A Few Words About A few words about…™ Romance on the High Seas – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Peter McM]

If my wife and I already own a movie we love on DVD, that's always good enough for her; sometimes it is for me, as well. Not this time. A surprise and delight is your assessment, Mr. Harris--thank you!

 

[benbess]

I wonder how many 3-strip Technicolor films from Warner Bros. and MGM are good enough as movies to be worthy of the kind of deluxe treatment that this film has been given?

 

[Robert Harris]

I wonder how many 3-strip Technicolor films from Warner Bros. and MGM are good enough as movies to be worthy of the kind of deluxe treatment that this film has been given?

From my lists (1934-51), I'm seeing 21 films for which I'd go back to nitrates at WB, and 45 at M-G-M. But all should be scanned and archived.

 

[RichMurphy]

If Mr. Harris would be so kind, I have two questions concerning the current state of the art that was used in the preparation of this release:

1. Since it was derived from the original nitrate negatives, is that something that WBMPI would handle in-house, or did they have the scans done by specialists in handling nitrate?

2. Once the scans were made, how were the three images combined? Was the old Ultra-Resolution process used, or is something else used nowadays to combine the three images, and if so, is the new process similar at all to the old one?

(This brings to mind a classic Johnny Carson joke, where he mentioned that his disastrous film "Looking For Love" was so bad, it was transferred ONTO flammable nitrate stock.)

 

[John Hermes]

(This brings to mind a classic Johnny Carson joke, where he mentioned that his disastrous film "Looking For Love" was so bad, it was transferred ONTO flammable nitrate stock.)

Or Dean Martin talking about Mr. Ricco. He said is was so bad it wasn't released....it escaped!

 

[benbess]

From my lists (1934-51), I'm seeing 21 films for which I'd go back to nitrates at WB, and 45 at M-G-M. But all should be scanned and archived.

If by any chance you have the time, I think we'd be very interested to read your list of the 21 Warner films and 45 MGM films for which the 3-strip Technicolor elements survive that you believe should be scanned.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Thanks Will for bringing back that delicious line. Brings back memories of the Walter Kerr review of 'Cabaret' .. "Me no leica". Can't stand the reviews; love the wit.

 

[cadavra]

Thanks Will for bringing back that delicious line. Brings back memories of the Walter Kerr review of 'Cabaret' .. "Me no leica". Can't stand the reviews; love the wit.

Well, it wasn't CABARET, it was the original source, I AM A CAMERA. Now the joke makes sense!

 

[cadavra]

Never thought I’d see a Doris Day compared to Joan Davis!

It's a sui generis performance. She never really got that zany again until the Tashlin pictures in the mid-60s, though there were moments in CALAMITY JANE and THE THRILL OF IT ALL.

 

[Robert Harris]

If Mr. Harris would be so kind, I have two questions concerning the current state of the art that was used in the preparation of this release:

1. Since it was derived from the original nitrate negatives, is that something that WBMPI would handle in-house, or did they have the scans done by specialists in handling nitrate?

2. Once the scans were made, how were the three images combined? Was the old Ultra-Resolution process used, or is something else used nowadays to combine the three images, and if so, is the new process similar at all to the old one?

(This brings to mind a classic Johnny Carson joke, where he mentioned that his disastrous film "Looking For Love" was so bad, it was transferred ONTO flammable nitrate stock.)

MPI does handle limited amounts of nitrate in-house, and have done so for years. They have a superb team.

 

[RichMurphy]

MPI does handle limited amounts of nitrate in-house, and have done so for years. They have a superb team.

Thanks for the reply. Looking forward to this Blu-Ray.

 

[david hare]

Qui, moi?

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Oh my aching brain. Anyway, I'm a Zeiss man, not Leica.

 

[warnerbro]

Can't wait. Doris Day was a natural actor and singer and usually never did more than one take of anything and never wanted any rehearsal. I love that this will look like a dye transfer 3-strip negative!

 

[Robert Harris]

Can't wait. Doris Day was a natural actor and singer and usually never did more than one take of anything and never wanted any rehearsal. I love that this will look like a dye transfer 3-strip negative!

Print

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Fascinating. She comes across on film as a total 'natural' but I never realised that she was a one-shot wonder. How great she was.

 

[Robin9]

Fascinating. She comes across on film as a total 'natural' but I never realised that she was a one-shot wonder. How great she was.

If you can track down the interview Doris gave to Christopher Frayling, you can hear her describe how she did Secret Love in one take. (It's a good interview in general)

 

[OLDTIMER]

I just put on the DVD to check it out. It starts skipping towards the end, so buying the Blue-ray will be a necessity rather than a desire. This is the second disc from the Doris Day Collection Vol 2 that I've had trouble with. My Dream is Yours won't play past half-way!

 

[Matt Hough]

I just put on the DVD to check it out. It starts skipping towards the end, so buying the Blue-ray will be a necessity rather than a desire. This is the second disc from the Doris Day Collection Vol 2 that I've had trouble with. My Dream is Yours won't play past half-way!

I know! I bought My Dream Is Yours on HD digital streaming when I found my disc had gone bad. It looks very nice on iTunes (or Vudu; I forget which one I used to buy it).

 

[Robert Harris]

A response from WB MPI regarding the question about registration of three-strip elements...

We still use the ‘Ultra Res’ software although it has been updated and retrofitted to accommodate 16-bit images.

Also, once archive became a consideration, the software was locked to a single block recombine. The software is capable of splitting the images up into up to 16 squares (called blocks). It can give you the appearance of a tighter recombine. The separate layers (Y, C & M) were shot together and intended to be recombined as whole images; if they’re not easily recombining, there’s something else going on with the scans. Speaking of which, the advancements in scanning and having true archival film scanners now, has made a huge difference for the recombine process. These scans are optically registered to the perfs of each record so it’s just a better starting place. And then HDR obviously adds an enormous amount when it comes to image quality of the final product. Finally, we do also have some newer software for recombines when there are areas we feel need tightening up, which can get the alignment slightly better (with some guidance), but it is way less consistent and can go off the rails quickly so we only use it on additional passes after the colorist reviews the original ‘Ultra-Res’ pass.