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DVD Release: Paramount and Warner Bros. John Wayne 40 film set! (1 Viewer)

Dick

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Why is this post in the 3-D thread? Is HONDO 3-D a part of the set?
 

Robert Crawford

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Dick said:
Why is this post in the 3-D thread? Is HONDO 3-D a part of the set?
Apparently not.
1932 - Big Stampede / Ride Him, Cowboy / Haunted Gold 1933 - The Telegraph Trail / Somewhere in Sonora / The Man From Monterey 1939 - Allegheny Uprising 1942 - Reunion in France 1944 - Tall in the Saddle 1945 - Back to Bataan 1945 - They Were Expendable 1946 - Without Reservations 1947 - Tycoon 1948 - Fort Apache 1948 - 3 Godfathers 1949 - She Wore a Yellow Ribbon 1951 - Operation Pacific 1951 - Flying Leathernecks 1952 - Big Jim McLain 1953 - Trouble Along the Way 1955 - The Sea Chase 1955 - Blood Alley 1956 - The Searchers 1957 - The Wings of Eagles 1959 - Rio Bravo 1962 - Hatari! 1962 - How the West Was Won: PART 1 1962 - How the West Was Won: PART 2 1962 - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1963 - Donovan's Reef 1965 - In Harm's Way 1965 - The Sons of Katie Elder 1966 - El Dorado 1968 - The Green Berets 1969 - True Grit 1970 - Chisum 1972 - The Cowboys 1973 - The Train Robbers 1973 - Cahill: United States Marshal 1974 - McQ 1976 - The Shootist - Bonus disc
 

sonomatom1

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Boy, reading several articles about restoration of the 3-D version of "Hondo", leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know who to believe, but I have a niggling feeling that Gretchen Wayne is not concerned in finding the best ways to promote that part of the Duke's film legacy she still controls, but the reason for my post is:

Does anymore know the story behind "In Harm's Way" - why did Preminger film it in b/w? It was 1965, for crying out loud, well into the era of color ... (or was he afraid that the pathetic ship models would look even more pathetic?). I love the film, but the modeling - whoa! - what a disappointment.
 

Timothy E

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Hondo 3-D has been exhibited in industry events in recent years, so a 3-D Blu-ray is definitely possible.
 

JoHud

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sonomatom1 said:
Does anymore know the story behind "In Harm's Way" - why did Preminger film it in b/w? It was 1965, for crying out loud, well into the era of color ... (or was he afraid that the pathetic ship models would look even more pathetic?). I love the film, but the modeling - whoa! - what a disappointment.
B&W was still a popular and accepted cinema medium in 1965. A few reasons why this was B&W

-The Academy Awards still had a separate cinematography Oscar award for B&W Cinematography. This award was last presented for the year of 1966. This gave studios and other filmmakers an extra incentive to make B&W films. And indeed In Harms Way was nominated for Best B&W Cinematography

- WWII pictures were still commonly B&W. Some because B&W gave a properly nostalgic look to the past, and many because B&W stock could much more easily be intercut seamlessly with actual B&W combat footage. Even the 20th Century Fox mega-production of The Longest Day was in B&W.

- As an independent producer, Preminger probably felt the extra cost of Color film stock wasn't worth it. Plus he seemed more comfortable with B&W cinematography and while he made some color productions in the past, he had always fallen back to B&W. This and Bunny Lake Is Missing were his last B&W films. His B&W films garnered praise up to that time, which probably gave him less incentive to stick with color films until later on when the market all but demanded it.

-Similar to what you said, B&W tend to hide the seams of special effects better than color. With a few exceptions, rear projection was still more noticeable in color films than it was in B&W films.
 

sonomatom1

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JoHud said:
B&W was still a popular and accepted cinema medium in 1965. A few reasons why this was B&W

-The Academy Awards still had a separate cinematography Oscar award for B&W Cinematography. This award was last presented for the year of 1966. This gave studios and other filmmakers an extra incentive to make B&W films. And indeed In Harms Way was nominated for Best B&W Cinematography

- WWII pictures were still commonly B&W. Some because B&W gave a properly nostalgic look to the past, and many because B&W stock could much more easily be intercut seamlessly with actual B&W combat footage. Even the 20th Century Fox mega-production of The Longest Day was in B&W.

- As an independent producer, Preminger probably felt the extra cost of Color film stock wasn't worth it. Plus he seemed more comfortable with B&W cinematography and while he made some color productions in the past, he had always fallen back to B&W. This and Bunny Lake Is Missing were his last B&W films. His B&W films garnered praise up to that time, which probably gave him less incentive to stick with color films until later on when the market all but demanded it.

-Similar to what you said, B&W tend to hide the seams of special effects better than color. With a few exceptions, rear projection was still more noticeable in color films than it was in B&W films.
Thanks for your very interesting response; I think I understand the thinking behind the film a lot more now. What I still find interesting about IHM, is the relatively modern story of sexual assault in the military seen through the filter of the 1940s.

Although I pray that today's military personnel don't take the issue of assault to the extreme that the Kirk Douglas character, and the young ensign he assaulted did, it still makes for, IMO, some very relevant story telling.

And I see your point war films in B&W, but I still wish it had been filmed in color, but more importantly, I wish Preminger had insisted (or listened to others) that if he's going to make a film about the navy at war, fighting sea battles, he would have insisted on better special effects and modeling that lent more credibility to the battle scenes. Even when I first saw the film in a theater, I couldn't help but think of model boats floating in a bath tub of water.

From Wikipedia (excerpt from an article about In Harm's Way):

The climactic battle with the Japanese fleet was staged mostly with model ships. Kirk Douglas thought that the special effects were poor and complained to both the director and the studio about it. He offered to re-stage the scenes at his own expense using the special effects people who worked with him on Paths of Glory.[citation needed]

From TCM website (excerpt from their synopsis of In Harm's Way):

[color=rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial, 'sans-serif';][color=rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial, 'sans-serif';font-size:14pt;]In some battle scenes, Preminger resorted to using miniatures which some critics realized were obviously toy ships and detracted greatly from the film's realism; John Wayne also complained to Preminger about it. [...] Mike Mayo, author of Videohound's War Movies, wrote that the actors were "all saddled with a convoluted story that's so idiotically written it's unfair to judge the actors' work...One clue to the bad writing comes in the place names that were invented for the fictional campaign. When Torrey says, "You're gonna mop up Gavoobutu and mount the invasion of Lavoovona," it sounds even sillier than it reads." Kirk Douglas's volatile character doesn't come off any better with dialogue like "We've got ourselves another war...a gut-busting, mother-loving Navy war!"[/color][/color]



But I still love the movie!

P.S. the only model, oddly, that is was anywhere accurate in depicting either a US or Japanese naval vessel, was the model of the "Yamato"; unfortunately, the historical accurracy as to why the great battleship somehow ended-up in the South Pacific (the location of the fictional islands is never fully revealed) remains a mystery only explained by the screenwriter and the director.






 

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