THE BIG PARADE was reissued with a music track in 1931, about the same time as BEN-HUR.

Purely from memory, but I think the only thing uncovered when MGM was doing their massive conversion to safety was a 9.5mm incomplete print.
Unless something turns up, I wouldn't hope for any improvement.
But... keep wishing!

I hope that some day WB will release TELL IT TO THE MARINES. This has a rare Chaney in a perfectly straight role, as the career Marine sergeant.
The film elements are in beautiful shape, with the original negative used for current preservation elements.

They are part of the printing negative, assembled at the lab. This has to be a simple goof-up on somebody's part.

This hardly fits into most of the subjects of this forum, but since the item has been opened, I want to strongly back up the review and comments about THE KING'S SPEECH. This is one of the most enjoyable pictures of the year, and anyone with a desire for a movie that doesn't insult your intelligence...

As long as Jim refered this to me, I'll see what I can remember from 20 years ago. The Selznick print from U. Tex at Austin was lost. The replacement of the censored scenes which you said were "dupey" came from a collector. More recently, WB did extensive restoration to the surviving material, and p...

Too bad. No color elements survive on GOLDEN DAWN.
Gotta stick with B&W. Bad as it is, there are worse movies out there!

Jack and Darren,
Re the Joan Crawford still with the transparent top: It was a studio still.
We had it posted along with others on the wall at our Turner Entertainment offices. I forget what film it related to, but this particular costume did not appear in it, thus no MPAA relationship.

Kndy - Thanks for the clarification, which requires only one small correction: the camera negative is 65mm, not 70mm. The latter size was only for prints, to accomodate the six mag sound tracks. SethB - Video mastering is almost always done from either a negative or interpositive. Projection prints ...

You have this information upside down. MGM had the complete Technicolor negative, and preserved it without sound. When a nitrate composite print was turned up in Australia, the owner (with the Vitaphone Project acting as intermediate) supplied a copy of the sound to Turner Entertainment Co., then ow...

You state that the "original 70mm 6-track print was in bad shape". Do you mean to imply that Fox used a projection print for mastering the 2005 release? I can understand if the original negative (65mm) or other pre-print material was bad, but if you are preparing a review of the upcoming DVD I'd thi...

Some optimistic information on both versions of THE UNHOLY THREE: New elements were made from the original negatives about five years ago. I'd guess these DVDs would be from that source.

SUNNY survives in the Turner/WB library.
The color section (I think it was reel 3AB) of IRENE (1940) was restored by Turner, and is shown on TCM.

You are right that both of your hosts have died long ago. About that time, however, MGM was well into their project of conversion of all their nitrate film to safety, using their own lab. Certainly, after that, much of the nitrate was disposed of due to decomposition. The balance of it went to Eastm...

THE VIKING was made in 2-color Technicolor. It's surprising that TCM would be showing it in B&W.

The rental depended on the theater. First run and greater grossing houses paid more. In my early days working in a suburban theater in Okla. City, most distributors charged us $3.00 per week for a cartoon. Our management wouldn't play Disney cartoons (distributed by RKO) as they charged $3.50. The l...

I watched three of these as presented on TCM, and the first thing that struck me is the amazing accuracy of William Alland's voice in "News on the March" in CITIZEN KANE to the voice of Westbrook Van Vorhees in tha actual MARCH OF TIME films.

I stand corrected. I should have checked the release schedule. It has all three "version" columns checked: Disc, Film, and Silent. Probably no elements have existed on the silent for lots of years, as all I remember having in the library were the English and German. For a long time we thought the Ge...

Having worked for a number of years with the MGM film library, I never heard of a silent version of Garbo's first talkie. We had the English and Geman (both of which show on TCM), but see no point in their having released a silent version of a film advertised as GARBO TALKS!

To all of you who have commented or had questions on the tinting, rather than repeat it please read David Pierce's entry above. Also, the link to Susan King's article which appeared in the L.A. Times was after she attended a screening of the restored print at WB, prior to the Academy's screening. Th...

This thread seems to have gotten off the subject, but back to Osborne's commentary on BIG PARADE: I didn't see his introduction yesterday, but if TCM is supplying him with a script that refers to the restored, tinted, film they are irresponsible. Additionally, one has the impression that Osborne kno...

When trying to open it, I get "This link is broken" message.

I highly recommend THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA. It shows what a shame it was that Gilbert died before long after that.
In addition to his personality, it also has several excellent character actors. It is sort of a comedy, drama, suspense film.
Gilbert is not the captain...

The Academy Film Archive preserved a Tony Sarg film about a year ago, complete with various tint colors. I don't remember the title, however.

Ed, In checking the Technicolor production list for the late 1920s, I can't find any reference to Devil May Care. It is possible that a color section was shot in MultiColor, or some other process. When MGM did their copying of the nitrate library, they were very meticulous that if there was an exist...

Although we don't have TCM in HD on Time Warner-Los Angeles, I have recorded other HD programming on a standard DVD recorder. The results are equal to top quality standard DVDs.
I also get excellent results with the existing TCM channel.

MGM used the "sobbing lion" in trade ads a number of times, after the death of contract stars. It was also used for "memorial" ads in the trade papers in situations where most of the studios ran ads remembering industry leaders.
I think Disney has used a tearful Mickey also.

You would think that by now writers for various news media could get their facts right! In this article, acknowledgement is given to David Packard, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard,then goes on to describe the career of the father of David W. Packard, who runs Packard Humanities Institute whic...

To Coffee Dan,
Sorry, I haven't had access to the MGM inventory for close to 5 years, and lacking photographic memory, can't verify existence of particular films.

Based on a copy of the MGM release schedule for 1929 (a typewritten list that was in the MGM print department when I worked there) it is correct that DESERT RIDER was released May 11, 1929, but it shows CHINA BOUND (Dane & Arthur) released a week later, May 18. Everything after that had at least a m...