Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[RedHarvest]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

Is that the one with Dustin Hoffman as the graduate student?

No, the one with John Travolta as a country boy who moves to the city...

[benbess]

Although the picture quality for Captain from Castile can never be what it was in the late 1940s, what we still have is mostly pretty good. From my childhood to my 20s I went to revival movie theaters where the prints were often in rough shape—faded, scratched, and dirty. Compared to that, my little home theater for playing blu-rays still seems like a miracle each time it whirs to life and plays an old movie. With Captain of Castile as your time machine you can go back to 1947—and 1518—to enjoy this sometimes poignant adventure. Captain from Castile was expensive, and apparently never earned back its huge for the time production budget of c.$4.5 million, which would be about $60 million today....


PS Anyone have a guess about when the next TT sale might be?

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by benbess

PS Anyone have a guess about when the next TT sale might be?

I have a feeling we're due for at least a $15 sale this month.

[Hoke Moseley]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Widmark is highly-anticipated for me

Is he coming back from the dead?

[Widescreenfilmguy]

Why do I keep reading CinemaScope Technicolor on blu-ray, these are Eastman Color productions if CinemaScope was involved.

[benbess]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

Why do I keep reading CinemaScope Technicolor on blu-ray, these are Eastman Color productions if CinemaScope was involved.

In the opening credits for some movies in the CinemaScope era you can find the Technicolor name (I believe for the prints), but you're right it's not the 3-strip process, which was phased out at this time.

[Widescreenfilmguy]

Originally Posted by benbess

In the opening credits for some movies in the CinemaScope era you can find the Technicolor name (I believe for the prints), but you're right it's not the 3-strip process, which was phased out at this time.

Yes, Technicolor produced the prints only so what we are seeing on these discs are either from the Eastman Color OCN or IP.

[The Great Owl]

I just pre-ordered...

Stagecoach
The Snake Pit
Melvin and Howard
Three Coins in the Fountain

[Aclea]

The Quiller Memorandum was originally intended by the Rank Organisation to launch a series to replace the Harry Palmer films after Harry Saltzman took them to Paramount and subsequently United Artists after both studios dropped out of Saltzman's Battle of Britain. It got off to a good start at the box-office but never caught on outside the big cities, although the BBC did resurrect the character for a short-lived series with Michael Jayston in the 70s. Ironically not only filming but also some locations overlapped with Funeral in Berlin, resulting in at least one bizarre photo-opportunity of the two jaded spies happily swapping notes.



The battleground is political ideologies again, but unlike other sixties spies and despite being set in West Berlin, Quiller isn't concerned with cold war politics or communist spy rings (you don't even see the Berlin Wall) but instead with the far right. Well, unless you saw it in Germany on its original release, that is, where Max Von Sydow's cabal of neo-Nazis became communists in the dubbing process. Its use of locations is exemplary, the Nazi focus on healthy minds and healthy bodies working its way into the choice of settings, from swimming pools to schools, and the influence and flow of history illustrated by the die-hard neo-Nazis hiding in the bombed out ruins of the old Germany while the next generation of fascists work out of gleaming modern buildings that are part of the rebuilt Germany. George Segal's Quiller is even briefed in the Olympic stadium Hitler had built for the 1936 Games by Alec Guinness's ever so slightly camp salami-munching cockney.

Perhaps alone among spy thrillers, this is the one where everyone knows the screenwriter's name but virtually no-one remembers the director's. Harold Pinter's often sadistically playful script is without doubt a cut above, preferring unspoken deceptions and more insidious mind games to action scenes. Indeed, the first interrogation scene between a drugged Segal and a quick-thinking Von Sydow is a particularly smart and convincing bit of wordplay as the one tries to steer the questions away from the subject with thoughts of sex only for the other to use them to lead the cross-examination back to the point, while the rematch at the end of the film sets the spy a far more effective moral conundrum.

Certainly as Michael Anderson's reputation has diminished and Pinter's grown it's become one of the few films where all credit has gone to the screenwriter, but Anderson's direction is surprisingly strong, particularly seeing the film in its original Scope ratio. John Barry's score is quietly impressive too, eschewing the downbeat jazz of The Ipcress File and the boldness of his Bond scores for a haunting loneliness that helps set Quiller apart from his more popular predecessors.



Quiller never had much luck on home video in the UK - the first Carlton DVD issue had serious edge enhancement problem while Network's subsequent special edition DVD went in the other direction with a lack of detail, with some shots appearing out of focus and faces tending to be flattened. Network's UK Blu-ray release was much more disastrous - there's more detail, but there's also a LOT of digital noise, most noticeable in the film's many night scenes where it swirls around like snow while the light fluctuates as if the whole film were shot with a flickering lightbulb just about to give out. The French BD used the same master.

Things looked so bad as the film moved so far down Twilight Time's release schedule that I thought they'd dropped the title. Instead they were waiting for Fox to remaster it, and what a truly gorgeous remaster it is. Absolutely none of the problems that plagued previous editions are present: definition is perfect without a hint of edge enhancement, no swirling snowstorms of digital noise or fluctuating light and strong color with no obvious signs of modern revisionism (I have both 16mm and 8mm prints of this one to compare). It's a real thing of beauty and well worth the long wait.

Sadly it doesn't have the extras from Network's UK release (35-minutes of on-location interviews with Segal, Von Sydow, Guinness, Senta Berger, Anderson and producer Ivan Foxwell, textless opening and end title footage, stills gallery and the UK theatrical trailer) but offers an alternate package: audio commentary ported over from the US DVD, the US trailer in very bad shape (basically the same as the UK trailer but with a different voice over artist and Fox credits), booklet and an isolated track for John Barry's superb score that's long been deleted on CD. TT for the win for real with this Memorandum.

[IdeaOfEvil]

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I'm gonna try here first =)

I've owned the TT bluray release of Inherit the Wind for a couple years now, and I just recently popped it in for the second time. The first time I did, there was an audio problem that was making it unwatchable, and this second time I'm watching it now it's still there =/

There's an odd dip in decibels at the beginning of every sentence any actor speaks, as if someone has their handle on the volume button and was constantly turning it down and gradually back up to the normal level during the sentence being spoken. I've kept my MGM dvd for all these years because that disc has never given me the same problem as the bluray does, and I'm watching it on a different tv today than what I used to own when I first bought the disc.

I have no extra speakers or sound system - just the tv speakers. There are no audio settings on the tv that is auto correcting any noises coming from the disc, and the bluray player's audio settings are set just fine (at least "just fine" in that every other movie I've ever watched has never given me audio problems).

None of the voices are even until mid sentence, while music and sound effects are constantly fine. I don't know if this is a disc problem or an equipment problem, or an authoring problem, but I'm thinking of buying the Kino Lorber re-release just to see if their disc has the same audio issues as this one.

Anyone have any thoughts or similar issues??

Thanks!

[bdgking]

Since SAE announced their low quantity titles they have not updated that for about a week now . I thought they would have updated that again .

Anyways what I can see tell the title Hardcore is under 40 units remaining before it's sold out .

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by IdeaOfEvil

[Show spoiler]I wasn't sure where to post this, so I'm gonna try here first =)

I've owned the TT bluray release of Inherit the Wind for a couple years now, and I just recently popped it in for the second time. The first time I did, there was an audio problem that was making it unwatchable, and this second time I'm watching it now it's still there =/

There's an odd dip in decibels at the beginning of every sentence any actor speaks, as if someone has their handle on the volume button and was constantly turning it down and gradually back up to the normal level during the sentence being spoken. I've kept my MGM dvd for all these years because that disc has never given me the same problem as the bluray does, and I'm watching it on a different tv today than what I used to own when I first bought the disc.

I have no extra speakers or sound system - just the tv speakers. There are no audio settings on the tv that is auto correcting any noises coming from the disc, and the bluray player's audio settings are set just fine (at least "just fine" in that every other movie I've ever watched has never given me audio problems).

None of the voices are even until mid sentence, while music and sound effects are constantly fine. I don't know if this is a disc problem or an equipment problem, or an authoring problem, but I'm thinking of buying the Kino Lorber re-release just to see if their disc has the same audio issues as this one.

Anyone have any thoughts or similar issues??

Thanks!

I don't own the TT disc but I checked my Kino disc and I don't hear any issue you are describing.

[T. Warren Scollan]

Originally Posted by Widescreenfilmguy

Yes, Technicolor produced the prints only so what we are seeing on these discs are either from the Eastman Color OCN or IP.

Technicolor also produced Imbibition Dye Transfer Prints made from Ansco Color OCNs. Specifically for MGM in the early '50s. From '52 till '54 Technicolor films were made both with a 3 strip camera and from a single color OCN. Last 3 strip was "Foxfire" in early '55.

[Widescreenfilmguy]

Originally Posted by T. Warren Scollan

Technicolor also produced Imbibition Dye Transfer Prints made from Ansco Color OCNs. Specifically for MGM in the early '50s. From '52 till '54 Technicolor films were made both with a 3 strip camera and from a single color OCN. Last 3 strip was "Foxfire" in early '55.

Yes

[Dailyan]

From Facebook:

Originally Posted by Twilight Time

Two screen icons share today as a birthday, an unshakable place in movie fans’ memories and starring roles in some pretty potent Twilight Time hi-def Blu-ray releases. Gregory Peck (1916-2003) stars in THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM (1944), THE BRAVADOS (1958) and BELOVED INFIDEL (1959). Spencer Tracy (1900-1967) is unforgettable in BROKEN LANCE (1954) and THE LAST HURRAH (1958). Catch up with their exemplary work, available from http://www.twilighttimemovies.com or http://www.screenarchives.com. And look for more intriguing Peck TT releases later this year.

I hope that's code-word for a release of "The Gunfighter".

[SeanJoyce]

Would love The Stalking Moon from TT, a unique horror/suspense western with Peck leading the charge and Eva Marie Saint/Robert Forster in tow.

[Brad1963]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

From Facebook:



I hope that's code-word for a release of "The Gunfighter".

Sounds like more that one film. Perhaps The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit also.

[Thomas Veil]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Would love The Stalking Moon from TT, a unique horror/suspense western with Peck leading the charge and Eva Marie Saint/Robert Forster in tow.

Pretty sure that's with WB so probably not; would love it on Blu-ray though, one of my favorites.

I'm thinking one of the Pecks might be Mackenna's Gold. It was mentioned by them a long time ago. Which I would also love.

[xochipilli]

Originally Posted by Brad1963

Sounds like more that one film. Perhaps The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit also.

Those two are almost definitely coming: Park Circus lists 4K DCPs on both. Personally I'd also really like Mackenna's Gold, Marooned and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Would love The Stalking Moon from TT, a unique horror/suspense western with Peck leading the charge and Eva Marie Saint/Robert Forster in tow.

That's Warners, part of the National General library that they ended up with (the films they produced are for the most part split between Paramount and Warners).

Likely suspects:
The Gunfighter
MacKenna's Gold
The Chairman
Arabesque (if KL don't have it)
Mirage
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
Marooned
Shoot Out
Captain Newman M.D.
I Walk the Line
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Behold a Pale Horse

Wild card:
Amazing Grace and Chuck