RAINTREE COUNTY on Blu? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Budgell]

Thank you for compiling that information from The Alamo thread, Andy!

Call me delusional, but with WAC tackling some more challenging restorations of films that never had a DVD release, I still remain hopeful that we'll see a release of the 35mm theatrical cut of Raintree County.

 

[OliverK]

Thank you for compiling that information from The Alamo thread, Andy!

Call me delusional, but with WAC tackling some more challenging restorations of films that never had a DVD release, I still remain hopeful that we'll see a release of the 35mm theatrical cut of Raintree County.

Just work from the 35mm roadshow prints in that case.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Just work from the 35mm oadshow prints in that case.

I could be misremembering, but I thought that when Warners reconstructed the roadshow version of Raintree County for its last VHS release, they used a faded collectors print for the deleted scenes? I assumed that getting those scenes up to par might be cost prohibitive and a release of the 35mm theatrical cut would be more viable a la Kino's recent Song of Norway.

 

[OliverK]

I could be misremembering, but I thought that when Warners reconstructed the roadshow version of Raintree County for its last VHS release, they used a faded collectors print for the deleted scenes? I assumed that getting those scenes up to par might be cost prohibitive and a release of the 35mm theatrical cut would be more viable a la Kino's recent Song of Norway.

It has been done with other faded prints on a very limited budget, like this for example:


I have the Blu-ray and it looks pretty good, you would not think that it came from a faded print when you look at the colors.
There are other issue certain aspects of the release should be done to a higher standard but the overall budget could still be very modest.

With regard to Raintree County apart from having the superior long version another benefit would be to preserve the roadshow version in case the large format elements are lost.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Elizabeth Kernan, who was Elizabeth Taylor's stand in on Raintree County, has died at age 80. She was a member of the Raintree Facebook page and shared her memories of working on the film, as recently as just a week before she died. She will be missed.

Elizabeth M. Kernen - The Advocate-Messenger

Elizabeth M. Kernen 1939-2020 Elizabeth M. Kernen, 80, of Stanford, KY passed away Sunday, May 17, 2020 at UK Healthcare in Lexington, KY. Born December 24, 1939 in Stanford, KY to the late Robert and Julia Woodrum Murphy, she was a retired employee of American Greetings Corporation. Email...

www.amnews.com

 

[RolandL]

I could be misremembering, but I thought that when Warners reconstructed the roadshow version of Raintree County for its last VHS release, they used a faded collectors print for the deleted scenes? I assumed that getting those scenes up to par might be cost prohibitive and a release of the 35mm theatrical cut would be more viable a la Kino's recent Song of Norway.

Sorry, I guess I'm greedy. I want to see the full MGM Camera 65 70mm image from Raintree County released on Blu-ray.

Below is a screen shot from a TCM broadcast of Raintree County, about 2.35:1. Below that is the same scene from How The West Was Won, about 2.85:1. Many of the scenes in the Civil War section of How The West Was Won came from Raintree County.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Sorry, I guess I'm greedy. I want to see the full MGM Camera 65 70mm image from Raintree County released on Blu-ray.

Below is a screen shot from a TCM broadcast of Raintree County, about 2.35:1. Below that is the same scene from How The West Was Won, about 2.85:1. Many of the scenes in the Civil War section of How The West Was Won came from Raintree County.
View attachment 73059
View attachment 73060

Believe me, in a perfect world where money was no object, I would also love to see a restoration of the 70mm version of Raintree County, so the film could finally be enjoyed for the first time the way it was intended to be seen. But I'd be quite content with a Blu-ray derived from a 35mm print... to my mind it's not like Warners would be depriving viewers of anything, as the 70mm version of the film has never actually been released theatrically,

However, I do appreciate you posting those screen grabs so we can see the information that's missing from the 35mm version.

 

[DVBRD]

At times, it seems to me that WB is using digital downloads as a dumping ground for dated masters. I could be wrong, but I think that there's a 4:3 pan-and-scan streaming print of The Battle of the Villa Fiorita starring Maureen O'Hara and Rossano Brazzi on Vudu. If this is true, I can't see why Raintree could be available to own on streaming devices at least. At least there's an HD version, and it's allegedly decent.

 

[Taylor * D]

Thanks Roland for those comparison pictures. I can't believe how much more picture in available. I didn't know about How The West Was Won using shots from Raintree County. Very cool. It might be time to check out my disc of HTWWW again

 

[JPCinema]

At times, it seems to me that WB is using digital downloads as a dumping ground for dated masters. I could be wrong, but I think that there's a 4:3 pan-and-scan streaming print of The Battle of the Villa Fiorita starring Maureen O'Hara and Rossano Brazzi on Vudu. If this is true, I can't see why Raintree could be available to own on streaming devices at least. At least there's an HD version, and it's allegedly decent.

On iTunes The Battle of Villa Fiorita.....is 1:85

 

[RolandL]

Thanks Roland for those comparison pictures. I can't believe how much more picture in available. I didn't know about How The West Was Won using shots from Raintree County. Very cool. It might be time to check out my disc of HTWWW again

I looked at HTWWW and I think it's only about a minute that came from Raintree. So I guess you could say that it has been released on Blu-ray if only for a minute.

In July of 1957 at the LA Melrose theatre, a demonstration of a 3-panel extraction print of Raintree County was shown. I guess you had to wait till 1962 when was it actual done for a movie. Other scenes from How The West Was Won were filmed in Ultra Panavision/MGM Camera 65 and extracted to 3-panel Cinerama.

The picture below comes from Widescreenmusem.com. It shows the extract of 3-panel Cinerama from MGM Camera 65 negative. The A, B, C is for the Able, Baker and Charlie projectors in a Cinerama theatre. It implies that here is additional picture image on the negative that is not picked up by the extract. I don't know if this is true or if that information was ever meant to be seen.

 

[OliverK]

Believe me, in a perfect world where money was no object, I would also love to see a restoration of the 70mm version of Raintree County, so the film could finally be enjoyed for the first time the way it was intended to be seen. But I'd be quite content with a Blu-ray derived from a 35mm print... to my mind it's not like Warners would be depriving viewers of anything, as the 70mm version of the film has never actually been released theatrically,

However, I do appreciate you posting those screen grabs so we can see the information that's missing from the 35mm version.

Early prints of Raintree County are reported to have been in the 2.5:1 aspect ratio in roadshow engagements which after that was only repeated for Ben-Hur. So Warner would be depriving viewers twofold with the short 35mm version with both the missing content AND the missing information on the sides of the picture.

Most of us in this thread will probably buy just about any version that Warner could think of releasing on Blu-ray so it is a bit of a moot discussion but if they had only wanted to release the 35mm general release version they could have done that already at a relatively low cost. So my guess is that it will be more than that when they finally release Raintree County.

 

[RolandL]

Early prints of Raintree County are reported to have been in the 2.5:1 aspect ratio in roadshow engagements which after that was only repeated for Ben-Hur. So Warner would be depriving viewers twofold with the short 35mm version with both the missing content AND the missing information on the sides of the picture.

Most of us in this thread will probably buy just about any version that Warner could think of releasing on Blu-ray so it is a bit of a moot discussion but if they had only wanted to release the 35mm general release version they could have done that already at a relatively low cost. So my guess is that it will be more than that when they finally release Raintree County.

On widescreenmuseum.com Marty (who recently passed away) says:

The first film in the process, Raintree County, was printed only in CinemaScope compatible 35mm with either optical sound or Magoptical sound, with a maximum aspect ratio of 2.35:1

I'm not sure what the AR was. All releases on video and broadcast are 2.35:1 or less. By 1957 all Cinemascope prints were 2.35 (again from widescreenmuseum.com).

 

[OliverK]

On widescreenmuseum.com Marty (who recently passed away) says:

The first film in the process, Raintree County, was printed only in CinemaScope compatible 35mm with either optical sound or Magoptical sound, with a maximum aspect ratio of 2.35:1

I'm not sure what the AR was. All releases on video and broadcast are 2.35:1 or less. By 1957 all Cinemascope prints were 2.35 (again from widescreenmuseum.com).

Yes I read that, too but did Marty ever see one of the original roadshow prints? It is possible that only the first longer prints were done that way. I think they were also printed exclusively on Eastman Stock which would have been more highly resolved with excellent colors (before those nice colors would fade away that is).

 

[RolandL]

Yes I read that, too but did Marty ever see one of the original roadshow prints? It is possible that only the first longer prints were done that way. I think they were also printed exclusively on Eastman Stock which would have been more highly resolved with excellent colors (before those nice colors would fade away that is).

Yes he did see the roadshow print. Example of frame below which is only on the roadshow. It's 2.35. Frame below not seen on video release or any broadcast.

 

[DVBRD]

Yes he did see the roadshow print. Example of frame below which is only on the roadshow. It's 2.35. Frame below not seen on video release or any broadcast.

View attachment 73628

That's interesting. I have no idea why that credit wasn't reinserted on the roadshow VHS. On the general prints, there's a long gap of black screen in between the main titles and the first shot of the movie. I presume that was because the Camera 65 credit was removed.

 

[RolandL]

I'm guessing that since the roadshow print was in such bad shape, they only wanted to insert scenes that were missing from it. Having the opening titles from the roadshow would not look that great just to include the MGM Camera 65 frames.

 

[OliverK]

Yes he did see the roadshow print. Example of frame below which is only on the roadshow. It's 2.35. Frame below not seen on video release or any broadcast.

View attachment 73628

But that's from an IB Tech print. The long roadshow prints that were donated to Warner were Eastman.
Hopefully some day we'll find out or even better if we won't have to because Warner restored the 65mm trims from the roadshow.

 

[john a hunter]

The Camera 65 logo was on 16mm prints and I have a frame of it somewhere.
Shame it disappeared on video.

As for 2.55 :1 Raintree prints, you are right about that format was being superceded by 2:33:1 by "57,

However I thought some of the Ben Hur 35mm Mag prints were printed with larger black frame lines to widen the picture for 2.55 on a 2.35 screen. It certainly could have been done that way in 1957 for Raintree.
Trust my explanation makes sense.

 

[DVBRD]

The Camera 65 logo was on 16mm prints and I have a frame of it somewhere.
Shame it disappeared on video.

Does the 16mm print have the additional 20 minutes of footage, John?