CLEOPATRA Region Free BRD (1 Viewer)

[benbess]

The situation with Cleopatra's lost footage is explained on the new blu-ray.
Apparently in 1978, Fox decided--in order to save money--to throw out all of their cuts and extra footage from their old films. At that point it was thrown away.
But, the 4 hour 6 minute version survives, and is quite good. Thank goodness at least that survives.

 

[Ethan Riley]

The situation with Cleopatra's lost footage is explained on the new blu-ray.
Apparently in 1978, Fox decided--in order to save money--to throw out all of their cuts and extra footage from their old films. At that point it was thrown away.
But, the 4 hour 6 minute version survives, and is quite good. Thank goodness at least that survives.

Yeah, these studios make me sick. Fox and MGM trashed a lot of their legacy in the 70s...just a few years from the time when home video came around, and made them millions in home releases of their catalog films. Wonder how many more millions they'd have made if MGM hadn't thrown out the "Jitterbug" from the Wizard of Oz, or if Fox had kept TWO WHOLE HOURS of Cleopatra footage (like it was really taking up THAT much room). Stupid, stupid studio people. Notice the first four letters of "studio" and "stupid" are the same. I realize that nobody in the 70s could foresee the advent of home video, but they still were very stupid. I hope a lot of those people were shot after destroying vintage film materials...

 

[benbess]

It really does make me feel upset and almost sick too. Apparently there was something approaching a whole room worth of footage on Cleopatra sitting in LA from 1963 to 1978, when it went to the dump.
There are shots in this blu-ray of some of Fox's current vaults--and they look quite clean, high tech, and controlled in terms of environment. I think in the 70s it was more like rusty cans sitting in an un-airconditioned warehouse somewhere. And if you count the extra footage of not just Cleopatra, but of all the films Fox had made, it really was taking up a lot of space for what seemed like no possible use for them.
Still it makes you upset to think about. If only they'd just tried to sell it to collectors back then!
I think this is around the time when they threw out their 3 strip Technicolor negatives. Stupid beyond belief. Imagine taking something unique in all the world, something that took blood, sweat, tears, mind, and a whole lot of money to make, and just saying: "Put this in the trash."

 

[Rick Thompson]

You have to remember, that was when the leadership changeover was happening, when the movie-makers who built the studios were being run out of town by financiers, accountants and lawyers. Bad management decisions put them in that situation, but the replacements were in it strictly for the short term. If it didn't produce immediate cash, it was junk. Outtakes and cut footage didn't produce immediate cash, so they went into the garbage. (The exception would appear to be Disney. Even in unsuccessful times, they appear to have kept everything.)
Even ignoring the home video revolution, imagine what that footage would have brought at auction. Either the new folks had no imagination, or it was just contempt for the ones they forced out. Whatever the reason, all we can do is shake our heads and marvel at the stupidity.

 

[RolandL]

I think it is more likely that Amazon.UK is out of stock and that the current low-priced offering is from a third party seller who does not ship to the USA. If you click on the preferred merchant, it says it is indigostarfish.com.

I just received the following email from Amazon.co.uk. I did not pay for it till yesterday, as there was a problem with someone else using my account. Had to cancel my VISA card and get a new one. It's only $14.80 including shipping.
Your order #203-4095371-2389907 (received February 20, 2012)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qty Item Price Delivery Subtotal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amazon.co.uk items (Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L.):
1 Cleopatra [Blu-ray] [1963] £6.24 1 £6.24
Dispatched via Royal Mail (estimated arrival date: Monday, March 05, 2012).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item Subtotal: £6.24
Delivery and handling: £3.08
Total: £9.32

 

[benbess]

Roland: You got a bargain!
Rick T: Yeah, you're right. The contempt and indifference that was shown is just sad...

 

[GMpasqua]

Maybe this will pop up very soon as a Best Buy or Walmart Exclusive (as FOX did with "The Poseidon Adventure - Walmart April 3rd, which has been up for Amazon pre-order in France and Germany)

 

[benbess]

Maybe this will pop up very soon as a Best Buy or Walmart Exclusive (as FOX did with "The Poseidon Adventure - Walmart April 3rd, which has been up for Amazon pre-order in France and Germany)

No, I think it's too big that.
Cleopatra will probably get the box o junk treatment and general release. My guess is that they'll head it out the doors at amzn and everywhere else in Nov. so that they can plausibly say it's a 50th anniversary release.

 

[David_B_K]

The situation with Cleopatra's lost footage is explained on the new blu-ray.
Apparently in 1978, Fox decided--in order to save money--to throw out all of their cuts and extra footage from their old films. At that point it was thrown away.
But, the 4 hour 6 minute version survives, and is quite good. Thank goodness at least that survives.

To really appreciate the 4-hr version, you should see the execrable 192 minute version. I'm glad we at least have what we have.

 

[Ethan Riley]

You have to remember, that was when the leadership changeover was happening, when the movie-makers who built the studios were being run out of town by financiers, accountants and lawyers. Bad management decisions put them in that situation, but the replacements were in it strictly for the short term. If it didn't produce immediate cash, it was junk. Outtakes and cut footage didn't produce immediate cash, so they went into the garbage. (The exception would appear to be Disney. Even in unsuccessful times, they appear to have kept everything.)
Even ignoring the home video revolution, imagine what that footage would have brought at auction. Either the new folks had no imagination, or it was just contempt for the ones they forced out. Whatever the reason, all we can do is shake our heads and marvel at the stupidity.

There was very little worth to be found in "nostalgia" back in the 70s. In those days, if it was old--toss it out. Anything worth consideration had to be of immediacy. There was very little retrospective in terms of art or culture. People would make fun of you for listening to records that were two years old. Everything had to be now. It wasn't really the "Me" generation, it was the "NOW" generation. That's what people thought in those days.
Interestingly, by the time we got to the home video revolution (circa 1985), then it was okay to look back on old films and appreciate them, and find something of contemporary value in them (I hope we still do this today. I know the forum members do). But by '85 all those studio purges had been completed, and then they were crying the blues because they discovered the value of outtakes and such. Well, boo hoo. By the time the studios figured that out, all the people who'd thrown out all that stuff had long since been removed from their positions. I think, as you mention, Disney may have remained immune because unlike most of the major studios, it was never sold off to an outside corporation. Despite a lot of power changes at Disney, there's still been reverence for its film past, and therefore continuity in storing its materials. Thank God for the Disney Archives--let me tell you.
Ben--the vaults that are filled with materials that are currently being sorted and worked on are definitely clean and organized. However, Hollywood still has countless vaults and storage facilities filled with film that have been locked for decades. Probably nobody knows what's in them. I've worked on studio lots for all my adult life. I've actually seen some of those facilities opened up and people have to go in with facemasks because god knows what's on the other side of that door. I'd actually love to have that job, though--just a job where you go around opening up film storage nooks just to see what's inside lol

 

[benbess]

....Ben--the vaults that are filled with materials that are currently being sorted and worked on are definitely clean and organized. However, Hollywood still has countless vaults and storage facilities filled with film that have been locked for decades. Probably nobody knows what's in them. I've worked on studio lots for all my adult life. I've actually seen some of those facilities opened up and people have to go in with facemasks because god knows what's on the other side of that door. I'd actually love to have that job, though--just a job where you go around opening up film storage nooks just to see what's inside lol

wow. And even with the dangers, that does sound like an interesting job to look for those old treasures on film...

 

[moviepas]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]It's works the other way across the Atlantic as well. I can order most things from Amazon.com but now and again they say they cannot ship a particular item to the UK. But then, later on, I find I [/COLOR][COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]can[/COLOR][COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)] order it. Seems to make no sense. Thing is to wait awhile and try again.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]I had a big problem with Amazon Germany late last week. I had an order in the cart for a longtime due to not enough money with stuff needed from other Amazon sites but I decided it was time and I needed to order a few more things plus Blu Rays currently unique to them. The prices were much the same as when I filled the cart back then but the prices of some CDs were going up and down slightly as I was preparing the order to submit. Then I got a page telling me some titles were unable to ship to my address so I delered and then another two and another two(I had about 38 titles in the cart). I then went back and added again and it started asking me to delete again.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]At this point I Copied the page of titles and e-mailed them. A few hours later at like Midnight in my country a man called me but we missed the call and then an hour later he called again and I talked to him and he said it looked OK at his end that all was available to me and said he would send some details to try again. This he did and I followed these and then tried something else. I left my Google default browser and opened my rarely used Mozilla and tried again and, volia, he went thru 100% except one title. The one title was added later when I e-mailed them again and I got another call later that evening from a woman apologizing for her colleague waking me but that was more than OK to do. The end result is that I have one Marketplace and two direct packages on the way to me within three days.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]But it does annoy me when I see items listed as can't ship to my country from the US site(sometimes this comes when I am about to place the order) and as someone said, the title is later found as a direct Amazon item. But what also annoys me is that this happens often when I see From Joe Blow, Inc Fulfilled by Amazon, which means they have it at their warehouse and ship from there. If Amazon have it there on behalf of some company or person why, then, can't they ship it to me with my other orders. Makes little or no sense. [/COLOR]

 

[moviepas]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]The situation with Cleopatra's lost footage is explained on the new blu-ray.[/COLOR]
[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]Apparently in 1978, Fox decided--in order to save money--to throw out all of their cuts and extra footage from their old films. At that point it was thrown away.[/COLOR]

[COLOR= rgb(24, 24, 24)]Where did all the screentests, missing sequences and other material come from that was used in the various TV documentaries that landed on DVD in the early days of that medium? I do know that Fox had a reputation for quickly getting rid of stuff sliced out of movies after re-editing after previews etc. Seeing that missing footage and all the stuff from Marilyn Monroe's aborted last effort makes me wonder. Was not Cleopatra footage equal to or more valuable than the Monroe footage and at least the Taylor film was completed and released. There are businesess who round up and buy such footage and use it, selling to filmmakers. And then there are the funded archives. Where are they at times like this or don't they find out on the grapevine when such things are about to happen? It has happened in my country and the archives would have taken all the material that was junked or wiped because it was black & white or TV station policy. Or dumping TV tapes in a basement near electric motors and adding nice little wiggles & dropouts to the tapes. Dubbing Saturday football over variety show tapes was a good one at one major station here and the guy who had this done directed the variety show as well as directing the football. A friends who was working there a few years ago was asked to dub the variety show to VHS tape(of all things) and he would get so far and sport would cut in. It was a tragedy because the variety show had many former vaudeville stage people in it whose work is mostly gone now.[/COLOR]

 

[Mark Oates]

I suppose we have to thank all those anonymous magpies who over the years appropriated or rescued materials ultimately destined to be junked by short-sighted company executives. There'll have been creative individuals who may have borrowed materials for research purposes and never returned them. There are thousands of ways out of the vaults for materials given little or no value by the companies that own them - simply because they were not part of the finished movie. I've heard and read hundreds of horror stories of cheapskate companies either reusing materials, junking only copies of movies for the value of the can it was in, or intending to dump material to save on vault costs.
It's only the foresight of the vault manager at Pinewood that all the materials for the Superman films survive because the Salkinds hadn't paid their vault fees. Normally they should have been thrown in a skip (having been deboxed and decored). Hundreds of movies and tv programmes have suffered a similar fate over the decades.
At the risk of being vilified as some kind of commie bastard, I can't help thinking that as this stuff - as ephemeral or "worthless" they may be - is part of our collective global culture, shouldn't it be protected from the crassness of commercial interests?

 

[RolandL]

Everyone would like a perfect transfer of every film, but I'll take "slightly gray" skintones over those annoying overly red ones seen so often.

I'm looking at the opening scene with Rex Harrison and the soldiers and they all look like they have a nice sun tan, not too red on my 55 inch Sony KDL55NX810 set. It's set to the "Neutral" setting for color temperature. If I want it to have more of a "Techinicolor" look, I can set it to "Warm 1" or "Warm 2".

 

[Robin9]

I'm looking at the opening scene with Rex Harrison and the soldiers and they all look like they have a nice sun tan, not too red on my 55 inch Sony KDL55NX810 set. It's set to the "Neutral" setting for color temperature. If I want it to have more of a "Techinicolor" look, I can set it to "Warm 1" or "Warm 2".

In another thread Bruce Kimble has written he finds this Blu-ray disc slightly too brown. In general I don't, but that scene does seem a bit too brown for me, particularly the far background.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

It was announced today that Richard Burton will finally receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--next to Elizabeth Taylor's. 20th Century Fox contributed to the fundraising campaign to get Burton a star. The unveiling will be March 1st, and will kick off Cleopatra's 50th anniversary, with the US release of the Blu-ray to follow, although no date has been announced. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2013/02/15/star-for-richard-burton-to-be-unveiled-on-hollywood-walk-of-fame-91466-32809473/

 

[Matt Hough]

Thanks for the information. We'll be looking for that announcement from Fox.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

My pleasure, Matt! I'm hoping that Fox has added more bonus material for the US release, such as the deleted scenes that have turned up: A veiled Cleopatra divining the future (which would have been our first glimpse of Taylor as Cleopatra), Cleopatra walking through her camp (a snippet of this is scene is in the 2hr documentary), and even trims from the Entrance into Rome scene. It's a shame that they have just been sitting on this material and not including. It's inclusion would be a great incentive for those who imported the film from the UK to buy it again. They could even include it on a disc only available in a big UCE like Sony did with "Lawrence" and I'd be happy! Photographs and dialogue from these scenes, and the rest of the deleted scenes, can be found on my friend's web site: http://taylortribute.com/Elizabeth%20Taylor%20-%20Cleopatra%20Contents.html He also includes costume test photos from the aborted Pinewood film. These costumes were designed by Oliver Messel, who costumed Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra in 1945's "Caesar and Cleopatra". Fox could also include costume tests, screen tests, and the Pinewood footage that has turned up. It also should be noted that a black and white work print of the 6 hour Cleopatra is supposedly in the hands of a collector. What I wouldn't give to see it, even in black and white! Andy

 

[battlebeast]

Ted Turner could colorize it!