Shirley Temple "Little Darling Pack"? (1 Viewer)

[John Hodson]

...or messing unnecessarily with the original sound mix

 

[Matt Hough]

THE BLUE BIRD is not in the public domain, and it is one of the Temple films I am most eagerly awaiting on a remastered DVD. The videotape gets played fairly frequently at my house as I think it was a brave departure for Shirley to play a fairly disagreeable character, and the color and special effects are still pretty extraordinary. No, it's no WIZARD OF OZ, but then, what is?

THE LITTLE PRINCESS, of course, is in public domain, and I would steer clear of all those various versions available for purchase. I bought the film on a Fox videotape, and it was WORLDS better than any public domain copy I've ever seen, so when Fox finally gets around to issuing it on an "official" DVD, it will look astounding.

As for the next group of Temple films going to be issued, JUST AROUND THE CORNER has been shown on the Fox Movie Channel in a horrendously awful print full of print damage, dirt, and fairly tinny sound. I hope they do a massive salvage job on it. I've never really cared much for SUSANNAH OF THE MOUNTIES, but I love CAPTAIN JANUARY and look forward to it.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Did anyone notice that Legends Films has issued their own LITTLE PRINCESS DVD? It seems that it's exclusively available through Shirley Temple's web site. No preview is available to show how it looks, so I don't know what we should expect. I guess we should just wait for the eventual Fox release. It's my favourite of Shirley's films, and I would love to own a pristine copy. Anyone have this and want to comment?

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Andrew - Legend Films acquired a pristine 35mm Technicolor print of The Little Princiess. We're offering it on both the Legend Films site and on the Shirley Temple site.

 

[Nick Eden]

Just an update on my earlier post as I have now received the 4th boxset.
I guess we will get one more 3 disc set followed by a final 4 disc set. Any thoughts on what will be in box 5?

 

[LaurenceGarvey]

As much as I'd like to have the Shirley Temple films, I'll buy an ammonia enema before I'll buy something colorized by those nitwits at Legend Films (or anybody else). Let 'em all rot in cinema hell.

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Well Lawrenece, If you're into ammonia enemas I can see your point. However, you should know that Shirely Temple Black personally approves of the work Legend is doing on her classics and FOX is doing a superb job of restoring the black and white versions which are included in each DVD.

I might add that Ray Harryhausen has 100% endorsed the Legend Films process for his own films which he's color designed and he's also color designed M.C. Cooper's SHE as well as several other features. SHE will premier in glorious 35mm color (the way Cooper intended before RKO cut his budget) at Graumens in LA. The official DVD release will be November 28th and includes a mulitude of special features including, Ray's (at the computer) design strategy and commentary including one by M.C. Cooper's biographer.

Jane Russell has completed commentary with Terry Moore on The Outlaw. They both consider the Legend Films version superior in both restoration and most definitely color. Terry, who was married to Howard Hughes commented that Howard would have been facinated with Legend Films' technology and would have colorized all his black and white films today if he were alive... because he would have preferred color.

It goes on and on... some of the directors and artists that were involved in some of the more important classics support Legend Films. This is 2006, not 1990 and the technology is light years more advanced. Let me reiterate, Ray Harryhausen, a true proponent of the Legend Films process and our world class color design team was the inspiration for the careers of Lucas, Spielberg and Scorcese... Oh yes... speaking of Scorcese... he had us colorize shots from The Outlaw and Hells Angels for The Aviator.

Anyway Lawrence, to each his own. I appreciate your opinion but I believe you might be getting a bit too worked up about it. After all, we're not killing anyone, it's a movie and the black and white that you and I love so much is included on the DVD splendidly restored.

Please think twice about the enema because sitting in your home watching Heidi in glorious color on your big screen TV has got to be far far more enjoyable.

I've spent far too much time on this reply but I loved the enema remark. I'm hoping that others on this thread will buy the product not only to own the best restored black and white copy but also to see the film in color as it should have been shot, and to enjoy all of Legend Films added features including commentary by Mike Nelson.

http://www.legendfilms.net

 

[DeeF]

The technology may be light-years ahead of 1990, but I still think there's a distracting aspect to colorization -- the color of the actor's faces, the "flesh." It just doesn't look natural or real in any way.

And real natural color is constantly changing in the light, something that isn't accounted for in colorization.

We may have come a long way, but the original photographs in black and white still surpass their colorized counterpoints.

Simply view the original Technicolor scene at the end of The Little Colonel, and then the colorized version (first they had to drain the color out of the scene, in order to colorize it -- ??!!)

The Technicolor scene looks beautiful, as it should. The colorized version looks -- colorized, and thus, distractingly unnatural.

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Deef - thanks for the response... Please see my responses below within your quote:

http://www.legendfilms.net
http://www.shirleytemple.com
http://www.rifftrax.com

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Thanks for your reply. How come it wasn't released through Fox then? Is it because it's a public domain title? I hope they have intentions of issuing their own, fully restored edition. Thanks for answering the questions/comments that are thrown your way. You're a true class act.

Andy

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Thanks Andrew... Little Princess fell into public domain. We found the best possible technicolor print and restored it before releasing the feature as part of the Legend Films/Shirley Temple DVD package. When we visited Shirley's home we discovered she had a treasure trove of films and TV shows in a climate controlled room in her basement that included all the Baby Burlesk shorts which she showed at birthday parties for her children and The Shirley Temple Storybook Series which she also showed her children when she put them to sleep at night. The Shirley Temple Storybook series were originally video taped on quad tape. Back in the late 50s and early 60s Shirley was friends with the head of Ampex, the developers of color video tape. So the TV shows in our Legend Films release with Shirley are the finest examples of early 60's video tape. In fact in many respects the restored quads rival today's video tape because it truly has a technicolor feel... most people would be convinced it was shot on technicolor film. These films and video tapes have never looked as good and the TV shows were broadcast only once, over 40 years ago. We consider this a real find and Shirley has been a true inspiration to work with.

You can get them on our web site and on Shirley's official web site.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

It would be GREAT if VCI Home Entertainment would approach you to restore "A Christmas Carol" starring Alastair Sim from 1951. That would be terrific, as that film was colourized in the late 1980s I believe. I'm sure it would look fantastic today updated with your technology. Plus, the B&W needs a restoration desperately.

Andy

 

[Barry Sandrew]

Definitely in the works. I colorized that film in the early 90s at American Film Technologies. At the time we were the leading colorization company with the first patented all digital process. The film actually didn't looked pretty good back then and has been doing extremely well in VHS and now DVD. We are looking forward to doing that film in high definition in the near future using our new technology.

Did anyone see Entourage last evening on HBO? Legend redid Queens Boulevard using some color effects. It was intended to be over the top. Our biggest problem was making it look bad. Each time we gave them a look, they commented how cool it looked and that the audience would not understand why Billy would find offense with it. We came up with a compromise that worked fine.

 

[DeeF]

I just reiterate my position (not stating facts here, just my own impressions of the technology) that colorization may have come a long way, but it is still distractingly unnatural, and colorized movies are inferior to their black and white originals. In particular, I think the flesh tones of the actors' faces don't look real. Colorization looks exactly like painting over black and white photos.

It doesn't matter to me that Ray Harryhausen or Shirley Temple may think otherwise. My position is based on what I see on these disks, never having owned a movie before (that was colorized).

If colorization promotes restoration of wonderful old movies, I'm all for it, as long as I'm not forced to watch them in color.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Great news! Do you have any clue as to when this may be released? Will it be available from VCI Home Entertainment? I'm really looking forward to it! Feel free to answer my question in the A Christmas Carol thread that I resurected.

Andy

 

[Ian_H]

I would so buy these Shirley Temple discs if they had Mike Nelson commentary tracks!

 

[Brian W.]

There's a new Fox Shirley Temple box out, containing "The Little Princess," "Stand Up and Cheer," and "The Blue Bird." Strangely, "Stand Up and Cheer" has no color version, as the other black and white films in this series have.

To answer the big question: yes, "The Little Princess" is the best the film has looked on home video. The colors are far more vibrant than on the Lumivision disc. I actually thought sometimes it looked almost as if the film were colorized, and I see from earlier in this thread that Legend previously released this with tweaked color as part of the Shirley Temple Storybook Collection. Not sure if it's the same transfer or not. Maybe Barry Sandrew can answer that question. It's certainly no "Wizard of Oz," and I found the reds oversaturated and the picture overly-contrasty... but it is the film's best home video incarnation.

"The Bluebird" looks LOVELY -- so clear and vibrant, with very little grain. Now, I'm confused: was the first portion of the film in black and white? I hope so, because it is on the DVD.

"Stand Up and Cheer" is EXTREMELY grainy, even for a mid-1930s film. I'm sure it's the best existing print, but there's a heavy haze of grain over the whole picture.

So that's 15 of Shirley's Fox movies we have on DVD now. Not sure how many are left, but I think that's over half of them.

 

[Barry Sandrew]

The Little Princess released bu FOX is a different transfer than the Legend Films Transfer. While Technicolor we decided not to go over the top. Sometimes Technicolor can look like bad colorization. We certainly didn't want that to happen.

The Bluebird was Fox's answer to Wizard of Oz which we all should agree Shirley should have starred in. The beginning was in black and white or more appropriately sepia color. It then transitioned into color the same as the transition from Kansas to Oz.

 

[Will Krupp]

Speak for yourself Barry. I, for one, am very thankful that she didn't.

I have the Legend LITTLE PRINCESS and, while I think it was the best of the PD transfers out there (I never did get my hands on the Lumnivision so I'm not sure about that one) it can safely be retired in favor of the official Fox release, which is miles better than any dvd version I've seen.

There's good news and bad news about the transfer, however. The bad news is that it's not perfect by a long shot. It's relatively inconsistent. When it's good it's very good with sharp, well focused colors and lots of detail. When it's not so good (darker scenes in Miss Mynchon's office, for example) all of the shadow detail falls away and goes murky. There are also a few registration issues and a lot of grain along the way. That being said, the good outweighs the bad and I'm very happy with it.

Some scenes (most notably the birthday party) DO seem to have some overly bright (tweaked?) colors, especially the blue of Mynchon's dress and the VVVVEEEERRYYYY bright pinks in Shirley's dress and the birthday cake. I'm not sure what to make of them, though.

THE BLUE BIRD is a stunning Technicolor transfer all the way. The opening b&w scenes look AWFUL (they did on VHS as well) but things improve immeasurably once the Technicolor kicks in. Beautifully sharp and well focused, it really is a great transfer. The movie itself is just as leaden, cloying, and crappy as I remembered it to be but it sure is pretty to look at (only the climactic fire scenes look less than stellar but I'm sure that has a look to do with the special effects optics.)

I'm so glad Fox finally put these out! Anybody want my copy of STAND UP AND CHEER??

 

[Andrew Budgell]

NOOO!!! Is that some kind of a sick joke?! LOL I never want to think of anyone but Judy Garland singing Over the Rainbow!

Andy

http://www.DameElizabethTaylor.com