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Regarding the restoration of 'A Star is Born' (1954) (1 Viewer)

Jay Pennington

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Not that I know of.
Anyway, just shows to go ya that there's seldom just one way to go about solving a problem in these kinds of things. Often it's just a matter of trying one of them and seeing what works.
 

Joe Caps

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The sad part is that there is a fellow who has TWO complete original prints of Star is Born. Warners knows who he is (he is a former employee). They KNOW who he is and why they have not taken this fellow to court for this material is beyond me.
ONe odd thing about the Haver book is that he claims there was supposed to be an intermission after the end of Born in a Trunk.
This is a good place for it with a nice big ending. But it's too early in a very long film for an intermission there.
There does exist unused intermission music. It comes after Judysings It's a New World on their honeymoon.
The following shot is a shot of the new house at Malibu. This was a long shot to open the curtains. Ther eis msuic playing in the background. This music is the end of the intermission music as that music was to play for about three minutes and go directly into the party music as one piece.
 

Charles Ellis

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Are you sure about this, Joe? I remember reading about the collector who got raided by the authorities and had all sorts of stuff including "Lose That Long Face" (it's in Haver's book). If there is another rogue collector out there who has a complete pre-release print of the Cukor film, he is nothing but a selfish thief who is guilty of stealing still-copyrighted material and should've been arrested years ago! I don't think there's a statute of limitations on grand larceny. Who knows, maybe this creep (if he exists) also has:

Convention City
London After Midnight
The Divine Woman
Gold Diggers of Broadway
On With The Show
and Sally in full 2-strip Technicolor!

Well, I can dream can't I?
 

Joe Caps

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I am quite sure. He got several other prints with rare material for Warners.
When he left the company, there were several attempts to have hime work with the Academy through a go between and there were some negotiations.
It never was completed.
This is NOT a pre-release print. the film was released in the 185 minute uncut version back in 1954.
 

MatthewA

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Unfortunately, many film collectors do not like dealing with studios, especially after what happened to Roddy MacDowall and the FBI in the 1970s.

To my mind you can win more flies with honey than with vinegar. They need to convince this guy to let Warner copy the missing scenes, begging and pleading if they have to. They can scan it in digitally and make new negatives from the digital files.
 

Joe Caps

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True, many collectors do not like dealing with studios, but most studios have been more than willing to deal with collectors.
but this guy is NOT a collector, but a film researcher, who found a dealer around 1989 that had these prints. this guy worked for warners and helped Warneres find many things that they were missing.
Because of infighting and the usual big studio corporate crap, they screwed him over and he left the company and did not want anything to do with them anymore. INdeed, at one point, roddy MacDowell became involved and offered to act as go between if the project to restore STAR was not done directly by warner but as a project with motion picture academy.
 

Chuck Pennington

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Well, no one lives forever. Let's home his successor understands the value and importance of the material and does the right thing. I have found all kinds of amazing musical theatre material in the last few years that dates back to the 60's and 70's - VERY rare stuff - and I can only guess it is from some guy's (weird how I always assume it is a guy) collection who has passed on.
 

MielR

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I agree that nobody should steal property out of a vault, but if the studio lost the material because of their own negligence (as studios have been guilty of so many times over the years) the person who rescued/found the material is a hero.

I agree with the honey/vinegar remark- the last thing they should do is threaten the guy with legal action. They should make it worth his while to be cooperative.
 

MatthewA

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Consider the fact that an uncut (but faded) South Pacific only exists today because the copyright owners cooperated with an English collector, not to mention the countless other films that exist at all only because some private collector saved them.

I wonder what else got fished out of the studios' dumps, or was squirreled away after someone ordered its destruction.
 

Jeffrey Nelson

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I wonder if anyone managed to get hold of a print of the uncut DOCTOR DOLITTLE...sigh...I'd LOVE to see that.

I'd also like to see the last missing musical number from BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS restored, "A Step In The Right Direction". I dearly hope it turns up...
 

Joe Caps

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Hoping to clear up a few things. the "uncut" dr. dolittle is what is on dvd now. If you mean the version with the missing songs that are on the soundtrack album, that is a different animal. Those were cut BEFORE the film opened and were only shown in test screenings.

MathewA - you are right that ripping off from the studios is not good, but stuios often junk their own stuff. Fox junked the Dolittle footage and there is only a 16mm print of the longer version that lies with a collector.
Magna Corporation junked the South Pacific footage, although I have no idea why. The film was cut only a few weeks after it opened and it was doing phenomenal business.

The warners guy who got the uncut sTAR print did not rip it off from the studio. He had acquired the prints with the purpose of turning themover to warners as he had done with previous material he had found.
As you probably know, there is a large network for 16mm and 35mm prints and there are dealers in these things. ONe such dealer (I think in Arizona) had the prints.
When STar was cut, it was not REQUIRED that theater owners cut the print. A distributor in Chicago did not cut his prints, which is how these prints still existed.
Our hero had helped warners find many missing material, most of which we now have on dvd.
Speaking of distibutors, we can all than one from the fifties who was the Warner distributor in Maryland. ONe of his jobs was to pick three or four good prints of a warner film, when it ended its run and deposit them in the Library of Congress.
The distributor was crazy for stereo films, so he deposited three to four of the BEST stereoprints from the fifties - very important as warners erased their stereo tracks later on. INdeed, it is from the Library of Congress prints that we get the stereo sound for most of the fifties warner stereo dvds including Helen of Troy, Blood Alley, Sea Chase, etc.
Sadly, the distributor stopped doing this at theend of 1955, so we still do not have the true stereo versions of such films as Giant, Auntie Mame, etc.
We also do not have the Warners stereofilms from 1953 including House of Wax and Calamity Jane.
Later warners stero films were found in private collections, including Spirit of st.Louis and Sayonara.
 

Chuck Pennington

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Wow - CALAMITY JANE was in stereo? I wonder why the recording of "Secret Love" sounds so horrible in the film and on the album? Sonically it sounds much harsher and lower in quality than the other songs - weird.


Perhaps some private collectors have AUNTIE MAME and some of the others in stereo. Such an idiotic mistake to have erased those tracks...
 

Charles Ellis

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Wait a minute- weren't any soundtrack albums from these films ever released in stereo? If so, the masters to the LPs could be used for future DVD releases- just a thought.
 

Jeffrey Nelson

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Yes, I know the footage was cut prior to the premiere...sorry, I should have said the prerelease version. But, the fact that a collector actually has a print with the extra footage...that's news! Perhaps at some point it can be utilized for a "deleted scenes" extra feature on a future DOLITTLE release. Or even better, they could blow up the 16mm bits, clean them up, restore, color correct, etc. etc. and put them back in to the film proper, like Disney did with the stuff cut from BEDKNOBS prior to its premiere.

And of course, I'd love to see A STAR IS BORN get put back right. Hopefully WB can reconcile differences with the man with the prints...perhaps sometime within the next 6 to 12 years...
 

Chuck Pennington

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They didn't have stereo albums until around 1958, I think, so there wouldn't have been stereo album masters for AUNTIE MAME and such before then.
 

Charles Ellis

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Chuck, I collect oldies on vinyl and CD, so I already know about the history of stereo. Auntie Mame was a 1958 release, and there WAS a stereo "Auntie Mame" LP by Ray Heindorf (who was the music supervisor for the film) issued by the label in 1959 (WBS 1242), so perhaps the music used in the LP master came from the original stereo tapes for the theatrical film.
 

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