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VistaVision--film by film chat and vote (1 Viewer)

Matt Hough

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I'd want Funny Face, War and Peace, Li'l Abner, One-Eyed Jacks (not sure they have the rights to that one), and The Court Jester.

I'd already mentioned two black and white VistaVisions that I want: The Desperate Hours and The Leather Saint.

And while Warners is waiting for Paramount to do the mastering on those titles, I'd love for them to work on a great VistaVision film they have rights to: MGM's High Society.
 

RobHam

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Richard--W said:
My posts regarding The Searchers are straightforward, blunt, correct, honest and in a constructive spirit, although after six years of waiting for Warner Brothers to do something about the transfer, I concede my disgust with them is beginning to show.
Their handling of The Searchers has not been in good faith. It shows a disrespect for the filmmakers and for consumers who spend their money in good faith, which in turn invites the harshest criticism.
I get the colour shift in the Searchers BD, and I get why it must annoy some people.
When the bricks came up at the beginning of the BD, my first thought was that they were a lot yellower than in the dvd. As the movie progressed, I forgot all about the yellow and just appreciated seeing things that I had never seen before in many, many viewings of this movie. I've gone back to this BD twice since that initial viewing and in both cases, my eyes adjusted to the yellow boost very quickly.
If it were to be regraded and rescanned for a second attempt at a blu ray, I'd probably buy it, but not at a premium price. Unlike Patton, and (maybe) Spartacus, I'm not sure there would be a big enough market of unsatisfied punters queuing up for the double-dip
 

GMpasqua

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Originally Posted by MattH. /t/310885/vistavision-film-by-film-chat-and-vote/360#post_4001308
I'd want Funny Face, War and Peace, Li'l Abner, One-Eyed Jacks (not sure they have the rights to that one), and The Court Jester.

I'd already mentioned two black and white VistaVisions that I want: The Desperate Hours and The Leather Saint.

And while Warners is waiting for Paramount to do the mastering on those titles, I'd love for them to work on a great VistaVision film they have rights to: MGM's High Society.
Yes, Funny Face and Li'l Abner!
 

benbess

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Danny Kaye's VistaVision musical-comedy-drama The Five Pennies is now up in a beautiful (to my eyes, anyway) HD presentation at Amazon Prime instant video. No extra cost if you have Prime membership. Good film. Louis Armstrong and others also put in fine performances, including the always solid Barbara Bel Geddes, just a year after Vertigo. The Five Pennies looks wonderful. Someone at Paramount cared about this title....And maybe WB HV can release it to blu-ray?
 

benbess

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One more picture with Barbara Bel Geddes from The Five Pennies. Hey, maybe this is a title like Gypsy for the new Warner blu-ray archive? I still think a boxed set from WB HV of all the top Kaye movies in their collection (and they own or have access to almost all of them, I think) would be a great idea. A far number of people have heard of and seen at least clips from Walter Mitty and Court Jester, but if you make them buy a set of 6-8 movies, people will see that he's more than those two titles.
 

Matt Hough

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Most people don't know or remember that Barbara Bel Geddes was the original Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
 

Eric Vedowski

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MattH. said:
Most people don't know or remember that Barbara Bel Geddes was the original Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
And a little bit of it was preserved on kinescope for the A.N.T.A. Album of 1955 show that UCLA has in their archive. Here's the description:
"Excerpts and numbers from various Broadway productions: r1. [Introductory song and dance number] -- [Two’s company--excerpt] (performed by Henry Morgan, David Burns, Michael Mann) -- [Make a wish--excerpt] (performed by Helen Gallagher and Harold Lang) -- A Scottish immigrant at Ellis Island / written and performed by Ruth Draper -- Rodgers & Hart medley (Lena Horne, backed by Louis Bellson, drums, George Duvivier, bass, Lenny Hayton, piano). r2. An actor’s sacrifice : a story in rhyme (Victor Moore) -- A Christmas tie / by William Saroyan (performed by Helen Hayes, Ray Boyle and Iggie Wolfington) -- [a sketch and dance number] (Henry Morgan and Cyril Ritchard) -- [a comedy and music segment] (performed by Victor Borge). r3. [a song] (sung by Julie Wilson) -- [Bus stop--excerpt] / by William Inge (performed by Kim Stanley, Elaine Stritch, Lou Polan, Phyllis Love, Crahan Denton) -- [Fanny--excerpt. Love is a very light thing (song)] (Ezio Pinza) -- [South Pacific--excerpt. Wonderful guy (song)] (Martha Wright) -- [Can on a hot tin roof--excerpt] / by Tennessee Williams (with Barbara Bel Geddes and Ben Gazzara) -- [a medley of numbers from eight musicals currently running on Broadway: The boy friend -- Fanny -- Kismet -- The pajama game -- House of flowers -- Silk stockings -- Plain and fancy -- Can-can]."
Would love to see this. Anybody know it any of it used in the Broadway doc?
 

Matt Hough

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None of those excerpts were in the Broadway documentary series as I recall. Basically, the documentary on the Golden Age skips from The King and I to My Fair Lady thus eliminating most of the shows in this listing above. The South Pacific excerpts used were from the Rodgers and Hammerstein tribute featuring Mary Martin.
 

Stephen PI

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VistaVision at the Plaza Piccadilly Circus.
From the Ideal Kinema, supplement to the Kinematograph Weekly, June 16th, 1955 :
 

benbess

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The big Western hit of 1957 that was filmed in VistaVision, Gunfight at O.K. Corral, is now up in a new high definition transfer at Netflix. To my eyes it looks good, although sometimes it's tricky to judge things in the lower-than-blu-ray-resolution of the streaming format. I've somehow never seen this film before, but it seems very good to me. What a cast! Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, plus Rhonda Fleming, John Ireland, Jo Van Fleet, Martin Milner, Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, DeForest Kelley, Earl Holliman and Charles Herbert. It's directed by John Sturges, great score by Dimitri Tiomkin, screenplay by Leon Uris, cinematography by Charles Lang, songs by Frankie Laine, etc.
This seems a natural for blu-ray. And since WB HV is now releasing these Paramount titles, it seems like they should get to this one, esp. since it seems a good HD master has been done.
DeForest Kelley was in a surreal TV remake of this on an episode of Star Trek a decade later.
[VIDEO]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfy27UL-rsE[/VIDEO]
 

benbess said:
The big Western hit of 1957 that was filmed in VistaVision, Gunfight at O.K. Corral, is now up in a new high definition transfer at Netflix. To my eyes it looks good, although sometimes it's tricky to judge things in the lower-than-blu-ray-resolution of the streaming format. I've somehow never seen this film before, but it seems very good to me. What a cast! Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, plus Rhonda Fleming, John Ireland, Jo Van Fleet, Martin Milner, Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, DeForest Kelley, Earl Holliman and Charles Herbert. It's directed by John Sturges, great score by Dimitri Tiomkin, screenplay by Leon Uris, cinematography by Charles Lang, songs by Frankie Laine, etc.
This seems a natural for blu-ray. And since WB HV is now releasing these Paramount titles, it seems like they should get to this one, esp. since it seems a good HD master has been done.
DeForest Kelley was in a surreal TV remake of this on an episode of Star Trek a decade later.
GATOKC is one of my favorites. There was a Robert Harris column once in The Digital Bits' Yellow Dye Failure series. Many of the reels were problematical, typical of the 1955-1960 Eastman camera negative stock Robert refers to so often. Several reels needed to use the B&W separations or dupes. Hopefully, work or restoration has been done since this column was written years ago. The DVD is pretty nice except for the in-scene brightness variations. I would be first in line for a Blu-ray.
 

benbess

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A new HD master of Funny Face, that musical hit from 1957, has recently shown up on Netflix streaming. Streaming is far from blu-ray, but it looks good to me so far in the first half hour, and I'm enjoying this silly and spectacular musical. There's more of the real Paris here than in An American in Paris, and you get to see it as well as the stars in VistaVision.+++ Should make a good blu-ray someday....
6e825212_funny.jpeg
739d7e89_funny2.jpeg
 

benbess

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Funny Face was funny! Laughed quite a lot. PQ is fine throughout, with just one little question mark spot of a few seconds. Reminded me a bit of Daddy Long Legs, which as most people here know is another spectacular and underrated musical about an older Astaire with a younger woman.
 

Matt Hough

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Originally Posted by benbess
Funny Face was funny! Laughed quite a lot. PQ is fine throughout, with just one little question mark spot of a few seconds. Reminded me a bit of Daddy Long Legs, which as most people here know is another spectacular and underrated musical about an older Astaire with a younger woman.
Funny Face has a much better score than Daddy Long Legs and seems more substantial with the dazzling Kay Thompson in solid support. Daddy Long Legs is also too long.
 

benbess

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I'm not a fan of the superhero genre (the only one I really loved was the first Superman, back in 1978), but I did take note of what RAH wrote about how The Dark Knight Rises was filmed: "The Dark Knight Rises is an unusual film for 2012. Shot totally on that stuff with the holes on the side -- and using virtually every format available today -- 35mm Panavision, 35mm VistaVision, with some sequences in IMAX 65/15, and others in Panavision Super 70 65/5...." I'm interested that for decades now special effects sequences and other sequences have been filmed with VistaVision cameras that were probably built in the 1950s. I'm sure they've been repaired in many ways, and parts have been replaced. But the fact that they are still capturing images seems remarkable. I guess it would take someone like Steven Spielberg, but I suppose a director with enough clout could actually resurrect VistaVision for a a whole film. The extra cost over 35mm or digital might be a couple of million dollars, but in a film with a substantial budget that's not an insurmountable obstacle. I have not yet seen The Master or The Dark Knight Rises, and so my comments need to be taken with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that the first was perhaps too depressing, and the second perhaps too commercial and excessively CGI. What about, in the tradition of David Lean and so many others, making a quality and yet commercial film in a large format. I realize it's not likely to happen, but it would be nice to see a major filmmaker create a film in VistaVision, and even revive in a new version the old logo for the start of the movie.... Just a thought. But it has been a great couple of years for the VV format. We've seen some wonderful presentations of the VistaVision films on blu-ray, and streaming online at Netflix and Amazon....
 

Keith Cobby

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Ben, Your thread is one of the reasons why I have recently joined HTF. I am a huge VistaVision fan and about five years ago decided I had to see all of them. I have just a few remaining (Search for Bridey Murphy, Maracaibo, Devil's Hairpin, St Louis Blues, Hear me good). The Olive releases seem to be titles which Paramount have not previously released on DVD and I am hoping for Hells Island next. I have several on Blu-ray (Run for cover, The Jayhawkers) and although they have not been restored the picture quality is not too bad. I think Geisha Boy is the best of the Olive releases so far. The picture quality of North by Northwest (probably my favourite film), White Christmas and To Catch a Thief is excellent and I am hoping for my other favourites (High Society, The Court Jester, Artists & Models, Pardners and Gunfight at the OK Corral) to be released this year.
 

benbess

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Keith: Thanks for the kind words. You've seen many more of the VV titles than I have. But I have seen St. Louis Blues and recommend it. Like your list of favorites too. Hope more of those end up on blu.
 

john a hunter

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I've just posted a query about Richard 111 that Criterion are releasing at 1.66. Wasn't this one of the few if only VV title released with anamorphic prints for 2.0:1. 1.66 seems too narrow for this title.
 

Douglas R

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john a hunter said:
I've just posted a query about Richard 111 that Criterion are releasing at 1.66. Wasn't this one of the few if only VV title released with anamorphic prints for 2.0:1. 1.66 seems too narrow for this title.
I saw RICHARD III when it was first released in 1955 and remember it very well. It certainly wasn't shown any wider than 1.66:1 or maybe 1.75:1. Incidentally, as far as I recall it was shown locally (outside central London) as a sort of roadshow presentation with separate performances but despite the two and a half hour running time I'm pretty sure thare was no intermission.
 

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