John Sparks
Senior HTF Member
Well, here's the low down on a wonderful night on Feb.9th, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood watching these new dye-transfer(Ib Technicolor) Technicolor prints made especially for this limited engagement. This theater has been beautifully restored and able to show 70, 35, 16 mm and nitrate stock, which was shown last night. Had a tour of the projection room. It was moved higher up the back wall to show 70 mm and to put in a balcony. "Robinson Crusoe" was a fantastic print with beautiful colors, but it really needs to be restored. It had a few frames missing that were sprinkled throughout, but overall, I was back in 1964 being awed. Cinemascope almost filled that entire screen. At the end, Paul Mantee and Victor Lunden fielded questions from the audience. VIctor Lunden quoted something odd...that it was "HE" that gave Gene Roddenberry the idea about a ship in outerspace, even did drawings, but no one asked him to elaborate on it! Paul Mantee is really a very funny guy, had the audience constantly laughing!
During intermission, they showed a 15 min. b&w clip from a TV show that aired live in 1950 by KTLA channel 5 in L.A. that was called "City of Lights". They covered the night life in the city of Los Angeles. This man and woman team went to Paramount studios to watch them film "Destination Moon". Everyone in the audience was laughing at the questions being asked of George Pal, Irving Pichel and the DP...this TV tag team, by todays standards were "dorks"...constantly jocking to be in the camera's line of vision and not knowing what to say or ask. The people they were interviewing did all the talking. They showed you the lunar landscape with the four actors in costume and the inside of the spaceship. The male interviewer got strapped to one of the recliners and didn't want to leave it! What was really great, they showed the Technicolor camera...it was huge, larger that a 65" big screen TV on it's side.
"Destination Moon" was in beautiful Technicolor. This is another film that badly needs restoration. Alot of frames were sprinkled throughout the film were missing and it had fine black vertical lines throughout the film, some reels had less of these than others. The reds were vibrant. Woody Woodpecker's head and all reds were the reddest I have ever seen! The space suits were in colors not seen in the laser or DVD prints. You couldn't tell green from blue in these prints. Yellow was slightly pale, orange was a slightly subdued real orange, blue was a sky blue and the green was a torquoise/green. If you look at the cover of the DVD, those were the colors of the suits. Sound was excellent on both of these films...only behind the screen sound.
It was quite a thrill to see both of these movies as audiences did over 48 and 52 years ago, respectively!!!
Oh, almost forgot, while in the projection room we also watched a few moments of the animated great from the Fleischer Bros. entitled "Gulliver's Travels"...what gorgeous colors on this dye-transfer Technicolor print. Puts the laser and DVD prints to shame!
I can't wait for the next festival. I missed "This Island Earth" the last go 'round and I wasn't going to miss these for the world!
During intermission, they showed a 15 min. b&w clip from a TV show that aired live in 1950 by KTLA channel 5 in L.A. that was called "City of Lights". They covered the night life in the city of Los Angeles. This man and woman team went to Paramount studios to watch them film "Destination Moon". Everyone in the audience was laughing at the questions being asked of George Pal, Irving Pichel and the DP...this TV tag team, by todays standards were "dorks"...constantly jocking to be in the camera's line of vision and not knowing what to say or ask. The people they were interviewing did all the talking. They showed you the lunar landscape with the four actors in costume and the inside of the spaceship. The male interviewer got strapped to one of the recliners and didn't want to leave it! What was really great, they showed the Technicolor camera...it was huge, larger that a 65" big screen TV on it's side.
"Destination Moon" was in beautiful Technicolor. This is another film that badly needs restoration. Alot of frames were sprinkled throughout the film were missing and it had fine black vertical lines throughout the film, some reels had less of these than others. The reds were vibrant. Woody Woodpecker's head and all reds were the reddest I have ever seen! The space suits were in colors not seen in the laser or DVD prints. You couldn't tell green from blue in these prints. Yellow was slightly pale, orange was a slightly subdued real orange, blue was a sky blue and the green was a torquoise/green. If you look at the cover of the DVD, those were the colors of the suits. Sound was excellent on both of these films...only behind the screen sound.
It was quite a thrill to see both of these movies as audiences did over 48 and 52 years ago, respectively!!!
Oh, almost forgot, while in the projection room we also watched a few moments of the animated great from the Fleischer Bros. entitled "Gulliver's Travels"...what gorgeous colors on this dye-transfer Technicolor print. Puts the laser and DVD prints to shame!
I can't wait for the next festival. I missed "This Island Earth" the last go 'round and I wasn't going to miss these for the world!
