Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: NORTH BY NORTHWEST is great on Blu Ray!

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-04-2009, 04:16 PM:

I watched the first half hour and bits and pieces of the rest of Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST on Blu Ray last night and found the presentation superb! In my opinion, it was better than the previous VistaVision film THE SEARCHERS on Blu Ray. The John Wayne film was nice and sharp but the color was badly faded but NBNW was not only sharp but the color was gorgeous and looked like the film was only recently released for the first time. From what I had seen, the restored sound was not too exciting but from the reviews I had read, the exterior scenes has good sound effects. I did not have the time to check out the extra features but it look like the same material that was on the most recent DVD of the film was ported over to theBD and I have no problem with that. I stopped watching just about the time Cary Grant went to the UN and got framed for the murder of the American diplomat. I am looking forward to watching the rest of the film tonight and will post additional comment about the movie tomorrow.

-Claude

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-04-2009, 10:18 PM:

This is a movie thats even enjoyable to watch even when shown in Super 8!

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-05-2009, 12:19 PM:

Mark - Is that a Derann print? I had a few of their releases way back in the 90s. "Gone With The Wind" and "Vampire Circus" were two that I can remember. I wanted to create a line of similar products in 16mm for collectors. I had a lab set up to create the elements and produce the prints. I proposed it to a couple of studios but was turned down by all...including if I remember correctly our own Rich May while he was at Turner! ("Adventures of Robin Hood" was the first title I proposed.)

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-05-2009, 01:06 PM:

I once had a Elmo Super 8 mag sound projector that was capable of playing films spliced together on large aluminum reels. In addition to many short Super 8 prints, I had a couple of Paramount full length movies. The films I had included GREASE, SATURDAY NIGHT FEAVER and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. THe films were only for home use and were all cropped full frame. It was ok at the time because it was a big deal at the time for me to be able to own my very own prints of major potion pictures. With the exception of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, I now have GREASE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEAVER on Blu RAy and the difference is mind boggling.

Getting back to NORTH BY NORTHWEST, I saw the remainder of the film last night and was just amazed at what I saw. Everything I saw the other evening were mostly interior scenes but the crop dusting and Mount Rushmore scenes were stunning on the restored movie in Blu Ray. As I had mentioned earlier, the supposedly remastered 5.1 sound was not too exciting except for some action scenes . After the movie, I watched the theatrical trailers and was surprised to see all of them were in high definition. I found out that there are at least two brand new extra features that were not on the previous DVD and are in HD and I will try to watch them tonight. Warners so far has done a fantastic job with THE WIZARD OF OZ, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST and now I can hardly wait to see what they have done with GONE WITH THE WIND. I will soon find out in two weeks.

-Claude

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-05-2009, 03:03 PM:

That's what I had too Claude. Stereo sound as well though I don't recall getting any stereo material. It played reels up to 1200 feet which was an hour in Super 8. Gone With The Wind was on 8 600' reels. I also had Dr. Strangelove at one time.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-05-2009, 04:45 PM:

How was the picture and sound quality of the movies you had especially GONE WITH THE WIND, Joe? When I bought my Paramount films, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and GODFATHER #1 was available but were very expensive. The films I bought were not cheap either but the other two had cost twice as much because of their long running times. Compared to what I have seen on DVD and later on Blu Ray, the picture quality of the three feature length Paramount films in my collection had a lot to be desired but it was acceptable for it's time.

-Claude

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-05-2009, 05:56 PM:

The picture on GWTW was a little soft but the color was beautiful. I believe it was produced about the time of the 50th anniversary. Oddly the low budget Hammer horror film "Vampire Circus" had a better image.

I had already been collecting 16mm by that time and only dabbled a bit in Super 8 for titles I couldn't acquire in 16mm. After some of the beautiful IB Tech prints I had the Super 8 just couldn't satisfy me so I sold it off.

Derann is still very active. Here is a link to their site where you might want to browse their current catalog of Super 8 film.

Derann

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-05-2009, 06:08 PM:

No Joe,

I was just using Super 8 as the lowliest form to show film on. I had no idea you wwere involved in reduction printing. Very interesting! Just IMHO the movie is so good it doesn't matter how you get to see it... just see it! First time I saw it in a theater on the North Side of Chicago... a Change-over booth where one projector's sound lens was in focus and the other one wasn't. Wish I could remember the name of the theater... it had the shallowest lobby of any theater in Chicago... about 6 feet deep! It was a little annoying but I didn't get up and leave because the movie was so good... I wish they had given it the 70mm treatment.

Mark

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 11-05-2009, 07:49 PM:

AND it appears Derann offers "North By Northwest" in Super-8!

And I agree, that movie is great, regardless of the format.

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 11-06-2009, 09:56 AM:

Joe,
I don't specifically remember your request, but do remember some dealings with Derann, and 8mm film prints.
I guess I was the messenger of bad news from on high.

Dick May

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-06-2009, 11:00 AM:

Dick - I new it was a long shot when I developed the idea. We were hoping to issue classic 16mm films in limited runs (100 prints) a reel at a time to collectors. A sort of high-end version of the Columbia House Video Club. You'd get a new reel every two months. The value of this over "TV prints" was that they would have been the highest quality original prints on low-fade stock and licensed for non-theatrical use so you wouldn't have to worry about the FBI taking it away. It would have cost me about $200 per reel to produce it (not counting licensing) so we would have never made a living off of it but it might have been a few extra dollars for us and a nice item for collectors. Now with blu-ray you can get as good a picture and better sound from a $20 disc!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-06-2009, 11:11 AM:

quote:
Now with blu-ray you can get as good a picture and better sound from a $20 disc!

Sadly, better then most 35mm release prints being made today!

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 11-06-2009, 12:11 PM:

Don't shoot the messenger, Mark.

Blame the 2K digital intermediate for that :-/

Of course, Blu-rays are highly compressed. They look great on small sets, but I wonder how all of that compression would hold up on the big screen. . .

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 11-06-2009, 03:02 PM:

The soundtrack sounds great. They did a good job of making a surround feature without artificially peaking the highs and punching the lows. It has a tonal quality that I would have expected in a high quality cinema during the period it was released.

The picture is very clear and very sharp and probably TOO perfect. The matte backgrounds...particularly the "United Nations" lobby interior...LOOK like matte backgrounds. And the fake rear window car backgrounds are so obvious that they just make me think of Airplane.

In the Mount Rushmore visitors center scene where the bad guy is peering over the crowd to the good guy on the floor, the image was suddenly extremely grainy and maybe over saturated. Didn't fit in with the rest of the feature at all. But that's like five seconds of movie.

The "book" packaging is VERY cool.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-06-2009, 04:14 PM:

As it was a VistaVision film ("Motion Picture High Fidelity", you know) I thought it would have had a multi-channel mix as well. Apparently not.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-06-2009, 04:54 PM:

Joe,

I could be wrong but I do not think Paramount had released any of their VistaVision films with four track mag. I am not sure about MGM who distributed NORTH BY NORTHWEST. I think Paramount only used Perspecta. Although THE TEN COMMANDMENTS has a very splendid stereo track on the DVD, I wonder if the movie was released to theatres in stereo. I first saw it during it's road show engagement at the Kuhio in Honolulu and it was equipped for four track mag but the movie was in mono.

-Claude

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-06-2009, 09:54 PM:

It might have had a Perspecta Mix.... was common on VV films.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-15-2009, 08:15 PM:

I got this disk last night and I'd have to say it is a little disappointing from an image standpoint. The image is a tad bit soft and looks like it's 4 to 6 generations away from the camera negative. So far removed in fact that it looks like it was transfered from a 35mm reduction print. The image quality is no where near as good as the "Searchers" disk is. The sound definately seems to be siumilar to what it would be had it been the Perspecta track. Some things such as automobiles passing are panned through the image and there is some pseudo stereo effect. The audio is far better then I've ever heard from any typical 35mm prints. Still in spite of the soft image it's a must have disk for sure!!

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 11-17-2009, 05:05 PM:

NxNW didn't carry a Perspecta track-- MGM had dropped the process some years before.

The only 8-perf film I can remember that had a mag track was WILLIAMSBURG: STORY OF A PATRIOT, which as many of you know, was for a special venue.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-17-2009, 09:53 PM:

They must have had Chase sweeten up the tracks for the release. There are definately certain audible things that are panned though the image on the Blu-Ray.

Mark

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 11-17-2009, 11:20 PM:

Claude, you are correct that the original 10 COMMANDMENTS was released originally in mono only (apparently not even including Perspecta. Or any true 8-perf VV prints). However, there have been several stereo re-issues in later years (including a horrible 70mm blow-up in the 90s'.