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The best of Jerry Lewis on DVD - Finally! (1 Viewer)

JimmyWilson

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Yes, Charlie Callas was a scream in THE BIG MOUTH. I think he's the only other comedic actor that at times can be just as zany, wacky, and completely NUTS as Mr. Lewis -- sometimes moreso -- but always hilariously so.
And let's not forget the great Buddy Lester (very funny in BIG MOUTH) and the talented comedic foils Del Moore and Harold J. Stone.



Paramount.
 

Peter Kline

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"Living It Up" and "Artists and Models" are Martin and Lewis films produced by Hal Wallis. Paramount, I believe, still owns them. Lewis' solo films were under a different contract with the studio.
 

Ronald Epstein

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The Big Mouth is probably my favorite
Jerry Lewis movie. As Jimmy stated above, it
featured a terrific supporting cast of great
comic talent....

....and who couldn't love a film that featured
a cameo by Colonel Sanders?
 

BryanV

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Yes that is my favorite part, it came as such a suprise and I think it was interesting pacing for the film. Critics however hated it (critics hate everything sentamental) and accused him of ripping trying to be Chaplin.

I'm glad The Family Jewels is listed in that artical as getting a comentary as I always wanted to here the backstory of when he gets the shaving cream in his eye and exclaims "That is an eyyyyyyyeeee burn!!!".
 

JimmyWilson

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BryanV, are you sure you're not thinking of 1962's Lewis vehicle IT'S ONLY MONEY? Jerry does the shave cream in the eye bit and exclaims "That is an eye burn! ......Oh, well....we have two!" (referring to the other unharmed eye) in a funny scene and great bit of off-the-cuff ad-libbing. It's while he is shaving and lathered about the face that he realizes he is the missing heir to the bearded Charles P. Allbright, Sr.'s fortune.
 

Chris U

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I'm stunned that nobody here has thus far commented on the fact The Patsy is terribly cropped. There are hair, forehead (and sometimes whole head) chops all over the place.

What a disgusting shame. The lazy "plug and play" robot at Paramount who was overseeing transfer of The Patsy should be shot.

I recall that The Patsy was out on laserdisc. Was the cropping so awful in that version as well? Anyone know what the original OAR was?

For what it's worth, it's not entirely clear to me that the OAR is wrong but it is painfully obvious that the framing of the image is wrong. There should be another 10% on top and maybe 10% less on the bottom if you truly maintain that 16x9 is the correct ratio.

Anyway, I want to repeat: I am appalled by the crop job. Thank God all the new Jerry releases aren't as fouled up as The Patsy.
 

Bob Furmanek

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For the Image laser release, I transferred THE PATSY from Jerry Lewis' personal dye-transfer Technicolor 35mm print. I don't recall the exact aspect ratio, but I can tell you that I personally got Mr. Lewis' approval on the ratio before proceeding with the transfer.

As much as I would have liked to, we did not transfer from the 35mm inter-positive because Image didn't want to spend any extra money. They wanted the film transferred as inexpensively as possible.

The DVD release is a new transfer done by Paramount, but I don't know which element was utilized.

Bob Furmanek
 

Michael Elliott

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Apologies if this is off topic but...

I'm not too familiar with the work of Jerry Lewis but I've been picking up a few of these DVDs. I plan on watching all of them but I didn't care too much for THE LADIES MAN. Is this considered one of his lesser titles? I did enjoy THE STOOGE however so is this considered one of the better Martin and Lewis films?

Also, what's the chances of a release of THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED? I've read a little about the film but don't know its history. Is the film completed but held up due to a lab bill not being paid or was the film only partially shot and needs to be completed? If it is completed, could Lewis, Paramount or someone just buy the film and release it on their own?
 
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I find most, if not all of JL's films from the early 60's look best in 1.66:1.....but that's just me.

THE PATSY and THE BELBOY Image laserdisc were both full-frame 1.33.1 (as well as Paramount's LD of THE LADIES MAN and NUTTY).


JW
 

Ronald Epstein

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According to an article I read in Entertainment
Weekly
a few weeks ago I don't think that title
will ever see the light of day.
 

Bob Furmanek

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"THE PATSY and THE BELBOY Image laserdisc were both full-frame 1.33.1"

Jayson, I produced those Image releases (plus THE ERRAND BOY) and the transfers are definitely not full-frame. The 35mm elements that I used were hard-matted to either 1.66 or 1.85, I don't recall. That was over ten years ago!

Bob
 

Chris U

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"Jayson, I produced those Image releases (plus THE ERRAND BOY) and the transfers are definitely not full-frame. The 35mm elements that I used were hard-matted to either 1.66 or 1.85, I don't recall."

I'm going to guess the former, at least for The Patsy. The Bellboy is framed well on the DVD. It's obviously intended to be watched at 1.85. Lewis composed his shots carefully and they look great.

But whoever transferred The Patsy was asleep at the wheel.

Truly, I find these sorts of blunders absolutely mystifying. Paramount is a professional organization, no? It's not a bunch of high school kids interning so they can learn how to do local cable programming. Is it really so hard to figure out that Jerry Lewis probably wanted his audience to see the top of his head and those of his actors?

Prior to The Patsy, the most blatant frickup I'd seen recently was a new print of Crime Wave that showed at the PFA. Here was a classic film noir featuring not only the great Sterling Hayden but also the screen-chewing Timothy Carey at his loathesome best: destroyed when someone tried to frame what was probably close to a full 1.33 into something like 1.66. Literally every scene had a head chop!! In some scenes all you could see of Sterling's head was his mouth (and his toothpick). This was a new 35 mm print from the original negative!!! How much does that cost? What kind of moron allows a monkey's hands get so close to great works of art??????? How would you react if your wedding photographer chopped off the top of your bride's head -- in every picture?????
 

Peter Apruzzese

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Chris:

Regarding Crime Wave, that sounds like it was the theatre's problem, not the studio. Since the film was from 1954, the theatre probably figured it was safe to run at ~1.66. I believe it was a Warner Bros. film, by 1954 a lot of their films were being framed for 1.75 projection. You should have mentioned it to the theatre's staff so they could correct it for later shows.
 

Chris U

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Peter writes

"Regarding Crime Wave, that sounds like it was the theatre's problem, not the studio. Since the film was from 1954, the theatre probably figured it was safe to run at ~1.66. I believe it was a Warner Bros. film, by 1954 a lot of their films were being framed for 1.75 projection. You should have mentioned it to the theatre's staff so they could correct it for later shows."

I can not say that such things have never happened at the Pacific Film Archive. But I'd bet my foot that the projectionist wasn't at fault. The projectionists I know who work there care a lot about the images that appear on the screen. I think I can recall noticing some futile efforts being made during Crime Wave to determine if there was additional information in the frame that wasn't being projected.

This was not a subtle cropping issue, where a claustrophobic feeling of "tightness" is conveyed to the viewer. Rather, it was a travesty.

Another obvious recent cropping foul-up is the recent DVD transfer of Bresson's "Balthazar". How is it possible that such errors are made and go unnoticed until it is too late to correct them???? Would such incompetence be tolerated in the treatment of any other art form? Imagine a book of Avedon's portraits where the heads of his half of his subjects are cut off above the eyebrows. Would such a book ever leave the publisher's warehouse?
 

Peter Apruzzese

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The only way they could do that during the show - that you could notice - would be to rack (frame) the image up and down - you would have then seen the extra-thick framelines on a print that is hard-matted. There's always the chance that the film cans were incorrectly marked "1.85", Warner always marks their repertory film cans with the aspect ratio and the projectionists may have simply followed that instruction. (Note: Warner is not always correct - the print of THEM that I played was marked with a "1.33" ratio on the cans, when the film was actually composed for 1.75)
 
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"I produced those Image releases (plus THE ERRAND BOY) and the transfers are definitely not full-frame. The 35mm elements that I used were hard-matted to either 1.66 or 1.85, I don't recall. That was over ten years ago!"

Hi Bob---My Image PATSY LD is a full frame SE edition (did they make a widescreen version as well????), but after checking the LD of THE BELLBOY, this is presented in 166.1. Sorry about that--I have a full-frame 16mm print of this title and I was thinking the LD was the same without checking it last night. Anyhow, I lost both ERRAND BOY and CINDERFELLA to laser rot a few years ago---too bad, I always enjoyed the supplemental features on those discs.

JW
 

Michael Elliott

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Thanks Ron. It's sad to hear that but hopefully one day someone will put up the money or one of the sides will back down.
 

Steve...O

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I don't have the article in front of me to know what all it said, but I remember reading somewhere that the reason it won't ever get released is that it doesn't really exist to put it out.

The gist of what I read is that some people seem to think there are reels of film containing a complete, or nearly complete, movie when in fact these reels don't exist (at least in any usable form).

Perhaps the knowlegable Bob Furmanek can shed some light on this? There is a lot of contradictory information out there about this project, and it would be nice to get the real scoop.

Steve
 

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