Blu-ray Review Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Blu-ray Review (Twilight Time) (1 Viewer)

[bujaki]

There's lots of blue because Fox films from this period had a blue look, in terms of set design, costumes and even blue gels so occasionally there are blue highlights in Ms. Mansfield's hair. That's not how the Bly-ray was timed, but how the film originally looked. It was shot that way. And..if there was a TINT over the images, as many of these posters claim, all the faces would look bluish, like space aliens, and they most certainly don't. And the red costumes, of which there are many, would have a bluish cast to them, and they don't. They're pure red. And yes, there is no teal whatsoever in this Blu, but certain reviewers who shall remain nameless started complaining about this so now lots of people parrot this. And I don't know why I even bother to posy about this anymore, because some people live in their own reality, and see what they see, even if that's not actually what they're seeing. And there are fewer and fewer of us left who saw these films when they came out and remember what they looked like.

Boy, we're old!

 

[lark144]

There's a very good movie, as Oscar winner in fact, called A Patch of Teal. Sondheim wrote a gorgeous song for Evening Primrose called I Remember Teal.

Ah, teal. I knew her well. We used to sit together in the cabana under the full moon. Such memories. Even though her cheeks were a little...well, teal.

 

[lark144]

Boy, we're old!

Getting there, anyway.

 

[haineshisway]

There's lots of blue because Fox films from this period had a blue look, in terms of set design, costumes and even blue gels so occasionally there are blue highlights in Ms. Mansfield's hair. That's not how the Bly-ray was timed, but how the film originally looked. It was shot that way. And..if there was a TINT over the images, as many of these posters claim, all the faces would look bluish, like space aliens, and they most certainly don't. And the red costumes, of which there are many, would have a bluish cast to them, and they don't. They're pure red. And yes, there is no teal whatsoever in this Blu, but certain reviewers who shall remain nameless started complaining about this so now lots of people parrot this. And I don't know why I even bother to post about this anymore, because some people live in their own reality, and see what they see, even if that's not actually what they're seeing. And there are fewer and fewer of us left who saw these films when they came out and remember what they looked like.

Sadly, they have been brainwashed and just will never understand. You can literally see the actors pass through the heavy blue gels and the blue highlights in their hair appear and disappear as they do. And, as you say (and I've been saying forever), a blanket tint is just such a dopey idea. Want to see a blanket tint - watch a tinted silent movie. But we're beating our heads against a brick wall, I'm afraid.

 

[lark144]

Sadly, they have been brainwashed and just will never understand. You can literally see the actors pass through the heavy blue gels and the blue highlights in their hair appear and disappear as they do. And, as you say (and I've been saying forever), a blanket tint is just such a dopey idea. Want to see a blanket tint - watch a tinted silent movie. But we're beating our heads against a brick wall, I'm afraid.

Yes, when the members of the "teal squad" see the actors pass through the light from the blue gels, they think, "Oh, they put in too much blue tint when they made the Blu-Ray" like it's all a matter of twirling a few dials, but that's in the ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHY. It's in the negative and you can see it as they pass back and forth through that light beam so that for an instant their hair is blue and parts of their face, but then it's normal again. It's only that portion of the frame where the blue gel is.

That's not TINTING, that the way the SCENE WAS ORIGINALLY LIT. You can twirl all the dials you want, but that isn't going to change, ever. This kvetching about a "teal bias" has to do, I'm afraid, with something that's very much a part of our contemporary culture now, that people want to see the colors they want to see, and they're not interested in learning about Leon Shamroy and the colored gels he used to create emotional and visual effects. They don't like it. They want to see Jayne Mansfield but they don't want to see her hair with blue highlights.

 

[haineshisway]

They'll have a heart attack if they watch Written on the Wind - talk about colored gels and yes LOTS of BLUE. But they don't complain about that - only about Fox.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Though, I agree with you guys about the color scheme in Fox movies, can we stop poking those that disagree with us. Aren't we, I'll try to be kind with my words, a little too mature in playing such childish games.

 

[lark144]

They'll have a heart attack if they watch Written on the Wind - talk about colored gels and yes LOTS of BLUE. But they don't complain about that - only about Fox.

I guess Sirk is famous for using blue gels, and it's a melodrama, so that's ok, as the color is "supposed" to be artificial, and besides, it's Criterion, and everything they do is perfect, right? But put those blue gels in a Fox comedy from the same year, and suddenly, according to a reviewer for another site who shall remain nameless, it's "an alteration of the original color values in order to match contemporary tastes".

 

[dukiejosh54]

There is not a single FRAME of teal. There IS blue. So, you can think it's too blue, but teal is an entirely different color and has become the silly watch cry of those who don't really understand color.

Thanks for the correction.

There's lots of blue because Fox films from this period had a blue look, in terms of set design, costumes and even blue gels so occasionally there are blue highlights in Ms. Mansfield's hair. That's not how the Bly-ray was timed, but how the film originally looked. It was shot that way. And..if there was a TINT over the images, as many of these posters claim, all the faces would look bluish, like space aliens, and they most certainly don't. And the red costumes, of which there are many, would have a bluish cast to them, and they don't. They're pure red. And yes, there is no teal whatsoever in this Blu, but certain reviewers who shall remain nameless started complaining about this so now lots of people parrot this. And I don't know why I even bother to post about this anymore, because some people live in their own reality, and see what they see, even if that's not actually what they're seeing. And there are fewer and fewer of us left who saw these films when they came out and remember what they looked like.

That doesn't explain why the TT blu-ray of The Gang's All Here a 1940's film, looks like it is having the same color issues as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. I'm not trying to say you are incorrect about 1950's films having a blueish color to them, but seeing a 1940's film look like it has the same blue tint applied to it makes me think they had to mess with some of the colors of their films.

 

[Will Krupp]

That doesn't explain why the TT blu-ray of The Gang's All Here a 1940's film, looks like it is having the same color issues as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter.

Hey Josh, are you sure you mean GANG'S ALL HERE? I don't remember that having the same look at all on either the TT or the Eureka discs. They're very different from each other (and I won't get in to which one I prefer) but I can't for the life of me see either of them as having anything approaching a blue bias. Now, I personally think you can make a case for CONEY ISLAND (1943) or THE BLACK SWAN (1942) but is GANGS the one you mean?

 

[dukiejosh54]

Hey Josh, are you sure you mean GANG'S ALL HERE? I don't remember that having the same look at all on either the TT or the Eureka discs. They're very different from each other (and I won't get in to which one I prefer) but I can't for the life of me see either of them as having anything approaching a blue bias. Now, I personally think you can make a case for CONEY ISLAND (1943) or THE BLACK SWAN (1942) but is GANGS the one you mean?

Yes I put in The Gang's ALL Here right after I watched Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? because i remembered the TT blu-ray's colors were off on it too. I thought it looked to have a similar blue tint at times but I could be wrong. The colors are much duller than the Eureka blu-ray. I own both of them and I prefer the Eureka because the colors pop more.

 

[Will Krupp]

I own both of them, I prefer the Eureka because the colors pop more.

(cough cough)

I said I wouldn't weigh in on which one I prefer.

but, ummm....

 

[RolandL]

I'm curious to see if The Girl Can't Help It will have this teal tint when it's released by Criterion.

From dvdbeaver DVD

From Amazon Criterion Blu-ray

 

[lark144]

Though, I agree with you guys about the color scheme in Fox movies, can we stop poking those that disagree with us. Aren't we a little too old in playing such childish games.

Thanks for the correction.

That doesn't explain why the TT blu-ray of The Gang's All Here a 1940's film, looks like it is having the same color issues as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. I'm not trying to say you are incorrect about 1950's films having a blueish color to them, but seeing a 1940's film look like it has the same blue tint applied to it makes me think they had to mess with some of the colors of their films.

Like Will, I see no blue bias on THE GANG'S ALL HERE. It's so badly faded there's no real blues on it at all, and if there's any kind of "bias", it's towards yellow and brown. The reds on the Twilight Time look more saturated and natural then on the Eureka--the rest is pretty much a mess--but that's the opposite of a "blue" bias.

And as far as a "blue bias" on THE BLACK SWAN, which Will mentioned, is concerned, that film is famous for being shot with blue gels. But again, we're talking about severely faded Eastman CRI's, so you can't really use these as example of color "bias" because there's not much color left in them, and what's there isn't what was intended by their makers.

 

[Will Krupp]

And as far as a "blue bias" on THE BLACK SWAN, which Will mentioned, is concerned, that film is famous for being shot with blue gels. But again, we're talking about severely faded Eastman CRI's, so you can't really use these as example of color "bias" because there's not much color left in them, and what's there isn't what was intended by their makers.

Just to clarfiy, I said if he was making a case for blue bias in an early 40's blu-ray, this film would make more sense to me. Whether the blue is a result of gels during production or not doesn't matter because it's still there. Not every mention of a preponderance of blue is a criticism of the transfer, honest! I was one of the staunchest defenders of the DESK SET transfer and still am!

 

[haineshisway]

Just to clarfiy, I said if he was making a case for blue bias in an early 40's blu-ray, this film would make more sense to me. Whether the blue is a result of gels during production or not doesn't matter because it's still there. Not every mention of a preponderance of blue is a criticism of the transfer, honest! I was one of the staunchest defenders of the DESK SET transfer and still am!

And you know I'm with you - a great and perfect transfer with incredible color that's absolutely correct.

 

[tenia]

They'll have a heart attack if they watch Written on the Wind - talk about colored gels and yes LOTS of BLUE. But they don't complain about that - only about Fox.

No heart attack and no complaint, since the new Written on the Wind disc doesn't look even remotely close in grading to what whoever is doing those Fox remasters has done on dozens of them. Unlike The Girl Can't Halp It, most likely because this one has been graded by whoever graded those Fox remasters (I suppose the tech details in the Criterion details will give us the answer, which I suppose will be Cineric).

That doesn't explain why the TT blu-ray of The Gang's All Here a 1940's film, looks like it is having the same color issues as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. I'm not trying to say you are incorrect about 1950's films having a blueish color to them, but seeing a 1940's film look like it has the same blue tint applied to it makes me think they had to mess with some of the colors of their films.

Looking at it through pattern analysis show that, as a whole, clusters of seemingly heterogeneous movies have restored gradings forming surprisingly homogeneous clusters, with each group almost perfectly overlapping with a given lab and each group almost perfectly never overlapping with each other. Ie : it's not movie-related, it's lab related.

No matter the movie, the DP, the way it was shot, when, where, how, there's a color signature coming from the lab so intense it takes over these elements and allow you to retrieve which lab did the grading. Which, of course, is a complete non-sense from a preservation stand point (and yet).

That's how you end up with at least 30 Fox movies graded in a similar fashion, hundreds of movies graded by Ritrovata in a similar fashion, hundreds of movies graded by Eclair in a similar, ... and of course pretty much 0 overlap between those, because I guess the dispatch of those restorations (especially between Ritrovata and Eclair) is just so well done (sarcasm inside) ?

The issue isn't so much how they look now, which is often different from how they looked on previous home video incarnations (but incarnations that about as often turned out to not be trustworthy references), but how they now share intensely similar ways of being graded to the point it's quite clear the resulting grading is the addition of something probably close to the movie's colors PLUS the lab's color signature. A color signature probably is inevitable, as each colorist has its own touch (even Sheri Eisenberg, I suppose), but it shouldn't be so intense as to look like an additionnal layer shading the underlying original color palette (and it explains why we're stumbling on the verbiage about the "tint" or the color bias : this issue isn't so much the end result than how it's recognizable overall from a "who is the colorist" perspective).

That's the issue here for Fox, and I doubt anyone can offer a technical explanation not pointing out at the colorist at some point. It's even more complicated for Eclair's gradings and Ritrovata's gradings, since we're talking about 100+ movies spanning over 50 years per lab, but if anyone wants to give it a try, I'm all ears. (side note : these are the most obvious examples, but Paramount has also been bringing some of their new remasters close to each other, especially in terms of skins' complexion, to the point one can also recognize them as forming a cluster, though it's anywhere near as obvious nor systemic as what we're discussing here).

Corollary : if Ritrovata were to be the ones grading Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? new restoration, it would have looked like the non-color-corrected Bruce Lee movies released by Shout then Criterion, and haineshisway's explanations about blue gels would certainly be given quite a hard time. This, again, is a non-sense regarding preservation : there's no reason for a movie's photography to change so drastiscally depending on who is grading the new restoration (and yet).

This all means we're basically re-living an updated version of what happened 25 years with magenta push, which I'm sure many people then defended as faithful for this and that reason, but that we do know to have actually been very wrong in both how the concerned movies weren't faithfully graded but also in how all these movies started sharing similarities they weren't supposed to have. Meaning we're now in 2022 and seemingly (judging by some people's posts here) still haven't learnt our lesson, which is quite dispiriting but also most certainly explains why these gradings' methods are allowed to continue and the list of impacted movies to keep growing.

It also explains why we're now seeing indie labels' taking this matter into their own hands (since it seems rightholders can't or won't or don't know better and the labs keep grading all these movies their ways), not so much in order to give these movies a totally different look, but in order to simply remove these color signatures (when they don't simply take the grading stage out of those labs).