF movies have dropped off the NF streaming list, Dolly has a new cover image.


Same photo but now using a form of the original logo type. It's not a vast improvement, especially when there is that nifty Amsel artwork around, but an improvement. have to wonder why they bothered. When they threw Dolly on a tandem release last summer they didn't bother with new "art."



This doesn't inspire any particular hope for how these titles will be handled in the future.

Does it stream in SD or HD? Just wondering if Fox has done a high def transfer for either Hello, Dolly!  or Star!?

 

As bad as the HELLO DOLLY! dvd covers were, I was never impressed with the two poster campaign's for the title either.  The General Release One Sheet looks like something left over from a Realart Universal Re-release in the 50's.  The Roadshow One Sheet was just way too much hat.  IMHO. 

no evidence of that. Both were in SD only Dolly remains in the streaming list.

Popular price versions of Roadshow posters (that I was aware of growing up in the 60s) were I think all cheap and tacky compared to the original. Can anyone remember one that wasn't? (that ought to open up the floodgates!) Realart is rather before my time. However...Fox seems to have made a habit of skimping on color ink in popular price posters of former roadshows. Doctor Dolittle' s 2nd design was also a woefully cheap B&W with two color tints.

I heard a story about Amsel having created a beautiful period perfect design for Dolly (similar to the unused one he did for Little Miss Marker) and Fox, being in their 60s pop-art mode (evidenced by star) rejected it. The story goes that he went home and created the modern design (that they used) overnight. I was a little surprised to see a professional poster that partially employed a device many of us kids had at home, but still I have yet to see a studio's Homevid art department come up with anything better than the original.

PS: have never been able to prove that Amsel story. The legendary unused art has never surfaced.

I think that both the Roadshow and General Release one-sheets of Dr. Dolittle were better than the Hello Dolly ones.  The General Release version at least tried to sell the film.  However when Dolly hit the General Release theatres, they did use the General Release poster.  When Dr. Dolittle hit the General Release theatres they used the Roadshow poster.  At least in the New Orleans and Mississippi Theatres.  At that time I cannot speak for the rest of the country. 

 

Then there were the three (four if you count Those Were The Happy Times) STAR! one sheets.  The main Roadshow One-Sheet was more like the Dr. Dolittle General Release poster and the STAR! General Release one-sheet was actually interesting and tried to sell a film that could not be sold.  I think each of the One-Sheets is interesting in their own unique way, but my favorite is the Roadshow Version B. 

 

 

 

 

And what ironic wording on that third poster - "ALL OF IT!" when the movie had already been chopped down from the original running time!

if you look at the A roadshow, it's actually full color printing, much more so than Dolittle's circus style tinted B&W of the gen release. Clearly this was 60s pop-art inspired, and I know some like it, but It probably didn't help. before I ever saw that poster my mother had got me the album on a trip to NY, I asked my brother on the phone to describe it. He said it looks like posters slapped or painted on the back of an old building. I thought he was being a smartass but since realized that's exactly the effect that was intended. according to the history on the DVD, the roadshow style B is closest to what should have been used, following the iconic SOM formula, and the retitled thing was done by the same artist as sound of music. Harold Terpining, I think, who also did the best GWTW and has his own unique history... yeah the all of it line on the general release was ironic and I don't like that poster at all. The secondary roadshow print ads were even uglier. I'm also not a fan of monkeying around with the outfits, the one in the B style was actually black, and the one on the retitled thing poster I bet doesn't exist. Anyone remember Peak's Millie art put MTM in one of JA's outfits? speaking of sloppy posters, IIRC, Uni's reissue posters for either Charity or Millie used artwork from the other.
Edited by NY2LA - 4/15/12 at 9:08pm

The ALL OF IT poster is actually from the ad campaign prepared for a full-length STAR! general release which never happened. STAR! ran as a roadshow until just after Christmas 1968, when it was pulled by Fox. When it finally came out as a general release, it was the edited version and it used the THOSE WERE THE HAPPY TIMES title and campaign.

Never heard that. History relates it was cut during roadshow run and pulled from release the following spring. I saw it well after christmas in a (cut) roadshow run that began only a couple days before 12/25. Whether a general release happened or not, it was never going to be full length. I imagine someone here can turn up evidence of the ALL OF IT! campaign finding its way into newsprint. The retitled thing was yet another cut altogether.
Edited by NY2LA - 4/15/12 at 9:15pm

Having seen the original roadshow premiere of Star! here in Charlotte at the Carolina Theater in December 1968 (I think it was December 9th, but I'd have to do some digging), I can certainly attest that Star! had already been cut of two numbers ("Someday I'll Find You" and "My Ship"). I enjoyed the film thoroughly, but I still left disappointed that I had been listening to two songs on the soundtrack LP for weeks before but couldn't see their visual interpretations.

 

The Roadshow B poster is my favorite and is what I'd love to see as cover art on a potential Blu-ray release (not that I expect any release to be forthcoming). I so dislike the brown tinting on the current DVD transfer that I go back to the laserdisc when I want to watch Star!.

 

I did see STAR! in General Release Jackson MS in March of 1969 and they used the Roadshow Version A one-sheet at the theatre, but I recall a type of the "see it all" version for the newspaper ads only it did not say "see it all" just the art work and Now at Popular Prices.  I call it a General Release in the the theatre was running three shows a day, no reserved seats and the did not up the admission prices.  It could still have been considered Roadshow by Fox.  I have never see the General Release One-Sheet used, so what you say makes sense.  I thought the General Release was such a flop and that was when they pulled it and then released it under the new title, which was in the fall of 1969.  I had heard that most of the songs were cut from THOSE WERE THE HAPPY TIMES, but the one-sheet proudly announces "Julie Sings". 

 

On the laserdisc of STAR! there is a written dissertation on the cuts and they went into detail how little by little the film was disappearing from one-week to another. The running time went from 176 minutes to 121 minutes for THOSE WERE THE HAPPY TIMES.  I seem to recall from it that around 22 minutes were cut during the Roadshow run.  So the there was another 30 minutes cut for Happy Times. The laserdisc was and is the definitive version for me, as is the laser of 1776. 

 

Hopefully Twilight Time will try STAR! as a Blu.  I too go back to the laser when it's time to watch it again. 
 

 

Twilight Time has stated one of the following Fox Roadshow releases will be their July release:

 

Star!

Hello, Dolly!

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Can-Can

 

"Star!" may not be the July release since they recently stated they were working on getting "Star!" - so it still may happen this year

Some good news for folks who mention THE LION IN WINTER. A BD will be released soon by the Danish SoulMedia company, with a subtitle free option. Their stuff is usually very good. I also wonder about SOLOMON AND SHEBA, since my English MGM DVD looks marvelous, so I imagine a new scan would easily bring it up to BD snuff. In the same bunch that MGM originally released in DVD was KINGS OF THE SUN, which I would love to see in hi def. Of course, a six BD set of the Rogers and Hammerstein (hopefully roadshow) musicals are coming from the UK soon and will include SOUND OF MUSIC, THE KING AND I, SOUTH PACIFIC, OKLAHOMA, CAROUSEL and STATE FAIR. No announcement for the USA, however.

I hear a lot of people feel that way about the DVD transfer and not just the brown tints. Amazon reviews list a bunch of faults in the transfer. Whole different era between the time LD special editions were done and when DVDs came out. In the LD era people who knew and probably liked the movie were involved and/or in charge, while in the DVD era these things are done by committee. I think the laserdisc history section about the ad art explains the choice of art made for the LD cover. A good idea that could have been executed better.


Edited by NY2LA - 4/16/12 at 1:45pm

You know, the first time I ever saw the complete version of Star! was on AMC (before they went commercial). They first showed it pan and scan, of course, but eventually the widescreen version aired, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven to finally get to see the whole thing. That homemade videotape got a lot of wear and tear before I finally got my hands on the laserdisc.

Okay, y'all talked me into it.  I just bought the LD -- my first in a long time.

 

I have always enjoyed the movie, even in the shortened version that ended up at the Capri Theatre in Jackson, MS.  I never saw THOSE WERE THE HAPPY TIMES however it would be and interesting extra on a Blu-ray. 

 

The film is entertaining, but a lot of people have said that Julie did not play a very nice person in the film.  Of course those people also did not know who Gertrude Lawrence was either.  The Saga of Jenny and Limehouse Blues numbers were outstanding and are a spectacle.  My only down thoughts of the film is that I wish it had moved on to THE KING AND I and her eventually illness during the production and death.  She could of easily gotten up out of the screening room after looking at the film of her life and walked on over to the St. James Theater and finished the film.  But then it would have been a longer film and that would have been cut also. 

 

The laser was a godsend, the DVD was disappointing.  The brownish tint and the lack of the Intermission and Entr'acte forced me to hold and treasure the laser. 

There's been a beautiful 70mm print playing in various 70mm venues throughout Southern California in the past few years that mysteriously does not contain the overture. I hope this error is corrected before any recent restoration finds its way onto bluray. The laserdisc is one of my all-time favorites as far as bonus extras are concerned.

I agree about Star! and I passed on the DVD and kept the LD for those reasons. I'd love to see it on Blu-Ray. The historical still section was pretty interesting, going so far as to detail all the cuts, and I was disappointed that the Blu-Ray of The Sound of Music didn't keep it. Maybe the info for this one will turn up on the Blu-Ray in some form. Or they could just include all the cuts via seamless branching, the most disappointingly underused feature of DVD and Blu-Ray. Of course, I'd be watching the long one.

 

It's interesting about the 70mm print not containing the overture either.

The overture played each time I saw it in LA over the last few years - it's part of the film with screen graphics/images

I recall hearing that after American Cinematheque ran the new 70mm print without the overture prologue in Santa Monica, word reached them of the missing overture reel in time for them to include it sometime later when they ran it in Hollywood. I've heard something about people searching out an old print to include the overture reel when the new 70mm print was shipped to London without the overture.

Apparently it's easy to misplace the overture because it has always been a separate reel.

Doesn't the LD history mention that the retitled version has some differences in editing and at least a couple added visuals not in the original - meaning seamless branching wouldn't work, but adding it as a low-res supplement (like Fox did with the superior version of Oklahoma! on the 2 disc DVD) would be a lot of fun - along with the TV/radio spots and trailers for it that the LD just hinted at.

Since text sections are so rarely done these days, wouldn't it be cool to have it reformatted into a PDF book and/or video documentary feature? I bet there has to be nifty stuff that the original LD producer had to leave out for time and space. I also heard there were some postproduction errors in the still store and commentary.

Wouldn't you love to see Dolly! and Dolittle also get this kind of treatment? if only it would occur to the studio to enlist people who really know the products and their audience.

You will give us a full report, won't you? Do you have the DVD?

No, don't have the DVD, and I only saw the movie once many years ago, probably at a second-run.