A Few Words About While we wait for A few words about...™ The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Jefferson]

I see the exact colors on my tv screen as Chuck showed in his comparison. Every bit of that is accurate, as I see it on my home screen equipment. Let us suppose that this is the color that was "intended" on the blu-ray (and we all know I do not believe this), I hate that color. I can't stand one thing about it. I have posted less than a dozen times in the last few years, but this "alleged" error has brought me out of the woodwork. I am neither "picky", nor am I an "expert". I am not employed by a dvd studio. I am just a fan who is really let down by this blu-ray release of The King and I, and I am not alone. As I said above, this is one of the worst transfers of the 300 plus discs I own.

 

[Mark Booth]

I think FOX deserves a lot of praise for this release. However, The King and I is way too blue. It seemed to get worse as the film went on. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "white" face on the dancers in the Uncle Thomas section - it is bright blue.

I noticed. Here are a couple of screenshots from that sequence.

That image hasn't been modified from what came directly off of the Blu-ray. I pulled the image into Photoshop and sampled the facial color of the dancer in the front row center, just to the left (our left) of the cabin. She looked to be the one with the "whitest" white face. Here is a swatch of that color:

Image #2:

I sampled the area between the eyebrows of the dancer in the middle. Here's a swatch of that color:

THAT is what is on the Blu-ray. I don't know how it's possible for someone's TV to show gloves and white faces as acceptably close to white unless their TV or projector is out of calibration.

Mark

 

[Konstantinos]

I don't understand. These bright blue faces were white originally?

 

[Mark Booth]

I don't understand. These bright blue faces were white originally?

They were probably never pure white, but they sure as heck aren't supposed to be so blue. The makeup they are wearing is called "white face", not "blue face".

Mark

 

[Jefferson]

Right on, Mark Booth.

 

[classicmovieguy]

How depressing. And I know I wasn't alone in especially looking forward to "King and I" in this collection.... What went so wrong???

 

[Mike Frezon]

Can Vivian Blaine's Emily Edwards be any more different than her Miss Adelaide?

 

[classicmovieguy]

Speaking of Vivian Blaine and "Guys and Dolls", here is an episode from Bea Arthur's short-lived sitcom "Amanda's", in which Ms Blaine guest starred along with Robert Alda, one of her "Guys and Dolls" Broadway castmates.

 

[John Maher_289910]

Speaking of GUYS AND DOLLS, why did Hollywood think they needed to tamper with such a superb show? It's not as if they made changes to the Broadway show to make it more cinematic. It's about as non-cinematic as a film can get (MY FAIR LADY suffers the same malady). Although cinematic, they did too many alterations to the score and script of Tony and Pulizer Prize-winning HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. HOW TO SUCCEED... is a far better film than GUYS AND DOLLS, but by comparison to the show, it pales. Why is Hollywood so stupid?

 

[bujaki]

John,
Bet you didn't see the non-musical version of How to Succeed. Hollywood did shoot an alternate version with dialogue replacing the musical numbers, and released in countries where musicals were not considered popular. I saw it opening week in Puerto Rico, and was appalled. Many people must have complained because by the following week, the version with musical numbers premiered. So the film had two premieres in Puerto Rico.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Speaking of GUYS AND DOLLS, why did Hollywood think they needed to tamper with such a superb show? It's not as if they made changes to the Broadway show to make it more cinematic. It's about as non-cinematic as a film can get (MY FAIR LADY suffers the same malady). Although cinematic, they did too many alterations to the score and script of Tony and Pulizer Prize-winning HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. HOW TO SUCCEED... is a far better film than GUYS AND DOLLS, but by comparison to the show, it pales. Why is Hollywood so stupid?

It would take innumerable hands for people to count the number of complaints levied against Hollywood for their tinkering with the original Broadway treatments of various musicals-brought-to-the-screen.

Why, State Fair and South Pacific--relevant to this thread--immediately come to mind.

 

[bujaki]

State Fair was written for the screen. The stage version came much, much later, after the remake of the film.

 

[Mike Frezon]

State Fair was written for the screen. The stage version came much, much later, after the remake of the film.

D'oh! Classic brain fart!

 

[Mark Booth]

I don't care what Hollywood changes as long as the film is entertaining.

That pertains to films based on true stories too. Hollywood can do whatever it wants (as far as I'm concerned) as long as they produce something that entertains my brain. If I wanted to see the "real" story I'd watch a documentary.

Mark

 

[john a hunter]

After viewing selections from the Todd-AO Oklahoma, I think that this is a disc Fox should revisit when they come to issue it as a separate volume.
The transfer is spectacular on my 150-inch projection screen (or should that be 150 cm -- it's so confusing!), but the audio is indeed a problem.
I found that I got a satisfactory sound-stage if I cranked my amp to maximum so I can live with it.
But I do like switching occasionally from the standard audio track to the commentary and with this disc, that is plain impossible. The audio level on the commentary track is at a 'normal' level so switching between to commentary blasts you out of your seat .. the two tracks are simply incompatible.
Surely an adjustment of audio levels should be possible for a future release. I guess it's not so critical a fault (unlike The King and I) that there should be a replacement policy .. it's just that this fault -- and it is defnintely a fault, not a production choice -- does demand addressing in a future release.

I had hoped that my set would come with the other Aussie orders but just arrived this morning.
As has been said Oklahoma in Todd AO is just a wow and that includes the sound. Wide dynamic range that leaps to life and, for example, helps make you hang on to your seat during the runaway buggy ride at the opening of Act 2 ( and ignore that fact that it should be day for night).

Anthony, mate, you have a problem which you seen to acknowledge by saying you have to turn the amp up to max. Your sound system is seriously underpowered.

After Todd AO, the Cinemascope 55 transfers come in way behind. Fox should have remastered these from their 2004 photochemical restorations. Parts look great then we get dupey sections with smudgy colours and poor def. The " blue " problem didn't seem too bad and King looked as lot less blue than on some of the screen caps on this thread.

The sound on King makes you understand why it convinced De Mille to want stereo for his Ten Commandos which a few venues eventually got.Newman on full throttle.

 

[bigshot]

I have to agree on the Oklahoma sound. I don't have many blu-rays of catalog material that has the dynamic range this has. If you look at the Todd/AO documentary included as a special feature, you get a great example of the difference between analog sound and digital. One of the VU meters on the mixing board is pegging all the way to the right. You can do that with full coat mag but just try it with digital! Schmutz city! They obviously lowered the level to accommodate the engineers "burning in" the peaks... and it works. The sound on Oklahoma is a WOW!

 

[Joe Lugoff]

About Hollywood fiddling around with GUYS AND DOLLS:

I read somewhere that the reason "Bushel and a Peck" was removed from the film version was because Samuel Goldwyn didn't understand what those words meant. He assumed they were "dirty," slang for women's and men's thingamajigs, respectively.

I'm well aware that just because you read something in a book that doesn't mean it's true, but with Samuel Goldwyn, it very well might be.

 

[Lromero1396]

Judging by Fox's past reputation, a reissue of The King and I is not going to happen. I'm very displeased, since I've put off seeing the film for a long time to wait for a superior presentation. Alas, the color palate has been modernized with too much blue. Or it could be due to yellow dye fade.

In any case, it doesn't look like '50s DeLuxe color, which is tragic.

Kind of reminds me of how The Black Swan BD looked. Too much blue.

Anyway, I'll grab this collection at some point when it goes on sale for Oklahoma! and State Fair, but I'm really hoping they properly color-grade The King and I for the individual release, despite the odds set against that.

Also, what kind of audio are we dealing with here?
DTS-HD MA 5.1?

Does State Fair offer the Original Mono in lossless?

 

[davidmatychuk]

I had a look at the 1996 40th Anniversary Edition laserdisc version of "The King And I", looking for telltale blueness. I found none. The whiteface was bone-white. When I compared the 50th Anniversary DVD, the improvement in detail was dramatic of course, and the whiteface wasn't pure white, with added facial colours (rouged cheeks, skin tones) apparent. I'm sort of glad I haven't seen this problem Blu-Ray, and I think I'll wait till they fix it. By the way, the AC-3 audio on the laserdisc (L/C/R with mono surround channel) sounds great. The orchestra sounds very strong and detailed, and the front soundstage is much more directional than on the DVD (which is Dolby Digital 5.0 at 448 Kbps), which sounds in direct comparison like some sort of less directional home video mix made for the DVD.

 

[Doug Bull]

After following this thread from day one I have learnt that the majority of people see and hear things quite differently.
Although one common factor appears to be the blue tint in "The King and I" and even then there are those who don't see it or are not worried by it.

I decided that, in the scheme of things, what I thought of the set would add very little to what has already been well and truly commented on.

There are however a couple of things I would like to mention.

In defence of many criticisms, I found "CAROUSEL" to be excellent. Far and away the best it's ever looked before.

I would like to know the full story about the destruction and re-mastering of the 20th Century Fox early Technicolor films.
After continually complaining about Fox Technicolor titles on Laserdisc, DVD, DVD-R and Blu-ray, I've finally come to realise that almost all of these films suffer from the same fault, or is that fate.
Crushed heavy blacks. Something terrible happened during the restoration process in the past resulting in important detail being lost forever.
"STATE FAIR" is just another example of this.
It's quite obvious that there has been work carried out to try and improve the image. But what's been lost in the past cannot be restored.
However they were successful with the soundtrack and have cleaned it up very well. (Quite impressive for an optical soundtrack)

While I personally have no issue whatsoever with the glorious sound of "OKLAHOMA" (Todd-AO) I did want to mention how disappointed I was with certain aspects of the sound on both "CAROUSEL" and "THE KING AND I"
It's very clear that a lot of work has been put into the audio of these two titles, as the dialogue and the vocals have a crispness and clarity that are a big improvement over all previous editions. Portions of the 'June is busting out all over' number previously suffered from wow , but that has skilfully been corrected here.

The big (at least to me) problem or disappointment I think happened some time ago and obviously cannot be fixed.
Somebody at some earlier stage possibly decided they did not want to hear any hiss in the sound, so they ruthlessly and carelessly removed the very top frequencies.
We are now minus a lot of Alfred Newman's incredible percussion. Cymbals, bells, triangles, snare drums are either missing or been flattened out.
Even the wood blocks during the 'King and I' credit sequence have been somewhat subdued. (they dominate on the laserdisc)

So there you go.
Not bad from someone who wasn't going to say anything.

Verdict: I enjoyed the set very much and other than one particular off-color hiccup found it to be a big improvement over everything offered previously.

Doug.