Tweet A Farewell to Arms & Nothing Sacred from Kino in December

Kino will be releasing new editions of A Farewell to Arms (1932) and Nothing Sacred (1937) in both standard and Blu-Ray editions on 20 December:

http://www.classicflix.com/kino-nothing-sacred-farewell-arms-standard-december-a-1062.html?osCsid=aec111e78c18996acee369cf36c044cd

-HA

Uh-oh -- the ClassicFlix listing mentions an 80-minute running time for A FAREWELL TO ARMS, when an 89-minute version has already been released on DVD (OOP, maybe?) and previously aired on TCM. No information on the Kino website yet. Hope they're wrong about this . . .

It will be interesting to see further information on both of these worthy releases. Will All Quiet on the Western Front include the silent version?

The public domain Nothing Sacred has seen numerous cheapjack editions (I was lucky to get hold of a quite passable copy). It would be great if finally we could get the restoration that was completed about 11 years ago and which apparently has remained dormant since then.

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/video_first_person_restoring/

A comment on hometheaterforum however is pessimistic:

From the blurb from Classic Flix suggests that this version is not the Disney restoration Scott MacQueen did several years ago. I was lucky to attend a screening of this film and the restoration was superb.

For some reason, and probably its PD status, Disney either hasn't offered it for cable or video presentations or because of the PD status MGM and TCM have just ignored this version, but have shown or released most of the other Disney Selznick restorations.

It would be a real shame to just use the David Selznick personal print again for this release...especiallly for Blu-ray. I hope I am wrong.

Has there been an announcement regarding All Quiet?

Hooray! I've wanted a good quality release of Nothing Sacred for the longest time, so I'm even more pleased to hear it's on Blu-Ray, too!

The only downside is that Kino's raping my wallet with all those Q4 releases: Buster Keaton, Birth of a Nation, Way Down East, Nothing Sacred ...

I sure hope the new release of NOTHING SACRED is better than the now out of print 1999 DVD that had some fringing issues in the first 15 minutes--that version is the best available to date, even though it was transferred from a Super Cinecolor reissue.

Kino is on a roll! Bluray.com reported that Kino will release William Wellman's "A Star is Born" (1937) in February:

A Star is Born (1937) Blu-ray

Kino InternationalIndependent distributors Kino Video have revealed that they will release on Blu-ray William A. Wellman's A Star is Born (1937), starring Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, Lionel Stander, and My Robson. Exact technical specs, special features, and region coding status for this release are unknown at the moment, but the preliminary release date set by the distributors is February 7th.

Another movie rescued from PD hell.

Speaking of Nothing sacred they going show restoration later on this MONTH ON TCM props to that I going check it out

I don't know how authoritative this is, but this message on the Home Theater forum alleges that the Kino will use the same source material as the 1999 Image DVD, which apparently runs 89 minutes despite being billed incorrectly on the box as 80. He also claims that the one in Warner's hands (and which has run on TCM before) is the 80 minute version.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/315232/nothing-sacred-1937-coming-to-blu-ray#post_3867774

Robert Harris has some good things to say about both releases:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/316717/a-few-words-about-nothing-sacred-in-blu-ray

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/316711/a-few-words-about-a-farewell-to-arms-1932-in-blu-ray

The Nothing Sacred review brings up the always-fascinating issue of what original 1930s prints looked like vs. the more saturated, colourful updates that we typically see today of GWTW and the like. Kino's catalogue entry indicates that Nothing Sacred comes from the GEH restoration, which I presume is similar to that featured for viewing on the GEH Dryden Theatre website. I really like the colouring of this print, which is more subtle and subdued than what we generally see (today) of 1940s Technicolor films but still quite attractive.

Oh, and A Farewell to Arms does seem to be the 89-minute version.

-HA

Nothing Sacred: Just received my standard and Blu-Ray copies--since it is PD.

The transfer and print is much better than the 1999 release--not from the same source material. The trailer is also much better than the earlier release material.

Nice movie, but due to many low lighting shots, a lot of it looks grainy, but still much better than anything heretofore released. Not a huge difference between standard DVD and Blu-Ray.

[Christopher Jacobs]

I've received my Blu-rays of A FAREWELL TO ARMS and NOTHING SACRED, and have had a chance to watch A FAREWELL TO ARMS. It looks absolutely beautiful in HD transferred from a 35mm nitrate print, besides being the 89-minute original 1932 precode cut, which is substantially more powerful than the cutdown Warner Brothers reissue that usually shows up on those 10-movies-for-a dollar PD bargain-bin DVDs made from bad video transfers of bad 16mm prints.

The trailer to NOTHING SACRED has lovely color, although strangely it's only in standard-definition. I've spot-checked bits of the NOTHING SACRED Blu-ray, and it looks fine, but it may be another week or two before I have time to watch it all and can post a formal review in the "Old Movies in HD" thread.

The old transfer of NOTHING SACRED that has been out there is from David O. Selznick's original nitrate on deposit at George Eastman House, which is what I believe this new Kino blu-ray also is from. Disney did a restoration in recent years from the original camera negative, using the DOS print for color timing purposes.

Jack,

I understood the 1999 transfer was from a 35mm super cinecolor reissue---the title card only said "color". There were severe fringing problems in the first part of the film--especially once Frederic March arrives in the small town looking for Lombard.

The new transfer's title card says "Color by Technicolor", and true to form for an old original IB Technicolor nitrate, there were NO fringing problems.

Nothing sacred was restored from original technicolor camera negatives years ago. Just one reel has one color strip missing, and it was replaced using the color channel from a master. But the security master was old, printed in a a old film stock, not fine grain but more like a print stock from early 40's.
The restorers used digital tools (from about 10 years ago, when they worked on it) to digitally restore this problematic reel, trying to align the protection master color strip geometry to match the original negative color strips geometry, and reduce a bit the grain in the master.


So we can presume that just one reel would look a bit less than ideal. But DVD Beaver's captures show a disapointing final image. Soft in detail and with faded look for colors.


http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank


A Star is Bor (1937) have also a faded look: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank
I saw a clip of a UCLA restoration of A Star is Born, in the documentary Keepers of the Frame, and the colors was strange, satured, despite the sharpness was also poor.

Even in some modern films the BD or DVD get a very fadded look.

I have the Image Entertainment DVD release of A STAR IS BORN of several years ago made from a 35mm nitrate IB Technicolor print, and the image quality compared to the link above is pretty similar.

When compared to other studio's use of Technicolor of that same time, a lot of Selznicks' color releases have the same dense, dark and at times murky look about them. (Nothing Sacred, Tom Sawyer and A Star is Born)

Not sure why this is the case, since Technicolor company usually supervised, photographed and processed prints.

The releases of the late 30s such as Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Wizard of Oz, Adventures of Robin Hood, etc. were
spectacular by comparason.

Any theories?

As I said before, technicolor company had quality control, but when they found a copy wasn't very good, like dark, not adequate color balance, they did not thrown away as garbage, but they send it to smaller markets. The best prints went to large market, capitals, and the bad prints was sent to small cities.
I remamber the digital restoration team of Gone With The Wind explaning that. Anyway, even a original IB technicolor print can be aligned and digitally restored. The image of the three strips can be separated by filter, and a digital algorithm can align the image better.

Robin Hood, Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Trail of Lonesone Pie, was restored mostly from original camera negatives. And the technicolor strips was alighed digitally by Ultra resolution, creating a better definition than what was possible with the dye tranfer process from the 30's oe 40's & 50's.

Nothing Sacred was restored from camera negatives and a interpositive fo just one reel of one film strip. This reel with a strip of camera negative missing was digitally restored, recombined using the interpositive . But at the time (late 90's) had no ultra resolution technology to align strips top great precision as Warner did with Gone With The Wind. I'm not sure if this Blu Ray comes from this restoration or not.

I have the Image Entertainment DVD release of A STAR IS BORN of several years ago made from a 35mm nitrate IB Technicolor print, and the image quality compared to the link above is pretty similar. When compared to other studio's use of Technicolor of that same time, a lot of Selznicks' color releases have the same dense, dark and at times murky look about them. (Nothing Sacred, Tom Sawyer and A Star is Born) Not sure why this is the case, since Technicolor company usually supervised, photographed and processed prints. The releases of the late 30s such as Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Wizard of Oz, Adventures of Robin Hood, etc. were spectacular by comparason. Any theories?

Trail of Lonesone Pie

In my house that would be mincemeat. Never cared for it.