A PEEK AT THE COURT JESTER (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Angell]

I watched "The Court Jester" on Criterion Channel, January 1, as my first movie of 2020, just knowing it was going to be a bang up year... where's the pellet with the poison?

Don’t you mean “The flagon with the Dragon?” Or was it “The vessel with the pestle?”

 

[john a hunter]

Yep, never heard of Jester being shown like that.

A fellow forum member that will probably prefer to remain anonymous showed me a frame of a horizontal print of Battle of the River Plate. It was printed on Eastman and already heavily faded when I saw it.

You got to wonder where all of the prints ended up and I never heard of anybody owning one of those horizontal prints even though I know somebody who at some point could have gotten one fo the projectors but he decided not to unless he could source at least one print - he didn't manage to get one.
[/QUOTE

I also have a frame from River Plate in horizontal V V .
Must have been popular with widescreen nuts to get one!
Have checked and there were 6 horizontal prints of Thief inc Canada.

 

[haineshisway]

So, if I'm reading correctly here, the compression, or whatever it is they do to streaming stuff, might cause some anomalies that aren't part of the actual 4K scan? That's good news because while it looks pretty damn good to my eyeballs, knowing that my caveats would most likely be alleviated on a Blu-ray, presuming they don't suddenly screw it up. The fact that this one has grain, came out well, makes Thief all the more baffling.

 

[Matt Hough]

And both were fantastic in their respective roles. I loath the movie version for many reasons, but I don't understand how they made a boring, tedious movie out of a musical that sparkles with wit and heart. Hugh Wheeler, who wrote the original book for the musical, also wrote the screenplay. An unfortunate misfire.

Yeah, apart from the new version of "The Glamorous Life" and the pretty terrific handling of "A Weekend in the Country," A Little Night Music is one of the great lost musical film opportunities. I'd MUCH rather see someone remake it than Fiddler on the Roof!

 

[Patrick McCart]

Nthing that the Criterion Channel stream looked gorgeous. I was expecting it to be the same old dupey "sneeze" master used for DVD.

 

[Henry Gondorff]

This is not accurate. It was never shown in actual VistaVision that I know of - I believe only two films were shown that way - White Christmas and Strategic Air Command (Wikipedia says also To Catch a Thief, Battle of the River Plate, and Richard III, but I don't trust anything I read on Wikipedia). All others were printed down to 35mm but those prints were spectacular.

According to this, there were 6 VV horizontal projection engagements of To Catch A Thief.

The Master, VistaVision and the French Riviera: Remembering Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” on its 60th Anniversary

“VistaVision makes you feel like you’re actually on the beautiful Riviera!“ The Digital Bits is pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 60th anniversary of the release of To Catch a Thief, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic romantic thriller set on the French Riviera and starring Cary...

thedigitalbits.com

 

[haineshisway]

According to this, there were 6 VV horizontal projection engagements of To Catch A Thief.

The Master, VistaVision and the French Riviera: Remembering Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” on its 60th Anniversary

“VistaVision makes you feel like you’re actually on the beautiful Riviera!“ The Digital Bits is pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 60th anniversary of the release of To Catch a Thief, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic romantic thriller set on the French Riviera and starring Cary...

thedigitalbits.com

Yes, this has already been posted. I used the words "I believe" meaning I wasn't sure if Wikipedia was correct or not, but I knew The Court Jester was not shown that way in public. You do understand that I was speaking about The Court Jester, yes?

 

[rsmithjr]

This is not accurate. It was never shown in actual VistaVision that I know of - I believe only two films were shown that way - White Christmas and Strategic Air Command (Wikipedia says also To Catch a Thief, Battle of the River Plate, and Richard III, but I don't trust anything I read on Wikipedia). All others were printed down to 35mm but those prints were spectacular.

Yes of course if you are referring to 8-perf horizonal print. However, I have always heard term "VistaVision print" to mean the original dye-transfer prints that were mostly all we had but, as you say, were "spectacular".

 

[lark144]

Yes of course if you are referring to 8-perf horizonal print. However, I have always heard term "VistaVision print" to mean the original dye-transfer prints that were mostly all we had but, as you say, were "spectacular".

The original dye transfer 35mm reduction VV prints were indeed spectacular. I remember being blown away by "Pardners" & "The Buccaneer" in particular at my neighborhood theater when I was 6.

 

[Dick]

Physical disc or I'm not buyin'...

 

[Henry Gondorff]

Yes, this has already been posted. I used the words "I believe" meaning I wasn't sure if Wikipedia was correct or not, but I knew The Court Jester was not shown that way in public. You do understand that I was speaking about The Court Jester, yes?

Yes, but in reference to your uncertainty about the horizontal projection of Thief, I thought that article might provide an additional angle of confirmation. There's more interesting data here: https://www.in70mm.com/news/2015/vistavision/index.htm There's probably a better thread for this; admittedly veering off-topic here.

 

[Darby67]

Bruce, thank you for your post about The Court Jester. I am fan of Danny Kaye and had not seen this film before but I intend on remedying that real soon!

 

[lark144]

Bruce, thank you for your post about The Court Jester. I am fan of Danny Kaye and had not seen this film before but I intend on remedying that real soon!

Oh, my God! Sean, you never saw this when you were a child? It's one of my strongest movie going memories. Afterwards, my friends and I went to a nearby woods, pretended we were the Black Fox's merry men and swung from trees. Whenever we saw a film we really liked, we would act it out. I remember after seeing "The Time Machine" we made up a game where different backyards were different time zones, and whoever got back to the present before the others was the winner. Unfortunately, there was no Yvette Mimieux to inspire us, but you can't have everything.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hard to imagine being a Danny Kaye fan (of however many years?) while never having seen The Court Jester. Better remedy that asap this fine Sunday afternoon me thinks!

Envy you, @Darby67, getting to see it for the first time now (or very soon?)... w/ very good PQ that had not been possible for a very long time (at least for most of us mere mortals)...



_Man_

 

[bujaki]

Oh, my God! Sean, you never saw this when you were a child? It's one of my strongest movie going memories. Afterwards, my friends and I went to a nearby woods, pretended we were the Black Fox's merry men and swung from trees. Whenever we saw a film we really liked, we would act it out. I remember after seeing "The Time Machine" we made up a game where different backyards were different time zones, and whoever got back to the present before the others was the winner. Unfortunately, there was no Yvette Mimieux to inspire us, but you can't have everything.

Well, I have a first cousin who was the spitting image of Yvette, although 8 years younger!

 

[haineshisway]

Has anyone actually checked out the Amazon transfer? Please do.

 

[dpippel]

It's very nice.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Unfortunately, there was no Yvette Mimieux to inspire us, but you can't have everything.

“Heavy Sigh.”

 

[lark144]

Well, I have a first cousin who was the spitting image of Yvette, although 8 years younger!

And you were able to have a normal conversation with her, and not melt into a steaming pool of unmitigated lovesickness?

The thing about women like Yvette Mimieux is they act as if they're perfectly ordinary, except they're not.

 

[bujaki]

And you were able to have a normal conversation with her, and not melt into a steaming pool of unmitigated lovesickness?

The thing about women like Yvette Mimieux is they act as if they're perfectly ordinary, except they're not.

She, her siblings and I used to bather naked together as children. Impossible to view her as anything but a sister. Besides we were the same age. And yes, she acted perfectly ordinary with her straight blonde hair and her perfectly chiseled features and her complexion slightly tanned by the tropical sun in Puerto Rico. Her father was a very handsome man from Florida; her mother, my maternal aunt, a very beautiful woman from Puerto Rico. My cousin is still quite striking (she admits to a bit of surgery) as she approaches 70.
She did envy my long, thick, dark eyelashes.