Route 66 (3 Viewers)

[The 1960's]

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Thank you to the hundreds upon hundreds of guests (and loyal members) who have now brought this thread to over 27K views!!

 

[The 1960's]

S02E26 Kiss the Maiden All Forlorn (Apr.13.1962) Zina Bethune Elena Verdugo

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[The 1960's]

 

[The 1960's]

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Paging Randall...Zita Bethune alert!

Great screencaps per usual, Neal!

 

[The 1960's]

Paging Randall...Zita Bethune alert!

Great screencaps per usual, Neal!

Thanks Jeff! But all of a sudden back to inferior prints. Above and forthcoming episodes. I thought those were history after the first season? Guess not. Maybe our resident expert, "Route 66 Randall" can explain that? Randall?

 

[Flashgear]

Well, I played both the Shout! and Roxbury discs in two of my players, with Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn synchronized as to running time and toggled my source back and forth on the same 55" LED HDTV to compare...despite this episode being on one of the five episode discs, the Shout! transfer of Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn is a seriously inferior presentation...darker overall, and with poor contrast (just one example that stood out...when Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s amphibious seaplane is approaching to land, the scene looking into the cockpit has the entire instrument panel in darkness, with the detail lost...on the Roxbury transfer, which is the equal of any of the best transfers on both sets, the instrument panel detail is clearly seen).

The Shout! transfer for Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn runs 50:07...the greatly superior Roxbury transfer runs 50:14...Seven seconds longer, and obviously from an entirely different source!!!

I mean, what the hell?!!! Both have the period correct Screen Gems closing logo, so the Shout! version wasn't derived from one of the much older transfers that are present in some of the very early episodes of Route 66, and that populate almost half of the Naked City Image sets. Only 60 of the one hour Naked City episodes were newly remastered from 35mm vault film elements in 2005.

With 32 episodes in season two of Route 66, Shout loaded 6 episodes on disc one and disc six...I checked both those discs for comparison years ago, and don't remember any really bad examples on those discs...but the simple fact remains, if you really love Route 66, you simply MUST HAVE THE ROXBURY SETS FOR SEASONS TWO AND THREE...the terrible compression seen in disc one of season three is a killer for Ever Ride The Waves in Oklahoma?, one of the truly greatest episodes, and to a lesser extent, Journey To Nineveh is also negatively effected...the Shout! set for season one is good, and they are the only choice for season four, of course...

Neal, I know you reacquired the older Roxbury sets, but your screencaps from Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn must be from the Shout! season two set...and my Shout! disc does not have the picture quality disclaimer preceding this episode, so you must have captured that card from another episode?

I'm feeling sh*tty today, otherwise I'd take comparative screencaps to prove my point, as I did with both labels' versions of Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?, that I've posted and reposted in this thread and elsewhere...Man, Shout! really f*cked up their Route 66 sets for seasons two and three, going cheap and using only 6 discs as opposed to Roxbury's 8 discs for those seasons!

 

[The 1960's]

Well, I played both the Shout! and Roxbury discs in two of my players, with Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn synchronized as to running time and toggled my source back and forth on the same 55" LED HDTV to compare...despite this episode being on one of the five episode discs, the Shout! transfer of Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn is a seriously inferior presentation...darker overall, and with poor contrast (just one example that stood out...when Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s amphibious seaplane is approaching to land, the scene looking into the cockpit has the entire instrument panel in darkness, with the detail lost...on the Roxbury transfer, which is the equal of any of the best transfers on both sets, the instrument panel detail is clearly seen).

The Shout! transfer for Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn runs 50:07...the greatly superior Roxbury transfer runs 50:14...Seven seconds longer, and obviously from an entirely different source!!!

I mean, what the hell?!!! Both have the period correct Screen Gems closing logo, so the Shout! version wasn't derived from one of the much older transfers that are present in some of the very early episodes of Route 66, and that populate almost half of the Naked City Image sets. Only 60 of the one hour Naked City episodes were newly remastered from 35mm vault film elements in 2005.

With 32 episodes in season two of Route 66, Shout loaded 6 episodes on disc one and disc six...I checked both those discs for comparison years ago, and don't remember any really bad examples on those discs...but the simple fact remains, if you really love Route 66, you simply MUST HAVE THE ROXBURY SETS FOR SEASONS TWO AND THREE...the terrible compression seen in disc one of season three is a killer for Ever Ride The Waves in Oklahoma?, one of the truly greatest episodes, and to a lesser extent, Journey To Nineveh is also negatively effected...the Shout! set for season one is good, and they are the only choice for season four, of course...

Neal, I know you reacquired the older Roxbury sets, but your screencaps from Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn must be from the Shout! season two set...and my Shout! disc does not have the picture quality disclaimer preceding this episode, so you must have captured that card from another episode?

I'm feeling sh*tty today, otherwise I'd take comparative screencaps to prove my point, as I did with both labels' versions of Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?, that I've posted and reposted in this thread and elsewhere...Man, Shout! really f*cked up their Route 66 sets for seasons two and three, going cheap and using only 6 discs as opposed to Roxbury's 8 discs for those seasons!

Thank you Randall. Perfect, no need to go through the trouble of comparison caps. Yes unfortunately I have been using the Shout versions for all the screen caps as I don't have a drive at the present time to make digital copies from my Roxbury sets. Your points are well taken and as accurate as ever! But something additional above and beyond the compression factor. If you are in the mood please reinsert Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn in your player and take a good close look at the 37:50 mark on the Shout version and just like a dimmer light switch you'll see the exposure or brightness begin to fade out for the remainder of the episode. The individual who was transferring these was probably more absorbed with his beans 'n franks dinner. At the same 37:50 time code on the Roxbury version of Kiss the Maiden All Forlorn no such reduction is present!

But here's something else I have pondered here before. On the Shout Factory set although disc 5 does contain the additional 5th episode (disc 6 with a ridiculous 6 episodes!) and I'm viewing it right now, Love is a Skinny Kid looks just about fine as do my screen caps. No doubt better and brighter on the Roxbury set but more than acceptable on the Shout whereas Kiss the Maiden All Forlorn does not. My point is though the compression element is present the original masters used whether a disc has 5 or 6 episodes certainly plays a factor here.

In summery Kiss The Maiden, All Forlorn and the forthcoming There I Am - There I Always Am both look inferior (the latter even worse) on either the Shout or Roxbury sets. However episodes before and after each, Love is a Skinny Kid and Between Hello and Goodbye both look superior when compared to the other episodes on the same disc. That is why I use the generic p/q disclaimer which I grabbed from Poor Little Kangaroo Rat as Shout simply assumed most viewers wouldn't see the difference.

EDIT - Did you guys notice that Ohio66.com has been offline for the past 4 days, maybe longer?

Service Unavailable​

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HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

 

[Rustifer]

The individual who was transferring these was probably more absorbed with his beans 'n franks dinner.

I like that. Nice touch of humor.

 

[Flashgear]

It's been reported that actor Alex Cord has passed away at age 88. He appeared in five episodes of Route 66 under his real name of Alex Viespi...season three's But What do you do in March?, season four's Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are, A Cage in Search of a Bird, and the series' ending two part episode Where There's a Will, There's a Way...he also appeared in two episodes of Naked City, season four's Make It 50 Dollars and Add Love to Nona, and Stop The Parade, A Baby is Crying...

 

[The 1960's]

It's been reported that actor Alex Cord has passed away at age 88. He appeared in five episodes of Route 66 under his real name of Alex Viespi...season three's But What do you do in March?, season four's Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are, A Cage in Search of a Bird, and the series' ending two part episode Where There's a Will, There's a Way...he also appeared in two episodes of Naked City, season four's Make It 50 Dollars and Add Love to Nona, and Stop The Parade, A Baby is Crying...
View attachment 110054

Very sad. I enjoyed all his television performances. Passed away on August 9th at age 88. The Facebook memorial that you posted only plays for a second on my end. YouTube channel BLACK STAR NEWS has posted one of those morose 'The Tragic life and Sad ending of Alex Cord' which I shall not post here. May he rest in peace.

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[Flashgear]

The Route 66 production company on location under the direction of future Oscar winner (and fellow Albertan from Canada) Arthur Hiller...at Lake Havasu, Arizona, during filming of Go Read the River in February 1962...the episode first aired about a month later (Mar. 16, 1962), as the show was always under a pressure packed schedule to meet CBS deadlines...Neal just featured this episode with a screencap gallery a few pages back...

 

[Jeff Flugel]

The Route 66 production company on location under the direction of future Oscar winner (and fellow Albertan from Canada) Arthur Hiller...at Lake Havasu, Arizona, during filming of Go Read the River in February 1962...the episode first aired about a month later (Mar. 16, 1962), as the show was always under a pressure packed schedule to meet CBS deadlines...Neal just featured this episode with a screencap gallery a few pages back...
View attachment 110062

Sorry that you're not feeling so well, Randall...but thank you for taking the time to post this cool photo! I remember very much enjoying this episode, especially the boat racing aspect of it. Feel better soon, and we look forward to more of your great posts!

Meanwhile, I'm sure Neal hold down the fort.

 

[The 1960's]

In Memory of Alex Cord, Born Alexander Viespi, Jr. in Floral Park, New York (1933–2021)

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Route 66 - S04E03 Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are (Oct. 11, 1963)

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Route 66 - S04E09 A Cage in Search of a Bird (Nov. 29, 1963)

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[The 1960's]

Route 66 - S04E22 Where There's a Will, There's a Way (Mar 6 & 13, 1964)

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[The 1960's]

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[The 1960's]

S02E28 There I Am - There I Always Am (May.04.1962) Joanna Moore

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[The 1960's]

 

[The 1960's]

 

[Flashgear]

Well, Neal, I'd enjoy that plate of beans n' franks a lot more than watching There I Am-There I Always Am on the Shout! Factory DVD set...as your screencaps reveal, a seriously lesser PQ than that ESSENTIAL episode deserves...that video file resides on one of Shout's dreaded 6 episode discs, but as with the previous example, Kiss The Maiden All Forlorn, the problem isn't one of video compression or disc authoring in general that could be laid at the doorstop of Shout Factory...for just as with Kiss The Maiden All Forlorn, Shout's transfer is derived from another inferior old film source! And a grossly inferior film source to the one used on the old Roxbury set from which a pristine and sharp video transfer was made!

I just checked both labels' versions of There I Am-There I Always Am...Shout's fuzzy and darker copy has a 50:03 run time...Roxbury's beautiful and pristine transfer runs 50:20...17 seconds longer! And once again for those who might ask, both film sources have the period-correct Screen Gems closing logo, not the 1980s or 1990s color Columbia Pictures Television/ Coca Cola modern logo...so, Shout's film source is just an old film, maybe even a 16mm copy rather than the proper 35mm...

So, somehow between 2008 when Roxbury released their season two set and 2012 when Shout released their complete series set, the Roxbury transfers were waylaid somewhere and Shout got a few old and inferior film elements to work with, transferred and authored by a third party, Left Coast Digital...a lot of we fans might assume that Shout would have received sources at least as good as what Roxbury had...but we were wrong, of course!...rather, you'd have to assume that Shout couldn't access the transfers that appeared on the older Roxbury sets, perhaps because the man behind Roxbury physically owned his transfers, having (thankfully) initiated the whole original process of bringing Route 66 to DVD on his own! Shout probably assumed that all the episodes beyond the first 11 or so would come from excellent vault film elements, not with a few lesser sources scattered among the mix (which with Shout's sets, excellent transfers are the great majority)...but choosing to overload 6 episodes on three discs is still on them!

In 2012, I don't think that CBS themselves had yet established ownership of Route 66, but was probably in the process of asserting their ownership by paying off the Herbert B. Leonard estate...all his films, including pristine 35mm film elements for all of the very early episodes of Route 66, were safely held in some climate-controlled and bonded film vault contracted by him during his lifetime...Herbert B. Leonard died at age 84 in October 2006, not long before Roxbury released their first 9 episode sampler in 2007, after (probably) buying the DVD rights directly from Leonard's estate, which then elapsed at some point before 2012.

Being produced by another and separate company owned by Leonard (Shelle Productions), it seems that Columbia/Screen Gems and the successor Sony have always owned Naked City... Image, later RLJ, licensed it for DVD in 2002, with Image's latest DVD release emerging in 2005, with the complete series release in 2013...as I've stated before, only 60 of the 99 one hour episodes were remastered from pristine 35mm vault film elements, with only older transfers for the rest, including all of season one's 39 half hour episodes...

Guess what? Even though it involves a different studio and licensee, the same BS that afflicts Route 66 on DVD also does the same for Naked City!!!

This I will prove with my next post, using my own recently taken screencaps!