HIGH & MIGHTY, ISLAND IN SKY to dvd (1 Viewer)

[Richard Carnahan]

The estate of John Wayne has made a deal with Cinetech and Chace Prods. to update and restore two of the actor's 1950s hits, "The High and the Mighty" and "Island in the Sky."...
-VARIETY

 

[Robert Crawford]

Does anybody know anything about these two companies?





Crawdaddy

 

[Patrick McCart]

Cinetech is a film restoration company. Their work can be seen on the Pollyanna DVD... mostly color restoration work.

Chace deals with sound remastering and remixing.

 

[William Miller]

Hallelujah!

For those of you who have never seen The High and the Mighty, you will not be disappointed.

We will all assume now that the restoration will do justice to this magnificent Warner Bros. Cinemascope and Stereophonic Sound classic.

It's interesting to note that The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky were both based on novels by Ernest K. Gann. He also wrote the novels of Soldier of Fortune and Fate is the Hunter which also have never had their movie versions released to home video although both have been shown on cable in recent months. My theory was always there was some kind of problem with the Ernest K. Gann family concerning video rights to movies based on his books.

There are still a few other Batjac titles missing in action but we won't get too greedy at the moment.

 

[Douglas R]

Don't Chace specialise in "stereoising" mono tracks? Which suggests that the original Warner Bros stereo tracks of The High and the Mighty no longer exist. Apparently Warners junked many of the stereo tracks from their '50s Cinemascope films many years ago. Joe Caps should have the answer.

 

[Joe Caps]

When I worked at Pioneer laserdisc, I was in negotiations with Michael Wayne to bring out High and the Mighty nd Island in the Sky to Laserdisc. Another site thinks there was problems with the Dimitri Tiomkin estate and that was the problem.
the problem was Michael Wayne - great guy, but rather like Hamlet, he could never make up his mind.
Chace is NOT stereoizing High and the Mighty. Mike Wayne kept several stereo prints and work was done several years ago to transfer the stereo prints to digital backup.
they might be just cleaning up the track for Island in the Sky. Colecxtors stereo prints do not exist for this film as it was NOT stereo sound on the print, but interlocked stereo tracks and collectors genereally do not have those. Stereo sound on the print did not start until The Robe.
The music tracks for High and the MIghty exist only in a mono mixdown while the Island in the Sky only exists as the record album reissued on Lp many years ago by Varese.
Frankly, I think some will be dissapointed by High and the Mighty which I think is a terrible film. Vey LIttle suspense and LOADS of cliched characters, to the point of being embarrasing, IMO.

 

[Thomas T]

With all due respect, I'll have to heartily disagree with Mr. Caps. The Los Angeles County Museum Of Arts showed a CinemaScope print of The High And The Mighty several years ago with the consent of the Wayne estate and the film still held up quite well and the audience was most enthusiastic. To those brought up on the Airport films, I suppose The High And The Mighty might seem cliched but then High And The Mighty was the first and the original of these airline disaster films and all that followed took from it. The acting in the film is quite good, particularly Claire Trevor and Jan Sterling who received Oscar nominations for their performances.

The color of the LACMA print was faded to an almost pinkish color so it will be great to it restored.