Press Release PHE Press Release: It's A Wonderful LIfe (4K/UHD) Digital Only?

Though if Paramount is going to continue their focus on streaming over disc they need to join in on Movies Anywhere.

 

Agreed!!!

 

Some of you might be interested in this article from the LA Times on the film's restoration:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-classic-hollywood-wonderful-life-restoration-20181121-story.html

 

Not such a wonderful life when the mountain keeps blocking our view.

 

Ha!!!!

 

I just got back from seeing It's a Wonderful Life at the Palace Theater in downtown Albany, one of the great old RKO movie palaces designed by John Eberson. It seats over 2,800 people and it was a full house tonight.


(The full marquee does light up on a repeating strobe pattern, just like it did in 1931. I just happened to catch it when it was at the end/start of its loop.)

When I last saw It's a Wonderful Life in theaters, at the same theater probably seven or eight Christmases ago, they projected a beat old 35mm (or maybe even 16mm) print that had been through the absolute ringer; scratched the entire way through, lines running through the print for minutes at a time, jumps in spots where the bits that had become to damaged to feed through the projector had been spliced out.

When they upgraded to digital projection, they downgraded to a much smaller screen that could descend and retract from above, instead of the old movie screen that had to be assembled and disassembled.

But the smaller picture was the only thing that wasn't a vast improvement tonight over the last time. I'm thinking they must have projected the 4K restoration tonight, because the movie was pristine from beginning to end, with lots of detail discernable even from near the back of the theater.

For the first time in several years, I broke my ironclad "no cellphones" rule to snap a quick pic (with the flash off of course):


Seeing this movie with a packed house in a beautiful theater that's larger that all of the local multiplex auditoriums is really a memorable experience. It's especially neat to see all of the young kids in the audience get sucked into a black and white movie from 72 years ago.

 

I'm sorry to hear that, Robert. I don't get there nearly as often as I'd like, but I'm always glad I went when I do. This theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, which probably saved it from being gutted and turned into a porn theater, or demolished outright. It's operated by a non-profit these days, and hosts a variety of events in addition to movies: concerts, plays, stand-up comedians, etc. Starting in 2002, lot of work went into restoring it to as close to 1931 original condition as possible.