Tweet Tonight's TCM Frankenstein/Bride Double-Feature

How many of you out there went to see the multiplex showing of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein? I did, we had a good crowd at my multiplex, and here are my thoughts:

I know Bride has a great rep, but I still prefer the original Frankenstein. I think Bride is a film where the parts are greater than the whole. Great scenes, but it doesn't hold up as well.

Now to the digital vs. 35mm argument. Part of the difficulty of comparison is the problem of considering the defects as 35mm as positives because one is used to them. The most obvious example of this is jitter. This digital file projection was essentially jitter-free, rock solid, for the obvious reasons that film is not racing by a lamp at 24fps. It just gives the film a different look-more static, which is not necessarily a good thing. Or maybe a bad thing. More important is the sharpness of the image. As good as this projection is, it doesn't have the sharp grainy clarity of a good 35mm print. Hopefully some techies can weigh in and explain if I'm right or wrong here. Part of the problem of comparison for me is that I haven't seen a good 35mm print of these films in 20 years, so I really can't remember if this is true or just my fond memories of the film. Other thoughts-once the film started, I had to get out of my seat and sit much closer to the screen. Aspect ration different, but also a different sense of the digital projection process of an old movie in a modern theater setting. In a perfect world, it would be great to watch 20 minutes of the film on digital, then a reel of 35mm, then digital, back and forth, and that would really give you a feeling of the two versions. My final intuition about digital theatre projection is that this method will be overall better for color films and not as good for (old) black-and-white films. The one real advantage for digital that I can see so far is color rendition and the lack of fading. The photochemical process of color film has inherent issues with this that digital will never have (digital has it's own issues, I know). The best 35mm print I ever saw was a nitrate reel of The Scarlett Empress screened at UCLA years ago, and nothing has come close to that quality, but to compare any print to that is unfair (in other words, I've watched a lot of battered 35mm prints not nearly as clear as the films tonight).

I went and enjoyed! However, two things were apparent. First, the sound was noisy! Almost sounded as if an old fashioned record was used to play the sound in sync! Secondly, I agree that the sharpness of the picture was missing. Nothing like watching HD on TV of a black and white from say, 1958 or 1959. But very glad I went.

I went to the screening. Couple of notes/thoughts:

1. I took my 9 year old daughter and 7 year old son. I was told by the guy at the ticket booth that since it was a special showing there would be no "child" rate, so my three tickets totaled $37. Follow that with a trip to the counter for some M&M's and water for the kids and the tally surpassed $50.

2. I was pleased to see that it was in the original aspect ratio. The music seemed loud compared to speaking parts.

3. My theater had technical difficulties at the beginning during the interview stage with Bela's son and Boris' daughter. The lights came on with the frozen picture on the screen. Finally the feed started to move backwards. Then forwards, and back and forth for about 10 minutes. All the while the pause button kept coming up when it would stop and the words DVR appeared on the screen. Finally, the movie started and all was well.

4. There was only about 20 people in the audience.

5. At the beginning, and this is a bit of a side note, but there was trivia being run on the screen. One of the questions centered around Tod Browning wanting to cast an unknown European actor in the role of Dracula, but Universal insisted on (and you had pick out Lugosi from the list). Was this unknown European actor Conrad Veidt?

6. As far as getting the kids into a classic horror movie, mission accomplished. We talked about the movie all the way home and they were acting out Frankenstein this morning before school.

Matthew

I'm guessing that your experience with this show depended on the technical quality of your theater. The Cinemark theater near me put on a nearly flawless show, except for the black level being just a little high. The picture looked excellent but the black bars on either side were gray. Should have been black. Sound was excellent also.

Saw it with 5 other friends. Loved it! Out of the 6, only one preferred Frankenstein to Bride (and it wasn't me). For me, Franz Waxman's score makes a huge difference. Love the original but wonder how much more I'd enjoy it if it had a comparable score (or any score...a problem that plagues Dracula as well). No problems with projection, etc. More than 20 people but theater not even half full. As for digital vs. film, it isn't as good imo but one thing I think that is great about it is that it allows these types of films to be shown more often and in places that more people can get to.

Moderators,

Can we combine this thread with the reviews that have been posted on Talkie Screenings under "Oct. 24 TCM to Put... on Big Screen"? Thanks.

The music seemed loud compared to speaking parts.

I wish a whole thread could be devoted to this.

I've noticed that on the sound mix for TCM (and also on DVDs), the music and effects tracks are much higher volume than dialogue tracks. Does anyone else agree?