Bad Audio Alert - Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1 Viewer)

[TedD]

Just an FYI for anyone considering purchasing this title:

Despite the claim of "Stereo" on the back of the box, this is a basically a mono DVD. The "Stereo" track appears to be electronically rechanneled and is very poor with dialogue that sounds like it's coming from a deep well somewhere in the vicinity of the front of the room, rather than being anchored in the center channel when run through a pro-logic decoder.

Both versions of the sound track have no treble and no bass.

Also the first 5 minutes or so of this film looks like it was transferred from protection elements and the registration of the colors is terrible.

Once you get past the first 5 minutes, the image improves to rate maybe an "OK".

Certainly one of Foxes poorer efforts.

Ted

 

[SteveP]

Joe Caps would know whether or not this was originally a 4-channel magnetic stereo release. Considering that it's a Fox title from 1957, one would think that it most likely was. The original stereo tracks may be lost.

 

[Joe Caps]

One would think that almost all of the early Fox Cinemascope
films are stereo, but this is not the case. Starting around 1955-56, Fox started to back off on stereo for all scope films. Since fox pushed scope with stereo, many theater owners complained to the point that Fox renewed its commitment to scope AND stereo in trade ads in 1958. Heaven Knows Mr.Allison is mono and not very good mono. You will find other fox mono films around this time and a few where the stereo is lost ( Hatful of Rain, Three Faces of Eve). In fact, theres quite a few "lost" stereo films at every studio. Especially during the early 1953 interlock stereo era. We should do a thread about this sometime.
Its even worse where a studio recently has had stereo tracks, then later does a new transfer and the new transfer is mono. (this happenw so often at Fox, the mind reels). sounds like another good thread there. Non of these Fox films have shown up on DVD yet, but it's only a matter of time.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I sampled the dvd this morning and compared to viewings of this movie on other formats, the audio has always been mediocre in my opinion. The dvd is very representative of what I remembered the audio as being, especially when Mitchum and Kerr are talking. I will finish the dvd later today, but so far I'm pleased with the dvd.





Crawdaddy

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I thought that the audio was fine; the 'stereo' mix is obviously goosed, but the original mono is still there. Those more familiar with the picture than I have observed that it has never sounded very good, but I didn't really find any significant faults on the disc. It sounded at least as good as, if not better than, Sink the Bismarck, which has no bass to speak of on the DVD. According to Joe Caps, that film should have been a 4-track audio.

 

[Stephen PI]

Starting in 1955 there were several Fox-CinemaScope productions that were based in England. Shepperton Studios was the first english studio to equip themselves with stereo dubbing facilities. Stereo music scoring I am not sure about, although I am fairly sure that Denham Shepperton and MGM-British by '55 were equipped to handle multi-track music recording. Shepperton's first stereo mix was "Deep Blue Sea" for Fox in '55 and was a 4-track release, I have printed material that verifies this. I have no proof that "Allison" was mono or stereo despite the fact that it was dubbed at Shepperton two years later. "Inn of the Sixth Happiness", another 4-track title which was shot on location in Wales and based at MGM-British, could have had it's stereo mix done at Shepperton as I have no written information that MGM-British were equipped yet to handle stereo mixing. "Sink the Bismarck!" another 4-track stereo mix, which was shot at Pinewood in 1960 had it's stereo mix done at Shepperton. Pinewood eqipped itself with stereo dubbing a year later with "El-Cid". I think the score for Bismarck was probably recorded at Denham as credited music conductor Muir Mathieson was based there at the time.

 

[TedD]

It sounded at least as good as, if not better than, Sink the Bismarck

Not on my system. "Sink the Bismarck" was a reasonably good audio track with good clean dialogue and very low distortion. It didn't have a lot of bass, treble was OK, dialogue was very understandable, so at least what was on the track was reasonably clean.

"Heaven" is more distortion than anything else at times, definitely nothing there above 2 or 3 Khz. Being as I can get my optical SH's flat out to 8 Khz, clearly this was another transfer issue. I suppose it could have come from a 16mm optical track, as the Fox 16mm optical tracks from that period were variable density with a rather limited high end.

I definitely concur that the mono track is the better sounding track.

Joe, did you notice that "Heaven" Carries an "RCA Sound System" logo rather that the usual "Westrex" logo used by Fox?

Very unusual, and I don't have any recollection of the original release, so I suppose it could have been only released as optical.

Ted

 

[Stephen PI]

TedD wrote:
"Sink the Bismarck" was a reasonably good audio track with good clean dialogue and very low distortion.

Ted, can you tell me if "Bismarck" is 4.0?

 

[Joe Caps]

Another thread says that the new Fox Blue Max IS 4.0. thisw is not true. I got it today and it is 2.0 Two other Fox titles I got today, From the Terrace and the Long Hot Summer are also both 2.0 These all should be 4.0

 

[TedD]

Ted, can you tell me if "Bismarck" is 4.0?

Nope 2.0, not specified as surround, but I suspect it is.

"The Blue Max" is specified as 2 channel surround.

I find that Dolby Pro-Logic II does a quite decent job of decoding both titles.

Ted