A few words about…™ Love Story – in Blu-ray

Glad to hear it looks so good. For some reason I worried it would be a mess. Not sure why, just a feeling. Glad I was completely wrong.

As I remember it the original prints were kinda grainy with lousy color (maybe by Movielab?) almost as if it had been shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm for release. Not a favorite of mine but I know lots of people of my generation who love it.

Jim*Tod said:

As I remember it the original prints were kinda grainy with lousy color (maybe by Movielab?) almost as if it had been shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm for release. Not a favorite of mine but I know lots of people of my generation who love it.

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Yes, the original prints were awful, which was frustrating, as the reason one goes to a melodramatic big Hollywood film is partially for the production values, especially bigger than life colors, bold and arresting, not a grainy, dupey mishmash.

lark144 said:

Yes, the original prints were awful, which was frustrating, as the reason one goes to a melodramatic big Hollywood film is partially for the production values, especially bigger than life colors, bold and arresting, not a grainy, dupey mishmash.

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Still (properly) grainy, but lush and deep.

Robert Harris said:

Still (properly) grainy, but lush and deep.

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Lush and deep is what I expected when I saw it at Loew's State, but didn't get. If only I liked the film more. I'm happy for those who are fans.

And for those who have this on iTunes, this new transfer has already replaced the old one, though of course without inclusion of the original mono track. It remains to be seen if it will eventually upgrade to 4K, as the “Paramount Presents” line is hit and miss with 4K upgrades.

How does this disc compare with the original Blu-ray disc?

Love means never having to say DNR !

I don't know why such poor prints were acceptable first run back in the 70s. If you were lucky you got to see Airport in Todd AO at Radio City. But the terrible prints I saw there later on were inexplicable. Especially Paramount films like A New Leaf and Plaza Suite and Chinatown at Loew's State. Even big roadshows like Fiddler at the Rivoli (looking like a documentary on poverty in eastern Europe) and N and A at the Criterion were soft and washed out looking. So why does Love Story look so good now unlike it did in '70? What happened?

roxy1927 said:

I don't know why such poor prints were acceptable first run back in the 70s. If you were lucky you got to see Airport in Todd AO at Radio City. But the terrible prints I saw there later on were inexplicable. Especially Paramount films like A New Leaf and Plaza Suite and Chinatown at Loew's State. Even big roadshows like Fiddler at the Rivoli (looking like a documentary on poverty in eastern Europe) and N and A at the Criterion were soft and washed out looking. So why does Love Story look so good now unlike it did in '70? What happened?

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Projection standards in the 70s [read: cost cutting by dimming projection bulbs] vs. a properly harvested OCN or early gen element. Also don't discount improvements in printing technology over the decades.

Stephen_J_H said:

Projection standards in the 70s [read: cost cutting by dimming projection bulbs] vs. a properly harvested OCN or early gen element. Also don't discount improvements in printing technology over the decades.

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You’re probably correct. It may all come down to screen size and amperage. The original prints of Chinatown were warm, lush dye transfer.

This almost makes me want to get LS which I didn't even like when I saw it back then. But it really is a time capsule if it looks so good. I remember older people people being dismayed by how Ray Milland looked. I barely knew he was. As I've written I so remember how fiercely cold that January winter was and seeing those crazy long lines of people outside Loew's State 1 in the extremely bitter wind of Times Square. Back then much of the Hudson would freeze over. The Heartbreak Kid is another time machine.
My Fair Lady had returned home to the Criterion a block south for a 70mm reissue which though had continuous perfs and no intermission. Prices still were tiered according to section and the men were back in tuxedos to sell the now entirely paper abridged souvenir book and the usherettes in the black skirt white lace collar attire giving it the Broadway deluxe treatment. This was right before it descended(and Times Square right with it) into exploitation fare with the occasional reprieve like the roadshow Nicholas and Alexandra its last such film after its storied hard ticket premiere Manhattan house history starting with The Ten Commandments.

Projection standards in the 70s [read: cost cutting by dimming projection bulbs]

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Theatres didn't / don't actually dim the xenon bulbs on purpose.

Unlike carbon arc lamphouses which only had to deal with reflector degeneration, this is the result of a natural property of a xenon bulb as the quartz envelope slowly blackens with use.
The proper setup of a xenon projection bulb calls for the initial current to be set lower (at ~70%) than the full rated current of the bulb. As the bulb ages, the current should be gradually increased to compensate for the blackening.

Unfortunately, that was rarely done, with the bulbs and lamphouses commonly being undersized and run at full rated current on day one.

The end result is predictable as xenon bulbs were expensive and required special protective clothing to be handled safely.

Vern Dias said:

Theatres didn't / don't actually dim the xenon bulbs on purpose.

Unlike carbon arc lamphouses which only had to deal with reflector degeneration, this is the result of a natural property of a xenon bulb as the quartz envelope slowly blackens with use.
The proper setup of a xenon projection bulb calls for the initial current to be set lower (at ~70%) than the full rated current of the bulb. As the bulb ages, the current should be gradually increased to compensate for the blackening.

Unfortunately, that was rarely done, with the bulbs and lamphouses commonly being undersized and run at full rated current on day one.

The end result is predictable as xenon bulbs were expensive and required special protective clothing to be handled safely.

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I recall working with xenon lamps back during my training days c. 1966-67. We had a pair of the newest Norelcos, water cooled with visible chambers, xenons that would (as I recall) fall into place if the first failed, and pulsators as opposed to shutters.

The pulse light system was mercury vapor, not xenon. Here is what Gordon McLeod had to say about them over in Film Tech Forum (with original typos):

The pulse light was a royal pain in the ***
It was a mercury lamp and as such had very poor spectral colour rendition especiall with reds.
There was amagnet mounted on the intermittent flywheel that syncd the pulsator which used big tyrotron tubes to pulse the water cooled lamp.
There were 2 lamps mounted in the lamphouse that would automatically change if one failed (yeh rarely worked)
The pulsators would give greif you had to kick them sometimes when they would not opperate on a changeover.
The lamp didn't start unitl the changeover button was pushed
Light distribution was quiet poor
The 1st phillips horizontal lamphouse was quiet interesting as the lamps was mounted with 4 condensor lens around it focuesd onto 4 flat mirrors that were converged into a cloverleaf lens in the snood.
Very efficient and flat light but also expensive whne the lamp went bang

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Apparently, they were quickly replaced by a more conventional ?? horizontal xenon lamphouse and shutter system (mentioned in the last part of Gordon's post).

Even more interesting was this description of a FP20 install in europe: (See next post)

Vern Dias said:

The pulse light system was mercury vapor, not xenon. Here is what Gordon McLeod had to say about them over in Film Tech Forum (with original typos):


Apparently, they were quickly replaced by a more conventional ?? horizontal xenon lamphouse and shutter system (mentioned in the last part of Gordon's post).

Even more interesting was this description of a FP20 install in europe: (See next post)

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Those were the projectors. I recall how noisy the pulsators were, and the heat that they threw off. Thanks for the lamp correction!

Just started going down the Google rabbit hole and I gotta ask [VERY much off topic]: Were special prints created for mercury vapour lamphouses, given the bluish-green shift of the lamp?

Just started going down the Google rabbit hole and I gotta ask [VERY much off topic]: Were special prints created for mercury vapour lamphouses, given the bluish-green shift of the lamp?

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I wouldn't think so as very few were actually installed.

AFAIK, They were only integrated with some of the early Norelco FP20 projectors, and not available standalone.

That bluish green shift was really the absence of red.