Route 66 (1 Viewer)

Flashgear · Aug 25, 2021

Even though Image/RLJ (same ownership) released ALL of the DVD releases of Naked City between 2002 and 2013, and you would think that each and every copy of a particular episode on DVD would be derived from the same (not multiple!) film source, that too is not the case! G' Damn them to hell, ha, ha...

Case in point...the very first hour long episode of Naked City, A Death of Princes (Oct. 12, 1960)...I own all of the original Image sets released piecemeal from 2002-2005...and the complete series 29 disc set from 2013...somehow, the original and brilliantly remastered film source seen in the 2002 DVD release of A Death of Princes gets replaced by an inferior and damaged, though still pretty good, film source for the season two/complete series set in 2013!

I took these comparative screencaps of both copies of A Death of Princes...at the 6:53 mark the difference becomes dramatically obvious...on the newer (2013) release, they used a film with a blatant tape splice covering a small film tear as seen here...

Here's the same frame as seen on their older but brilliantly remastered 2002 DVD release!

So, even when it's the same licensee both times, the best film element sources can go astray from one home video release to another over several years...the truth is...the studio, vault and tech people who assemble film sources, transfer and author our discs usually don't give a hoot about getting it absolutely right...just good 'nuff will do for the marketplace, leaving the true aficionado to discover once again that he needs to own EVERY previous DVD release for a much-loved TV series in order to have it in the best and most complete condition possible...and I do not lack a sense of proportion, knowing full well that these are my 'first world problems'...but still, I wanna kill someone, ha, ha...

Other than using a film source with much more dirt and specks and a terrible film splice, the later copy of A Death of Princes is also somewhat darker, less sharp and generally less appealing to the eye...but not terribly so...so don't feel too bad if you only have the 2013 release, that's for me to agonize over...but it would take a painstaking examination of 59 other episodes in the whole run of Naked City in the 2013 releases to really know how bad the damage might be!

2002...

2013...still good PQ, but darker and with more obvious film dirt and specks...

2002...yes, that's 'Columbo' in his bad guy days...

2013...

2002...

2013...

2002...

2013...yes, filmed at night, but still darker than the older version...a different element entirely...

The 1960's · Aug 25, 2021

Flashgear said:
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!

Lol Randall! I almost didn’t post There I Am-There I Always Am at all. Last night I cut out more than 50% from the cap count. It’s almost as bad as the worst S01 episodes.

Flashgear said:
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...

I must say I still see this episode being inferior on the Roxbury set when compared to others on the very same disc yet far superior to the beans n’ franks copy. What is the extra 17 seconds, any idea? Couldn’t the Screen Gems bumper easily be tacked on to the ends of any inferior prints?

Flashgear said:
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!

Shout assumed right, after all have you read about what we’ve been examining here anywhere else? Probably not because most folks are just happy to have something rather than nothing at all. How many times have we read that here? Even I gave away my Roxbury sets years ago not realizing how superior they are. Decades ago with VHS, people would say to me why are you using the SP mode with only 2 hours when you could be recording 6 hours worth using the EP mode? They just couldn’t see the difference, let alone finding out when buying a new deck particularly one from a different manufacturer that their EP recordings couldn’t track correctly from one deck to another. Bottomline most people don’t care because they don’t notice these things. Maybe even when you lay it out side by side they look and think, not much of a difference, no big deal!

Flashgear said:
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!

Very interesting and comprehensive post! THANK YOU Randall for your time and expertise. Onward to your next post.

The 1960's · Aug 25, 2021

Flashgear said:
Even though Image/RLJ (same ownership) released ALL of the DVD releases of Naked City between 2002 and 2013, and you would think that each and every copy of a particular episode on DVD would be derived from the same (not multiple!) film source, that too is not the case! G' Damn them to hell, ha, ha...

Case in point...the very first hour long episode of Naked City, A Death of Princes (Oct. 12, 1960)...I own all of the original Image sets released piecemeal from 2002-2005...and the complete series 29 disc set from 2013...somehow, the original and brilliantly remastered film source seen in the 2002 DVD release of A Death of Princes gets replaced by an inferior and damaged, though still pretty good, film source for the season two/complete series set in 2013!

I took these comparative screencaps of both copies of A Death of Princes...at the 6:53 mark the difference becomes dramatically obvious...on the newer (2013) release, they used a film with a blatant tape splice covering a small film tear as seen here...
View attachment 110230

Here's the same frame as seen on their older but brilliantly remastered 2002 DVD release!
View attachment 110231

So, even when it's the same licensee both times, the best film element sources can go astray from one home video release to another over several years...the truth is...the studio, vault and tech people who assemble film sources, transfer and author our discs usually don't give a hoot about getting it absolutely right...just good 'nuff will do for the marketplace, leaving the true aficionado to discover once again that he needs to own EVERY previous DVD release for a much-loved TV series in order to have it in the best and most complete condition possible...and I do not lack a sense of proportion, knowing full well that these are my 'first world problems'...but still, I wanna kill someone, ha, ha...

Other than using a film source with much more dirt and specks and a terrible film splice, the later copy of A Death of Princes is also somewhat darker, less sharp and generally less appealing to the eye...but not terribly so...so don't feel too bad if you only have the 2013 release, that's for me to agonize over...but it would take a painstaking examination of 59 other episodes in the whole run of Naked City in the 2013 releases to really know how bad the damage might be!

View attachment 110232
View attachment 110251

2002...
View attachment 110233

2013...still good PQ, but darker and with more obvious film dirt and specks...
View attachment 110236

2002...yes, that's 'Columbo' in his bad guy days...
View attachment 110237
View attachment 110238

2013...
View attachment 110239
View attachment 110240

2002...
View attachment 110241
View attachment 110242

2013...
View attachment 110243
View attachment 110244

2002...
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View attachment 110247

2013...yes, filmed at night, but still darker than the older version...a different element entirely...
View attachment 110248
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View attachment 110250

Just amazing! You know I have every single Naked City incarnation and I never thought to look back and check any of those against the Image/RLJ release. The first season was only released by Image/RLJ, correct? If ever there was a season that needed remastering that would be it. Another great post. These two posts must have taken 4-6 hours to complete.

Thank you!!

The 1960's · Aug 26, 2021

The 1960's · Aug 27, 2021

Thank you guests (and loyal members) who have now elevated this thread to over 28K views!!

Mysto · Aug 27, 2021

The 1960's said:
Thank you guests (and loyal members) who have now elevated this thread to over 28K views!!

View attachment 110481

The 1960's · Aug 27, 2021

Mysto said:

Awwww. (Randall will not approve of a feline image here)

Thanks Marv, but I cannot take credit. There were many here before me who deserve that.

Mysto · Aug 27, 2021

The 1960's said:
Awwww. (Randall will not approve of a feline image here)

Thanks Marv, but I cannot take credit. There were many here before me who deserve that.

1-The cat is frowning
2-Sorry Neal - the post was for all guests and Loyal Fans that helped get it there
3- You already have credit for Obscure TV

The 1960's · Aug 27, 2021

Mysto said:
1-The cat is frowning
2-Sorry Neal - the post was for all guests and Loyal Fans that helped get it there
3- You already have credit for Obscure TV

Flashgear · Aug 27, 2021

Man, Susan Oliver was never more beautiful than she was here. Her troubled character in Between Hello and Goodbye really sticks with you. I don't know how Tod (or Buzz) could ever recover from the emotional torment that some of the girls of Route 66 could unintentionally inflict on these guys. I know what it's like to love a girl who is beyond helping, and it can throw you right out of the 'game' for years, even in your youthful prime...a real death of hope, and a fear of love itself. Not to get too real, sorry...

Between Susan Oliver's work in three memorable episodes of Route 66, we also hold her in our mind's eye as the immortal 'Vina' and the Green Orion Slave Girl of the original Star Trek pilot, The Cage...and she's one of the great girls of The Fugitive in the epic two parter, Never Wave Goodbye...and she did tremendous work on such shows as Rawhide, Wagon Train, Andy Griffith, The Defenders, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dr. KIldare, Mannix, Invaders, Police Story and The FBI, in a standout role as a heroin addict...one of the great girls of Classic TV...

I don't have it in my collection, but I've thought I maybe should get her 49 episode story arc in Peyton Place...she appeared first in episode 91, right through to episode 142 in 1966...I'd have to do the math on where those fit into the Shout! DVD sets (set two and three?)...but Peyton Place also has the great Ed Nelson, an actor I hold in high regard...Dorothy Malone, Barbara Parkins, Mia Farrow too, of course...a show I remember watching first run with the family, but I don't know if I'd like it as a 'Soap' today...but Susan Oliver's run as 'Anne Howard' partially coincides with Lee Grant's 'Stella Chernak' story arc...so there's that too...oh hell, I've already got too much to watch now, ha, ha...

Another fascinating thing about Susan Oliver is that she was an 'Aviatrix', an accomplished aviator who won the 'Powder Puff Derby' in air racing, and flew her single engine Piper Comanche trans-Atlantic and around the world in 1970...she's another one who died far too young at age 58 (Cancer) in 1990...

The 1960's · Aug 27, 2021

Flashgear said:
Man, Susan Oliver was never more beautiful than she was here. Her troubled character in Between Hello and Goodbye really sticks with you. I don't know how Tod (or Buzz) could ever recover from the emotional torment that some of the girls of Route 66 could unintentionally inflict on these guys. I know what it's like to love a girl who is beyond helping, and it can throw you right out of the 'game' for years, even in your youthful prime...a real death of hope, and a fear of love itself. Not to get too real, sorry...

Between Susan Oliver's work in three memorable episodes of Route 66, we also hold her in our mind's eye as the immortal 'Vina' and the Green Orion Slave Girl of the original Star Trek pilot, The Cage...and she's one of the great girls of The Fugitive in the epic two parter, Never Wave Goodbye...and she did tremendous work on such shows as Rawhide, Wagon Train, Andy Griffith, The Defenders, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dr. KIldare, Mannix, Invaders, Police Story and The FBI, in a standout role as a heroin addict...one of the great girls of Classic TV...

I don't have it in my collection, but I've thought I maybe should get her 49 episode story arc in Peyton Place...she appeared first in episode 91, right through to episode 142 in 1966...I'd have to do the math on where those fit into the Shout! DVD sets (set two and three?)...but Peyton Place also has the great Ed Nelson, an actor I hold in high regard...Dorothy Malone, Barbara Parkins, Mia Farrow too, of course...a show I remember watching first run with the family, but I don't know if I'd like it as a 'Soap' today...but Susan Oliver's run as 'Anne Howard' partially coincides with Lee Grant's 'Stella Chernak' story arc...so there's that too...oh hell, I've already got too much to watch now, ha, ha...

Another fascinating thing about Susan Oliver is that she was an 'Aviatrix', an accomplished aviator who won the 'Powder Puff Derby' in air racing, and flew her single engine Piper Comanche trans-Atlantic and around the world in 1970...she's another one who died far too young at age 58 (Cancer) in 1990...
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Yes a very special woman we were blessed to have been able to experience. More fabulous stuff from the triple RRR-Route 66 Randall! A great prelude to a superb episode screen cap presentation!! Quite a filmography from this fascinating multi-talented gorgeous actress. Don't forget about her role in 1960 S01E25 of The Twilight Zone, People Are Alike All Over. Finally, and perhaps my brain is completely fried Randall but I (unfortunately) purchased all 5 parts of the Peyton Place DVD series and I do not recall Ms. Oliver is any of them.

The 1960's · Aug 27, 2021

A brief word about The Women of Route 66 screen cap presentations. I think of these as a graphic novel, (or as Jeff called it, photo essays), telling the complete story from beginning to end using pictures rather than seeing motion and hearing sound. If you have never actually watched any of these Route 66 episodes and you don’t want to know that a plot development is about to be revealed, then you should not view these. I have attempted to utilize this forum’s Inline Spoiler Alert feature but it wasn’t designed for use with multiple images. Another alternative for those of you who do not have access to Route 66 on DVD or streaming, is to see every episode here on YouTube prior to viewing these caps. Thank you all and enjoy!