Fall of the Roman Empire to be released on April 29 (1 Viewer)

[BIP]

Hi

According to IMDB the FOTRE was filmed on a 65mm negative using Ultra Panavision 70 (anamorphic). It was printed on 70mm as well 35 mm.

The 70mm had an aspect ration of 2:76:1 (negative ratio), whereas for 35 mm it was 2:35:1.

Audio: The 70mm had 6-track audio, wheras the 35 mm prints had a Mono track.

Color was (of course) Technicolor.

So lets hope that even if we won't get the 70mm 2:76:a AR, at least we'll get the 6-track Audio instead of the Mono track...

BTW, it was the biggest flop of 1964 and cost Samuel Bronston his Spanish production facility...

Cheers

 

[OliverK]

Well, I just compared 4 screenshots of the 16mm print of BOB with my HD-DVD of and they all seem to be full height - cool !

 

[OliverK]

Worldwide it was one of the top grossers of 1964, but its production costs where so high that this was not enough and it did particularly bad in the US which was not a surprise given its downbeat ending. Doing an epic movie with a downbeat story and ending is very stupid and I can think of two more films that tried and also failed miserably (Once Upon a Time in America and Heaven's Gate).

 

[RolandL]

The IMDB is full of mistakes. I think they still have one of the 3-strip Cinerama films with a 3.99:1 aspect ratio.

The 6-track audio (five front channels. one surround) will have to be converted to 5.1.

I have the Japanese DVD of Fall and its 5.0 sound and a 2.35:1 AR. The sound is really good so, I would expect the US version to be even better.

 

[john a hunter]

Spartacus, El Cid and TFOTRE'S remake Gladiator, all had downbeat endings but were successful. Everyone will have their own thoughts on why TFOTRE was not more successful.For me it was the totally unconvincing relationship between Boyd and Loren.The film was financially successful in most english speaking counties save North America where it bombed.

 

[Robert Crawford]

 

[OliverK]

You are right and there are other factors for the failure of the movie and I just wanted to point what is most obvious to me that IMO will never really work. We know that Heston was to play Livius and I think this would have helped the movie tremendously as Heston was also known to demand scripts to be reworked and just had a much more commanding screen presence. I think it was also a mistake for Livius to have blonde hair - it looks so fake when almost everything else in the movie looks very real, it is really a joke.

The interesting thing about Fall is that there are no numbers to show how well it did in other countries - apparently it earned more money in the UK and Germany than in the US but there are no exact numbers available, only the catastrophic (given its costs) box office in the US.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Please remember to use spoiler tags discussing actual film plots as many members that read this thread still might not have seen the films you're discussing. Thank you.





Crawdaddy

 

[Derek M Germano]

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE is a movie that I have been looking forward to having on DVD for a decade. Wonder if I'll have to wait that long for the hi-def version?

 

[OliverK]

I don't think so. Weinstein has an HD master and I would be surprised to NOT see it used for a Blu-Ray release.

 

[PaulP]

So we still don't have any real specs, right?

 

[OliverK]

Do you speak of video and sound ? If the April release date is still on they can only do 2.35:1 and a 5.1 remix as Weinstein only got 35mm elements to work with in the first place.

In order to go with the original UP70 AR they would need more time as they would have to go back to the OCN and that would also mean that the owners of Fall would have to spend some money on their movie. As it did not happen for El Cid I doubt it will happen for Fall.

 

[john a hunter]

You're quite right that in the films I mentioned (Spartacus, El Cid and Gladiator), although the hero dies, the scripts were crafted and directed so there was some hope.
It's a long time since I have seen TFOTRE but I don't recall the ending as that downbeat -more ineffectual and weak and a poor resolution to the proceeding 3 hours. Perhaps Livius should have emulated Maximus and died but given Boyd's poor performance it probably would have had little effect on the general dissatisfaction you feel at the end.

It is indeed a great shame that Heston did not persist with the script to Empire and went with 55 Days instead. Empire had the potential to be the finest epic of them all.

 

[Robert Harris]

The 65mm "negative ratio" of FotRE was not 2.76. The negative image area was 2.066 x 0.906. This yields an aspect ratio of 2.28:1.

Projected aspect ratio, with special optics, would have been 2.76:1.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

A taking lens of 1.25x . This yields 2.85:1, but the gate of the projectors presented a 2.75:1 (2.76:1 was the "MGM Camera 65" specs). Damn, I need to get out more.

 

[PatrickDA]

[To each his own, but I didn't "buy" the relationship between Loren and
Heston in "El Cid" either. It's all about that heroic moment...post-death El Cid
riding out to battle, Maximus rejoining his family in death, William Wallace
dying for freedom, Spartacus becoming a martyr for the enslaved. "Fall of the
Roman Empire" couldn't have an ending like that. Livius had to tell the powers-
that-be to go to hell and just walk away with Loren.
It was about the FALL
of the Empire, not a heroic comeback or momentary stabilization.

I hate to say this, but Heston has always been a huge STIFF in my opinion.
I've seen "Fall of the Roman Empire' at least 50 times from start to finish
and IT IS THE BEST EPIC EVER MADE. No matter how critical people want
to be of Boyd's performance in a tough role to pull off...there was a reason
Heston didn't want to do it. Most right-wing, white Christians tend not to
warm-up to people who just walk away instead of fighting...that's why the film
bombed in America. Ditto "Alexander"

 

[Robert Crawford]

For the last time, please use spoiler tags when discussing specific plotlines regarding these films. Just because you've seen the film, doesn't mean everybody else has watched them.






Crawdaddy

 

[OliverK]

The first thing that I thought after seeing the end was how anybody could think this would work out to be a success.

 

[OliverK]

It seems that so far the closest we can get to this aspect ratio for Fall is a 16mm scope print with an aspect ratio of 2.66. That is if any where made that way.

 

[PaulP]

No I meant extras, as there is supposed to be a 3-disc edition.