The Magnificent Ambersons LD

[bactor]

I understand Criterion made two different Laserdiscs of the movie, one being the "Special Edition" and the other being just the movie. Could someone please clarify which one has the grey cover.

[atcolomb]

I have both the CAV and the CLV versions of the movie from
The Criterion Collection. The CAV version is gray and comes
with 2 discs and the extras. The version with the red cover
is one disc and has no extras on it. Both do not have the
trailer which i would like to see ( I think the TCM vhs copy
has the trailer). I purchased a bootleg dvd copy from Hong
Kong which has a ok picture and sound but you need a player
that plays PAL discs. Lets hope Warner Bros. releases it soon!

[Roger Ryan]

I managed to record the "Ambersons" trailer from the Turner Classics Movies cable channel unwittingly while taping a showing of Laurel & Hardy's "Sons Of The Desert" (they showed the trailer immediately after). The trailer is notable for both being astonishingly inaccurate (the announcer refers to Fanny as being "Isabel's sister" and Uncle Jack as being "the black sheep of the family") and for containing a few seconds of scenes cut by the studio (Eugene crossing in front of Fanny during the boarding house scene and her subsequent close-up which clearly reveals her state-of-mind).

[R Kadin]

Further evidence of the chaos into which this ambitious project's post-production had been allowed to sink.

Here's an interesting link to a page on RKO's website that includes stills from some of its most noted films. Curiously, the sample frame from Ambersons is in colour, taken, I presume, from a version that received a Ted Turner makeover sometime in the 80's(?) or 90's(?).

I know I should simply dismiss such a thing on aesthetic grounds, but, apart from its blurriness, the shot does have some appeal. Has anyone seen the whole film in colour and, if so, what was the experience like?

[Glenn Anders]

Rkadin: I saw part of . . . AMBERSONS colorized one night, but I had to turn it off. The outdoor scenes, of which there are several, work all right, but most of the film takes place inside the tomb-like Amberson mansion or in other interiors. Those scenes are really "no go."

Colorization was a bad idea, in my opinion, a carney's idea of squeezing a few more nickels out of history-challenged modern audiences. The only place it works very well is in early musicals. Musicals were meant for the panache of color, and the first ones had a kind of stylization which often looks good in the process.

Glenn

[R Kadin]

Thanks, Glenn, for waving me off what would likely have been a wasted curiosity. I agree with your comments and have little time for that form of colourization, myself.

Apropos of not very much, last month I did happen to attend a screening, locally, of Douglas Fairbanks' last silent film, The Iron Mask which included various tinted sequences, a once-popular technique and a crude precursor of colourization, one might argue. Interesting to find it resurface, albeit in an evolved form, in Steven Soderbergh's relatively recent "Traffic".

The Fairbanks film also offered an early glimpse of the use of a zoom technique, although it was limited to certain dialogue titles. I assume that it simply involved dollying the whole camera smoothly towards the title card, but it would have required enough light to establish the necessary depth of field without also bringing the card's black background into view (or maybe they got round that by using the negative of a black title on a white card). They might also have used an animation stop-motion camera, though - except that the result appeared too fluid for that. Anyway, I did say this was apropos of not much.

Hmmm... I wonder if OW ever toyed with tinting as a possible technique..?

[bactor]

Also, how does one access the title screen. I have the two disc Sepcial Edition, but when I played it the other day, the commentary kicked on. I didn't finish it, but was just wondering how to access things like the script and the other special features (as well as the movie without the commentary). I understand this must seem a pretty silly question, but I'm new to the Laserdisc world and a reborn Welles-aholic. Thanks.

[atcolomb]

The extras on The Magnificent Ambersons are on the last
side of the laserdiscs after the movie is over. To watch the
movie without the commentary you must change the audio
on the player by pressing the audio button until you only
hear the movie soundtrack.

[Jack184]

The two disc CAV Criterion disc also contained a booklet with the storyboards, although they are also on the disc. I bought my first LaserDisc player just because of the the release of the Criterion Ambersons disc in 1984, if I recall correctly.

The print of Ambersons used for the LD looks significantly better than the one on Criterion's Citizen Kane disc.

[atcolomb]

I also agree that the Criterion print of Ambersons looks better
than the Criterion print of Citizen Kane but the 50th anniversary edition that Criterion issued looks the best of all
the laserdisc versions of Citizen Kane. I think the original
negative of Ambersons was better preserved than the negative of Citizen Kane.

[Roger Ryan]

Yes, I believe the original negative (of the studio cut) for "Ambersons" still exists, whereas the "Kane" negative was destroyed in a fire in the mid-70's. Until Warner's DVD release, all "Kane" tapes and laser discs were mastered from damaged or worn prints. While many have protested the excessive "clean-up" undertaken for the DVD release, I found it pretty spectacular, especially compared to the dismal 50th Anniversary print.

[atcolomb]

The dvd versions of Citizen Kane and Fritz Lang's Metropolis i think benefited the most for being on dvd. Both movies were
in poor shape for years but when released on dvd both movies
look clean, fresh,and sharp with detail i have never seen!
As a film buff i am happy the dvd can improve the movies we
see at home!

[Glenn Anders]

Roger is certainly correct about . . . KANE, atcolomb.

Of course, the success of DVDs has encouraged archivists to dig into old, forgotten vaults to discover abandoned footage. That's the story of METROPOLIS. Witin the last few years, the original version, shown mainly in Berlin in 1925, has been found and restored.

I saw it in the Castro Theater in San Francisco, but you are right that DVDs have made these movies accessible to us millions, who would not be able to see them otherwise.

Glenn

[atcolomb]

.....lets hope that maybe some archivists looking into some
forgotten vaults might find the missing scenes from The
Magnificent Ambersons.....you never know!!

[Glenn Anders]

Well, atcolomb, the view on this board of that possibility is a gloomy one, but as you say, "you never know."

Glenn