Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Has anyone run Dr. Zhivago?

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Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 12-28-2007, 03:38 AM:

Hello. I'm going to be running Dr. Zhivago(35mm) next week at my theatre and I have some questions for anybody that has run this show. We don't have the print yet so I'd like to get some information ahead of time to help me out.

Does it open with music before the studio logo (similar to Lawrence of Arabia) and if so, about how much time is there before the logo?

Is there an intermission and if so, does it lead back in with music?

Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure to see this on the big screen yet and none of the operators I work with have seen or run it before either.

Any information about the presentation of this film would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike Schulz

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-28-2007, 03:59 AM:

I ran Zhivago back in '75 and it was a roadshow print with what you have asked requests on: the overture, the intermission music, but as for the duration of the music, I do believe it was either 2 to 3 minutes in length.

For Metrocolor, the color was fantastic - great photography. But ran it in mono even though I had a mag/optical print.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-28-2007, 04:28 AM:

quote: Mike Schulz
Hello. I'm going to be running Dr. Zhivago(35mm) next week at my theatre and I have some questions for anybody that has run this show. We don't have the print yet so I'd like to get some information ahead of time to help me out.

Does it open with music before the studio logo (similar to Lawrence of Arabia) and if so, about how much time is there before the logo?

Yes, it starts with the overture music just printed on black film, there's nothing on screen, unlike West Side Story, for example. I haven't seen it for years, but I think it's probably about 2 minutes or so.

quote: Mike Schulz
Is there an intermission and if so, does it lead back in with music?

Yes, there is an intermission. The train is run off the main line into a siding to allow another train to pass. As this train, a very military-looking one, passes, the crowd call out 'Strelnikov!'; a woman says 'Yes, that's Strelnikov', and he is seen standing at the back of the train. That's the last scene of the first part.

There is no music during the intermission, but there is Entre'act music leading into the second part; this is shorter than the overture music.

quote: Mike Schulz
Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure to see this on the big screen yet and none of the operators I work with have seen or run it before either.

Any information about the presentation of this film would be much appreciated.

I've never seen it on 35mm; I've seen the 70mm blow-up twice, and I have the Laserdisc of it. Of course, it's possible that the 35mm version is different to those that I've seen, that new prints are different to the original ones, or that parts of your print could be missing; you really do need to run this before the show, if you possibly can.

The original sound mix for 35mm was 4-channel mag, and mono optical. I don't know what's on the new prints I assume they're stereo optical, which can reproduce the same channels as the original mag, but I don't know if they have digital, and if so, whether the sound has been re-mixed for stereo surrounds, which the original release formats didn't have.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 12-28-2007, 08:05 AM:

After the music the second act starts with the sound of screaming train whistles over black picture. After a moment the picture comes on with the expanding entrance of a tunnel as the train emerges. On some presentations management called for skipping the intermission. In a changeover house you could overlay the screaming whistles track from the incoming reel just after the woman says "That's Strelnikov" and keep the picture of the receding train from the outbound reel. Then changeover to the inbound picture just as the tunnel opening expands and the train emerges.

When I ran 35mm prints in the late 60s the overture music was missing but the entr'acte was intact. No telling what is on a print today.

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 12-28-2007, 11:06 AM:

Thanks guys. I will have the print in time to inspect all of the reels, but might only have the chance to run one or two reels before the big show. I will make sure I find the intermission reels to try and time the music so I can mark my changeover.

I'm not sure when the last time they struck new roadshow prints, but there is no way it will be from the 70s [Smile]

Anyways, thanks for the info guys, I really appreciate it.

-Mike

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-28-2007, 12:34 PM:

Mike, please let us know how it turns out. You can also post detailed information about your print on the Feature Info & Trailer Attachments forum here. Posting contact information is helpful too; I assume you are getting this directly from MGM Classics, but let us know. Especially useful is if the title has had new stereo prints struck with either SR, SRD or DTS tracks.

Up until the last time I ran it, in the mid-90s, you either played it in 4trk mag (we did) or mono. Nowadays it is not quite so bad because you can, as we have done a number of times, play the music portions that are easily obtained from a DVD version when that material is missing from the print.

If your print has all the Overture, Intermission title, Entracte and Exit music intact, to the art house folk here, getting a complete print with those elements is like gold. In early days one would tremble opening the cans of a Roadshow title, wondering if you were going to get a complete print or one that was hacked up by the [bs]

houses so they could eliminate any vestige of Roadshow presentation.

Roadshow elements to these scumsuckers evidently is akin to throwing holy water on a vampire. The minute the grind houses see Roadshow elements, they grab their splicers with their cold, dead hands and splice it off -- then they DON'T splice it back on when returning the print. May wooden stakes be driven through their rotting hearts and they burn in bowels of hell where they came from whilst for all eternity their gonnads are whacked with a baseball bat everytime a Roadshow print plays without its Intermission. [thumbsup]

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-28-2007, 01:22 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
Especially useful is if the title has had new stereo prints struck with either SR, SRD or DTS tracks.

(Some) prints from the film's 30th anniversary re-release in 1995 were in DTS.

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 12-28-2007, 02:43 PM:

I'm with Frank on that last paragraph as I had the pleasure of running this film first run in 4 track Mag with all the roadshow footage.

I later had the displeasure of being ordered to run this same print in the garbage house in the back. These consoles had a very early Christie automation where the cue detector was a magnetized pickup similar to the magnetos found in a lawn mower engine. (It needed ferrous metal cues to trigger).

I protested to no effect and at the end of the run there was almost no sound on the mag tracks.

I hope Syufy and not I end up in Franks version of the Bowels of Hell.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-28-2007, 03:03 PM:

Dr. Zhivage was serialised on BBC Radio 4 a few weeks ago, and O saw the book on display in W H Smiths at about the same time. I wondered why; it seems that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the original publication of the book in English translation.

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 12-28-2007, 04:33 PM:

Commenting on Mike's note about "some" of the 1995 prints being DTS: All of them have the DTS track, as long as WB's distribution dept. can supply the discs. The DTS sound is very impressive.
If you only have time to run some of the print, be sure you check reels 1 and (I think) 6, to be sure the overture and intermission music is there.
I checked a couple of prints for an Academy run a while back. One of them had the music removed by some #(%&% theater, while the other was in perfect and complete condition.
Your booker should discuss this with WB's Classic department, and request that you get a proper print. Otherwise, you might just get the first one off the shelf.

RPM

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 12-28-2007, 08:28 PM:

The print came in today and it is one of the newer ones from Warner Bros. I've inspected 6 of the reels so far and it seems to be in pretty good shape. It is complete with all of the overture music as the lead-in and also the intermission card. The print has timecode on it for DTS but the discs were not present in the cans which I was informed today that they should always be in the cans no matter what venue the film is playing at.

It is too bad that my theatre doesn't have DTS installed because I would love to hear the 6-channel mix they did for it. I offered to install a unit in the rack for the show but they thought it would be too much of a hassle just for one show.

Thankfully a nice projectionist at one of the previous venues the print was at had taped an instruction sheet to the inside of the cans with all of the information I needed.

I will definitely let you guys know how things went with my show. I'll be running it on the 2nd.

Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 01-12-2008, 12:21 PM:

This is a little late for Mike's show, but I should add that the 35mm DTS print I ran of "Zhivago" had an A-type optical track. I think the credits listed "DTS Stereo".

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 01-12-2008, 01:48 PM:

Make sure you let WB know the discs weren't in the can, they seem pretty anal about that (at least in my experience).

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 01-24-2011, 08:56 PM:

It has been 1108 days since the last post.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-24-2011, 08:56 PM:

Yuck - my print was pretty beat up.

Overture missing footage at start
Footage missing from ends of reels - over 3 feet in one instance
All reels were splicy - Reel 3 has a 5' stretch with 14 splices in it [Eek!]

Heads and tails dirty and badly scratched (and shoe polished)

[puke]

It did have the DTS discs, though. [thumbsup]

Discs 1A and 1B cover Act One (Reels 1-8)
Disc 2A (one disc only) covers Act Two (Reels 9-12)

MUSIC:
Overture is stated as 4min 33sec
Intermission card is short (End of Reel 8)
Entre' Acte appears at Start of Reel 9 and is stated as 2min 6sec

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 01-24-2011, 09:07 PM:

Doctor Zhivago: The Musical opens up soon in Sydney.

web page

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 01-25-2011, 10:25 AM:

Manny,
I hope you complained to WB about the condition of this print.
Something this beat up should not be sent to customers.

DM

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-25-2011, 12:09 PM:

Does complaining make a difference now? It sure didn't used to.

We got a "Sound of Music" print in 1990 that was so faded, the green hills were grayish pink. Scratched and beat-up like you wouldn't believe. We were told it was the best print available and we still had to pay full rental for it. I apologized to all the customers as they came in and again as they left (some of whom walked out in the middle).

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 01-25-2011, 02:47 PM:

BluRay sure has solved that problem for you then.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-26-2011, 12:37 AM:

Complaint was immediately registered and I provided some specific examples in the report card that WB always includes with their prints.

This is one of those cases where I think we ought to log the print # in those threads where we leave info about the prints we handle -- so that repertory operators can share info on which prints were good and which ones should be avoided. Next time we order "Zhivago" I'm sure we'll specify which print we will NOT accept.

(I do plan on posting but I don't bring the inspection reports home and I can't seem to find time when I'm at work.)

Brad - any objection to posting sources and print numbers for repertory titles?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-26-2011, 01:51 PM:

quote: Manny Knowles
the report card that WB always includes with their prints.

Report card? We ran THE POLAR EXPRESS at Christmas 2009 and there was no report card with that print. (Denver depot). The print was perfect though.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-26-2011, 02:17 PM:

In my experience, WB has always shipped a report card with their archival prints.

Posted by Matt Barth (Member # 3429) on 01-30-2011, 06:34 PM:

I showed one of the '95 prints back in 2003 and it was really nasty. I'd grown used to being careful with prints like that but we all got a bit nervous building onto the platter and not being positive it was going to fit.

...it did.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-14-2011, 09:27 PM:

Going through my camera-phone, I found this photo I took and never got around to posting...so here it is:

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 02-28-2011, 01:54 PM:

I've only ever seen it as 70 mm blow-up, but it's being shown in digital at the Bradford Widescreen Weekend next month.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 02-28-2011, 02:45 PM:

I know it's sacrilege to say so, but I thought the 4K presentation that was shown at the AMIA Reel Thing conference last year at the Linwood Dunn looked and sounded spectacular. I'd have no qualms opting for that presentation.

Don't know if that file's available yet, though.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-28-2011, 09:43 PM:

quote: Jack Theakston
I know it's sacrilege to say so, but I thought the 4K presentation that was shown at the AMIA Reel Thing conference last year at the Linwood Dunn looked and sounded spectacular.

Not sacrilege at all, Jack. It is what most of us are trying to achieve after all.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-01-2011, 02:16 PM:

Jack,

Was this 4k projection, or a 4k transfer being shown on a 2k projector, which as I understand it is what the screening at Bradford will be? Presumably, it will be sourced from the same transfer that you saw; I doubt if two different ones would have been made.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 03-01-2011, 02:47 PM:

This was a 4K file being run on a Sony 4K projector that was brought in for the weekend. I'm usually pretty stringent in my judgment, but I thought it looked as good as Warner's previous 4K job on NORTH BY NORTHWEST (which did not look nearly as good on Blu-Ray for some reason).

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-28-2011, 04:00 PM:

Jack,

I saw the film yesterday, and I was disappointed by it; I've certainly seen digital look much better. The sky and snow had a very 'digital' look to it, similar artifacts to a DVD shown on a large screen, though much better in quality than a DVD. I've noticed before that grain in the original seems to encode badly, but I don't know why, since digital cinema does not use temporal compression. Overall, the film looked ok, but it wasn't anything special, unlike the 70mm prints which I've seen previously, and which are just about the best blow-ups from 35mm which I've seen.

The sound wasn't as good as I've heard on 70mm prints either. Right from the start, where the first few bars of "Боже, Царя Храни" ("God Save the Tsar", the old Russian imperial anthem) are played, which sound really impressive on 70mm, were less so on the digital, again it sounded ok, compared to a 35mm optical track it would have sounded good, but it wasn't as good as 70mm, or other digital that I've heard, and it wasn't as good as the two years older Cinerama track for 'How the West was Won', which I'd heard the previous day.

Each year at the Festival they have what they call 'Cineramacana', usually on Sunday morning, but on both Saturday and Sunday this year, where various odd clips are shown in various formats. On Saturday this year it started with a few minutes of a 'Bollywood' film; I've no idea what it was, it's not really my sort of film, and it was deafeningly loud. The costumes were very colourful, and the picture quality was very good; I didn't realise at first that it wasn't proper DC material. It looked at least as good as HD material that I've played from my laptop, if not better. It turned out to have been from a Blu-Ray disc, my first experience of the format. Ok, it was very different picture content to Dr. Zhivago, but I actually think that the picture content looked better. The picture quality on 'Dr. Zhivago' was probably what I might have imagined Blu-Ray might have looked like before I saw one. I was sitting close to the back of the auditorium, row k I think, for both screenings.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 03-29-2011, 02:06 PM:

Stephen, it's been my experience that no two D-Cinema presentations are the same currently. When NORTH BY NORTHWEST was presented at the Linwood Dunn (the same venue where I saw ZHIVAGO), it looked great, but a few months later at the Mann and I was sorely disappointed with the presentation (it didn't help that there was a run in the screen).

I've never heard the original 70mm mix on ZHIVAGO, so I can't really comment on the sound.

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 03-29-2011, 05:36 PM:

It is a pity that for whatever reason, it seems that a 35mm filmout from the 4K master of Dr. Zhivago could not be made on this occasion, as that would be a better option IMO for projection where either 4K SXRD or 4K DLP aren't available.

I recall seeing the 4K restoration of Carousel at the Bradford WW a couple of years back - presented on 35mm - and it was superb (albeit the 55mm o-neg must have helped).

Puzzling why the sound wasn't 100% if it was coming off a 2K DCP.

Posted by Ramon Lamarca Marques (Member # 3621) on 03-31-2011, 02:43 PM:

quote: Stephen Furley
I saw the film yesterday, and I was disappointed by it; I've certainly seen digital look much better. The sky and snow had a very 'digital' look to it, similar artifacts to a DVD shown on a large screen, though much better in quality than a DVD. I've noticed before that grain in the original seems to encode badly, but I don't know why, since digital cinema does not use temporal compression. Overall, the film looked ok, but it wasn't anything special, unlike the 70mm prints which I've seen previously, and which are just about the best blow-ups from 35mm which I've seen.

Stephen, I could not stay for Zhivago but saw Kwai in digital, again from 4K screened in 2K. Well, it is not film and I love film, especially for classic pictures. Some people will say digital is better but in any case I do not think anyone will deny it is different. I prefer film and on classic films I think it is essential they are shown that way, as least in film festivals. River Kwai had some odd colours now and then, very saturated, which is the same I noticed on the Bollywood clip you mention, very saturated colours. I have to say that Kwai mostly looked very good, but it was not film and I find this frustrating. The other interesting point during this widescreen weekend is that a vintage print of Dersu Uzala in 70mm looked much better than anything is offered nowadays in cinemas and that magnetic sound (on the clips of South Pacific and Hello Dolly) sounds much better (fuller and with more dynamics) than the digital sound. I still find digital projection very cold. Somehow I think that electronic images look much better on an electronic device (i.e. plasma screen) than on a white screen.