A Few Words About A few words about...™ Reap the Wild Wind - in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Will Krupp]

I'm assuming that registration is the overall process of aligning, flashing and printing the two-or-three color negatives?

Just to jump in for a minute, old nitrate film stock has a tendency to shrink over the years and you may have seen it manifest itself in old black and white movies as "gate weave" where the image seems to weave back and forth on screen. The issue here is that no two nitrate negatives shrink in exactly the same way or at exactly the same speed so, when dealing with the three separate negatives of three-strip Technicolor, it can become a challenge in modern times to align the three images perfectly since the basic geometry of each has changed over time. "Registration," as we refer to it today, usually always refers to the alignment of three-strip negatives since both Two-color Technicolor and Successive Exposure Technicolor (as in most animation) used single negatives. There is still shrinkage in those cases, but all of the color information is located on the same strip of negative so the alignment, or registration, of colors is not usually an issue. I'm sure there are some cases where that's not true but that should give you a general idea of the term.

 

[BornOfAJackal]

Thanks for summing that up. Have there been cases--or will there be--in which the individual three-strips are digitized, then adjusted and registred in an entirely digital fashion?

 

[Will Krupp]

Thanks for summing that up. Have there been cases--or will there be--in which the individual three-strips are digitized, then adjusted and registred in an entirely digital fashion?

The short answer is yes.



(they talk about the process at around the 3:00 minute mark)

 

[Paul Penna]

Thanks for summing that up. Have there been cases--or will there be--in which the individual three-strips are digitized, then adjusted and registred in an entirely digital fashion?

I believe Warner's "Ultra Resolution" process involved doing this for GWTW and Wizard of Oz and a few others.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

I own the Elephant Films French region free Reap the Wild Wind, Unconquered and Sign of the Cross, all beloved favorites. I suppose they could look better but compared to the old DVDs, well, pretty damned good to these eyes. This from a guy who was mesmerized by the BBC HD broadcast of Raintree County, a BD disc I'd pay a king's ransom to own exactly in the way it was presented. Oh, well. How about the DeMille prints? The DeMille family owns pristine prints of most of C.B.'s films I understand. He made that a part of the contract I've heard. Maybe some real treasures will be released someday. I, for one, would buy them all.

 

[Mark-P]

The reason Warner discontinued the expensive Ultra Resolution process is because technology caught up to the point where they could get similar results by scanning an already combined interpositive and using digital tools to fix registration errors.

 

[Matt Hough]

The reason Warner discontinued the expensive Ultra Resolution process is because technology caught up to the point where they could get similar results by scanning an already combined interpositive and using digital tools to fix registration errors.

True, but oh, boy, were the results gorgeous for the films that did receive it: Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon, Easter Parade, An American in Paris.

 

[Robert Harris]

The reason Warner discontinued the expensive Ultra Resolution process is because technology caught up to the point where they could get similar results by scanning an already combined interpositive and using digital tools to fix registration errors.

As well as other, and better tools

 

[Joseph Goodman]

Wasn't Nuke (compositing software for those who don't know) used to register the seps with the negative in the Spartacus re-do?

 

[Will Krupp]

I think this looks delicious!

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film7/blu-ray_reviews_93/reap_the_wild_wind_blu-ray.htm

 

[Robert Crawford]

Cecil B. DeMille's 1942 Technicolor Paramount production of Reap the Wild Wind, with an all-star cast, should be a gorgeous blu-ray.

John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Ray Milland, Paulette Goddard, Raymond Massey, Robert Preston, Charles Bickford, all in Technicolor, which in 1942 was still a rarity - a special occasion at the cinema. The industry output that year, was seventeen. Paramount released three productions in the process. The other two, forgettable.

Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray has generally very nice colors, but as this seems to be based upon an older transfer, and derived from a less than stellar film element, the results relevant to this Blu-ray are mixed at best.

Registration issues, and occasional dirt are apart of the image, along with less than wonderful stability.

Another important film, that deserves better.

Image – 3.25

Audio – 4.5

Upgrade from DVD - sure

Pass / Fail – Pass

RAH

I watched my Kino disc in its entirety this afternoon and I'm happy with the video presentation. My video score is 4.25 as the registration issues weren't as prevalent on my 55" OLED as I've seen with some other Technicolor movies released on BD. It's not a pristine presentation like "Singin' in the Rain" or "The Wizard of Oz", but I'm very satisfied compared to RAH's initial comments that had me concern for something worse than what I observed today. I think most of us that have seen this movie several times beforehand on various home video formats or TV showings will be quite happy with it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I think this looks delicious!

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film7/blu-ray_reviews_93/reap_the_wild_wind_blu-ray.htm

It looks really good to me.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If I would have known that this ended with

Spoiler

John Wayne being eaten by a sea creature

it probably wouldn’t have taken me a year and half to get around to watching it!