My 2 cents worth on “Brothers Grimm” (1 Viewer)

[cinemiracle]

The Australian cinerama print in question was donated to Bradford several years ago on the understanding (I understand) that it is to loaned to the Cinerama Dome whenever they wished to screen it.. It is great condition.

 

[nara]

.. It is (in?) great condition.

No, some of it is in great condition. Some of it needs extensive work.

I've seen it a couple of times.

 

[DP 70]

It also is missing the original The End title but a new one has been added plus I hear some off the print
is badly warped.

 

[RolandL]

I saw it at the Cinerama Dome's 60th anniversary of Cinerama. I remember they had to stop it and then start it up again. Some parts looked good others not so much.

 

[Strohmaier]

Some first hand knowledge:
I have seen it 3 times in Bradford and 2 times at the Dome (where I was the A panel projectionist).
Act-2 is in reasonable shape but Act-1 has problems with the C panel throughout and pretty brittle.
Bradford does not plan to show it again do to it's delicate condition.

 

[OliverK]

Looks like there is a real threat that Warner may not get around to do anything with Grimm before the negative falls apart completely and now the print cannot be screened anymore, very sad.

I hope that somebody will do an at least 2k scan of each panel of the remaining print.
That should be doable for little money and whatever digital work would have to follow can wait until funds are available.

 

[William Moore]

Some first hand knowledge:
I have seen it 3 times in Bradford and 2 times at the Dome (where I was the A panel projectionist).
Act-2 is in reasonable shape but Act-1 has problems with the C panel throughout and pretty brittle.
Bradford does not plan to show it again do to it's delicate condition.

David: Do you have any plans as of now to restore this classic as you have so many other Cinerama productions? You are our only hope!

 

[Mike Frezon]

William: You remember David's post from Page #1 of this thread, don't you?

Any restoration needs to begin with the owners.

 

[Matt Hough]

I think he's pretty much answered this before.

 

[bujaki]

We're going in circles. Again.

 

[ahollis]

We're going in circles. Again.

Yes, again, sighhhhhh.

 

[OliverK]

I will say that something may have changed since the start of this thread about 6 months ago but it would help to ask if Warner changed their stance of not giving access or if it has been considered to access other elements. David having plans or not is irrelevant without elements that he could work on.

 

[Thomas T]

I suspect like the threads on The Alamo, Raintree County and Ryan's Daughter, this thread will continually pop up every six months or at least annually with the usual any news yet question?

 

[OliverK]

I suspect like the threads on The Alamo, Raintree County and Ryan's Daughter, this thread will continually pop up every six months or at least annually with the usual any news yet question?

Hopefully a bit more often, I like reading about these movies.
And you can add Around The World in 80 Days to that list. It is probably the most popular large format production that has yet to be released on Blu-ray and that will also be a very costly proposition if Warner wants to start from scratch with it.

 

[bujaki]

I'd like to have all three films in a decent release (BD if possible). If it happens, it will happen; if not, well... We already know what the problems are (elements, monies, etc.). Those constants will not change anytime soon.

 

[nara]

Enough already!

 

[Allansfirebird]

I suspect like the threads on The Alamo, Raintree County and Ryan's Daughter, this thread will continually pop up every six months or at least annually with the usual any news yet question?

As the guy who created the Alamo thread, hope ever springs eternal. Nothing wrong to renew the discussion every now and again.

 

[OliverK]

As the guy who created the Alamo thread, hope ever springs eternal. Nothing wrong to renew the discussion every now and again.

Not to forget that the studios are watching these threads - or their complete absence. It would probably not bode well for a restoration of any movie if it was never mentioned or asked for by anybody.

What would it say for interest in a movie if somebody only had to post that a studo won't do it and then everybody leaves the thread and never returns, we can't take no for an answer in these cases

Slight kidding aside I think it is one of the strengths of this forum that usually when one of these threads is brought back up we get an interesting exchange going in one way or another that goes beyond "I can't wait to see it" or "studio x owes it to us to release it".

 

[zoetmb]

With AT&T taking ownership of Warner, there will probably be less interest in releasing titles on disc than ever before. Once AT&T really starts managing Warner directly (which usually starts happening a year after acquisition), I fear for both the Warner Archive program and even TCM, since it's not an ad-driven cable station and the only revenue stream is a small fee paid by the MSO's for each subscriber. Let's not forget that AT&T bought Warner primarily to get content for their streaming service - content that will drive people to sign up for the service. A superhero movie or Harry Potter might. "Brothers Grimm" won't, Cinerama or not.

In addition, the disc business is clearly a hit-driven business and most of the business is in recent films. In 2018, the top 100 best-selling Blu-ray discs took about 51% of industry Blu units and almost 64% of the revenue. The 100th best-selling title sold 120,000 units. I suspect that the top 200 discs could have taken 75% of units and over 90% of revenue. And I doubt Brothers Grimm would make the top 200. So the chances of Warner investing a lot of money to restore this title are quite low. Do you think any senior executive at AT&T cares about the history of film?

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On a separate note, someone posted way above that they thought Logan's Run was the last 70mm 6-track discrete title, but the 1976 "A Star Is Born", released six months later, also had 70mm discrete prints as did many other films released after that including Tommy, Coming Home, Crossed Swords, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Comes A Horseman, 1941 and others. Some of those might have also been released in Dolby Baby Boom, but there were also some discrete prints as well. According to my records, the last 70mm discrete title was probably "Spies Like Us" in December of 1985. I remember thinking at the time that they probably didn't want to pay the Dolby licensing fees and IIRC, there wasn't much discrete in the mix anyway.

 

[DP 70]

A Star is Born 1976 had Dolby 6 track prints and also 70mm non -Dolby prints in the UK.