1955 & 1956 Peter Pan w/ Mary Martin (1 Viewer)

The kinescopes of the original live performances of Mary Martin in PETER PAN are finally coming to home video next month, from VAI. The second performance from January of 1956 will be on both DVD and Blu-ray, and the original March, 1955 performance will be a bonus on the Blu-ray.


Here's more information:


http://www.vaimusic.com/category/PP.html

Thank you so much for this information. The original 1955 live broadcast won the Program of the Year Emmy, and Mary Martin was also honored with an Emmy for her performance.

Great news. Wonderful news.

Pardon my forgetfulness, but which one was on the laserdisc and DVD?

Charles Smith said:

Great news. Wonderful news.

Pardon my forgetfulness, but which one was on the laserdisc and DVD?

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The 1960 version, videotaped while Martin was starring in The Sound of Music on Broadway.

Yes, thanks for the info.

I will keep an eye out for this.

Matt Hough said:

The 1960 version, videotaped while Martin was starring in The Sound of Music on Broadway.

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So we'll now have every one of the telecasts? (I have the LD.) This is truly fantastic.

Charles Smith said:

So we'll now have every one of the telecasts? (I have the LD.) This is truly fantastic.

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I agree. I'll be very excited to have them all.

(Reposting this here in the spirit of VAI's eagerness to share the info on a cast recordings listserv):


I'm delighted that our announcement of the upcoming release of PETER PAN
(1955 & 1956) is causing a stir. I can't reveal all details yet, but can
say that we have had access to original kinescopes for both 1955 & '56, and
the current film transfer technology and restoration capabilities ensure
better quality than has been seen in any of the previously issued "pirate"
copies, many of which are obviously several generations from original film
sources. (Note one detail: our kinescope of the 1955 telecast -- which is
the only known complete copy in existence -- is missing Mary Martin's
post-show speech and the closing credits. But it is otherwise complete, and
the speech is fairly similar to the one on 1956, which, of course, is
included.)

As perhaps has already been mentioned, the 1956 will be on DVD and the
Blu-ray will feature the '56 plus the complete 1955 as a "bonus," along
with some other special segments. The decision to make 1956 the "main
program," so to speak, was based on the technical quality of the telecast
and a couple of mishaps in the 1955 (the famous lighting problem at the
start of "I've Gotta Crow," and bad static in the mics during "I'm Flying").

As soon as everything is finalized, I'll provide more details to our group
and will be happy to answer any questions.

Best,
Allan Altman
Production Coordinator
VAI

The 1960 one (which was one of my first DVD purchases back in 2001) needs to be reissued to complete the 'set'. At the moment it's commanding ridiculously high prices on the secondary market.

You know, we are talking about blu-ray from a 16mm kinescopes of 525 line broadcasts- you can only get so much quality from it.

The only advantage of the quality that is there is NBC had upgraded their technical infrastructure at this time, starting the transition to Color Casting - so while this is in B&W, they had up-to-date camera equipment and kinescope facilities.

As for the 1955 being incomplete - did they check the NBC Collection at the Library of Congress to see what they hold for this broadcast?

Will be interesting what work they have done to the soundtracks to bring out the best possible fidelity.

classicmovieguy said:

The 1960 one (which was one of my first DVD purchases back in 2001) needs to be reissued to complete the 'set'. At the moment it's commanding ridiculously high prices on the secondary market.

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Hear. Hear.

James

This is great news - I'll be buying the bluray. I have the 1960 version on DVD, but I'm glad the other versions will be available . I remember watching all three versions on our little family RCA TV when I was a little kid . It'll will be nice to see them again, I agree with the poster who feels that the 1960 version should be released on bluray

LouA said:

This is great news - I'll be buying the bluray. I have the 1960 version on DVD, but I'm glad the other versions will be available . I remember watching all three versions on our little family RCA TV when I was a little kid . It'll will be nice to see them again, I agree with the poster who feels that the 1960 version should be released on bluray

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Not necessarily Blu-ray but certainly back on DVD.

With the original NBC opening/closing!

So what are we looking at? Just a straight up transfer of the kiniscopes or has some processing been done?

Sounds like the kind of thing the Live Feed process would be great for.

Jack P said:

Sounds like the kind of thing the Live Feed process would be great for.

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They've been awfully quiet lately. I was hoping more people would start taking advantage of the process.


I, too, wish we could get a big set of all 3 Mary Martin versions*, but to have the first two available, and in what promises not to be rush-job PD-quality versions, is something we should cherish.

*Could they all fit comfortably on a single Blu-ray? The 1960 version is on tape and wouldn't take up more than a few gigs anyway.

Did these originally air in color? I'm sure they probably did but since they pre-date videotape and color kinescopes, even if they did, color copies wouldn't exist.

Neil Brock said:

Did these originally air in color? I'm sure they probably did but since they pre-date videotape and color kinescopes, even if they did, color copies wouldn't exist.

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Only the 1960 production exists in color. NBC didn't start preserving color tapes of any sort until President Eisenhower's WRC-TV dedication address in 1958 (the surviving copy was donated to the Library of Congress).


A while back Kevin Segurra discussed the possibility of trying to get the color back from black and white copies of shows through the use of chromadots burned into the image akin to a process developed by the BBC for usage on certain Doctor Who. But then he just kinda disappeared from the internet so the point was moot.

DeWilson said:

You know, we are talking about blu-ray from a 16mm kinescopes of 525 line broadcasts- you can only get so much quality from it.

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Are all preserved kinescopes in 16mm? I thought that "hot kinescopes" (recorded for time-shift re-broadcast on the same night) were filmed on the West Coast with both 35mm and 16mm cameras, the 35mm being shot on a regular negative and the 16mm shot on reversal film as backup in case anything happened to the master. Is this not the case?