[Ace917]

Originally Posted by Nancy

A crying shame, but then again he didn't know that years down the road we would have the equipment to restore those precious reels of film.

Mantra: never throw anything away... you'll need it tomorrow.

[Chuck Granata]

Originally Posted by Ace917

Mantra: never throw anything away... you'll need it tomorrow.

Superb advice, Cole!

Unfortunately, the Hollywood studios were extremely careless when it came to preserving the original elements used to create their films -especially the original (pre-dialog and sound effects) audio recordings.

The stories are legendary: the missing negatives and printed film of the deleted scenes from the 1954 A Star Is Born; Warner Bros. discarding a large portion of the outtakes from ALL of their major (and classic) films; MGM burying tons and tons of valuable music scores, recordings and film material UNDER THE FREEWAY IN CULVER CITY! Once the film was cut and released, it seems as though they preserved the original negatives, and basically chucked the rest (or stored it so haphazardly that it eventually became unusable).

When Universal embarked on the restoration of Hitchcock's Vertigo and Rear Window, they didn't even have viable camera negatives! Apparently, the studio had used the original edited negatives - elements that should have been used once and then stored for preservation - to strike dozens of prints through the years. Consequently, the original three-stripe Technicolor negs were faded, scratched and virtually useless. Thank God for digital restoration techniques, which allowed the restoration team to digitally clean the scratches and damaged portions, and restore the color. Without those computerized tools - and gifted technicians who have mastered their use - a significant portion of Hollywood's history would have been lost.

When we searched for the original magnetic film recording reels for The Victors (with Frank's unique version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" used in the film) the studio found the original reels. They were hard as a rock, though: the film specialist at Chace Productions (where we did our mag film transfers) said, "They're like hockey pucks." He tried every method he knew about, including soaking the reels in a special solution for two weeks, to free-up the layers of film that were stuck together. But, it never worked...

And so, it's not just retention - it's proper storage and handling that counts. And, as we have learned from the Pal Joey situation, taking the time (and expense) to transfer vintage source material - that may someday prove to be a 'pot of gold' - to newer recording mediums before they deteriorate.

As I have learned through the years, we mustn't carp about what no longer exists; we must be thankful for what survives!

[Chuck Granata]

Great story told to me by our friend George Feltenstein, who is a major film and film music advocate and archivist at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (and one of the angels who was instrumental in locating some one-of-a-kind Sinatra recording elements at MGM for the Sinatra in Hollywood box set):

George, and Rhino (Warner Bros. Records) were planning a restoration of the film soundtrack for Casablanca. The film soundtrack restorations that George has done through the years are legendary for their quality and completeness, and the team was searching the Warner Bros. vaults for all available score cues. They came up empty handed, until...

They located a bunch of film cans marked "White House." Although there had been an order to discard a large amount of the pre-edited elements, these cans somehow survived (apparently because someone thought that they were related to THE White House in D.C.) Well, upon investigation, the reels turned out to be the missing elements from the film Casablanca! By chance or by choice, someone had marked them "White House" - i.e. "Casa Blanca" - and they were saved instead of disposed of. Priceless story!

[Nancy]

Fabulous! Comes under the heading "never judge a book by it's cover."

[Tina...]

Great little story Chuck. As you say priceless.

[David M Bond]

ladies & gentlemen find your credit cards...

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=8050

Update: Regarding the sound: Twilight Time found the film's original stereo tracks and implemented them for this Blu-ray, marking Pal Joey's first home video pressing with its true stereo mix.

[Chuck Granata]

Originally Posted by David M Bond

ladies & gentlemen find your credit cards...

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=8050

Great news!

However, we must make a distinction here: there is a huge difference between the film soundtrack one hears when they are watching a film, and the original "isolated" recording elements that make up that soundtrack.

Basically, before the film is even shot the instrumental cues and vocal performances are recorded on the soundstage (just as though they were recording an album). After the film is photographed, a tremendous amount of post-production work is done to create the final "soundtrack." Dialog is added and if there is music under it, that music is faded up and down to accommodate it. Sound effects of all sorts are added. EQ, compression, reverb and other sweetening helps smooth it all out. THIS FINAL, MIXED TRACK is called a "D/M/E (dialog, music and effects)" track.

It is quite possible that for the BluRay release of Pal Joeythe film studio located a negative or print that was struck from a stereo D/M/E track. If so, it would be a wonderful find!

HOWEVER, having a stereo D/M/E track would give you the final film soundtrack - all of the mixed music, dialog and sound effects - in stereo. One cannot effectively "remove" the dialog and sound effects from a mixed D/M/E track to create an isolated "music only" soundtrack. One would need the pre-dialog and effects music mixes - WITHOUT fade downs and fade ups for dialog and without sound effects (doors closing, footsteps, glasses clinking, crowd noise, etc.) to be able to do that.

While it is a perfect accompaniment to the visual film, we would not have used a mixed stereo D/M/E track for Frank Sinatra in Hollywood because our goal was to present the songs heard in the film as stand-alone pieces - complete, without dialog or sound effects. One needs an original recording source - in this case, the magnetic film tracks from the original music and vocal recording sessions - to accomplish that.

[Patrick71]

I was thinking, its been 10 years since "In Hollywood" box set came out. Is there any chance the 20th Century Fox material, from Carousel and Three Coins, will ever be released? The brief 1955 version of "If I Loved You", is absolutely breathtaking. Frank was in top form. Oh please!!!! Let this material see the light of day!

[Nick_Bradley78]

The company has shot itself in the foot by withholding a decent release, they'll just keep showing up on grey labels in Europe now.

[Patrick71]

To hear the full version of "If I Loved You" from the Carousel Prerecording sessions would be a dream come true!!!!

[Nick_Bradley78]

Bumped due to mention in another thread. This box always seems to me to be slightly neglected or less well known at least. I remember when it came out, I'd never heard of this forum and didn't have much of a way of keeping up with the latest releases and by chance was wandering around the big HMV on Oxford Street and saw many copies of this sitting there, I'd not even seen all the films then let alone got the soundtracks so snapped it up. Have played it from beginning to end many times in the following 10 years (and it doesnt feel that long!).

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Nick_Bradley78

Have played it from beginning to end many times

The only way...and this is definitely worth playing.

[stevied123]

A coincidental bumping, I just ordered this set from Amazon Marketplace yesterday! Really looking forward to hearing it, the positive comments in this thread tipped the balance for me.

[stevied123]

It arrived in the post yesterday, wow, what a nice set. So much to absorb in one go, but am loving the Capitol era stuff so far, especially "new" Riddle colaborations (to me). A wonderful book(let) too.

Just one quick question, the version of 'Old Devil Moon' has some very bad noise/distortion over the early parts (making it a difficult listen), is this how it should sound? Is it a case of that being the best source available, just want to make sure I don't have a faulty disc.

Unfortunately the packaging was damaged in transit, with all the spindles broken and trays loose. At the price I paid, I think I'll probably keep it, but do any UK members know of anywhere online that sells that type of plastic tray should I try to fix it myself?

[Nick_Bradley78]

I have two sets of this bought new, and the trays were loose (not broken) on both of them, I'd go for a careful self fix. As for Old Devil Moon, there is some noise/hiss at the beginning.

[sschweiger]

The opportunity to hear & re-hear Frank's "Lady Is A Tramp" as done in the film is as thrilling as it gets! (my wonderful college professor, Lawrence Lee, would say that my using "as" three times in a sentence is far from thrilling!).

And the theme from "Advise & Consent" will always remain one of the most haunting pieces of music from any film I've seen;especially the way that Preminger utilizes it!

A fabulous collection!

[MMM]

Originally Posted by stevied123

Just one quick question, the version of 'Old Devil Moon' has some very bad noise/distortion over the early parts (making it a difficult listen), is this how it should sound? Is it a case of that being the best source available, just want to make sure I don't have a faulty disc.

I'm not sure if we're hearing the same thing, but the disc based sources for that track are not in pristine condition, and it's been restored as best as possible before doing more harm than good.

[Chuck Granata]

Originally Posted by stevied123

Just one quick question, the version of 'Old Devil Moon' has some very bad noise/distortion over the early parts (making it a difficult listen), is this how it should sound? Is it a case of that being the best source available, just want to make sure I don't have a faulty disc.

Steve, the only original (and the best sounding) source we could find for the Finian's Rainbow version of "Old Devil Moon" on the FS In Hollywood set was a Radio Recorders reference disc. It came from the collection of John Hubley, who was producing the film. My understanding is that the original sessions were recorded at Goldwyn Studios; those sessions would have been laid down on either tape or magnetic safety film (probably tape); Hubley likely sent them over to Radio Recorders on Santa Monica Blvd. to have disc refs cut. The original session masters have never turned up. The distortion on "Old Devil Moon" is inherent on the disc that we used. We weren't able to do any better with it, although we tried hard! So, it's not a defective CD...

[Nancy]

Not to worry, Chuck, you did a wonderful job and it's a brilliant collection.

[Matt Fapresto]

Originally Posted by Nancy

Not to worry, Chuck, you did a wonderful job and it's a brilliant collection.

Chuck I agree with Nancy. Buying the 'Sinatra in Hollywood' box, was the best purchase of the year! Thank you so much for making this possible!