- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,425
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
Think 3-D is big?
It's nothing compared to the sound revolution, which took hold in 1927, with a part-talking feature from Warner Bros. entitled The Jazz Singer. Starring a new to features Al Jolson (he had been seen in a few shorts), then famous for his legit performances going back to the the vaudeville days.
With his famous ad-lib "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet," he propelled the art form, with Warner Bros. at the fore into a new era.
A year later, Warner followed the success with another huge Jolson hit, The Singing Fool, which raised Jolson's importance to even higher levels.
In 1930 he again starred for Warner in Mammy. While it didn't hit at the box office as did the earlier films, it was a quality production, and Warner released it as something special.
Eighty years later, the Warner Archive Collection has again released Mammy as something special, and it appears that the WAC may be moving in a slightly different direction with certain releases. In 2002, Mammy was Restored and preserved by The UCLA Film & Television Archive with its original two color Technicolor sequences intact. Now eight years later, Warner has taken another step by scanning the preservation elements at MPI and putting them through the entire MPI digital restoration process, inclusive of clean-up.
What arrives on the Archive disc is a version of Mammy unseen in well over half a century. Where footage was missing in the Technicolor sequences, black & white footage has been beautifully blended in in sepia to avoid black slugs.
The Archive Collection release of Mammy has Overture and play-out music intact, along with the two two-color sequences, which give a reasonably accurate idea what the color actually looked like. To place color in perspective, it was far from ordinary. While two color Technicolor goes back to the mid-teens, in the 20s through 1930, fewer than thirty features were released in the format. Technicolor sequences, from lengths of less than 110 feet to entire musical numbers or sequences were to be found in around sixty releases, many of which have not survived.
Mammy is a gorgeous disc from the Archive Collection, and all involved should be applauded for their efforts. As an aside, The Singing Fool is also available.
Support the Archive Collection by adding Mammy to your library.
Recommended.
RAH
It's nothing compared to the sound revolution, which took hold in 1927, with a part-talking feature from Warner Bros. entitled The Jazz Singer. Starring a new to features Al Jolson (he had been seen in a few shorts), then famous for his legit performances going back to the the vaudeville days.
With his famous ad-lib "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet," he propelled the art form, with Warner Bros. at the fore into a new era.
A year later, Warner followed the success with another huge Jolson hit, The Singing Fool, which raised Jolson's importance to even higher levels.
In 1930 he again starred for Warner in Mammy. While it didn't hit at the box office as did the earlier films, it was a quality production, and Warner released it as something special.
Eighty years later, the Warner Archive Collection has again released Mammy as something special, and it appears that the WAC may be moving in a slightly different direction with certain releases. In 2002, Mammy was Restored and preserved by The UCLA Film & Television Archive with its original two color Technicolor sequences intact. Now eight years later, Warner has taken another step by scanning the preservation elements at MPI and putting them through the entire MPI digital restoration process, inclusive of clean-up.
What arrives on the Archive disc is a version of Mammy unseen in well over half a century. Where footage was missing in the Technicolor sequences, black & white footage has been beautifully blended in in sepia to avoid black slugs.
The Archive Collection release of Mammy has Overture and play-out music intact, along with the two two-color sequences, which give a reasonably accurate idea what the color actually looked like. To place color in perspective, it was far from ordinary. While two color Technicolor goes back to the mid-teens, in the 20s through 1930, fewer than thirty features were released in the format. Technicolor sequences, from lengths of less than 110 feet to entire musical numbers or sequences were to be found in around sixty releases, many of which have not survived.
Mammy is a gorgeous disc from the Archive Collection, and all involved should be applauded for their efforts. As an aside, The Singing Fool is also available.
Support the Archive Collection by adding Mammy to your library.
Recommended.
RAH
