ADV. of SUPERMAN SEASON 2 has edits (1 Viewer)

[CIULLOCAMNY]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the thread and I'm not sure if this was brought up at all. The Adventures of Superman Season 2 has at least 2 episodes that I know of with some blatant edits. MY FRIEND SUPERMAN and AROUND THE WORLD WITH SUPERMAN are missing footage. Luckily I am a 16mm film collector and have had these episodes intact, so at least I am able to see the difference. Warner Home Video has done it again. Hey Warner, are you listening - HOW ABOUT A REPLACEMENT DISC WITH ALL UNCUT EPISODES !!!
You listened to the public about the Looney Tunes box sets and the Tom and Jerry set. How about some due respect to the Man of Steel ??? What's crazy about this is that there's going to be some cock and bull story about how that these were the only materials that were available. When you do an extensive search, you're supposed to cover all of your bases. Even if it means going outside the 35mm film world and relying on 16mm film elements to due so. There have been many TV stations running these shows and I'm sure that there's someone out there who had these shows uncut. Hell, I had them on 16mm film, but let them go thinking that these box sets would have more pristine materials than the film versions. In this case, I was wrong. What's the big rush to try and market these things. Get it done right the first time. Yours truly would be more than happy to wait for it. It would be worth the wait. How long will I have to wait for a replacement disc now ?

 

[LaurenceGarvey]

Yeah, this is not news. We all survived. The Superman sets could've used much better bonus material, too, and the color episodes have a lousy print for all the opening credits. *shrugs* I still enjoy the episodes.

 

[Michael Alden]

Call Warner up and offer your prints to them to use. I'd love to see what they say. BTW, how about the first season episode that looks like a 16mm dupe with tons of scratches that they didn't bother to clean up.

 

[Steve...O]

This is not new news. Warners was asked about this in the last chat and they responded that the prints have changed hands many times over the past 50 years and what they had was put on the DVD. I'm willing to give them a pass on this considering that the other episodes all look fantastic, are complete and not time sped. These edits are about a minute each and one of the cuts doesn't feature any main characters.

I've seen 16mm copies of the missing scenes and they are also rough looking so finding pristine copies of them would have been a challenge. If someone does offer Warners use of high quality materials, a replacement disc program would be nice, but I'm not going to be upset if one doesn't come.

Stolen Costume does look worse than the other episodes, but it's still quite viewable. Robert Harris or someone conversant in restoration will probably tell you that the amount of money required to full restore this episode wouldn't be cost effective.

On the whole, I've been quite pleased with these sets. Jack Larson and Noel Neill are prominently featured on the bonus features, the episodes look wonderful, and the pricing is right.

 

[CIULLOCAMNY]

It's just that Warner has a history of making these so called edits to a bunch of stuff they own. This isn't the first time. A lot of thier Bowery Boys materials are lacking some scenes as well. And as far as the edits to the Superman episodes - In MY FRIEND SUPERMAN - the entire scene with Tony setting up the tape recorder - I feel - is very crucial and is missing from the DVD as well as this scene in AROUND THE WORLD... The whole scene where he looks into the little girl's eye to see if there is something corrupting her vision. A great close-up shot of George Reeves performing his x-ray vision. Not to mention that most of the second season openings aren't the originals either. I'm sorry, but I remember this stuff as a little kid and it stays with you. And I like I said in the first thread, what Warner said about the materials they have and the different copies of the episodes is B.S. Because it was the Warner copies I saw on TV not too many years ago and those scenes were there. So they make the excuse that this is what they got and they send Mr. and Mrs. America away and all is supposedly fine. Although, in the first season and a most controversial scene from the episode RIDDLE OF THE CHINESE JADE. The scene was cut from some syndication packages because it depicted the villain of the episode physically throwing a Chinese girl onto a couch and promptly following it up by jumping on top of her and punching her with a couple of nasty closed fists with his back to the camera. This scene was cut from some syndication packages at the point where he was about to hit her, yet THIS scene IS included on the first season DVD set uncut with all the brutality. Which, I guess, I should be thanking Warners for including it. But it makes me wonder about the rest of the collections. GO FIGURE !!! Good thing I still have some of the films. Thanks for letting me vent and thanks for your responses.

 

[Steve...O]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your perspective.

We all agree that we want everything to as perfect as possible. Realistically though when dealing with syndicated vintage properties like TAOS or poverty row studios like Monogram (Bowery Boys) where Warners wasn't the original owner, I'm willing to cut them some slack and give them the benefit of the doubt. They do have a very impressive record with their classic theatrical catalog and these Superman episodes look darn good.

Warners is holding up the DVD release of the Bowery Boys because they aren't satisfied with what they have in their vaults and they're doing a worldwide seach for better elements. Some fans aren't happy with this delay, but I applaud Warners for taking the time to do it right.

Perhaps if the right people at Warners had been contacted early in the process of the developing TAOS and been provided high quality copies of the scenes from the copy of a collector perhaps we'd have these intact. The running times of these epsisodes are not signficantly shorter than the others so it may not have been obvious to the people putting this together that brief scenes were missing. Should it have been? Perhaps, but that's assuming they could have found an expert on the series willing to act as a consultant at a price within the parameters of the budget for this release (read "gratis").

 

[Sky King]

Steve,

I was surprised to hear Warner Brothers say, (after criticism of the video quality of the first TAOS DVD set) that the TAOS prints passed through many hands before reaching them. How many hands did they pass through ??
It was my longtime understanding that National passed them directly to Warner Brothers, but I've recently read that Screen Gems also owned TAOS for a while and that they (SG) really wore down the negatives.

John

 

[Chas_Michael]

can you please clarify this statement?

 

[CIULLOCAMNY]

If what you mean by clarify, is that WB has reassured that it will have replacement discs for the various cartoon box sets because they contained insufficient material or alternate soundtracks or some other kind of imperfections that desecrated what was once known as a piece of Americana. I called for my replacement disc(s) for Tom and Jerry Spotlight #2 and it's going to take 6-8 weeks. Whether or not they do something about Looney Tunes is beyond me. I had found out through another source that some of the toons may not be complete or have been altered for Politically Correct standards. Whether WB is going to correct that problem, I don't know. They listened to the public about THIS. Why can't they do something about TAOS. I'm just trying to get through to them.

 

[pitchman]

In general, I am pleased with the sets as issued by Warner Bros. Taking advantage of sale prices, for less than $125, one can collect the entire six season run of The Adventures of Superman. Are they perfect? No. But, that doesn't detract from the overall quality and consistency of presentation that Warner has delivered. Just the fact that they didn't abandon the series, like so many of their industry counterparts, is commendable.

I agree with nearly all of the comments made in this thread. The Stolen Costume (although serviceable when taken alone) looks BAD when viewed alongside the other episodes in the set. It would be nice if Warner issued a "do over" on that one. I also agree that the show open used for the most recent volume of color episodes looks like crap. Hopefully, this will be corrected in the final volume. Plus, I can't argue the sentiment that many of the supplemental features are a bit underwhelming.

In the end, to me personally though, the most glaring omission in this set of discs is that Warner never saw fit to include a single one of the wonderful, first season, end-of-show previews. Their explanation - - They couldn't locate all of them, so they chose to not include ANY. Boo. Come on, Warner, throw us a bone!

 

[CIULLOCAMNY]

That's syndication for ya !

 

[Sky King]

Chris,

I have a friend who's a real TAOS afficiando and he sent Warners...after the first two season's had been released...a very clean copy (better than they released) of "The Stolen Costume" and several previews.
He never heard back...not even a form letter.

John

 

[CIULLOCAMNY]

Hey John, I too have a connection with some rare Superman stuff including the previews from Season 1 which he sold to me on 16mm film (his name is John also). I don't have all of the Previews for all the episodes, but they are enjoyable to watch. I also have the original pilot episode with the Kellogg's sponsor on it. This could be the reason that Warners didn't include the previews because they all had a mention of the sponsor and probably couldn't get the rights to include them. "There's Action...Adventure... and Mystery... in the Adventures of Superman brought to you by Kellogg's the greatest name in cereal" - dissolve into final credits. Those previews really get the adrenaline going for the following week's episode. In fact, on the documentaries that are included on the sets, he is interviewed in some segemnts. This guy lives for TAOS. I'm not sure of your friend's situation, but would it be a disagreement for monetary reasons. Did your friend want a cut of the profits ? - which he should be entitled to and a DVD credit. THE STOLEN COSTUME has been under scrutiny as one of the episodes to have had some cuts made to it. In fact there are other episodes that were sent back for editing becasue of juvenile viewing and Kellogg's basically told the show's producers to tone down the violence. Other episodes that were heavily scrutinized were - THE EVIL THREE, RIDDLE OF THE CHINESE JADE, and CRIME WAVE. I had once owned STOLEN COSTUME on 16mm and it had that same look as the one that appears on the DVD. I have compared different versions of this episode and it appears that there are scene variations. In one instance a scene dissolves into another, while another version shows a fade to black as opposed to the dissolve. There another scene where it jumps to the next scene while another shows a dissolve. Also the violent death at the end of the episode was supposedly cut down from the original version. THE EVIL THREE had some of the ghostly images and close-ups removed. CRIME WAVE had two different shows which I had on 16mm as well. There is a montage of violent scenes that starts the episode. One version has narration under it while the other doesn't. It is the non-narrative version that also has a violent scene where a dock worker is crushed between the back of a truck and the dock. Some of the episode's soundtrack is also changed. I had mentioned the edits in the Riddle episode in an earlier thread. It would've been nice to see both versions of CRIME WAVE on the first season set as well. Actually it's pretty much complete, but there is one minor edit in the epsiode where the villains are watching a home movie of the Planet's employees. So minor that if you blink you will miss it. The trained eye will see it though. But my gripe is that there really is no reason for this. I'm sure that deep in the vaults somewhere are complete unedited prints and the research just wasn't done. I'll agree that the picture looks wonderful. Same as the once forgone Columbia House versions. I don't want to make this sound that I am really bashing WB. Their efforts to bring us this great quality has not gone unnoticed. Anyway time to move on and look forward to the final 2 seasons set to come out in November. Thanks for indulgence.

 

[Sky King]

Chris,

Sounds as if you're as big a TAOS fan as I am.
My friend sent Warner Brothers a tape of the "Stolen Costume" from a print he had and several previews also. He wasn't asking for any monetary gain or even an acknowledgement on the DVD, as it had already been released. Again it was strange that WB didn't even acknowledge their receipt with a form letter.
As for the DVDs themselves I think what has been released so far is subpar. The video quality is just fair IMHO. WB stated that they're doing the best with what elements they have. So are they telling us that no 35mm negatives exist from the entire 7 year run ?? It just seems to me that they've skirted around this issue from the start.
From what I understand, on the TAOS DVD sets, we're basically getting video transfers from 15 or so years ago, when TAOS was last "restored," prior to it's Nick at Nite premier. WB stated that what elements they have, were passed down thru several hands before reaching them and they were in rough shape by then. I was always under the impression that these prints were sold directly to WB from TAOS' original production company, National. It's recently been rumored that Screen Gems owned TAOS for a while and really wore down the negatives...I can't confirm this anywhere.
When I look at "The Abbott and Costello Show" and it's pristine prints from the early 1950's and see how TAOS could have looked, it just saddens me.
I was lucky enough to meet Noel Neill and Jack Larson last November and they both told me their appearances on the TAOS DVDs were done gratis, as WB was too cheap to pay them. It's only because of their love for the show that they're on these DVDs at all.

John