A Few Words About A few words about...™ You Only Live Twice -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Vic Pardo]

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is one of my all-time favorite films, let alone my favorite Bond film. I saw this in a theater the summer it came out and I sat in the children's section and everyone went wild during the whole raid on the volcano rocket base. I've never experienced anything else like it. And I wound up seeing this film close to 20 times on the big screen over the years, eventually seeing it several more times on TV, on VHS and DVD. I now want to dig out my first VHS copy to see what the color is like, after reading the comments here. I have a suspicion it might turn out to be my best version of this film.


This is the film that triggered my interest in Japan and Japanese cinema. I even read the book after first seeing the movie. This is also the first time American viewers got to see ninjas onscreen. I wound up seeing Tetsuro Tanba (Tiger Tanaka) in tons of Japanese films, plus an Italian western (FIVE MAN ARMY). Robert Rietty, who dubbed the voice for Tiger Tanaka, recently died. I'd always wondered if Tanba had done his own voice, since the dub voice sounded so much like his.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

United Artists did not strike new prints for the re-releases, not that I ever saw, and I virtually moved into the theaters when a James Bond film was playing in those days. The re-release prints in the 1970s were the original dye-transfer release prints from the original 1960s run, only dirty, raggedy and full of lines and jumps. There is no question about the logo being on the original release prints during the first run. No question. I wish they'd put it back in place. Sorry to disappoint.

I know this post is years ago, but by the UA logo being on the original release prints during the first run, is he referring to the Hexagon?

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I know this post is years ago, but by the UA logo being on the original release prints during the first run, is he referring to the Hexagon?

The USA theatrical prints did not carry a UA logo until You Only Live Twice.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

The USA theatrical prints did not carry a UA logo until You Only Live Twice.

In that case, they must have been on the British prints only.


The UA Hexagon was typically seen on British films of UA properties. But I also heard claims that Terrence Young refused to have a UA logo on Dr. No, because he was furious over UA cutting footage, and asking him to change a line in the film.

 

[Lord Dalek]

AFAIK this is the logo list...


No opening logo (in the US at least*):


Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball


Transamerica Circle:


You Only Live Twice (TBS' old prints actually retained it!)


Transamerica T (version 1)


On Her Majesties' Secret Service

Diamonds are Forever

Live and Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun


Transamerica T (Version 3)


The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker (lacks animation)

For Your Eyes Only


MGM-UA Leo


Octopussy (with a simple "United Artists Presents" caption afterwards)

A View to a Kill


MGM-UA Communications/UA Spikes


The Living Daylights (this has a prototype version of the spikes logo as it was the first film to use it and the animation wasn't quite ready yet)

License to Kill (cuts the first 30 seconds of the logo)


UA Gathering Lights


Goldeneye

Tomorrow Never Dies


MGM Leo (75th Anniversary)


The World is Not Enough


MGM Leo (with MGM.Com byline)


Die Another Day

Casino Royale (with Columbia) (NOTE: Leo is in Black and White on this one)


MGM 2008


Quantum of Solace (with Columbia) (NOTE: Leo roars three times on this one!)


MGM 2012**


Skyfall (with Columbia)


NOTE: there are more than a few UA Logos that were apparently never in front of Bond films originally (UA Spikes 2000 is a notorious one) but have proceeded them due to plastering over the years.


*As mentioned, it is unclear if the hexagon logo was ever featured at the start of the first four movies. Some accounts say that it did appear before British prints at the very least.


**Yes, the Daniel Craig-era films to date have somehow managed to have a new corporate logo every time a new movie comes out. Although it is highly unlikely that this bizarre streak will continue when Spectre comes out this November.

 

[Vahan_Nisanain]

On Moonraker, it was the 1975 logo, but freeze-framed.


On For Your Eyes Only, it was the 1975 logo, but with the Blue-Flower T present, followed by the "Entertainment from Transameria Corporation" byline from the 1968 version fading in.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The 1975 logo is the version 3 logo. Version 2 is the one where the Transamerica T shrinks beneath the UA typeface. AFAIK it was never used on a Bond Picture.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

On For Your Eyes Only, it was the 1975 logo, but with the Blue-Flower T present, followed by the "Entertainment from Transameria Corporation" byline from the 1968 version fading in.

FYEO actually had two versions in 1981 - the UA-T on the first run prints (I played one a week prior to release) and then after the Transamerica sale these logos were cut off and replaced by a United Artists (same typeface) against black. When I played FYEO second run about 8 weeks later that new logo was on there. There was also no audio track on it, so the first beat of the gunbarrel were missing. The first video version on CBS/Fox laser and tape also retained this logo and sound anomaly.

 

[Worth]

I saw a 35mm print of For Your Eyes Only not long ago that opened with the '82 spinning UA logo.

 

[Osato]

I saw a 35mm print of For Your Eyes Only not long ago that opened with the '82 spinning UA logo.

Love this one!
Many of the VHS versions I saw had the cool older ua logos. Love em!

 

[Lord Dalek]

I saw a 35mm print of For Your Eyes Only not long ago that opened with the '82 spinning UA logo.

That logo debuted on Rocky III, almost a whole year after For Your Eyes Only came out.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I had a dream last night evidently inspired by this thread. I enter a classroom to start teaching a course on Japanese pop culture and I realize I have no syllabus and haven't prepared at all except to throw a couple of DVDs in my bag, including one of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. My immediate strategy is to duplicate the first session of a class I actually taught, where I showed examples of Japanese pop culture as it was first experienced in the U.S., including the first GODZILLA and YOLT, the first mainstream movie getting wide release in the U.S. to depict Japanese martial arts, including ninjas. I find the Classic Media GOJIRA/GODZILLA disc on the shelf in the classroom and decide to start with a clip from that. But then an Asian man in a uniform comes over and gives me a little spiel which culminates in him taking the GOJIRA DVD and forbidding me to show it, citing copyright reasons. I ask who he's representing, Columbia? And he shakes his head. Toho? And he evades the answer. He's wearing what my dream consciousness thinks is a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff's uniform. So I go looking for the YOLT DVD and I can't find it. There are several playback machines (all completely unfamiliar-looking) sprinkled around the front of the classroom (sort of a mini-lecture hall) and all have DVDs around them and I can't find YOLT and I press "play" and "eject" buttons to see if it's in any of them and I get all frantic. And there's a pretty good collection of students there already, some way too young for college.


So finally I ask everyone to be quiet and I'll just start lecturing for 45 minutes to give them SOMETHING to take away with them. And I ask the ones in the back to move closer. And then, for some reason, people, including whole families, start streaming in from the hallway to fill up the seats. I start lecturing and my voice is getting hoarse and I wake up. I give the first sentences of my lecture out loud, for real, as I'm waking up but before I realize I was dreaming.


Thanks, guys.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Bad iPhone pic of the You Only Live Twice UA logo from the 35mm print I ran in 2011. It wasn't an original 1967 print, but was printed sometime in the 2000's: