Recent content by dirwuf

Actually, Hays Office paperwork has come to light showing that the cuts were actually made in 1938, after complaints from the Italian government that the film made Italians look foolish....so all references to the first part of the film taking place in Italy were cut.

FYI, that was never the opening....the original release opened (after the credits) with a graphic that said "MILAN – WHERE THEY SING ALL DAY, AND GO TO THE OPERA AT NIGHT", which led to a sequence of the residents of Milan singing a song, with each singer passing the song along to someone else...

Of course....I hate when folks blame networks for copies they are sent.

I get that, but when TCM showed the five Paramount films recently, some were the restored versions and some were the old SD transfers.

When Universal released the restored and uncut version of "Animal Crackers" in 2016 as part of the blu-ray Marx Brothers "Silver Screen Collection", I assumed this would be the version of the film we would see everywhere from then on, but it seems like this is being held exclusively for the...

Yes I'm sorry, I just wanted to clarify that the entire exchange after Warners initial inquiry was bogus. It is often told as series of letters going back and forth... http://gief.pair.com/~mohanraj/Amusing/warner.html

Official correspondence between MGM and the Hays Office has turned up in recent years showing that the edits were actually made in 1938 after complaints from the Italian government that the film made them look "foolish". All references to the early part of the film taking place in Italy were cut.

All very entertaining, but this has determined to have just been publicity... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-night-in-casablanca/

I have spent the last two and half years asking Marx fans and authors around the world about this and not one person recalls this joke...I've asked people who posses VHS, beta, laserdisc and 16mm prints of the film to check, wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, but it's nowhere to be found.

A report from someone who saw the premieres of the restored "Cocoanuts" and "Duck Soup" last night... "...I'd say 75-80% of Cocoanuts is restored. For the rest of it, it seemed they had to rely on the same old dupey prints with bad sound that we're used to seeing for all these years. It was...

For all those in the LA area, the restored Paramount films will be showing this weekend as part of a Marx event... http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/the-marx-brothers-restored

I've read several writeups from those who were there, the "Horse Feathers" print was sharp, clean, and steady...but still contained those nasty splices. No missing footage has been recovered.

No, you saw a nice HD transfer that has been available thru iTunes and Amazon Video for a while. It's not the restoration, but looks very good. The audio dubbing has always stuck out like a sore thumb.

Don't throw streaming and downloading into the same boat...when I download a film, it basically becomes my own physical media, but instead of it being a file on a dvd disk, it's a file on my hard drive. THAT's where the future of video sales is going...

I'd be happy with an HD download.