Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[Dan_Shane]

Originally Posted by Sinbad75

Exciting news about "Untamed" being released in January. More Tyrone Power is always a good thing! Hoping that "The Black Rose" is somewhere in TT's cue for the near future.

All scope prints I have seen of UNTAMED on TV have suffered from the CinemaScope mumps, making Mr. Power look heavyset. Hopefully the TT transfer corrects that.

[Jobla]

Looks like the October titles won't be shipping until around Oct. 31st.

[Aclea]

Will they go out by broomstick?

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Hellhound

Seems like their releases have occasionally come in eco-cases before. Not sure why this is so hard for them to deal with. Just ship a blank regular case or cases to the people that ordered the titles in question.

I don't know if TT is acquiring the cases separately anymore, but they did that at one point when Technicolor decided that they would only offer eco-cases. So, if they're already paying for the "unique" cases and for Technicolor to use them then, yes, I can see it being a big deal. IMHO, Technicolor should be rectifying this issue if they haven't already done so since they're the ones that screwed up.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Jobla

Looks like the October titles won't be shipping until around Oct. 31st.

Just got mine this morning.

[Jobla]

My order will shop out today or tomorrow, verified by email.

[Aclea]

A huge hit in 1954 but largely forgotten today, Black Widow at times plays like All About Eve reworked as a CinemaScope and Color by De Luxe whodunit revolving around who killed Eve? Indeed, its director-producer-screenwriter even pitched it as “the All About Eve of suspense pictures.” Was it Van Heflin’s successful Broadway producer, who took Peggy Ann Garner’s aspiring and oh so serious young writer under his wing only for his wife Gene Tierney to find her hanging in the bedroom? Was it Ginger Rogers’ insatiably poisonous diva who is never happier than when putting someone down, whether she knows them or not? Was it her easygoing husband Reginald Gardiner, who is used to everyone automatically assuming his last name is the same as his wife’s stage name? Was it her ex-flatmate Virginia Leith or her brother Skip Homeier, who was infatuated with Garner? Was it her uncle, actor Otto Kruger, who gave her her first step on the ladder?

The finger is so firmly pointed at Heflin, especially by the stories Garner told her friends and the letter she sent his wife about their imaginary relationship, that we know it can’t possibly be him even if he does insist on making himself look more suspicious, and a somewhat out of place George Raft doesn’t help it build up much tension as he walks through the investigation with uninspired professionalism as the cop on the case without ever making as much impact as whoever he’s sharing a scene with until he finally gets to bark in the last reel.

This doesn’t have Eve’s Joseph L. Mankiewicz behind the camera and at the typewriter, but with top screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath, The Gunfighter, How to Marry a Millionaire) directing, producing and adapting Hugh Wheeler’s pseudonymous novel it’s still a class act if notably short on suspense – for the first half this feels like a woman’s picture at least as interested in the marriages of glamorous people wearing fabulous clothes in expensive apartments as it is in who killed Garner.



Rogers may surprisingly get top billing for one of the smaller roles in the film (apparently her price for taking the part after Tallulah Bankhead turning it down) but it’s Heflin who takes centre-stage here, and surprisingly despite spending so much of his screen career suffering seems more at ease even when suspected of murder in this than in most of his other work. Gardner’s on particularly good form as the ‘kept husband’ who makes light of his humiliation, and genuine Broadway sensation Hilda Simms gets one good scene as a waitress in what would be her second and final film role before the twin professional handicaps of being black and blacklisted at a time when roles for non-white actresses were thin on the ground even if they weren’t suspected of being reds as well killed off her promising big screen career for good. Garner’s something of a weak link, managing the youthful seriousness about her vocation but less convincing with the sexual threat or calculating deviousness of the ‘purpose girl who forgot her purpose’ that emerges in the wake of her death: her relationship with Heflin seems so obviously surrogate parental that it’s hard to imagine anyone believing it developed into a crime of passion.

As befits its Great White Way backdrop, this feels very much like the kind of traditional well-made play that regularly tours the provinces as a staple of repertory companies, and could probably easily have been adapted as such with little alteration. More of a high-class soaper than a sweaty palmer, it’s an entertainingly glossy but resolutely undemanding number, the movie equivalent of a superior beach novel.

Twilight Time’s Bluray offers a fine transfer in the original Scope ratio, though there is a noticeable teal push in some scenes as per many Fox remasters, though in this case it doesn’t feel too out of place with the film’s color scheme. Extras are carried over from the DVD release – audio commentary by Alan K. Rode, featurettes on Gene Tierney and Ginger Rogers and, in 1.75:1, the original hyperbolic hard sell trailer (‘Not since the advent of CinemaScope has such powerful drama engulfed the screen!’ it screams, a claim which might have been a bit more impressive had the first CinemaScope film not been released only 13 months earlier) – with the addition of an isolated track for Leigh Harline’s score and booklet.

[T. Warren Scollan]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

This was just posted on Facebook:

Dear TT Family - just a heads-up that apparently our totally incompetent manufacturers, Technicolor, have shipped the 4 October titles in blue eco cases - we neither use blue cases, or the dreadful eco cases, so we will have to figure out a solution - for those of you who don't mind the blue eco cases - mazeltov! For the rest of us we'll have to figure out what to do. There is of course nothing to be done today, but we'll be on their (blue eco) case tomorrow...Please accept our apologies and we'll simply move on to the next crisis, whatever it may be!

No problem for me. I switch ALL my Blu-rays to a third party extra thin case due to the conflicting needs of limited room and a desire to keep the original graphics.

[tomkatholic]

TT just emailed out that all October orders shipped direct from them will include a free clear Blu-ray case. No word on if you ordered from ScreenArchives, though

[StarDestroyer52]

Originally Posted by tomkatholic

TT just emailed out that all October orders shipped direct from them will include a free clear Blu-ray case. No word on if you ordered from ScreenArchives, though

SAE says the same thing in their recent email.

[cinerama]

Originally Posted by Aclea

A huge hit in 1954 but largely forgotten today, Black Widow at times plays like All About Eve reworked as a CinemaScope and Color by De Luxe whodunit revolving around who killed Eve? Indeed, its director-producer-screenwriter even pitched it as “the All About Eve of suspense pictures.” Was it Van Heflin’s successful Broadway producer, who took Peggy Ann Garner’s aspiring and oh so serious young writer under his wing only for his wife Gene Tierney to find her hanging in the bedroom? Was it Ginger Rogers’ insatiably poisonous diva who is never happier than when putting someone down, whether she knows them or not? Was it her easygoing husband Reginald Gardiner, who is used to everyone automatically assuming his last name is the same as his wife’s stage name? Was it her ex-flatmate Virginia Leith or her brother Skip Homeier, who was infatuated with Garner? Was it her uncle, actor Otto Kruger, who gave her her first step on the ladder?

The finger is so firmly pointed at Heflin, especially by the stories Garner told her friends and the letter she sent his wife about their imaginary relationship, that we know it can’t possibly be him even if he does insist on making himself look more suspicious, and a somewhat out of place George Raft doesn’t help it build up much tension as he walks through the investigation with uninspired professionalism as the cop on the case without ever making as much impact as whoever he’s sharing a scene with until he finally gets to bark in the last reel.

This doesn’t have Eve’s Joseph L. Mankiewicz behind the camera and at the typewriter, but with top screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath, The Gunfighter, How to Marry a Millionaire) directing, producing and adapting Hugh Wheeler’s pseudonymous novel it’s still a class act if notably short on suspense – for the first half this feels like a woman’s picture at least as interested in the marriages of glamorous people wearing fabulous clothes in expensive apartments as it is in who killed Garner.



Rogers may surprisingly get top billing for one of the smaller roles in the film (apparently her price for taking the part after Tallulah Bankhead turning it down) but it’s Heflin who takes centre-stage here, and surprisingly despite spending so much of his screen career suffering seems more at ease even when suspected of murder in this than in most of his other work. Gardner’s on particularly good form as the ‘kept husband’ who makes light of his humiliation, and genuine Broadway sensation Hilda Simms gets one good scene as a waitress in what would be her second and final film role before the twin professional handicaps of being black and blacklisted at a time when roles for non-white actresses were thin on the ground even if they weren’t suspected of being reds as well killed off her promising big screen career for good. Garner’s something of a weak link, managing the youthful seriousness about her vocation but less convincing with the sexual threat or calculating deviousness of the ‘purpose girl who forgot her purpose’ that emerges in the wake of her death: her relationship with Heflin seems so obviously surrogate parental that it’s hard to imagine anyone believing it developed into a crime of passion.

As befits its Great White Way backdrop, this feels very much like the kind of traditional well-made play that regularly tours the provinces as a staple of repertory companies, and could probably easily have been adapted as such with little alteration. More of a high-class soaper than a sweaty palmer, it’s an entertainingly glossy but resolutely undemanding number, the movie equivalent of a superior beach novel.

Twilight Time’s Bluray offers a fine transfer in the original Scope ratio, though there is a noticeable teal push in some scenes as per many Fox remasters, though in this case it doesn’t feel too out of place with the film’s color scheme. Extras are carried over from the DVD release – audio commentary by Alan K. Rode, featurettes on Gene Tierney and Ginger Rogers and, in 1.75:1, the original hyperbolic hard sell trailer (‘Not since the advent of CinemaScope has such powerful drama engulfed the screen!’ it screams, a claim which might have been a bit more impressive had the first CinemaScope film not been released only 13 months earlier) – with the addition of an isolated track for Leigh Harline’s score and booklet.

I watched this recently. Must have been on TCM HD.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by cinerama

I watched this recently. Must have been on TCM HD.

Hey man, that response was totally worth you not using spoiler tags

[tomkatholic]

Originally Posted by StarDestroyer52

SAE says the same thing in their recent email.

Can confirm, my SAE order came with a clear case for the October title without needing to add anything to my cart

[The Great Owl]

I received my four October movies in the mail today, along with four clear cases added in with the package to replace the eco cases for these Blu-rays.

Twilight Time and SAE are class acts.

[CinemaScope]

DVD Beaver on Black Widow. It all looks a bit, er… oh what's that four letter word beginning with T?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...ow_blu-ray.htm

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

what's that four letter word beginning with T?

“Awesome”

The word that you’re looking for is, “awesome.”

The screencaps look awesome.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

DVD Beaver on Black Widow. It all looks a bit, er… oh what's that four letter word beginning with T?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...ow_blu-ray.htm

I know that a lot of Fox CinemaScope films can have controversial blues but I’d take Beaver caps with a grain of salt. A lot of their caps are presented in the incorrect color space. An example of this is TT’s “Seven-Ups” looking much better in motion than those Beaver caps.

[krasnoludek]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

DVD Beaver on Black Widow. It all looks a bit, er… oh what's that four letter word beginning with T?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...ow_blu-ray.htm

This post seems appropriate:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=74

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

I know that a lot of Fox CinemaScope films can have controversial blues but I’d take Beaver caps with a grain of salt. A lot of their caps are presented in the incorrect color space. An example of this is TT’s “Seven-Ups” looking much better in motion than those Beaver caps.

I reviewed it on the previous page, and yes, there is a teal push in some scenes compared to the TV print I last saw, but it wasn't as severe in motion as those screencaps appear. That it's not entirely unsympathetic to the film's color pallete in this case minimized the effect where it is most noticeable.

[oildude]

FYI from Twilight Time's web site, the upcoming November release of Charlton Heston's Antony and Cleopatra is Region A locked. Pre-orders begin this Wednesday at 4 pm.

Region Code: Region A (Americas, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Korea, SE Asia)

This is one of only a handful of TT releases that are locked. I have updated this information in the first post.