New Classics From Fox Cinema Archives (Blu-ray) December 2016 (1 Viewer)

[Ed Lachmann]

I'm confused with this comment. You don't consider the WAC Blu-ray titles that have been released or announced classic?

To quote Robin above, "obvious titles" is my main complaint with WB. I love Bogie and musicals as much as the next person, but a little variety in genres would be welcome. Compare the rich output of Fox, Universal and MGM titles in blu-ray. I have no problem with the MOD DVDs they offer, however, and have purchased hundreds of them.

 

[ahollis]

To quote Robin above, "obvious titles" is my main complaint with WB. I love Bogie and musicals as much as the next person, but a little variety in genres would be welcome. Compare the rich output of Fox, Universal and MGM titles in blu-ray. I have no problem with the MOD DVDs they offer, however, and have purchased hundreds of them.

I understand. To me, Love In The Afternoon, Bad Day at Black Rock, Battleground, and even The Boyfriend were not obvious and completely out in left field as was Women's World was for Fox. Coney Island not so.

I am looking forward to more announced titles from Fox, such as possibly Say One For Me and Good Morning Miss Dove.

 

[Matt Hough]

I think Warner Archive has done a stupendous job mixing up their genres for Blu-ray releases. January brought us a war picture, an action-mystery, a musical, and a thriller (and all of them classics). February so far has announced a monster movie, an action thriller, a romantic comedy-drama, and a musical. There is plenty of variety there.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

By "of the sort that WB would probably never consider" in relation to Woman's World I was thinking of the brilliant classic Designing Woman as well as the beloved Auntie Mame and many others of that type.

 

[Keith Cobby]

Hopefully Soldier of Fortune will be released soon.

 

[plektret]

Who will release the remaining Marilyn Monroe films. Fox? Kino? TT? And a new HD master of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes without DNR?
Come one! We want Marilyn! We want Marilyn!

 

[Nick*Z]

Fox's marketing department doesn't seem to know its own head from the proverbial 'hole' in the wall. Really dumb fragmenting of their classic library via their 'archive' Blu-rays (which, given the dearth of announcements lately seems to have indefinitely stalled), Kino Lorber (that has a spotty track record for quality at best) and Twilight Time (whose Fox Cinemascope releases, with very few limited exceptions, have all looked as though they were dipped in a teal/blue wash). Yuck!

Fox's 'remastering' of vintage catalog in Blu has been a disaster. We NEED new Blu's of Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Miracle on 34th Street, The King and I, Anastasia (1956), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, State Fair (original) and Carousel - for starters. It also wouldn't hurt Fox if they would get busy releasing some of their vintage musicals starring Bette Grable, Carmen Miranda, Alice Faye and June Haver. The Dolly Sisters? That Night in Rio? Down Argentine Way?

And then there are the MIA catalog that just do not seem to be on Fox's radar at all: Star!, Doctor Doolittle, The Man Who Wasn't There, A Man Called Peter, The Left Hand of God, Say One For Me, With A Song in My Heart, Don't Bother to Knock, Monkey Business, Come to the Stable, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now, Staircase, etc. et al. Fox has really fallen behind the competition here. While some companies like Sony and Warner consistently strive for quality, and output on a regular basis, Fox seems content to merely dabble in 'experimental' releases - trying out various third party distribution and their own failed 'archive' ventures before simply dropping everything unannounced and simply walking away. Dumb! Silly! Stupid mis-managed marketing. This is really what has killed the 'home video' market. A lack of consistent availability. The audience did not walk away. The studios did! For shame!!!

 

[Jimbo64]

Did I miss something wrong with Anastasia? For a CinemaScope film in Deluxe Color I thought it looked great!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Did I miss something wrong with Anastasia? For a CinemaScope film in Deluxe Color I thought it looked great!

Just about every Blu-ray release has some dissenters even though most people might be happy with it. This type of disagreement occurs frequently with classic movies filmed in color. You can read about Anastasia complaints in the Review thread linked below.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/anastasia-1956-blu-ray-review/

 

[Thomas T]

Fox's films on blu ray, for the most part, look just fine. I'm not going to have a hissy fit because, say, Jeanne Crain's dress should have been lemon yellow and not canary yellow and demand that Fox recall the disc and correct the color of her dress! Yet there are some people who would do just that.

 

[skylark68]

Yeah I don't think I've seen any issues with the Fox TT discs. The Egyptian in particular looks absolutely beautiful. I just finished House of Bamboo and it looked just about perfect.

 

[BRAD1963]

I'm disappointed that they have not continued this series.

 

[Matt Hough]

I'm disappointed that they have not continued this series.

Me,too. Dreadfully disappointed that they stopped and dropped doing their own archive Blu-rays. I guess sales of the ones they did didn't justify continuing with the series. A great shame.

 

[Nick*Z]

TT's releases of The Blue Max, From the Terrace and The Best of Everything look absolutely nothing like vintage color by DeLuxe. Neither does Fox's release of Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Desk Set and Wild River. Want proof? Check out the following 'comparison' links to some of the aforementioned titles. The prevalent blue tint is appalling on some and the teal tinting on others is just plain wrong. If you're satisfied with this, I don't know what to say except standards will vary. Mine tend to be higher than yours.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqi3sxltp25eobj/CAROUSELcomparison.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s2i7whcl2ebue48/DESKSETcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/so2l97kxkwpo557/INNOFSIXTHHAPPINESScompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9z84pegm3gv0dd/RIVEROFNORETURNcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fw2t4a68kaug2di/STARFAIRcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qk0krn3qx23t0e5/WILDRIVERcompare.mp4?dl=0

 

[Joel Arndt]

Count me in as another one who's disappointed that this program doesn't seem to be continuing. Can the future robustness of an archive series really be determined by releasing 4 or 5 titles one time only? I think not.

 

[Nick*Z]

The problem with Fox is that no one regime in home video sticks around long enough to make a splash. Some will recall the massive purge of faculty responsible for their quality outpouring of vintage catalog on DVD back in the early 2000's. Overnight, Fox pulled the plug and sent a lot of staff packing. Since then it's been a bare bones operation at best with more catch-up 'fumbles' than a true investment in time to generate activity. So you have someone who is neither an archivist nor a historian rummaging through the mix with non-discriminate taste, simply picking 'best surviving elements' rather than establishing a hierarchy and ranking for the true classics they have in their cue and getting busy with restoration work and budgets to make it all happen in a timely manner. It's not a one or two person job. You need a small army of staff to get things moving and get things done. Fox just isn't willing to fortify the troops when it comes to catalog. Regrets.

 

[Robin9]

TT's releases of The Blue Max, From the Terrace and The Best of Everything look absolutely nothing like vintage color by DeLuxe. Neither does Fox's release of Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Desk Set and Wild River. Want proof? Check out the following 'comparison' links to some of the aforementioned titles. The prevalent blue tint is appalling on some and the teal tinting on others is just plain wrong. If you're satisfied with this, I don't know what to say except standards will vary. Mine tend to be higher than yours.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqi3sxltp25eobj/CAROUSELcomparison.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s2i7whcl2ebue48/DESKSETcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/so2l97kxkwpo557/INNOFSIXTHHAPPINESScompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9z84pegm3gv0dd/RIVEROFNORETURNcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fw2t4a68kaug2di/STARFAIRcompare.mp4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qk0krn3qx23t0e5/WILDRIVERcompare.mp4?dl=0

What are your credentials for making sweeping condemnatory generalisations like this? You've been challenged on this point before and you have never answered. How many of the titles listed above did you see when they were first released?

As a boy I saw The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness when it first came out. Later I saw Wild River and The Blue Max when they were new films. The colors in the Blu-ray discs of the last two films are pretty close to how I remember these films. The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness disc is darker than I recall. I saw From The Terrace about two, maybe three years after it was first released and The Best of Everything about six years after it was released. The colors had not faded badly in the prints I saw. I am pleased with the Blu-ray discs.

It's all very well - and very easy - for you to pat yourself on the back and claim to have higher standards than anyone who disagrees with you, but we have no reason to believe you are any kind of expert.

 

[Nick*Z]

What are your credentials for making sweeping condemnatory generalisations like this? You've been challenged on this point before and you have never answered. How many of the titles listed above did you see when they were first released?

As a boy I saw The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness when it first came out. Later I saw Wild River and The Blue Max when they were new films. The colors in the Blu-ray discs of the last two films are pretty close to how I remember these films. The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness disc is darker than I recall. I saw From The Terrace about two, maybe three years after it was first released and The Best of Everything about six years after it was released. The colors had not faded badly in the prints I saw. I am pleased with the Blu-ray discs.

It's all very well - and very easy - for you to pat yourself on the back and claim to have higher standards than anyone who disagrees with you, but we have no reason to believe you are any kind of expert.

Wow! Clearly a scab has been picked and the venom beneath it, very unappealing indeed! In reply I only say this, that your anger isn't worth responding to in kind. But I will address your 'as a boy' comments with the disclaimer, absence makes the heart grow fonder and memory fades.

Now, first up, in the mid-1990's new preservation masters and dye transfers were made for Fox of all the aforementioned titles. None contained the teal or blue bias later to be 'built into' the Blu-ray releases. It's pretty hard to speak of generalizations (by the way, you spell it with a 'z') when the proof is in the comparative clips provided. No generalization there! Big discrepancy, though. And, virtually all of the Blu-ray discs have adopted the SAME homogenized color palette.

Any cinematographer (and I have consulted several, as a point of fact, also two colorists at DeLuxe who worked on the original mid-90's masters and who wish to remain nameless in this discussion) will tell you, despite a consistent color process, whether 3-strip Technicolor or monopack Eastman, virtually no two movies shot in it will look the same, but rather, radically different depending on the cinematographer/director's eye and vision. Virtually none of the aforementioned movies were shot by the SAME individuals. So, to achieve this level of homogenized color uniformity across the board was NEITHER the intention nor the result at the time these pictures were released individually, theatrically and also was NOT the look as they continued to appear thereafter in either theatrical reissues or home video releases.

Again, deferring to those 'who know', the teal and/or blue tints experienced on these Blu-rays is the result of some tinkering in the digital mastering process. An inspection of the actual film elements does not reveal the dye transfers themselves made in the 1990's have either faded or suffered from vinegar syndrome, which might have explained the implosion in a non-digital world. Instead, something has occurred in the final phases of digital mastering that has contributed to the otherwise muted and homogenized color palette. And another dirty little secret: 'someone' at Fox was actually made aware of the error as it occurred, but chose to overlook it as the discs had already been pressed and shipped which otherwise would have resulted in a massive recall. No one at Fox will likely admit this, but it happened just the same.

All you need do is view the clips posted above to see how flesh tones have been made pallid, how reds have turned muddy orange, and how anything that used to be purple, grey or green has suddenly devolved into teal, blue or a ruddy brown/beige. Even paper, crisp white dress shirts, and the whites of eyes have a robin egg tint to them. Suzy Parker's auburn tresses, commented on in the ported over commentary from the DVD on the Blu-ray are now a dirty, dingy brown/beige. Sorry, Robin9 but grass is green - not brownish/teal. Surviving cloth samples attest to the fact Dina Merrill's dress in Desk Set. It was purple - not blue as it now appears; The clips I have posted above are proof positive and confirmed by a pair of DeLuxe colorists. But honestly, you don't need to be a pro, have their acumen or their decades of experience to notice this difference. You just need to have eyes!

Finally, as far as expert - may not one currently working in Hollywood. But I've done my homework here and backed up my findings with confirmations. Your 'as a boy' recollections' can't really compare.

 

[revgen]

While I generally agree with Nick*Z about the blue and orange look of many Fox HD masters, I'll also throw a bone and point out that not all Fox HD transfers have the blue and orange look. One example is TT's recent release of Two For the Road (1967). The colors look completely natural. It also came from a recent 4K scan. If Fox can do more transfers similar to Two For the Road (1967), I and many others will appreciate it.

 

[Nick*Z]

While I generally agree with Nick*Z about the blue and orange look of many Fox HD masters, I'll also throw a bone and point out that not all Fox HD transfers have the blue and orange look. One example is TT's recent release of Two For the Road (1967). The colors look completely natural. It also came from a recent 4K scan. If Fox can do more transfers similar to Two For the Road (1967), I and many others will appreciate it.

And no such claim about 'all' TT Fox titles was made by yours truly. Two For The Road looks magnificent. Ditto for Peyton Place (with slight anomalies) and How To Steal A Million, also, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. But there is a period of releases, beginning with the Rodgers & Hammerstein box set and ending around the time of Wild River and The Black Swan, with all of the aforementioned titles falling somewhere in between. I think the last of the 'bad batch' was Garden of Evil; just atrocious!

For those who still need proof. Above: original HD master. Bottom: 'remastered' Blu-ray release.

Above: HD master. Bottom: Blu-ray 'remaster'