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Posted: |
Nov 18, 2003 - 2:43 AM
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By: |
Doug Bull
(Member)
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I just purchased the region 4 DVD of the 1946 Paramount Technicolored B Western "The Virginian".
The DVD is beautiful to look at ( at least the first half- why do some DVDs start off looking a million dollars and then seem to fall away in quality later in the movie?)
Anyway on to the mystery that I'm hoping one of our music score experts? will be able to solve for me.
The main title music does not sound right.( nor do the titles seem right for that matter, although it has the original Paramount logo)
The Music is made up of a dominant beat, a strumming guitar and a series of chords, with just the slightest bit of orchestral melody, played under the guitar.
It sounds much more 50s (not unlike the High Noon theme)
There is a jarring music edit at the end of the titles, which from that moment, until the end of the movie, goes into a much more 40s sounding score.
Daniele Amfithreatof's music throughout the rest of the film is certainly nothing like that of the main title.
Am I mistaken?, or has Amfithreatof's Main Title music been removed? If that is the case, then who wrote the new music for the main title?
Interesting to note that Bob Hope's gunfight in "The Paleface" was obviously a satire on the Joel McCrea and Brian Donlevy gunfight from this movie, complete with the same action, streets and even the same sunset.
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Posted: |
Nov 18, 2003 - 4:29 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....If that's a foreign DVD, it's very possible that the print used had replaced music. Amfitheatrof may have had something in his contract that required seperate payments for different distribution regions. So while the staff composer material (Leipold, etc) remained they may have had to replace the Amfitheatrof material. And I would be this would have been done at the time of the reissue (around 1961) and not the original release. Which would also explain the fading, as by reissue time they may have printed on Eastman stock.....
This DVD release is very interesting inasmuch as it's never come out over here (in the US) and to my knowledge, never been announced. Am I correct in assuming it's from Universal Home Video?
I agree with Ray that the film probably had replacement music, but for a very different reason. (Ray's explanation of Amfitheatrof's contract seems way off-base to me. I can't believe that in 1946, any film-music composer had a contract guaranteeing him pieces of foreign income, certainly not one of Amfitheatrof's business level.)
Are there any foreign dubbed languages also on the disc? Are the tracks on the foreign dubs the same as the English?
My best guess is that when Universal chose to reissue this old Paramount picture in their library internationally in 1961 (I don't recall a US reissue in this period, although there was one earlier in the '50s by Paramount before it sold its library to MCA), it discovered that the music tracks for dubbing were missing the MT (perhaps someone snipped it out years earlier for stock), and had to replace it and didn't have a print to dub back from. Without the complete music tracks, foreign dubs (some of which were probably never made for this early postwar film), were not possible.
In similar cases:
The TV transfer in stereo of Bing Crosby's Scope/Fox film "Say One For Me" is odd in that in most of his songs, the sound reverts to muddy mono. I suspect someone clipped out his stereo material from the master 35mm tracks for a "private collection".
The first authorized video release of the Hope/Crosby VHS tape for "Road to Bali" had an alternate track of music/fx on the other channel. This track had obviously been put together when the picture reverted back to Hope Enterprises, they didn't have the original music tracks to assemble new foreign dubs, and so someone had assembled a new music track to fit under dialog with all kinds of stock, including smatterings of Korngold and Steiner. The original Hope-Crosby-Lamour songs are in the clear, but whenever dialog begins, this new track takes over. Very disconcerting to listen to it in the clear.
As for the poor print quality used for the disc, it has never been my impression that positive prints are regularly used for video transfers. (Small fly-by-night PD distributors, yes.) But generally the major studio product is transferred from a source as close to the original as possible, usually the original camera negative, if available, then a finegrain positive (B&W) or color interpositive (color)if the original negative doesn't survive, finally going to dupe negatives or 2nd generation color internegatives as a third choice. Universal has done a pretty good job at preserving its three-color Technicolor films from the '40s so I don't understand why it would look bad unless this is a very cheap release not made off the original elements.
All of this goes to show that we don't know what the heck is up with your "Virginian" disc!!! 
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Posted: |
Nov 18, 2003 - 8:27 PM
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By: |
Doug Bull
(Member)
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Thanks for your suggestions guys.
First of all, I have been misunderstood,
The first half of the movie looks really gorgeous, with super sharpness and correct Paramount technicolor hues.
It's the second half where the quality drops away, but it is not a film color fading problem, it appears more a problem with the actual transfer, as the greyscale gets poor( heavy blacks- not helped by Donlevy's all black baddies outfit)) and a lot of the sharpness of the first half drops away.
I have noticed that this seems to happen on quite a lot of older titles on DVDs and Laserdiscs.
It's as if they start to transfer the film with plenty of enthusiasm and effort and then get bored with it all and set everything on auto pilot. ( maybe the bosses tell those responsible to stop making too much effort as the video will not make any money)
The DVD is a proper Universal release and is coded for regions 2, 4 and 5.
It has 8 language tracks (English, French, Deutsch, Italiano, Castellano, Portugues, Nederlands and Greek)
Unfortunately Manderley, they all have the same Music under the main title.( damn! I thought you were onto something there)
I have since found out that the Paramount copyright was renewed in 1973 by EMKA.
1973 sounds much closer to the dubious music in question.( were there any crude synthesizes in 73? as it sounds as if one might have been used here)
My theories are that the new copyright owners thought the main title music was a bit old fashioned, so they updated it, or that there was a problem with the original main title music track and they couldn't use it.(although the Amfitheatrof music that was probably part of the lead in from the original main title is there, straight after the clumsy edit at the end of the titles)
Throughout the film, the original background music is kept at a very low volume.
Manderley, this title was part of about 4 older Western titles from Universal, that were probably going to be released in the US, but for some reason haven't been yet.
Glenn Ford's "Man from the Alamo" with a nice score by Frank Skinner, was another title I bought. (poor color transfer though)
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Posted: |
Nov 18, 2003 - 11:57 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....I have noticed that this seems to happen on quite a lot of older titles on DVDs and Laserdiscs. It's as if they start to transfer the film with plenty of enthusiasm and effort and then get bored with it all and set everything on auto pilot.....
Many of the transfers of these "lesser" and older titles are done at night at the transfer houses in smaller rooms with less skilled unsupervised transfer guys because the rates are lower. The second half of this transfer is where the transfer man went out to get coffee, donuts, take a pee, and chat with the technician in the next bay about where he was going in his camper on his upcoming vacation!!!
.....It has 8 language tracks (English, French, Deutsch, Italiano, Castellano, Portugues, Nederlands and Greek)
Unfortunately Manderley, they all have the same Music under the main title.( damn! I thought you were onto something there).....
Is the main title music on all the foreign dubs the same as the English? If so, it's still possible the dubs were done later than 1946 to a music track which was otherwise incomplete.
As another possibility, can you recognize the "new" music?
It's entirely possible that the studio was trying to tie in the reissue of this oldie to the release of some of the 90+ minute TV episodes of "The Virginian" with James Drury which were released in other parts of the world and decided that the TV "Virginian" music might update this older picture.
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Am currently.watchin the television show.
The main theme.by Percy Faith is wonderful.
Btw the credits say the title is used " by permission of EMKA"
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Topic is 1946 movie, not tv show.
Mandelerley referenced it.
Read.
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There's probably a tv show thread somewhere, like this one.
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=84923&forumID=1&archive=0
Or are you suggesting the Percy Faith score might be the one inserted into the movie, because of the copyright? It's too bad the movie release in question wasn't specified so we could have fun trying to identify the music.
Yeah. I was looking for a tv thread but only found the film. Since Manderley mentioned the relationships amongst studios etc. I felt I could post it here.
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