Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "High Society" (1956) DVD

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Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 06-11-2006, 04:58 AM:

"End of song. Start of story"

High Society is a musical re-working of "The Philadelphia Story" (which I have yet to see) and is based on a play by Phillip Barry.

The wonderful Grace Kelly stars as the Heiress, Tracy Lord who is in final preparations for her wedding. Only problem is that her ex-husband has moved back in next door and things just start to get problematic from there...

Bing Crosby stars as the ex husband Dexter.
The great Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm play 2 reporters from the notorious "Spy" magazine and John Lund as George, Tracy's fiance.
It also features the fatastic Louis Armstrong and his band and is directed by Chales Walters.

This film is so wonderful. It's funny, witty and highly enjoyable from start to end. A great feel good movie with brilliant cast and great songs by Cole Porter. I've seen this twice (the first time through top DLP projection) and has left me with a great big smile.

High Society was photographed in VistaVision but you wouldn't know from the opening few shots, which may have been done in 4/35.
Then there is close-up of Louis Armstrong in a bus singing"High Society Calypso" which kind of lacks sharpness and detail then it cuts to a wide shot where we see the whole band playing and 'voila'... VistaVision!! The sharpness, detail, brightness, the images appear 3-D like.

I've seen both the Region 1 and Region 4 DVD's (the latter which I now own) and I prefer the R4 for picture (PAL format) and the R1 for it's sound since the PAL copies always have a higher pitch to the sound (I assume this is due to it been sped up [Confused]

.

The transfer is very good (full frame 16:9) but i'm thinking it could be better. I've seen 3-strip Technicolor films look better than this on DVD.
The sound is 5.1 but only the music is in real stereo and that's just fine. It sounds great! If you have top soundsystem prepared to blown away with the musical numbers, in particular Louis Armstrong's trumpet playing.

5 out 5 for me. I would sure like to this in 35mm Technicolor, as I have seen other VistaVision titles like this but don't think that will ever be [Frown]

.

Sadly this was Grace Kelly's last film as she become a real life Princess when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

"End of Story"

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 06-11-2006, 08:13 PM:

Yes John, great film. We only saw it with Perspecta optical sound in Australia. It wasn't till I ran "That's Entertainment" in mag that I got to hear just one song from that film in hi fi stereo.

I thought Grace did The Swan last, but I am probably wrong as usual.

Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 06-12-2006, 03:05 AM:

Hi Ron.

Both "The Swan" and "High Society" are listed as 1956. She may have been filmed in The Swan first.

Just out of interest there was a new print of High Society struck for Chapel Distribution some years back.
But it's just Eastman Colour and going by the terribe colour, contrast and over grainy results many of the other re-issues have, this one may suffer the same. Until I get an official word on the quality of the print, i'll stick to the DVD for now. Plus the print will most likely have a mono track [Frown]

.
It does get programed here at the Astor Theatre at least once a year.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-12-2006, 01:04 PM:

quote: John Koutsoumis
Just out of interest there was a new print of High Society struck for Chapel Distribution some years back.
But it's just Eastman Colour and going by the terribe colour, contrast and over grainy results many of the other re-issues have, this one may suffer the same.

A modern print on 2383 should look very good, IF the preprint elements were made correctly and are in good condition. Since there seems to be a good tranfer to DVD, there must be at least one good preprint element available.

Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 06-12-2006, 10:55 PM:

Hi John.

I have not seen the print of High Society so I really can't comment on that one. I'm sure your right about 2383 stock but...
Chapel also had a new 35mm (announced as printed on 2393 stock) print of "Ryan's Daughter" in 1999 (filmed in Panavaion 70) and a new 70mm print of "Ben-Hur" in 1996. Both prints are awful and should have never left the lab. The Ryan's Daughter print is soft, lacks detail and poor contrast (i've seen 'Techniscope' films look better than this) and the optical mono track is completely un-intelligible and the Ben-Hur print has poor colour/contrast and excessive grain and is missing the highlights. One patron at a screening called it "almost black & white".

I have both these titles on DVD and they come up stunning with images superior to modern films, in my opinion.

Other titles which they have had bad luck with are: "Meet me in St.Louis", "North by Northwest" terrble grain and dull, "The Apartment" and number of others. Also they apparently had to junk a new print of "Sunset Boulevard" (well it's no longer on their list) due to it having excessive football size grain and lacking definition and basically not showable to the public.
A 16mm print is now screened in it's place.

I think the probelm is that they order these "new prints"
without any one actually checking the source elements and lab work and they arrive here in Melbourne thousands (sometimes in the ten's) of dollars later looking like [bs]

The High Society print is labeled as "Technicolor". I'll make some enquires the next time i'm at the Astor Theatre.

Chapel Films

quote:
G) (Charles Walters, 1956. 107m) New 35mm Technicolor Print 1.85 (with Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra) Glittering musical version of "The Philadelphia Story" featuring Louis Armstrong and Cole Porter's songs and music. Great songs, great singers. 16mm print also available

Astor Theatre, Melbourne

quote:
But the results justfied the expense and the superb, full-frame image combined with the digitally-remastered sound means that "Gone With The Wind" will be more stunning and closer to the original "Glorious Technicolor" in Australia than anywhere else in the world.

Indeed, the results were so good that Chapel Distribution decided to use Kodak Vision Premier where appropriate for other re-releases.

One of these is "Ryan's Daughter". It was filmed using the 70mm system (actually 65mm in the camera) but there are no 70mm prints still in a good-enough condition to be projected. Producing a new 70mm print from the old elements, which had faded and shrunk, would have required a full-scale restoration and certainly could not have been done in time for the 30th-anniversary screenings.

Chapel Distribution arranged for good-quality 35mm elements to be used to make a print using the new Kodak stock.

The new print is probably the best one of "Ryan's Daughter" available anywhere in the world.

We think you will agree that it was worth the effort when you see "Ryan's Daughter" and "Gone With The Wind" when they screen in Melbourne and Sydney.

Sadly the above is all lies when you look at the final result. [Frown]