Someone at Fox - please evaluate (1 Viewer)

[Will Krupp]

The teal slant IS NOT inherent in DeLuxe Color. Thanks, but I've seen a few of these projected from old 35mm anamorphic prints in a theater.

If these old prints were 1950's DeLuxe color positive prints, wouldn't they have all gone completely red some time ago?

 

[Doug Bull]

De Luxe Color today...

but wait, what's this?

This print obviously escaped the DeLuxe invasion and is a rare Technicolor alternative. (are there any others?)

Doug.

 

[Will Krupp]

but wait, what's this?

millionaire1.jpg

Doug.

wait wait...I know this one! It's from a dye transfer print (someone used it when MILLIONAIRE first came out on blu-ray to show that the shadows and Fred Clark's tux were incorrectly shaded blue in the new disc)

Did I win???

 

[Doug Bull]

Yes, that was me.

Definitely no teal/blue rinse in this 50's original 35mm frame.

Doug.

 

[Will Krupp]

This print obviously escaped the DeLuxe invasion and is a rare Technicolor alternative. (are there any others?)

Doug.

I know that the first three Fox Cinemascope releases (ROBE, MILLIONAIRE, and REEF) had a nominal number of prints struck by Technicolor (even though dye transfer prints were substandard for anamorphic releases until Kodak delivered the improved matrix stock sometime in mid 1954 or so) in order to justify the "IN TECHNICOLOR" credit. Mostly all of the release prints went out to the major markets in the sharper color positive prints.

I can't remember the source of this, though. Is it from a dye transfer PRINT or was it from the trailer, maybe? I remember the frame being shown but I honestly can't remember where it's from

 

[Will Krupp]

Definitely no teal/blue rinse in this 50's original 35mm frame.

Doug.

I notice it's from a monoptical print with larger Bell & Howell sprocket holes...is it from a re-issue? The first wave were all magnetic prints with smaller Cinemascope perforations (Fox Holes) weren't they? I'd love the know the source....(hint hint)

 

[Doug Bull]

Is it from a dye transfer PRINT or was it from the trailer, maybe? I remember the frame being shown but I honestly can't remember where it's from

It was first displayed by me in the Marilyn Blu-ray discussion.
I've had this and several other scenes on 35mm film since the mid 1950s.
They are not from the trailer but clippings from an actual Technicolor 35mm print of the movie.

I worked for UA at the time and a friend over at 20th Century Fox obtained them for me.
I just wish I had access to full color copies of a few of the titles presently under review here.
Most of my Technicolor material from Eastman color films involve other studios.


Doug.

 

[Will Krupp]

Thank you Doug, that's fascinating!!

 

[Doug Bull]

Optical Mono prints of Cinemascope and SuperScope Films were available at UA (Australia) from day one.
I obtained these optical mono clips in 1956. So it's obvious that Fox had them as well.

Here are a couple more originals.

Doug.

 

[JohnMor]

Just as a point of reference, I'm watching that scene on blu-ray as I type and, on my television, the dress is still very much purple, though it admittedly runs toward the blue end of the color rather than the red end. The color of the dress is gorgeous and doesn't look nearly as blue as it does in that clip (the back and forth between the master makes the dress look bluer by comparison but when watching it without the comparison it's obviously a rich, lustrous purple.)

I was wondering if that was going to be the case. Thanks Will.

 

[Mark Booth]

I used a digital color meter app to measure the RGB values for various objects in the 'Desk Set' video. In the original HD master the grays have a bit too much red in them (they aren't neutral gray). In the Blu-ray the gray objects have too much blue in them. And by a wider margin than the too much red in the original HD master.

Measuring whites was even more revealing. The whites aren't solid white, of course, they are actually very light grays. Most whites in the original HD master are neutral. They have pretty much the same level of R G & B. On the Blu-ray, the whites are heavily biased toward blue.

I also measured the office chars. In the original HD master they measure distinctly red. But even on the Blu-ray they measure heavily toward red.

To my eyes, the '50s style desks look much more gray in the original HD master and far too blue-gray in the Blu-ray.

Yes, the original HD master has the color turned up too hot. But, other than that, I much prefer the original HD master's color timing. It may not be "right" but it sure looks a heck of a lot better than the Blu-ray.

Mark

 

[Michael1]

"There are several solid barometers for color balancing. One - flesh tones (not too pink, not too ruddy orange). We all know what flesh looks like."

Yes, a point I've made several times in this thread. I think flesh tones are as good or better a point of reference as anything else.

 

[David Weicker]

Yes, flesh tone is definitively the Gold Standard to use.Would that be Conan O'Brien and Felicia Day, or Fernando Lamas and Ricardo Montalban? Or Michael Jackson as a teen or as an adult?

 

[Douglas R]

"There are several solid barometers for color balancing. One - flesh tones (not too pink, not too ruddy orange). We all know what flesh looks like."

Yes, a point I've made several times in this thread. I think flesh tones are as good or better a point of reference as anything else.

I rather doubt that. If it's one thing that i do remember about the colour of '50s theatrical films, it's that flesh colours rarely looked natural - they tended to often be more of a ruddy brown than the more natural pale skin tones of later films (check out Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in "To Catch a Thief"). It's something which as a family we would discuss back in the '50s after seeing a film where over saturated skin tones were particularly noticeable - not that I disliked the look..

 

[WilliamMcK]

Another issue I'd like to raise is the lack of ... depth? ... in the contrast of the new Fox transfers. This varies considerably from movie to movie (and IMO is most noticeable with CAROUSEL), but it seems to affect to some degree all the transfers included in Chuck's comparisons. I don't have the technical vocabulary to explain exactly what I'm seeing, but it's a paradoxical "too dark/washed out" phenomenon. I don't know how to explain it any other way (and incidentally it's something I first became aware of with the blu-ray of West Side Story). It's almost as if a some kind of filter is put over the image which both darkens and washes out detail (in WSS it's noticeable in the way the shadow of the chain link fence becomes washed out in the current transfer and was much more prominent in the previous HD version of that movie). Have others noticed this?

 

[Alan Tully]

I rather doubt that. If it's one thing that i do remember about the colour of '50s theatrical films, it's that flesh colours rarely looked natural - they tended to often be more of a ruddy brown than the more natural pale skin tones of later films (check out Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in "To Catch a Thief"). It's something which as a family we would discuss back in the '50s after seeing a film where over saturated skin tones were particularly noticeable - not that I disliked the look..

Yeah, in the fifties all those American stars looked so tanned to us pasty-faced Brits! When a picture is correct it just looks right & has depth, you don't even think about it. You could look at, say, Samson & Delilah or The Wind & The Lion, or Alien or The Pit & The Pendulum (just a few Blu's I've seen recently) on any old telly & they'd look great. Fox, you can do it right, just look at The Egyptian or The Sand Pebbles or The Rains Of Ranchipur or Violent Saturday.

 

[Michael1]

"I rather doubt that. If it's one thing that i do remember about the colour of '50s theatrical films, it's that flesh colours rarely looked natural - they tended to often be more of a ruddy brown than the more natural pale skin tones of later films (check out Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in "To Catch a Thief"). It's something which as a family we would discuss back in the '50s after seeing a film where over saturated skin tones were particularly noticeable - not that I disliked the look.."

I have no idea if what you say it is true, but if it is, then I'm really at a loss as to what standard(s) if any can be used in deciding whether the color palette of a new video transfer of a film is correct or way off.

And to the person who sarcastically suggested I don't realize that different actors have/had very different colors of flesh tones (a) that's not funny, and (b) you know what I meant.

 

[Mark-P]

I'm so glad that I can just pop in my Blu-ray of Desk Set, sit back and enjoy the pretty pictures without having to pull out a colorimeter and obsessing over whether the color is too this or too that. I'm such an odd duck in that none of that matters to me.

 

[Rob_Ray]

I'm so glad that I can just pop in my Blu-ray of Desk Set, sit back and enjoy the pretty pictures without having to pull out a colorimeter and obsessing over whether the color is too this or too that. I'm such an odd duck in that none of that matters to me.

I was thinking this in all the many threads regarding all these films, but didn't want to admit it. I saw too many Deluxe Pink prints and generally lousy-looking 16mm prints of everything color or black and white on television back in the seventies to quibble too much about what we're getting on bluray.

When we rightly complain about the transfer on the opening overture to West Side Story I recall the network premiere which cut it out altogether.

 

[Thomas T]

I'm so glad that I can just pop in my Blu-ray of Desk Set, sit back and enjoy the pretty pictures without having to pull out a colorimeter and obsessing over whether the color is too this or too that. I'm such an odd duck in that none of that matters to me.

It's the old half full/half empty way of looking at things. We may complain about not having any butter for our bread but when you're hungry, you're grateful for just the bread.