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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Guns of Navarone -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

AdrianTurner

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CULTMAN1 said:
I remember seeing the raodshow version at The Odeon Leicester Square in 1961. I think it went on to The Columbia Cinema thereafter. Its good to see Adrian Turner posting on our forum but I think your 1959 date was a bit premature!I cannot remember if Guns was blown up to 70mm or shot in 70mm. In any event, I concur at the time ,despite the large screen and good projection facilities at The Odeon, the picture was not perfect even for 70mm. Blu Ray based on RAH's comments is a must...
Thanks, Cultman. I remember now - Navarone opening at the Odeon and later transferring to the Columbia. By the way, I never said Navarone was 1959. I said the cinema was late 1950s. I don't think there was ever a 70mm blow-up in the UK.
 

CULTMAN1

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memories can play tricks...I always thought the Odeon Leicester Square got 70mm for prestigious presentations whenever possible. Ill consult my Kine Weeklies and whats on for verification!
 

john a hunter

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AdrianTurner said:
Thanks, Cultman. I remember now - Navarone opening at the Odeon and later transferring to the Columbia. By the way, I never said Navarone was 1959. I said the cinema was late 1950s. I don't think there was ever a 70mm blow-up in the UK.
A 70mm blow up appeared in the UK early 70's at the Dominion in London. Didn't see it- silly me. This would have been its first 70mm screening.
 

Robert Harris

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Of interest only to those who delve into minutia...


The first magnetic only 35mm print of TGoN was delivered by Technicolor London on April 25, 1961 for an April 27 premiere. There were only three such prints struck. It apparently played at the Odeon for about two months, being returned on 22 June.


Knowing the way that projectionists dealt with prints in that era, I've a feeling the print was pristine upon return. The Odeon print, as well as print number two, apparently survived until January of 1970, when they were destroyed. The third print may still exist, as it was given to Carl Foreman. Hopefully, it may have ended up at the BFI.


Interestingly, most every magnetic/optical print, and there were only 18 produced, were re-perforated after their initial runs to be projected in monaural optical from a single optical track.


It appears that 124 additional optical only dye transfer prints were struck for UK as well as the Colonies, before the negative was turned over to Movielab.


RAH
 

Robert Harris

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Originally Posted by john a hunter

Fascinating stuff Robert.!!!!


Distribution was far different in that era than today, with its 5-6000 print/DCP release.


300 or so prints seemed to be the norm, followed by second and third run.


RAH
 

Douglas Monce

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ShowsOn said:
The other thing that is strange about this film is that it was still shot with clunky Bausch & Lomb lenses even though it was made in 1960. There is terrible distortion in all of the close-ups. It is surprising that they didn't shoot with Panavision lenses. Still it has some great cinematography by Oswald Morris.
If you wanted the CinemaScope logo on your film, and in 1960 the CinemaScope name still carried weight, you were going to be using lenses from Fox. That meant the Bausch & Lomb lenses. By that time Panavision was a direct competitor to Fox's brand I don't believe you could use Panavision lenses and still call it CinemaScope. (in the late 60's Fox relaxed this a little) Fox used those same lenses all the way until Caprice in 1967, which was the last film to carry the CinemaScope brand. (until "Down with Love" (2003) used it more as a gag than anything else) Doug
 

FoxyMulder

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Originally Posted by Douglas Monce


If you wanted the CinemaScope logo on your film, and in 1960 the CinemaScope name still carried weight, you were going to be using lenses from Fox. That meant the Bausch & Lomb lenses. By that time Panavision was a direct competitor to Fox's brand I don't believe you could use Panavision lenses and still call it CinemaScope. (in the late 60's Fox relaxed this a little)
Fox used those same lenses all the way until Caprice in 1967, which was the last film to carry the CinemaScope brand. (until "Down with Love" (2003) used it more as a gag than anything else)
Doug

I just watched the animated film Anastasia, it was made in 1997 and says on the end titles it was filmed in Cinemascope, i imagine they included that as a reference to the 1956 live action film version since the plotline of the animated version ( minus the songs ) reminded me a lot of that version. Mind you this animated film was partly based on the screenplay of the 1956 version so no surprise it reminded me of that film.


The other connection between these two films is that David Newman composed the music score for the 1997 animated edition and his father, Alfred Newman, wrote the music score for the 1956 version of the movie.
 

john a hunter

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Douglas Monce said:
If you wanted the CinemaScope logo on your film, and in 1960 the CinemaScope name still carried weight, you were going to be using lenses from Fox. That meant the Bausch & Lomb lenses. By that time Panavision was a direct competitor to Fox's brand I don't believe you could use Panavision lenses and still call it CinemaScope. (in the late 60's Fox relaxed this a little) Fox used those same lenses all the way until Caprice in 1967, which was the last film to carry the CinemaScope brand. (until "Down with Love" (2003) used it more as a gag than anything else) Doug
I think there were several MGM films in the late 50's that were advertised as"CinemaScope" and whose creditsalso stated "Photographic lenses by Panavision" which I always took to believe that they used the improved Panavision Anamorphics. I think "Green Mansions" was the first.
 

Douglas Monce

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john a hunter said:
I think there were several MGM films in the late 50's that were advertised as"CinemaScope" and whose creditsalso stated "Photographic lenses by Panavision" which I always took to believe that they used the improved Panavision Anamorphics. I think "Green Mansions" was the first.
I think you're right. I believe this was when Panavision was not yet thought of as a threat by Fox, and they hadn't clamped down. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if it was Fox that put the kabash on the credits, or Panavision. Doug
 

DP 70

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Me and my 2 brothers were all projectionists at the Columbia cinema in london, my elder brother did screen check a scope 4-track print and i now it was also screened at the NFT .
 

EnricoE

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does anyone know why the film looks streched/squeezed? e.g. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/vlcsnap2011100920h56m36.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/684/vlcsnap2011100920h55m10.png/
 

Stephen_J_H

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See post #47. The B&L lenses were notorious for causing "CinemaScope mumps", which is why most DPs familiar with the lenses would avoid putting close-ups dead centre in the composition.
 

FoxyMulder

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Originally Posted by Stephen_J_H

See post #47. The B&L lenses were notorious for causing "CinemaScope mumps", which is why most DPs familiar with the lenses would avoid putting close-ups dead centre in the composition.



The Wikipedia article is useful for explaining this.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CinemaScope#Technical_difficulties
 

ahollis

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Just spun it and it looked and sounded marvelous. Played it with the Intermission and enjoyed the Entr'acte score. Very happy with it and thank you Mr. Harris for your knowledge and insight to enlighten us on the ravages of time on the classic film. I was able to just sit back and escape for a couple of hours.
 

Robert Crawford

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Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Just finished watching The Guns of Navarone on Blu-ray.


First time viewing this film anywhere. Actually caught RAH's thread
on it this evening, post-viewing, so I can somewhat relate to some of

the element issues that he brings up.


First of all, I loved this film. Exceptional cast and captivating story.

The film's final climax, within the German fortress, is impressive in

scale and quite exciting to watch.


Was never a fan of David Niven. For the few films I have seen him

in during my lifetime, he always came across as a rather dry, rigid

British actor. This was the first time I saw Mr. Niven in a more

relaxed role, and I actually felt his presence here was a refreshing one.


Going into this film, I was unaware of any element problems. There

were a few short snippets where grain was abundantly evident, but other

than that, I didn't really notice many of the anomalies that Robert Harris

mentioned.

I would say that's a good thing. For the most part, I thought the transfer

looked pretty damn good. So, if I didn't notice any glaring problems, then

I doubt anything is going to stand out for the rest of you.

I do agree that unlike other classics I have seen digitally restored for

Blu-ray, The Guns of Navarone does not have that pristine look of a

new film. However, that being said, I saw virtually no dirt, scratches

or other artifacts that would suggest that it was not brought up to the

standards of looking the best it could. Sony continues to do incredible

work with their classic releases.


I'm just very happy to have spent part of my holiday weekend discovering

this classic. Really enjoyed this movie.


I'm glad you enjoyed it, Ronbo. I finally got around to watching my BRD of it and and found the overall presentation of this fine film excellent considering the video issues already discussed in this thread.









Crawdaddy
 

Dave Blair

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I viewed the" Guns" the other night and found it to be as I remembered it with the exceptions of those discrepancies that my eyes are now trained to see. Mr. Harris explained them all in his initial review. Overall it was a great success. The picture is clear enough to notice, for example, a cable that was secured to a truck that was pushed over a cliff. It seems a very dangerous stunt..
 

Paul_Scott

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Reading all the comments about this, and going by my hazy recollections of what the original DVD release looked like, I was fully expecting a very underwhelming image. But what I got frequently. knocked my socks off. The force fields that would pop up from time to time, or the grainy optical dissolves were easy to accept anomalies as the film itself never failed to look analog and film-like. For the vast majority of the run-time, it looked very sharp and wonderfully saturated to me. It may not be Ben-Hur, but as far as vintage widescreen adventure epics go, it wasn't that far behind. I'm floored that I paid under $14 for this. Add to that the under $3000 I paid for the projector a couple years back + the under $2K I paid for the audio components, Has there every been a time in history where this relative pittance could get you a presentation of this quality? In fact, this disc was so nice it temporarily made me forget about the all the other Blu-ray underachievers I've bought in the past. Now that's a feat. I just hope that Sony is still operating at this remarkably high level when 1776 streets next year.
 

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