WHV Press Release: Dial M For Murder (3D Blu-ray) and Strangers On A Train (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[DVDvision]

Hopefully it'll work out.

 

[Ejanss]

The Warner press statements make mention of the fact that MPI handled much of the 3D restoration/synch on Dial M--
This wouldn't happen to be the MPI, of Dark Shadows/Sherlock Holmes fame? How are they on restorations, I remember their disk releases were never that good...

 

[ahollis]

Originally Posted by Ejanss /t/321724/whv-press-release-dial-m-for-murder-3d-blu-ray-and-strangers-on-a-train-blu-ray/60#post_3941453
The Warner press statements make mention of the fact that MPI handled much of the 3D restoration/synch on Dial M--
This wouldn't happen to be the MPI, of Dark Shadows/Sherlock Holmes fame? How are they on restorations, I remember their disk releases were never that good...

The full title is Motion Picture Imaging, it is a division of Warner Brothers and is the digital post production backbone for the. Warner Bros. Studio. It has nothing to do with MPI Home Video.

 

[RolandL]

I've never seen a 1954 poster for DIAL M FOR MURDER with a 3-D blurb on it.

From the pressbook:

 

[Robert Harris]

Does anyone know what the aspect ratio for Dial M is going to be?

I provided 1.85:1 documentation to Warner Bros. back in September 2011.

I believe that documentation is a good starting point, but prefer to mask at potential ratios, and see which works best for the film. My preference on Dial is 1.66, which is the same as Rear Window, which was released 90 days later.
RAH

 

[Bob Furmanek]

The late Dan Symmes had an original 22x28 half sheet with the 3-D snipe attached. It's pictured in his book "Amazing 3-D." That's the only one that has ever surfaced.
The Warner Bros. owned Golden Age 3-D titles are:
WB
House of Wax
Charge at Feather River
The Moonlighter
The Command
Phantom of the Rue Morgue
Dial M for Murder
The Bounty Hunter
MGM
Arena
Kiss Me Kate
RKO
Second Chance
Devil's Canyon
Louisiana Territory
The French Line
Dangerous Mission
Son of Sinbad
Lumber Jack-Rabbit
Popeye, the Ace of Space

 

[RolandL]

I believe that documentation is a good starting point, but prefer to mask at potential ratios, and see which works best for the film. My preference on Dial is 1.66, which is the same as Rear Window, which was released 90 days later.
RAH

1.85:1 on High-Def Digest

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I believe that documentation is a good starting point, but prefer to mask at potential ratios, and see which works best for the film. My preference on Dial is 1.66, which is the same as Rear Window, which was released 90 days later.
RAH

Paramount's studio policy for widescreen at that time was 1.66.
Warners was both 1.75 or 1.85. The documents for Dial M state 1.85.
Do not go by older open matte transfers. Many of them are zoomed in.

 

[RolandL]

1.85 looks fine on the screen shots from dvdbeaver

 

[ahollis]

 

[Robert Harris]

A distinct possibility.

RAH

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by RolandL /t/321724/whv-press-release-dial-m-for-murder-3d-blu-ray-and-strangers-on-a-train-blu-ray/60#post_3941512
1.85 looks fine on the screen shots from dvdbeaver

After comparing the ratios on Beaver, the 1.37 is definitely a field enlargement, but I also find the 1.85 too tight.

I much prefer the film in 1.66. Personal opinion.

RAH

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I much prefer the film in 1.66. Personal opinion.

I would want to see it in the ratio intended by the filmmaker.
WB never utilized 1.66 as an aspect ratio for new productions. The only titles they recommended for 1.66 were pre-widescreen films still on the shelf (Island in the Sky, A Lion in the Streets, Blowing Wild, Thunder Over the Plains, etc) when their filming policy switched to widescreen in May 1953.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I've just updated the website with even more details on the 3-D premiere in Philadelphia. See Myth #9: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths
Alfred Hitchcock initially had some difficulty adapting to a 3-D, widescreen canvas. Two weeks after completion of principal photography, he was interviewed by Barbara Berch Jamison for the New York Times. He stated:

"It was those early rushes. They looked so odd--skimpy, un-finished--."
And Hitchcock, who received his first screen credit thirty years ago as an art director, started to sketch one of the first scenes on an old envelope.
"See here--"these spaces on the sides--do you notice how empty they are--how bare? Well--it took me days to discover just what was wrong. Look at this--this is the flat picture--the way I used to prepare a scene. If I had three people in a scene, one up front, one slightly back, and one seated in a chair in the back of the frame. In the finished shot they'd all be up front anyway. You got no illusion of depth. Now, of course, with this 3-D thing, you have to watch out for that or you get what I got at first--lots of waste space on the sides, on the top. all around."
After Hitchcock's first shock of discovery, the early rushes were destroyed and he started all over again.
"Tremendous new problems with this medium. And most of them in the hands of the director. Don't let any of these actors tell you it's difficult--different. It isn't--not for them. In fact, 3-D even makes them look thinner!"
The studio has provided him with a brand new and improved kind of three-dimensional camera for which he has great respect, but no sense of aesthetic appreciation.
"It's a big, gross, hulking monster. It's heavy and immobile and frightening. Why--for one of my best scenes--where one of the leading players falls on a pair of scissors and kills himself--I couldn't even get this--this--thing under the scissors to create the illusion of the audience falling on those scissors itself. But we licked it. We built a big hole right under the stage and submerged the camera--so even though there will be no rocks thrown out of the screen, I don't think anybody will go home disappointed."

Interesting to note that the POV shot was not in the finished film.
Here's the "big, gross, hulking monster" aka All-Media camera:

 

[Robert Harris]

Interesting to note that the POV shot was not in the finished film.
Here's the "big, gross, hulking monster" aka All-Media camera:

Do the cameras survive?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Do the cameras survive?

I don't believe so. If one does, it's buried deep in the studio Archives!
Bob

 

[ahollis]

I could have sworn I have seen a still of Hitchcock standing next to the 3D camera directing Miss Kelly. Why I remember it is that the camera was so massive next the larger than life Mr. Hitchcock.

 

[RolandL]

I've just updated the website with even more details on the 3-D premiere in Philadelphia. See Myth #9: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths
Alfred Hitchcock initially had some difficulty adapting to a 3-D, widescreen canvas. Two weeks after completion of principal photography, he was interviewed by Barbara Berch Jamison for the New York Times. He stated:

"It was those early rushes. They looked so odd--skimpy, un-finished--."
And Hitchcock, who received his first screen credit thirty years ago as an art director, started to sketch one of the first scenes on an old envelope.
"See here--"these spaces on the sides--do you notice how empty they are--how bare? Well--it took me days to discover just what was wrong. Look at this--this is the flat picture--the way I used to prepare a scene. If I had three people in a scene, one up front, one slightly back, and one seated in a chair in the back of the frame. In the finished shot they'd all be up front anyway. You got no illusion of depth. Now, of course, with this 3-D thing, you have to watch out for that or you get what I got at first--lots of waste space on the sides, on the top. all around."
After Hitchcock's first shock of discovery, the early rushes were destroyed and he started all over again.
"Tremendous new problems with this medium. And most of them in the hands of the director. Don't let any of these actors tell you it's difficult--different. It isn't--not for them. In fact, 3-D even makes them look thinner!"
The studio has provided him with a brand new and improved kind of three-dimensional camera for which he has great respect, but no sense of aesthetic appreciation.
"It's a big, gross, hulking monster. It's heavy and immobile and frightening. Why--for one of my best scenes--where one of the leading players falls on a pair of scissors and kills himself--I couldn't even get this--this--thing under the scissors to create the illusion of the audience falling on those scissors itself. But we licked it. We built a big hole right under the stage and submerged the camera--so even though there will be no rocks thrown out of the screen, I don't think anybody will go home disappointed."

Interesting to note that the POV shot was not in the finished film.
Here's the "big, gross, hulking monster" aka All-Media camera:

The VistaVision cameras he used for North by Northwest were also big. Picture below from the WideScreen Museum . Click on it for a larger version.

 

[mikeyhitchfan]

After comparing the ratios on Beaver, the 1.37 is definitely a field enlargement, but I also find the 1.85 too tight.
I much prefer the film in 1.66.  Personal opinion.
RAH

I think that 1.66 would look very good as well but I would expect it to be 1.85. I did get a Japanese anaglyph bootleg that looked pretty crappy, but at least I got a sense of the 3D effect.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

1.66 would be better than 1.37 but it's not what Hitchcock and Warner Bros. intended.
The only US studios to specifically compose for 1.66 were Paramount (March 24 through January 1954) and RKO.