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A Few Words About A few words about...™ Johnny Guitar - Olive Signature -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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Released along with Olive's newly branded Signature edition of High Noon, Nicholas Ray's 1954 Johnny Guitar, starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge, is an even greater upgrade.

The original release was 1.37, with shots making a rather impressive vertical jump at every cut, which was headache inducing.

Now in 1.66, and properly stabilized, along with other image upgrades, it's the Johnny Guitar fans have been waiting for.

Wonderful extras, send a positive message about future Signature releases.

Next up in the Signature series, Orson Welles' Macbeth, and Burt Kennedy's Hannie Caulder. Coming in November.

Image - 5

Audio - 5

4k Up-rez - 5

Upgrade potential - Yes

Pass / Fail - Pass

Recommended


RAH
 

notmicro

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The evolution of the TruColor process has always confused me, and I've been seriously puzzled for years as to what actual cinematography was utilized for this favorite -- some kind of 3-strip TruColor? Some single-strip Eastman knock-off? And how were the original release prints created? Some kind of 3-strip IB process? Inquiring minds want to know...
 

titch

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I'm in. I stopped purchasing Olive's films pretty quickly after The Quiet Man. It looks like with the Signature Series that they have stopped using the single layer transfers and are presenting properly restored transfers. Way to go.
 

Charles Smith

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Whew!

What a relief and distinct pleasure to read this review ... along with RAH's companion take on the High Noon release.

BOTH ORDERED.
 
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Jimbo64

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Good to hear, I skipped the last release due to the reviews but this one looks like a keeper..... Thank you for the review
 

PaulaJ

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The next Olive Signature releases are not November but October 25 -- The Quiet Man and Night of the Grizzly. Sure hope The Quiet Man's upgrade is as good as Johnny Guitar's.
 

Trancas

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I had read somewhere that Johnny Guitar's 4K restoration was made from b/w separations*. Is Paramount using something like Warner Brothers Ultra Resolution software to register the negs? The screen caps here http://redvdit.com/reviews/johnny-guitar-signature/ look fantastic. In the medium long shot of Joan Crawford, her blue eyes are clearly defined and there is no color bleed around her white dress or the black ribbon that's tied around her neck. The crispness and lack of color fringing in the screen caps is amazing.
Wasn't the final version of three-color TruColor just Eastman Color Neg 5248 printed on Eastman Color Print 5382?

*I read it here:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/archives/2015_08.html
"The farewell screening for the evening was a new 4K restoration of Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar. The Paramount rep explained that the original negative no longer exists, so the restoration is from separations. It looks good, if not spectacular."
 
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Robert Harris

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I had read somewhere that Johnny Guitar's 4K restoration was made from b/w separations. Is Paramount using something like Warner Brothers Ultra Resolution software to register the negs? The screen caps here http://redvdit.com/reviews/johnny-guitar-signature/ look fantastic. In the medium long shot of Joan Crawford, her blue eyes are clearly defined and there is no color bleed around her white dress or the black ribbon that's tied around her neck. The crispness and lack of color fringing in the screen caps is amazing.
Wasn't the final version of three-color TruColor just Eastman Color Neg 5248 printed on Eastman Color Print 5382?

Unless the negative was improperly stored, or heavily physically damaged, a late 1953, early 54 production should be printable.
 

Trancas

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According to this link:
Barry Allen of Paramount then exhibited two works in progress from films his company inherited when it was bought by Viacom, which had previously bought “Republic Pictures”, nee National Telefilm Associates . One of the four biggest titles in this package is JOHNNY GUITAR (1954), whose original negative had been deemed no longer printable and junked in the Sixties, with all subsequent prints struck from a not very well made internegative from that time. He showed a recent test clip from this internegative which looked worse in terms of both sharpness and color than the 16mm print I got through the Nostalgia Merchant 25 years ago. As seems to have generally been the case back then, the separations made at the time also had problems, but he decided to borrow a leaf from Warner Bros. and see what results he could get by scanning and attempting to reregister them digitally. The results were a great improvement, though Mr. Allen was not satisfied and plans to do further work.
http://in70mm.com/news/2005/film_preservation/index.htm

This is an old link from 2005.
 

BRAD1963

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I just finished watching it. It is a stunning release worth the upgrade or first time purchase.
 

Trancas

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It appears that Warner Brothers does share it's patented color separation alignment software:

"With a background in developing video-compression technology for AOL, the Perlmutters devised an algorithm to analyze each square block of a frame, detecting the edges of each original color record and adjusting the color alignment accordingly.

Although Warner Bros. holds four patents on the technology with additional ones pending, the studio has shared the technique with other studios, recently being used to create a new negative for damaged scenes in Paramount's "Chinatown."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ultra-resolution-brings-warner-classics-127120
 

Robert Harris

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According to this link:
Barry Allen of Paramount then exhibited two works in progress from films his company inherited when it was bought by Viacom, which had previously bought “Republic Pictures”, nee National Telefilm Associates . One of the four biggest titles in this package is JOHNNY GUITAR (1954), whose original negative had been deemed no longer printable and junked in the Sixties, with all subsequent prints struck from a not very well made internegative from that time. He showed a recent test clip from this internegative which looked worse in terms of both sharpness and color than the 16mm print I got through the Nostalgia Merchant 25 years ago. As seems to have generally been the case back then, the separations made at the time also had problems, but he decided to borrow a leaf from Warner Bros. and see what results he could get by scanning and attempting to reregister them digitally. The results were a great improvement, though Mr. Allen was not satisfied and plans to do further work.
http://in70mm.com/news/2005/film_preservation/index.htm

This is an old link from 2005.

Mr. Allen is wonderful. The Neg being deemed no longer printable, by unknown sources? Not so much...
 

Robert Harris

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It appears that Warner Brothers does share it's patented color separation alignment software:

"With a background in developing video-compression technology for AOL, the Perlmutters devised an algorithm to analyze each square block of a frame, detecting the edges of each original color record and adjusting the color alignment accordingly.

Although Warner Bros. holds four patents on the technology with additional ones pending, the studio has shared the technique with other studios, recently being used to create a new negative for damaged scenes in Paramount's "Chinatown."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ultra-resolution-brings-warner-classics-127120

There are now better processes. Anyone truly interested, spend a year at the Selznick School, NYU, or UCLA.
 
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